Democrats take a good, hard, sober look at their policies to determine why voters abandoned them in drove. Ha, just kidding! It’s all racism all the way down:
In response to Republican Glenn Youngkin’s win in yesterday’s Virginia gubernatorial race — as well as Republican wins all the way down the ballot — left-wing pundits and celebrities immediately began to assert that the Democratic losses were the result of voters’ white-supremacist sympathies.
Yeah, that’s the reason voters turned out in droves to elect a black Republican Lt. Governor: white supremacy.
Even Politico writers got in on the action, asserting in this morning’s newsletter that Youngkin’s strategy included “racial appeals to working-class white voters.” During elections results coverage last night, MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace asserted that “critical race theory, which isn’t real, turned the suburbs 15 points to the Trump-insurrection endorsed Republican.”
Also on MSNBC last night, host Joy Reid spent much of the evening insisting that the education issue, an enormous part of Youngkin’s successful appeal to Virginia parents, was a dog whistle for racism. Plenty of progressives, including Reid herself, began pushing this line well before Election Day.
And that worked out so well for them.
Already, progressives are pointing to exit polls showing an enormous swing to the GOP among white working-class women, who voted for Joe Biden last fall but supported Youngkin this time around — the nasty implication being that these women were motivated to vote by Republicans’ supposedly racist agenda. Totally ignored, or even outright dismissed, are the many nonwhite voters who backed the GOP.
McAuliffe himself obliquely indulged in this fantasy in his statement conceding the election.
On several counts, progressives have begun to coalesce around a narrative that doesn’t hang together — one that displays a shocking unwillingness to grapple with the problems facing their party. For one thing, it makes little sense to assert both that critical race theory doesn’t exist and that parents who oppose it are doing so because they don’t want their children to learn about race or slavery.
If progressives admit that CRT exists at all, they pretend that it’s merely an effort to teach school children about the complicated history of race in our country. In fact, a quick investigation reveals that the proposed curricula contain, in most cases, highly inaccurate history aimed at indoctrinating kids into racially divisive identity politics.
Parents have legitimate concerns about such curricula, including understandable resistance to misrepresenting history, stoking guilt and division among children, and perhaps even encouraging race-based bullying. Dismissing these parents as white supremacists for having these concerns is unlikely to succeed either in persuading them to think differently about the curriculum in question or to vote for Democrats the next time around.
Finally, the “white supremacist” theory for Democratic losses intentionally ignores that two of the top Republican candidates voted into office were Winsome Sears, a female Jamaican immigrant elected lieutenant governor, and Jason Miyares, a Cuban American who was elected attorney general. It’s hard to imagine why Virginians voting en masse for the GOP out of thinly veiled racial animus would throw in their lot with this ticket.
Logic has never been the Democratic Party’s strong suit.
While former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s loss to Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin was cemented very late on election night, in practice the day that he forfeited the gubernatorial race was September 28. That was when, during a debate with Youngkin, McAuliffe, a Democrat, made the statement that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
That was his response to questions about school curriculum and the fury that had taken hold at many local school board meetings, where irate parents assailed education leaders for allegedly supporting what has been termed “critical race theory” by right-wing activists who oppose it. CRT is a divisive concept, in part because progressives and conservative disagree sharply about what it even is. Many members of the liberal media don’t even believe it exists, and have accused the GOP of fabricating the issue. As Youngkin’s victory became apparent, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace lamented that critical race theory, “which isn’t even real,” had swung the suburbs 15 points in Republicans’ favor.
Well, they can’t really racialize it because a number of Black parents and immigrant parents have stood with their White brothers and sisters to reject critical race theory, which is very harmful to Black and minority children. It’s a violation of our civil rights laws. It’s un-American because it involves shaming and bullying children and it runs counter to our Constitution. And so, they can say what they want with their Marxist agenda and their false narratives but the American people spoke in my home state of Virginia and I could not be more proud of them.
McAuliffe’s loss is a victory for all Americans. Why? Because it was a resounding rejection of efforts to divide us by race, the stripping of parental rights, and arrogant, deaf leaders. This benefits us all.
Democratic political strategist James Carville blamed his party’s recent losses and weak performance in state elections on “stupid wokeness” on Wednesday.
“PBS NewsHour” host Judy Woodruff asked Carville what went wrong for the Democratic Party in the Virginia gubernatorial race in which Republican Glenn Youngkin beat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
“What went wrong is just stupid wokeness. Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Wash. I mean, this ‘defund the police’ lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools. I mean that — people see that,” Carville said.
“It’s just really — has a suppressive effect all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a ‘woke’ detox center or something,” he added. “They’re expressing a language that people just don’t use, and there’s backlash and a frustration at that.”
Will Democrats heed his warning and abandon their suicidal drive for social justice, forced transgenderism and critical race theory?
Other news I missed: The Alexandria Ocasio Cortez-backed socialist running as a Democrat for mayor of Buffalo lost, despite being the only candidate on the ballot.
The incumbent Democratic mayor of Buffalo, running as a write-in candidate, declared victory Tuesday night as he held a nearly 20-point lead over his Democratic Party opponent.
India Walton, a socialist backed by many high-profile progressives, refused to concede to Mayor Byron Brown in the highly publicized contest until her campaign sees “all the votes,” her spokesman Jesse Myerson told The Post via text.
Brown, 63, who lost to Walton in the June Democratic primary, claimed what would be a stunning victory in a speech to supporters from his campaign headquarters shortly after 11 p.m.
“Today’s election, it’s not just a referendum on the future of the city of Buffalo, it was a referendum on the future of our democracy,” Brown said.
Both Walton and Brown are black, so I’m sure the reason he won was racism…
Republicans won four contested City Council races in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island and had a shot at taking a fifth in a potential upset.
Republican Inna Vernikov thumped her Democratic opponent Steve Saperstein for an open seat in southern Brooklyn’s 48th Council District by nearly 30 points.
With 87 percent of the vote in, Vernikov, a 37-year-old lawyer and Ukraine native, garnered 10,768 votes, or 65 percent of the vote, to 5,870 votes, or 35 percent, for Saperstein.
She will succeed ex-Councilman Chaim Deutsch, who forfeited his seat earlier this year when he was convicted of tax fraud.
The district includes many Russian-speaking and Jewish immigrants in the communities of Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Homecrest.
Vernikov ran as an unabashed supporter of former President Donald Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. endorsed her in a robocall to voters. She also opposed coronavirus vaccine mandates.
“I’m very excited. This election victory shows that the people are fed up with the progressive policies that have destroyed our city and district,” Vernikov told The Post last night.
Snip.
Vickie Paladino led former Democratic Councilman Tony Avella with 99 percent of the votes in. Paladino had the support of 12,143 votes, or 50 percent, to 10,490, or 43 percent, for Avella. John-Alexander Sakelos, running on the Conservative and Save Our City lines, received 1,729 votes or 7 percent.
Snip.
In another shocker, Democratic Councilman Justin Brannan, who is running to become the next council speaker, is fighting for political survival.
With 95 percent of the vote in, Brannan was locked in a dead heat with Republican Brian Fox in the 43rd District that takes in communities including Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights.
Other Republicans holding onto GOP seats: David Carr (not the former Texans quarterback) and Joann Ariola, who beat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-backed Felica Singh.
Another shocking loss for the hard left in deep-blue Seattle: “Republican Ann Davison is leading police- and jail-abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy in the race for city attorney.” Also, in the Mayor’s race, “Bruce Harrell, a former City Council president who urged adding police, including unarmed officers, rather than cutting funding, held a commanding lead of nearly 30 percentage points over current Council President Lorena González as additional ballots were counted Wednesday.” To be fair, Davison is a pretty nominal Republican.
Though it looks like Murphy will hold on to the governor’s mansion in New Jersey, “Republican Edward Durr, Truck Driver Who Spent $153 on Campaign, Defeats New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney.”
The second-largest school bond in the state faced a narrow defeat Tuesday night as Leander ISD voters rejected the $727.2 million proposition. The proposal would’ve financed the construction of new buildings, including five new schools, and the renovation of two existing schools to expand capacity.
The final margin was one percentage point, amounting to 215 votes difference in the school district with over 40,000 students. Leander ISD said the bond, along with two others on the ballot Tuesday, was necessary for the population growth the district expects to come.
Those other two finished with slim margins, as well. Proposition B, a $33 million bond to finance technology upgrades including laptops for students and faculty, passed by 805 votes, and Proposition C, a performing arts center upgrade, failed by 765 votes.
House the homeless in a literal shithole (with visible feces in one picture of the place), and
By an amazing coincidence, is run by a non-profit founded by Andrew Cuomo and now run by his sister Maria Cuomo Cole.
(I think that this is the news story he reads from at some point.)
“The top executives of Help USA earn $200,000 to $375,000 a year, and many of them have contributed heavily to NY Gov. Cuomo’s campaigns.”
“Board members associated with various homeless shelters have gifted the governor $322,972.50, while donors associated with Help USA, a shelter service provider founded by the governor and chaired by his sister, Maria Cuomo Cole, have ponied up $451,285 in donations.”
Thirty five hundred to four thousand dollars per month per individual for people to stay in shitholes like this. This is being done so that the people who run these charities can pay themselves insane amounts of money and get away with it. And the reason that it continues to happen is because of the incestuous relationship that exists between many of the people who run this not-for-profit, and the people that run the state and city government.
“This is an incestuous and disgusting relationship.”
He proposes a voucher system instead that, while it would be an improvement, A.) Is inferior to actually letting the free market build free housing, something New York (city and state) actively implements legislation to prevent, and B.) Would never be passed, because government homeless programs exist to transfer money from taxpayers to Democrats. That, not helping the homeless, is their primary purpose.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has been staying with one of his sisters in Westchester County in the final days of his third term, recently has asked staff members at the Executive Mansion if anyone would like to keep his dog, Captain, who has remained at the state-owned residence after the governor moved out last week.
Two State Police sources told the Times Union on Saturday that the governor had recently asked mansion staff members if anyone would be interested in caring for the dog. Captain — a high-strung mix of shepherd, Siberian and malamute — has nipped a few people since Cuomo adopted him in 2018, the sources said, and a mansion staffer recently took the dog home for a few days but decided he was too much.
Cuomo mouthpiece Richard Azzopardi swears up and down that the soon-to-be Ex-Governor (he leaves office just before noon today) just wants to have someone look after it while he’s on vacation, but others say he’s tried to give the dog away. And really, who believes Andrew Freaking Cuomo, he of the $5 million book deal, can’t afford a dog sitter for two weeks?
Cuomo abandoning his dog is just the last brick in the narcissistic scumbag wall.
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Biden not just dropping, but deflating and throwing away the ball on border security, Andrew Cuomo finally behaves badly enough for the MSM to notice, and some tidbits about hacking attacks.
Biden’s proposed budget wants to cutting funding for border security…by 96%:
His administration has presented Congress with a Department of Homeland Security budget proposal that calls for slashing spending on what it calls “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” by 96%.
In fiscal year 2021, Congress approved $1,513,000,000 in funding for border security assets and infrastructure. Biden is now asking that Congress approve just $54,315,000 for fiscal year 2022. That is a reduction of $1,458,685,000—or 96.4%.
What exactly is Biden cutting?
Biden’s DHS has presented Congress with a 562-page “overview” of its fiscal year 2022 budget proposal for Customs and Border Protection. The explanation for its “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” plan is presented on pages 326 through 350 of this document.
The presentation divides “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” into six categories: Integrated Fixed Towers; Remote Video Surveillance Systems; Mobile Video Surveillance System; MVSS-M2S2 Modular Mobile Surveillance System; Border Security Assets and Infrastructure End Items; and Border Wall System Program.
In the past two fiscal years—as reported in Biden’s proposal—the Border Wall System Program has been the most significant of these. “This investment,” it says, “includes real estate and environmental planning, land acquisition, wall system design, construction, and construction and oversight of a physical barrier system.”
In fiscal year 2020, it received $1,375,000,000. In fiscal year 2021, it received the same amount.
Now, if Biden gets his way, the federal government will not spend one penny in fiscal year 2022 on planning or constructing a “physical barrier system” at the border.
Obviously, Democrats want a massive influx of illegal aliens so they can amnesty them and have them vote for Democrats. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
As illegal aliens are still being allowed to cross Texas’ open border, U.S. Border Patrol has reportedly reassigned all hands from “apprehending” to “processing.” A former federal agent says these massive waves of illegal aliens are one of the “biggest sources” of rising cases of the Chinese coronavirus and advises Texans to contact all their state officials to stop illegal crossings at the border.
Victor Avila, a former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, has previously told Texas Scorecard that federal and state officials aren’t making serious efforts to stop illegal aliens from crossing the border. He said the number of illegal border crossings has recently skyrocketed.
On Tuesday, Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith (R) told Texas Scorecard that U.S. Border Patrol informed him they had been given new orders. “They’ve all been reassigned to processing,” Smith said. “None of them are actually going to be enforcing the border.” Avila commented, “That is what I’m hearing exactly.”
Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe described processing as “paperwork, documentation, etc.”
“We’re in a bad spot now,” Smith said. “Texas is on its own.”
Speaking of border security: “Texas landowner fears for kids’ safety amid worsening border crisis, says they can’t play outside anymore.”
“More Illegal Immigrants, Border Agents Testing Positive for COVID-19.” The way Democrats love expanding governemnt in the name of fighting Flu Manchu, you wonder if this is a bug or a feature… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans released their report on COVID-19’s origins, pointing to evidence of a lab leak, genetic modification, and a cover-up, making the case the virus accidentally emerged from the Wuhan lab in August or September 2019.” Or pretty much what every conservative blogger has been saying for almost a year and a half…
This week’s Democratic political scandal de jour is an official state probe of New York Governor Andrew “Granny Killer” Cuomo committed multiple instances of sexual harassment. “These interviews and pieces of evidence revealed a deeply disturbing yet clear picture: Gov. Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of federal and state laws,” said State Attorney General Letitia James. It would be ironic if it was this rather than killing some 15,000 elderly New Yorkers by putting Flu Manchu cases in nursing homes that brought Cuomo down.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, once widely celebrated for leading New York out of the coronavirus pandemic’s darkest days, is now embroiled in crisis over how many of the state’s nursing home residents died because of the virus and an apparent effort to hide the true toll.
Beginning last spring, Mr. Cuomo was criticized over a state requirement that forced nursing homes to take back residents who had been hospitalized with Covid-19 once they recovered. Critics said the policy had increased the number of virus-related deaths among nursing home residents.
At the time, Mr. Cuomo and his aides dismissed the outcry as politically motivated, and in July, the State Health Department released a report that found the policy was not responsible for an increase. The report did, however, raise questions in some quarters about how the state was reporting deaths.
In January, New York’s attorney general said the administration had undercounted nursing home deaths by several thousand. Mr. Cuomo later acknowledged as much, blaming the lower figure on fears that the Trump administration would use the data as a political weapon.
“Don’t you see? We had to lie to you, because Orange Man Bad!”
The suggestion that the actual death count had been covered up intensified criticism of Mr. Cuomo, including from his allies in state government. The scandal deepened after reports that the governor’s aides had altered the July report to hide the true figure.
In April, The New York Times reported that Mr. Cuomo’s aides had gone to far greater lengths than previously known to obscure the death toll, repeatedly overruling state health officials over a span of at least five months.
First, there was the nursing-home scandal, in which Governor Cuomo deliberately undercounted the number of seniors who died due to his directive placing COVID-positive residents back into understaffed, underequipped nursing homes — and then misled New Yorkers and federal officials about it. Estimates suggest that as many as 15,000 New York seniors due to his actions. Worse yet, while covering up these deaths, he took a cool $5.1 million to write a book touting his COVID leadership and then allegedly used state staff and resources to produce this propaganda piece. One needn’t be a skeptic to link the timing of the deal to the cover-up of the scandal.
And that’s just one of the many fires engulfing the Cuomo administration. At this point, it’s hard to keep up with the litany of abuses perpetrated by Governor Cuomo and his staff. Despite anointing himself as a champion of women, Cuomo has been hit with more than ten accusations of sexual harassment since December. First, he said he’d investigate these allegations himself. When public pressure forced him to establish independent investigations of the charges, he stalled for time and declined to comment while the investigations played out. Now, with a Democratic state attorney general investigating the claims, the governor and his top aides have stonewalled, threatened, and gaslit witnesses and state officials, accusing them of playing political games.
There have also been reports that Cuomo’s friends, family, and donors received preferential access to COVID-19 tests and health information. There’s the matter of a $62 million COVID-related state contract being given to a medical network that donated $230,000 to the Cuomo campaign. There’s the claim by gaming interests that the governor’s team threatened them until they coughed up campaign money. And another investigation is centered around allegations that a top Cuomo aide linked vaccine access to political support of the governor.
In an attempt to silence these stories, the governor has responded with brute force. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is on the record as saying Governor Cuomo hurls invective at officials and the media to make them feel “belittled.” Democratic assemblyman Ron Kim — who lost a close family member to COVID in a New York nursing home — called for Cuomo to provide answers about the nursing-home tragedy. Cuomo personally phoned Kim and threatened to “destroy” him, before holding a press conference in which Kim was referred to as a “habitual liar.” Democratic state senator Alessandra Biaggi has released text messages showing threats she’s received from the Cuomo administration.
The behavior displayed by Governor Cuomo is appalling, but it’s nothing new. This is who he is, and who he has always been.
More ethical lapses snipped.
The obvious lies, the ham-fisted cover-ups, the corruption — we’ve seen it all time and time again from this governor. When there’s even a hint of an investigation into wrongdoing that implicates him or his cabal, Cuomo cuts his losses and scorches the earth. This is who he is: a mean-spirited bully with a flagrant disregard for the rule of law, ruthless in defense of his own venal interests and public image.
The Cuomo administration has run the gamut of travesties and tragedies. Personal viciousness is the governor’s calling card, and criminal behavior his M.O. Even as they’re barraged with one scandal and outrageous revelation after another, he and his inner circle continue to operate as though it’s all business as usual. So why is Cuomo still the governor of New York? Democratic lawmakers — the very same ones who called on him to resign when the sexual-harassment claims first emerged — continue to stand with him and normalize his behavior more than seven months later, partially out of fear and partially out of a complete lack of interest in governing.
Meanwhile, Cuomo seems locked into the Ralph Northam strategy: Assume that the (D) after his name absolves him of all sins against Social Justice and just wait out the storm confident no one will dare hold him accountable for his actions. And don’t forget the media’s nonstop fluffing of Cuomo back in 2020:
The Rolling Stone cover; Politico declaring him a “social media superstar”; Harry Enten of CNN declaring that, “The rise of Cuomo shows that times of tragedy can make very unlikely political heroes”; Carl Bernstein declaring that, “[It’s] real leadership of the kind the president of the United States should have provided to the American people throughout this crisis, but hasn’t”; Jesse McKinley and Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times declaring that, “Cuomo’s handling of the crisis has fostered a nationwide following; Mr. Biden called Mr. Cuomo’s briefings a ‘lesson in leadership,’ and others have described them as communal therapy sessions”; Ben Smith of the New York Times declaring that, “Cuomo has emerged as the executive best suited for the coronavirus crisis”; the New York Post (!) declaring that New York women were developing crushes on him; and Jen Rubin gushing: “Watching Andrew Cuomo is inspiring, uplifting, fascinating. He weaves details and humor and math and common sense all together. He is magnificent.” Even the Columbia Journalism Review started to worry that the adoring tone of the coverage was overlooking real problems with Cuomo’s decision-making.
And this is all separate from his appearances on his brother’s CNN program. I suspect you remember or can find examples I didn’t list above. Oh, another classic example, from Rebecca Fishbein of Jezebel: “I swooned when he told a reporter he had his own workout routine. I have watched a clip of him and brother Chris Cuomo bickering about their mother at least 20 times. I think I have a crush?”
Democrats in Washington want Andrew Cuomo to resign to allow the Democrat lieutenant governor to run New York state. If a Republican were next in line for the job, Democrats would be falling on grenades for Cuomo. That is, after all, what happened in Virginia when Governor Black Face unleashed his oppo research on the Democrats in the line of succession.
There are no criminal charges against Cuomo.
Cuomo’s problem is not sexual harassment. His problem is Democrats see him as a threat if he chooses to run for president.
Democrats in Washington want no part of playing second fiddle to an outsider. They had their fill of outsiders as presidents with Bill Clinton. Democrat senators want the White House all to themselves. In the 6 presidential elections since Clinton, Democrats have nominated a senator or former senator for president and vice president each time.
National Review wants you to know that Huey Long was a bad role model. Or you could just, you know, watch All the King’s Men, which remains a timeless classic. It won the Oscar in back-to-back years with All About Eve, another timeless classic, both of which showed you what the old studio system could achieve when they were working at the top of their game.
Inside the fight against a ransomware attack against the Texas town of Borger (which is way the hell up north of Amarillo):
In Borger, a city of fewer than 13,000, early indications were worrisome as the city raced to shut down its computers.
Gibberish ransom demands spat out of printers and displayed on some computer screens. Government files were encrypted, with titles like “Budget Document” replaced by nonsensical combinations of letters and symbols, said current city manager Garrett Spradling.
Vital records, like birth and death certificates, were offline. Payments couldn’t be processed, checks couldn’t be issued — though, blessedly for Borger, it was an off-week for payroll. Signs posted on a drive-up window outside City Hall told residents the city couldn’t process water bill payments but cutoffs would be delayed.
One update shared with city officials soon after the attack described how every server was infected, as were about 60% of the 85 computers inspected by that point. A city government email told council members that agendas for a meeting would be in paper format, “since your tablets won’t be able to connect.” An official told a judge it was unclear if computer systems would be operational in time for trials two days away.
Because the city had paid for offsite remote backup, Borger had the capability to reformat servers, reinstall the operating system and bring data back over. A newly purchased server that had yet to be installed came in handy. The police department, however, retained its data locally and the attack hampered officers’ access to previous incident reports, Spradling said.
Expensive Ivy League college film degrees are a scam. “Recent graduates from the Columbia University film program have an average loan debt of six figures against a low-to-mid five-figure income. And given that the master’s program takes four years, Columbia alumni enter the competitive field at around age 30, a detrimentally late start. Graduates soon face the shocking realization that they not only crippled their future but also wasted their money and youth.”
Automotive News published a report on Thursday of this week noting that EVs were 2.3 times more expensive to service than ICE vehicles after three months of ownership. Analytics firm We Predict compiled the data by looking at roughly 19 million vehicles between the 2016 and 2021 model years.
That figure drops to just 1.6 times more expensive after one year, the report noted, as a result of a 77% drop in maintenance costs and a decline in repair costs. The data showed that service techs spend about twice as much time diagnosing problems with EVs as they do with regular gas vehicles. They spend about 1.5 times longer fixing them and the labor rate for repairs was about 1.3 times higher.
Presumably some of this gap will drop as technicians become more familiar with them.
Classical music is under racial attack. Orchestras and opera companies are said to discriminate against black musicians and composers. The canonical repertoire—the product of a centuries-long tradition of musical expression—is allegedly a function of white supremacy.
Not one leader in the field has defended Western art music against these charges. Their silence is emblematic. Other supposed guardians of Western civilization, whether museum directors, humanities professors, or scientists, have gone AWOL in the face of similar claims, lest they themselves be denounced as racist.
Also this: “Orchestras should hire diversity consultants to develop ‘extra-musical evaluation’ criteria for orchestral positions, such as serving as an institutional spokesman.” Diversity consultants always demand hiring more diversity consultants. What are the odds?
The Offspring fire longtime drummer Pete Parada for refusing to get a Flu Manchu vaccine. “Given my personal medical history and the side-effect profile of these jabs, my doctor has advised me not to get a shot at this time.” If the other members are vaccinated, why the hell should they care? Stupider still: Parada already caught the virus last year, so he probably has more immunity than the vaccine provides…
Col. Dave Severance, who helped take Iwo Jima (and commanded the second flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi, the one in the famous photograph), dead at 102.
Where does this rank among disturbing YouTube videos? I give it a three.
Florida and Texas gained House seats while California and New York lost one seat each as a result of population shifts, according to the 2020 census results announced on Monday.
Texas gained two House seats in the census apportionment for a new total of 38 congressional districts, while Florida gained one House seat, bringing its total number of districts to 28. California lost one House seat and will decline to 52 congressional districts, while New York also lost one House seat and will now have 26 congressional districts. Those four states are the nation’s most populous and together provide one-third of the House’s total seats.
A census official noted that if New York had counted 89 more people, the state would not have lost a House seat.
Too bad Andrew Cuomo killed off all those old people before they could be counted.
The population of California stopped growing several years before the coronavirus pandemic, and in 2020 the state lost more residents to outmigration than it gained. Residents have migrated to Texas as well as to neighboring states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.
Once again, blue states lost population and red states gained population. People flee Democratic governance and its symptomatic poverty, high taxes, crime and disorder. It’s also the first time California has lost a congressional seat ever.
With two new congressional seats to play with, how will Texas Republicans approach redistricting? I am very far indeed from a redistricting guru, but I have a few educated guesses about how they’ll approach things:
Obviously, they’ll try to carve out two more Republican districts, but that may prove difficult. Expect a new Metroplex-area suburban/exurban Republican majority district, but don’t be surprised if they have to create another Hispanic majority district for Democrats somewhere.
The next-highest priority has to be taking back the two seats lost in 2018, AKA The Year of Beto. Both the 7th (John Culberson losing to Lizzie Fletcher) and the 32nd (Pete Sessions losing to Collin Allred) were typical sleepwalking incumbents caught by end of election cycle demographic shifts, but there’s no reason those districts can’t be redrawn to make them Republican majority districts again. Republican challenger Wesley Hunt only lost by 3% in the 7th in 2020. (Sessions carpetbagged his way into the Waco-based 17th.)
Next up would be protecting Republican incumbents whose current districts are starting to get purple. To that end, I would guess that the 2nd District, with Dan Crenshaw, a rising national star regarded as a solid team player (as newly minted congressmen Beth Van Duyne and August Pfluger can attest) in a district that’s only R+5, would be the top candidate for shoring up. Van Duyne’s 24th (R+2) and Chip Roy’s 21st (R+5) would be next. John Carter’s 31st (R+6) is starting to get purple as well, but since he’s 79, he may not get as much consideration as other incumbents. Michael McCaul’s 10th (R+5) would be another candidate, but as one of the richest incumbents, there might be sentiment that he can stand fast without much additional help. Van Taylor’s 3rd (R+6) looks like a candidate on paper, but neither he nor previous Republican incumbent Sam Johnson ever won by less than 10 points.
A separate issue than the above, due to different dynamics, is what to do about the 23rd. The only true swing district in Texas over the last decade is currently held by Republican Tony Gonzalez, who defeated Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones by 4% in 2020. Despite having a giant target on his back every time, Republican Will Hurd held the seat for three cycles before retiring despite never breaking 50%. The fate of the 23rd is highly dependent on whether they decide to carve out another majority Hispanic Democratic district for San Antonio, or whether they want to…
Make a play for the Rio Grande Valley? One of the more surprising results of 2020 was that Republicans made significant inroads into the Valley, including President Donald Trump winning Democrat Henry Cueller’s 28th outright. Part of this is due to Trump’s increasing popularity among Hispanics, but the Texas Republican Party has been pouring significant resources into the Valley. Combined with Biden’s border crisis, all this adds up to an opportunity to pick up one or more seats through redistricting. Michael Cloud’s adjacent 27th is looking pretty safe, so the temptation will be to turn one or more of the 28th, Vicente Gonzalez’s 15th (D+3) and/or Filemon Vela Jr.’s 34th (D+5) into competitive swing districts.
Another issue will be what the hell to do with Austin, the blue tumor in the heart of red Texas. One driving rationale for the shape of the 35th district (running from Austin down I-35 to San Antonio) was trying to knock off Democratic incumbent Lloyd Doggett by forcing him to face off against a San Antonio-based Hispanic Democrat. That failed, and Doggett won handily. It’s going to be mighty tempting for Republicans to throw in the towel and fashion a liberal urban core district for Austin to free up redder suburban areas to shore up Republican incumbents.
I can see one approach solution that solves a lot of those problems: an urban Austin district, a new majority Hispanic district near San Antonio, and a new majority Hispanic district huddling the Rio Grande Valley, reinforcing the 23rd and turning two of the 15th, 28th and 34th into majority Republican districts. But the fact it is obvious means that it probably won’t come to pass, with the likely result a more sophisticated (i.e., gerrymandered) solution.
CBS’s “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an exchange that reporter Sharyn Alfonsi had with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) two weeks ago about the way the Sunshine State has rolled out its vaccination program.
In the clip, Alfonsi suggested that Publix, the largest grocery store chain in Florida, had engaged in a pay-to-play scheme with DeSantis where they donated money to his campaign in exchange for him awarding a contract to the grocery store chain to host vaccinations.
CBS edited the interaction between DeSantis and Alfonsi when she showed up to a press conference a few weeks ago and repeatedly confronted the governor. The network cut out a lengthy portion of DeSantis’ response in which he explains what happened and how decisions were made.
The Arkansas General Assembly voted Tuesday to enact a ban on gender transition surgery for minors, overriding a veto by Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Arkansas is the first state to ban transition surgery for minors, although similar legislation is under consideration in other states. The bill also prohibits doctors in Arkansas from administering hormones or puberty blockers to residents under age 18.
Here’s a word to every single Republican office holder in America: this is not an optional fight. You fight on this hill or we’ll replace you with someone who will.
Remember how President Trump “detaining kids in cages” was the Worst Thing In The World? Well, Joe Biden is detaining 18,000 illegal alien minors, almost seven times as many. And Democrats aren’t uttering a peep of protest because they never really cared about those kids anyway, they just wanted to: A.) Bash Trump, and B.) Open up the border so they can amnesty a new wave of illegals as Democratic Party voters.
Speaking of illegal aliens: “New York is reportedly going to spend $2.1 Billion on a fund to give illegal aliens COVID relief payments up to $15,600 per person.” Did any of these Democrats actively campaign on giving taxpayer money to illegal aliens? It’s like they want to live down to the most outlandish Republican parodies of Democrats.
Liberal writer Thomas Frank says that fellow liberals are deluding themselves if they think “misinformation” is the source of all their problems and censorship is the answer:
In liberal circles these days there is a palpable horror of the uncurated world, of thought spaces flourishing outside the consensus, of unauthorized voices blabbing freely in some arena where there is no moderator to whom someone might be turned in. The remedy for bad speech, we now believe, is not more speech, as per Justice Brandeis’s famous formula, but an “extremism expert” shushing the world.
What an enormous task that shushing will be! American political culture is and always has been a matter of myth and idealism and selective memory. Selling, not studying, is our peculiar national talent. Hollywood, not historians, is who writes our sacred national epics. There were liars-for-hire in this country long before Roger Stone came along. Our politics has been a bath in bullshit since forever. People pitching the dumbest of ideas prosper fantastically in this country if their ideas happen to be what the ruling class would prefer to believe.
Authorities have charged Adalberto Fructuoso Comparan-Rodriguez, whose nickname is “Fruto,” the former mayor of Aguililla, Mexico, and the reported leader of the United Cartels in Michoacán, Mexico, with drug trafficking crimes, according to the indictment.
Alfonso Rustrian, of Mexico, has also been charged as a co-conspirator. Another four defendants were charged for their roles in the alleged methamphetamine scheme.
According to court filings, Comparan-Rodriguez and Rustrian met in Cali, Colombia, with whom they believed were members of Hezbollah but were actually undercover DEA agents. Comparan-Rodriguez and Rustrian agreed to send 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine from Mexico through Texas to the Miami area, according to the charges.
Once the meth arrived in Miami, Comparan-Rodriguez and Rustrian allegedly cracked open the concrete tiles and dissolved the meth inside 5-gallon buckets of house paint. The men are alleged to have extracted the pure crystal meth from the paint.
The mysterious case of “Dr. Jialun,” an anti-Trump Twitter troll who got his account verified despite having a fake profile and all of 100 followers.
Legal Insurrection is suing SUNY Upstate Medical University for refusing to comply with a New York Freedom of Information Law request on information related to Critical Race Theory training.
Man tells his estranged girlfriend he’s driving to Florida to kill her, is shocked when he gets there and gets arrested.
Sgt. Charles H. Coolidge, previously America’s oldest living Congressional Medal of Honor winner, went to his final muster. I previously mentioned him here. That makes Hershel Woody Williams America’s last living Congressional Medal of Honor winner from World War II.
Golden Retriever has had enough of your fake news:
Weather report from Moscow streets was suddenly interrupted by a four-legged heckler. A dog stole the microphone from the reporter of a Russian broadcaster. A golden retriever jumped at Nadezhda Serezhkina, grabbed the microphone and ran away – during LIVE broadcast. pic.twitter.com/po16bUGazB
Greetings, and welcome to a Good Friday LinkSwarm! I had the day off, so I slept ridiculously late, which is why you’re getting this in the late afternoon evening.
1. $10 Billion to Create a ‘Civilian Climate Corp’
The Biden administration proposes spending $10 billion to create a “Civilian Climate Corp.” The White House claims that “This $10 billion investment will put a new, diverse generation of Americans to work conserving our public lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, and advancing environmental justice through a new Civilian Climate Corps.”
2. $20 Billion to ‘Advance Racial Equity and Environmental Justice’
The proposal sets aside a whopping $20 billion—more than the latest COVID package spent on vaccines—for “a new program that will reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, and promote affordable access.”
3. $175 Billion in Subsidies for Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicles: A technological novelty so good it won’t catch on without hundreds of billions in subsidies. At least, that’s apparently what the Biden administration thinks, as its infrastructure proposal earmarks a “$174 billion investment to win the electric vehicle market.”
The spending will take the form of manufacturing subsidies and consumer tax credits, which historically have benefitted wealthy families most. For comparison, the proposal carves out more for green energy goodies than it does on the total $115 billion to “modernize the bridges, highways, roads, and main streets that are in most critical need of repair.”
After Joe Biden’s performance last Thursday, every American should be demanding to talk to the manager. That’s because while President Joe Biden’s pathetic display during his “matinee” presser showed clearly that he is not in charge of our country, it also begged the obvious follow-up question not being asked by the 25 reporters in the room: If Joe Biden isn’t in charge of running our government, who is?
If you didn’t actually watch the press conference—and every American should-especially those who voted against Trump by voting for Biden because they’d thought he was an improvement—by now, you have doubtless read the accounts of the President’s cliff notes that included scripted talking points and photos of the journalists upon whom he was directed to call. His staff treated him in much the same way as does the family of someone in the early stages of dementia, where they put pictures on doors and cabinets as a reminder of what goes where.
If Joe Biden were my next-door neighbor, his condition could be described as sad, and he would be afforded every consideration and allowance possible for someone entering the final stage of the aging process. He is not, however, my next-door neighbor. He is supposed to be the President of the United States. His performance was mortifying. This is one of the most powerful men in the world. He controls our budget. He controls our military. He controls our nuclear weapons. What he clearly does not control is himself.
And if he isn’t in control of himself, then who is? Who is in charge?
Matt Taibbi: “Master List Of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus”:
Update 3/21/21 “All 17 intelligence agencies,” October 19, 2016. Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton and others publicly stated that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies backed an assessment that cyberattacks in 2016 came from the “highest levels of the Kremlin.” That was later corrected in congressional testimony to four agencies. It was actually a hand-picked team from three agencies, and the chief conclusion from that group came mainly from CIA chief John Brennan, who in his own book, “Undaunted,” published in 2020, revealed that he had overlooked dissenting analysis from two members of the working group. Brennan said he believed “the quality of the sources justified the high confidence,” but the Times and other outlets reported that Brennan was basing much of his confidence on a single human source in Russia whose information was allowed to bypass the normal vetting process….
So a story that began as an assessment on Russian interference agreed upon by “all seventeen agencies,” became four agencies, then it was a hand-picked group from three agencies dominated by the CIA director, who overrode dissenting analysts within the group, likely because of confidence in one human source.
There are twenty five entries on the list, and Taibbi admits he could have gone “on and on.”
The goal was to destroy dissidents and potential dissidents socially and emotionally without resorting to arrest and imprisonment. The Stasi collected information about the victim's private life, and proceeded to "disintegrate" their careers and their family and private life.
The goal was to destroy the reputation of the target and make him so preoccupied with his personal difficulties and emotional turmoil that he had no will to question the government of the DDR. It was done covertly, and often victims weren't believed even if they discovered it.
The results are in—and they overwhelmingly vindicate the free states over the authoritarian experiments. First, we saw that states with the harshest restrictions didn’t necessarily achieve the best COVID-19 death outcomes. Florida has fared far better than New York and New Jersey, for example, and multiple studies have found no correlation between lockdown stringency and death rates.
Yet lockdowns have come at an enormous economic and human cost. We’ve seen mental health problems and child suicide spikes, an increase in domestic violence, an uptick in drug overdoses, and much, much more. And, of course, the economic toll of shutting down businesses and criminalizing “non-essential” livelihoods has been devastating.
The national unemployment rate was a poor if not disastrous 6.2 percent in February. Yet the just-released state-level unemployment rates for last month show that the devastation hasn’t been equal across the board. New Labor Department data reveal that many free states have returned to nearly their pre-pandemic unemployment rates—while lockdown states dominate the wrong end of the list.
Why isn’t everyone in Texas dying? “The lockdowns have had no statistically observable effect on the virus trajectory and resulting severe outcomes. The open states have generally performed better, perhaps not because they are open but simply for reasons of demographics and seasonality. The closed states seem not to have achieved anything in terms of mitigation.”
Try to contain your shock, but Cruz Noguez, the mano owned the SUV involved in the carash that killed 13 illegal aliens, was a coyote.
Related: “Austin Resident Faces Life in Prison for Alleged Smuggling That Killed 8 Illegal Aliens.”
Prosecutors have also charged Austin resident Sebastian Tovar, age 24, with transporting illegal aliens resulting in death for an incident that killed eight people on March 15.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a press release that a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officer tried to stop Tovar, who led police on a 50-mile car chase.
“Traveling north into the southbound lane on Highway 277, Tovar collided with another vehicle head-on, resulting in the death of eight illegal aliens that had been in Tovar’s pickup truck,” the DOJ said. “The driver and passenger of the vehicle into which Tovar collided are hospitalized and in stable condition.”
The DOJ said that, after the incident, border patrol agents apprehended 12 illegal aliens, two of whom confessed to being connected to Tovar’s alleged smuggling activities.
The defendants in the March 4 incident are 28-year-old Isidro Rodriguez Jr. and 18-year-old Bianca Michelle Trujillo-Lopez. They face the possibility of life in federal prison if convicted.
The indictment charges Rodriguez and Trujillo-Lopez with illegal alien transportation resulting in death, illegal alien transportation resulting in serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy, and two counts of conspiracy.
“Court records allege that on March 4, 2021, the defendants were traveling on FM 2523 near Del Rio when a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper attempted to stop them for speeding,” the DOJ said in a press release.
“The driver, Trujillo-Lopez, tried to outrun the trooper, at times reaching speeds over 120 miles per hour. She ultimately lost control of her vehicle and rolled it multiple times after missing a curve on the road.”
“Conservative Humorist Chad Prather Launches Campaign for Texas Governor.” He’s running against incumbent Governor Greg Abbott in the Republican primary. I can’t say that I’ve actually heard of Prather before (which would tend to bode ill for his chances), but he starts out with 196,000, which is more than a goodly number of Democratic Presidential candidates started out with. Of course, all of them lost too…
Dwight covers stopping the bleed, with a side order of Julia Child’s liver and a nice Chianti.
Review of Kong: Skull Island in advance of seeing Godzilla vs. Kong this weekend.
Greetings, and welcome to a Friday LinkSwarm! Bad weather and bad driving are themes, as the ice storm mentioned yesterday already slammed Texas hard. I was without power for over 10 hours last night and this morning, and every tree is heavy with frost.
Hit black ice at 95/They said I’m lucky to be alive…
Bad news for law-abiding Austinites: Police Chief Brian Manley is retiring after 30 years on the force. I’m sure the City Council is eager to replace him with some social justice warrior approved tool. On the other hand, if he wants to run for mayor…
The threat is said to be existential. It fuels secessionism. Gnaws at national unity. Abets Islamism. Attacks France’s intellectual and cultural heritage.
The threat? “Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,’’ said President Emmanuel Macron.
French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,’’ warned Mr. Macron’s education minister.
Emboldened by these comments, prominent intellectuals have banded together against what they regard as contamination by the out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture.
You can ding France (and French intellectuals) for a lot of sins, but “insufficient appreciation of western civilization and culture” is not one of them.
The bloom was off the Andrew Cuomo rose for anyone who had eyes to see last year, but now even the Democratic Media Complex is is being forced to admit what a giant pile of manure he is:
America’s worst governor probably never thought he would miss America’s most obnoxious president.
But that is the situation that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo likely finds himself in now that Donald Trump is no longer around to take all the heat for mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, now that the man who commanded nearly every minute of the media’s attention has shuffled off to Florida following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Cuomo is at long last experiencing widespread criticism and scrutiny in the press for his grossly incompetent handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in the Empire State.
The New York Times, for example, took the governor to task after he announced that indoor dining in the state can resume as soon as Feb. 14, arguing that the flip-flop makes no sense based on the available data and his past diktats. “Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said on Friday that New York City could reopen indoor dining on Feb. 14,” the newspaper notes. “But by nearly every measure, the coronavirus outbreak in the city is worse than it was when he announced a ban on indoor dining in December.”
The New York Times adds, “As the governor spoke on Friday, citing the ‘current trajectory’ of cases as his reasoning for reopening, average per-capita case counts in New York City were 64% higher than when he announced the ban in December.” The paper even published an article titled “N.Y.C.’s Covid Metrics Are Dire. Cuomo Is Reopening Restaurants Anyway,” laying into the governor for his about-face on indoor dining.
Elsewhere, Cuomo is weathering blistering criticism over news reports that his administration dramatically undercounted the number of deaths connected to his order last year forcing infectious coronavirus patients into long-term care facilities. Criticism so bad, in fact, that the governor actually declined an invitation to appear on CNN, which has done more than any news network to boost his image amid the pandemic.
The bad press, by the way, appears to be having an adverse effect on the governor, whose increasingly frenetic decrees suggest a man who is spiraling. Recall that Cuomo claimed recently that the effort to vaccinate restaurant workers was a “cheap, insincere discussion.” Now, he has expanded vaccine eligibility in New York to include — you guessed it — restaurant workers. It’s almost as if he has no idea what he is doing.
Then, there is the sudden bout of unflattering news reports regarding the growing number of high-level resignations by New York health officials, including nine top state executives who have stepped down since last summer. Cuomo is also suffering embarrassing news coverage for his recent statement in response to the reports that his administration undercounted nursing home deaths: “But who cares? … Died in a hospital. Died in a nursing home. They died.” Add to it all the fact that the governor is catching heat for saying that he doesn’t trust health experts, and it seems clear we are witnessing the end of the love affair between the news media and the man who won an Emmy recently for his supposedly savvy COVID-19 management.
It is good that the news industry as a whole is finally scrutinizing the Cuomo administration for its ineptitude, but where was this critical look last year? It’s not as if Cuomo flipped a switch. He didn’t become an incompetent, callous, flailing bureaucrat overnight. This is who he is. This is how he has behaved for the entirety of the pandemic. Many newsrooms either did not notice or did not care. After all, there was a bad man in the White House.
The Cuomo who is getting badly beaten up today in the press is the same Cuomo who in April 2020 said glibly of out-of-work, anti-lockdown protesters that if they want to provide for themselves and their families, they should “take a job as an essential worker.”
This is the same man who targeted the state’s Jewish communities over social distancing violations, all while giving a free pass to the thousands of anti-police demonstrators and other political activists who clogged New York’s streets last year, gathering cheek to cheek in both protest and celebration. At a press conference in October of last year, Cuomo even dredged up a 14-year-old photo showing Jewish mourners gathered to mark the death of Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, claiming falsely that it was proof of those people’s refusal to follow his COVID-19 restrictions.
This is the same man whose administration flip-flopped constantly on the timeline for when COVID-19-positive front-line workers should return to work.
This is the same man who, during a press conference in September, attempted to absolve himself of responsibility for his state’s deadly mismanagement of the coronavirus by claiming, “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York. That is a fact. It’s a fact that he admitted and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] admitted and [Dr. Anthony Fauci] admitted.” No one “admitted” any such thing.
Cuomo actually wrote an entire book praising his response to the pandemic. He even hawked a stupid poster boasting of New York’s alleged victory over the outbreak. The poster, which bears more captions than a Herblock cartoon, is careful to highlight infection increases in Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Because nothing says responsible, caring leadership quite like cheering case increases in fellow states, which, by the way, likely got the virus from New York.
Yet, amid all of these missteps, many in the press claimed last year that New York’s governor led one of the best, if not the best, coronavirus responses in the country. The way certain journalists and commentators told it, Cuomo’s wisdom and steady hand safely guided the state through one of the most dangerous and deadly episodes in its history.
Speaking of coronavirus, previous timelines had pegged “Patient Zero” as being infected in November of 2019, but new evidence suggests the first cases showed up October 2019. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Let them have their Impeachment 2: Electric Boogaloo. It won’t result in a conviction. It won’t affect Donald Trump’s standing with his supporters or his detractors. But it will delay the Senate from action on Joe Xiden’s initial legislative goals and confirmation of His Fraudulency’s nominees.”
Democrats may end up paying a higher political price than they anticipate. The trial won’t only delay Mr. Biden’s program. It will tarnish his image as a “unifier” eager to work across party lines. That identity will be much harder to sustain after Democratic senators vote in lockstep to convict Mr. Trump and push through a mammoth Covid relief bill without any Republican votes.
I see they misspelled “trillions in pork graft for politically connected cronies” as “Covid relief.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
During a media presentation at Virtual SHOT Show 2021, Winchester said that if they stopped taking orders for .22 LR right now, it would take 2 years to fill all the back-orders. In December, the Vista family of companies, which comprises Federal, CCI, Speer, and Remington, announced they had a $1 billion backlog in orders. In the first 3 months of the COVID-19 lockdown, Winchester experienced a 17-percent surge in orders, which hasn’t tapered off.
Rancher believes Biden wants to hurt border security to undo President Trump’s legacy. True, but incomplete. The entire Democratic Party sees every illegal alien as a potential Democrat voter.
Heh:
The Lincoln Project has reached the part in the Scorsese film where Clapton or the Stones is playing and everyone is trying to escape with the money and their lives.
Got to admit, 140 MPH is hauling ass. One problem with Most Shocking is that they would intone “…with speeds hitting 90 miles and hour!” and I wanted to ask “Dude, have you never driven on a Texas highway before? That’s pretty much the prevailing speed…”
"We rescue ALL animals, though dogs need us the most. But we rescue cats, bunnies, rats, snakes, small exotics, eleflumps, bears, big cats, wildlife, sea life, primates…"-@ElayneBoosler#tailsofjoy 🐶😺🦜🐭https://t.co/gWA4VEWyoc
— Elayne Boosler's Rescue Dog, Ralph (@BooslerS) February 5, 2021
By the way, the current forecast is for it to hit 1°F here on Monday, which would only be 3 degrees above the coldest temperature ever recorded in Austin…
This is going to be one heck of an interesting case. There are already so many glaring issues (or should I say “targets”?): venue, good faith filing, disclosures, the automatic stay the trustee question, fiduciary duties to pursue claims against insiders, executory employment contracts, the fate of Wayne LaPierre, and the generally overlooked governance provisions of the Bankruptcy Code. I’ll take quick aim at these all below.
Venue. Right off the bat, there’s a question of what the heck the NRA is doing filing in Dallas. The answer is that the NRA is engaged in one of the most blatant forum shopping maneuvers I’ve seen. The NRA is a New York non-profit corporation with its headquarters in Virginia. The NRA is claiming Dallas venue on the basis of an affiliate’s previous filing in the district. In other words, venue is only proper for the NRA if the venue is proper for the affiliate.Therefore, the propriety of the affiliate’s venue is what matters.
The affiliate is a sole-member Texas LLC called Sea Girt LLC that was only created 52 days ago, on November 24, 2020. Sea Girt’s bankruptcy petition indicates that it has less than 49 employees, under $50,000 in assets and between $50,000 and $100,000 in liabilities. Note that the petition form does not have an option of listing “zero” employees. Sea Girt’s petition does not include a completed Form 204, which would list is largest non-insider unsecured creditors. But I’m going dollars to donuts that Sea Girt does not have any outside creditors other than perhaps its law firm, and that it does not actually carry on any business.
Now the bankruptcy venue statute prescribes the appropriate venue as being the district in which the “domicile…of the entity that is the subject of such case [has] been located for one hundred and eighty days immediately preceding such commencement, or for a longer portion of such one-hundred-and-eighty-day period than the domicile … of such person were located in any other district.” So even though Sea Girt LLC has not been in existence for 180 days, the statute still provides for a Texas venue. But the venue here is so obviously contrived and the NRA has no particular connect to Texas, so I expect there to be an attempt to have the case transferred to SDNY.
Good faith filing. A second immediate issue seems to be whether the NRA (and Sea Girt) filed in good faith. Every circuit including the 5th) has a good faith filing doctrine. The doctrine in a nutshell is that if a bankruptcy case does not have a “valid reorganizational purpose,” it should be dismissed “for cause.” Attempting to evade liability in litigation is not a “valid reorganizational purpose,” and the NRA’s press release seemed to me a version of the press release in SGL Carbon, the leading 3rd Circuit good faith filing doctrine case. In SGL Carbon, the debtor foolishly said that it was filing for bankruptcy just to stiff a competitor that had an antitrust suit against it and assured its other creditors that they would be paid in full. That sounds an awful lot like “dumping New York” while saying that all valid claims will be paid in full. (My students might recall me cautioning them that a debtor’s attorneys should insist that they get to sign off on all press releases and communications related to the bankruptcy for just this reason…) Now, the NRA isn’t looking to avoid paying NY. Instead, it is looking to escape NY’s jurisdiction. But that seems a distinction without a difference. It isn’t hoping to use bankruptcy to reorganize its finances, but to get out of the lion cage.
Snip.
Disclosure. Filing for bankruptcy is a bit like entering a fishbowl. Everything is on display. First, creditors are entitled to conduct an “examination of the debtor” under oath at the initial meeting of the creditors (the “341 meeting.”) Additionally, an individual creditor may under Bankruptcy Rule 2004 undertake an examination of the debtor. (And that includes creditors who are creditors by virtue of by claims–that could include gun-control groups among others.) There’s certainly room there for questions that get to the reasons for filing, namely whether there was any financial reason for filing.
Automatic Stay? Another issue is whether the bankruptcy filing will in any way stop the NY AG’s action to dissolve the NRA. At the very least, the automatic stay should not. There is an exception in section 362(b)(4) from the stay for regulatory actions that are not seeking money from the debtor, and the NYAG suit seems squarely in that exception. It’s possible that the NRA will seek a supplementary injunction from the bankruptcy court, however.
Trustee or Conversion. While I would expect a venue motion or a motion to dismiss the case, I would also expect a motion for appointment of a trustee or conversion to chapter 7 (which would trigger a trustee). The NRA seems like a classic case for this—there are credible allegations of serious financial impropriety involving the current management (namely executive VP Wayne LaPierre). That both fits into the “fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, or gross mismanagement” route for a trustee’s appointment, or into the “best interests of the creditors” route. Two key things if a trustee is appointed. First, the trustee will hold the NRA’s attorney-client privilege, not Mr. LaPierre. Mr. LaPierre will not be able to claim privilege for any conversations he had with the NRA’s attorneys. Second, a trustee has every incentive to pursue all of the NRA bankruptcy estate’s claims, including against Mr. LaPierre. That brings us to the next topic, the debtor in possession’s fiduciary duties.
Fiduciary duties. The NRA as debtor in possession is a fiduciary for all of its creditors. That means, among other things, that if the NRA has potential claims against Mr. LaPierre or others, including fraudulent transfer claims, it must pursue them. Mr. LaPierre as EVP cannot decide whether to litigate against himself. If he’s too conflicted, that will mean that the court will either have to appoint a trustee or let a creditors’ committee pursue the claims.
Snip.
The fate of Wayne LaPierre. Putting aside Mr. LaPierre’s employment contract, he’s got another problem. The NY AG suit isn’t just against the NRA. It’s also against Mr. LaPierre and some of his lieutenants. LaPierre and his lieutenants have not filed for bankruptcy, and even if the NRA is able to convert to a Texas corporation, the NYAG’s suit against Mr. LaPierre can still proceed. The NYAG is seeking restitution from LaPierre as well as a bar from his ever soliciting funds for a nonprofit in NY (not just for a NY nonprofit). Moreover, if NY is successful, it might well create problems for LaPierre serving as an officer of a nonprofit in another state. All of which is to say that the NRA fleeing to Texas doesn’t address Mr. LaPierre’s problems.
Once again, LaPierre is the millstone dragging down the NRA. The best outcome would be for the NRA to successfully reincorporate in Texas…but without LaPierre and his cronies bleeding the organization dry.
The National Rifle Association announced Friday that it has filed for bankruptcy and will move out of New York and restructure the organization as a nonprofit in Texas.
The nation’s leading gun rights advocacy group said that the move to Texas will enable the group to “exit what it believes is a corrupt political and regulatory environment in New York.”
“By exiting New York, where the NRA has been incorporated for approximately 150 years, the NRA abandons a state where elected officials have weaponized the legal and regulatory powers they wield to penalize the Association and its members for purely political purposes,” the NRA said in a statement.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the NRA in August, alleging that senior leaders of the group misused tens of millions of dollars, diverting the funds for personal use and other illegal purposes.
The NRA denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit of its own against James, accusing her of violating the group’s free speech rights and requesting that her investigation be blocked. The move to Texas and restructuring of the group could prevent the New York attorney general from seeking the dissolution of the group.
The group filed Chapter 11 petitions in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas, listing assets and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million.
There are a lot of good reasons for the NRA to move from New York to Texas apart from the lawsuit (though that’s a pretty big one), but it won’t be restored to a fully functioning organization until Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre is gone.
The NRA has been in crisis for over a year because LaPierre has engaged in what appears to be systematic looting through contracts to media company Ackerman McQueen and other entities that seem very, very chummy with LaPierre:
This 100-page document…contains unprecedented disclosures of where the money categorized as expenditures for “fund-raising” and “public relations” actually went. For example, it was revealed for the first time the Mercury Group, an Ack-Mac subsidiary run by LaPierre’s closest confidant, Tony Makris, received $5.8 million from NRA in that year; another Makris-run company, Under Wild Skies, got $2.6 million. Meanwhile, NRA has nearly exhausted its $25 million credit line (secured by a mortgage on its headquarters building), liquidated $2 million from an investment fund, borrowed close to $4 million from its officers’ life insurance policy and extracted about $5 million in office rent and overhead from the NRA Foundation.
This, in the same year that NRA’s 10 highest-paid executives received compensation aggregating over $8 million.
Unfortunately, the NRA is structured so that LaPierre has more institutional power than the NRA’s elected President, something Oliver North found out. The NRA needs LaPierre out and a forensic audit to uncover past abuses before gun owners give it another dime. I’ve let my membership lapse because of the crooked self-dealing on display by LaPierre and his cronies, and I suspect there are millions of other gun owners like me. Instead I joined Gun Owners of America, because I know my membership fees won’t be going to line Wayne’s pockets.
No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money has been following every twist and turn of the NRA/LaPierre problems for years, so go over there and start reading if you want all the deep background on the situation.
