Purpose: “The integrity and expansion of our Nation’s energy infrastructure — from coast to coast — is an immediate and pressing priority for the protection of the United States’ national and economic security. It is imperative that the Federal government puts the physical and economic wellbeing of the American people first.”
Summary:
Directs agency heads to explore and enact any existing executive authority that will enable them “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including, but not limited to, on Federal lands.”
Tasks the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head to approve emergency waivers for the 365-day sale of gasoline anywhere its supply is currently limited.
Expedites the permitting, construction, and completion of energy infrastructure projects, such as the Keystone XL pipeline, that have received previous approval.
Restricts the application of the Endangered Species Act in areas deemed to be unnecessarily burdening energy-related projects.
Creates an Endangered Species Act Committee tasked with reviewing designations under the law.
“Unleashing American Energy”
Purpose: “It is thus in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources. This will restore American prosperity — including for those men and women who have been forgotten by our economy in recent years. It will also rebuild our Nation’s economic and military security, which will deliver peace through strength.”
Summary:
Details the official American energy policy, which includes energy exploration on federal lands and waters; ramping up production of rare-earth minerals; grounding all related regulations in law; nixing the electric vehicle mandate and bans on certain kinds of consumer goods; and ensuring adequate public comment periods on energy-related regulations.
Withdraws the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords and eliminates the Green New Deal; terminates the American Climate Corps and the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases; and rescinds a multitude of President Biden’s climate-related executive orders, including the drilling ban on federal lands and waters and the application of regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Prioritizes permitting for liquefied natural gas exporting projects, such as on the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana.
Requires agency heads to remove regulatory barriers to the mining of mineral resources across the country.
“Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements”
Purpose: “It is the policy of my Administration to put the interests of the United States and the American people first in the development and negotiation of any international agreements with the potential to damage or stifle the American economy. These agreements must not unduly or unfairly burden the United States.”
Summary:
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. will immediately notify the international organization that it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
Any financial grants given to the U.N. in conjunction with the Paris Agreement will be ceased.
Reports on the withdrawal and all the actions thereto shall be compiled to provide updates.
Any future agreements related to energy shall “prioritize economic efficiency, the promotion of American prosperity, consumer choice, and fiscal restraint in all foreign engagements that concern energy policy.”
“Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects”
Purpose: “This withdrawal temporarily prevents consideration of any area in the OCS for any new or renewed wind energy leasing for the purposes of generation of electricity or any other such use derived from the use of wind. This withdrawal does not apply to leasing related to any other purposes such as, but not limited to, oil, gas, minerals, and environmental conservation.”
Summary:
Approval of new leases for offshore wind power operations will be halted — similar to Biden’s directive on offshore oil drilling — and the current practices will be reviewed.
Agencies will assess the “environmental impact and cost … of defunct and idle windmills.”
Existing leases are not affected.
Trump is doing his level best to hit the ground running and clean up four years of Biden’s war on American consumer and energy producers via executive fiat in the name of pie-in-the-sky environmentalism in a single week.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has joined a legal challenge against the Biden administration’s recent regulation targeting gas-powered water heaters.
On December 26, 2024, the Department of Energy issued a final rule that would prohibit the sale of non-condensing instantaneous natural gas water heaters. Paxton and a coalition of attorneys general from multiple states contest the move is unlawful.
The lawsuit, led by Georgia, Kansas, and Tennessee, argues that this regulation disproportionately affects seniors and low-income households by limiting market options and potentially forcing consumers to use products that may require more energy for the same performance.
Paxton strongly criticized the rule, stating, “It makes no sense to ban better performing instantaneous water heaters in the name of ‘green energy’ and force consumers to purchase more expensive and less efficient models. Beyond being ridiculous, it is an unlawful abuse of power.”
He has vowed to continue opposing overreach by the Biden administration, adding, “Until the final second of Biden’s tenure in Washington, I will defend Texas from the chronic lawlessness of his Administration.”
With President-elect Trump set to take office in a few days, it remains to be seen how these ongoing legal challenges and regulatory disputes will be resolved.
Fellow states joining Texas in the suit are Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Plus a bunch of natural gas associations.
Hopefully today marks the end of federal regulatory overreach in the service of unlawful, pie-in-the-sky environmentalism and the beginning of an administration that actually cares about ordinary Americans.
The Biden economy is still sucking, the arsonist who helped set LA ablaze was (of course!) an illegal alien, a Tik-Tok triptych, Dan Patrick announces a staggering warchest, WaPo walloped, Stacey Abrams is busted, and Americans are told “no thanks” by Chinese RedNote users.
The bad news for American workers doesn’t end there. “1 in 5 postings on Greenhouse are ‘ghost jobs.'”
There were many reasons why they did it. Some did it for the same reason Biden’s administration did: To make their company look like it was doing better than it was. Some post them just in case there is a unicorn out there with magical qualifications.
But the most frustrating reason was the final one:
Some hiring managers even admitted they post fake jobs to keep their own employees on their toes, saying they want workers to feel ‘replaceable’ so they will work harder.
“LA County Arson Suspect is Illegal Immigrant Repeat Offender Protected By California’s Sanctuary State Policies.” Because of course he is. “The suspect, Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva, is a Mexican national who has already been convicted of multiple crimes, but because California is a sanctuary state, he is unlikely to be deported, the New York Post reported.”
Just days after reports that she’d planned to can her fire chief, Kristin Crowley, after she publicly criticized the level of funding she’d received from the city, Bass is facing intense criticism yet again from a memo up on a city website, which shows that just months ago, the chief practically begged city hall to stop its budget-cutting spree on fire response.
The memo, which was dated Nov. 18, was written to the fire commissioners, according to the Washington Free Beacon. That’s a five-person board appointed by Bass.
In Crowley’s memo, she urged the commissioners to let Bass and the city council know how dire the situation was.
“In many ways, the current staffing, deployment model, and size of the LAFD have not changed since the 1960s,” Crowley wrote.
A federal judge in Texas has found that American Airlines violated both federal law and their fiduciary duty to their employees by using the company’s 401(k) plan to push ESG. Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.
Texas Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is loaded for bear. “Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted ‘over $33.5 million’ cash-on-hand for his re-election campaign in 2026.”
Ron DeSantis continues to drive the enemy before him and hear the lamentations of their women. “United Teachers of Dade, Florida’s largest teachers union, failed to meet the requirements of a new state law that requires at least 60% of union members pay dues.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been trying to give away the Chagos Islands, despite them being the home to vital U.S. military base Diego Garcia. Fortunately, someone has slammed the breaks on the deal until Trump is in office.
Big drone attack from Ukraine against Russia, with reportedly over 200 drones used.
“WaPo’s Pulitzer-winning cartoonist, who portrays Republicans as groomers and predators, arrested for possession of child porn. Washington Post cartoonist Darrin Bell arrested for possession of child pornography.”
But it’s not all bad news for Bezos! TDS sufferer Jennifer Rubin quit.
Remember Stacey Abrams, the black female Georgian Beto? The mediocrity whose fawning media profiles never turned into actual election victories? Well, “Stacey Abrams Group Hit with Largest Fine in Georgia History for Violating Campaign Finance Law.”
A Democratic advocacy group founded by former Representative Stacey Abrams and once led by Senator Raphael Warnock were fined $300,000 on Wednesday for breaking Georgia’s campaign finance law.
Georgia’s ethics commission found that the New Georgia Project and its affiliated action fund raised $4.2 million and spent $3.2 million to support Abrams during the 2018 election cycle when she ran for governor. The groups failed to disclose those partisan contributions in violation of state campaign finance law. Abrams ultimately lost to Republican Brian Kemp, who defeated her again in 2022.
The two entities agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, the largest fine in the commission’s 38-year history, in two $150,000 installments for 16 instances of illegal activity. The punishment is aimed at the groups, not Abrams and Warnock directly.
The New Georgia Project failed to register as an independent campaign committee and failed to file campaign finance reports of contributions and spending in 2018, showing their support for Abrams and other Democratic candidates.
In 2019, the groups committed the same offense without disclosing $646,000 in contributions and $174,000 in spending to support a voter referendum for Gwinnett County’s citizens to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority system. Despite the nonprofit’s efforts, voters rejected the referendum.
Just like Beto…
You didn’t expect Ken Paxton to let Biden leave office without one last lawsuit. “Texas Sues Biden Administration Over ‘Unlawful’ Methane Tax. Along with 22 other states, Texas is seeking to bar the final rule from taking effect on January 17.”
Turns out Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin didn’t bother to tell the chain of command that he was having major surgery. Or that he was hopped up on goofballs afterwards…
Not the Bee: “Asked what he’ll talk about at Mar-a-Lago, John Fetterman says, “I demand that I need to be made Pope of Greenland.” Fetterman seems to be the rare Democrat with a sense of humor…
If madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, Republicans are certifiable.
Republicans expected Republican state reps to vote like Republicans, despite two decades of evidence to the contrary, and once again, Republican voters were disappointed.
State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) won the Texas House speakership after two rounds of voting on Tuesday, the first day of the 89th Legislative Session.
Burrows, of course, is the latest catspaw of the Democrat-backed Straus/Bonnen/Phelan cabal.
“I want to be very direct on one overriding concept: this is the people’s House,” Burrows said in an acceptance speech. “This is greater than any one person, and any one faction. This is a sacrifice, and I accept that sacrifice readily. If you voted against me, my door will be open for you.”
The final vote broke down with 85 in favor of Burrows, 55 in favor of state Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield), and nine registering as present-not-voting. Burrows was then sworn into office by Secretary of State Jane Nelson.
Burrows’ effective governing coalition is 36 Republicans and 49 Democrats — and is the first time a speaker was elected in the official vote with a minority of his own party behind him in recent memory.
In the first round of voting, Burrows was five votes shy of the 76 needed to win with Cook pulling in 56 votes and state Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos (D-Dallas) receiving 23.
Ramos was then eliminated and the top two moved onto a runoff.
The three candidates were nominated by their colleagues:
Burrows – State Reps. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth), Mihalea Plesa (D-Dallas), Toni Rose (D-Dallas), and Lacey Hull (R-Houston)
Cook – State Reps. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin), Ellen Troxclair (R-Lakeway), James Frank (R-Wichita Falls), and Richard Raymond (D-Laredo)
Ramos – State Reps. Christina Morales (D-Houston), John Bryant (D-Dallas), and Jolanda Jones (D-Houston)
The slate of speeches had distinct themes. Ramos’ supporters showed displeasure with the GOP-controlled state, calling for a change in leadership. Cook’s were much more positively-imbued, calling for reforms to the process that put members in the driver’s seat and reduce the power of the speaker — save for Raymond’s, which blasted Burrows and former Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton) over their past scandal that ended Bonnen’s speakership after one term as well as his current involvement behind the scenes of the legislature.
For over two decades, Republicans have fought hard against the cabal. More recently, Attorney General Ken Paxton, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Governor Greg Abbott, and once and future President of The United States of America Donald Trump have come out strong against the cabal. And while last year saw many of Phelan’s closest confederates knocked off, once again the cabal has thwarted the will of Texas Republican voters.
When it comes to speaker races, the cabal remains undefeated.
Update: People have asked for a roll call of votes, so here it is.
Trump is sentenced to nothing, Los Angeles burns, the Rotherham scandal boils, Biden flips off the nation (twice) before leaving office, Trudeau to go, and Germany starts disarming people who disagree with the government. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
President Joe Biden will ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of federal waters, the White House announced Monday, striking a final blow against domestic energy production just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The outgoing president is set to use his authority under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf of Mexico, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska from future oil and gas leasing.
Snip.
The move comes on the same day that Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris is set to be certified by Congress. Trump has vowed to increase oil and gas production on a simple three-word energy policy: “Drill, baby, drill.” Biden’s latest action, however, poses an obstacle to the incoming president’s energy plans.
Asked about the ban during a Monday radio interview, Trump told host Hugh Hewitt he would “unban it immediately.”
Established 72 years ago, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act governs energy leasing activities in submerged lands under U.S. jurisdiction that extend three miles beyond the shoreline. An open-ended provision in federal law gives a president the authority to permanently withdraw portions of the Outer Continental Shelf without providing a way for a succeeding president to reverse course.
Therefore, the solution may not be as simple as Trump signing an executive order on his first day in office to undo the action. Congress would need to take legislative action. Or if Trump decides to revoke Biden’s withdrawal, that action may prompt legal challenges.
Democrats seem bound and determined to keep Americas broke for the sake of their environmental virtue signaling.
Those 34 hush money “felonies” were so serious that President Trump was sentenced to serve no jail time.
LA wildfire toll: “10 Dead, 10,000 Structures Burned In Los Angeles Area Inferno As Fire Damage Could Exceed $150 Billion.”
During the fire, hydrants ran out of water because nobody in the Democrat-dominated state could be bothered to fill the reservoir.
How badly does Los Angeles Democratic mayor Karen Bass suck? Just look at this timeline. She thought it was more important to jet off the Ghana than stay around when LA was faced with wildfire weather.
It gets better: A man apprehended setting fires with a blowtorch around LAwon’t be charged with arson. Because I guess burning people’s homes is social justice or something.
Canadian Prime Minister and all-around tool Justin Trudeau is resigning, though not until his successor is chosen in general elections. Canadian citizens enjoyed rough per-capita GDP economic parity with U.S. citizens when he took office. Now? “The gap between the Canadian and American economies has now reached its widest point in nearly a century.” And workers in Canada earn less than workers in even the poorest U.S. states. Heck of a job, Justin!
After an Elon Musk tweet brought up the Rotherham child gang rape scandal again, Keir Starmer’s Labour government went into full denial mode.
Gangs of predominantly Pakistani men have been raping and torturing vulnerable underage girls over the past three decades, with several independent inquiries having indicated systemic failures to investigate the crimes (because it would be ‘racist’). Three separate reports, published in 2013, 2014 and 2015 revealed that local politicians and police covered up the rapes.
Of note, foreigners are three times as likely to be arrested for sex offenses vs. British citizens.
In response Elon Musk launched an attack on Starmer, accusing him of failing to properly investigate and prosecute the gangs, which he called a “state-sponsored evil,” and alleging that Starmer was “complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN.”
And as The Telegraph notes, the state “had to bury the story.”
Denial about the extent of the problem is rooted deep in Britain’s political system. At times, it appears that the government’s approach to multiculturalism is not to uphold the law, but instead to minimise the risk of unrest between communities. Confronted with gangs of predominantly Pakistani men targeting predominantly white children, the state knew exactly what to do. For the good of community relations, it had to bury the story.
In Rotherham, a senior police officer told a distressed father that the town “would erupt” if the routine abuse of white children by Pakistani heritage men became public knowledge. One parent concerned about a missing daughter was told by the police that an “older Asian boyfriend” was a “fashion accessory” for girls in the town. The father of a 15-year-old rape victim was told the assault might mean she would “learn her lesson”.
Islamist MP Naz Shah just stated outright that raped girls should “shut their mouths for the good of diversity.” Just as with Democrats and illegal aliens, a little child rape is considered a small price to pay for all that glorious multiculturalism…
So, British MPs have voted against making a national inquiry into grooming gangs, in a 364-111 vote.
Man, when the “ruling class” of public servants don’t want something discussed, they really let us know about it. Big shots in England, who have no problem discussing American issues of governance, and even were fine with some of their citizens coming over the pond to campaign during our last election, are really, really annoyed that Americans are beginning to talk about the “grooming gangs” (read rapist gangs) who have operated in Rotherham and elsewhere who have been doing their thing for years, and with seeming impunity.
They’re really very annoyed about the American intrusion, you know. So much so, some are saying if the Americans don’t shut up about it, England should come cold all over its relationship with the USA.
Well, that’s gobsmacking, isn’t? It’s basically saying, “Shut up, stop talking about all the raping we did nothing to address or nip in the bud, or we won’t be your friends, anymore. We’ll take our soccer ball and go home, we will!”
I shouldn’t be so surprised. I’ve seen, and noted, in the past that for some there are two classes of sexual abuse/rape victims. The justly and properly acknowledged victims of priests, ministers, rabbi’s and religious — anything that involves church-centered abuse) and then the abused and raped people whose victimhood appears to be a lesser ken: Non-minor vulnerable adults; victims of public school teachers and staff; victims in state-run facilities. And now, apparently, English girls.
Fortunately, here in the U.S., the rule of law still actually means something. “Federal Judge Blocks Biden Administration’s Title IX Rewrite Protecting ‘Gender Identity.’”
Meta is immediately ending its DEI programs days after enacting sweeping changes to promote free speech on its platforms ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Meta vice president of human resources Janelle Gale sent an internal memo Friday announcing the company’s decision to terminate its DEI programs, Axios first reported, making it the latest large corporation to put an end to progressive workplace initiatives.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed Axios’s reporting when NR asked for comment. NR has reached out for additional comment.
“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” Gale said in the memo, echoing the justifications given by other companies in walking back DEI.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” the memo adds.
“The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
Meta is getting rid of its DEI team and changing the role of chief diversity officer Maxine Williams. Additionally, Meta is ending its equity and inclusion programs, and its supplier diversity goals.
“We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds,” Gale said.
Likewise, Meta is abandoning its diversity hiring approach and its corporate representation goals to prevent the impression that the company is hiring solely based on demographic characteristics.
“It’s important to us that our products are accessible to all, and are useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We continue to be focused on serving everyone, and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life,” the memo concludes.
Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will be replacing its fact-checking program with a “community notes” style approach mimicking Elon Musk’s X. The “community notes” feature on X allows for crowdsourced fact checking and demonetizes posts that get slapped with a note for misleading information.
Zuckerberg conceded that the fact-checkers Meta partnered with following the 2016 election were too politically biased, a nod to a longstanding complaint among conservatives. Meta is also reducing its “content moderation” policies to allow for greater freedom of speech on Facebook and Threads on controversial topics such as immigration and gender ideology. On that note, Meta is bringing back its promotion of political posts and moving its content moderation teams to Texas to prevent political insulation.
Well, Austin, anyway…
In August, Zuckerberg admitted that Meta was wrong to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story and criticized the Biden administration for pressuring Facebook into suppressing certain content related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story and skeptics of stringent Covid-19 policies was a priority for congressional Republicans in their investigations over the past two years.
He also went on Joe Rogan and added UFC head Dana White to Meta’s board. If Zuckerberg is a weather-vane, the MAGA winds must be very strong indeed…
Biden’s letting 11 terrorists out to fly to Oman because of course he is. All 11 are Yemanis. At least he’s not letting Khalid Sheikh Mohammad go. Yet…
Remember how in The Prisoner, one security device was a giant rolling ball? China evidently took inspiration from that, but there version is made out of metal.
Meanwhile, in Germany: “Saxony-Anhalt begins disarming AfD members. AfD members in many German states are stripped of many of their rights, including the right to privacy and lawful gun ownership.” You know, I get the feeling I’ve seen this movie before… (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
How car theft rings are stealing exotic cars by posing as legitimate car transport companies.
I don’t often cover New York sports teams or link to ESPN, but this story about how the “New York Football Giants” (to use Dwight’s preferred nomenclature) went 3-14 puts the fun in dysfunctional, including asking their starting cornerback to take a pay cut…right before a game.
Before social justice was the ruling religion/scam of the far left, The Church of Global Warming held sway in their hearts. They still mutter the catechisms, and lots of Democratic Party bigwigs still have their fingers in the green scam pie, but the world as a whole, freed from their bondage to Big Green thanks to shifting political sands, is jumping off the “carbon neutral” bandwagon while the jumping is good.
In Texas, scrutiny from Attorney General Ken Paxton has caused several big banks to pull out of NetZero pacts.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has revealed that three major United States-based banks have withdrawn from the United Nations-led Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Launched in April 2021, the group comprises banks “committed to aligning their lending, investment and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” according to the alliance’s website.
The group’s first commitment statement provides more details, pledging to “transition all operational and attributable GHG emissions from our lending and investment portfolios to align with pathways to net-zero by mid-century, or sooner.”
In October 2023, Paxton opened a review of the statuses of Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and other financial institutions pursuant to Senate Bill 13, first passed by the Texas Legislature in 2021.
The law prohibits governmental entities from entering into contracts with companies that boycott oil and gas companies. The financial institutions’ membership in the NZBA raised questions about their compliance with this law.
His review specifically focused on companies required to provide letters detailing their compliance with SB 13. Those already known to be a part of NZBA—like Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo—are listed in the letter.
Other financial institutions listed are Barclays, DNT Asset Trust, Fidelity Investments, RBC Capital Markets, the Royal Bank of Canada, State Street, and TD Bank.
“Any company submitting a standing letter to us in the future must inform us if it or any affiliate is a Net Zero Alliance Member. To the extent we learn that a company with a current standing letter, or its affiliate, is a Net Zero Alliance Member, the company will be treated similarly to the companies identified on the attached list,” explained Paxton’s letter on the review process.
Wells Fargo announced it was leaving the alliance on December 20, followed shortly thereafter by Bank of America on December 31. Morgan Stanley left NZBA on January 2, and JPMorgan exited on January 7.
“More and more financial institutions are taking a major step in the right direction by leaving the radical and anti-energy Net-Zero Banking Alliance. The NZBA seeks to undermine our vital oil and gas industries, and membership could potentially prevent banks from being able to enter into contracts with Texas governmental entities,” explained Paxton. “I am glad that Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan have terminated their NZBA membership.”
In addition to the four banks pursued by Paxton, financial giant Citigroup left the alliance on December 31. Goldman Sachs left on December 10, kicking off the mass exodus.
It turns out that the vast majority of Americans are far more interested in such frivolous objectives as “feeding my family” and “paying rent” than paying $120 trillion to theoretically drop the temperature of the globe by 1.5°C three-quarters of a century hence. Banks, now free of having to curry favor with radical “environmental justice” warriors in Biden’s ghost administration, are following suit and backing away from pie-in-the-sky decarbonization goals.
Knife-wielding Tren de Aragua gang members are mobbing border crossings at El Paso, Texas, in an attempt to break into the US — and have said they will attack border guards who try to stop them, according to a shocking Texas law enforcement memo leaked to The Post.
Last week, 20 of the Venezuelan gangbangers — armed with blades, tire irons and broken liquor bottles — tried to force their way into the US at a border gate, the missive from the Texas Department of Public Safety read.
Another attempt to break through is expected for New Year’s Day, the memo warned.
Before the social justice warriors running the Biden Administration threw open the borders, I had never heard of Tren de Aragua, but now they’re taking over hotels in El Paso, apartment complexes in San Antonio and Colorado, and now they’re even in our middle schools.
Someone somewhere in the bowels of the Obama/Biden policy establishment made the conscious decision to let criminal illegal alien gangbangers into the United States, knowing full well that the side effect would be more dead Americans. And they made the judgment that those dead Americans were acceptable collateral damage for reaching that “permanent Democratic majority” they were dreaming of.
November’s election results suggest that American voters strongly disagree.
I’ve not been covering every twist and turn of the Texas House Speaker’s race because it’s obvious there’s a lot of Liar’s Poker going on. The current state of play is the Rep. David Cook is the Republican choice to be speaker of a majority Republican House, while Rep. Dustin Burrows is the latest head of the Joe Straus/Dennis Bonnen/Dade Phelan RINO hydra to keep Democrats in power-sharing in the House, along with at least one or more actual Democrats (I think Rep. John Bryant and Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos also declared they’re running) also supposedly running. After Cook secured the GOP caucus nomination, Burrows said he had a list of enough Democrats and Republicans backing him to become speaker, even though multiple reps on his list said they hadn’t agreed to back him at all.
It’s quite confusing.
Now we have more information on just who is backing Burrows, and it turns out to be Chinese gambling Interests.
For the past two legislative sessions, a Chinese casino operator, Sands, has been trying to expand gambling in Texas.
Sands, which established itself in Las Vegas, divested entirely from the U.S. market in 2022. That was the same year they went all-in on China, where the company operates a casino complex. Sands signed a 10-year concessions agreement with the Chinese government to continue its gambling operations.
The operation is in Macao, a special administrative region China took over in 1999. Sands, according to Yahoo Finance, derives a substantial portion of its revenues from China.
This is problematic. No business in China is allowed to operate without CCP approval. Doing business in China requires companies to operate at the whims of a political machine singularly focused on power expansion. This is an environment where American businesses are made to bend the knee to set up shop.
An example of this is the formerly family-friendly Disney Corporation. In the 1990s, then-CEO Michael Eisner and his lieutenant Bob Iger both went on an apology tour in China after releasing a film that upset Beijing.
Eisner promised the company would not take action that “insults our friends.” In 2010, it was widely reported that current-CEO Iger met with the CCP’s head of propaganda. He gave his word that the Mouse House would use its platform to “introduce more about China to the world.”
China is constantly working to maintain its public image abroad, and cultural institutes are a big part of its efforts in the U.S. Last week, Sands reportedly donated $15M to the University of Las Vegas to establish a Chinese Culture Institute.
Like Disney’s promise to introduce more about China, Sands’ China Institute will promote appreciation and understanding of the Chinese language, traditions, and history to UNLV students.
It will also facilitate student and faculty exchanges, not unlike former vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz’ trips.
Why would Sands busy itself spreading CCP propaganda? Simple: it’s incentivized to do so. According to a release announcing UNLV’s new institute, Sands “has been a steady supporter of fostering Chinese culture since it opened Sands Macao in 2004.”
Last week, in a bid to secure the Texas House speakership surreptitiously, State Rep. Dustin Burrows broke caucus rules and went to the House Democrat caucus and its leader, Gene Wu, to gather enough votes.
A Houston-based state representative, Wu is an outspoken and abrasive member best known for publicly hoping that then-President Trump would die from COVID-19. Wu has a liberal voting record and has also faced scrutiny for his alleged ties to the CCP.
His ascent to lead Democrats in the Texas House was a shock to Capitol observers after the 2024 election. Burrows’ uniting with Wu is noteworthy, especially given the latter’s links to the CCP and the gambling interests trying to invade Texas.
One of Gene Wu’s largest political donors during the 2024 election cycle was Sands.
The casino’s political action committee donated $4,000 to Wu. Although that’s not a large contribution compared to the PAC’s global giving in Texas, it was enough to be one of Wu’s largest donations of the cycle.
Wu has attended events hosted by Chinese consulates and opposed the 2020 federal closure of the Houston Chinese Consulate, which was shut down due to espionage concerns. He has also been a vocal opponent of legislation aimed at banning hostile foreign entities, including China, from purchasing land in Texas.
In 2023, when the Texas House was entertaining a measure to establish casinos in the state, Wu voted to gut an amendment that would have forbidden gambling companies with links to China from operating in Texas.
The 2023 bid to link Texas to China via gambling ultimately failed, but the Texas Lottery, through acts of commission and omission, has managed to pull it off.
Jackpot.com is a platform that has been selling lottery tickets online in Texas since 2023. The company also operates an exclusive lottery in China called Lotto China, which has raised eyebrows given China’s strict control over gambling operations within its borders. Additionally, the country has been known to export gambling to neighboring countries as a tool for conducting surveillance.
Call be old fashioned, but I don’t think Texas Republicans should be beholden to Chinese communist gambling interests…
Congratulations on making it to the end of a difficult but exhilarating 2024, and I hope you had a Merry Christmas! Christmas week is always slow, so this will be a smaller LinkSwarm than usual, and thank goodness for that. More Biden misdeeds, lots of Russian stuff blows up, two horrible gay pedophiles go to prison forever, and Democratic judges going out of their way to punish the victims. Let’s dig in!
President Joe Biden is transferring more student loan debt onto American taxpayers with only weeks left until he departs the Oval Office.
The Biden administration announced Friday that it is giving $4.28 billion of student debt relief to almost 55,000 more public service workers including teachers, nurses, and law enforcement officials.
“From Day One of my Administration, I promised to make sure that higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” Biden said in a statement.
“Because of our actions, millions of people across the country now have the breathing room to start businesses, save for retirement, and pursue life plans they had to put on hold because of the burden of student loan debt.”
The Department of Education is forgiving the debt through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a policy that permits the forgiveness of remaining student loans for public employees who have made 120 monthly payments.
Federal bureacurats are simply more equal than mere citizens…
Remember how Biden commuted and pardoned some of the worst people in the world earlier this month? Well, he found worse ones still.
President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row, reclassifying their sentences to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from allowing their executions when he returns to office in January.
The 37 men were all convicted of murder. Their sentences will be reclassified from execution to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the White House.
The men whose sentences are being reclassified include Shannon Agofsky, who murdered a bank president, dumped his body in a lake, and then killed another man in prison; Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks, who escaped from prison and killed two women while on a 17-day crime spree; Ricky Allen Fackrell, a white supremacist who killed a prison inmate; and Daryl Lawrence, who killed a police officer during a bank robbery.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in statement. “But guided by my conscience and my experience, . . . I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
Biden only left three men on federal death row: Robert Bowers, the gunman who shot and killed eleven worshipers at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue in 2018; Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine people at a black church during a Bible study in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber.
Biden’s so opposed to the death penalty he only refused to commute sentences for those criminals the public would pay attention to…
Do blue state Democratic officials think they can defy the federal government on deporting illegal aliens? A hard rain is gonna fall.
Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson said Thursday that incoming border czar Tom Homan is starting with Democratic Chicago to deport illegal immigrants in order to set a precedent for other cities threatening to block his efforts.
Since President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Homan as border czar, the former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director has warned Democratic mayors to step aside as some have threatened to refuse cooperation with ICE on mass deportations.
Snip.
Hanson argued that Homan’s focus on Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will set a precedent, emphasizing that the incoming border czar is listening to Democratic constituents concerned about illegal immigration in their city.
Snip.
I know the most obnoxious, the most crazy, the most nullification advocate in one of the second or third largest cities is Chicago, that crazy Mayor Johnson,’” Hanson continued. “‘So we’re going to tell him first, you try to stop the federal government and you think you’re South Carolina 1832 or you think you’re firing on Fort Sumner. You’re going to regret it because you were breaking federal law and we have a lot more federal laws that you would want us to follow in your interest than you do federal laws to break.’”
“That’s going to be interesting because what Homan is basically doing is talking over the mayor’s head to the black constituencies of Chicago and saying, don’t worry, your mayor doesn’t, he’s going to break the law, but I’m going to follow it and I’ll put him in jail for your benefit so that you don’t have to worry about Venezuelans and Colombians shooting you or taking over your social services,” Hanson added.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to continue military support for Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Dec. 20, citing undisclosed sources.
Three officials familiar with discussions revealed that Trump intends to keep supplying US military equipment to Ukraine after his inauguration.
Trump’s foreign policy team also informed European officials that he plans to push NATO allies to raise their defense spending to 5% of their GDP. NATO member states currently follow a goal of allocating 2% of their GDP to defense spending.
A Georgia couple was sentenced to 100 years in prison without parole after adopting two boys and sexually abusing them.
William and Zachary Zulock will each spend the rest of their lives behind bars, after pleading guilty to aggravated sodomy, aggravated child molestation, incest, and sexual exploitation of children. Each were sentenced on Dec. 19.
Sanders said he first encountered some of these services while investigating Kremlin-funded disinformation efforts in Ukraine, as they are all useful in assembling large-scale, anonymous social media campaigns.
According to Sanders, all 122 of the services he tested are processing transactions through a company called Cryptomus, which says it is a cryptocurrency payments platform based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Cryptomus’ website says its parent firm — Xeltox Enterprises Ltd. (formerly certa-pay[.]com) — is registered as a money service business (MSB) with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).
Sanders said the payment data he gathered also shows that at least 56 cryptocurrency exchanges are currently using Cryptomus to process transactions, including financial entities with names like casher[.]su, grumbot[.]com, flymoney[.]biz, obama[.]ru and swop[.]is.
These platforms are built for Russian speakers, and they each advertise the ability to anonymously swap one form of cryptocurrency for another. They also allow the exchange of cryptocurrency for cash in accounts at some of Russia’s largest banks — nearly all of which are currently sanctioned by the United States and other western nations.
An analysis of their technology infrastructure shows that all of these exchanges use Russian email providers, and most are directly hosted in Russia or by Russia-backed ISPs with infrastructure in Europe (e.g. Selectel, Netwarm UK, Beget, Timeweb and DDoS-Guard). The analysis also showed nearly all 56 exchanges used services from Cloudflare, a global content delivery network based in San Francisco.
“Purportedly, the purpose of these platforms is for companies to accept cryptocurrency payments in exchange for goods or services,” Sanders told KrebsOnSecurity. “Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to find any goods for sale with websites using Cryptomus, and the services appear to fall into one or two different categories: Facilitating transactions with sanctioned Russian banks, and platforms providing the infrastructure and means for cyber attacks.”
“Wells Fargo Exits Net-Zero Banking Alliance After Texas Probe Into Anti-Energy Policies Attorney General Paxton has ended a review of the bank and allowed state governmental entities to do business with Wells Fargo again.”
Another day, another fake hate crime hoax. “A Tennessee college revealed that racist messages found written on campus were fabricated by a student in an apparent attempt to make Donald Trump supporters look bad. Rhodes College confirmed to Fox News Digital that a student had admitted to leaving the messages strewn about campus that were found over Thanksgiving break and were being investigated as a hate crime. Instead, it turned out to be yet another race hoax.”
Georgia woman arrested for evicting squatter from her house. And then the judge scolded her for her “privilege.” Sounds like a whole lot of people need federal equal protection lawsuits filed against them. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Ken Paxton is giving women in college athletics an early Christmas present this year: A lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing men to compete in women’s athletic competitions.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association for allowing biological males to compete against women.
The lawsuit, announced Sunday, accuses the NCAA of “engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females.”
Paxton argues that by allowing biological men to compete with women, the NCAA has violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act—a law that “protects consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick consumers into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised.”
“The NCAA is engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by advertising using logos and branding representing that the goods and services offered to consumers are for ‘women’s’ sporting events when, in fact, the sporting events are ‘mixed’ with both male and female participants,” the lawsuit reads. “The NCAA is further engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by failing to disclose to consumers which participants in ‘women’s’ sporting events are women and which are men, leaving consumers who want to purchase goods and services associated with women in women’s sporting events confused and frustrated.”
As a result of the deceptive practices, Paxton is asking the court to grant a permanent injunction that will prohibit the NCAA from allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events held in Texas or that involve Texas teams. Alternatively, the NCAA could stop marketing its events as “women’s” if they involve mixed-sex competitions.
Paxton also said that by allowing men to compete in women’s sports, the NCAA is actively jeopardizing females’ safety.
Previous lawsuits seem to have been filed under equal protection clauses, or various Title IX passages, but the deceptive practices angle has the twin virtues of being both novel and true.
Trying to force transsexualism down America’s throats constantly polls as one of the Democratic Party’s least popular policies. People with XX chromosomes are female, and people with XY chromosomes are male. Everything else is genetic abnormality or sophistry. 2+2 does not equal 5 no matter how fervently The Party insists it must.
Hopefully Trump’s 2024 election victory will mark the end of transsexual madness, but an awful lot of social justice warriors will need to be sued before this particular reality-denying delusion is purged from our institutions.
