Posts Tagged ‘Travis County’

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Election Day! Go Vote!

Tuesday, November 8th, 2022

Today’s the day! Grab your voter registration card and ID and go vote!

Voting Locations:

  • Williamson County (you can now vote in any location for any precinct)
  • Travis County

    • If you’re in Round Rock ISD, read this.

    Also, come back here around 7 PM, when I’ll start liveblogging the election.

    Last minute voting recommendations:

  • For ACC District, vote for Nathaniel Hellman, because I see Steve Jackobs signs right next to Beto signs in my neighborhood.
  • For North Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 Director, Place 4, vote for Diana Christiano over Jackie Oltremari, because the later has signs for the the RRISD social justice warrior slate on her lawn.

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    Posted in Austin, Elections, Texas | No Comments »

    Reminder: Texas Early Voting Starts Today

    Monday, October 24th, 2022

    Early voting for the Texas general election starts today.

    Williamson County early voting locations can be found here.

    Travis County early voting locations can be found here.

    Might be a good time to locate your voter registration card.

    Also, if you live in Round Rock ISD, be sure to read this.

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    Posted in Austin, Economics, Elections, Texas, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Another Day, Another Murderer Out On Bond

    Sunday, August 21st, 2022

    The soft-on-crime policies enacted by the Democrats who run Austin and Travis County have degraded the quality of life for law-abiding Austinites. And for many the consequences of putting convicted felons back out on the street without bail has been deadly.

    The suspect in an August 6 Austin homicide was out of jail on personal bonds in two different counties for multiple felony charges when he shot two men, killing one and paralyzing the other.

    Shots were fired after a fight broke out in a parking lot on E. 7th Street in Austin, right across the street from the ARCH homeless shelter downtown. Dionysius Thompson was killed, and Josh Noriega was left paralyzed.

    The suspect is Nathan Nevah Ramirez, charged with murder and aggravated assault.

    Ramirez fled the scene but was later identified by another individual involved in the scuffle and HALO surveillance cameras as having been present when shots were fired. Ramirez allegedly shot both Thompson and Noriega.

    Police arrested him an hour later that day at his apartment, where he was found with a loaded Glock 22, 2.5 ounces of marijuana, 44 grams of cocaine, about $8,000 cash, and a box of .40 caliber bullets. Ramirez was charged with another unlawful carrying of a firearm count along with possession of a controlled substance.

    In a sane county, being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm should be an immediate tip back to the slammer under Sec. 46.04 of the Texas penal code.

    He has since been charged with first-degree felony murder and second-degree felony aggravated assault.

    On August 8, before he was arrested for the shooting-related charges, Ramirez was released on personal bond for the charges of unlawful carrying of a weapon and felony possession of a controlled substance from two nights before.

    Two days later, Austin Police Department (APD) ballistics analysis positively identified Ramirez’s pistol had fired the rounds. U.S. Marshalls arrested him later that day.

    Ramirez had been out of jail in Travis County since he was granted personal bond on May 27, 2022 for the June 2021 charge of unlawful possession of a firearm. Ramirez had been on the lam since the incident last year until he was arrested on May 26, 2022.

    Austin Municipal Court Associate Judge Stephen Vigorito granted the bail on the condition that Ramirez not possess any firearms or engage in criminal activity. His pretrial for that charge is set for August 26.

    During the bond proceeding, he was given “indigent” status, a metric by which the Austin municipal court prioritizes personal and low cash bonds to poor offenders.

    While judges set bond, the Austin City Council passed a policy directing the municipal court to prioritize reduced bond for indigent defendants in 2017 and fired judges who disagreed.

    Additionally, after winning office in 2020, Travis County District Attorney José Garza released relaxed bail and sentencing guidelines that his office would recommend to the bench in criminal proceedings.

    Garza’s tenure has been a boon to felons seeking to continue their criminal activity while out on bond, but a disaster for law-abiding Austinites, especially those who don’t want to be murdered.

    Among those items is the emphasis placed on a presumption of release with “least restrictive conditions necessary” for higher-level felonies.

    Garza’s policies, the attempt to turn Austin into a Mecca for drug-addicted transients, and the Austin City Council’s refusal to fund adequate staffing levels for the Austin Police Department have all contributed to making Austin radically less safe than it was just four years ago.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 11 Comments »

    Fighting Critical Race Theory in Texas Schools

    Tuesday, October 26th, 2021

    I have a big bucket of Social Justice Warrior links I’ve been meaning to herd into a roundup for a ridiculously long time now. Within that bucket, there’s a smaller (still large) bucket of links on fighting Critical Race Theory in education. Finally, I’ve whittled it down to just links relevant to just fighting critical race theory in Texas. Yes, it’s here, and yes, it needs to be fought tooth and nail.

  • In Carroll ISD, north of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, rebranded CRT is an important issue in the school board election:

    The Cultural Competence Action Plan (CCAP) and parental rights are front and center as Carroll Independent School District (CISD) residents go to the polls again for a special election to fill a vacancy left by the resignation of Dave Almand from the school board in July.

    The election will be held on November 2 with early voting beginning on October 18.

    Two candidates have filed to fill the position: Stephanie Williams and Andrew Yeager.

    Williams is a member of Dignity for all Texas Students (DATS) that is committed to passing the controversial CCAP in CISD as a diversity and inclusion plan that will “provide a safe environment where students can take risks, make mistakes, and grow from experience.” She has spoken at school board meetings in favor of CCAP, saying, “Critical race theory is not in CCAP.” She has also declared that “CRT is not taught in CISD and will not be taught in our district.”

    However, Southlake Families, a political action committee that has endorsed Yeager, opposes CCAP because they believe it creates more problems than it claims to solve. They say its sections relating to microaggressions are especially problematic, where students are “permanently penaliz[ed]…for unintentional verbal or nonverbal actions.” The group also opposes critical race theory and its outgrowth from being promoted in CISD.

    Critical race theory has its roots in Marxist philosophy and examines society with race and racial hierarchy as the primary concern for societal ills. It then seeks to deconstruct cultural institutions it defines as racist.

    Although the theory itself may not be taught in local school districts, its critics say it lays the foundation for divisive identity politics that group people as either victims or oppressors. Language that grows out of CRT can often be found in curricula and training materials related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, like CCAP, or social and emotional learning concepts.

    Yeager says on his website that “I will also work to ensure our primary focus is on education, not indoctrination. Students should be taught ‘how to think,’ not ‘what to think.’”

  • Carroll ISD is important, because families looking to expel CRT from Texas schools already won an important victory there:

    The tide is turning in the fight against Critical Race Theory (CRT). Following the exposure in 2020 of CRT training in agencies throughout American government, the Trump Administration issued a ban on CRT at the federal level. President Biden overturned that ban on his first day in office, but the war has gone on—and it’s turning in the direction of reason, common sense, and the American tradition of equality before the law. State legislatures from Texas to Florida have put forward bans on critical race theory. Meanwhile, local activists and parents have taken the fight to their local school boards.

    On May 1, two school board candidates in Southlake, Texas converted these media, administrative, and legislative advances into a political win. In a high turnout election marked by intense media coverage, the two anti-CRT candidates for the Carroll ISD School Board won in a landslide—by a 40-point margin. The Southlake victory provides a blueprint for conservatives elsewhere to emulate as they fight to win elections against CRT in school boards across America.

    Carroll ISD’s Five-Year Plan

    In the fall of 2018, a video of several teenagers singing along to a rap song went viral; the song’s lyrics included a racial slur. The video was filmed at a private post-Homecoming party in Southlake, a largely conservative suburb of Fort Worth and Dallas. The teens were students at Carroll ISD, the prestigious public high school that consistently ranks among the top school districts in Texas. Progressive activists wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to implement (CRT) in Carroll ISD.

    The district formulated a “Cultural Competence Action Plan” (CCAP), which set forth ambitious goals, first of which would entail hiring a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) officer to oversee implementation of the Plan. Students and their teachers would be pressed to discover their racial bias and confess their white privilege. Anonymous tip lines would be set up to report alleged “microaggressions” and to impose punishment. “Focus groups” of radicalized students would be organized to report directly to the DEI administration. External auditors would be hired to reshape every District policy, organization, and curriculum in the name of advancing racial equity.

    The CCAP adopted all of the quasi-Marxist aims and methods characteristic of CRT. It was even described by its own proponents, unironically, as a “Five Year Plan.”

    In some school districts, faculty would have toed the line, parents would have bowed to the wisdom of Progress and Equity, and students would have let it all pass them by. But this is Texas—and Carroll ISD’s mascot is the Dragons.

    Beginning in 2020, Southlake conservative families formed a political action committee; they filed a barrage of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests; they showed up in record numbers to speak at school board meetings; they educated the community about the evils of CRT; and they recruited winning school board candidates. Hannah Smith and Cameron “Cam” Bryan campaigned for almost 4 months, meeting with community members in 70 meet-and-greets all over Southlake and shared their positive vision for the future of Carroll ISD. Their campaign volunteers went block by block and door by door across Southlake to tell voters the truth about CCAP.

    On May 1, Smith and Bryan won with supermajorities of the vote (69 percent and 68 percent, respectively). Local voter turnout for a municipal election broke records, with over 10,000 votes were cast, up more than 150 percent from the previous high.

    More than twice as many Republicans voted in the 2021 Carroll ISD election than had voted in any previous May election. In fact, more GOP voters turned out to vote than had turned out in the last two Republican primary elections for President and U.S. Senate!

    But massive turnout among independent voters was key to the victory over CRT. In Texas, political affiliation is determined by participation in party primaries, not by party registration, and almost all of the voters who participate in the May elections for school board are also regular primary voters. In Carroll ISD, independents normally make up about 17 percent of the May electorate—an average of less than 500 votes. But this May, independent turnout surged to over 3,500 raw votes and the independent share of the electorate doubled to 35 percent.

    There are four lessons to learn from the Southlake victory:

    • Use Freedom of Information Act requests to get the real story
    • Recruit qualified candidates who reflect the community’s values
    • Start early to build a real grassroots base
    • Run a professional political campaign

    

  • Another school district where parents are fighting Critical race Theory: Cypress Fairbanks.

    Controversy over a trustee’s social media posts and allegations of critical race theory (CRT) elements in school curricula have drawn multiple challengers for three incumbents on the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (CFISD) Board of Trustees this year.

    Parents in the state’s third-largest public school district have been asking questions about curriculum since the board adopted a “Resolution Condemning Racism” in September of 2020.

    Written by trustees John Ogletree, Julie Hinaman, and Gilber Sarabia, the resolution states that the district will “lead through policy and practice to eliminate racism, systemic racism, discrimination, injustice, and inequality in any and all its forms,” and commits to hiring a third party to conduct an “equity audit” in order to develop equity policies.

    According to documents obtained by The Texan, CFISD has contracted with Millennium Learning Concepts (MLC) for an estimated $75,000 to conduct an equity analysis and to “provide recommendations on how to alleviate the policies and practices that are contributing to inequitable experiences and outcomes for students.”

    President and owner of MLC, Roger Cleveland, is a professor of education who frequently presents to schools and districts on implicit bias and using equity to ensure that “equality is the outcome.”

    Since then, parents have voiced opposition to plans to show a video on “implicit bias,” a Black Lives Matter protest video shown to third graders, and materials from controversial professor Tyrone Howard used in teacher training materials. Trustees have vehemently denied that the district uses any curriculum under the CRT label, but parents say ideas derived from CRT are presented to students under the guise of anti-bullying and anti-racism materials.

    Critical Race Theory has roots in Marxist philosophy and examines society with race and racial hierarchy as the primary concern for societal ills. Drawing on Marxist philosopher of education Paolo Freire’s theories asserting that teaching is never neutral but always political, materials containing elements of CRT seek to use education to deconstruct institutions and culture deemed racist.

    Ogletree has also come under community scrutiny for a slew of social media posts that invoke racial conflict. In one case Ogletree posted a Washington Post opinion piece comparing police officers to the Ku Klux Klan. In other instances, he shared a racially tinged comment about GOP congressional candidate Wesley Hunt who is black, and a comment reading, “This country was built on bad theology with white men holding Bibles.”

  • Critical Race Theory has been embedded in Austin ISD for almost half a decade under the guise of “ethnic studies.” “Administrators said teachers will cover everything from critical race theory, immigration versus colonization versus slavery to sexual orientation.” In other words: Hard left indoctrination.
  • There’s a battle over Critical Race Theory brewing in Eanes ISD in Travis County. “The Eanes DEI [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, all CRT buzzwords] consultant, Mark Gooden, has said that he wants to develop people into racial activists. He has stated that he wants to help people “develop their racial awareness with a hope of transferring that into action that they will then use to transform the organization.'”
  • Despite Democrats dishonestly swearing up and down otherwise, Critical Race Theory is indeed taught in Texas.

    As a high school debate coach, I’ve watched critical race theory crush the souls of students for years. When it began to creep into the honored and honorable academic pursuit of policy (CX) debate, it lowered standards, created division and sundered relationships.

    Let me explain how. Policy debate pits two two-person teams against each other. The Affirmative team (Aff) presents a plan that falls within this year’s topic; the Negative team (Neg) argues against that plan. This requires immense research and study; if the year’s topic is, say, the oceans, teams must be prepared to argue against plans ranging from the Law of the Seas Treaty to plastics to overfishing.

    But some years ago, a new tactic emerged. Why argue that the Aff plan is terrible, when you can simply argue that the United States is terrible? Or worse, that the Aff team is terrible?

    This kind of argument is called a kritik—debate jargon for employing critical theory (including, and especially, critical race theory) to undermine not the plan you’re supposed to be refuting, but the very legitimacy of liberal society, Western history and even debate itself.

    Writing in an article called “The Corrosion of High School Debate—And How It Mirrors American Politics,” one former debater recalled how “Some debaters even began refusing to debate the resolutions altogether, formulating elaborate theoretical and critical arguments that were, at best, tenuously linked to the topic they had been given.”

    The language of critical race theory is new to most Americans, but debaters have been parsing these words and phrases for years. “Equity” is in; fairness is out. Black bodies, colonialism, “words are violence,” ontological death—these concepts are tossed around in classrooms and tournaments throughout Texas.

    Here’s what I saw first-hand. One of my teams, two Senior girls, went into a round as the Affirmative team. I don’t recall the topic that year (a decade ago), but I do remember them emerging from the round in tears. They lost—and were told they lost—because the Negative team argued they should lose. As two white, privileged students from a private school, Neg claimed, the Affirmative team embodied everything wrong with America.

    I thought there had to be some mistake. But when I saw the ballot a couple of hours later, it was true. The judge wrote that in the interest of social justice, he handed the win to the Negative team—even though Neg offered not a single argument against the Aff plan.

    In another round, one of my teams was a little confused when a member of the opposing team got up and left just as the round started. The judge didn’t object, so my guys went on as usual—making their speeches, organizing their thoughts and crafting their arguments. In the penultimate speech (Second Negative Rebuttal), the absent Neg team member returned, holding a can full of coins. He argued that Neg should win because instead of wasting time in the round, he was out collecting money for a climate change charity—real-world action should trump ineffectual speech, he said (mind you, at a speech tournament). Neg won that round.

    What does one kritik-dependent team do when it comes up against another kritik-dependent team? I’ve watched those rounds devolved into a morass of intersectionality. “You may be female, but I’m Hispanic.” You may be Hispanic, but I have a learning disability.” “Your school spends more per-student than mine.”

    How can debaters respond to critical race theory and similar arguments? They can’t; CRT is non-falsifiable, and to take any position against it is to display “white fragility”—an argument I’ve seen used against non-white students.

  • For those fighting Critical Race Theory, here’s a primer and toolkit.

    • If you know of additional example of Critical Race Theory being taught in Texas schools, feel free to share them in the comments.

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    Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Austin Police/Jose Garza Roundup for October 6, 2021

    Wednesday, October 6th, 2021

    There’s been a lot of news on the Austin Police Department and Soros-backed Travis County DA Jose Garza popping up, so let’s dig in:

  • In case you missed it, Austin police staffing levels have fallen so low that police will no longer respond to “non-emergency” calls. “Collisions with no injury or burglaries no longer in progress or where the suspect has left, would not warrant a 911 call. Austin residents in these situations and others like it will have to call 311 and file a non-emergency report.”
  • “Austin Homicide Investigator Accuses Travis County District Attorney of Criminal Witness Tampering“:

    In an affidavit filed Tuesday, Austin Police Department (APD) Detective David Fugitt went to blows with Travis County District Attorney José Garza over his alleged tampering with Fugitt’s testimony in the prosecution of Army Sergeant Daniel Perry.

    Last month, a grand jury indicted Perry for charges including murder, aggravated assault, and deadly conduct after he shot and killed Garrett Foster, a former Air Force mechanic who was protesting in downtown Austin at a Black Lives Matter demonstration on July 25, 2020.

    Fugitt, who is spearheading the investigation into the incident in question, insisted that Garza quashed exculpatory evidence he planned to provide to the grand jury. He indicated that witness statements gathered by Foster’s relatives and their lawyers “were inconsistent with prior interviews” and video of portions of the incident.

    With respect to a charge of threatening imminent bodily injury, Fugitt had also planned to say that the complaining witness “never once suggested that Daniel Perry” had threatened her by purposefully driving his vehicle in her direction.

    According to the affidavit, Fugitt described an interaction he had with Assistant District Attorney Guillermo Gonzalez in which the detective had asked Gonzalez what “ramifications” there would be if he did not abide by the DA’s request to exclude the evidence favorable to Perry. Fugitt says the office merely told him again which evidence he was not to discuss in front of the grand jury.

    “In my mind, after this directive from José Garza, is when the conduct of the District Attorney’s Office [went] from highly unethical behavior to criminal behavior,” Fugitt deposed.

    “I firmly believe the District Attorney’s Office, acting under the authority of José P. Garza, tampered with me as a witness.”

  • More on the same subject:

    When Fugitt refused and stood by his finding of justified homicide, Garza retaliated. That retaliation implicates Austin PD acting Police Chief Joseph Chacon and Assistant Chief Ricardo Guajardo, according to the filing and several others in the case which PJ Media has obtained.

    Snip.

    The documents call for an evidentiary hearing to determine the facts surrounding Det. Fugitt’s direct accusations against Garza, which include new evidence and also implicate the two leaders of APD. The documents also note that Garza opposes such a hearing, which Sgt. Perry’s defense attorneys interpret as evidence of Garza’s guilt.

    The document accuses District Attorney Garza of felony criminal conduct under the Texas Penal Code 36.06(a)(1)(A), unethical conduct, and violation of Sgt. Perry’s right to a fair trial under the law as a defendant.

    You may start to understand why rank-and-file APD officers were less than wild about Chacon being made police chief…

  • It’s no surprise that Garza has tried to seal the evidence against him.

  • That’s not the only thing Garza doesn’t want you to see:

  • “Austin Office Of Police Oversight Director Farah Muscadin Investigated For Spending Enormous Taxpayer Money To Push Critical Race Theory Training.”

    Farah Muscadin, Director of the Austin Office of Police Oversight, has once again pushed to offer bribes to people in the community to take Critical Race Theory (CRT) training. For completing a 22-hour course, people are cashing in with $550 gift (read grift) cards. $55,000 was defunded from the Austin Police Department to fund this radical training course. Guess who is paying for this ridiculous CRT propaganda?

    It is well past time for Austin citizens to demand their own Office of Government Oversight Committee to watch over how these people continue to waste taxpayer funds on pushing this Marxist-influenced indoctrination that is inherently racially divisive.

    The influential driving force behind these shenanigans is Muscadin. Muscadin was ousted from a similar position at Chicago State University for employing the same shady tactics she is pulling here in Austin.
    Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday said they investigated Farah Muscadin, the director of the Office of Police Oversight, and found some disturbing information about her past career at Chicago State University. Casaday sent a letter to Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk noting Muscadin’s name was mentioned in a lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to falsely accuse a professor of sexual harassment while she was working as Dean of Students at Chicago State University. He also provided board of trustee meeting minutes mentioning Muscadin had been “terminated.”

    This blatant waste of money simply boils down to further defunding of the police. The goal of Muscadin and her ilk is to strip the Austin Police Department of every resource possible.

    Indeed, Muscadin’s name appears in that lunatic Reimagining Public Safety Task Force document, the entire purpose of which was to transfer money from APD to various leftwing activist groups.

    While Austin crime and homicide numbers continue to exponentially increase, these extreme-left radical groups keep chipping away at morale and funding to continue the downward spiral Austin is on in terms of law enforcement and public safety. While the excuses and denial are endless, accountability is in short supply. If you want to address the record breaking murder numbers, look no further than these anti-police radicals’ war with the police.

  • Three former Austin mayors come out for Proposition A:

    • Prop A is a necessary start, but crime will not fully come under control as long as Garza is DA and the current hard-left City Council is in power.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 5 Comments »

    Police Refunding Petition Makes Ballot To Fight Austin Crime Surge

    Tuesday, July 20th, 2021

    Just as they did with the homeless camping ordinance, Save Austin Now says they have enough signatures on their petition to restore police funding to make the ballot in November:

    “107 days from now, we are going to have an overwhelming victory,” Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of the activist group Save Austin Now and Travis County GOP chair said while announcing the group’s collection of over 25,600 signatures to restore Austin Police Department’s (APD) funding.

    The group was joined by representatives from the Austin Police Association, Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, Texas Municipal Police Association, Texas Police Association, and the Austin Police Retired Officers Association (APROA).

    Nearly a year after the Austin City Council approved a $150 million APD budget cut and redirection, it appears likely its restoration is well on the way toward this November’s ballot. The group says every petition has been validated by themselves and expects a validity rate close to their mid-90s percentage for the homeless petition effort.

    While it fell short of the goal to collect 50,000 signatures in 50 days, only 20,000 is needed to secure a spot on this November’s ballot. Additionally, Mackowiak noted in a Monday press conference that 40 percent of the petitions sent in for this effort were from citizens that did not sign a petition for the camping ban reinstatement.

    Save Austin Now announced the effort in late May, not even a month after the group’s resounding success at the ballot box to reinstate the public camping ban.

    The APD-related petition effort does a handful of things:

  • Mandate a minimum staffing level of 2.0 officers per 1,000 residents
  • Establish a minimum 35 percent community response time standard
  • Require 40 additional hours of training
  • Oblige the mayor, city council, and city staff to enroll in the Citizens Police Academy
  • Facilitate minority officer hiring through foreign language proficiency metrics

    • “Our ballot measure ensures that the Austin Police Department is not solely subject to the [city council,]” said Save Austin Now co-founder Cleo Petricek, a mother and Democrat.

    APD currently has over 160 patrol vacancies and is 390 officers short of an adequate staffing level — widely considered two officers per 1,000 residents. APD is currently at 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents, according to department figures.

    The petition is extremely timely considered that almost every indicator shows everything getting worse post-defunding:

    Last year, the Democrat-run Austin City Council, urged by local anti-law enforcement activist groups, defunded the Austin Police Department by a whopping one-third ($150 million). Since then, APD has been forced to disband multiple units (including DWI, family violence safety and stalking, and criminal interdiction), cancel multiple cadet classes, and watch a growing wave of officers leave the force.

    On the streets, [APD Interim Chief Joseph] Chacon said 911 response times are “dramatically” slower, and violent crime has already surged to record numbers in 2021.

    “We’ve never really seen [that level] here before,” he said, referring to the rising number of homicides.

    Chacon said the department is losing 15-20 officers a month, and their understaffing is “not sustainable.” He projected 235 vacancies by May 2022 and 340 by May 2023.

    And make no mistake about it: The budget cuts are the main reason police are leaving the force:

    “Holly Pilsner” is the pseudonym she has used on Facebook for years. She didn’t want to use her real name for this story. She wrote a public post, after she turned in her badge, calling out the $20 million cut to the APD budget and the tense politics around it.

    “I think we all feel eviscerated to be honest with you,” she said. “We do love our community.”

    Pilsner was on patrol for seven years in northwest Austin before moving to the risk-management unit.

    She says she started thinking about leaving the force last summer — claiming the protests were different than they were portrayed. “Everything was a peaceful protest, peaceful peaceful — it wasn’t peaceful,” she said.

    Meantime, the department is feeling the squeeze. Some units have been shut down. Just last week, officers at the scene of a deadly shooting told us they’re having a hard time responding to Austin’s surge in violent crime.

    And things just keep getting worse:

    Another big driver of higher crime rates is radical, George Soros-backed Travis County Jose Garza, who seems to see his job as keeping criminals on the streets of Austin:

    Garza seeks to end the prosecution of crimes: “As you know, on March 1st we implemented a bail policy that asked our prosecutors to ensure that no one is in jail simply because they cannot afford to get out. Our policy prioritizes the safety of our community and our prosecutors have been working hard to re-evaluate open cases according to that community safety framework instead of a wealth-based system.”

    Instead of handcuffing criminals, Garza is handcuffing the prosecutorial process and Lady Justice herself. Garza is inline with a national effort to cripple his department’s prosecutorial ability in advancing a radical ideology that’s focused on completely redesigning the city’s – and the nation’s – criminal justice system. This dangerous reality is also being peddled by a new brand of Bernie-endorsed Democrats across the country.

    As far as Garza is concerned, police and crime victims don’t count at all:

    On March 15, 2021, about two months into his tenure, Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza (D) issued a secret standing order regarding the handling of felony cases in the county. It went into effect immediately…

    Garza’s standing order opens with “In the interest of justice and fairness for all persons arrested for felony crimes,” never mentioning crime victims. In fact, the secret order fails to mention victims of crime even one time. It is solely focused on the DA’s power to decline to prosecute arrestees, and what it demands the Travis County Sheriff’s Office should then do when Garza’s office declines prosecution.

    Snip.

    I spoke with Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), about this Tuesday morning. The easy-going Wilkison was livid about the order and told me that law enforcement officers have already seen its effects. They are seeing suspects they take in on felony charges released so quickly, per Garza’s order, that they are back on the streets before officers even return to their precincts. This indicates the DA office’s review may not be very thorough. He noted that homicides are up more than 50%. Northwest Austin suffered yet another fatal shooting Monday night, pushing homicides up near 50 for the year.

    DA Garza’s tenure has already come under scrutiny multiple times since he took office in January 2021. Crime is skyrocketing on his watch, while he has openly prioritized prosecuting cops on cold cases that have already been investigated. He has set up a catch and release system that put an 8-time felon back on the streets, where he perpetrated a 10-day armed robbery spree and led law enforcement on a chase from just outside Houston into Austin. More recently, an assistant prosecutor quit the office, claiming Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger ordered her to delete evidence from case files. The Austin Police Association has called for an investigation into this disturbing case. If the name in that case rings a bell, Strassburger is the same assistant district attorney who solicited for lawyers who want to prosecute police officers to apply for work with the Travis County DA’s office. The Travis County district attorney’s priorities are more than clear with Garza at the helm: ignore crime victims, hastily release felons and accused felons, and prosecute police officers.

    And he just hired former Hayes County Judge Millie Thompson, who was crazy she had to resign after four months, for the “Civil Rights Division” (AKA, to prosecute police).

    The Travis County DA’s office doesn’t seem to hire the best:

    Mayor Steve Adler is, as usual, nowhere to be found:

    Crime is spiking hard in Democrat-run cities across the country, many of which defunded their police and then proceeded to demoralize them. Austin is not only not an exception to this, it led the way with one of the nation’s largest defuding efforts. Adler led the city council to gut the police budget by about $150 million, a third of its budget. The cuts included key community policing and intelligence units.

    What on earth did he expect would happen when he led defunding of the city’s police? Why hasn’t anyone in the mainstream media asked him how he expected defunding to play out, versus what’s actually happened?

    Why don’t the anchors ask him about a) defunding, and b) the consequences of defunding?

    The usual idiots, of course, are shocked at the very idea of adequately funding police:

    As previously documented, the hard left wants to keep police defunded so they can get their fingers on as much money and power as they possibly can.

    Austin’s leftwing citizens finally woke up enough to vote for proposition B in May. Let’s hope they do they same to restore police funding in November.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats | 2 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for May 14, 2021

    Friday, May 14th, 2021

    The Biden Recession blooms, Bibby bombs, Baltimore burns, inscrutable Flu Manchu somehow infects the vaccinated, and Canada’s institutional religious hostility inflicts its revenge on the pastor that defied them. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Carter Malaise II: Inflation Boogaloo: The core inflation rate is now at 11%. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • If inflation wasn’t enough to remind you of Biden’s reboot of That 70’s Show, how about long gas lines? An east coast gas pipeline was shut down by ransomeware attack launched by a hacking group called DarkSide.

    Rendered with the magic of dyslexia

    We’re actually very fortunate that a for-profit gang carried out this hack, rather than a terrorist group or state actor.

  • “South Carolina Follows Montana In Ending All Supplemental Unemployment Benefit Programs.” Strange how the government paying people not to work hurts jobs numbers…
  • Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (WV) says he’s not going to let the Democrats’ election-theft bill pass. Good for him. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Seeing some reports stating that Israeli ground forces entered Gaza, but seeing some Twitter commentary that, no, they haven’t entered, but that IDF artillery and tanks are pounding Hamas tunnels.
  • Why won’t those violent Israelis just let themselves be killed?

    Two weeks ago Turkish forces launched a military assault in the Duhok region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Villagers were forced to ‘flee in terror’ from raining bombs. It was only the latest bombardment of the beleaguered Kurds by Turkey, NATO member and Western ally. It did not trend online. There were no noisy protests in London or New York. The Turks weren’t talked about in woke circles as crazed, bloodthirsty killers. Tweeters didn’t dream out loud about Turks burning in hell. The Onion didn’t do any close-to-the-bone satire about how Turkish soldiers just love killing children. No, the Duhok attack passed pretty much without comment.

    But when Israel engages in military action, that’s a different story. Always. Every time. Anti-Israel fury in the West has intensified to an extraordinary degree following an escalation of violence in the Middle East in recent days. Protests were instant and inflammatory. Israeli flags were burned on the streets of London. Social media was awash with condemnation. ‘IDF Soldier Recounts Harrowing, Heroic War Story Of Killing 8-Month-Old Child’, tweeted The Onion, to tens of thousands of likes. Israel must be boycotted, isolated, cast out of the international community, leftists cried. Western politicians, including Keir Starmer, rushed to pass judgement. ‘What’s the difference?’, said a placard at a march in Washington, DC showing the Israeli flag next to the Nazi flag. The Jews are the Nazis now, you see. Ironic, isn’t it?

    This is the question anti-Israel campaigners have never been able to answer: why do they treat Israel so differently to every other nation on Earth? Why is it child-killing bloodlust when Israel takes military action but not when Turkey or India do? Why must we rush to the streets to set light to the Israel flag but never the Saudi flag, despite Saudi Arabia’s unconscionable war on Yemen? Why is it only ‘wrong’ or at worst ‘horrific’ when Britain or America drop bombs in the Middle East but Nazism when Israel fires missiles into Gaza? Why do you merely oppose the military action of some states but you hate Israel, viscerally, publicly, loudly?

    The judgement and treatment of Israel by a double standard is one of the most disturbing facets of global politics in the 21st century. That double standard has been glaringly evident over the past few days. Israel is now the only country on Earth that is expected to allow itself to be attacked. To sit back and do nothing as its citizens are pelted with rocks or rockets. How else do we explain so many people’s unwillingness to place the current events in any kind of context, including the context of an avowedly anti-Semitic Islamist movement – Hamas – firing hundreds of missiles into civilian areas in Israel? In this context, to rage solely against Israel, to curse its people and burn its flag because it has sent missiles to destroy Hamas’s firing positions in Gaza, is essentially to say: ‘Why won’t Israelis let themselves be killed?’

  • Hamas is the instrument of Iran’s proxy war against Israel:

    Last year, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei admitted for the first time that his country was supplying the Palestinian terrorist groups with weapons. “Iran realized Palestinian fighters’ only problem was lack of access to weapons,” Khamenei said in an online speech.

    “With divine guidance and assistance, we planned, and the balance of power has been transformed in Palestine, and today the Gaza Strip can stand against the aggression of the Zionist enemy and defeat it.”

    Khamenei went on to offer the reason why Iran was sending rockets, missiles and tons of explosives to the Gaza Strip: “The Zionist regime is a deadly, cancerous tumor in the region. It will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.”

    Khamenei’s admission shows how the mullahs in Tehran have been lying to the West for many years. In 2011, Mohammad Khazaee, the Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations, sent a letter to the President of the United Nations Security Council in which he vehemently denied that Iran was smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip.

    

  • Baltimore was one of the first cities to try “de-policing.” How did that work out for it? Not so hot:

    This experiment has been an abject failure. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered—one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56—ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black.

    Remarkably, Baltimore is reinforcing its de-policing strategy. State’s Attorney for Baltimore Marilyn Mosby no longer intends to prosecute various “low-level” crimes. Newly elected mayor Brandon Scott promises a five-year plan to cut the police budget. Both justify their policies by asserting that the bloodbath on city streets proves that policing itself “hasn’t worked”; they sell their acceleration of de-policing as a “fresh approach” and “re-imagining” of law enforcement.

    The tried “broken windows” policing without understanding it:

    The motivation for de-policing traces to the city’s botched response to an earlier crime epidemic in the 1990s, when it averaged 45 homicides per 100,000 population, up 55 percent from the previous decade. So in 1999 Baltimoreans elected a mayor, Martin O’Malley, who promised to apply New York’s successful crime-fighting approach, where homicides had plunged by two-thirds over the decade (to one-ninth Baltimore’s rate) thanks to an expanded police force and innovative, proactive policing strategies.

    O’Malley’s first commissioner, NYPD veteran Ed Norris, initially showed promise. By 2002, Baltimore’s homicide rate was 20 percent below its 1999 level. As O’Malley pressed for more, however, relations soured, and Norris departed (and some financial shenanigans eventually earned him a stint in federal prison). His successor, Kevin Clark, another NYPD import, also became embroiled in personal and professional controversy; he was fired and succeeded by a Baltimore PD holdover. By the time O’Malley moved to the Maryland governor’s mansion in 2007, Baltimore’s homicide rate was back to its 1990s average.

    The problem was not just turmoil among BPD leadership and meddling (or worse) by O’Malley, but a fatal misunderstanding of what had worked in New York. There, the broad spectrum of criminal activity was addressed efficiently and with community engagement. Detailed data helped guide resources to crime hot spots. Chief William J. Bratton implemented the Broken Windows theory-inspired community-policing methods pioneered by social scientists George Kelling and James Q. Wilson, who understood how small manifestations of disorder could grow to larger ones. Minor offenses that made residents feel unsafe or hinted at acceptance of violence were addressed in order to improve quality of life, strengthen communities, and prevent serious crime.

    In Baltimore, however, Broken Windows was misunderstood and misapplied. It mutated into a malignant variant, “zero tolerance” policing—and BPD conduct became not just intolerant but unfocused and excessive. As David Simon, a veteran Baltimore crime reporter and creator of HBO’s The Wire, summed things up, O’Malley “tossed the Fourth Amendment out a window and began using the police department to sweep the corners and rowhouse stoops and [per Norris] ‘lock up damn near everyone.’” That sometimes even included Wire crew members on their way home from a long day of filming.

    True Broken Windows policing, in Kelling’s words, creates “a negotiated sense of order in a community” and involves collaboration between cops and residents. As one BPD vet put it, “You go to a community—before we come in, [we should ask], ‘What are the main things you all can’t stand?’ Everybody playing music at 11:30 at night, kids sitting on the corner, the prostitutes using the little park over there to work their trade. Now, ‘What don’t you care about?’ See the old guys sitting down at the corner playing cards every night? They could stay there all they want. . . . Then the police come in and do what the neighborhood wants. You just don’t go out and lock everybody up.” But, he concluded, “we went overboard.”

    Then they adjusted:

    O’Malley’s successor, Sheila Dixon (the city’s first female and third black mayor), defied her staff’s recommendations and named as commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, a BPD lifer with no college pedigree. “It was something in my gut that felt he was the best person,” Dixon explained. “I could just feel his passion.”

    Bealefeld understood community policing better than the New York imports, addressing disorder and crime efficiently. He attended community meetings tirelessly to find out what residents wanted done; got cops out of their cars and walking patrols more often; invested in better training; and supported cops’ work with kids. Partnering with a savvy federal prosecutor, Rod Rosenstein, he targeted known dealers and shooters, emphasizing quality arrests—including of cops on the take. It worked. Even as arrest totals fell (to 70,000 by 2010), so did the homicide rate, to a low of 31 per 100,000 residents by 2011.

    And then the Social Justice started:

    Dixon had embezzled gift cards meant for the poor—petty corruption is a Baltimore tradition—and in 2010 was succeeded by Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. The Oberlin-educated former public defender was more liberal than Dixon, personally lukewarm to Bealefeld, and sympathetic to those embittered by O’Malley’s “zero tolerance” policies. And she faced budget problems. De-policing, then, seemed to tick all the right boxes—and, with the homicide rate at a 23-year low (though still almost seven times the national average), there would be little outcry against it.

    First came some defunding, with a 2 percent pay cut to help address a recession-related budget pinch; cops’ contributions to their pension funds also were raised to help address shortfalls there. The new mayor’s first proposed budget actually cut the BPD’s request by 10 percent, though the difference eventually was split. Demoralized, experienced cops started retiring in numbers.

    Rawlings-Blake did not replace them, and she trimmed staffed aggressively. BPD budgets had consistently authorized about 3,900 positions through the O’Malley and Dixon years. Rawlings-Blake took that down by 5 percent in her 2012 budget and another 6 percent in 2013. Bealefeld called the cuts “unconscionable” and retired. As he’d told the head of the police union at one point, “you can only beat down your horses for so long before they give up.”

    So even before Freddie Gray died in police custody in 2015 and Baltimoreans rioted, the BPD had 460 fewer budgeted “horses” than under Mayor Dixon—with 300 fewer on patrol, conducting investigations, or targeting violent criminals. Not surprisingly, the homicide rate surged 20 percent by 2013. And after the city’s newly elected prosecutor, Mosby, criminally charged six uniformed officers in Gray’s death—though she failed to convict any—proactive policing essentially ceased. The city’s annual body count jumped and has remained tragically high since.

    Read the whole thing.

  • Baltimore’s Soros-backed City State Attorney Marilyn Mosby can’t be bothered to indict antifa rioters, but she can ask the FCC to investigate Tucker Carlson for daring to criticize her.
  • Speaking of defunding the police, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey admits that defunding the police was a huge mistake. If only the rest of the Minneapolis had realized this before all the deaths.
  • “Meet Bishop Garrison: The Pentagon’s Hatchet Man in Charge of Purging MAGA Patriots and Installing Race Theory in The Military.”
  • Russia’s robot army is mainly vaporware.
  • Just about everything they told us about transmission vectors for Mao Tze Lung was wrong:

    Bars, gyms and restaurants. Those were just a few settings health experts warned could become hotbeds for COVID-19 spread as states began reopening in the spring and summer of 2020 following the first and second waves of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

    Yet, public data analyzed by ABC News appears to tell a different story. The data from states across the country suggests specific outbreak settings (including bars, gyms, restaurants, nail salons, barbershops and stores — for the full list, see graphic below in story) only accounted for a small percentage, if any, of new outbreaks after the pandemic’s inital wave in 2020.

    Snip.

    Based on ABC News’ analysis of public data of all coronavirus cases in four states and D.C., the outbreak settings accounted for less than 5% of all COVID-19 cases in those states.

  • “World’s Most Vaccinated Nation Sees Active COVID Cases Double In Under A Week.” Mysterious uptick in the Seychelles.
  • Another data point: “Yankees Suffer COVID Resurgence As 8 Fully-Vaccinated Players, Staff Test Positive.” A fluke? Bad batch of vaccines? Bad batch of tests?
  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
  • “Why Did Biden Census Bureau Add 2.5 Million More Residents to Blue-State Population Count?” The question pretty much answers itself, doesn’t it?
  • Kansas’ Republican legislature overrides Democratic governor’s veto of election integrity bill.
  • Texas congressman Chip Roy is running ran against Elise Stefanik for conference chair to replace Liz Cheney. (Oops, he lost, 134-46.)
  • Remember the Polish pastor who kicked police out of his Canadian church? Well, Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before The State: “Calgary pastor Artur Pawlowski has been arrested for holding a church service.” That will teach him for daring to think Canada has freedom of religion…
  • How we got to the Ever Given. The first container ship only carried 58 boxes. Current container ships can carry as many as 24,000…
  • “Former Democrat Speaker of House in Oregon Arrested for Sex Trafficking.”

    Dave Hunt represented Clackamas County in the Oregon House of Representatives from 2003 through 2013. Hunt was the former Democratic Leader, Majority Leader, and Speaker of the House for the State of Oregon. As a legislator, Hunt the sponsor of a bill criminalizing sex trafficking in 2007. Hunt is currently a lobbyist working to influence the very chamber he left.

    However, even more ironic in 2011, Dave Hunt use his position to support and vote for HB 2714. That bill created the crime of commercial sexual solicitation, the exact crime police used to charge Hunt when he was arrested and cited.

    Sort of sounds like a garden variety prostitution solicitation charge. But if he’s one of the legislators to redefine that as “sex trafficking,” my sympathy is extremely limited.

  • Colorado Democrats give up on their gun control push. (For now.) Good. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • I-40 bridge over Mississippi closed due to a giant crack in a key structural beam.
  • Telsa plans more expansion in Travis County.
  • NRA’s bankruptcy petition has been dismissed. Understandably, since it seemed a transparent ploy to begin with. It’s too bad Wayne LaPierre seems intent on dragging the NRA down with him…
  • Mark Sebu follows up on the Kentucky Ballistics explosion. Evidently it would haven taken 161,520 PI to shear the threads off the Sebu RN 50. Also, there were no pre-cuts on the sabot, suggesting it may indeed have been a counterfeit SLAP round that caused the explosion.
  • Not the Babylon Bee: O.J. Simpson backs Liz Cheney, accuses the Republican Party of “dishonesty.” I don’t feel I can adequately parody this real-life event, even though I should probably take a stab at it…
    

  • Sign you may be in a cult: They keep keep the mummified body of the dead leader in someone’s home, covered by Christmas lights. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Top Gear/Grand Tour presenter James May found out that trickle charging a Tesla S’ main car battery didn’t charge the ordinary car battery, the one responsible for regular electric systems…like unlocking the hood latch to reach the same battery. Result: an hour of work just to reach the dead battery.
  • Speaking of impractical automotive accoutrements, here’s a Bugatti watch with a “working” W16 engine, yours for a mere $280,000…
  • Foamy: “Stop saving the stupid people!”
  • “Disney To Remove Problematic Kiss From Classic Movie, Snow White Will Now Remain Dead.”
  • Pipeline blues:

  • “Damnit! I had two sawbucks on Beatlebaum!”

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, Republicans, Texas, Welfare State | 2 Comments »

    Former Travis County Sheriff’s Deputy Murders Three, On The Lam

    Sunday, April 18th, 2021

    Just imagine that there’s an “allegedly” in that headline, but that does appear to be the case:

    Authorities have lifted the shelter in place order near the apartment complex where three people were shot and killed Sunday, but the suspect remains at large, Interim Austin Police Chief Joe Chacon said during a second update on the .

    People who were sheltering inside their residences and businesses can now come out, and people who had been out of their homes will now be allowed to go back in, Chacon said.

    Chacon also confirmed that the suspect, 41-year-old Stephen Nicholas Broderick, is a former deputy with the Travis County sheriff’s office.

    Law enforcement units have begun to leave the Great Hills Trail area where the shooting happened as Chacon said the efforts to find Broderick now transition into a fugitive search.

    However, Chacon urged the community to remain vigilant. He asked people who may have information about his whereabouts to avoid approaching him and call 911.

    Back in June of 2020, Broderick was put on administrative leave after being charged with sexual assault of child.

    He’s a black male “5 feet, 7 inches tall and was last seen wearing a gray hoodie, sunglasses and a baseball cap.” Also looks like he’s got a tattoo that says “Lord Have Mercy” on his chest at his neckline. If you see this guy, call 911:

    Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 2 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for March 19, 2021

    Friday, March 19th, 2021

    Greetings and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Our garbage elites are among the many continuing themes…

  • Why the Texas energy crisis has greens so scared:

    Last month, President Biden signed a series of executive orders undermining fossil fuels, on the grounds the “climate crisis” forced his hand. “We can’t wait any longer. We see with our own eyes. We know it in our bones. It is time to act.”

    Within days, most of the country was seeing “with our own eyes” and feeling “in our bones” a cold wave so severe that five million people lost electricity and, in a special irony, nearly half of the ballyhooed wind turbines in Texas, which had risen to supply 23% of her energy, were left frozen (and inoperable).

    This constituted a double whammy to the huge global warming establishment. First was the cold, when the “science” had confidently predicted a steadily warming Texas. Second was the failure of renewables, vastly exacerbating the problems for the energy grid.

    Within hours the mainstream media had risen to the challenge. Journalists employed their familiar word games, quickly substituting “climate change” for global warming. Readers might be a tad confused if they read “The brutal cold striking Texas is emblematic of a world facing more unpredictable weather due to the rising impact of global warming” but substitute “climate change” for the last two words and presto, the sentence works. To be sure, that’s only because “climate change” is a meaningless term.

    Snip.

    For the global warming establishment, the disastrous performance of renewables was more upsetting than the cold spell itself. The New York Times, in a lengthy article on the Texas energy blackout (Feb. 16) simply ignored the freezing wind turbines while Bloomberg buried a mention. When other media outlets took notice, it was generally to minimize the role of the turbines in the energy shutdown, putting most of the blame anywhere and everywhere else. ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, responsible for managing the electric grid, weighed in to support the minimizers, putting most of the blame on gas generators.

    Snip.

    Why does the media (and entire global warming establishment) find it so important to blame global warming for the current cold spell? Why is it so important to exonerate green power for the debacle in Texas? The inhabitants of this country, from kindergarten on, are being indoctrinated to believe in the supposed existential crisis of a warming planet. Evidence that cooling means warming has to be quickly marshaled lest the public come to credit its lying eyes and, a terrifying prospect, start to question the unfalsifiable dogma it has been told is “rock solid science.” It might even ridicule the now decades old claims by climate scientists, like David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that snow would all but vanish in a few years.

    If the public could be reassured that the cold spell was merely another manifestation of global warming, believers in the prevailing doomsday scenarios would have their faith reinforced and possible doubters derailed before their doubts crystallized.

    As for deflecting blame from green power, this is a crucial moment in the battle to phase out fossil fuels. The Biden administration talks of mandating a total reliance on renewables within a few decades. The public must consider this a promising goal, offering a better life. If people decide it means unreliable energy, sitting in the cold and dark for days or weeks, energy prices through the roof (the price of gas rose by 100 times in Texas at one point), they may clamor to prevent an existential crisis around the corner in preference to avoiding one forecast in a far future by unproven computer models.

    Most worrying to climate elites, people are angry. In Texas, reporters found the man in the street incredulous that in the number one energy producing state, he was not only without electricity and heat but without safe drinking water. The media, so heavily invested in global warming, recognizes it is essential that the average citizen “seeking answers” find a target for his wrath. Heaven forfend that he should blame the media, politicians, even the scientific community, for foisting man-made global warming on him, with its insistence that man must change the climate by substituting unreliable renewables for tried and true fossil fuels.

    And so the media fastens on “safe” villains.

    

  • Remembering the the Russian conspiracy hoax:

    That the entire Russiagate storyline itself was a fraud and a farce is conclusively demonstrated by one decisive fact that can never be memory-holed: namely, the impetus for the scandal and subsequent investigation was the conspiracy theory that the Trump campaign had secretly and criminally conspired with the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election, primarily hacking into the email inboxes of the DNC and Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. And a grand total of zero Americans were accused (let alone convicted) of participating in that animating conspiracy.

    The New York Times’ May, 2017 announcement of Robert Mueller as special counsel stated explicitly that his task was “to oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials” and specifically “investigate ‘any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.’”

    The related secondary media-created conspiracy theory was that the Kremlin clandestinely controlled U.S. political institutions by virtue of sexual and financial blackmail held over President Trump, which they used to compel him to obediently obey their dictates. “I don’t know what the Russians have on the president, politically, personally, or financially” was the dark innuendo which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her media allies most loved to spout. “Prestige news” outlets created their own Q-Anon-level series of art designed to implant in Americans’ minds a slew of McCarthyite imagery showing the Kremlin (or an iconic Moscow cathedral they mistook for the Kremlin) having fully infiltrated Washington’s key institutions.

    But that all came crashing down on their heads in April, 2019, when Mueller announced that he was closing his investigation without charging even a single American with the criminal conspiracy that launched the entire spectacle: criminally conspiring with the Russian government to interfere in the election. Again: while Mueller — like so many Washington special counsels before him — ended up snaring some operatives in alleged process crimes committed after the investigation commenced (lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice) or unrelated crimes (Manafort’s financial sleaze), the 18-month aggressive, sprawling investigation resulted in exactly zero criminal charges on the core claim that Trump officials had criminally conspired with Russia.

    If that were not sufficient to make every person who drowned the country in this crazed conspiracy theory feel enormous shame (and it should have been), the former FBI Director’s final Report explicitly stated that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election.” In many cases, the Report went even further than this “did not establish” formulation to state that there was no evidence of any kind found for many of the key media conspiracies (“The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation”; the “evidence does not establish that one campaign official’s efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican platform was undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia”; “the investigation did not establish that [Carter] Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election”). The Report also barely even dignified let alone confirmed the long-standing, utterly deranged Democratic/media conspiracy theory that the Kremlin had taken over U.S. policy through blackmail.

    For a few weeks following the issuance of the Mueller report, Democrats and media figures gamely attempted to deny that it obliterated the conspiracy theories to which they had relentlessly subjected the country for the prior four years. How could they do otherwise? They staked their entire reputations and the trust of their audience on having this be true. To avoid their day of reckoning, they would hype ancillary events such as Paul Manafort’s conviction on unrelated financial crimes or Michael Flynn’s guilty plea for a minor and dubious charge (for which even Mueller recommended no prison time) or Roger Stone’s various process charges to insist that there was still a grain of truth to their multifaceted geopolitical fairy tale seemingly lifted straight from a Tom Clancy Cold War thriller about the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

    But even they knew this was just a temporary survival strategy and that it was unsustainable for the long term. That the crux of the scandal all along was that key Trump allies if not the President himself would be indicted and imprisoned for having conspired with the Russians was too glaring to make people forget about it.

    That was why former CIA Director John Brennan assured the MSNBC audience in March — just weeks before Mueller closed his investigation with no conspiracy crimes alleged — that it was impossible that the investigation could close without first indicting Trump’s children and other key White House aides on what Brennan correctly said was the whole point of the scandal from the start: “criminal conspiracy involving the Russians . . . . whether or not U.S. persons were actively collaborating, colluding, cooperating, involved in a conspiracy with them or not.” Brennan strongly insinuated that among those likely to be indicted for criminally conspiring with the Russians were those “from the Trump family.”

    As we all know, literally none of that happened. Not only were Trump family members not indicted by Mueller on charges of “criminal conspiracy involving the Russians,” no Americans were. Brennan believed there was no way that the Mueller investigation could end without that happening because that was the whole point of the scandal from the start. To explain why it had not happened up to that point after eighteen months of investigation by Mueller’s subpoena-armed and very zealous team of prosecutors, Brennan invented a theory that they were waiting to do that as the final act because they knew they would be fired by Trump once it happened. But it never happened because Mueller found no evidence to prove that it did.

    In other words, the conspiracy theory that the media pushed on Americans since before Trump’s inauguration — to the point where it drowned out most of U.S. politics and policy for years — proved to have no evidentiary foundation. And that is one reason I say that the sectors of the media pretending to be most distraught at the spread of “disinformation” by anonymous citizens on Facebook and 4Chan are, in fact, the most aggressive, prolific and destructive disseminators of that disinformation by far (nor was it uncredentialed YouTube hosts, Patreon podcasters or Substack writers who convinced Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons and was in an alliance with Al Qaeda but rather the editor-heavy prestige outlets such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, NBC News and The Atlantic).

    

  • More on the same theme:

  • Democratic Milwaukee County Judge Brett Blomme arrested on child pornography charges.

    Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Brett Blomme was arrested Tuesday on tentative charges of possession of child pornography, the state Department of Justice announced.

    Blomme, 38, was taken into custody by special agents with the state Division of Criminal Investigation “following an investigation into multiple uploads of child pornography through a Kik messaging application account in October and November 2020,” according to a statement.

    Snip.

    Before being elected, Blomme was the head of the board of zoning appeals for the City of Milwaukee, appointed to the post by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and head of the Cream City Foundation, which provides grant money to LGBTQ groups in the Milwaukee area.

    A longtime LGBTQ activist, Blomme previously was director of major gifts at the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin for 18 months, following a stint at the Madison City Attorney’s Office. From 2011 to 2015, he practiced criminal defense with the State Public Defender’s Office.

    Missing from that piece: Blomme is a big wheel in the Milwaukee Democratic Party:

    Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Brett Blomme, who was charged Wednesday with seven counts of possession of child pornography, is a popular and influential figure among elected Democrats in Milwaukee. A very close ally of the city’s longtime mayor, Tom Barrett, Blomme was supported and endorsed by nearly every major Democrat and left-wing group involved in Milwaukee politics when he ran for a seat on the court last year.

    “I support Brett because, like me, he is committed to making Milwaukee a better place for all of us,” said U.S. Congressman Gwen Moore when she endorsed Blomme’s judicial run last winter. “Brett is the change we need to help fix our broken criminal justice system.”

    Blomme called this a “key endorsement” that helped propel him to a win over incumbent Paul Dedinsky. Blomme was seated on the bench in August and was serving in Children’s Court at the time of his arrest.

    He was also a sponsor of “Drag Queen Story Hour.”

  • “Police arrest 37 in child sex trafficking operation” in Phoenix.
  • 75% of Americans support voter ID. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Democrats are getting ready to shove a huge tax increase down America’s throat. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • 21 states, lead by Texas and Montana, sue the Biden Administration over the illegal cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
  • Our garbage ruling class:

    On this particular evening, my wife and I found ourselves at a roundtable with the CEO of a large hotel chain on our left, and a large communications conglomerate on our right. The Republicans, we’re often told, are the party of the rich and famous. Yet nearly everyone assembled at this dinner simply loathed Donald Trump. He was the focus of nearly every conversation. And then the hotel CEO announced, ‘Trump has no idea how much his policies are hurting business. I mean, we can’t keep people for $18 an hour in our hotels. If we’re not paying $20, we’re understaffed. And it’s all because of Donald Trump’s immigration policies.’ Let’s pause for a second to appreciate one of the wealthiest men in the world complaining about paying hard-working staff $20 an hour. The only thing he was missing was the Monopoly Man hat and cane. His argument, while vile, was at least intellectually honest: ‘Normally, if we can’t find workers at a given wage, we just get a bunch of immigrants to do the job. It’s easy. But there are so few people coming in across the border, so we just have to pay the people here more.’ This is why the American labor movement opposed immigration expansion for much of the past century—until recently, when many labor unions decided that being woke took priority over protecting workers. My wife is not a political person, and I’ve never seen her as animated by a conversation about politics as she was at this ‘masters of the universe’ dinner. ‘OK,’ she told me later. ‘I can understand why you can’t stand these people.’… Nearly every major business and financial leader in this country is a supporter of the Democratic Party. They love illegal immigration for the simple reason that their livelihoods are subsidized by illegal immigration—while illegal aliens themselves are subsidized by the taxpayer. It’s a redistribution scheme from the poor to the rich.

  • Houston police chief Art Acevedo leaving for Miami. As Dwight notes: “He decided to leave town before he got run out on a rail behind the narcotics scandal.”
  • “Suspect in Murder of Houston Police Officer Released on Bond as Departing Police Chief Denounces Harris County Judges.”
  • “To defeat woke tyrants, the rest of us must treat them like the monsters they are.”

    Most Americans hate woke politics — and most minorities don’t share “woke” priorities. Indeed, according to pollster David Shor, woke excesses are causing black voters to flee the Democratic Party. Despite endless charges of “racism,” former President Donald Trump took the biggest share of minority voters of any Republican in my lifetime.

    Woke tyrants ride high, even so; according to a Cato/YouGov poll, 62 percent of Americans self-censor their political expression. Only a tiny minority of consumers care about Mr. Potato Head’s toxic masculinity, about “Aunt Jemima” as a brand or about the #MeToo aggressions of Pepé Le Pew. Yet corporations, universities and governments rush to placate that minuscule slice of the population, trashing large chunks of our culture in the process.

    It’s happening not because anybody voted for it, but because a small but determined and vicious minority is bullying people to go along, relying on cowardice and groupthink to achieve ends that could never happen via majority vote: How do you think Dr. Seuss would have done in a referendum?

    Snip.

    They need to be deprived of the thing that is most important to their self-image: moral credibility.

    The woke think of themselves — and want everyone else to think of them — as deeply moral. If they have a flaw, it’s that they just care too much. They’re too idealistic, too empathetic, too eager to make the world a better place.

    That’s bulls–t (pardon my French, Pepé!). If you look at what they do, rather than what they say about themselves, it quickly becomes obvious that the woke are horrible, awful people, and they should be treated as such and reminded of this whenever they raise their head.

    Historically, it’s not the good guys who are out burning books and censoring speech. It isn’t the caring, empathetic people who try to destroy lives based on something someone said years ago, often while young, often taken out of context. It isn’t the good guys who take undisguised glee at the ruining of lives, families and careers.

    You know who does these things? Horrible, awful people. Selfish people. People with serious mental and emotional problems who seek some sort of vindication for their deficient characters by taking power trips while imposing suffering on others.

    Treat these tyrants as what they are: awful people who shouldn’t be listened to and who need to work hard on joining the better half of the human race. And remind them of it, over and over. Because it’s true.

  • “A recent mathematical model has suggested that staying at home did not play a dominant role in reducing COVID-19 transmission.”
  • “Austin, Travis County Sued by Texas Attorney General for Refusing to Rescind Mask Mandate.”
  • “In California, Your Church or Your Small Business Still Receives the Hammer of the State, While Grammy Entertainers Party Without Penalty.” It angries up the blood it does….
  • Speaking of lunacy California’s government imposes on its citizens: “California Curriculum Leads Kids in Chant to Aztec God of Human Sacrifice.”
  • An ad, but a sobering one:

  • Speaking of Google competitors, JavaScript creator and Mozilla founder Brendan Eich is working on a new privacy-focused search engine.
  • 76-year old Asian woman kicks the ass of would-be assailant. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • A collection of Home Owner’s Association horror stories. (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)
  • 1. Drive loaner Beamer to bank. 2. Rob bank. 3. Try to use money from bank robbery to buy Beamer.
  • High flying lawyer and Democratic Party fundraiser Tom Girardi marries trophy wife. Result? Bankruptcy:

    When Joe Biden came to Los Angeles to raise money for his presidential campaign, Tom Girardi filled a dining room at the Jonathan Club with wealthy attorneys. . . . The 2019 breakfast fundraiser at the private downtown club was in many ways the end of an era. By the time Biden was elected last fall, Girardi’s life and legal empire were unraveling. His wealth, once estimated north of $250 million, has vanished and with it his reputation as one of the nation’s most connected and respected lawyers. With Girardi facing bankruptcy, divorce and a criminal investigation, his days as a political insider and power broker appear over. For decades, though, politicians were happy to take his money and put up with his requests for something in return. Along with his family and employees, Girardi contributed more than $7.3 million to candidates.

    If you study the pathetic tale of Girardi’s downfall — the Los Angeles Times ran a 4,000-word story about this shabby tragedy in December — you realize that the primary source of his problems was his third wife, a blonde bimbo gold-digger more than 30 years his junior. A native of Atlanta, Erika Chahoy moved to New York as soon as she turned 18.

    To underwrite his new wife’s musical career, Girardi set up a Ponzi scheme. Also this: “Although Girardi was in the midst of an acrimonious dispute over dividing assets with his second wife, he opted not to sign a prenuptial agreement.” Oh, she also released a song called “Xxpen$ive” and starred in Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. And then filed for divorce.

    “Twenty years ago, Tom Girardi was worth more than $50 million, and now at age 81, he’s on his way to bankruptcy and disbarment.

    He will probably die in prison. Way to go, top Democrat donor!”

  • Former NBA player Shawn Bradley paralyzed after being hit by a car while riding his bike. Because a 7’6″ guy riding a bicycle is evidently really hard to see. And for old times sake:

  • One of the most amazing guitar solos you’ll ever hear. And it’s by the guy who doesn’t have the guitar:

  • Heh:

  • “Biden Says Mask Wearing Must Continue Until Everyone Has Learned Complete Obedience To Government.”
  • David Hogg’s pillow company seems to have already failed.

  • Whoa.
  • 7 Simpsons characters in 35 seconds.
  • Speaking of The Simpsons, did you know that the pilot for Leave It To Beaver had different cast members for almost everyone except Jerry Mathers and Barbara Billingsly? And that the Eddie Haskell-esque role of Frankie was played by none other than Harry Shearer?
  • “Woman Who Thought Being A Princess Was Too Hard Wants To Run For President.”
  • Our betters explore fashion:

  • Check it out, the funk soul brother:

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Global Warming, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »

    Breaking: Texas Supreme Court Also Tells Adler To Get Stuffed

    Friday, January 1st, 2021

    In our last installment of As The Lockdown Turns, Austin Mayor Steve Adler had tried to order Austin bars and restaurants to close at 10:30 PM for drinking and dining over the New Year’s Weekend. This, in turn, was was overturned by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who notef that his own executive orders precluded this. Adler then appealed to District Judge Amy Clark Meachum, who denied the injunction sought by the state, and Travis County Judge Andy Brown stated “My priority during this pandemic is to protect the health and safety of our community.” As opposed to, you know, actually ruling on the law.

    The state, in turn, appealed that decision to the Texas Supreme Court, which, in turn, just issued a rare New Year’s Day ruling which also told Adler to get stuffed:

    IN RE STATE OF TEXAS; 3rd Court of Appeals District (03-20-00619-CV)

    Without hearing oral argument, and having considered “Defendants Travis County and City of Austin’s Joint Response in Opposition to Plaintiff’s Application for Temporary Injunction,” we conditionally grant the petition for writ of mandamus and direct the court of appeals to issue relief under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 29.3, instanter, enjoining enforcement of Travis County’s County Judge Order 2020-24 and the Mayor of the City of Austin’s Order No. 20201229-24 pending final resolution of the appeal. Our writ will issue only if the court of appeals does not comply.

    Strangely, the Texas Constitution does not allow elected Democrats to change laws because they really feel strongly about them…

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Regulation, Texas | 1 Comment »

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