Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! I still haven’t had time to wrangle all those Twitter revelations into a coherent article, so that will have to wait for another post.
How different it feels this time around. Broadcasters are lustily cheering anti-lockdown protesters in China. Members of Congress offer unqualified support. President Joe Biden, although more guarded, is sympathetic.
No Western politician, as far as I can see, is insulting the protesters. They are not dismissed as selfish or sociopathic, nor as dupes of conspiracy theories. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) captured the mood: “To the people of China — we hear you and we stand with you as you fight for your freedom.”
Broadcasters and columnists who spent 2020 calling anti-lockdowners kooks and criminals are now uncomplicatedly applauding their Chinese counterparts. They see ordinary people standing up against an authoritarian government the anti-COVID policies of which were crushing liberty.
So, what changed? Perhaps pundits tell themselves that the disease is less virulent now, or that vaccination has altered the balance of risk, or that, in some other way, Beijing’s crackdown is less proportionate than those of 2020. But none of these explanations stacks up.
Yes, the coronavirus became less lethal. All viruses that spread through human contact eventually become less lethal because they have an evolved tendency to want to keep their hosts up and active and therefore more infectious. For this to happen, they require a critical mass. Enough people need to be incapacitated or killed by the original version to give milder strains an advantage. And, yes, the vaccines helped, too.
But the trade-offs are essentially the same in China today as they were three years ago — coronavirus deaths versus other deaths. The current unrest was sparked by a fire in Xinjiang, which was allowed to become needlessly deadly because the authorities were following COVID protocols. In other words, they were elevating COVID above other forms of harm.
Most countries did the same in 2020 with, as we now see, disastrous results. The lockdowns did not just cause an economic meltdown from which we will take years to recover. They also failed on their own terms. They killed more people than they saved.
Guess which developed country had the lowest excess mortality between 2020 and 2022. Go on, have a guess. That’s right. Sweden, which refused to close shops or schools or to impose a mask mandate, saw cumulative excess deaths rise by 6.8%, the lowest figure in the OECD. By way of comparison, the equivalent figures were 18% in Australia, 24.5% in the U.K., and 54.1% in the U.S.
“Loudoun County Fires Superintendent over Handling of Sexual-Assault Cases. The Loudoun County school board fired Superintendent Scott Ziegler in a closed-door meeting Tuesday night after a special grand jury released a report blaming the district for failing to escalate cases of student sexual assault in 2021.” The black-pilled who proclaim that electing Republicans is useless aren’t considering the Glenn Youngkins of the world.
he Washington Post announced in October that it was welcoming a new communications chief. The paper’s official announcement lauded Kathy Baird, a veteran of Nike and the public relations giant Ogilvy, as a “key strategic partner” positioned to “realize our ambitious vision for the publication.”
It also noted her membership in the “Rosebud Sioux Tribe” and service on the board of IllumiNative, which it described as “a nonprofit working for accurate and authentic portrayal of Native people.”
That’s one way to put it. IllumiNative is a self-described “racial justice organization” funded by a dark money behemoth that encourages elementary school students to fight for Democratic Party initiatives like universal health care. Its purpose is similar to various far-left activist groups, focusing on “breaking through systems of white supremacy” and “grassroots organizing,” according to IllumiNative’s website.
Argentina’s Vice President (and former President, and former First Lady) and leftwing Paronist Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is sentenced to six years of corrupt fraud.
Paralympian: “Hey, can I get a wheelchair ramp?” Veterans Affairs Canada: “Are you sure you wouldn’t like assisted suicide instead?” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Suspended Smith County Constable [Curtis Harris] Found Guilty of Theft, Official Oppression. Since his indictment, the 34-year-old Democrat has been jailed for violating the conditions of his bond and removed from office by a judge.” Smith County is in northeast Texas, and the biggest city is Tyler. Not to be confused with Deaf Smith County, which is completely different…
Great Pyrenees watchdog fights off 11 coyotes, killing eight. Good boy! I didn’t realize there were coyotes in Georgia, but evidently they’ve been extending their range from the southwest.
Howdy! Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving! I spent six days up in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, visiting relatives and buying some 180 books, some for myself and some to deal. Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm!
We keep hearing that it’s impossible rig government unemployment statistics, but something funny is going on.
A superficial take of today’s jobs report would note that both jobs and earnings “blew past expectations, flying in the face of Fed rate hikes”, and while that is accurate at the headline level, it couldn’t be further from the truth if one actually digs a little deeper in today’s jobs numbers.
Recall that back in August, September, and October we showed that a stark divergence had opened between the Household and Establishment surveys that comprise the monthly jobs report, and since March the former has been stagnant while the latter has been rising every single month. In addition to that, full-time jobs were plunging while part-time jobs were surging and the number of multiple-jobholders soared.
Fast forward to today when the inconsistencies not only continue to grow, but have become downright grotesque.
Consider the following: the closely followed Establishment survey came in above expectations at 263K, above the 200K expected – a record 7th consecutive beat vs expectations – and down modestly from last month’s upward revised 284K…
… numbers which confirm that at a time when virtually every major tech company is announcing mass layoffs…
… the BLS has a single, laser-focused political agenda – not to spoil the political climate at a time when Democrats just lost control of the House as somehow both construction (+20K) and manufacturing (+14K) added jobs according to the BLS, when even ADP now reports that these two sectors combined shed more than 100,000 workers in November.
Alas, there is only so much the Department of Labor can hide under the rug because when looking at the abovementioned gap between the Household and Establishment surveys which we have been pounding the table on since the summer, it just blew out by a whopping 401K as a result of the 263K increase in the number of nonfarm payrolls (tracked by the Household survey) offset by a perplexing plunge in the number of people actually employed which tumbled by 138K (tracked by Household survey). Furthermore, as shown in the next chart, since March the number of employed workers has declined on 4 of the past 8 months, while the much more gamed nonfarm payrolls (goalseeked by the Establishment survey) have been up every single month.
What is even more perplexing, is that despite the continued rise in nonfarm payrolls, the Household survey continues to telegraph growing weakness, and as of Nov 30, the gap that opened in March has since grown to a whopping 2.7 million “workers” which may or may not exist anywhere besides the spreadsheet model of some BLS (or is that BLM) political activist.”
A non-profit bankrolled by some of the nation’s largest corporations and left-wing billionaire George Soros is conducting a racial census of House and Senate staff as part of its effort to establish a “Bipartisan Diversity and Inclusion Office,” according to internal emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Senate and House staff received emails from a researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies starting in July asking them to confirm their “racial and ethnic identity” as part of an alleged data collection effort. In at least two cases, senior congressional staffers who declined to provide their races were told by the researcher that the organization’s current data indicated they “may identify as white” and asked the staffers to update if the information was incorrect.
Information collected by the group will be used in its annual report that lobbies for “structural changes on Capitol Hill that would allow for more people of color to be hired in senior positions,” a previous report from the group states. That report is made possible in part by millions of dollars in donations to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies from Apple, Google, Meta, Pfizer, the Soros-backed Open Society Foundation, among dozens of other large corporations and nonprofits.
The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ survey is part of a broader trend by left-wing organizations to pressure workplaces and governments to increase affirmative action policies. Often couched in promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” those policies have received criticism for coming at the expense of competence and offering advantages based on race instead of merit.
Rush was charged with a second-degree felony, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon family violence. An emergency protection order was issued against him, and he was soon back on the streets after making a $40,000 bond, KVUE reported.
“For $4,000, you can get out, go home, watch Netflix after trying to murder your ex-girlfriend — are you kidding me?” one of the customers said.
So in addition to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possible attempted murder, our super-genius lawyer also violated section 46.03 of the Texas penal code by carrying a gun into a bar. And he bonded out. For all that Democrats blather about “gun violence,” they don’t seem top treat gun felonies with any seriousness when they actually occur. Thanks, Soros-backed DA Jose Garza!
But it turns out that Rush didn’t just go go home to watch Netflix, as he was found dead on Thursday.
In one meeting, Deon Jackson went from South Carolina’s Berkeley County school superintendent to unemployed.
His firing came at the hand of a newly-elected school board, which appears to have declared a judgment day for woke practices in its district.
In its first meeting after the Nov. 8 election, the board fired superintendent Jackson and school counsel Tiffany Richardson. Then it hired Anthony Dixon as superintendent and retained Brandon Gaskins as counsel. And before the day was over, the board banned teaching critical race theory and created a board to review library books for pornographic content.
Moms for Liberty, an activist group that supports parental rights in education, endorsed six of the board’s nine members. Many Moms for Liberty candidates won school board elections this November.
Speaking of disinformation, CNN carries out more mass layoffs, including Chris Cillizza. Let’s have a moment of silences for his careerOK that’s enough.
Legal Insurrection conducts a 2024 presidential preference poll. Not surprisingly, DeSantis comes in first and Trump second. Nikki Haley third over Ted Cruz is a mild surprise. Greg Abbott ranked dead last, tied with Liz Chaney, is a much bigger one.
Blogger, owned by Google, has evidently decided that it, and not the individual bloggers that use it, are the ultimate arbiter of what those bloggers should be allowed to say, and they’ve started censoring Borepatch. From Friday, November 25, 2022:
In the ongoing effort to protect the world from Borepatch, the following actions have been taken by The Blogger Team.
https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-smells-good.html has been removed.
http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/america-do-your-part-to-when-harry-met.html has been put behind a warning wall.
http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2010/06/ouch.html has been put behind a warning wall.
As a blogger and Borepatch reader, this sticks in my craw, so here is a a Wayback Machine link to “What smells good.” What Google hopes to accomplish by censoring a 14-year old post to gun cleaning solvents is unclear.
As you may know, our Community Guidelines
(https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow– and don’t allow– on Blogger. Your post titled “How do we know that Climate “science” is terribly weak?” was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and have unpublished the URL http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-do-we-know-that-climate-science-is.html, making it unavailable to blog readers.
Why was your blog post unpublished?
Your content has violated our Malware and Viruses policy. Please visit our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.
Reading the archived piece, I see nothing that could even be remotely construed as code.
It seems Google is using vague terms-of-service complaints to carry out ideological language policing in the name of crushing dissent against The Holy Narrative.
And it seems like a pretty good reason not to choose Blogger as your platform if you can choose something else.
The Babylon Bee has been doing these “Californians move to Texas” pieces. Some are funnier than others, but I think this one of them visiting the gun ranges hits closer to the target.
A massive security breach of the Mexican government unveiled documents from the Mexico Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena). The leaked documents, published online by a group called Guacamaya, reveal that the Mexican military has been supplying cartels with weapons.
According to the leaked documents “On May 31, 2019, the military offered operators of the criminal group (Tejupilco drug cartel) 70 fragmentation grenades at a cost of 26,000 pesos (1300.29 USD) each; the criminal cell confirmed the purchase of eight of them, which were delivered to Atlacomulco, State of Mexico.”
The document then explained that not only were cartel members offered weapons, they were given classified information by military personnel that disclosed in full detail information on armed forces mobility and operations.
Following the May 31 document was an intelligence report made on June 10 of the same year that revealed that Sedena had full knowledge of the exchange and refused to act on it
The revelation comes just weeks after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and as millions of illegal aliens have poured across the southern border since President Joe Biden took office.
In light of the Biden administration’s inaction, some members of Texas’ congressional delegation say the time has come for Texas to declare an invasion on the southern border.
“Not only are the United Nations, the Biden Administration, and U.S. nonprofits supporting the invasion of our southern border, now the Mexican military is arming the Cartels smuggling migrants with hand grenades,” U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden told Texas Scorecard. “I fully support declaring the border crisis an invasion and closing our border with Mexico until this coordinated onslaught of migrants is under control.”
Maybe Mexico should get their own house in order before blaming American arms companies…
Democrats flee, lettuce wins, a flood of extra executives, and Musk gets out the hatchet. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
People leaving the Democratic Party describe it as cancer:
While Democrat voters have been leaving the party for years, their reasons have become more urgent.
“When people were feeling pushed away years ago, to the point where they were starting to walk away, there was more of a casual tone about it,” former liberal Democrat Brandon Straka, founder of #WalkAway told The Epoch Times.
“People were beginning to feel the effects of leftist, communism, Marxism infiltration into our society, our culture, and our politics.”
Straka founded #WalkAway in 2018 after making his personal decision to leave the party public while inviting others to join him. Since then, thousands of exiting Democrats made social media videos explaining why they were choosing to #WalkAway, giving Straka a window into the minds of these voters.
At that time, people were just noticing changes in the party, he said. They weren’t always identifying what it meant, but they knew they didn’t like how it felt, and quietly left.
“But now, it’s akin to cancer. Cancer doesn’t stop growing and spreading just because people don’t like it. And what’s happening with the left is no different,” Straka said. “Particularly with them getting rid of Trump, installing Biden, and the Democrats taking full control of the government. This is a cancer that’s rapidly growing and spreading now. And it’s becoming not just uncomfortable, but I think intolerable, for a lot of people.”
Drugs dealers openly selling on Broadway. Thinks to mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, and the feckless actions of Soros-backed DA Alvin Bragg, Democrats have undone not only all the hard-won law-and-order gains of Rudy Giuliani’s broken windows police, but they’ve actually brought NYC back to the nadir of the crime-ridden New York of the 1970s. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is heading to his third high-profile defeat in five years. But he and Planned Parenthood have an ace of their sleeve: registering dead voters.
A Texas firearms dealer is suing the Biden administration for weaponizing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to shut down law-abiding gun retailers over paperwork errors discovered during audits.
President Joe Biden ordered the Department of Justice in June of 2021 to enforce “zero tolerance for willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers that put public safety at risk,” but after a 500 percent increase in federal firearm license revocations for retailers over the last year, it’s clear the Biden administration isn’t just going after gun sellers who intentionally violate the law.
Punishing minor slip-ups, the lawsuit argues, draws on a drastically different interpretation of the law than the definition federal courts have held based on the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The lawsuit, to which the federal government has 60 days to respond, also argues that the Biden administration’s new policy sets an unreasonably high standard that is not applied to any other industry.
That’s why Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, chose to bring this case.
Those energy-hostile Democratic Party policies just keep paying dividends: “New England facing natural gas shortages, rolling blackouts this winter.”
The reality is that the normal flow of natural gas into the region is limited and has been unable to keep up with increasing demand levels over the past decade. That means that utility operators have to rely on liquid natural gas (LNG) imports to make up the difference during peak demand periods. During such times, LNG accounts for as much as one-third of the total natural gas used for heating and electricity.
But why is that? You won’t need an ace detective to figure that out. Utility companies in New York, Connecticut, and other New England states projected supply shortfalls more than a decade ago. Fortunately, New York and Pennsylvania sit on some of the richest natural gas resources in the country, found in the Marcellus shale deposits. The companies requested new, higher-volume pipelines to carry natural gas to meet the spiraling demands of New York City, particularly at the furthest end of the gas lines in Long Island. They also urged the development of local gas production to feed those lines. Similar situations were noted all across New England.
Instead of doing that, New York refused to approve new gas lines and passed a moratorium on natural gas drilling in the state. This brings us to the current situation where the same amount of natural gas is being used, but increasing amounts of it come in the form of LNG that has to be imported either from other regions of the country or from overseas. The energy crunch in Europe is eating up a lot of the available LNG, so there may not be enough for New England this winter.
A star reporter for ABC News has been missing since an April 27 FBI raid at his Arlington, Virginia apartment.
Emmy award winner James Gordon Meek – a deep-dive journalist who was also a former senior counterterrorism adviser and investigator for the House Homeland Security Committee, abruptly quit his job of 9 years and “fell off the face of the earth,” after the raid, one of his colleagues told Rolling Stone.
A recent proliferation of phony executive profiles on LinkedIn is creating something of an identity crisis for the business networking site, and for companies that rely on it to hire and screen prospective employees. The fabricated LinkedIn identities — which pair AI-generated profile photos with text lifted from legitimate accounts — are creating major headaches for corporate HR departments and for those managing invite-only LinkedIn groups.
Last week, KrebsOnSecurity examined a flood of inauthentic LinkedIn profiles all claiming Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) roles at various Fortune 500 companies, including Biogen, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Hewlett Packard.
Since then, the response from LinkedIn users and readers has made clear that these phony profiles are showing up en masse for virtually all executive roles — but particularly for jobs and industries that are adjacent to recent global events and news trends.
Does the Federal Reserve swapping some $6 billion worth of dollars for Swiss Francs with the Swiss National Bank mean a global financial crisis is coming? Boiling down his argument: A.) The Swiss National bank has a weekly dollar auction every Wednesday. 99%+ of the time, no one shows up for them. B.) Last Wednesday, 15 parties (meaning banks) showed up for them to the tune of some $6 billion. C.) The only reason they would do that is if they don’t trust their current repo counterparties, and D.) This is what happened when Flu Manchu hit and before the Subprime Meltdown in 2008. If it’s any consolation, they first started showing up for the latter in December of 2007, so you might have nine months to buy gold, ammunition and canned goods…
“According to the latest campaign finance reports, Republican Alexandra del Moral Mealer has raised a record-setting $4.9 million dollars in support of her campaign for Harris County Judge, outraising Democratic incumbent Lina Hidalgo 4 to 1.”
Related: “Hidalgo Booed Exiting Meeting Where GOP Commissioners Continue Boycott of Tax Increase.”
Woke reporter: Are you just super excited to coach against another black coach? Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles: “We don’t see color…the minute you guys stop making a big deal about it, everyone else will as well.”
Dwight sent over the text of a firearms case decision in “ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS, Plaintiff, v. SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC.” etc., or Mexico v Smith & Wesson et. al. (“Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.; Beretta USA Corp.; Century International Arms, Inc.; Colt’s Manufacturing Company, LLC; Glock, Inc.; Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc.; and Witmer Public Safety Group, Inc. d/b/a Interstate Arms.”)
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for Massachusetts (because venue shopping) and the decision was handed down by Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV.
A U.S. federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Mexican government against U.S. gun manufacturers arguing their commercial practices has led to bloodshed in Mexico.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston ruled Mexico’s claims did not overcome the broad protection provided to gun manufacturers by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act passed in 2005.
The law shields gun manufacturers from damages “resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm.
Quoting the text of the decision itself (which does not yet appear to be online anywhere):
Unfortunately for the government of Mexico, all of its claims are either barred by federal law or fail for other reasons. The PLCAA unequivocally bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of individuals using guns for their intended purpose. And while the statute contains several narrow exceptions, none are applicable here.
This Court does not have the authority to ignore an act of Congress. Nor is its proper role to devise stratagems to avoid statutory commands, even where the allegations of the complaint may evoke a sympathetic response. And while the Court has considerable sympathy for the people of Mexico, and none whatsoever for those who traffic guns to Mexican criminal organizations, it is duty-bound to follow the law.
Accordingly, and for the reasons set forth below, the motions
to dismiss will be granted.
Not a picture of Judge Saylor.
This, of course, is the proper outcome. Lawful American gun manufacturers can’t be held accountable for the misuse of their products, nor should they be made scapegoats for Mexico’s inability to control their own criminal cartels.
A lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton seeking to exempt Texas-made suppressors from federal regulations will move forward, after federal Judge Mark Pittman on Monday ruled against a motion to dismiss the case.
The ruling constitutes a procedural win for Paxton and co-plaintiffs in the case, which was filed on behalf of several Texas residents.
Attorney Tony McDonald, legal counsel for several of the plaintiffs, wrote on social media that the “big (initial) win” will allow the case to move forward and that the judge rejected the argument that suppressors are firearms accessories and not protected by the Second Amendment.
“Obviously this doesn’t mean we’ll win, but importantly it signals Pittman rejects [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives]’s argument that suppressors are just accessories and are not protected by the 2A. That seemed to be a pretty clear legal question that, if accepted, meant we had no case,” McDonald wrote.
At issue is House Bill (HB) 957, a Texas law recently passed by Representative Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress) exempting firearms silencers or suppressors from federal regulations if they are manufactured, marked, and kept in the State of Texas.
The law empowers the Texas attorney general to file suit on behalf of private citizens who wish to manufacture a suppressor and to obtain a court order enjoining the federal government from enforcing federal firearms regulations before the citizen can move forward.
Under current federal laws, anyone purchasing a firearm suppressor must fill out an extensive background check application, pay a $200 tax, and wait for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to issue their approval — a wait that can sometimes take over a year.
Today’s ruling only allows the case to move forward and doesn’t guarantee either side a final victory.
The case has considerable importance not only on Second Amendment grounds, but on Tenth Amendment grounds as well. It is obvious that the Founders only intended to regulate commerce between states, not within a single state, and much government-expanding mischief has been wrought in the name of the commerce clause. Breathing new life into the Tenth Amendment would help remedy that.
Now we’ll see if the case can make it all the way to the Supreme Court…
Like a Marvel crossover comic that features two characters you’re interested in, having both Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons and tank expert Nicholas Moran talk about the .50cal machine gun (and why the Germans never adopted it) did indeed peak my interest.
A few takeaways:
“That the M2 I think is so well known today, it’s so recognized and … is ubiquitous. During World War Two, the U.S. kind of did a like a massive industrial flex on the rest of the world with the M2. It’s a bit memey, but you could think of this as like the classic Uncle Sam painting with like glowing red eyes of fire. Because the US manufactured about 2 million Browning .50 caliber machine guns.”
“We’re going to put them on trucks, we’re going to put them on tanks, we’ll put them on some Jeeps, we’ll put them on half-tracks. We’ll put four of them together in a big mount and put that on a half-track or on a trailer. It’s like Oprah just handing out .50 cal machine guns.”
Because McCollum didn’t know, he asked Moran, leading to the special Gun Jesus/Chieftain Crossover Issue.
Moran’s first cut: “Dunno! Let me ask around.”
For starters, the Germans used small canons instead of big machine guns.
It was a hell of a lot safer to be buttoned up in the tank with aircraft shooting at you than outside it trying to score an unlikely machine gun kill.
“The reality was that aircraft generally were horrible at killing tanks.” (Caveat: I hear the Stuka version with the 37mm cannon was actually pretty good at it, but German tankers obviously didn’t have to worry about that.)
Also, since they thought taking out aircraft with machine guns was unlikely, one light machine gun with tracers was just as good as four heavy machine guns at “giving pilots something to think about” on their strafing runs.
The Germans did have “the MG 131, a 13mm weapon, and thus as close to a caliber .50 as possible. Though primarily an electrically primed aircraft gun, it could be converted to a ground mount and percussion fired. It could thus be mounted on a tank much like an American caliber .50, yet it never was.”
Germans had a doctrinal preference for saving ammo wherever possible if the possibility for effective fire was too low. Americans had a doctrinal preference for turning out giant piles of ammo.
“If you want something which provides a lot of coverage, and has a good chance of actually shooting down a target, especially an armoured one like an IL-2, you’re better off with a heavier gun on a dedicated platform with a trained, dedicated anti-aircraft crew.”
Ukraine is carving out big gains in Kharkiv, Texas is in the money, Biden taps Clinton’s bagman to divy up the graft manage climate change funds, more groomers unmasked, and some big changes in the UK. Plus a bit about tanks. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Ukrainian successes on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line are creating fissures within the Russian information space and eroding confidence in Russian command to a degree not seen since a failed Russian river crossing in mid-May.
Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv Oblast counteroffensives advanced to within 20 kilometers of Russia’s key logistical node in Kupyansk on September 8.
Ukrainian forces will likely capture Kupyansk in the next 72 hours, severely degrading but not completely severing Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum.
Ukrainian forces are continuing to target Russian GLOCs, command-and-control points, and ammunition depots in Kherson Oblast.
On Thursday, the state comptroller reported that the Lone Star State’s tax revenue rocketed by 25.6% to a total of $75.21 billion.
It’s only the fifth time since 1988 that revenue grew by a double-digit percentage — and it’s double the next largest increase over that 34-year span.
“Revenues continue to outpace even our most recent forecast as All Funds tax collections closed the fiscal year $841 million above the projection in our Certification Revenue Estimate,” said state Comptroller Glenn Hegar in an official release.
That’s a stark contrast to California, which saw July revenue come in 12% below forecast.
Texas has been a major beneficiary of migration from California: Over the last census cycle, 34% of new Texans arrived from California alone. Meanwhile, New York saw personal income tax collection fall 3.2% from April 1 through July.
Joe Biden has hired John Podesta to be the new Clean Energy Czar, citing his experience in progressive causes….
Bottom line, John Podesta is being now being hired to divvy up the $316 billion in Green New Deal money recently authorized by congress. That is what Podesta specializes in, the distribution of taxpayer money to DNC allied groups and networks in advance of the 2022 midterms. Podesta, Hillary’s fixer, is a bagman, nothing more.
Worse, one of the many bag clients he’s adept at channeling money into Democratic pockets for is China.
President Joe Biden on Friday tapped John Podesta to oversee $370 billion in climate spending, a move that has China hawks on Capitol Hill concerned over Podesta’s encouragement of Chinese investment in American infrastructure and praise for the top U.S. adversary on climate change.
Podesta has called for Chinese investment in American infrastructure, arguing in 2013 that there are “great opportunities for Chinese firms to directly invest in this nation, to build American infrastructure, to create American jobs, and generate steady and handsome returns.” He added, “There’s also the ability for Chinese firms to invest here and learn best practices, and take those home to the tremendous and growing middle class market in China.”
Instead, in the intervening decade, the Chinese government has committed widespread economic espionage—one 2017 estimate found that China steals up to $600 billion in trade secrets a year. Engineers in China, meanwhile, use popular social media platform TikTok to access nonpublic data from U.S. users.
Podesta has also praised China’s efforts to combat climate change, arguing in 2015 that the Chinese “are beginning to do a fair amount.” China, which is the world’s top carbon emitter, went on to dramatically accelerate its coal consumption, which reached a record high in 2020.
That record has China hawks on the Hill concerned that America’s top adversary has a new—and powerful—ally in the White House. Podesta’s role will see the liberal consultant implement $370 billion in spending toward alternative energy, a sector that China dominates when it comes to raw materials. As such, alternative energy companies receiving the Podesta-steered funding could turn to China to secure supplies. The new Biden aide will likely take no issue with that dynamic, given that he has argued the United States and China should “align” on a green economy. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Ted Cruz (R., Texas) argued that the move reflects the White House’s soft-on-China stance.
Democratic County Administrator Robert Telles charged in the death of journalist Jeff German, “an investigative reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had spent the last few months exposing misdeeds and turmoil in the official’s office.” For all Sundown Joe’s dark mutterings about “UltraMAGA,” it seems like Democrats are the ones doing all the killing…
A now-former elementary school teacher previously charged with sexual abuse of a 7-year-old student was arrested again and charged with sexually assaulting a second victim.
Victor Moreno, 28, was charged in July with continuous sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, and an improper relationship between a student and educator, a second-degree felony.
The accused pedophile’s victim was a second-grade girl in Irving Independent School District, where Moreno was a teacher at the time of the alleged assaults during the 2020-2021 school year.
Snip.
Meanwhile, a teacher’s aide in Mesquite Independent School District was arrested Tuesday after being accused of engaging in inappropriate relationships with students.
Bryan Garcia, 22, was charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child.
“Higher Ed’s New Woke Loyalty Oaths: A ballooning number of hiring and tenure decisions require candidates to express written fealty to political doctrines.” And you can bet those doctrines have nothing to do with constitutionally limited government based on universal rights…
Indeed, they’re talking about restarting old production lines to start manufacturing older BMP-2s. “The costs and challenges of bringing more modern designs into production are now surely aggravated by Western sanctions cutting access to many basic electrical components, requiring pricey and time-consuming workarounds.”
This is like a scene from a porn movie, only a lot creepier. “Las Vegas landlord requires tenant to sign sex contract in order to lease home.”
“Kim Kardashian Is Starting Her Own Private Equity Company.” Why not? But I’m betting being a genius at self-promotion doesn’t equate to being a genius at investing, especially since she’s starting in the middle of a fierce, widespread downturn…
Easiest way to win Dad of the Year? Pick your son up from school in a tank. Looks like a Scorpion light tank, most likely the FV107 Scimitar reconnaissance variant.
“FBI Drops Investigation After Discovering Trump’s Top Secret Nuclear Documents Were Just Print-Outs Of Hillary Clinton Emails.”
