In just over two minutes, Joe Rogan articulates why America is special in world history, and why the Flu Manchu lockdown and tracking proposals are a threat to the historically exceptional freedoms Americans enjoy.
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Biden not just dropping, but deflating and throwing away the ball on border security, Andrew Cuomo finally behaves badly enough for the MSM to notice, and some tidbits about hacking attacks.
Biden’s proposed budget wants to cutting funding for border security…by 96%:
His administration has presented Congress with a Department of Homeland Security budget proposal that calls for slashing spending on what it calls “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” by 96%.
In fiscal year 2021, Congress approved $1,513,000,000 in funding for border security assets and infrastructure. Biden is now asking that Congress approve just $54,315,000 for fiscal year 2022. That is a reduction of $1,458,685,000—or 96.4%.
What exactly is Biden cutting?
Biden’s DHS has presented Congress with a 562-page “overview” of its fiscal year 2022 budget proposal for Customs and Border Protection. The explanation for its “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” plan is presented on pages 326 through 350 of this document.
The presentation divides “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” into six categories: Integrated Fixed Towers; Remote Video Surveillance Systems; Mobile Video Surveillance System; MVSS-M2S2 Modular Mobile Surveillance System; Border Security Assets and Infrastructure End Items; and Border Wall System Program.
In the past two fiscal years—as reported in Biden’s proposal—the Border Wall System Program has been the most significant of these. “This investment,” it says, “includes real estate and environmental planning, land acquisition, wall system design, construction, and construction and oversight of a physical barrier system.”
In fiscal year 2020, it received $1,375,000,000. In fiscal year 2021, it received the same amount.
Now, if Biden gets his way, the federal government will not spend one penny in fiscal year 2022 on planning or constructing a “physical barrier system” at the border.
Obviously, Democrats want a massive influx of illegal aliens so they can amnesty them and have them vote for Democrats. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
As illegal aliens are still being allowed to cross Texas’ open border, U.S. Border Patrol has reportedly reassigned all hands from “apprehending” to “processing.” A former federal agent says these massive waves of illegal aliens are one of the “biggest sources” of rising cases of the Chinese coronavirus and advises Texans to contact all their state officials to stop illegal crossings at the border.
Victor Avila, a former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, has previously told Texas Scorecard that federal and state officials aren’t making serious efforts to stop illegal aliens from crossing the border. He said the number of illegal border crossings has recently skyrocketed.
On Tuesday, Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith (R) told Texas Scorecard that U.S. Border Patrol informed him they had been given new orders. “They’ve all been reassigned to processing,” Smith said. “None of them are actually going to be enforcing the border.” Avila commented, “That is what I’m hearing exactly.”
Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe described processing as “paperwork, documentation, etc.”
“We’re in a bad spot now,” Smith said. “Texas is on its own.”
Speaking of border security: “Texas landowner fears for kids’ safety amid worsening border crisis, says they can’t play outside anymore.”
“More Illegal Immigrants, Border Agents Testing Positive for COVID-19.” The way Democrats love expanding governemnt in the name of fighting Flu Manchu, you wonder if this is a bug or a feature… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans released their report on COVID-19’s origins, pointing to evidence of a lab leak, genetic modification, and a cover-up, making the case the virus accidentally emerged from the Wuhan lab in August or September 2019.” Or pretty much what every conservative blogger has been saying for almost a year and a half…
This week’s Democratic political scandal de jour is an official state probe of New York Governor Andrew “Granny Killer” Cuomo committed multiple instances of sexual harassment. “These interviews and pieces of evidence revealed a deeply disturbing yet clear picture: Gov. Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of federal and state laws,” said State Attorney General Letitia James. It would be ironic if it was this rather than killing some 15,000 elderly New Yorkers by putting Flu Manchu cases in nursing homes that brought Cuomo down.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, once widely celebrated for leading New York out of the coronavirus pandemic’s darkest days, is now embroiled in crisis over how many of the state’s nursing home residents died because of the virus and an apparent effort to hide the true toll.
Beginning last spring, Mr. Cuomo was criticized over a state requirement that forced nursing homes to take back residents who had been hospitalized with Covid-19 once they recovered. Critics said the policy had increased the number of virus-related deaths among nursing home residents.
At the time, Mr. Cuomo and his aides dismissed the outcry as politically motivated, and in July, the State Health Department released a report that found the policy was not responsible for an increase. The report did, however, raise questions in some quarters about how the state was reporting deaths.
In January, New York’s attorney general said the administration had undercounted nursing home deaths by several thousand. Mr. Cuomo later acknowledged as much, blaming the lower figure on fears that the Trump administration would use the data as a political weapon.
“Don’t you see? We had to lie to you, because Orange Man Bad!”
The suggestion that the actual death count had been covered up intensified criticism of Mr. Cuomo, including from his allies in state government. The scandal deepened after reports that the governor’s aides had altered the July report to hide the true figure.
In April, The New York Times reported that Mr. Cuomo’s aides had gone to far greater lengths than previously known to obscure the death toll, repeatedly overruling state health officials over a span of at least five months.
First, there was the nursing-home scandal, in which Governor Cuomo deliberately undercounted the number of seniors who died due to his directive placing COVID-positive residents back into understaffed, underequipped nursing homes — and then misled New Yorkers and federal officials about it. Estimates suggest that as many as 15,000 New York seniors due to his actions. Worse yet, while covering up these deaths, he took a cool $5.1 million to write a book touting his COVID leadership and then allegedly used state staff and resources to produce this propaganda piece. One needn’t be a skeptic to link the timing of the deal to the cover-up of the scandal.
And that’s just one of the many fires engulfing the Cuomo administration. At this point, it’s hard to keep up with the litany of abuses perpetrated by Governor Cuomo and his staff. Despite anointing himself as a champion of women, Cuomo has been hit with more than ten accusations of sexual harassment since December. First, he said he’d investigate these allegations himself. When public pressure forced him to establish independent investigations of the charges, he stalled for time and declined to comment while the investigations played out. Now, with a Democratic state attorney general investigating the claims, the governor and his top aides have stonewalled, threatened, and gaslit witnesses and state officials, accusing them of playing political games.
There have also been reports that Cuomo’s friends, family, and donors received preferential access to COVID-19 tests and health information. There’s the matter of a $62 million COVID-related state contract being given to a medical network that donated $230,000 to the Cuomo campaign. There’s the claim by gaming interests that the governor’s team threatened them until they coughed up campaign money. And another investigation is centered around allegations that a top Cuomo aide linked vaccine access to political support of the governor.
In an attempt to silence these stories, the governor has responded with brute force. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is on the record as saying Governor Cuomo hurls invective at officials and the media to make them feel “belittled.” Democratic assemblyman Ron Kim — who lost a close family member to COVID in a New York nursing home — called for Cuomo to provide answers about the nursing-home tragedy. Cuomo personally phoned Kim and threatened to “destroy” him, before holding a press conference in which Kim was referred to as a “habitual liar.” Democratic state senator Alessandra Biaggi has released text messages showing threats she’s received from the Cuomo administration.
The behavior displayed by Governor Cuomo is appalling, but it’s nothing new. This is who he is, and who he has always been.
More ethical lapses snipped.
The obvious lies, the ham-fisted cover-ups, the corruption — we’ve seen it all time and time again from this governor. When there’s even a hint of an investigation into wrongdoing that implicates him or his cabal, Cuomo cuts his losses and scorches the earth. This is who he is: a mean-spirited bully with a flagrant disregard for the rule of law, ruthless in defense of his own venal interests and public image.
The Cuomo administration has run the gamut of travesties and tragedies. Personal viciousness is the governor’s calling card, and criminal behavior his M.O. Even as they’re barraged with one scandal and outrageous revelation after another, he and his inner circle continue to operate as though it’s all business as usual. So why is Cuomo still the governor of New York? Democratic lawmakers — the very same ones who called on him to resign when the sexual-harassment claims first emerged — continue to stand with him and normalize his behavior more than seven months later, partially out of fear and partially out of a complete lack of interest in governing.
Meanwhile, Cuomo seems locked into the Ralph Northam strategy: Assume that the (D) after his name absolves him of all sins against Social Justice and just wait out the storm confident no one will dare hold him accountable for his actions. And don’t forget the media’s nonstop fluffing of Cuomo back in 2020:
The Rolling Stone cover; Politico declaring him a “social media superstar”; Harry Enten of CNN declaring that, “The rise of Cuomo shows that times of tragedy can make very unlikely political heroes”; Carl Bernstein declaring that, “[It’s] real leadership of the kind the president of the United States should have provided to the American people throughout this crisis, but hasn’t”; Jesse McKinley and Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times declaring that, “Cuomo’s handling of the crisis has fostered a nationwide following; Mr. Biden called Mr. Cuomo’s briefings a ‘lesson in leadership,’ and others have described them as communal therapy sessions”; Ben Smith of the New York Times declaring that, “Cuomo has emerged as the executive best suited for the coronavirus crisis”; the New York Post (!) declaring that New York women were developing crushes on him; and Jen Rubin gushing: “Watching Andrew Cuomo is inspiring, uplifting, fascinating. He weaves details and humor and math and common sense all together. He is magnificent.” Even the Columbia Journalism Review started to worry that the adoring tone of the coverage was overlooking real problems with Cuomo’s decision-making.
And this is all separate from his appearances on his brother’s CNN program. I suspect you remember or can find examples I didn’t list above. Oh, another classic example, from Rebecca Fishbein of Jezebel: “I swooned when he told a reporter he had his own workout routine. I have watched a clip of him and brother Chris Cuomo bickering about their mother at least 20 times. I think I have a crush?”
Democrats in Washington want Andrew Cuomo to resign to allow the Democrat lieutenant governor to run New York state. If a Republican were next in line for the job, Democrats would be falling on grenades for Cuomo. That is, after all, what happened in Virginia when Governor Black Face unleashed his oppo research on the Democrats in the line of succession.
There are no criminal charges against Cuomo.
Cuomo’s problem is not sexual harassment. His problem is Democrats see him as a threat if he chooses to run for president.
Democrats in Washington want no part of playing second fiddle to an outsider. They had their fill of outsiders as presidents with Bill Clinton. Democrat senators want the White House all to themselves. In the 6 presidential elections since Clinton, Democrats have nominated a senator or former senator for president and vice president each time.
National Review wants you to know that Huey Long was a bad role model. Or you could just, you know, watch All the King’s Men, which remains a timeless classic. It won the Oscar in back-to-back years with All About Eve, another timeless classic, both of which showed you what the old studio system could achieve when they were working at the top of their game.
Inside the fight against a ransomware attack against the Texas town of Borger (which is way the hell up north of Amarillo):
In Borger, a city of fewer than 13,000, early indications were worrisome as the city raced to shut down its computers.
Gibberish ransom demands spat out of printers and displayed on some computer screens. Government files were encrypted, with titles like “Budget Document” replaced by nonsensical combinations of letters and symbols, said current city manager Garrett Spradling.
Vital records, like birth and death certificates, were offline. Payments couldn’t be processed, checks couldn’t be issued — though, blessedly for Borger, it was an off-week for payroll. Signs posted on a drive-up window outside City Hall told residents the city couldn’t process water bill payments but cutoffs would be delayed.
One update shared with city officials soon after the attack described how every server was infected, as were about 60% of the 85 computers inspected by that point. A city government email told council members that agendas for a meeting would be in paper format, “since your tablets won’t be able to connect.” An official told a judge it was unclear if computer systems would be operational in time for trials two days away.
Because the city had paid for offsite remote backup, Borger had the capability to reformat servers, reinstall the operating system and bring data back over. A newly purchased server that had yet to be installed came in handy. The police department, however, retained its data locally and the attack hampered officers’ access to previous incident reports, Spradling said.
Expensive Ivy League college film degrees are a scam. “Recent graduates from the Columbia University film program have an average loan debt of six figures against a low-to-mid five-figure income. And given that the master’s program takes four years, Columbia alumni enter the competitive field at around age 30, a detrimentally late start. Graduates soon face the shocking realization that they not only crippled their future but also wasted their money and youth.”
Automotive News published a report on Thursday of this week noting that EVs were 2.3 times more expensive to service than ICE vehicles after three months of ownership. Analytics firm We Predict compiled the data by looking at roughly 19 million vehicles between the 2016 and 2021 model years.
That figure drops to just 1.6 times more expensive after one year, the report noted, as a result of a 77% drop in maintenance costs and a decline in repair costs. The data showed that service techs spend about twice as much time diagnosing problems with EVs as they do with regular gas vehicles. They spend about 1.5 times longer fixing them and the labor rate for repairs was about 1.3 times higher.
Presumably some of this gap will drop as technicians become more familiar with them.
Classical music is under racial attack. Orchestras and opera companies are said to discriminate against black musicians and composers. The canonical repertoire—the product of a centuries-long tradition of musical expression—is allegedly a function of white supremacy.
Not one leader in the field has defended Western art music against these charges. Their silence is emblematic. Other supposed guardians of Western civilization, whether museum directors, humanities professors, or scientists, have gone AWOL in the face of similar claims, lest they themselves be denounced as racist.
Also this: “Orchestras should hire diversity consultants to develop ‘extra-musical evaluation’ criteria for orchestral positions, such as serving as an institutional spokesman.” Diversity consultants always demand hiring more diversity consultants. What are the odds?
The Offspring fire longtime drummer Pete Parada for refusing to get a Flu Manchu vaccine. “Given my personal medical history and the side-effect profile of these jabs, my doctor has advised me not to get a shot at this time.” If the other members are vaccinated, why the hell should they care? Stupider still: Parada already caught the virus last year, so he probably has more immunity than the vaccine provides…
Col. Dave Severance, who helped take Iwo Jima (and commanded the second flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi, the one in the famous photograph), dead at 102.
Where does this rank among disturbing YouTube videos? I give it a three.
Vance Ginn and E. J. Antoni of the Texas Public Policy Foundation: “It has just $110 billion, or less than 10%, for what’s historically been considered infrastructure—roads and bridges. The other 90% is to fund mass transit waste, green energy nonsense, and more items that the states or the private sector could do.”
Obscured in more than 2,700 pages of the U.S. Senate’s so-called bipartisan “infrastructure” bill is a plan for state-mandated carbon reduction programs….
“A state, in consultation with any metropolitan planning organization designated within the state, shall develop a carbon reduction strategy,” according to the text, which is also in the officially released version of the bill.
The federal government oversees metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), which are designated by agreement between the governor and local governments and represent localities in all urbanized areas (UZAs) with populations over 50,000, as determined by the U.S. Census, according to the Federal Transit Administration. There are at least 420 MPOs in the United States, the National Association of Regional Councils estimated.
No later than two years after the bill’s enactment, states would have to present their carbon reduction programs for approval to the secretary of transportation. The proposed strategies must meet several requirements to be considered “green” enough.
Requirements include but are not limited to:
Reducing traffic congestion by disincentivizing single-occupant vehicle trips and facilitating “the use of alternatives” like public transportation, shared or pooled vehicle trips, “pedestrian facilities,” and “bicycle facilities” within the state.
Facilitating the use of vehicles or modes of travel that result in “lower transportation emissions per person-mile traveled as compared to existing vehicles.”
Incentivizing the construction of vehicles that emit less carbon.
Buried in the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” in the U.S. Senate is approval for the Department of Transportation (DOT) to test a new federal tax on every mile driven by individual Americans.
The bill directs Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to establish a pilot program to demonstrate a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee designed “to restore and maintain the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund.”
The objectives of the pilot program include:
To test the design, acceptance, implementation, and financial sustainability of a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee.
To address the need for additional revenue for surface transportation infrastructure and a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee.
To provide recommendations relating to the adoption and implementation of a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee.
Although the new tax is described as a pilot program and would initially rely upon “volunteers” representing all 50 states, the infrastructure measure would also require the Treasury Department to establish a mechanism to collect motor vehicle per-mile user fees from the participants.
This is a very bad camel to let get its nose into the tent.
Right now the bill is being slow-walked while the senate fights over amendments. Knowing the way Washington works, no amendments can fix this monstrosity, not least because it spends money we don’t have on garbage we don’t need to line the pockets of people who view taxpayers as pinatas. Republican senators should filibuster this budget-busting bill.
It’s official: Save Austin Now’s initiative to refund Austin police cut by the hard-left mayor and City Council is officially on the ballot in November:
BREAKING NEWS: The City Clerk has certified the #MakeAustinSafe petition for the Nov., 2, 2021 ballot with 25,786 valid petitions — 93% validity rate.
The petition is to restore a statutory level of 2 officers per 1,000 citizens, add an elected head of police oversight (not appointed by the council) and double officer training per year, among other things.
Hopefully Austin’s citizens will vote for this outbreak of sanity in November.
Now: When can we expect the City Council to actually follow the law and institute Prop B?
The pork-laden “infrastructure” bill has been unveiled, and it’s a monster. Some 2702 pages long, H. R. 3684 seems geared to shovel as much money into various branches of the federal bureaucracy as quickly as possible with as little oversight as possible.
The table of contents alone is some 17 pages long. And the usual crappy government PDF practices seem at work here. Looking for “high speed rail”? That search brings up nothing, but if you search for “high speed” with two spaces “high” and “speed,” you get one mention on page 2331. “Rail” appears 322 times (because Democrats obviously love subsidizing choo-choos).
Some random gleamings:
The word “tribal” appears 226 times
“Diversity” appears 23 times (most mentions appear to be unrelated to the SJW kind)
“Equity” appears 59 times, many under the “Digital Equity Act” (broadband subsidies)
“Housing” appears 68 times
“Marijuana” appears 12, most under “Sec. 25026. Report on marijuana research,” because evidently “driving while high is a bad idea” needs more federally funded research.
Some random minutia that somehow is found in a giant federal spending bill:
Sec. 11133. Bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways.
Sec. 11527. Blood transport vehicles.
Sec. 11528. Pollinator-friendly practices on roadsides and highway rights-of-way.
Sec. 22402. Grade crossing accident prediction model.
Sec. 24214. Hood and bumper standards.
There’s a “Carbon Reduction Program” (starting page 328) because of course there is.
There’s a lot of sections on “Cybersecurity” (194 matches), some of which might be a good idea in a separate cybersecurity bill, but is probably misplaced in an infrastructure bill. (The overwhelming problem is properly securing the technological infrastructure we already have. Buying new servers isn’t going to prevent the Tony Podestras of the world from using PASSWORD as their password…)
All this only scratches the surface of a bill week-kneed Republicans are telling us is acceptable only because it doesn’t have every leftwing wishlist item the $3.5 trillion “infrastructure” bill does. I haven’t even remotely read all of this bill, and I’m not sure anyone has. That’s reason alone to urge Republicans to reject this monster.
Maybe we could crowdsource reading the text of the bill, and weigh in on the individual sections…
Dwight mentioned this story to me, and at first I thought it was a joke, but its apparently just another manifestation of The Crazy Years. “New Mexico Court Rules Gas Stations Liable for Selling Fuel to Drunk Drivers”:
Drunk driving is dangerous. The NHTSA says that someone is killed every 52 minutes due to a preventable crash where at least one party behind the wheel is intoxicated. Now, the New Mexico Supreme Court is looking to hold gas stations accountable for their role in knowingly allowing drunk drivers to hit the road.
Last week the court ruled 3-to-1 that gas stations have a “duty of care” to not allow individuals who are intoxicated to purchase fuel. In fact, the ruling goes as far as to edict that any gas station which knowingly permits drunk drivers to fuel up their vehicles can be held liable for any injuries caused by that person behind the wheel while they are intoxicated.
New Mexico is the second such state in the U.S. to publish a ruling which places the burden of responsibility on gas stations—Tennessee was the first. However, it’s important to note that there is no state law that explicitly prohibits the sale of gasoline to an intoxicated party in New Mexico. The court instead cited a fatal accident that occurred in 2011 where a gas station sold fuel to an intoxicated person who later got into an accident and killed the driver of the vehicle that was hit.
How are they going to prove the “knowingly” part when so many sales are pay-at-the-pump with a credit card these days?
This is part and parcel of the drive to disassociate people from blame for their own actions and failures and displace it to large faceless entities that the left must rail against (corporations, “white supremacy,” capitalism). The person responsible for a DUI is the person who drives drunk.
Not only did he recover well enough to shoot again, but yesterday he was out there shooting a Minigun!
After shooting through the usual Kentucky Ballistic tropes (tables, watermelons and eggplants), Scott & Company getting down to shooting a car with not only the Minigun, but with a .50 BMG “Ma Deuce” machine gun.
And not just any car! They shot a Robin Reliant, the three-wheeled UK car made infamous for flipping over on Top Gear.
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! It’s seems less that I “finish” these than I abandon them…
Flu Manchu deaths hit zero in Sweden. Seems like “protect the elderly and go for herd immunity” was a much better strategy than “lock everything down, throw the economy into a steep recession, throw millions out of work, practice ineffective masking theater and let antifa/#BlackLivesMatter burn everything down so the Democratic Media Complex can drag Biden’s ambulatory corpse across the finish line in November.” Who’d of thunk it?
Did Republicans surrender on pork-laden infrastructure bill? Sure seems that way. You can brag about how small the shit sandwich you’re eating is compared to the much larger one they wanted to shove down your throat, but it’s still a shit sandwich. Write your senators to express opposition to any infrastructure bill.
The brother of one of President Joe Biden’s closest advisors lobbied members of the National Security Council for General Motors in the second quarter, according to a new disclosure report reviewed by CNBC.
The report shows that Jeff Ricchetti, brother of White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, engaged with the NSC for the car-making giant on “issues related to China.” The company paid Ricchetti $60,000 last quarter for his lobbying services.
Gavin Newsom just might lose the California recall. How bad do you have to suck to lose a recall election in a one-party state? The answer is “Gavin Newsom bad.”
By an overwhelming 9-1, they would feel safer with more cops on the street, not fewer. Though one-third complain that Detroit police use force when it isn’t necessary – and Black men report high rates of racial profiling – those surveyed reject by 3-1 the slogan of some progressives to “defund the police.”
“It’s scary sitting in the house, and when you go outside to the gas station or the store, it’s possible someone will be shooting right next to you,” said Charlita Bell, 41, a lifelong Detroit resident who was among those called in the poll. Last year, when her car was hit by stray bullets during a shopping trip, she hurried home rather than wait for the police for fear the shooter might return.
Things that make you go “Hmmmm“: “Why Are Soros And Gates Buying UK COVID Testing Company?”
In 2015, French intelligence officials warned the U.S. State Department and their own foreign ministry that China was cutting back on agreed collaboration at the lab, former State Department official David Asher, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
By 2017, the French “were kicked out” of the lab and cooperation ceased, leading French officials to warn the State Department that they had grave concerns as to Chinese motivations, according to Asher.
90% of the illegal aliens let in by the Biden Administration don’t report to ICE as required by law. This is my shocked face. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Bridgeport Councilman Michael DeFilippo has been indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple election fraud charges.
DeFilippo, 35, a Democrat who represents Bridgeport’s 133rd District and has been a city councilman since 2018, is accused of conspiring to “interfere with and obstruct Bridgeport citizens’ right to vote by falsifying his tenants’ voter registration applications and absentee ballots applications, then stealing tenants’ absentee ballots and forging their signatures in order to fraudulently vote for him,” according to Acting U.S. Attorney Leonard C. Boyle.
Billionaire financier George Soros directed $1 million to a left-wing group that seeks to cut funding to police departments around the country, according to federal records.
Soros sent the funds to the Color of Change PAC on May 14, the Washington Free Beacon reported on July 22, citing Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. The contribution was the largest political contribution made by Soros during the 2021 election cycle.
Color of Change, which describes itself as a racial justice group, has frequently called for the defunding of police departments across the United States, including leading an online campaign to slash funding following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
MyPillow employee beheaded in Shakopee, Minnesota. Suspect is in custody. “They say Alexis Saborit is also facing previous charges of property damage, arson, and obstruction. The presiding judge, Richard C. Perkins, allegedly ignored claims of mental illness brought forward to the court and [Saborit] was somehow released back into the public.”
The City of Austin accepts the $10,000 a day quote and signs a contract on April 27th. The contract will be in effect for 3 years with the city having an option to add 2 extra years. pic.twitter.com/RqPCxMKoyQ
Attendees are required to agree to a “contract” stating that attendees must agree to certain conditions before taking the class, including:
Not taking notes
Not to talk about the class outside the class (“Vega rule”)
They must agree that the United States, Texas, Austin and APD are institutionally racist.
Letter to Chief Chacon concerning shocking treatment of participants in the Joyce James critical race theory class. James demands a signed contract BEFORE THE CLASS BEGINS agreeing 100% with their Marxist curriculum. If the participant declines they are thrown out of the class! pic.twitter.com/gIEMCdgvUt
So before even taking the class, student are required to agree with the racist tenets of hard left Critical Race Theory.
That’s a Soviet May Day parade of red flags, and probably illegal under Texas law, both due to being signed under duress and because there is no “mutual consideration” between the two parties. (Also note how the facilitator made sure that no lawyers were in attendance before offering up this “contract.”)
Requiring APD officers to attend such a course, and agree to such terms a priori, is both unamerican and probably illegal.
