Posts Tagged ‘fraud’
Friday, July 26th, 2024
More dirt comes out about the (intentionally?) shoddy security at Trump’s Butler rally, Netanyahu addresses congress, China bribes some Democrats, Israel hits the Houthis, Redbox users are screwed, and Sanrio upends the world with a shocking revelation. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Security at Trump’s Bitler rally was even worse than we thought.
More whistleblowers are coming forward with damning allegations about the law-enforcement failures surrounding the failed assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.
Whistleblowers with “direct knowledge” of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) handling of the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., last weekend came forward to Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) alleging that the rally was a “loose” security event featuring personnel drawn from a different wing of DHS who were not trained for such an event.
“Whistleblowers who have direct knowledge of the event have approached my office. According to the allegations, the July 13 rally was considered to be a ‘loose’ security event. For example, detection canines were not used to monitor entry and detect threats in the usual manner. Individuals without proper designations were able to gain access to backstage areas. Department personnel did not appropriately police the security buffer around the podium and were also not stationed at regular intervals around the event’s security perimeter,” Hawley wrote in a letter sent Friday to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“In addition, whistleblower allegations suggest the majority of DHS officials were not in fact USSS agents but instead drawn from the department’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). This is especially concerning given that HSI agents were unfamiliar with standard protocols typically used at these types of events, according to the allegations.”
After disastrously failing at her one job, Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle resigns.
Embattled Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday after her refusal to answer basic questions in front of a congressional committee drew bipartisan calls for her resignation.
Cheatle stepped down ten days after the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump, one of the most significant law-enforcement failures in American history, and the defining moment of her law-enforcement career.
Snip.
At a hearing with the House Oversight Committee Monday, Cheatle brought Republicans and Democrats together in calling for her resignation. She repeatedly failed to answer basic questions about what went wrong at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., instead deflecting to the Secret Service’s ongoing investigation and the FBI’s separate investigation.
Cheatle admitted the assassination attempt was the Secret Service’s most consequential failure in decades, but did not disclose much information, despite being under subpoena.
She did not have a specific timeline of what law enforcement did after the shooter was first discovered, failed to explain why agents were not deployed onto the rooftop the gunman equipped, declined to comment on specific personnel assignments for the Trump rally, did not elaborate on why the rooftop was outside of the Secret Service’s perimeter, would not commit to firing anyone involved with the Trump rally, and deflected each time Trump’s requests for enhanced security came up.
She did tell lawmakers that she had not visited the crime scene, nine days after Trump was wounded when a bullet grazed his right ear. After the attack, Cheatle said she called Trump to apologize.
The Secret Service will have an internal report on what went wrong at the Trump rally in 60 days, a timeline multiple lawmakers told Cheatle is unacceptable given the intensity of the presidential campaign and America’s political climate.
Cheatle also helped hide Biden’s cognitive decline.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Which party threatens Democracy? It’s not the Republicans.
Never in modern presidential history has a political party staged a veritable inside coup to remove their current president from his ongoing candidacy for his party’s nomination and reelection.
Stranger still, the very elites and grandees, who now are using every imaginable means of deposing Biden as their nominee, are the very public voices that just weeks ago insisted that candidate Biden was “sharp as a tack” and “fit as a fiddle.” And they damned any who thought otherwise!
They are also the identical operators whose machinations ensured that there would not be an open Democratic primary. They demonized the few on the Left who weakly challenged Biden in the primaries. Yet now they will select a replacement candidate who likely never received a single primary vote.
Note further: Biden’s impending forced abdication is not because he is non compos mentis.
Rather, the inside move is due to Biden’s disastrous debate exposure that confirmed his dementia could no longer be disguised by a conspiracy of leftist politicos and media.
But far more importantly, the impetus for removal is driven by the admission that the cognitively Biden is headed for a climactic November defeat.
Were Biden now ahead in the polls by five points, these same backroom machinists would be insisting that he was still Pericles.
Yet now Biden is being un-personed and Trotskyized, as we prepare the new groupthink narrative of his likely surrogate—a soon to be praised eloquent, mellifluous, and articulate Cicero-Harris.
That Biden will likely remain as president until January 20, 2025, should remind the country the Left is more worried about its own next four-year continuance in power than the fate of the country that now admittedly will be guided in the next six months by a president judged unfit by his own supporters to run for the very office that he will still keep holding.
Further irony arises when those who, as supposedly guardians of democratic norms, pontificated to the country the last nine years about the Trump-Hitlerian threat to democracy. Yet now they so cavalierly work overtime on how:
a) to pull off the removal of their candidate from the November ballot on grounds of senility,
b) but not the removal of the same president from office (their own fate is more precious than our collective fate as a nation),
c) while trying to select, rather than elect, a replace candidate,
d) without ever offering any explanation, much less an apology, how a Democrat president from January 20, 2021, was daily declared vibrant, dynamic, and engaged but suddenly one day after June 27, 2024, was remanufactured as not?
This is quite a spicy accusation about the Trump assassination attempt.
In this report on cell phone location (presumably from publicly-sourced advertising data, which should terrify you), the Heritage Foundation claims one device that regularly visited the Crooks home was tracked to DC near an FBI office.
Also strange was the fact that a device linked to the Crooks home had visited Butler twice in the week or so before the shooting (an hour and twenty minute drive).
Another device repeatedly visited Plymouth, Massachusetts, although how that connects to the Trump shooting is unknown.
Going back to last August, one device visited a local gun shop (again, not suspicious for an American to visit a gun shop unless this was the visit where the AR was purchased).
If this proves to be true link between the FBI and Crooks, the implications here are pretty frightening…
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was addressing congress, the pro-Hamas Useful Idiot Brigade was busy vandalizing national monuments.
Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of downtown D.C. carrying signs with messages like “arrest Netanyahu” and “end all U.S. aid to Israel.” Groups waving Palestinian flags, and chanting “Free, free Palestine,” marched toward the U.S. Capitol.
Outside Union Station, protesters removed American flags and hoisted Palestinian ones in their place. The Columbus Memorial Fountain in the circle outside the station was defaced with the words, “Hamas Is Coming,” written in red paint. Other monuments, like the Freedom Bell and various statues, also suffered damage. FOX 5’s Stephanie Ramirez says law enforcement is preparing for more possible protests Thursday.
U.S. Capitol Police officers deployed pepper spray after they said some protesters became “violent” and “failed to obey” orders to move back from the police line.
Netanyahu won’t bend an inch for terrorist apologists.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had harsh words for anti-Israel protesters in his Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress, slamming the activists as “useful idiots” for Iran and other bad actors even as they congregated outside the Capitol.
“Defeating our brutal enemies requires both courage and clarity,” he said. “Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet, incredibly, many anti-Israel protesters choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers. They stand with people who come into the kibbutzim — into the home — with the parents and the children, the two babies in the secret attic, and murder the parents, find the secret latch to the attic, find the babies, and they murder them. These protesters stand with them. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
Netanyahu referenced the claims from many anti-Israel protesters that Hamas terrorism constitutes legitimate resistance while Israel’s retaliatory war is out of bounds.
“They refuse to make the simple distinction between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians — between the democratic state of Israel and the terrorist thugs of Hamas,” he told the chamber.
The prime minister stressed in his speech that anti-Israel protesters are not just opposed to the existence of the Jewish state but are anti-American as well.
“These protesters burn American flags even on the Fourth of July.”
Dispatches from The Land of “Duh”: “Study Reveals That Giving Americans $1,000 Per Month Has Negative Consequences.”
According to the 3,000-participant, three-year study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, giving people $1,000 per month increased leisure time, as recipients spent less time on sleeping, child care, community engagement, caring for others, and self-improvement.
The study also found that recipients’ income, not including the free money, reduced their incomes significantly, as “for every one dollar received, total household income excluding the transfers fell by at least 21 cents, and total individual income fell by at least 12 cents.”
“The takeaway from the best study done so far about UBI in the United States is that handing out money isn’t the solution to all our problems,” Daniel Di Martino, a economics researcher and graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Center Square. “In fact, sometimes it makes things worse.”
Or they could have read pages 150-152 of Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 for his summary of the results of the SIME/DIME experiments, which were similarly bleak.
After letting camps of drug-addicted transients overrun his state for years, California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom decides that he can finally start clearing out those camps, now that he has the cover of a Supreme Court ruling.
California governor Gavin Newsom directed state officials to remove homeless encampments across the Golden State on Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled in June that local governments have a right to ban public camping and impose fines for violators.
Newsom announced the guidance in an executive order, advising cities to crack down on encampments on public property while providing social services and housing alternatives. The order, first reported by the New York Times, represents a sharp departure from the accommodative homelessness policies adopted by progressive state governments over the last decade.
Note that “providing social services” means that the Homeless Industrial Complex will still be able to rake off the graft…
Food for thought:
(Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
CBS said nearly half of Americans can’t afford healthcare, but for some reason didn’t mention ObamaCare.
Americans spend more money on health care on a per capita basis than people in any other developed nation, yet almost half say they’ve struggled recently to pay for medical treatment or prescription drugs, according to a new study from Gallup and West Health.
About 45% of those polled by the organizations said they’d recently had to skip treatment or medicine either because of cost or lack of easy access. Of those, about 8% said they also wouldn’t have access to affordable care if they required it today, a group that Gallup and West Health termed ‘cost desperate.’
Snip.
The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, became law back in 2010, and President Obama promised Americans that his legislation would “reduce the costs of health care” and that “families will save on premiums.” He said Americans could even keep their doctors and health plans – over and over again, in fact.
Instead, here’s what Obamacare did, according to America First Policy Institute:
- Premiums have increased by 80%.
- From 2010 to 2023, the average premium for family coverage increased 80%, from just over $13,000 to nearly $24,000.
- Total healthcare costs for a family of four now exceed $30,000 per year — increasing from $18,000 per year when Obamacare was passed.
- Deductibles have increased over 50% since Obamacare was implemented in 2013.
Speaking of Obama, he officially endorsed Harris, which presumably puts a surprise Michelle Obama nomination at the convention off the table.
“US Subsidiary Of Chinese EV Manufacturer BYD Donated Hundreds Of Thousands To Democrats.” Because of course they did.
Well you can add this to a list of reasons Democrats just can’t seem to stomach Elon Musk any more.
The U.S. subsidiary of Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD and its top executive, Stella Li, have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and organizations over the past decade.
A review of federal and state political spending records by the Daily Caller News Foundation reveals these contributions.
They found that between 2020 and 2023, BYD and Stella Li contributed over $40,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Additionally, they have invested more than $30,000 into organizations supporting President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign.
BYD, the world’s largest EV producer, was recently banned by Congress from selling batteries to the Pentagon due to security concerns, according to Bloomberg News.
The report says that between 2018 and 2023, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom received about $60,000 from Li and BYD USA. Newsom faced criticism for awarding BYD a $1 billion no-bid contract for protective equipment during the pandemic and later test-drove a BYD vehicle in China in 2023.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa received over $10,000 from Li for his unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial campaign, while the California Democratic Party got about $19,000 from Li and BYD USA between 2018 and 2020.
In 2015 and 2016, BYD USA and its executives donated over $11,000 to Michael Antonovich, former Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, who often supported BYD-friendly initiatives.
Additionally, BYD USA contributed $25,000 in 2018 to Californians For Safe, Reliable Infrastructure, a group opposing Proposition 6, which aimed to repeal a gas tax.
In 2017 and 2018, BYD USA and Stella Li donated over $19,000 to Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de Leon. De Leon, then President pro Tempore of the California Senate, praised BYD at a 2017 ribbon-cutting for its Lancaster manufacturing facility, emphasizing the company’s role in job creation.
“Why the Democrats can’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together.”
There’s an old saying in politics that “personnel is policy” which refers to a lot more than just having someone competent in the job. It’s a reflection that politics is about coalitions – building them and maintaining them. The coalition members get their cut of the government largess, and pay for it with loyalty to the guy at the top. If they’re not loyal, he gives them their pick slip and they lose the largess.
This was actually Trump’s biggest mistake when he was president, not filling the Federal Government with his coalition. In his defense, he was in the middle of a Republican civil war, where there were multiple factions and multiple coalitions.
That’s exactly what the Democrats face now, and why they can’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together. Because there are multiple coalitions, whoever emerges on top won’t know if he (she?) can trust these coalitions because they aren’t his coalitions. They might be able to be integrated into his coalition, given time, but time is exactly what the Democrats do not have right now.
It takes time to forge a governing coalition – just look at any parliamentary system: when the government is stable it is because the governing coalition is solid. Ministers can issue policy with a reasonable expectation that it will be supported and carried out by the coalition members. When the governing coalition is unstable, chaos results. Orders get ignored or slow walked or subverted because the Minister no longer has the loyalty of the coalition members.
Eventually a leader emerges who can attract key talent from outside coalitions and integrate it into his. This will involve rewards like positions in the bureaucracy or some such – featherbedding is the name of this game. But until this all gets sorted out and the new coalition is filled with people who think they’re better off with the new leader than without, nothing is going anywhere.
Even worse, there will always be serious back stabbing between different coalitions. Trust is not a virtue most politicians hew to, and quite frankly until they are in a position to remove perks as well as give them, they would be a fool to trust just about anybody.
Some day a leader will emerge to stitch together the various coalitions that make up the Democratic party. It won’t happen in the next 100 days, sure as God made little green apples.
The biggest implication of this is that it will be much more difficult for the Democrats to “fortify” the upcoming election via 2020-style shenanigans. Sure, the party bosses will want to, but how much do they trust the other coalitions to support them? Would other coalitions even go so far as to rat them out (with plausible deniability, of course) – leading to various party elders behind bars. That certainly would make it easier for other party elders to construct a winning coalition once they’ve taken out some of the competition.
Althouse: “Joe Biden seems bereft of the ordinary tools of human interchange.”
“Visibly Angry Kamala Harris Lashes Out At Israel After Netanyahu Meeting.” Of course she did. How dare Israel defend itself when she needs to suck up to all those pro-Hamas voters Democrats insisted on importing to Michigan?
Dispatches from the Biden Recession: Commercial real estate bond default rates hit “8.7% in 2024, nearly three times higher than two years ago.”
More shenanigans in Democrat-controlled Fulton County, Georgia: Nearly all of Fulton County Housing Authority board resigns over “accusations of money mismanagement, sexual harassment, and other issues.”
“Judge Rules for Musk’s SpaceX in Lawsuit Against National Labor Relations Board.” “Members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and administrative law judges (ALJ) employed by the board, are likely unconstitutionally protected from removal by the president, according to U.S. District Judge Alan Albright.”
Israel hits the Houthis. Looks like Israel is kicking just about all Iran’s catspaws in the nuts…
Ukrainian drones hit Tuapse oil refinery and Morozovsk air base.
They also hit Millerovo air base.
Some 200 dead in Bangladesh over government attempts to impose a hiring quota system.
France’s rail network paralyzed by coordinated arson attacks just as the Olympics begin.
“Instagram Censors Team USA Rifle Shooter Ahead Of Paris Paralympics.”
Pro-Hamas organizer runs Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter account.
“Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and local law enforcement officers arrested 50 Houston-area residents Wednesday in relation to a fraudulent bail bond scheme that allowed suspects accused of violent crimes to remain on the streets of the city. The arrests reignited criticism of Harris County’s criminal justice practices and prompted calls for closer scrutiny of bail bond providers.”
According to an indictment filed with the federal court, beginning in 2021 defendants working for or with AABLE Bonds of Houston created or co-signed fraudulent bond agreements that allowed non-qualifying suspects to obtain pre-trial release.
“An integral part of the criminal justice system, as old as the system itself, is the bail bond – a device that allows defendants temporary release while awaiting trial by guaranteeing future court appearances,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani in a statement. “Honesty in the underwriting of those bail bonds is essential to ensuring compliance and protecting the community. However, this indictment alleges employees of AABLE Bonds and many others conspired to violate that trust.”
In addition to the 50 arrested, officials are seeking three fugitives: Tawana Jones, 44, Pamela Yoder, 60, and Amir Khan, 60.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that co-conspirators allegedly emailed or submitted falsified co-signer financial reports via electronic communications. The office noted that the government and insurance agencies rely on these financial reports to enter into third-party agreements known as surety bonds.
Most of the 53 co-conspirators are charged in connection to alleged conspiracy to commit wire fraud, while AABLE Bonds CEO Sheba Muharib is charged with affecting persons engaged in the business of insurance.
The 11 named criminal defendants who obtained release under the allegedly fraudulent enterprise include Curtis Holliday, who has pleaded guilty to killing his wife and stuffing her body in a freezer. Another is the man who shot to death 17-year-old David Castro as the teen rode in a car with his family after an Astros baseball game in 2021.
David’s father Paul Castro noted on social media that Muharib had bonded out his son’s killer on a discount bond, but he also pointed to the role played by Harris County Justice of the Peace Angela Rodriguez.
“Remember that Judge Angela Rodriguez voted to renew Muharib’s bond license after Muharib showed herself to be a danger to our community,” wrote Castro.
Muharib has been the focus of investigations for several years. Her brother Wisam Muharib provided bail to a murder suspect who was later charged in the murder of Harris County Constable Deputy Omar Ursin.
Andy Kahan, Victim’s Advocate for Crime Stoppers of Houston, emphasized during a press conference Thursday that there were victims impacted by the fraudulent releases of suspects.
During the press event, resident April Aguirre said that after the man charged in the shooting death of her nine-year-old niece Arlene Alvarez was released on a bond by AABLE Bonds, her family became suspicious of some local bail bond companies.
Aguirre, Castro, and others worked with elected officials to change Harris County’s rules in 2022 to require that suspects charged with violent offenses pay at least 10 percent themselves to ensure release from jail, but during a press conference with Crime Stoppers of Houston, she said they suspected fraud was continuing.
“Murderers were still getting out on discounted bonds,” said Aguirre. “So, we started making complaints to the bail bond board and to our federal partners asking for help. We didn’t know what we were dealing with, and we could never have imagined how large this is.”
“But I can say one thing, we need to stop making money off dead children and we need to stop making money off of homicide victims. This should not be a lucrative business, it’s sick.”
Mario Garza, President of the Professional Bondsman of Harris County, said that there were bondsmen who followed the rules and helped support the criminal justice system but lamented that what was supposed to be a partnership between bondsmen and elected judges had broken down.
“Judges used to take that discretion seriously,” said Garza. “What we have is what’s morphed out a soft-on-crime criminal justice system that’s allowed a company like this to do what they’ve done.”
Kahan expressed concern that bail bond companies elsewhere may be operating similar schemes.
Cann’s files for Chapter 11 and will be closing 9 Texas stores, including one in Austin. When I was getting ready to move into my house in 2004, they were one of the stores I thought about buying appliances from, but people told me they hated dealing with Conn’s, so I ended up buying them from Lowes.
“Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley who was blocked from the Twitter account of the University of Oregon’s Division of Equity and Inclusion after tweeting ‘All men are created equal.'”
Unclear on the concept: “California judge says school was justified in punishing 7-year-old who said all lives matter because ‘she’s too young to have First Amendment rights.'”
Southwest Airlines avoided the CrowdStrike outage because it runs Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.
Intel says it’s software, not hardware that is causing its latest generation of chips to fail. “Our analysis of returned processors confirms that the elevated operating voltage is stemming from a microcode algorithm resulting in incorrect voltage requests to the processor.” OK, microcode is embedded in the heart of the chip, but can be updated, which means that it doesn’t require expensive mask fixes.
The CDC is trying to keep people from importing dogs into the U.S.. This is going to impair the efforts of many dog rescue groups. A bipartisan group of senators is opposing. “The unprecedented requirements included in the final rule, such as the six-month minimum age requirement for dogs to enter the United States and the need for a microchip before a rabies vaccination and additional documentation and certification would create significant barriers to low-risk entry from Canada into the United States and have a disproportionate effect on border communities in our states.”
Everyone who “purchased” a movie from Redbox is now screwed because now that Redbox is bankrupt it turns out they’ve got nada.
If I’m reading between the lines here, Social Justice Warriors seized control of the Romance Writers of America, blew it up when they got caught, and left the organization $3 million in debt.
“Judge Refuses To Dismiss Trump Defamation Lawsuit Against ABC, Stephanopoulos. On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a motion by ABC News and George Stephanopoulos to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed against them by former President Donald Trump.”
Gina Carano’s lawsuit against Disney moves forward.
Hello Kitty is not a cat and doesn’t live in Japan.
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
It begins.
If you have a spare $40,000 lying around, you can bid on the Necronomicon from Evil Dead II.
“Secret Service Director Resigns In Disgrace For Failing To Assassinate Trump.”
“America Just Kinda Curious If President Alive.”
“Aides Struggling To Figure Out How To Break The News To Biden That He Dropped Out.”
“Party Cheating In Primary Election Promises They Will Definitely Not Cheat In General Election.”
“Entire Microsoft Network Goes Down After Greg Removes USB Device Without Clicking ‘Eject’ First.
No one expects…spinning Ninja dog!
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
I’m still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:2024 Presidential Race, ABC, Alan Albright, Alejandro Mayorkas, Amir Khan, Antonio Villaraigosa, arson, Austin, Babylon Bee, Bangladesh, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden Recession, Borepatch, Bruce Gilley, BYD, California, China, Crowdstrike, Democrats, Disney, dogs, drones, Elon Musk, FBI, France, fraud, Free Speech, Fulton County (GA), fundraising, Gavin Newsom, George Stephanopoulos, Georgia, Gina Carano, Hamas, Harris County, Hello Kitty, Heritage Foundation, Holly Hansen, homeless, Houston, Instagram, Iran, Israel, Israel-Hamas War, Jihad, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Kevin De Leon, Kim Cheatle, Lawsuit, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Michael Antonovich, Microsoft, Military, National Labor Relations Board, Obama, ObamaCare, Olympics, Pamela Yoder, Portland State University, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Secret Service, SpaceX, Stella Li, Supreme Court, Tawana Jones, Texas, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Trump Assassination Attempt, Ukraine, Universal Basic Income, Victor Davis Hanson, Welfare State, Yemen
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 27th, 2024
Here’s a mini-roundup of misbehavior among court officers.
The electioneering ethics commission complaint against Lina Hidalgo ends with a whimper rather than a bang, as she was merely fined $500 and had to pick up the garbage*.
The Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) has sanctioned Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo over comments she made at a press conference on county property last year in which she lambasted District Attorney Kim Ogg and endorsed Ogg’s Democratic primary opponent.
“Credible evidence shows the respondent used public resources of Harris County for the press conference, held in a county facility at her direction. Therefore, there is credible evidence of violations of Section 255.003(a) of the Election Code,” reads the TEC order.
Hidalgo must pay a fine of $500.
Filed by attorney Mark McCaig, the complaint to TEC stems from a press conference Hidalgo held on November 10, the day after news broke that the Texas Rangers would be executing new search warrants in relation to an $11 million COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract the county awarded to a highly connected Democratic strategist in 2021.
“The order from the Texas Ethics Commission describes, in detail, how Lina Hidalgo’s misuse of government resources for political purposes violated Texas law,” McCaig told The Texan.
Hidalgo’s comments were made at the Harris County Administration Building “where [Hidalgo] appeared at a podium with the county seal in the background,” according to the TEC. The press conference was also live-streamed on the Office of the County Judge’s official social media accounts.
During the event, Hidalgo accused Ogg of leaking the new warrants to the media, although they had been posted to the district clerk’s website and were available to the public.
“This is just the same dirty politics she’s been playing out for years,” said Hidalgo, adding that Ogg stood in the way of reforms to the criminal justice system.
“She’s up for re-election March 5, and I happen to know her opponent Sean Teare,” said Hidalgo. “He is a well-respected, very experienced, strong opponent.”
“I literally spent the day yesterday before this stuff was leaked working on the endorsement of him Monday.”
Under Texas Election Code, using an elected office to engage in political advertising is a Class A misdemeanor, and under the Penal Code misuse of government property, services, or personnel constitutes an Abuse of Official Capacity, which could be classified as a misdemeanor or state jail felony depending on the value of the thing misused
Teare defeated Ogg in the March 2024 Democratic Primary and will face Republican Dan Simmons in November.
Teare is a full-bore, Soros-backed social justice leftist. Let’s hope Trump does well enough to help Republican Dan Simons defeat him in November.
Fort Worth Removes Municipal Judge Facing Federal Indictment for PPP Loan Fraud.
The Fort Worth City Council unanimously voted to approve a resolution removing a substitute municipal judge who is under a federal indictment for fraud.
Thelma Anderson, who has worked as a part-time substitute judge in Fort Worth since December 13, 2022, was indicted in March on one count of wire fraud and two counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity, according to the Department of Justice press release.
If convicted, Anderson faces up to 40 years in federal prison.
The Fort Worth City Charter, which provides that municipal judges may be removed for “dereliction of duty, incompetency, incapacity to serve, misconduct or conduct discrediting the position,” allowed the city to terminate Anderson’s appointment, a Fort Worth city spokesperson told The Texan.
Anderson also worked as an assistant district attorney in Dallas County from 2016 to 2022, Fox4News reported.
According to the indictment, Anderson sought a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan on February 4, 2021. In the loan application, she allegedly misrepresented the company’s payroll and gross sales for her clothing boutique, Thelma Lou LLC.
Anderson represented that Thelma Lou had a monthly payroll of over $8,000 and monthly revenue of over $140,000. However, officials say, in reality Thelma Lou had a meager income and no payroll expenses.
She used the $20,000 PPP loan for personal expenses, such as food, rent, and entertainment.
In October 2021, Anderson then applied for PPP loan forgiveness, claiming she used $17,500 for payroll expenses. The full loan was forgiven.
“It was very, very easy to get money,” Richard Roper, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas who is not affiliated with this case, told Fox4. “And the only thing you had to do was essentially fill out a loan application, provide a minimal amount of documents, and the money came to you.”
Leftist Georgia Judge Arrested And Dismissed From Bench After Assaulting Police.
One of Georgia’s highest paid (and most infamous) Democrat judges, Christina Peterson, has recently been arrested for assault on a police officer outside a nightclub in Atlanta. Peterson has subsequently been dismissed from the bench, but not just for allegedly striking an officer during the arrest of another woman. She was also investigated and disciplined for dozens of professional violations. Seeing her personal conduct when interacting with police, one wonders how it was possible for such a woman to be in the position to become a judge.
The Atlanta Police Department said Peterson repeatedly brushed the officer’s arms away and pushed him twice before he detained her outside the Red Martini Restaurant and Lounge on Peachtree Road. She refused to give officers her name for hours after the arrest.
She now claims that the officer didn’t identify himself and that he was engaged in a “coverup” of his “improper acts.” The officer’s body cam footage appears to indicate otherwise.
An investigation was already underway into 28 accusations of misconduct against Peterson when the incident occurred.
This week, the Georgia Supreme Court issued a decision removing her from office early, with her original term due to end later this year.
The Supreme Court said the most troubling allegation against Peterson had to do with her treatment of a woman who appeared before her while trying to correct an error on her marriage certificate. Peterson held the woman in criminal contempt and imposed the maximum jail term of 20 days and a fine “without explanation or justification,” the panel found.
Peterson is also alleged to have allowed people to enter the county courthouse after hours without ensuring proper security screening and then made unjustified requests for deputies to work overtime at taxpayer expense when her after-hours access was limited as a result, the high court opinion says. She also pressed a panic button in her chambers when the deputy assigned to escort her to court did not arrive on time. Those actions “did not demonstrate the decorum and temperament required of a judge,” the opinion says.
Yeah, not a lot of judicial “temperament” on display there. And letting people enter the courthouse after hours without security screening strikes me as a huge security issue.
Remember Taral Patel, the Democratic Ft. Bend commissioner’s court candidate arrested for faking hate crimes against himself? Not the Bee has some additional background on him.
Meet Taral Patel, a man who previously worked in the Criminal Division of Biden’s Justice Department, and was even appointed to serve in the Office of White House Liaison, as well as the White House Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Committee.
Also:
Patel’s bond conditions include having no contact with the Needville man whose identity was stolen. He also had to surrender his passport, can’t possess a firearm or any weapon, or use any electronic device that allows internet access unless he has specific approval from the probation department. Patel is also banned from using any software programs designed to hide, alter, or delete logs of computer use.
Got to say that I don’t fancy his election chances in November…
*If you get this reference, you are officially old.
Tags:2024 Election, Christina Peterson, Crime, Dan Simons, Democrats, Fort Worth, fraud, Georgia, Harris County, Holly Hansen, Kim Ogg, Lina Hidalgo, Mark McCaig, Sean Teare, Taral Patel, Texas, Texas Ethics Commission, Thelma Anderson
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 6 Comments »
Friday, June 14th, 2024
Greetings, and welcome to a LinkSwarm so large I had to start working on it Wednesday! Unemployment rises too much to rig it away, home sales crash to Carter levels, Europe’s voters rise up to throw out the left, Hunter is guilty guilty guilty, another blow to the Biden Administration’s tranny Title IX rewrite, Israel rescues some hostages and smokes a Hezbolli terror master, and California continues to do California things.
The Biden Administration has been lying about how high unemployment is. Says who? The Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Every so-called “strong” jobs report has been a disaster if one puts in even a little work to dig below the pristine, if fake, surface. And while we expected this charade to continue indefinitely, and certainly at least until the November election, at which point suddenly all the truth about the ugly labor market would be revealed to usher in the new president amid an economic crisis, we were shocked when none other than the Fed chair admitted today that the Biden admin was rigging jobs data.
In response to a question from a Bloomberg journalist during the post-FOMC presser, asking the Fed chair to comment on the state of the labor market, the Fed Chair said that two years ago the labor market was “overheated” and has since gotten back to “normal”, largely thanks to “supply from to immigration” – translation: illegal aliens have been the main reasons for the increase in employment and the drop in wages and thus, overall inflation, which as we discussed recently, is the narrative that is being pushed out to mitigate demands by most Americans to halt illegal immigration.
Where things got very interesting, however, is when Powell was discussing the demand-side of the labor market: here, he addressed the dropping quits level, the decline in job openings and wages, but more importantly, the rising unemployment rate – from 3.4% to 4.0% which clearly goes against the narrative of red hot payrolls – all of which the Fed chair summarized as strong job creation, yet caveated by saying that “there is an argument that [payrolls] may be a bit overstated.”
Note: he didn’t say “understated” because the “-stating” always goes in just one direction: the one that makes the resident of the White House look good.
In other words, the jobs – like so many things about this Potemkin economy – are a lie, and while Powell immediately realized what he had said, and tried to couch it by adding that payrolls are “still strong”, suddenly the entire narrative of a strong labor market imploded in front of our eyes, because if the Biden admin will lie about a “bit” of the jobs report, it will lie about any part of it.
And, as we have shown above and every month this year, lie is precisely what the Biden administration has been doing, month after month, year after year.
And the biggest stunner, as Edward Snowden put it so eloquently, is that he’s “not sure I’ve ever seen the chairman of the Federal Reserve publicly accuse the White House of cooking the books on employment numbers, but here we are.”
Speaking of which: “Initial Claims Surge To 10-Month Highs As California Joblessness Soars.” “Did we suddenly get a peek at economic reality? The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the first time surged last week to 242k (up from 229k and well above the 225k exp). That is the highest since August 2023.” And California, which just happened to implement a minimum wage hike, led far and away with the most claims…
Home sales have dropped so far during the Biden Recession that they’re now back to 1978 levels.
The recession in the U.S. existing home sales market has been so deep that we’re back to late ‘70s levels—despite us now living in a much bigger country:
April 1978: 4.09 million U.S. existing home sales print
April 2024: 4.14 million U.S. existing home sales print*
1978: 223 million U.S. population
2024: 341 million U.S. population
The reason, of course, is that housing affordability has deteriorated so much that many buyers and sellers alike have pulled back from the market. Many homeowners who would otherwise like to sell and buy something else are staying put rather than trading in their 3% mortgage rate for a 7% mortgage rate.
The bad news?
According to a forecast published this week by Goldman Sachs, the recovery for existing home sales could be a slog.
1978: Jimmy Carter was still President, the Bee Gees dominated the music charts thanks to Saturday Night Fever, and a brand new comic strip about a lasagna-loving cat named Garfield debuted. And the average price of a home was somewhere around $56,000. (Yet, somehow, home sales were still stronger during the 1981-82 interest rate hikes than under Carter in 1978…)
Hunter Biden found guilty on all counts in his gun trial.
A jury of Hunter Biden’s peers found him guilty on all three felony charges on Tuesday after a six-day trial that demonstrated that the first son lied on a federal gun-purchase background-check form when he claimed not to be a drug addict.
The verdict was reached after the jury deliberated for three hours, beginning Monday afternoon with the conclusion of closing arguments. Hunter was surrounded by family members, including wife Melissa Cohen Biden and his uncle James Biden, as the verdict was read. First lady Jill Biden missed the verdict announcement and rushed to greet Hunter afterward.
Hunter was found guilty on two charges for lying about his crack-cocaine addiction on federal gun paperwork when he bought a Colt Cobra revolver at a sporting-goods store in Wilmington in October 2018. He was also found guilty on a third charge for possessing the firearm while he was using crack cocaine.
The first son faces up to 25 years in prison, though he’ll likely receive a lighter sentence as a first-time, nonviolent offender. Judge Noreika, who presided over the trial, said that a sentencing hearing will be held in September.
Though Hunter Biden still has a pending tax trial, don’t hold your breath about him going to trial for his role as the Biden crime family’s bagman…
“Court Confirms: Weiss’s ‘Special Counsel’ Appointment Is a Sham.”
I’ve pointed out time and again (including yesterday) that Biden Justice Department AG Merrick Garland’s “special counsel” appointment of Biden Justice Department Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss in the Hunter Biden case is a fraud on the public.
In a pretrial ruling denying the younger Biden’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Maryellen Noreika has confirmed that Garland’s appointment of Weiss did not comply with federal regulations for appointing special counsels. That, however, was not a basis to dismiss the case — particularly with Garland and Weiss quietly citing the last special-counsel regulation, §600.10 (of Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations), which provides that no one may hold the Justice Department accountable for flouting its own regulations.
To be clear, I have never contended that Garland lacked the authority to assign Weiss, or whoever he wanted to assign, to investigate the Biden case. As Judge Noreika correctly explained, federal statutory law — in particular, §§509, 510, 515, and 533 — vest attorneys general with sweeping power to run the Justice Department as they see fit, including power to designate any DOJ lawyers they choose to run investigations anywhere in the country.
Weiss, for example, is now prosecuting Hunter Biden in Los Angeles, on the tax case scheduled to begin trial on September 5, in addition to the gun case in Weiss’s own Delaware district. That’s because Garland doubled-down in assigning the investigation of the president’s son to the same prosecutor — Weiss — who had just schemed with defense lawyers on a failed sweetheart plea deal that was designed to make all conceivable cases against said son disappear (and only after Weiss had consciously dithered as the statute of limitations steadily eviscerated serious criminal offenses).
Garland is the attorney general, and he has that power. It is power he wields with no fear that Congress will slash the DOJ’s budget, censure him, impeach him, or do anything else but caterwaul over how he abuses it. My point is that Garland has been engaged in a nearly four-year fraud — trying to con the country into believing the Justice Department is neither protecting its boss nor trying, to the extent politically feasible, to protect the president’s son.
The AG refused to appoint a special counsel for the Biden investigation, despite the president’s (and other Biden family members’) being implicated in Hunter’s malfeasance, particularly crimes arising out of his peddling of his father’s political influence for huge pay days from agents of corrupt and anti-American regimes.
Europe’s ruling center left just got smashed in European elections.
Early projections of the EU-election results show that the continent’s right-wing parties have made significant advances as voters signal their dissatisfaction with illegal immigration and inflation. Formerly powerful left-wing parties seem to have been routed, while centrists stayed the course.
This antiestablishment sentiment was expressed most strongly in Germany and France, two of the European bloc’s most powerful countries.
The French results prompted President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the French parliament in preparation for snap elections on June 30 and July 7, as his party lost badly to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which is part of the Identity and Democracy coalition in the European Parliament.
Before crowds in Paris, Le Pen responded to Macron’s announcement: “This historic vote shows that when people vote, people win. . . . We are ready to exercise power, to end mass migration, to prioritize purchasing power, ready to make France live again.”
In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats were trounced by a combination of support for the right-wing CDU/CSU and Alternative for Germany (AfD). The left-wing Social Democratic Party (14.6 percent) and the Greens (12 percent) underperformed. Katarina Barley, speaking for the Social Democrats, called it “a bitter evening.” “I am very disappointed.” The AfD, having won 14 percent as of this reporting, is intent on carrying its EU wins to the national elections in October 2025.
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni was the only leader of a European power to see success, with the right-wing politician’s allied faction, European Conservatives and Reformists, placing first in Italy.
In Spain, the conservative People’s Party took 34.2 percent of the vote, a rejection of socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Workers’ Party, which received 30.2 percent. Two other right-wing parties, Vox and Se Acabó La Fiesta (The Party’s Over), received another 14.2 percent between them.
The Greens ceded more ground than any other party in the EU, losing more than a quarter of their seats.
For decades, the ruling Euroelite have insisted that there is no alternative to their high tax, high spending, high debt, high regulation, high immigration, environmental leftist EU superstate. Voters seem to have finally grown tired enough of it that they’re willing to embrace Marine Le Pen if that’s what it takes to make their voices heard.
“Biden Asks Why Europe Didn’t Just Arrest Conservative Candidates Before Election.”
Good news! The Supreme Court has struck down the bump stock ban.
In his opinion, Thomas wrote that, though a bump stock does increase a rifle’s rate of fire, it does not turn it into an automatic weapon.
“A bump stock does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun any more than a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does,” Thomas wrote. “Even with a bump stock, a semiautomatic rifle will only fire one shot for every ‘function of the trigger.’”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his concurrence that, while the ATF’s interpretation of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act was an incorrect reading of the statute, there are legislative remedies for the issue of bump stocks.
“The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning,” Alito wrote. “That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b). But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning.”
“The Lies and Fall of Ibram X. Kendi.” “This man gave America the simplest, most easily applicable binary solution to all of our racial problems. It didn’t matter that it was stupid, at least not from the perspective of his personal enrichment. For a while, it sold…What we lived through in 2020, during the Floyd meltdown and its aftermath, was a onetime necrotic bloom during which the first carrion-feeders on the scene were able to fatten themselves up to spectacular proportions on the collapsed body of American progressive racial and political angst.”
Alas, I fear the idea that the woke poison of social justice is really on the wane may be too optimistic, as Michigan State still has 140+ employees working to implement DEI. Let a thousand pink slips bloom.
Five of seven convicted in Feeding Our Future Covid funds fraud trial in Minnesota. The convicted included Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, and Hayat Mohamed Nur. If only we could figure out what they have in common…
Ukraine takes out Russia’s latest and greatest Su-57 “stealth” fighter.
The US has expanded economic sanctions on Russia.
The US has broadened its sanctions on Russia, including a fresh crackdown on banks dealing with sanctioned entities.
It expands a December programme to target foreign banks deemed to be aiding Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
The US also placed sanctions on the Moscow stock exchange, leading to it halting trading in dollars and euros.
It also moved to try to restrict Russia’s use of technology, including chips and software.
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order in December that imposed sanctions on banks dealing with about 1,200 individuals and companies deemed to be helping Russia’s war machine.
Those measures, which expose banks to the risk of being cut off from the US financial system, have now been expanded to about 4,500 entities.
The US will also target gold-laundering.
Peter Harrell, a former White House senior director for international economics, told the Reuters news agency that the US “is shifting towards something that begins to look like an effort to set up a global financial embargo on Russia”.
As part of this effort, the US Treasury announced that it would impose sanctions on parts of Russia’s financial system, including the Moscow Exchange, which is one of Russia’s main stock exchanges.
The stock exchange, which is Russia’s largest foreign exchange market, said the sanctions had forced it to stop trading in dollars and euros.
The US also focused on technology. Chips and other technology made in the US have been found in downed Russian equipment on Ukraine battlefields, including drones, radios, missiles and armoured vehicles.
The sanctions aim to make it more difficult for companies to supply that tech.
The US will target shell firms in Hong Kong selling chips to Russia.
There are YouTubers saying “Russian economy is crippled” etc., but I remain skeptical. The chips going into Russian drones aren’t anything special, they’re COTS stuff and EPROMs you can get almost anywhere.
“Israeli Military Rescues Four Hostages from Gaza.” Naturally this is good news for decent human beings everywhere and a tragedy for the radical left.
“Lebanon: Israeli Airstrike Kills One Of Hezbollah’s Most Senior Terror Commanders. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday night eliminated one of Hezbollah’s senior-most terror commanders operating in Lebanon. Sami Taleb Abdullah, who headed Hezbollah’s Nasr terrorist force, and three other Hezbollah commanders were killed in an Israeli airstrikes on a terrorist base located in southern Lebanon.” Good. Remember how commentators have repeatedly opined on the possibility of Hezbollah opening up a “second front” while Israel settles Hamas’ hash? They seem to have done very little but the usual pinprick terror attacks. With all the terror money Iran is sloshing around to Hamas and the Houthi’s, one wonders if they’re stretched to thin to send much Hezbollah’s way…
“Bill Maher Calls Out Campus Protesters for Ignoring the Oppression of Women in Muslim Countries.” “Today, right now, hundreds of millions of women are treated worse than second-class citizens. When you mandate that one category of human beings don’t even have the right to show their face, that’s apartheid.”
An end to the petrodollar? Peter Zeihan asserts that there’s still no real alternative to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Let’s hope he’s right. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
The American College of Pediatricians releases statement calling for an immediate halt to puberty blockers and gender surgery for minors.
Another day, another federal judge slapping down the Biden Administrations unilateral tranny rewrite of Title IX.
Western District of Louisiana Chief Judge Terry Doughty in an order Thursday declared that Title IX, a federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination, “was written and intended to protect biological women from discrimination.”
“Such purpose makes it difficult to sincerely argue that, at the time of enactment, ‘discrimination on the basis of sex’ included gender identity, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics,” Doughty, a Trump appointee, wrote. “Enacting the changes in the Final Rule would subvert the original purpose of Title IX.”
(Previously.)
Still, the Biden Administration continues its tranny push, going so far as to indict the whistleblowing surgeon who exposed lawbreaking transgender procedures at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Brandon Herrera reflects on his narrow election loss.
“Congressman Henry Cuellar’s Bribery, Money Laundering Trial Date Moved to 2025.” Hopefully Jay Furman, the Republican candidate for the Texas 28th Congressional District can retire him in November so he can concentrate on his trial…
Be a cop working a gun buyback program for the San Antonio Police. 2. Take choicest guns for yourself. 3. Profit! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Old and Busted: LA thieves stealing anything not bolted down. The New Hotness: Actually, they’re stealing fire hydrants now.
Another week, another California chain leaving California. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Seattle’s $26 minimum wage hike = people just stopped ordering food delivery.
Of course the U.S. Women’s basketball has left Caitlyn Clark off the team. Because we all know queer identity trumps winning a medal for your country…
On the upside, also not competing: “Lia” Thomas. Turns out the Olympics don’t want men competing in women’s swimming. Who could have possibly seen that coming?
Tesla is now officially a Texas company. And Elon Musk’s big payday was approved by Tesla shareholders.
AI music gets good enough. “It’s going to replace people.”
For a brief period after World War II, homes were made of enameled steel. I bet Lustron would offer a pretty high degree of bullet resistance…
“Why the US Drops 14.7 Million Worms On Panama Every Week.” Raccoona Sheldon should write a story…
The ecology of stray dogs in east Austin.
Star Wars, RIP.
Old and Busted: Top Gear presenters offering their own brand of gin. The New Hotness: Tiger tanks offering their own brand of gin.
How 12 Japanese Kanji “ghost characters got into unicode.
“Pfizer Assures Public They Are Preparing For Next Pandemic By Developing An All-New Ineffective Vaccine With Fatal Side Effects.”
“In Hindsight Fans Realize They Were Too Quick To Call The Holiday Special The Worst Star Wars Project Ever…After watching the latest Disney Star Wars offering The Acolyte, however, many fans admit they might have been too harsh to call the holiday show the worst thing to come out of the franchise.”
Tags:2024 Election, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, aircraft, Alcohol, Alternative for Germany, Austin, Babylon Bee, Biden Recession, Bovington Tank Museum, Brandon Herrera, bump stock ban, California, Clarence Thomas, Crime, Critical Drinker, Critical Race Theory, David Weiss, Democrats, dogs, Economics, Elections, Elon Musk, Emmanuel Macron, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve, France, fraud, Germany, Giorgia Meloni, Global Warming, Guns, Hayat Mohamed Nur, Henry Cuellar, Hezbollah, housing, Ibram X. Kendi, Israel-Hamas War, Jerome Powell, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Marine Le Pen, Merrick Garland, minimum wage, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, Olaf Scholz, Olympics, Pedro Sanchez, Regulation, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Sami Taleb Abdullah, Samuel Alito, Seattle, Social Democratic Party, Social Justice Warriors, Socialist Workers’ Party (Spain), Star Wars, Su-57, Supreme Court, tanks, terrorism, Terry Doughty, Tesla Motors, Texas, Texas House District 28, Title IX, transexual, Ukraine, unemployment
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Guns, Jihad, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 8 Comments »
Friday, June 7th, 2024
All those “new jobs” created in the Biden Recession have gone to illegal aliens, two Trump court cases appear to be in the process of derailment, more Hunter Biden shenanigans come to light, a whole lot of anniversaries this week, and a chance to own the Ark of the Covenant! It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
This should make even more people with Joe Biden’s illegal open border policy: “All Jobs In The Past Year Have Gone To Illegal Aliens.”
The first Wall Street analyst daring to point out that the employment emperor is naked, is Standard Chartered’s global head of macro, Steve Englander who in a note titled simply enough “Immigration leading to labor-market surge” [writes] that according to his estimates “undocumented immigrants account for half of job growth in FY24 so far” (the actual number is far higher but we understand his initial conservatism), and adds that “asylum seekers and humanitarian parolees explain the surge in undocumented immigrants” before concluding that the continued rise in EAD approvals likely will extend strong employment growth in 2024. In other words, “strong employment growth” for American citizens, always was and remains a fabulation, and the only job growth in the US is for illegals, who will work for below minimum wage, which also explains why inflation hasn’t spiked in the past year as millions of illegals were hired.
Does a mistrial loom in the Trump kangaroo court case? Seems like a juror celebrating a guilty verdict before the trial was over on Facebook is yet another reason to throw out the conviction…
Speaking kangaroo Trump prosecutions, the Georgia Court of Appeals has ordered that case halted until the Fani Willis conflict of interest issue is resolved.
In other court news, in Hunter Biden’s defense just blew up.
Hunter’s defense, carefully crafted by attorney Abbe Lowell during his opening statement on Tuesday, was blown up by the testimony of an ex-girlfriend and ex-wife who described the extent of Hunter’s crack-cocaine usage around the time he purchased a firearm in October 2018 — and by the salesman who sold Hunter the gun he allegedly lied in order to purchase.
Hunter is facing two federal charges related to his allegedly lying about his drug addiction on a gun-purchase background-check form and he faces a third charge for allegedly possessing the firearm while addicted to crack cocaine. Hunter pleaded not guilty to the charges last year and faces up to 25 years in prison.
Most of the day was taken up by testimony from Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, a woman who dated Biden from roughly December 2017 to November 2018, despite being half his age at the time.
Prosector Leo Wise conducted a lengthy direct examination of Kestan accompanied by pictures from her cellphone to corroborate her recollection of events.
Wise and Kestan seemed to get into a rhythm throughout the direct examination, as Kestan recalled large events and small details from her time with Hunter Biden. Kestan remembered exact dates and named the various hotels they stayed at during their time together.
Each time Kestan described an experience with Hunter Biden, Wise asked her if Hunter Biden smoked crack at their hotel or Airbnb, and Kestan always replied affirmatively.
“Every 20 minutes or so,” Kestan said of Hunter Biden’s crack habit during one of the hotel stays. She noted that he smoked crack less frequently in public, and she never noticed a change in his demeanor when he smoked.
Wise shared photos from Kestan’s cellphone showing drug paraphernalia scatted around the bathrooms and tables of their lodgings. One of the images appeared to show Biden in a hotel bathtub holding a crack pipe in the wee hours of the morning. When Wise showed the images, Kestan easily pointed out the drug paraphernalia and explained to the courtroom how the various materials were used to cook and consume crack.
Biden allowed Kestan to withdraw cash from his account when he needed to spend it on drugs, she recounted. Kestan stated the names of drug dealers and described the drug transactions she saw at the hotels and other locations.
Kestan’s testimony and the images allowed Wise to establish that Hunter was smoking crack in September 2018, following his late August rehab stint in Malibu, Calif. She said Biden smoked crack every 20 minutes at a Malibu house he rented, and she did not remember Biden discussing his rehab stint during her time at the house in September 2018.
Wise closed the direct examination by introducing a lengthy text message Biden sent her in December 2018 lamenting how he would always be a drug addict and his attempts to get sober failed.
And this is “the smartest guy” Joe Biden knows…
Also from Hunter’s weapons case, he was caught on tape bragging about how he could score crack in Timbuktu. Which is a neat trick, since it’s an Islamic majority city in Mali, Africa, and is currently under siege by Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, a jihadist organization which has incorporated elements formally loyal to both al Qaeda and the Islamic State. To be fair to the crackhead, he apparently said this before the siege was imposed last year…
Also, I would like to apologize to readers for not knowing about the siege and doing at least a LinkSwarm post to it. So much news, so little time..
“Seven Indicted in Houston Public Corruption Scheme.”
On Friday, Mayor John Whitmire and outgoing Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced seven people have been indicted for 14 public corruption felonies ranging from abuse of official capacity to tampering with evidence. The charges are related to a scheme surrounding the City of Houston’s water repair contracts.
Patrece Lee, the lead defendant, and a former city employee, had access to $80 million of city funds for emergency waterline repair.
In the Summer and Fall of 2022, Lee was in a position to recommend vendors for contracts with the City of Houston public works department to repair the water lines. Lee allegedly made agreements with companies to have them hire her as a “consultant” to receive a kickback in exchange for expedited payments and bigger contracts. She also targeted less experienced companies and offered her services to help them “get paid faster, or to get bigger and better contracts in the future” as well.
Lee allegedly received roughly $320,000 in payments from that scheme and then steered contracts to a company owned by her brother, allowing them to be paid more than $400,000 of which she immediately transferred $380,000 to her own company. The total amount she stole from the city was $700,000.
“The cooperation that we’ve received from this administration stands in stark contrast to the last seven years,” said Ogg.
The issue was uncovered during Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration. However, he planned to have it handled as an internal civil or administrative matter rather than refer it to the district attorney for criminal prosecution.
If Kim Ogg would actually go after government corruption (and real criminals) while she’s a lame duck DA, that would be a nice silver lining to the clouds of Houston/Harris County’s soft on crime Democratic leadership.
Methodist Church loses one million congregants in a single day.
The Houston conman who pretended to be a rabbi. “The man accused of spending $15,000 on a dead woman’s credit card has a long history of fraud, according to police, court records and his family. Police say Dustin Mitchell, who goes by Dustin Cohen, posed as a Rabbi, lawyer and possibly a cop to defraud people. They also say they think he spray-painted anti-semitic vandalism on his own truck.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Ukrainian drone hits Novoshakhtinsk Oil Refinery. Again. And this time they hit the distillation tower.
Modi’s BJP party loses an absolute majority in Indian elections.
Evidently the Chinese are paying the Houthis protection money for safe passage.
“Anti-Israel Protesters Arrested at Stanford after Breaking into President’s Office, Injuring Officer.” Throw the book at them.
ConocoPhillips purchases Marathon Oil for $22.5 billion.
“California fish taco chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill files for bankruptcy after minimum wage law cripples business.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Closer to home, it looks like central Texas locations for Red Lobster are now in danger of closing. (Hat tip: Also Dwight.)
Thieves in California are planting hidden cameras to case homes.
Swatter sentenced.
Beware of “Title Pirates” selling land they don’t own.”
Some Texas locales are using automatic license plate readers. Seems like there are some big privacy and due process concerns.
Complain about Hamas sexual violence in Canada? Enjoy your pink slip.
Critical Drinker confirms that The Acolyte is the idiotic woke garbage we all knew it would be.
More signs of Hollywood’s severe downturn: five Alamo Drafthouse location in north Texas have closed and the franchise partner has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Everyone Draw Mohammed winner Bosch Fawstin was let go from his position at the Freedom Center, so if you ever wanted to buy any of his stuff, now would be a good time.
A lot of notable anniversaries this week. It was the 80th anniversary of D-Day…
…the 82nd anniversary of the Battle of Midway…
…the 50th anniversary of 10 Cent Beer Night…
…and the 20th anniversary of Killdozer. The event, not the great Theodore Sturgeon short story or the medicore TV movie made from it.
Speaking of D-Day, Biden just plagiarized Reagan’s speech.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
And did Biden drop a load in his pants at the Normandy commemoration?
Yotta: “Oh, did we say we’re a savings app? Actually, we’ve decided to become a casino app.”
China’s tallest waterfall is fed by pipes.
Crazy British inventor Colin Furze has ridden on a wall of death and built a drift trike. So now he’s riding a drift trike on a wall of death.
How Hitler’s cloak ended up being worn by a housewife in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Who wouldn’t like to own the actual Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark? Though it might have brought more money before Disney decided to ruin the franchise…
“No Foul Called After Caitlin Clark Crushed By Anvil.”
10 New ‘Star Wars’ Characters Coming To Disney+. Including C-3PLGBTQ, Admiral Allahu Akbar and Jar Jar Kinks…
The Internet was way ahead of the curve on this one.
Tags:al Qaeda, Alamo Drafthouse, auctions, Biden Recession, Bosch Fawstin, Caitlin Clark, California, China, Colin Furze, ConocoPhillips, Crime, Critical Drinker, D-Day, Democrats, Disney, dogs, Dustin Mitchell, Fani Willis, fraud, gambling, Georgia, Harris County, hate crime hoax, Hitler, Hollywood, Houston, Hunter Biden, India, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, Jihad, Joe Biden, John Whitmire, Kim Ogg, Leo Wise, LinkSwarm, Marathon Oil, Mark Felton, Media Watch, Midway, Military, Narendra Modi, Novoshakhtinsk, oil industry, Red Sea, Ronald Reagan, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Stanford, Star Wars, Texas, Timbuktu, Ukraine, unemployment, WNBA, World War II, Yemen, Yotta, Zoe Kestan
Posted in Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 7 Comments »
Monday, May 27th, 2024
Madness is doing the same thing over and expecting different results, and China is throwing money at semiconductors again.
China has launched a massive $47 billion fund, the largest in its history, to bolster its semiconductor industry and establish a local supply chain. This fund, equivalent to 344 billion yuan, is the third phase initiated by the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund [also known as the National Integrated Circuit Industry investment Fund Company (ICF), or just “Big Fund.”-LP]. It’s worth noting that this amount is twice the total funds raised in the previous phases in 2014 and 2019.
Do you remember the last time I covered where the money went to in those previous phases? The money went to companies like Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Result? “Hongxin’s unfinished plant in the port city of Wuhan now stands abandoned. Its founders have vanished, despite owing contractors and investors billions of yuan.”
Or maybe Tsinghua Unigroup. Result? The arrested a whole lot of executives, a lot of money disappeared into various pockets, and “Tsinghua Unigroup abandoned its plan to build DRAM memory chip manufacturing plants in Chongqing and Chengdu in southwest China earlier this year.”
As I wrote before, China’s semiconductor industry is shell games all the way down.
At lot of times, loans and investments are siphoned through four or five different entities from the purposes for which they were originally obtained. Everyone’s trying to get rich, and they hope to survive on smoke and mirrors long enough to get profitable. Imagine if Kleiner Perkins invested $25 million in a software startup, only to find that money was spent on a noodle shop, a used car dealership and a golf club manufacturer.
Sometimes it works. You can build a company on margin, get profitable quickly, and be paying off investors and contractors before anyone realizes how shaky the entire enterprise is.
But you can’t do that with semiconductor manufacturing. The startup costs are simply too high, easily in the billions. Very, very few companies can afford to be in a game that expensive. China’s two biggest semiconductor manufacturing success stories, SMIC and Tsinghua Unigroup, all have have CCP direct government investment.
And bunches of Tsinghua Unigroup executive still got pinched for sticking their snouts into the trough.
And everything should theoretically be harder now that the U.S. has imposed sanctions on China’s semiconductor industry. But one wonders just how effective these sanctions are when Applied Materials reported that 43% of its total revenue came from China in the second quarter. That suggests a certain kayfabe quality to the sanction, with just the right loopholes for AMAT (and presumably other semiconductor equipment manufacturing giants like Lam Research and Tokyo Electron) to keep getting those conveyor belts of Chinese money.
My assumption is that, yet again, the funds earmarked for semiconductor companies will be siphoned off into a thousands unrelated pockets. (Though the rest of China’s business climate is sucking so badly that maybe some money will actually fund real semiconductor startups, if only through lack of other money-making opportunities to siphon funds off for.) Sanctions will continue to leak. A few years from now, China will announce the arrests of more executives using the Big Fund to play more investment shell games. And five years from now China will announce an even bigger set of subsidies…
Tags:Applied Materials, China, Communism, Economics, Foreign Policy, fraud, National Integrated Circuit industry investment Fund Company (ICF), sanctions, Semiconductors, subsidies, technology
Posted in Communism, Economics, Foreign Policy | 11 Comments »
Saturday, April 13th, 2024
I’ve covered the homeless industrial complex here several times, both here in Austin and in California. Now California itself has done an audit on its homeless programs, only to find billion unaccounted for.
Exactly how much is California spending to combat homelessness — and is it working?
It turns out, no one knows. That’s the result of a much-anticipated statewide audit released Tuesday, which calls into question the state’s ability to track and analyze its spending on homelessness services.
The state doesn’t have current information on the ongoing costs and results of its homelessness programs because the agency tasked with gathering that data — the California Interagency Council on Homelessness — has analyzed no spending past 2021, according to the report by State Auditor Grant Parks. Three of the five state programs the audit analyzed — including the state’s main homelessness funding source — didn’t even produce enough data for Parks to determine whether they were effective or not.
The audit also analyzed homelessness services in San Jose and San Diego, finding both cities failed to thoroughly account for their spending or measure the success of many of their programs.
“The lack of transparency in our current approach to homelessness is pretty frightening,” said Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Republican from Folsom who co-authored the request for the audit.
To the Democrats running the program, that “lack of transparency” is a feature, not a bug.
That means state policymakers have little data to go on when they make funding decisions related to what has become one of California’s most dire challenges.
“The State Auditor’s findings highlight the significant progress made in recent years to address homelessness at the state level, including the completion of a statewide assessment of homelessness programs,” the Interagency Council on Homelessness wrote in an emailed statement. “But it also underscores a need to continue to hold local governments accountable, who are primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness.”
As the homelessness crisis has intensified, California under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership allocated an unprecedented $24 billion to address homelessness and housing during the last five fiscal years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Nine state agencies administered more than 30 programs aimed at preventing or reducing homelessness. Some of those programs did such a poor job tracking their outcomes that it’s impossible to tell if they’ve been successful, according to the audit, which marks the first such large-scale accounting of the state’s homelessness spending.
The report evaluated five state homelessness programs and found two “likely” are cost-effective. Newsom’s signature Homekey program helps cities and counties turn hotels and other buildings into homeless housing at an average cost of $144,000 per unit (in the program’s first round), compared to the $380,000-$570,000 it would cost for new construction. The CalWORKS Housing Support Program, which gives financial help to families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, also saves the state money because it’s much cheaper to help someone stay housed than it is to help them find housing once they become homeless.
The auditor found the CalWORKS program spent an average of $12,000-$22,000 per household, while a single chronically homeless person can cost taxpayers as much as $50,000 per year.
Funny how Democrats are always willing to spend more to help drug-addicted transients than many taxpaying citizens make in a year.
But for three other programs, the state hasn’t collected enough data for the auditor to make an assessment: the State Rental Assistance Program (which helped people pay rent and other expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic), the Encampment Resolution Fund (a program Newsom launched to help cities clean up specific encampments) and the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program (the state’s main source of general homeless funding, also known as HHAP).
“Fundamentally, the audit depicts a bit of a data desert,” Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from Santa Clara County who joined Hoover in asking for the audit, said during a media call.
For example, nearly one-third of people who left placements funded by the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program left for “unknown” destinations, according to the auditor’s analysis of round-one funding in Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties. That ambiguous data makes it impossible to tell if the program has been successful, the auditor wrote. Even so, the state authorized billions of dollars for four additional rounds of funding.
I’m sure the programs are considered a “success” by Democrats because they provide a giant bucket to dole out graft and fraud to the leftwing activists working in the Homeless Industrial Complex.
But I have a deep suspicion that things are even worse than we think. Remember the effort to recall Newsom, and how Democrats from across the country sprang immediately to his aid? At the time, Scott Adams said that protecting Newsom was “the top process in the system.” I suspect that California’s homeless programs are not just a channel for graft and fraud to left-wing activists in California, but a way to rake off money directly to Democratic Party campaigns and coffers nationwide. (Though certainly not the only source. Remember how $850 million in the hands of New York City Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife just sort of magically disappeared?)
If Trump wins in November, a law should be passed allowing federal audits of state social programs that accept federal block grants. Money from the American taxpayer is being siphoned off, and we deserve to know where.
Tags:Budget, California, Crime, Democrats, fraud, Gavin Newsom, homeless, San Diego, San Jose, Social Justice Warriors, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »
Friday, April 12th, 2024
It’s been a week of petty frustrations, with simple things like paying for online transactions made impossible by websites that send out the wrong information despite the right information being on file. Speaking of frustration, Americans continue to be battered by high inflation, blacks continue to abandon Biden, and it turns out that the Pope might, just might, be Catholic after all.
Core inflation is up yet again.
A hotter-than-expected consumer price index report rattled Wall Street Wednesday, but markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading.
Along with the overall inflation measure, economists also look at the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to find the true trend. The supercore gauge, which also excludes shelter and rent costs from its services reading, takes it even a step further. Fed officials say it is useful in the current climate as they see elevated housing inflation as a temporary problem and not as good a measure of underlying prices.
Supercore accelerated to a 4.8% pace year over year in March, the highest in 11 months.
Tom Fitzpatrick, managing director of global market insights at R.J. O’Brien & Associates, said if you take the readings of the last three months and annualize them, you’re looking at a supercore inflation rate of more than 8%, far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Speaking of inflation, welcome to $7 Tree.
Black voters continue to abandon Biden in droves.
According to a Wall Street Journal Swing State Poll, blacks, especially black males are abandoning Biden in huge numbers.
While most Black men said they intend to support Biden, some 30% of them in the poll said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for the former Republican president. There isn’t comparable WSJ swing-state polling from 2020, but Trump received votes from 12% of Black men nationwide that year, as recorded by AP VoteCast, a large poll of the electorate.
That’s an 18 percentage point swing, minimum, for black males, if the national results and the swing state voting is similar.
By confirmed, I mean those who said they intended to vote for Trump.
The gap is even larger if we factor in undecided voters. Biden is down by a massive 30 percentage points vs 2020.
Biden may not be on the ballot for the Ohio general election because the Democratic National Convention falls too late to certify him.
Pope turns out to be Catholic, comes out against child genital mutilation.
“Nebraska state Sen. Mike McDonnell announces that he’s switching from Democrat to Republican.”
Country musician Jason Aldean refuses to let Biden campaign use hit song “Fly Over States.”
Good: A teacher helping her son with homework. Bad: A teacher helping her son force female students into sex trafficking. “Klein Cain High School cosmetology teacher Kedria McMath Grigsby is accused of helping her son, Roger Magee, force the troubled teens into prostitution.”
Man driving eighteen-wheeler interntionally crashes into DPS office in Brenham, killing one.
Hard evidence that temperature data is being manipulated to show global warming.
Investigative science writer Paul Homewood last year discovered considerable tampering in 2022 with the recent CET record. He initially found that in version one, the summer of 1995 had been 0.1°C warmer than 2018. In version 2, the two years swapped places with 1995 cooled by 0.07°C and 2018 warmed by 0.13°C. Alerted to these changes, Homewood then analysed the full record from version 1 to 2, and the graph below shows what he found.
As can be seen, the adjustments up to 1970 are small with ups and downs offsetting each other. Homewood then found that the years from 1970 to 2003 had been cooled markedly, followed by significant rises to 2022. Homewood concludes that “unfortunately it is part of a much wider tampering with temperature globally – and the tampering is always one way, cooling the past and heating the present”. Given that we now know that the Met Office has been using class 4 statistics for two thirds of its database since 2006, the recent higher adjustments would seem to call for clarifying explanations from the state-funded Met Office.
(Hat tip: Boreptach.)
Ukrainian drone attack hits radar site 650km inside Russia.
Speaking of drones, China is supplying tens of thousands of drones…to Ukraine. I did not see that coming, but China certainly can use the money.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick lays out his legislative priorities for 2025.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has announced his interim charges for the Senate, a set of 57 issues he is calling on Senate Committees to investigate and research ahead of the legislative session next year.
The list of charges runs the gamut of issues conservatives have called on the legislature to address, including property tax relief, protecting Texas land from hostile foreign ownership, and strengthening laws preventing electioneering by school districts and other political subdivisions.
Some of the biggest reform proposals, however, have been reserved for higher education.
Patrick has asked the Higher Education Subcommittee to study and make recommendations regarding the role of ‘faculty senates’, antisemitism on college campuses, as well as to review the implementation of a new state law banning DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in state universities that went into effect earlier this year.
“The Senate’s work to study the list of charges will begin in the coming weeks and months. Following completion of hearings, committees will submit reports with their specific findings and policy recommendations before December 1, 2024,” said Patrick.
When you think Houston Democratic Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee has already said the stupidest thing she possibly can, she goes out and proves you wrong.
I know you’re shocked, shocked to find out that gun-grabbing opportunist David Hogg’s political group Leaders We Deserve spent way more on administration than backing candidates.
Thanks to New York City’s idiotic rent control laws, not only would a hotel guest refuse to pay rent or leave, but a court actually ruled that he was the owner of the hotel.
First class stamps are going up to 73 cents. Thanks, Joe Biden.
If the commies running Vietnam accuse someone of a crime, I don’t automatically trust them, but Truong My Lan may actually be guilty.
Behind the stately yellow portico of the colonial-era courthouse in Ho Chi Minh City, a 67-year-old Vietnamese property developer was sentenced to death on Thursday for looting one of the country’s largest banks over a period of 11 years.
It’s a rare verdict – she is one of very few women in Vietnam to be sentenced to death for a white collar crime.
The decision is a reflection of the dizzying scale of the fraud. Truong My Lan was convicted of taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. The verdict requires her to return $27bn, a sum prosecutors said may never be recovered. Some believe the death penalty is the court’s way of trying to encourage her to return some of the missing billions.
The habitually secretive communist authorities were uncharacteristically forthright about this case, going into minute detail for the media. They said 2,700 people were summoned to testify, while 10 state prosecutors and around 200 lawyers were involved.
The evidence was in 104 boxes weighing a total of six tonnes. Eighty-five others were tried with Truong My Lan, who denied the charges and can appeal.
All of the defendants were found guilty. Four received life in jail. The rest were given prison terms ranging from 20 years to three years suspended. Truong My Lan’s husband and niece received jail terms of nine and 17 years respectively.
Snip.
By 2011, Truong My Lan was a well-known business figure in Ho Chi Minh City, and she was allowed to arrange the merger of three smaller, cash-strapped banks into a larger entity: Saigon Commercial Bank.
Vietnamese law prohibits any individual from holding more than 5% of the shares in any bank. But prosecutors say that through hundreds of shell companies and people acting as her proxies, Truong My Lan actually owned more than 90% of Saigon Commercial.
They accused her of using that power to appoint her own people as managers, and then ordering them to approve hundreds of loans to the network of shell companies she controlled.
The amounts taken out are staggering. Her loans made up 93% of all the bank’s lending.
According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (£2.3bn) in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement.
That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam’s largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes.
Yeah, none of that seems kosher…
Memorial Hermann Hospital: No liver transplant for you!
How CD sales and rock music both collapsed in the early 21st century.
A very interesting O.J. Simpson story:
(Hat tip: Commenter Kirk.)
Strange news from Russia: Chechnya has banned music that’s slower than 80 beats per minute, or faster than 116 beats per minute. Both the Russian and Chechen national anthems are slower than that…
“John Tinniswood of Southport, UK is now the world’s oldest man.
How a programmer managed to rip off casinos for years. It helped that he worked for the Nevada Gaming Control Board…
“New ‘Biden Diet‘ Sweeps Nation: Pay The Same Amount Of Money But Eat 50% Less Food.”
Vatican Reluctantly Sides With God On Gender Theory.
Adorable prison break.
Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:2024 Presidential Race, 89th Texas Legislature, Biden Recession, Brenham, Catholics, Chechnya, China, Communism, Country Music, Crime, Dan Patrick, David Hogg, Democrats, dogs, drones, Economics, Elections, fraud, gambling, Global Warming, inflation, Jason Aldean, Joe Biden, Kedria McMath Grigsby, Klein ISD, Leaders We Deserve, LinkSwarm, Mike McDonnell, Nebraska, Nevada, Nevada Gaming Control Board, New York City, O.J. Simpson, Ohio, Paul Homewood, Pope Francis, rent control, Rock and Roll, Roger Magee, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, sex offender, Shelia Jackson Lee, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Texas DPS, transexual, Truong My Lan, Ukraine, USPS, Vietnam
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Global Warming, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, April 9th, 2024
Ken Paxton is suing Harris County over their unconstitutional guaranteed income program.
The State of Texas and Harris County will again duke it out in court, this time over a guaranteed basic income pilot program that would give 1,500 households in the county $500 per month.
Harris County announced the program last year through Harris County Public Health. On Tuesday, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed suit asking the court to halt its implementation before the April 24 start date.
Attorney General Ken Paxton said of the suit, “This scheme is plainly unconstitutional. Taxpayer money must be spent lawfully and used to advance the public interest, not merely redistributed with no accountability or reasonable expectation of a general benefit. I am suing to stop officials in Harris County from abusing public funds for political gain.”
The OAG’s suit reads, “There is no such thing as free money — especially in Texas. The Texas Constitution expressly prohibits giving away public funds to benefit individuals — a common sense protection to prevent cronyism and ensure that public funds benefit all citizens.”
Central to the state’s argument is that counties, “unlike home-rule cities,” have a substantially more narrow scope of authority. “[T]he legal basis for any action taken must be grounded ultimately in the constitution or statute,” the filing adds.
Both cities and counties are creations of the state, but municipalities have the home-rule provision that grants them a broader array of authority than is granted to counties. The range of that home-rule status is the subject of another suit, this one flowing in the opposite direction, against the Texas Legislature’s new field preemption law passed last year.
The City of Austin just completed the first year of its universal basic income program, allotting 85 families with $1,000 per month.
If there’s any insane, hard left, unconstitutional socialist program idea, there’s a good chance Austin will be in the forefront of pushing for it.
Texas’ contention here is that while a home-rule municipality could enact such a program, a county is explicitly precluded by the Texas Constitution.
Article III, Section 52(a) reads: “Except as otherwise provided by this section, the Legislature shall have no power to authorize any county, city, town or other political corporation or subdivision of the State to lend its credit or to grant public money or thing of value in aid of, or to any individual, association or corporation whatsoever, or to become a stockholder in such corporation, association or company.”
The suit adds, “Second, Harris County does not retain public control over the funds. As described above, the payments have ‘no strings attached,’ and the recipients can use the money however they wish.”
The OAG requests a temporary restraining order against the program and, eventually, a permanent injunction against its operation.
Using taxpayer money to pay people for breathing (or existing) is one of the stupidest pieces of socialist bullshit to come down the pike in many a moon. It’s immoral to take money from those who work in order to bribe those who don’t. It’s also a great way to kickback money directly to the hands of leftwing activists, since the grifters claim that they cannot reveal people receiving such payoffs due to “confidentiality.”
Despite the hosannas offered up by the hard left and economic illiterates everywhere to the scheme as a means of helping the poor, the Seattle-Denver Income Maintenance Experiment (SIME/DIME) experiments showed such no-strings-attached checks from the government hurt the recipients, reducing both the desire to work and lowering actual income among the recipients. See Charles Murray’s Losing Ground, pages 150-153 for details.
Any “Guaranteed Income” taking money from taxpayers and paying people not to work is not just unconstitutional, a bad idea and a moral hazard, it’s an avenue for fraud and an insult to anyone who works for a living.
It’s just another in a long line of illegal left wing experiments from Hidalgo’s office, all of which deserve to be crushed like bugs.
Tags:Charles Murray, Democrats, fraud, Harris County, Ken Paxton, Lawsuit, Lina Hidalgo, SIME/DIME, Texas, Universal Basic Income, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 7 Comments »
Monday, April 8th, 2024
As I’m still looking for a job, this piece on ghost job postings is particularly irksome.
The labour market is tightening – and it’s getting harder to find a job. In the wake of the Great Resignation, which drove more job vacancies than employers could fill, workers often had their pick of open roles. Now, they have largely lost their leverage among layoffs and budget cuts, and those open positions are increasingly rare.
Still, roles do exist – or at least appear to. Job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed continue to advertise open positions, and workers are actively submitting applications. Yet despite an influx of highly qualified candidates, plenty of desirable job adverts have languished on digital platforms with an increasingly common label: “Posted 30+ days ago”.
While the listings may be old, job seekers generally still assume companies are actively hiring for the roles. The truth is more complicated. Some of these are simply not-yet-removed adverts for jobs that have been filled – but some were never meant to be filled at all. These are ‘ghost jobs’, and they’re becoming an increasingly common – and problematic – obstacle for job seekers.
Snip.
Despite the influx of candidates, a staggering number of listings don’t result in hires. Revelio Labs, a US-based workforce intelligence firm, showed that the ratio of hires per job posting fell below 0.5 in 2023, meaning that more than half of listings did not result in an employer turning an applicant into an employee.
Clarify Capital, a New York-based business loan provider, surveyed 1,000 hiring managers, and found nearly seven in 10 jobs stay open for more than 30 days, with 10% unfilled for more than half a year. Half the respondents reported they keep job listings open indefinitely because they “always open to new people”. More than one in three respondents said they kept the listings active to build a pool of applicants in case of turnover – not because a role needs to be filled in a timely manner.
The posted roles are more than just a talent vacuum sucking up resumes from applicants. They are also a tool for shaping perception inside and outside of the company. More than 40% of hiring managers said they list jobs they aren’t actively trying to fill to give the impression that the company is growing. A similar share said the job listings are made to motivate employees, while 34% said the jobs are posted to placate overworked staff who may be hoping for additional help to be brought on.
“Ghost jobs are everywhere,” says Geoffrey Scott, senior content manager and hiring manager at Resume Genius, a US company that helps workers design their resumes. “We discovered a massive 1.7 million potential ghost job openings on LinkedIn just in the US,” says Scott. In the UK, StandOut CV, a London-based career resources company, found more than a third of job listings in 2023 were ghost jobs, defined as listings posted for more than 30 days.
It was bad enough looking for a job during the Biden Recession, and the ghost job listings just make things worse.
Now you’ll have to excuse me. I have some job applications to fill out…
Tags:Biden Recession, economy, fraud
Posted in Economics | 5 Comments »
Friday, April 5th, 2024
Hope you’ve got your taxes done. I’m still working on mine.
“Summers: Inflation Reached 18% In 2022 Using The Government’s Previous Formula.”
Numerous commentators—especially those defending President Biden’s economic record—have puzzled over why Americans are sour about the state of the U.S. economy. Unemployment rates have returned to pre-pandemic lows, commentators correctly point out, and the official rate of inflation is declining. So why are Americans ignoring the view of many experts that the economy is doing well?
According to a striking new paper by a group of economists from Harvard and the International Monetary Fund, headlined by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, the answer is that Americans have figured out something that the experts have ignored: that rising interest rates are as much a part of inflation as the rising price of ordinary goods. “Concerns over borrowing costs, which have historically tracked the cost of money, are at their highest levels” since the early 1980s, they write. “Alternative measures of inflation that include borrowing costs” account for most of the gap between the experts’ rosy pictures and Americans’ skeptical assessment.
“Backlash Is Real‘: DEI Exodus Gains Steam Across Corporate America.”
The unraveling of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives was seen on the state level, as Red states rushed to ban DEI programs in 2023. Google, Facebook, and other tech companies slashed DEI staff by late last year. Early this year, universities began rolling back diversity programs, while Harvard President Claudine Gay was demoted.
DEI was doomed to fail, and corporations have been quickly scrambling to abandon mindless and profitless diversity programs with Marxist roots. The latest earnings call data shows that “DEI” mentions have collapsed from their peak in 2021, according to Axios, citing data from AlphaSense.
In January, Johnny Taylor, president of the Society for Human Resource Management, told Axios that corporate executives are fed up with DEI.
“The backlash is real. And I mean, in ways that I’ve actually never seen it before,” Taylor said, adding, “CEOs are literally putting the brakes on this DE&I work that was running strong” since George Floyd’s murder in early 2020.
Kevin Clayton, senior vice president and head of social impact and equity for the Cleveland Cavaliers, said the chief diversity officer role was all the rage across corporate America after Floyd’s murder. He said companies filled these positions “out of gilt,” and hiring wasn’t the best.
Axios noted, “Some businesses are cutting back funding, trimming DEI staff — and even considering pulling back on things like employee resource groups comprised of workers of various races, ethnicities or interests.”
The pushback on DEI is finding momentum across corporations and universities. Subha Barry, former head of diversity at Merrill Lynch, told Bloomberg last month: “We’re past the peak.”
Let’s hope so.
No one at the wheel: “Biden Reportedly Has No Idea He Issued ‘Trans Day Of Visibility’ Proclamation.”
Gen Z hates the lousy Biden economy and favors Trump over Biden. Though a word to those Gen Z sorts who complain about a 9-5 schedule being “unnatural”: A “natural” schedule is performing backbreaking hunter/gatherer or subsistence agriculture work from dawn to dusk 6-7 days a week and dropping dead before you turn 40…
Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin vetoes dozens of gun control bills.
Boston takes over Soldiers Home to house illegal aliens.
Ukrainian drones hit a Russia drone production facility at Yelabuga, Tatarstan, which is almost 1,000 miles inside Russia, using a drone that looks a whole lot like a light aircraft.
Ukraine hits another Russian airbase with over 40 drones, and presumably took out even more Su-34s.
Whoops, make that three Russian airbases hit. including reports of three Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bombers damaged. (Yes, Russia still has a propeller-driven bomber in service. It can carry nuclear weapons and launch cruise missiles.)
Watch President of Guyana Mohamed Irfaan Ali absolutely dismantle a BBC reporter over his attempt to guilt him over global warming. It’s good to see that there’s at least one world leader who hasn’t drunk the green Kool-Aid…
Gun crimes evidently mean being released without bail if the perp is an illegal alien.
“Cost estimates more than double to replace failing Austin arts center building.” Note the “Extended community engagement: $1 million” which is code for “Payoffs to leftwing activists.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“UT Austin Closes DEI-Focused Division of Campus and Community Engagement, ‘Redistributes’ Programs.” Let’s hope the “redistribution” doesn’t just end up infecting other department.
“Paxton Seeks to Investigate Boeing Parts Supplier, DEI Initiatives. Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to investigate Spirit AeroSystsems after public outrage involving Boeing’s aircraft manufacturing issues.”
Boeing stated in 2022 that “for the first time in our company’s history, we tied incentive compensation to inclusion.”
Boeing’s 2023 Global Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion report explains that “diversity must be at the table for every important decision our company makes – every challenge we face, every innovation we design. Equity, diversity and inclusion are core values because they make Boeing — and each of us individually — better.”
According to the report, racial and ethnic minorities now hold 41.4 percent of jobs in the U.S. Boeing Commercial Airplanes Unit, and 28.3 percent in the U.S. Boeing Defense, Space, and Security. In 2022, U.S. racial and ethnic minorities made up 47.5 percent of new hires at Boeing.
You know what I want at the table for every important Boeing decision? Planes not falling out of the sky.
Harvard: Segregation now, segregation forever!
“Trans woman [that is to say, a man] pleads guilty after threatening to kill, rape school children in Illinois.” According to the virtue signaling sign people, love is love even when it’s murderous hate…
Intel lost $7 billion last year. Intel has a technology roadmap to get its process tech back on track, but failure to execute on previous nodes is what got them into this mess.
“Sir Maejor Page accused of creating bogus BLM charity to swipe nearly $500K to buy lavish home, guns facing fraud trial.” #BlackLivesMatter was (and is) a scam all the way down. (Hat tip: Dwight.) (Previously.)
In addition to having fingers in the pie in Syria and Yemen in addition to their proxy war with Israel, Iran also has to deal with Sunni Baluch separatist organization Jaish al-Adl (“Army of Justice”) on their own territory, where they killed at least 11 Iranian security force members.
“Journalists with the Austin American-Statesman are on strike once again.” Time to break this out again:
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Steve Wozniak sues YouTube over fake crypto endorsement videos.
City says mobile car wash isn’t.
Yes, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny lost a ton of money.
“Belew, Vai, Levin and Carey Play 80’s King Crimson.” Sign me up. Edited to Add: Crap, tickets went on sale for the Austin show in September TODAY. I was just barely able to snag two tickets in nosebleed…
The Lock-Picking Lawyer wants you to see how his Big Dick performs.
If it weren’t bad enough that illegal aliens were taking all the lawn maintenance jobs…(language warning)
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:#BlackLivesMatter, aircraft, Austin, Austin American Statesman, Boeing, Border Controls, Boston, Crime, DEI, dogs, drones, education, fraud, Glenn Youngkin, Global Warming, gun control, Guns, Guyana, Harvard, Illegal Aliens, Illinois, inflation, Intel, Iran, Jaish al-Adl, Jihad, Ken Paxton, King Crimson, Larry Summers, LinkSwarm, Lock-Picking Lawyer, Massachusetts, Media Watch, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, New York City, Regulation, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, segregation, Semiconductors, Sir Maejor Page, Social Justice Warriors, Spirit AeroSystsems, Steve Wozniak, Su-34, Tatarstan, Texas, transexual, Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" bomber, University of Texas, Yelabuga, YouTube
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, ObamaCare, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud | 4 Comments »
pic.twitter.com/frzrUVLSKx