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:
Here are the two different 60 Minutes edits layered on top of each other in full. You will hear where Whitaker's questions line up, and the different edited answers from Harris.
SC 1842 (bottom) is what aired on Monday night. SC 1843.5 (top) is what the Face the Nation X account… pic.twitter.com/FEuQp2o0kn
Beyond the word salad that people pointed out, CBS and 60 Minutes edited out everything she says about providing aide to Israel in order to defend itself from attacks.
Now when you contrast that with the fallout from the Coates interview, this all stinks. This is a CBS agenda…
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.
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.”
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.
“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.”
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 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…
“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.
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.”
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.)
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.
The election season is upon us, which means it’s time for Democrats to try to win the only way they know how: Cheating. So here’s a roundup of links on some (but far from all) the ways Democrats will attempt to cheat in November.
A network of left-wing organizations backed by billionaire George Soros is working to naturalize and mobilize immigrants and refugees in order to activate them as voting blocs in swing states, boasting that they could “sway the outcome of national, state, and local elections.”
Chief among these groups is the National Partnership for New Americans, which describes itself as “a national multiethnic, multiracial partnership network of 60 of the country’s leading immigrant and refugee rights organizations.” The group received $560,000 from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations from 2016 to 2021. The group had a total revenue of $4.11 million in 2023.
“Our network has supported the naturalization of over 250,000 U.S. Citizens and has been a key driver of advocacy to make naturalization more affordable and accessible,” the National Partnership for New Americans states. Its website features an image of a t-shirt that reads “Naturalize 2 Million by 2022,” along with the phrase “New American Voters.”
Democrats often rebut the Republican argument on illegal immigration — that the left encourages it to forge a path to permanent Democrat political power — by saying that illegal immigrants don’t have the right to vote. But the effort by the Soros-funded group to get as many immigrants as possible on the voter rolls as a way to “sway” elections indicates that the left does view immigration as a political tool.
Figures suggest that mass immigration could be a boon for Democrats’ electoral chances. One analysis found that congressional districts with a higher-than-average foreign born population voted for Democrats in 90 percent of cases during the 2018 midterm election. The foreign-born population residing in the United States surged to 51.6 million — the highest level ever — under the Biden-Harris administration. An estimate from the Center for Immigration Studies found that illegal immigration accounted for approximately 58 percent of that spike.
President Joe Biden beat former President Donald Trump by only 11,000 votes in Arizona in 2020, a fact that underscores the impact mass immigration could have on American elections. Biden beat Trump by just 12,000 votes in Georgia, another crucial swing state, in 2020. The New American Voters campaign notes that there are more than 86,000 individuals who have been naturalized in Georgia since the election.
The New American Voters campaign, a project of the National Partnership for New Americans, maintains demographic reports on critical swing states and the country as a whole.
“Since the last presidential election in November 2020, an estimated 62,179 voting age adults have become newly naturalized citizens in Arizona,” reads one such report, which also track the top ten countries of origin for new citizens in each state.
National Partnership for New Americans Executive Director Nicole Melaku used the release of its demographic data as an opportunity to push Biden to swing further to the left on immigration, pressuring him to support “pathways to citizenship.”
One 2020 report from the National Partnership for New Americans explains that “new American voters form critical voting blocks that can have the power to sway national electoral outcomes,” highlighting their growing share of the population in key swing states and calling them “a sleeping political giant.”
A 2022 report from the group celebrated newly-naturalized voters as part of the “new American majority,” a term used to describe “all people of color, unmarried women, and young voting eligible Americans.” The National Partnership for New Americans directly compared the margin of victory in the 2020 presidential election to the number of newly-naturalized voters who had since gained citizenship within each state.
The National Partnership for New Americans isn’t the only leftist organization working to leverage mass immigration to impact American elections, however. There’s also the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, an organization that’s received nearly $7 million from Soros between 2016 to 2022, and had $25 million in total revenue in 2022.
Two of the most recent listed grants from the Open Society Foundations, which total nearly $4.3 million, are intended “to encourage naturalization among eligible immigrants, assist them with the process, and mobilize their civic participation.” The center is one of the organizations behind Citizenshipworks, an effort also funded by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative to help non-citizens residing in the United States become citizens.
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center isn’t exclusively concerned with naturalizing and mobilizing non-citizens. The organization also works to prevent the deportation of illegal aliens. It received $500,000 in 2021 from the Open Society Foundations to fund its efforts to “dismantle the infrastructure of criminalization, detention, and deportation of immigrants.”
A coalition of 19 Republican attorneys general have launched a criminal investigation into the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue over allegations of money laundering.
As American Greatness reported in April, multiple independent investigative journalists, including O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) and Election Watch have uncovered what appears to be illegal activity involving millions of dollars in campaign donations to Act Blue that have been laundered through unwitting small donors.
The process of breaking up large donations and submitting them under the names of small donors to cover up illegal contributions has been dubbed “smurfing.” Suspicions that ActBlue routinely engages in this type of illicit fundraising have dogged the outfit since at least Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.
The Committee on House Administration, chaired by Congressman Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.), launched an investigation into Act Blue in November of 2023 to look into reports that the fundraising giant was skirting campaign donation laws and allowing rampant fraud on the site. The committee widened its probe in August 2024.
In a letter sent to top officials on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on August 5, Steil urged them to “immediately initiate an emergency rulemaking to require political campaigns to verify the card verification value (‘CVV’) of donors who contribute online using a credit or debit card, and to prohibit political campaigns from accepting online contributions from a gift card or other prepaid credit cards.”
In September, Steil sent letters to five states, urging them to launch criminal investigations into ActBlue’s alleged illicit activities, citing three specific areas of concern:
– Donations significantly disproportionate to an individual’s net worth or previous giving history.
– Uncharacteristic donations from party-affiliated registered voters suddenly contributing to candidates of the opposing party.
– Unusually frequent donations from elderly individuals or first-time donors.
The number of GOP AGs involved in the effort has since swelled to 19.
On Tuesday, the 19 Republican Attorney’s General sent a letter to ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones demanding information and explanations regarding the suspicious donations.
Recent reporting suggests that that there may be donors across the country who are identified in filings with the Federal Election Commission as having donated to candidates through ActBlue (and other affiliated entities), but who did not actually make those donations. That raises a host of concerns about whether ActBlue’s platform is being used to facilitate “smurfing”––a type of money laundering in which donors break up large donations and submit them under different names to disguise who the money comes from and thereby skirt contribution limits in violation of state and federal law.
As one former FEC commissioner recently explained, wealthy donors—some of whom are foreign nationals and therefore barred from donating to federal candidates at all—can employ complicated schemes like this to make donations in others’ names. This concern is not hypothetical. Indeed, in an indictment filed last week in federal court, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that a major U.S. political figure knowingly participated in such a scheme in a recent election cycle to receive contributions from a foreign national through straw donors. Further, the apparent irregularities in FEC filings also raise concerns about whether ActBlue’s fundraising methods are deceptive and properly safeguard donor’s data privacy.
Some of us and our colleagues have raised these concerns with you directly, and at least one senator has raised these concerns with the FEC. Independent investigations have shown that there are donors across the country who show up on FEC filings as having donated to candidates through ActBlue (and other affiliated entities) but deny having made those donations. Given the prominent role it plays in our elections, it is incumbent on ActBlue to address the serious questions created by apparent irregularities in ActBlue’s FEC filings.
ActBlue is one of the largest fundraising platforms for election-related donations. Already during the 2024 election cycle ActBlue has raised billions of dollars. But there are concerns about where those dollars came from. It is essential that we know whether political donations—particularly in such large volumes—are being solicited, made, and processed consistent with campaign finance, consumer protection, and other state and federal laws. We, the chief legal officers of Iowa, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming ask that you explain what measures you have in place to ensure that donations made through your platform follow State and federal law.
Just as important, we ask for clarification as to what measures you take to make sure that the donors identified as donating via the ActBlue platform are who they claim. If individuals are inadvertently donating to political campaigns, are misled into making repeat donations, or are having donations made in their name that they do not wish to make, that could violate election-related disclosures or state consumer fraud statutes. Our States’ citizens deserve to know that those facilitating election-related financing are following State and federal laws. Thus we appreciate the assurances that you will provide in answering our questions promptly before the upcoming elections in November.
To prevent voter fraud, many states require voter ID. But in California, Democrats enacted laws to outlaw it.
On Monday, California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill preventing local governments from requiring voters to present identification at the polls.
Monday evening, X CEO Elon Musk posted in response to the legislation, “Wow, it is now illegal to require voter ID in California! They just made PREVENTING voter fraud against the law.”
Snip.
The new legislation is in a response to Huntington Beach residents passing a voter ID requirement in March. In April, California’s Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta and Democratic Secretary of State Shirley Weber sued the city to invalidate the law, claiming the legislation violated state voting protections.
The bill was passed by the Democratic-controlled California Assembly and Senate earlier this year after members claimed voter ID laws disproportionately affect low-income, elderly and minority voters. The new bill goes into effect on January 1, 2025 when California will become one of 14 states that do not require voter ID for elections.
Despite the bill being signed into law, Huntington Beach has yet to respond to the lawsuit. According to Newsweek, California’s Democratic lawmakers have introduced multiple bills to prevent conservative-leaning locations in the state such as Shasta County from adopting voter ID laws.
Here in Texas, a federal judge wants Democrats to be able to “harvest” ballots.
Six progressive organizations were victorious in their lawsuit challenging a state law that prohibits paid ballot harvesting, with San Antonio-based federal Judge Xavier Rodriguez issuing a ruling on Saturday that declared the law unconstitutional and enjoined state officials from enforcing it.
La Union Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) was the lead plaintiff, along with the League of Women Voters of Texas, Texas American Federation of Teachers, the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and OCA-Greater Houston.
The law in question, which was passed within Senate Bill (SB) 1 during the Texas Legislature’s first special session in 2021, creates an offense for “vote harvesting services.”
Specifically, the law bans “in-person interaction with one or more voters, in the physical presence of an official ballot or a ballot voted by mail, intended to deliver votes for a specific candidate or measure” and only if it’s done for compensation or benefit.
Volunteers are not prohibited.
According to the plaintiffs that include LUPE, their paid canvassers are often invited into voters’ homes and asked for assistance with their mail-in ballots.
LUPE staff members and volunteers have been asked for assistance with voting by mail and in-person at the polls by elderly and disabled voters, and have provided such assistance, the lawsuit says, adding, “LUPE often provides its volunteers with t-shirts or gas cards, particularly because there is little public transportation in the Rio Grande Valley.”
According to the judge, confusion about the law’s applicability was not addressed by state officials in charge of enforcing it, such as whether the gas card or other items may qualify as compensation that makes ballot harvesting a crime, and he agreed with their position that the law chilled their First Amendment rights.
In his holding, Rodriguez declared the canvassing restrictions in Texas Election Code Sec. 276.015 unconstitutional under the First and 14th Amendments, and ordered the state’s Office of the Attorney General and the Secretary of State not to investigate violations of the law and local prosecutors not to enforce it.
State Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), who authored the legislation, reacted to the news on social media, arguing why the law is needed and adding that Rodriguez’s decision will be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
“I’m glad the Fifth Circuit will be reviewing,” Hughes wrote.
“I included this in SB1 to protect vulnerable voters — the elderly, first-time voters, voters with limited English proficiency. These are the voters most often preyed upon by vote harvesters and paid political operatives,” he explained.
The Heritage Foundation has a voting fraud tracker. The page for Pennsylvania shows nine voting fraud incidents since 2020, two of which were for “Altering The Vote Count.”
This is just a sampler of how Democrats intend to commit voting fraud between now and election day. If you know of any others, feel free to share them in the comments.
I’m sure they next month will provide many more examples…
Democrats refuse to let rapists be deported, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Democratic assassin’s tree, Israel decapitates Hamas, more illegal alien voting schemes exposed, the boom falls on Eric Adams, Goines goes down, another Russian ammo dump goes boom, a commie sub sinks, Raptor 1 Cylon 0, and 50 Cent throws down some Diddy dirt for your amusement.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Man, Democrats sure love illegal alien rapists. “158 Democrats voted against a bill that would ensure ‘aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed sex offenses or domestic violence are inadmissible and deportable.’ The Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act (H.R.7909) bill was introduced by Republican Representative Nancy Mace.”
No, they really, really do. “ICE Detains Illegal Migrant Accused Of Raping Pre-Teen In Nantucket…More Than A Month After He Walked On Bail.” “After being charged with one count of rape of a child with a 10-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, [Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo] was allowed to ‘walk free on bail’ and immigration authorities were never called, according to a report from the New York Post.”
“Ryan Wesley Routh Wrote of ‘Failed’ Assassination Attempt in Letter to ‘World’ Months Ago; Offered $150,000 Bounty to ‘Complete the Job.’” Plus a refresher to the would-be assassin the media already seems to be trying to memory hole: “While Trump was golfing at his International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel with a scope sticking out of the fence and ‘engaged’ with the person, who was later identified as Routh, a Biden-Harris supporter and Democrat donor with an extensive criminal background.”
“Son of would-be Trump assassin arrested for child porn.” “Investigators say they discovered ‘hundreds’ of files with child pornography during a search of Oran Routh’s residence in Guilford County, North Carolina, on Saturday conducted ‘in connection with an investigation unrelated to child exploitation.’ The two charges he faces include receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography.”
In little more than a year, a once-obscure South American street gang has taken hold in the Big Apple, exploiting the migrant crisis to build a violent criminal enterprise from within the walls of city shelters.
Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-bred crew of thugs, now terrorize Gotham with gun-toting, moped-riding hoods, sell illegal guns under the very noses of private shelter security guards, and run sleazy prostitution rings in neighborhoods suddenly besieged by the marauding migrants.
The gang, which also peddles a lethal fentanyl mix called Tussi or “pink cocaine,” has grown so fast that it has so far overwhelmed both average New Yorkers and the city’s elite police force.
Given how many FBI arrests have been sprung on NYPD brass over the last few months, I’m not sure how well that “elite” appellation still applies.
“Not every migrant is here to commit crimes, not every migrant is a gang member,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. “But these TDA guys hide very well in plain sight in the migrant community.
“We aren’t looking to grab the food delivery guy, but these guys go so far as to wear Uber Eats clothing, [use] the delivery bags while they’re out there committing their crimes,” the chief told The Post. “When we do arrest them, they are very eager to talk about the crime they have committed.
“They are unwilling to talk about TDA itself.”
The gang, whose name means “train from Aragua” (a state in north-central Venezuela) in Spanish, now runs citywide theft and robbery crews that have terrorized neighborhoods.
In Jackson Heights, a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue dubbed the “Market of Sweethearts” has become a testament to TDA’s muscle and influence, with vendors peddling stolen items and an open-air red light district that has migrant hookers walking the streets day and night.
Plus a feud between Tren de Aragua and rival illegal alien gang El Carro De Lost Caragijos 666, as well as a guide to gang tattoos. (Hat tip: TPPF.)
Former President Donald Trump has gained ground and is leading Vice President Kamala Harris in key Sun Belt states, according to a New York Times/Siena poll from Monday.
Trump gained in Arizona and is now leading Harris by five points with the two candidates polling at 50% and 45% among likely voters respectively, according to the poll. At the same time, Trump has also held onto his lead over Harris in Georgia by four points and in North Carolina by two points. (RELATED: Experts Say Major Swing State Is Once Again ‘Pivotal’ To Trump’s Chances Of Retaking White House)
While the Republican candidate is leading, a significant portion of likely voters across all three states are independents, according to the poll. On average, 31% of likely voters in the Sun Belt consider themselves Democrats, 33% identify as Republicans and 31% say they are independents.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and the guerilla journalists at Muckraker have teamed up to unearth a little scheme down in Arizona — registering illegal aliens to vote. And shocker, I wonder which political party those new “voters” might be supporting? I’ll give you one guess, and I bet you’ll get it right.
The illegals Muckraker interviewed said they were registered to vote at grocery stores, while others reported activists visiting their apartment complex and encouraging them to register to vote. Why does this matter? In 2020, fewer than 11,000 votes tipped Arizona’s electoral votes to Biden.
Fast forward to today, and recent polling shows former President Donald Trump holding a narrow lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Arizona, a critical swing state. With the race shaping up to be just as tight in 2024, the integrity of voter registration efforts takes on even greater significance — as does the lack of concern from the left.
It gets worse. The Oversight Project tried to track these individuals on the voter rolls but came up empty-handed — they were nowhere to be found.
This development comes just days after the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled that nearly 98,000 people with unverified citizenship documents are still eligible to vote in state and local elections.
Jena Griswold, Colorado’s rabidly leftist Secretary of State who will forever be known for her anti-democratic drive to knock former President Donald Trump off the ballot, has suffered another election law loss in federal court.
The U.S. District Court for the Colorado District last week issued an order demanding the Democrat secretary of state release Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) reports suspected of containing dead registrants on the state’s voter rolls. The reports, according to a settlement, include individuals who may have died within the past three years.
It’s another significant election integrity victory for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), and another stunning loss for election transparency-stifling Griswold and ERIC.
“PILF has knocked down ERIC’s wall of secrecy in the voter list maintenance process,” J. Christian Adams, president of the election integrity watchdog organization, said in a press release. “States cannot use third parties to hide election records that the public has a right to see.”
Griswold ultimately signed the stipulation after the court denied her original request to dismiss the case. Judge Philip Brimmer ordered the secretary of state’s office to disclose the requested 2021 ERIC Reports by Nov. 1. Brimmer did allow minimal redactions to the ERIC Report Key. With the agreement reached, the judge dismissed PILF’s claim that Griswold violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993.
The long awaited indictments of New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams finally comes down.
New York City mayor Eric Adams engaged in a nearly decade-long conspiracy that included accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources to benefit his political career, according to the federal indictment unsealed Thursday morning.
Adams is accused of accepting free airline flights and staying in luxurious hotels on behalf of Turkish business and government officials who sought to influence him.
He sought foreign money in part to benefit his 2021 mayoral campaign, according to the indictment. But some of the criminal conduct Adams is accused of dates as far back as 2015 when he was the Brooklyn borough president.
Adams had been charged with five counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national in two instances; and bribery.
He is the first sitting New York mayor to face criminal charges.
The 57-page indictment accuses Adams of funneling illegal foreign money through U.S.-based straw donors, including at least two New York construction companies, to reap over $10 million in public-matching funds based on false certifications that his campaign complied with finance regulations. The funds provide “eligible candidates with public funds to match small-dollar contributions from New York City residents,” the charging document says.
Adams also received free or discounted travel benefits on Turkey’s national airline from a Turkish official, who facilitated the funneling of the straw donations to Adams. These overseas trips included flights from New York to Turkey, India, France, Sri Lanka, China and Hungary from 2015 to 2019. These trips are valued at more than $100,000.
Other luxurious benefits included “free rooms at opulent hotels, free meals at high-end restaurants, and free luxurious entertainment while in Turkey,” the indictment states.
In January 2022, when Adams was inaugurated as mayor, Adams agreed to accept foreign contributions intended for his 2025 campaign while meeting with a Turkish entrepreneur whom the indictment dubs the “Promoter.”
The Turkish government sought influence over Adams, in part, to get his help to open a new consulate building in the city before the country’s president visited in 2021, prosecutors say. The 36-story skyscraper would have failed a fire inspection at the time.
Prosecutors say Turkish officials cashed in on their influence with Adams and he pressured the fire officials to open the building, which they did because they “were convinced that they would lose their jobs if they didn’t back down.”
The question, of course, is how the boom fell on Adams, but Bill de Blasio’s wife “mishandled” hundreds of millions in homeless funds and never received an investigation…
“Ukraine Destroys ANOTHER Ammo Dump! In Kammenyi, Krasnodar Krai.” Here’s my quick, handy description of the different between an “oblast” and a “krai’: I have no frigging clue.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly voted 26–25 to recommend Antony Blinken be held in contempt of Congress following the diplomat’s failure to appear for Tuesday’s hearing.
“Secretary Blinken’s refusal to comply with the Committee’s subpoena — despite months of notice and offers of accommodations — warrants contempt,” the resolution read.
The Republican-led committee has long sought to host the secretary of state as it investigates the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan over three years ago that left 13 U.S. service members dead.
Israel took out Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut. You would think Hezbollah honchos wouldn’t be hanging around their headquarters in the current conflict, but Israel reportedly took out five senior Hezbollah officials. Not sure if this is the strike or not, but it’s pretty shock-and-awe:
These are JDAMs using either BLU-95 500 lb (230 kg) (FAE-II) BLU-96 2,000 lb (910 kg) thermobaric warheads.
The double slap sounds and the jet plumes of orange tinted smoke out of the impacts signify an underground tunnel network being 'serviced' by thermobaric munitions. https://t.co/sZZQ1ngaXA
The blue is Israel. The lack of counter-activity (which would be in red) suggests Israel may have already crushed Hamas in Gaza.
Here’s a very long range look at Lebanon and northern Israel, showing that while Hezbollah is still launching a few rocket attacks at Israel, Israeli air power is bombing the absolute snot out of Hezbollah, not only with strikes in southern Lebanon, but even all the way up near the northern border in the Bekaa Valley.
Israel is obviously able to hit targets in Lebanon with impunity.
You feel sorry for Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire, but pity is tempered by the fact that Hezbollah is part of the ruling March 8 coalition.
International law expert covers Operation Grim Beeper. “In the context of distinction, necessity, proportionality these principles of the laws of armed conflict being adhered to in an exemplary fashion.”
Bill to strip the tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations (like the Council on American-Islamic Relations) moves forward in the house.
“Pentagon to Send Additional U.S. Troops to Middle East as Regional Tensions Boil Over.” “The U.S. maintains about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, primarily tasked with counterterrorism operations. U.S.-controlled military bases also exist in Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, with a total count of U.S. military personnel in the region numbering around 40,000, up from the 34,000 troops stationed in the Middle East before the October 7 massacre.” But wait! Kamala Harris said we had no troops in a war zone!
A woman from Warrington, Cheshire, has revealed how her attempt to report a sexual attack led to her own arrest while the perpetrator remained free to assault others for nearly two years.
Helen Ingham, 48, recently waived her right to anonymity in order to share her harrowing experience with law enforcement after reporting an assault by Ahmed Fahmy, 45, a hotel manager whose reign of terror against women spanned more than 15 years.
There, as here, the left doesn’t want foreign rapists deported…
Democrats chances to take the senate this year appear to be dim. Good.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday aimed at streamlining permitting laws to facilitate the domestic construction of semiconductor factories.
The bipartisan legislation passed by a vote of 257 to 125, with 49 members not voting, and now moves to the president’s desk for approval.
The bill passed the Senate last year, and was passed in the House of Representatives this week as the “Kelly-Cruz substitute amendment.”
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) submitted the amended text of their Senate bill in December 2023.
When a bill passes as a “substitute amendment” in Congress, the original text is entirely replaced with new content. This new version of the bill, offered as an amendment, becomes the text that is voted on and passed.
It aims to accelerate the construction of U.S. semiconductor facilities, as the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 has made over $50 billion available to promote domestic production and innovation.
It will also streamline federal permitting by designating the Department of Commerce as the lead agency for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, exempting certain projects from NEPA, providing the Secretary of Commerce with greater authority to expedite reviews in coordination with state and local governments, and limiting court challenge timelines.
Snip.
Cruz supported one portion of the CHIPS Act but disagreed with another.
Cruz explained in 2023 that the CHIPS Act consisted of two key parts: the Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors (FABS) Act, offering a tax credit to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing investment, and the CHIPS Act itself, providing billions in direct subsidies to companies. While Cruz co-sponsored the FABS Act, he voted against the CHIPS Act due to his opposition to direct subsidies, favoring the more indirect incentive of the tax credit.
“Many companies have fired Gen Z workers just months after hiring them and several business owners said they are hesitant to bring on recent college graduates due to concerns about their work ethic, communication skills and readiness to do the job, according to a new survey. Six in 10 employers said they have already let go recent college graduates this year, while one in seven said they are inclined to refrain from hiring new graduates next year, according to a survey conducted by Intelligent.com.” Also: “Although they may have some theoretical knowledge from college, they often lack the practical, real-world experience and soft skills required to succeed in the work environment.” Also: “75% of companies reported that some or all of their recent college graduates were unsatisfactory.” There may be a bit of truth to this, but a lot of companies seem to be laying off and firing people of whatever age right now…
Seems like an Air Force F-22 Raptor shot down a UFO over Canada in 2023. This was during the Red Balloon Menace, but it sort of looks like a Cylon Raider from the BattleStar Galactica reboot.
Critical Drinker gives thumbs up on The Penguin. “Just the right balance between grounded realism and industrial gothic. It’s obviously still based on New York, but rundown, neglected, stricken by crime, corruption and decay. So basically just actual New York, then.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani has published a shocking report that could soon change the national discussion from Haitians and other migrants eating cats or dogs in Springfield, Ohio, to one that is more sinister: The hub of a complex “hidden human trafficking network” in the tiny rust belt town.
“The story in this town is not about cats or dogs. It’s about mules. It’s a twin tragedy of migrant workers from Haiti exploited and locals from Springfield marginalized,” Nomani wrote in the Jewish Journal.
She said, “Just about every week since 2019, First Diversity Staffing Group Inc. has shuttled vulnerable Haitian migrants in unmarked white Ford and Chevy vans from Florida to Ohio, where they are allegedly exploited for cheap labor by companies like Dole Food Company Inc.,” adding, “It is a secretive and sinister operation that has gone unchecked for more than five years.”
Nomani provided an image of one of those vans owned by staffing companies that shuttles the migrants to factories.
The ex-WSJ journo said ‘George Ten’, the alleged mastermind behind this scheme, lives in a mansion in rural Ohio. She continued, “His nickname is “King George” because of his opulent lifestyle of luxury cars, cash handouts, and fast talk. For years, he has operated his reign of alleged exploitation.”
This is stunning, as Nomani noted:
One Haitian man I interviewed asked to be anonymous for fear of retaliation and recalled how he was picked up by a driver for one of Ten’s vans on a street corner near a Winn-Dixie grocery store in Immokalee, Florida. After the long journey to Springfield, he was dropped off at a rundown home on Rice Street, infested with cockroaches. He soon found work through First Diversity at Jefferson Industries Corporation, earning $12.50 an hour; he didn’t know how much George skimmed off his wages. The home he lived in had no working heat, and he bought an electric heater to survive the cold Ohio winter, the heater barely heating his room.
What essentially began as an unverified claim by Trump about migrants eating pets has led to the disturbing truth of alleged labor trafficking and modern-day slavery in Springfield. The Haitians, here legally, are being exploited by mega corporations…
And it’s not just Ohio.
What will also blow your mind is that this alleged labor trafficking network has possibly also surfaced in Charleroi, Pennsylvania.
We cited a resident of the town, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. In a video, the resident revealed the complex network of staffing vans in a town that is 50% Haitian. The vans shuttle migrants back and forth to several food packaging plants.
Funny how the Democratic Party, the supposed “friend of the working man” seems so intent on helping replace working Americans with illegal aliens.
Bloomberg has unveiled one of the most detailed maps yet, showing where the 2023 migrant invasion has spread across the US, broken down on a county-by-county basis. The map, built on immigration court case data, highlights clusters of new migrant populations that primarily emerged across the eastern half of the nation. The question becomes if the federal government and a shadowy network of non-governmental organizations worked in unison to precision dump migrants in small towns and cities to replace native blue-collar workers.
The data plotted on the map includes immigration court data showing where the 1.8 million migrants landed in the US and have since taken up residence. Notice massive clusters of new migrants across the Mid-Alantic and Northeast metro areas, as well as the Midwest and Rust Belt regions.
“In the battleground states that will decide this November’s election, about 72% of migrants in 2023 went to Biden counties while less than a third went to Trump counties, the Bloomberg analysis found. Counties that voted for Biden four years ago are home to roughly 60% of the overall US population,” Bloomberg said. ‘
The story in Springfield, Ohio, and Charleroi, Pennsylvania, should not be about goat sacrifices and migrants eating cats and dogs. It’s more sinister than that. It’s about a much darker reality of an alleged large-scale human trafficking and labor exploitation network operated by mysterious staffing companies with dozens and dozens of passenger vans in what some have called “modern-day slavery.” These migrants are shuttled around to factories, displacing native-born workers.
More:
Charleroi is a downwardly mobile, white working-class town in Pennsylvania. It has a population of just 4,000.
In just the past few weeks, one of its last major employers—a glass plant—closed down.
And now—to rub salt in the wound—they have 2,000 Haitians on their doorstep. https://t.co/ExZUPQZDvX
It seems like the Biden Administration and their shadowy network of NGO’s imported some 10 million illegal aliens into the country to provide cheap labor for big business.
corporate interests have become deeply interconnected with immigration through a non-governmental organization called Tent Partnership for Refugees. This NGO comprises more than 400 major multinational companies committed to hiring “refugees.”
Several NGO partnerships with mega corporations include RedRoof Inn, Royal Farms, Shopify, CSX, Delta Airlines, DoorDash, Etsy, and even Bloomberg.
The NGO’s relationships run deeper than mega-corporations, in fact, all the way up to the Biden administration.
In December of 2022, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a memorandum of understanding with Tent Partnership to “expand economic opportunity for refugees” in the private sector.
And what do Democrats get for letting all these illegal aliens in? Well, obviously they get to punish lots of blue collar workers for their “whiteness” and “clinging to their guns and religion.” And they get to rake off lots of NGO graft. And, of course, they expect illegal aliens to vote for Democrats, either illegally through voting fraud or legally via a mass amnesty.
Forestalling illegal alien voting was part of rational behind the SAVE Act.
The electorate is narrowly divided, and November’s presidential contest is likely to come down to the wire once again. Those in power are naturally tempted to secure an advantage — by any means necessary.
That became clear Monday when the White House threatened to veto legislation intended to close a loophole allowing illegal aliens to register to vote. The loophole was created by what is known as the motor voter law, which forced states to allow mail-in voter registration in 1993.
All one has to do is check a box that says “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?” on a federal form to be signed up. Though the form asks for more information, it’s optional.
“If you do not have a driver’s license or a state-issued identification or a Social Security number, please write ‘NONE’ on the form,” Colorado’s official instructions state. At the polling place, a utility bill or welfare check counts as acceptable identification.
House Republicans set up a vote Wednesday to close this loophole through the SAVE Act. Introduced by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, the proposal forces states to verify citizenship before adding someone to the voter rolls. It also enhances penalties against anyone intentionally registering noncitizens.
The White House blasted the effort. “It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections — it is a Federal crime punishable by prison and fines. … States already have effective safeguards in place to verify voters’ eligibility and maintain the accuracy of voter rolls,” the formal statement of administration policy explained.
While noncitizen voting is illegal, there’s no way to know when it happens. The Supreme Court blocked states from enforcing their own registration verification process in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona. Writing for the majority in 2013, Justice Antonin Scalia said requiring proof of citizenship prior to registration clashed with federal law.
And that’s why Congress must exercise its authority to fix that broken law and restore trust in the system. Liberals will cry foul, but they’re not sincere. They have no problem forcing everyone to flash IDs and passports to handsy Transportation Security Administration agents before boarding an airplane.
“Many of the Democrats want all of these illegals to participate in our federal elections,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said at a news conference Tuesday. “They want them to vote. There’s no other conclusion you can draw.”
Mr. Johnson estimates the administration has allowed as many as 16 million illegal immigrants to enter the country, which is more than enough to swing a tight election.
Noncitizens aren’t supposed to participate in elections, but it’s also illegal for them to enter the country uninvited. Unlawful immigrants don’t even need to cast votes themselves. The loophole adds names and addresses to the system that ballot harvesters can then use with mail-in voting schemes.
Unverified checkboxes go hand in hand with unverified ballot drop boxes.
Sounds like the SAVE Act is important for election integrity. So why did the same Republican Speaker just give up on fighting for it?
House Republicans are moving forward with plans to vote on a clean stopgap spending bill that will extend government funding until mid-December, dropping a proof-of-citizenship voting measure backed by former President Donald Trump from their latest proposal.
The continuing resolution, released on Sunday, would continue current spending levels until Dec. 20, buying lawmakers time to continue negotiations for the federal budget for the 2025 fiscal year. The proposal comes after the House failed to pass its initial government funding proposal last week that would have extended current spending levels until the end of March 2025 and included a voting integrity measure known as the SAVE Act that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sought to attach as a policy win for Republicans.
That spending package was shot down after it failed to garner enough support from GOP lawmakers who vowed never to support a temporary government funding bill.
“Since we fell a bit short of the goal line, an alternative plan is now required,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wrote in a Dear Colleague letter to lawmakers on Sunday. “The feedback and ideas from everyone have been very helpful, and next week the House will take the initiative and pass a clean, three-month CR to prevent the Senate from jamming us with a bill loaded with billions in new spending and unrelated provisions. Our legislation will be a very narrow, bare-bones CR including only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.”
But the absence of the SAVE Act could prompt several Republicans in both the House and Senate to reject the stopgap measure. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Republicans to oppose any funding bill that does not include language of the SAVE Act, even at the risk of a shutdown.
Democrats are importing millions of illegal aliens to replace Americans and congressional Republicans are evidently too scared of losing a press cycle to try and stop it.
More Trump assassination details emerge, the Israel-Hezbollah front remains spicy, a huge Russian ammo dump blew up real good, more open borders shenanigans from the Biden-Harris junta, more woke Tolkien garbage, and China tries to pass off the most adorable fake pandas.
Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) released a whistleblower report Monday on the law-enforcement failures leading up to the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump two months ago. The report was released one day after a suspect was apprehended in Florida for trying to kill Trump on his golf course in Florida.
The Secret Service’s failures to secure Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13 were extensive and constituted one of the most consequential security debacles in U.S. history. Chief among them was law enforcement’s apparent choice to leave the rooftop of the American Glass Research (AGR) building unguarded, allegedly because of heat, before gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed atop the building to carry out the attack, Hawley’s report states.
The report is based on whistleblower allegations brought to his office in the wake of Crooks’s rampage. Before the report was published, Hawley sent multiple letters to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, questioning him about the most shocking details from the whistleblowers who contacted his office.
Overseeing the Secret Service’s security operations at the rally was an unnamed lead agent who apparently has a history of incompetence and who directed the placement of certain items around the stage of the Trump rally that impaired visibility. The individual is allegedly known to be a low-quality agent and failed an examination on the way to becoming a Secret Service agent.
Secret Service intelligence units were not at the Butler rally. If they had been there, they could have prevented or mitigated the communication breakdown between federal and local law enforcement, Hawley’s report says, a major allegation that he has not previously publicized.
Ahead of the rally, the Secret Service’s counter-surveillance division did not conduct its typical inspection of the site and did not have a presence at the Butler campaign rally. A whistleblower told Hawley’s office that the counter-surveillance division would have arrested Crooks for carrying a rangefinder. The same whistleblower alleges that acting director Ron Rowe personally requested cuts to the counter-surveillance division, a claim Rowe has denied.
At a congressional hearing in July, Rowe admitted to the Secret Service’s mistakes on the day of the Trump rally, including a decision to reject an offer from local law enforcement for drone support after the Secret Service was unable to fly its own. Hours before the shooting, Crooks flew a drone around the perimeter of the Trump rally for roughly 11 minutes, the FBI has determined.
According to the report, a whistleblower with direct knowledge of the Butler planning process said that the rally was not slated to receive any additional security because Trump is not a sitting president or vice president. These additional resources would have included counter-snipers and counter-surveillance personnel.
The Trump rally was considered to be a “loose” security environment, meaning that Department of Homeland Security personnel failed to police the area immediately surrounding the stage and were not placed at intervals around the perimeter, Hawley’s report asserts. Extra DHS personnel without the necessary training to work campaigns were pulled away from the department’s investigative team and reassigned to the Trump rally, a whistleblower told Hawley’s office.
Up to this point, Hawley says, the Secret Service and DHS have not answered questions about the lead agent overseeing the Trump campaign rally, resources allocated to the Trump campaign, and the Secret Service’s lack of counter-sniper coverage on the AGR building.
I think we need to know the name of this unnamed lead agent, and how many ties he has to the Obama regime…
On Sunday, September 15th, 58-year-old Ryan Routh of Hawaii showed up to Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, where former President Donald Trump was golfing.
Routh reportedly shoved the barrel of a scoped polymer SKS-style rifle through the fence with the intent to fire at President Trump, who was several hundred yards away.
Nothing says “accuracy” quite like an old Soviet design they dropped for the AK-47.
Authorities say Routh also had a GoPro camera, as well as two backpacks containing ceramic tile that he had hung on the fence (a type of ballistics armor is made of ceramic tile).
Secret Service agents saw Routh and fired at him. He escaped in a black Nissan before getting arrested by local police on I-95 thanks to a photograph taken by a bystander.
USA Today says Routh has a “complex history,” which is code for “the man was foaming at the mouth for leftist causes.”
A profile for Ryan Routh on X dates to January 2020, where he posted a range of passionate opinions on issues including Black Lives Matter, Taiwanese sovereignty and supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia.
Obviously he supported Palestinians and hated Israel.
According to Fox News, Routh spent the majority of his life in North Carolina, where he owned a company called United Roofing.
You won’t be surprised that Routh was in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) in the 2020 election.
In 2020, during the presidential primary, the X account said: ‘I was not supporting Bernie, but now I am; as sleepy Joe stands for nothing; no plans, no ideas, just as limp as hillary. Bernie…….give them hell…..fight to the death…’
Routh reportedly donated to ActBlue, a major Democratic campaign fund, at least 19 times.
Ukrainian military recruiters appear to have spotted almost immediately that Mr Routh, who had a long criminal record, was not promising material.
According to an interview that he later gave to the Financial Times, he was rejected for service when he first reported to a Legion office on the Polish border at the war’s outset.
“They said: ‘You’re 56, you’re old and you have no experience’,” he told the paper. “So why don’t you recruit and coordinate?”
If that is what they told him, they probably intended him doing so having returned himself safely back to the US. Undeterred, however, Mr Routh continued on to Kyiv, where he became a familiar – if less than welcome – face on the Legion’s fringes.
There were many such cranks in Kyiv at the time, latching on to the war to pose as international men of action and boasting of high-level contacts in the Pentagon or CIA.
Regular Legionnaires did their best to avoid them, referring to them variously as “Call of Duty Warriors”, “Volun-tourists” and “Screamers” – the latter a reference to their reaction if coming under fire.
But there was little to stop them promoting themselves on social media, as Mr Routh did prolifically, claiming to be an active recruiter for the Legion ranks.
“Any gender, any age, any skill level to no skill level,” he claimed to Newsweek in 2022. “Yeah, if you wanna fight, come and see me and I’ll put you in a unit so you can go fight.”
Kamala Harris: “As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world for the first time this century.” U.S. active duty soldiers in a combat zone: “Say what?”
CBS polls restaurant patrons in Nevada and finds precisely one Harris supporter. Everyone else was for Trump. Presumably illegal aliens don’t eat out much…
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has determined that the two biggest counties in the state do not have to count mail-in ballots that have either the wrong date or no date where indicated on the outer envelope. The ruling was 4 to 3, with those 3 justices writing a dissent in the case.
The order from the court found that the lower court, which had ruled that those ballots must be counted even with the errors, lacked jurisdiction in the case because only Allegheny and Philadelphia Counties were mentioned in the case and not all of the state’s 67 counties.
The order reads: “AND NOW, this 13th day of September, 2024, the order of the Commonwealth Court is VACATED. The Commonwealth Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the matter given the failure to name the county boards of elections of all 67 counties, and because the joinder of Al Schmidt, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, did not suffice to invoke the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction.”
In practice, this means that in the coming presidential election, officials will not count any ballots that are either misdated or undated ballots. The jurisdiction issue could be addressed by the plaintiffs in the case before the election. The plaintiffs are listed as Black Political Empowerment Project, Power Interfaith, Make the Road Pennsylvania, OnePA Activists, New PA Project Education Fund, Casa San Jose, Pittsburgh United, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Common Cause Pennsylvania.
But don’t think for a minute this will keep Pennsylvania Democrats from trying to steal the election just like they did in 2020, as they won’t start “counting” absentee ballots until election day.
And speaking of Pennsylvania voting fraud: “Pennsylvania[‘s Luzerne County] bans drop boxes after woman caught with multiple ballots.”
In a scathing revelation before Congress, former San Diego Sector Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke accused the Biden-Harris administration of covering up a sharp rise in encounters with suspected terrorists at the U.S.-Mexico border.
During a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing titled “A Country Without Borders: How Biden-Harris’ Open-Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security,” Heitke said he was muzzled from releasing critical information on the number of Special Interest Aliens (SIAs) — individuals with known or suspected ties to terrorism — apprehended in California.
“I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke testified. “The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”
According to Heitke, arrests of individuals with terror ties skyrocketed under President Joe Biden’s watch. The former Border Patrol chief revealed that before 2021, his sector had apprehended between 10 to 15 SIAs annually. By 2022, that number had shot up to over 100, with even more recorded in 2023.
“Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year. These are only the ones we caught,”
Scott Adams lays down some truth bombs:
Trump is trying to "steal your democracy" by running for office.
Meanwhile, Democrats are. . .
Importing millions of fake asylum seekers to political battleground states to create one-party Democrat rule.
Pack the Supreme Court to remove it as a separate branch of government.…
For years, Beijing has been deepening its hold on America, drawing intelligence from the U.S. government while silencing critics with the help of agents embedded in U.S. society.
The United States is now hitting back—and seeing results, according to experts.
In early September, prosecutors arrested Linda Sun, former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, accusing her of acting on behalf of Beijing in exchange for gifts and payouts valued in millions of dollars to her family.
There has also been a marked increase in the rate of convictions or pleas in recent months. The Justice Department has brought forth dozens of CCP-directed espionage and foreign agent cases in the past four years, resulting in at least 13 convictions or pleas, with more than half of those taking place this year—including three in the past month. an Epoch Times review of the court records show.
On Aug. 6, a Chinese American scholar posing as a pro-democracy activist was convicted by a jury for spying on dissidents for the CCP.
On Aug. 13, a U.S. army intelligence analyst from Texas pleaded guilty to selling military secrets to the CCP.
On Aug. 23, a software engineer who worked two decades at Verizon pleaded guilty to gathering intelligence on countless dissidents and organizations targeted by the CCP since 2012.
Case documents reveal a broad range of criminal actions taken by agents, often different from what most may imagine to be spying. Beyond industrial espionage and covert influence campaigns, the regime has directed hacker rings, including a group that was charged and sanctioned this year for waging a 14-year campaign on the United States.
“I feel that our nation must take every opportunity to stop these threats,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), chair of the cybersecurity subcommittee for the House Armed Services Committee, told The Epoch Times, noting that the U.S. intelligence community has identified Beijing as the number one threat to the United States.
Bacon has experienced Chinese espionage attempts firsthand. Last year, he was hacked by CCP-linked hackers who also broke into email systems of State and Commerce department officials and dozens of other groups.
“Can we ever say that whatever actions we are taking are enough? I don’t believe so as the threats are increasing in frequency, sophistication, and national security impact,” Bacon said.
The CCP has long targeted people of Chinese descent—of whom there are more than 60 million people outside China—as potential assets in its intelligence operations.
Among those charged by the DOJ in the foreign agent cases are officials of the CCP’s top intelligence gathering agency Ministry of State Security (MSS), Chinese citizens traveling to the United States under false pretenses, hackers residing in Asian countries; as well as asylees, permanent residents, and U.S. citizens of Chinese descent.
Some reside in the United States while dozens of others charged are known to reside in China, and will now face arrest if they ever set foot on American soil.
There are also many who are U.S. citizens that aren’t of Chinese descent. They include active military members, former law enforcement, and experts in competitive fields.
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed senior Hezbollah military official Ibrahim Akil on Friday, Israeli Defense Forces announced. Although Hezbollah has not confirmed the reports, Lebanese officials said earlier in the day that the strike killed at least eight and wounded 59.
Israeli Defense Forces reportedly targeted two residential buildings in southern Beirut. Akil is the head of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force and Jihad Council, and is sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State for playing a role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, in which a suicide bomber murdered 63 people, including 52 embassy employees. The State Department designated Akil a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019, and offered a reward of “up to $7 million for information” about the Hezbollah leader.
“Two chiefs with the New York Fire Department have been arrested on bribery charges.” Those are Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, the same ones the FBI raided.
Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary says that New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California those states are now “uninvestable.” The taxes are too high and “the regulatory environment is punitive.”
Remember Thierry Breton, the eurocrat who got in a slapfight with Elon Musk over Twitter refusing the censor people and knuckle-under? He just resigned. “France’s European Union commissioner Thierry Breton abruptly resigned on Monday amid an ongoing dispute with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. He was slated to serve a second term after being re-appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron, The Guardian reports.” Evidently von der Leyen wants the Commission to be “gender balanced.” Social justice will oft social justice mar…
“The mayor of Atlantic City, Marty Small Sr., and his wife [La’Quetta Small] (the superintendent of schools) have both been officially indicted.” Despite both being Democrats, they weren’t indicted for fraud, but for brutally beating their own teenage daughter. Bonus: The daughter told principal Constance Days-Chapman of the abuse, and instead of telling the police, she told the abusive parents. She’s being charged, too.
“23andMe’s board quits en masse: A former tech darling is in turmoil after all seven of its independent board members resigned. 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki is now the sole remaining member following a disagreement over taking the company private.”
ESPN’s NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski retires. He was at the top of his profession, and reportedly walked away from a $30 million contract. But given Disney’s ongoing debacles, it’s quite possible they asked him to take a haircut or let him retire in advance of a layoff.
Jane says/Can you taste my fist today? Also, the tour’s been cancelled on the basis of chin music. A shame, really, since Jane’s Addition has a fairly unheralded role as the musical bridge between LA’s “hair metal” scene and the harder alt rock edge of acts like Nirvana.
It’s a LinkSwarm tradition to end with an amusing dog clip or story. So here are some pretty Chow Chows…painted up to look like Pandas in a Chinese zoo:
NEW: China zoo forced to admit the truth after one of their “pandas” started panting and barking.
The Shanwei zoo admits they painted dogs white and black to make them look like pandas.
The zoo initially tried claiming that the dogs were a unique breed of pandas called… pic.twitter.com/MMoQLD7zuR
Happy Friday the 13th! Harris continues to slip behind Trump despite (because?) of their debate on the network of her Best Friend Forever, Haitian immigrants in Ohio accused of eating roof rabbit, Texas blasts Biden Administration overreach (again), Conor McGregor steps into a different kind of ring, a worse than usual remake idea, and American cats meet a variety of grisly ends.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
You know that Harris bounce? Nate Silver says not so much. “I’d also note that Harris’s raw polling averages have DECLINED in most swing states since the start of the DNC. This data is NOT subject to the convention bounce adjustment. She’s had a run of pretty mediocre state polling.”
It’s not surprising that the snap polling, including by groups that conservatives trust, like Trafalgar, is showing that Harris “won” the debate. And I think that’s true. She was more polished, more prepared; she had her canned barbs. But there’s something strange going on here. While she won the debate, Democrats always come across in snap polling as winning the debates. I saw people sharing on X the history of snap polling after debates with Donald Trump, first with Hillary and then with Biden. In every one of those debates—six in total—clear majorities said that Trump lost the debate. I’m not sure what to read into that.
So, it was anger at the moderators, frustration that Trump wasn’t making a lot of the points I thought he could have made, but he was being Trump. And I’ve misjudged his appeal to voters and his electoral success so many times, so it is what it is.
But there’s something else I took away from this—and it’s showing on the screen just to the side of me here. One thing I really noticed throughout was the faces that Harris was making—very condescending, very mocking, very childish, actually. I think that’s the one thing I remember more than anything about the debate.
Now, I think Trump did a very good job, even though he didn’t make the points I thought he could have, like showing how she flip-flopped. He hit hard on the border and the economy, and I think that may have a lasting impact.
What’s showing up in the focus groups—ones I’ve seen not by right-wing groups, but CNN, Reuters, NBC—there seems to be a disconnect between who they think won the debate and how they’re reacting substantively.
Trafalgar was consistent with the others, showing a 15-point win for Harris in terms of who won the debate, but no movement in who people were going to vote for. CNN was interesting—they had an even larger, 20-plus-point win for Harris, but found that on the key issue—voters’ most important issue—the economy, Trump actually improved over pre-debate polling. Similar findings came from Reuters and NBC.
Dana Walden, a senior Disney executive whose portfolio includes ABC News, is one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ “extraordinary friends,” according to a report in the New York Times.
Walden and Harris have known each other since 1994, while their husbands, Matt Walden and Doug Emhoff, have known each other since the 1980s.
Dana Walden has donated to dozens of Democrats and contributed to Harris’ political campaigns since at least 2003, when she ran for district attorney in San Francisco.
While the legacy media has yet to find any evidence of pet consumption that it’s willing to accept, there are some much larger issues regarding the crisis that has been created in Springfield through the importation of nearly 20,000 Haitian illegals.
Former Ohio State Representative Kyle Koehler has sounded a warning regarding the consequences that have followed the Biden administration’s policy that gave temporary protected status to more than 100,000 Haitian migrants, including those relocated to Springfield.
BREAKING:
Former Ohio State Rep. Kyle Koehler (@repkoehler) has made SHOCKING revelations about the illegal Haitian crisis in Springfield, Ohio during a recent speech.
1.) The Haitian illegals in Ohio are given $600-$1600 per month on Debit Cards through the Refugee Cash… pic.twitter.com/aWDyVcx7b3
Among the concerns raised by Koehler are the strain on the local school system with more than 1,600 non-English speaking students now enrolled and Haitian refugees who are 20 years old being placed Freshman High School classrooms with 13 year old kids.
Koehler also voiced concern over an individual who is renting his 63 homes to the relocated Haitians for as little as $250 per month, with 20-25 individuals living in each home.
Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) has also weighed in on the controversy, saying that he too has heard from Springfield residents complaining that pets and wildlife were being abducted and that health services are being severely strained by an influx of individuals with communicable diseases like TB and HIV.
The community of 60,000 residents is clearly facing serious issues related to the open border policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
When tales of Haitian immigrants eating cats emerged on social media this week, it suddenly focused attention on the city of Springfield, Ohio, but now we are learning there’s more to the story:
“Those 20,000 Haitians did not show up overnight or uninvited. Though flown in by the federal government, they were not forced on the city by the federal government. Elections have consequences. Springfield voted for this. They signaled their virtue, their signal was seen, and virtue arrived. This is what they wanted. This is what they got. They’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) Much commentary has focused on whether it’s true that pets are being killed and eaten by the Haitians, but that’s not really the point. The point is why Springfield became the destination for thousands of Haitians (who may or may not eat cats).
It’s a long story. First of all, you’ll find liberals insisting that these Haitians are not illegal immigrants. Research further, however, and you learn that most of them entered the country illegally, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border after making their way through Central America. After Haiti descended into its latest crisis, the Biden administration granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to all Haitians in the U.S., so you may say that they have been retroactively (but temporarily) “legalized.”
Now let’s talk about Springfield, which is a “blue” island of liberalism in a sea of Republican “red.” Ohio was once a battleground state, closely contested in every presidential election, and then Trump came along and the Buckeye State has now become a GOP stronghold. Springfield was a city of 58,662 residents before the Haitian influx, and the city sits in Clark County (population 136,000) which voted 61% for Trump in 2020.
You see that, if the Democrats can turn these Haitians into voters, they can make Clark County “blue,” and a similar calculus is being applied nationwide by the Biden administration’s immigration policy. Democrats insist that the “Great Replacement” is a right-wing conspiracy theory, but we can see them doing it — blatantly, deliberately, in front of our eyes — in places like Springfield. And this brings us to the late Warren Copeland.
For most of the past three decades, Copeland was the mayor of Springfield. He was a professor at Wittenberg University, a local institution affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Anyone who knows anything about the ELCA will tell you it is the pluperfect example of degenerate liberal Protestantism. “The ELCA has drifted so far into pagan goddess worship that to call it ‘Lutheranism’ is an insult to Luther; to call it ‘Christian’ is blasphemy,” as I wrote in 2016. Copeland was a radical obsessed with “social justice,” and the fact that Springfield repeatedly elected him as their mayor tells you something about the politics of the city. Indeed, Springfield eagerly welcomed the influx of Haitians. Read this article from December 2022:
A surge in the number of Springfield residents from Haiti has resulted in an outpouring of language assistance and additional forms of help from the Springfield City School District and others who are trying to meet their needs.
Social Justice destroys everything it touches.
Citizens have questions to City Council about vetting of Haitian refugees in Sylacauga, Alabama. City Council: “Meeting adjourned.”
For the first time in EU history, Germany is at the forefront of immigration suspension. Other EU countries will follow.
The Schengen Area…is an area encompassing 29 European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their mutual borders.
Reuters reports Germany Tightens Controls at All Borders in Immigration Crackdown.
Germany’s government announced plans to impose tighter controls at all of the country’s land borders in what it called an attempt to tackle irregular migration and protect the public from threats such as Islamist extremism.
The controls within what is normally a wide area of free movement – the European Schengen zone – will start on Sept. 16 and initially last for six months, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday.
The government has also designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, Faeser said, without adding details on the controversial and legally fraught move.
The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken to toughen its stance on irregular migration in recent years following a surge in arrivals, in particular people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East.
Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people in August.
Polls show it is also voters’ top concern in the state of Brandenburg, which is set to hold elections in two weeks.
Scholz and Faeser’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting to retain control of the government there, in a vote billed as a test of strength of the SPD ahead of next year’s federal election.
“The intention of the government seems to be to show symbolically to Germans and potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here,” said Marcus Engler at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research.
Seems like Germans are getting tired of all that vibrant raping and stabbing diversity…
On Wednesday, a federal court ruled in favor of Elon Musk’s X Corp in its case challenging California’s content moderation laws, citing free speech violations. X Corp filed a lawsuit to block the controversial law, which took effect on January 1, 2024.
The legislation requires social media companies to disclose details of their content moderation policies to the state or face civil penalties.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a previous lower court’s decision that ruled against pausing enforcement of the state law. The panel of three judges decided the law facially violated the First Amendment, Reuters reported.
“X Corp. is likely to succeed in showing that the Content Category Report provisions facially violate the First Amendment,” Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. wrote in his case opinion.
In the complaint filed in Sept. 2023, X Corporation argued that Assembly Bill 587 violates the company’s First Amendment rights because it pressures “companies such as X Corp. to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally-protected speech that the State deems undesirable or harmful” which “interferes with the constitutionally-protected editorial judgments” of the company.
For free speech advocates, we often feel that other citizens have become passive observers as an anti-free speech movement grows around us, threatening our “indispensable right.”
One of the most infamous figures in this movement has been former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has long been the smiling face of censorship. As the head of the Labour Party, Blair pushed through some of the early crackdowns on free speech in the United Kingdom. He is now calling for global censorship to expand these efforts.
In an interview on LBC Radio, Blair declared:
“The world is going to have to come together and agree on some rules around social media platforms. It’s not just how people can provoke hostility and hatred but I think… the impact on young people particularly when they’ve got access to mobile phones very young and they are reading a whole lot of stuff and receiving a whole lot of stuff that I think is really messing with their minds in a big way.”
Remember, when the want to crackdown on “misinformation,” the sort of things they want to ban are opinions contrary to their social justice agenda. Such as “the Chinese coronavirus came from a lab” or “there are only two biological sexes.”
More of that voting fraud Democrats swear doesn’t exist. “Illegal Alien Charged With Stealing U.S. Citizen’s Identity to Vote in Elections. She voted in the 2016 and 2020 primaries and general elections.”
The Biden Administration wants Texas to cede Fronton Island to federal control. Texas Governor Greg Abbott told them to get stuffed.
I am in receipt of a letter from the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) to the Texas General Land Office (GLO) … given that it concerns actions taken under Operation Lone Star to secure Texas’ southern border around Fronton Island against the ongoing invasion of Texas by transnational criminal cartels — a crisis created and incentivized by your Administration,” Abbott wrote.
Abbott added that the letter “alleges that GLO has altered the flow of the Rio Grande by engaging in activities on Fronton Island without USIBWC’s approval.”
“It also alleges that [the] GLO trespassed on federal land in the process of facilitating cleanup and security efforts on the Island … That agency responded in a letter … detailing that GLO has not engaged in construction activities at all, and, in any event, Fronton Island is state-owned land.”
Abbott then responded to the United States Section of the International Boundary and Water Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner’s request that Fronton Island be returned to its pre-construction conditions: “You are either unaware of, or indifferent to, what those ‘pre-construction conditions’ were.”
Before Texas secured Fronton Island, Abbott wrote, “[T]ransnational criminal cartels had assumed practical control of the densely vegetated Island and used it to terrorize Texas communities.”
He recounted occasions when authorities found the criminal cartels to be using the “thick vegetation” to “stash weapons, plant explosives, evade apprehension, and engage in open warfare against rival cartels and against state and federal officers.”
“Are you aware that your appointee is asking Texas to return grenades and rocket launchers along with IEDs to the Island?” he asked the Biden administration.
Abbott continued, “Your open-border policies have allowed an invasion at the southern border and incentivized criminal activity that threatens the lives of Texas law enforcement, soldiers, and citizens.”
“Yet … the federal government has refused to enforce federal laws — even in dangerous areas like Fronton Island.”
“I determined that Texas could not ignore an ongoing invasion of its sovereign territory,” Abbott said of his decision on October 5, 2023 to move a “heavily armed invasion force” onto Fronton Island.
He then addressed USIBWC’s complaint that Texas had built “two sediment bridges.”
“Your Administration’s letter betrays a basic misunderstanding of facts on the ground, and its claims are unsupported by either science or common sense.”
Dwight has been sending me tidbits on the ongoing meltdown among government officials in New York City following FBI raids. Like this: “Paranoid police officials meeting in parking lots as fed raids leave NYPD, City Hall in shock.” “Law enforcement sources telling The Post that they’re afraid NYPD headquarters is bugged and their words are being recorded.” Plus New York City Mayor Eric Adams evidently has several burner phones, which is both highly suspicious and probably justified. And since Adams is reportedly using the messaging app Signal, presumably they’re modern Android or iPhones, which are: A.) More expensive than classic burner phones, and B.) Probably not conducive to quick SIM card swaps, ala Stringer Bell on The Wire.
Anyway, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban just resigned.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori dead at 86. Fujimori revived Peru’s economy and destroyed the Maoist Shining Path guerillas, but in the end he too fell prey to Peru’s long history of government abuse of power and corruption. In the end, he too was corrupt and committed human rights abuses…and was still arguably the most successful (and important) President in Peru’s troubled history.
“The head of the UN wants to create a fake bank that will circumvent EU and US sanctions against Russian banks.”
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham pushed back against a Biden-Harris administration proposal to “lease nearly 150,000 offshore acres to an energy company (Hecate Energy) with no experience in wind projects.” But it’s easy to understand why the Biden Administration wants to hand the assignment to Hecate: They donate lots of money to Democrats.
Alan Dershowitz announces he’s leaving the Democratic Party over its “anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention.” One wonders what took him so long.
Remember Taral Patel the Ft. Bend democrat who faked hate crimes against himself? Now he’s facing even more felony charges. “Last week a grand jury indicted him on four felony counts of Online Impersonation and four misdemeanor charges including Online Impersonation and Misrepresentation of Identity with intent to ‘harm.'”
Self-cleaning litter box has the unfortunate downside of killing your cat.
Rick Beato interviews bassist Tony Levin of Peter Gabriel and King Crimson fame. It’s an interesting interview, especially the part about how he sold all his stuff to go on tour with Buddy Rich, only to find out that Rich’s old bassist had agreed to come back, so he was out of a job…
“Optronic Technologies, Inc., better known to backyard astronomers as the parent company of both Orion Telescopes & Binoculars and Meade Instruments, has shut its offices and storefront in Watsonville, California.” Actual manufacturing was done in Tijuana, so I’m not sure how much California’s new minimum wage law had an effect.
There are rumors that Barbie director Greta Gerwig wants to make an all female Fight Club remake. That’s about as good an idea as an all-male reboot of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Comedian Kevin Hart’s chain of vegetarian restaurants in LA closed down. 1. How’s that minimum wage working out for you, California? 2. Vegetarian restaurants aren’t even profitable in LA. 3. Stick to comedy. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
We’ve had a lot of stories of Harris County Democratic Party corruption, but don’t forget another Democratic establishment in the People’s Republic of Travis County, which Texas Attorney General is suing for funding an illegal partisan voter drive.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued members of the Travis County Commissioners Court as well as the Travis County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar, asking the court to “prevent them from giving a partisan organization thousands of taxpayer dollars to identify the names and addresses of potentially unregistered voters without statutory authority.”
In the suit, Paxton alleges that Civic Government Solutions (CGS), a voter outreach company, was hired to “conduct services for the County that the County is unauthorized to perform.”
Paxton’s lawsuit explains that CGS CEO Jeremy Smith has made public comments about “getting people to vote for progressive candidates.” Smith is also listed as CEO of Civitech, a company that Axios described as a “progressive data startup.”
And what do you know! A search of Open Secrets shows that of 142 political donations, all went to Democrats.
“Travis County has blatantly violated Texas law by paying partisan actors to conduct unlawful identification efforts to track down people who are not registered to vote,” said Paxton in a press release.
“Programs like this invite fraud and reduce public trust in our elections. We will stop them and any other county considering such programs.”
Paxton is arguing that the Travis County officials acted ultra vires — beyond their legal authority, in other words — by contracting with Smith and his company to collect personal information and target unregistered voters.
He further claims that these officials only have the powers explicitly granted to them by law, and argues that nothing in the Election Code allows them to identify and reach out to potentially unregistered voters, some of whom may not be eligible to vote.
Paxton argues that this action could harm the integrity of Texas elections by encouraging ineligible people to register to vote. As a result, Paxton is asking the court to issue a temporary and permanent injunction to stop Travis County from moving forward with the contract.
Pushing to get ineligible people to vote for Democrats seems to be the Democrats’ top goal this year, be it illegal aliens or convicted felons, and they’ve been pursuing it by varied means. Paxton has also fought voter fraud with search warrants in Bexar County and preventing similar “justice” organizations from soliciting voter registration outside DPS offices.
Paxton seems to determined that the voting fraud that happened in 2020 won’t be happening here in Texas.
More bad Biden Recession news, Kamala Harris wants a $5 trillion tax increase, a power-mad Brazilian judge wants to punish Elon Musk for refusing to censor his political enemies, more Texans sue the Biden Administration for failing to secure the border, Texas trims the voter roles, Harris County gets closer election supervision, two DEI-infected video games tank hard upon release, and the Navy runs put of pants.
After tumbling in April, and rebounding modestly in June, analysts expected a continued gain in pending home sales in July, but it wasn’t meant to be: moments ago the NAR reported that in July, Pending Home Sales tumbled 5.5% MoM, a huge miss to the 0.2% expected gain (and down from a 4.8% increase in June), and also slumped 4.6% YoY, a modest improvement from the 7.8% plunged in June but also missing expectations of a -2.0% drop.
That dragged the Pending home sales index to 70.2%, a fresh record low.
The Pending Home Sales Index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.
“A sales recovery did not occur in midsummer. The positive impact of job growth and higher inventory could not overcome affordability challenges and some degree of wait-and-see related to the upcoming U.S. presidential election,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.
Sales decreased in all four US regions, especially in the Midwest and South.
Vice President Kamala Harris wants to extract a $5 trillion tax increase from American households and businesses, her campaign confirmed on Monday.
The Harris campaign officially endorsed the laundry list of new and higher taxes included in the Biden-Harris administration’s fiscal year 2025 budget, a plan that would increase taxes by $5 trillion over ten years.
The burden of Harris’s tax increases will hit households in the form of diminished wage growth and higher costs of goods and services. These Harris tax increases will make the U.S. less competitive vs. our adversaries.
Harris also endorsed further increasing the size and power of the already-supersized IRS and erode taxpayer rights by watering down procedures designed to protect taxpayers from abusive and dishonest IRS agents (details below.)
Kamala Harris’s tax increases include:
Small business tax rate hike to 39.6%
Small business owners pay business taxes on their individual tax return. The Harris endorsed budget raises the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from the current 37%.
Corporate tax rate higher than the EU and communist China.
Kamala Harris wants to hike the current 21% federal corporate income tax rate to 28%, higher than communist China’s 25% and the EU average of 21%, her campaign said Monday.
The Kamala Harris federal 28% rate is higher than the Asia average corporate tax rate of 19.8%, the EU average of 21%, the world average of 23.5%, and the OECD average of 23.7%. (See the Tax Foundation’s comprehensive listing here.)
The Harris federal 28% rate is also higher than Canada (26.2%), the UK (25%) Sweden (20.6%), and even Russia (20%), Afghanistan (20%), and Iraq (15%).
After adding state corporate income taxes, the combined federal-state tax burden in most states will easily exceed 30% under the Harris plan.
The Harris rate hurts the USA vs. China with its 25% rate. And note: Industry sectors of strategic use to the Chinese government pay an even lower rate of 15%.
American workers will bear the brunt of Harris’s corporate tax increase.
The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation affirmed in congressional testimony that corporate tax rate hikes hit “labor, laborers.” A study compiled by the Tax Foundation found that “labor bears between 50 percent and 100 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax, with 70 percent or higher the most likely outcome.”
Capital gains and dividends tax more than twice as high as communist China
Here is a direct quote from the Biden-Harris budget: “Together, the proposals would increase the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to 44.6 percent.“
Yes, you read that correctly: A Kamala Harris capital gains and dividends tax rate of 44.6%
China’s capital gains tax rate is 20%. Is it wise to have higher taxes than China?
Under the Harris plan, the combined federal-state capital gains tax exceeds 50% in many states. California will face a combined federal-state rate of 57.8%, New Jersey 55.3%, Oregon at 54.5%, Minnesota at 54.4%, and New York state at 53.4%.
Unconstitutional wealth tax on unrealized gains
The Harris-endorsed budget calls for an annual 25 percent minimum tax on the unrealized gains of individuals with income and assets exceeding $100 million. Once in place, it won’t be long before the threshold is lowered to hit more and more Americans.
Americans overwhelmingly oppose taxes on unrealized gains, by a factor of three to one, including 76% of independents. Americans know that a “gain” isn’t “real” until it is actually realized, in hand.
This Harris tax is similar to the wealth taxes pushed by radical progressives such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Capital gains taxes should only be paid when a gain is realized. Harris’s wealth tax would break with current tax policy and impose tax Americans based on the value of an asset on a particular arbitrary date.
This unprecedented tax would give even more power to the IRS, encourage taxpayers to move assets overseas, and will only expand to hit millions of Americans over time.
I don’t agree with every single item on this new RFK, Jr. hit job on Democrats, but it is pretty brutal, and the perfect thing to post to really annoy your facebook friends the next time they post an anti-Trump meme:
A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit against leftwing pressure group Media Matters can go forward.
X, formerly known as Twitter, filed the suit in November after Musk threatened to bring a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the left-leaning nonprofit and “all those who colluded” for “completely misrepresenting” the real user experience on X.”
According to the lawsuit, Media Matters – founded by Democratic operative David Brock, who left the organization in 2022, used manipulative and deceptive tactics to convince advertisers like Apple, IBM and Disney that ‘hateful’ content was being displayed next to their brands – leading them to pause their X advertising campaigns.
X claims Media Matters fabricated the results. From the original complaint:
Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.
Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed.
First, Media Matters accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users. Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.
But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and content that Media Matters aimed to produce.
Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts.
Pretty much everyone saw this coming. “Elon’s SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing.”
Speaking of Elon Musk, a Brazilian Supreme Court Judge has declared that Twitter/X must censor the accounts of political enemies he specifies, and Musk, citing the Brazilian constitution, is having none of it.
On Thursday night, X’s Global Government Affairs account posted a dire warning over service availability in Brazil, after dictatorial Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes punished them for not complying “with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” according to the post.
More:
When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.
We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.
In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency.
Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders.
To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to protecting your freedom of speech.
Meanwhile, Musk says that SpaceX is going to continue to provide Starlink in Brazil to schools and hospitals for free…
* * *
One day after Brazillian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes threatened to suspend social media platform X unless Elon Musk appoints a new legal representative in 24 hours, the judge – dubbed “Brazil’s Darth Vader” by Musk – issued a subpoena against the company.
Today, he blocked the financial accounts of Musk-owned Starlink Holdings, due to the absence of an attorney.
Alexandre de Moraes might be the second-most powerful person in Brazil.
He does not quite have the reach of the president. But as a judge on the Supreme Court, until recently the president of the Electoral Court, and especially as head of two sprawling investigations against groups spreading disinformation, Moraes has wielded a rare combination of judicial powers. He has unilaterally handed out fines, ordered arrests, social media bans and other sanctions, and even acted as investigator and judge at once.
Moraes, 55, has used those powers prolifically, including against several members of the right-wing opposition to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government.
Brazilian conservatives have long contended he is abusing his power. But “Xandão” (“Big Alex”), as he is semi-jokingly called by supporters and detractors alike, earned the gratitude of many members of Brazil’s political establishment who believed his actions were fundamental to defending democracy during and after Jair Bolsonaro’s tumultuous 2018-22 presidency.
Now, that goodwill is being put to the test. As international voices add to a swelling domestic chorus, criticism of Moraes is starting to break through into the mainstream of Brazilian discourse.
The most public clash has been between Moraes and the South African billionaire Elon Musk, who has vigorously resisted the judge’s efforts to control speech on his X platform and other social media. Late Wednesday, Moraes used X itself to send Musk an ultimatum to appoint a new legal representative for his company in Brazil, and threatened a total ban of the platform in Latin America’s largest country unless he complied. Several Brazilian legal experts told Estado de S.Paulo newspaper that Moraes was overstepping his powers—that his use of social media to deliver the order was invalid, and that any suspension would be illegal.
Also recently, reporting by Fabio Serapião and Glenn Greenwald, the well-known American journalist who lives in Brazil, in Folha de S.Paulo newspaper indicated that Moraes and his lieutenants skirted official procedure in preparing sanctions for targets of his investigations.
These controversies have put renewed focus on several questions: Is Moraes censoring the opposition, or guarding Brazilian democracy? What should be the balance between allowing political speech on social media—and fighting back against disinformation and other threats? And finally: Has Moraes’ power outlived its usefulness, placing due process and the rule of law under threat in a different but also harmful way?
“It’s clear he’s pushing the limits,” said Conrado Hübner, a professor of constitutional law at the University of São Paulo and columnist at Folha. “There’s no precedent, nothing remotely similar to having a minister leading … investigations that almost become permanent institutions.”
“It’s been a year and a half since the 2022 election and the departure of a president who threatened institutions,” wrote the editorial board of Folha on August 26. “But for minister Alexandre de Moraes and his colleagues at the Supreme Court, it’s as if it was still that time—at least as a pretext for maintaining the anomalous concentration of power in this magistrate and his court.”
Snip.
Moraes banned the social media accounts of right-wing influencers Rodrigo Constantino and Paulo Figueiredo, for allegedly spreading Covid-19 misinformation and casting doubt on the Brazilian electoral system. He also banned the accounts of department store chain owner and right-wing influencer Luciano Hang, allegedly for agitating for a coup in a pro-Bolsonaro message group. Blogger Allan dos Santos, in self-imposed exile in Florida, had his passport revoked after calling for the dissolution of the STF, and being accused of involvement in an “organized crime network” that operates through monetized videos online. The U.S. refused an extradition request—reportedly because it determined Santos’s actions aren’t considered a crime in the U.S.
“It’s persecution, pure and simple,” Santos said.
The political temperature has moderated in Brazil over the past year, as a degree of institutional harmony has returned under Lula’s watch. But Moraes has remained on the offensive, threatening earlier this year to block Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, for refusing to comply with his orders. (Pavel Durov, the service’s founder, was arrested in France earlier this week for failing to prevent illegal activity on the platform.)
As part of the reporting on leaked documents from Moraes’ office in August, Greenwald wrote that former Bolsonaro advisor Filipe Martins had been detained under an order by Moraes for almost six months without charges, based on evidence that (Greenwald wrote) had been disproven. Less than a week later, Moraes ordered him released.
In reporting over the last several weeks, Greenwald and a co-author have used leaked messages to level accusations that Moraes directed his aides to compile reports on individuals, setting them up for social-media bans and other sanctions, and pass off the reports as having come from other legal organs or as anonymous complaints. The reports exacerbated concerns that Moraes was blurring the lines between legal roles—and so did his response, which was to order an inquiry into the source of the leaks.
Some of those actions sound familiar… (Hat tip: Glenn Greenwald.)
Hamas terrorist official Ghazi Hamad said during a recent interview that the terror group views its October 7 massacre as an enormous success because it damaged attempts to establish diplomatic ties between Israel and the Arab states.
Hamad, who previously said that the terror group aims to repeatedly carry out October 7-style attacks, said during an interview earlier this summer that was only translated this week that the terrorist attack — in which 1,200 were murdered, 5,300+ wounded, and hundreds more taken hostage — was “able to slap at the progress of the normalization of effort, and this is, of course, a very important political success.”
He said that the attack has also been successful in creating divisions among Israelis and uniting other Islamic terrorist organizations to attack Israel.
“US Strike Eliminates Senior Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorist Leader In Syria. A U.S. military drone strike has killed a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, a group in Syria aligned with the al-Qaeda terrorist group, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in an Aug. 23 statement. The strike targeted Abu-‘Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, a prominent figure within the group’s Shura Council, responsible for overseeing terrorist activities from Syria, according to the statement.”
Are you an senior citizen living in Communist Cuba? Good luck surviving on $10 a month.
Cubans continue to flee a worsening economy in record numbers while the elderly have been left behind, fighting to survive on the communist regime’s $10 monthly pension and a critical lack of basic supplies.
Food, power, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical shortages have ignited persistent protests this year and driven Cuba’s ongoing exodus of working-age adults.
The result has been nothing short of devastating for the country’s retirees.
“It’s a nightmare in every direction. This is an SOS. Cuba is about to collapse in a fatal way,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, a long-time anti-Cuban regime activist and president of the Democracy Movement in Miami.
“People can’t really imagine, especially from outside, making elderly people live in such inhumane conditions,” Sanchez told The Epoch Times.
“Because of the deterioration of the economy and the lack of interest of the Cuban regime, they aren’t helping those who need it,” he said. “Retirement pension maybe allows you to buy a dozen eggs a month. That’s it.”
Another lawsuit from Texas over the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border, but this one wasn’t from Ken Paxton. ” Border Counties, Residents Sue Biden Administration, Alleging Refusal to Enforce Immigration Laws.”
A grim scene of death, destruction, and crime is described among the harms suffered by two Texas border counties in a lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging that the “willful and unconstitutional” refusal to enforce federal law has resulted in unprecedented harm inflicted upon the rural communities.
Kinney and Atascosa counties, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe, and rancher Dr. Michael Vickers are the plaintiffs in the petition filed in the federal district court for the Southern District of Texas this past week naming President Joe Biden, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Majorkas, and other federal immigration officials as defendants.
The plaintiffs raised unique arguments not yet seen in other legal disputes over the border crisis, including that the Biden administration violated the U.S. Constitution’s Take Care Clause and a law requiring environmental impact studies.
The Take Care Clause in Article II, Section 3 states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
“Immediately upon being sworn into office, the current Administration has pursued immigration policies that are not only at odds with Congress’s statutory scheme and directives but are objectively calculated to dismantle proven border security programs or craft novel administrative processing ‘pathways’ to permit inadmissible aliens to enter and remain inside the country,” the lawsuit alleges.
Among the examples contained in the complaint, the Biden administration is accused of abusing prosecutorial discretion to effectively rewrite immigration law, paroling more illegal aliens into the nation in the past year than lawful aliens.
The administration also adopted a policy allowing illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds to remain in the country, contrary to laws that require deportation.
“Collectively, Defendants’ actions signaled to potential border crossers—and to the human trafficking and drug cartels that coordinate illegal border crossing—that the Administration is unwilling to secure our border,” the lawsuit states, adding, “Defendants have completely abdicated their statutory responsibilities, allowed or encouraged the southern border to be overrun, and are violating their duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
The plaintiffs then described the harms they have suffered as a result of the alleged policies, with Vickers noting illegal aliens have caused $50,000 worth of damages on his ranch since 2021, not including trash the aliens have left behind that has harmed both livestock and the environment.
Vickers said he must also constantly remain armed, noting that with the increased illegal immigration, numerous gang members are also coming to his ranch, including MS-13, Tango Blast, the Pistoleros, and the Mexican Mafia.
Citing another shocking result of the policies, he said that since 2021 over 270 dead bodies have been found within 15 minutes of his home.
The counties also described the unprecedented burden the crisis places on local government.
The lawsuit explains that in 2020, before the Biden administration implemented its current border policies, Kinney County handled 134 criminal charges.
From there, it skyrocketed within a year to 2,708 criminal cases and continued to climb to 6,800 in 2022. Most recently, it faced 5,826 cases in 2023.
The crime has strained the rural communities’ limited financial resources.
The lawsuit asks the court to enjoin the Biden administration’s policies that run contrary to federal law, citing causes for relief under both an administrative rule-making statute and the Take Care Clause.
State Rep. Shawn Thierry (D-Houston) is switching parties to the GOP, she announced Friday at an event in Washington, D.C. held by Moms for Liberty.
“The Democratic Party has veered so far left, so deep into the progressive abyss, that it now champions policies I cannot, in good conscience, support — policies like promoting sex changes for vulnerable children and dismantling Title IX protections for women in sports. That’s why I am leaving the left and joining the party of family, faith, and freedom,” Thierry said in a release.
“I now stand with colleagues, friends, neighbors, women, and mothers in the Republican Party.”
Thierry lost her primary runoff to Lauren Simmons, and the legislature is out of session, so no change in the legislative status quo.
Current rate per megawatt hour: $36. What New York pays for wind power $155 per megawatt hour.
Here’s an interesting ruling: “US judge tosses machine gun possession case, calls ban unconstitutional.”
A federal judge has dismissed charges against a Kansas man for possessing a machine gun, saying prosecutors failed to establish that a federal ban on owning such weapons is constitutional.
The decision, by U.S. District Judge John Broomes in Wichita on Wednesday appeared to mark the first time a court has held that banning machine guns is unconstitutional after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 issued a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights.
In that ruling, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court established a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The Supreme Court clarified that standard in June as it upheld a ban on people subject to domestic violence restraining orders having guns, saying a modern firearms restriction needs only a “historical analogue,” not a “historical twin,” to be valid.
Broomes, an appointee of Republican then-President Donald Trump, said prosecutors in Tamori Morgan’s case failed to identify such a historical analogue to support charging him with violating the machine gun ban.
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) will send multiple staff members to Harris County to inspect records and procedures and assist the elections division during the 2024 general election, citing multiple issues uncovered in a state audit of the county’s management of past elections.
According to a press release from Secretary of State Jane Nelson, the SOS “will assign state inspectors to Harris County to perform checks on election records, including tapes and chain-of-custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media during the November 2024 election period.”
SOS will also send staff to assist the county for the duration of the election period, from early voting to Election Day and through tabulation.
The SOS announced the planned “enhanced presence” along with the final results of an audit of the 2022 elections, which included findings the county had not followed state law in maintaining voter registration rolls and in providing the required minimum amounts of ballot paper to all polling sites.
Ballot paper shortages halted voting at multiple locations on Election Day 2022.
According to state law, officials must provide each polling site with ballots equivalent to 125 percent of voter turnout in the last corresponding election. Under former Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum the county only provided 600 ballots to locations that had processed twice that many voters in 2018; a former county employee has been charged with six felonies in relation to the ballot paper allocation.
SOS Elections Division auditors also found that the county had not provided adequate training to election workers, which contributed to widespread equipment failures across multiple elections, and had failed to comply with state paperwork requirements.
During a Texas House Committee on Elections hearing on Monday, SOS Elections Director Christina Adkins briefed lawmakers on the results of the audit. She noted that after moving from a paperless system to paper ballots in May 2021, Harris County had not provided hands-on training for election judges and clerks.
As a result, Adkins said voting ceased for an hour or more at multiple polling locations during the November 2021 elections, with 17 sites not processing any voters until more than an hour after the scheduled opening due to equipment problems. Despite the issues, then-County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria did not revise training procedures prior to the March 2022 primary election, which had similar problems.
Adkins also noted that Harris County failed to include 10,000 ballots in preliminary counts after the March 2022 primaries, a discrepancy that was identified by a reconciliation report required by election reform legislation enacted in 2021. The ballots were kept on a thumb drive, but Adkins noted that counties develop their own tracking procedures for the devices.
”I don’t recall that they had a lot of paperwork to show us on tracking that process,” said Adkins.
The county has also struggled to maintain voter registration rolls. Adkins told lawmakers that Harris is one of 33 counties that use a third-party vendor for management of voter rolls, leading to significant discrepancies between state and local databases.
The final audit noted that while the discrepancies “may seem minor in comparison to the total number of registered voters, the inconsistencies make it difficult to validate election data.”
In his stated effort to uphold election integrity in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that more than one million people have been removed from the state’s voter rolls.
As part of the announcement, Abbott provided a chart that shows over 1.1 million voters in various categories are flagged as “removed,” including over 457,000 deceased individuals and over 463,000 voters on the “suspense list.”
Additionally, over 134,000 voters failed to respond to an address confirmation notice, while over 6,500 are noncitizens and over 6,000 have felony convictions.
Abbott highlighted Senate Bill (SB) 1, which was signed into law in 2021, that added provisions designed to prevent fraud by adding criminal statutes, prohibiting unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, and setting additional ground rules for early voting and voter registration.
“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” said Abbott in his recent press release.
“I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crack down on illegal voting. These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state.”
Abbott added that the Texas Secretary of State has “an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution.”
“Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated.”
In addition to SB 1, Abbott has signed multiple other bills to crack down on illegal voting. This includes House Bill (HB) 1243, which increases the penalty for illegal voting to a second-degree felony; SB 1113, which empowers the Secretary of State to withhold funds from counties that fail to remove noncitizens from voter rolls; and HB 574, which criminalizes knowingly counting invalid votes.
Whereas O’Rourke spent much of his time on the road doing a glorified whistle-stop tour of the state, Allred’s camp has opted for carpet bombing the Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Beaumont, and Rio Grande Valley media markets with ads.
According to the Cruz campaign, the television spend breakdown so far is $5.9 million for Allred and $265,000 for Cruz; Allred’s campaign declined to confirm any numbers. National political ad-tracking firm AdImpact put the Cruz deficit among all entities and groups at a much larger figure: $21.7 million to $2.2 million.
I expect Cruz to win by more than he did in 2018, especially in a Presidential election year, but I’m sure Ted could use more money.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit held that a novel type of search warrant used to collect digital record data is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.
The case arose from the robbery of a postal service worker in Mississippi, where surveillance video showed one of the robbers checking his cell phone during his escape after taking a mailbag containing $60,706 at gunpoint from the postman.
After coming up short of other ways to identify the perpetrators, postal inspector agents obtained what are known as geofencing warrants, which ultimately led to Gilbert McThunel’s arrest and conviction for the crime.
Geofencing warrants, the court explained, are different from normal search warrants that are based on probable cause and allow the police to search a known specific person or thing. Instead, law enforcement uses geofencing warrants when the identity of the suspect isn’t known, such as in this instance.
The warrants work in reverse from traditional search warrants. Most commonly, as with this case, investigators ask Google to search a database containing data from every one of their users who has their location history enabled on their smartphones.
Approximately one-third of Google’s 592 million users have their location history feature turned on, which silently tracks the location of the device through cell signals, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth every two minutes, uploading that location data to a “Sensorvault.”
When Google receives a geofencing warrant, the company must search all records in the Sensorvault for location data that corresponds to the warrant — for all accounts that were within a certain geographic location at a certain time.
I’m conflicted on this. I can see situations where a geofence warrant may be justified for serious crimes, but they also offer a real possibility of government abuse (such as January 6th defendants).
California continues to California: “Dems Pass Bill to Give Illegal Immigrants $150,000 Home Loans — but the Program Is Broke.”
The latest business slammed by the Biden Recession: RVs. Also, holy crap, have RVs gotten ridiculously expensive. I guess they’re pricing them against owning a home these days…
Dwight alerted me to this story last week, and I told him “I’m waiting for the followup when the police capture the man and it turns out his name is Abbas Mohammed Jihad.” Well: “3 people were killed and 6 others injured at a diversity festival in Solingen, Germany, when a man with a knife went on a rampage…According to reports from the scene, and according to a German newspaper, witnesses heard the unidentified attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” during what is being called a potential act of terrorism.” Sometimes it sucks to be so psychic…
Dispatches from Tim Walz’s Minnesota: CBS News was running a segment on car thefts and a car theft happened while they were filing.
She dug deeper into the nonprofit’s bank records and found much more that concerned her. Mansion rentals. Vet bills. Luxury clothes. Finally, a stay at a Cancun resort. Ms. Banks scrolled back through Facebook to the week that resort bill was paid. She saw her boss, [Raheem AI president] Brandon D. Anderson, posing in a pool.
The photo was tagged: “Cancun.”
Snip.
They investigated and questioned more than $250,000 in charges since 2021 alone, internal documents show.
Among them: Mr. Anderson — who was paid a salary of $160,000 — had spent $1,500 of the charity’s money at a chiropractor; $5,000 on veterinary care; and an astounding $46,000 on ride-share services like Uber and Lyft. Most confoundingly, the nonprofit had paid $80,000 for luxury vacation rentals, including a service that let members stay in luxury mansions around the world, according to the board’s accounting.
And since Raheem AI is an anti-police organization, no one wanted to go to the cops… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
A teacher in Round Rock Independent School District was arrested for sex crimes involving children.
Domingo Perez Jr., also known as Dominic, was a science teacher at Stony Point High School through the 2023-2024 school year.
Perez was arrested and booked into the Williamson County Jail on August 21.
He is facing charges of indecency with a child by sexual contact—a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison—and possession of 50 or more images or videos of child pornography, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison.
Yes, they are trying to Trans your kids:
These images were reportedly taken inside @MMSDschools in Wisconsin.
This school is trying to destroy "heteronormative thinking" and replace it with a "queer affirming network?"
Concord and Dustborn were two AAA gaming title that had three things in common: they both cost a lot of money, they both pushed social justice, and they both tanked hard on release. Unlike Black Myth Wukong, which social justice game journalist sites criticized relentlessly and which sold 10 million copies…
Critical Drinker calls The Crow reboot the worst film of the year. “A violent, grimy and bleak exercise in stupidity.”
Comedian Gary Gulman on how the states got their abbreviations. Conan O’Brien said this was one of the funniest bits ever on his show, and it’s pretty good.
Remember how Donald Trump was ahead in several states election night only for tons of Biden ballots to be “found” at 4 AM? I hope all Republican officials in every state are working overtime to prevent similar occurrences this November.
Texas Attorney Ken Paxton seems to be taking nothing for granted, as the Elections Integrity Unit just executed several warrants.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced that his office had carried out search operations as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged election fraud.
A statement from Paxton’s office reads, “On August 20, 2024, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Election Integrity Unit executed multiple search warrants in Frio, Atascosa, and Bexar Counties as part of an ongoing election integrity investigation.”
Bexar County is the big one here, being home to San Antonio, whereas Atascosa and Frio are directly south and southwest of San Antonio. The geographic clustering suggests the warrants may all be part of the same election fraud case.
These searches are the result of a 2022 referral by 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Louis, who flagged concerns about alleged voter fraud and ballot harvesting in the 2022 elections.
“Secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic,” Paxton said. “We were glad to assist when the District Attorney referred this case to my office for investigation. We are completely committed to protecting the security of the ballot box and the integrity of every legal vote. This means ensuring accountability for anyone committing election crimes.”
Paxton’s involvement in this case is made possible only through the referral by the local District Attorney. This follows a December 2021 ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeals—Texas’ highest court on criminal matters—that declared a state law granting the attorney general unilateral authority to prosecute election cases unconstitutional. The court argued that the Texas Constitution does not expressly provide the attorney general with such authority.
Following reports of organizations potentially working in Texas to register illegal aliens to vote, Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced his office is launching an investigation.
According to a release from Paxton’s office:
Investigators from the Texas Attorney General’s Election Integrity Unit recently conducted undercover operations to identify potential voter registration of noncitizens in Texas. The investigation has already confirmed that various nonprofit organizations have been located outside Texas Department of Public Safety Driver License offices, operating booths offering to assist in voter registration for persons doing business at the driver’s license offices. But all citizens have already been presented an opportunity to register to vote as part of the process of renewing or being issued an identification card or driver’s license, so there is no obvious need to assist citizens to register to vote outside DPS offices—calling into question the motives of the nonprofit groups.
I wonder if these unnamed organizations had “justice” or “tides” in their name.
Paxton said the possibility of this activity is deeply troubling to Texans.
“If eligible citizens can legally register to vote when conducting their business at a DPS office, why would they need a second opportunity to register with a booth outside? My office is investigating every credible report we receive regarding potential criminal activity that could compromise the integrity of our elections,” said Paxton.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has intentionally flooded our country with illegal aliens, and without proper safeguards, foreign nationals can illegally influence elections at the local, state, and national level. It is a crime to vote—or to register to vote—if you are not a United States Citizen. Any wrongdoing will be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” he added.
Gov. Greg Abbott expressed support for Paxton’s investigation on X.
Illegally registering non-citizens to vote won't be tolerated in Texas.
It's a crime.
Attorney General @KenPaxtonTX is thoroughly investigating it.
Fortunately, Texas has strong Voter ID laws that should prevent illegal aliens from voting in the 2024 election, but Paxton is obviously trying to close off all potential fraud vectors. Despite what your Facebook friends may post, Texas is in no danger of turning blue anytime soon, but voting could easily tip some down-ballot races. Best to nip it in the bud.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Tuesday that a data analyst with the now-defunct county Elections Administration Office (EAO) has been charged with six felonies in relation to the 2022 general election.
Hired by the EAO in April 2021, Darryl Blackburn oversaw allocation of resources — including the number of paper ballots provided to polling sites — but investigators say he took another full-time job in the oil and gas industry in October 2021. While submitting time sheets to the county claiming he was working from home, Blackburn was working at his other job during an overlap period of about 15 months.
Blackburn has been charged with five counts of tampering with a government document, and one charge of theft by a public official. According to Michael Levine, Chief Assistant District Attorney of Public Corruption, Blackburn earned $43 per hour for a total of $90,000 from the county while drawing a salary of more than $250,000 at his other job.
I know the Biden Recession has been tough on a lot of people, but if you’re making $250,000 a year, you hardly need to be double-dipping to make ends meet.
On Election Day 2022, Blackburn reported working 18 hours for Harris County but also claimed to work 8 hours for his other employer.
His bond has been set at $65,000.
The charges stem from the county’s fraught November 2022 elections that drew not only multiple election contests but also criminal complaints. While the county’s election problems included delayed openings, malfunctioning equipment, and missing staff, a Texas Secretary of State audit listed a ballot paper shortage as the reason voting came to a halt at multiple polling locations on Election Day.
Remember that the lack of ballots was a big issue, with some charging that it was Republican precincts that got slighted.
“We know there are some people in Harris County who did not get to vote. We know this was a failure in terms of an election that the government has a responsibility to run effectively, ethically, and most importantly, accurately,” said Ogg.
Don’t forget that the last election coordinator before Blackburn, Isabel Longoria, screwed up so badly she had to resign. More:
Harris County Commissioners Court created the EAO in July 2020, but the first appointed administrator Isabel Longoria was forced to resign after several botched elections. The second administrator Clifford Tatum presided over the 2022 election, but was ousted by a new state law returning elections to elected officials last year.
“The Harris County Commissioners Court are the ones who placed themselves … in supervisory control because they created the Office of Elections Administration,” said Ogg. “So, they had control. The Elections Administrators Isabel Longoria and Clifford Tatum did not report to the public.”
“It’s unclear to us whether they ever reported to anybody other than the statements that they made in commissioners court,” said Ogg, who noted that Tatum had come from out of state. “We see a lot of people from other places appointed here in this county.”
While Ogg has been lambasted by her own Democratic Party for pursuing the investigation, she said that on receipt of two or more complaints the Harris County District Attorney’s Office (HCDAO) is required by law to investigate. In late 2022, the HCDAO turned the complaints over to the Texas Rangers.
“It is extremely important to look at these crimes in a non-partisan way and go based on the evidence by applying the law, which is our oath in Texas as prosecutors,” said Ogg.
Corruption and incompetence under the management of Democratic Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (including felony indictments for her aides) seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
(@iAnonPatriot) 
