Posts Tagged ‘Agron Hasbajrami’

LinkSwarm For January 24, 2025

Friday, January 24th, 2025

Democrats used election fraud and lawfare to strike down a glad-handing, dealmaking Trump the Grey who was treated with deep suspicion by the Republican establishment, and now he’s returned, more powerful than ever, as Trump the White with a unified GOP behind him, someone who has already unleashed a executive order blitzkrieg the likes of which the nation has never seen before. Trump now threatens the Democrats’ one-ring control of the federal bureaucracy, not to mention black and Hispanic voters, in a way previous Republican presidents never did. And Democrats have only themselves to blame for it, not only for their radical, shrieking TDS obstruction in his first term and their radical embrace of a deeply unpopular social justice agenda, but also their use of overreach in using so many executive orders to achieve their agenda. Now Trump has the blueprint and precedent to go after all their power centers. The scope and ferocity of Trump’s assault on a permanent leftwing deep state makes it seem less like The War of the Ring than The War of Wrath, in which the Valar returned to Middle Earth to finally settle Morgoth’s hash once and for all.

OK, I’ll stop making Tolkien analogies now.

Let’s just say that Trump’s first week back in the White House has unleashed a blizzard of winning, and I haven’t even remotely corralled all of it here.

  • Just before stumbling out of the White House, Joe Biden preemptively pardoned his own family members.

    In his final minutes as president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to his two brothers, James and Francis, and his sister, Valerie, to protect them from what he predicts will be politically motivated attacks led by President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans.

    “My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me—the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden said in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”

    Biden used his presidential power to pardon five members of his immediate family: James, his wife Sara, Valerie, her husband John Owens, and Francis. The outgoing president said the pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”

    James and Sara, in particular, were pardoned, presumably because James wrote Joe a $200,000 check on March 1, 2018 — the same day he received the funds from distressed rural hospital provider Americore.

    In September 2017, James and his wife also sent his older brother a $40,000 check that used funds originating from a Chinese energy firm CEFC in addition to other transactions involving Joe that caught the attention of the Republican-led House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Both checks were classified as loan repayments.

    The other family members were pardoned to ensure they aren’t targeted by the incoming administration. The clemency act covers any nonviolent offenses they may have committed since January 1, 2014.

    Like running an illegal pay-for-play graft mill for foreign governments. Which is what the Biden Crime Family did.

  • As expected, President Trump has pardoned January 6 defendants. Good. The prosecution of half-assed trespassers as though they were insurrectionists was a grave injustice committed in service of the Democratic Party’s imperative to continue trying to reinforce their own self-serving bullshit long after any rational person stopped believing in it.
  • Speaking of justice: “Trump Orders ‘Full and Complete’ Release of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination Files.”

  • “Trump DOJ Orders Local and State Governments to Comply With Immigration Initiatives. Obstructing federal efforts to protect the public from serious threats posed by illegal alien criminals could be met with legal action.”
  • In a less packed week this would be much bigger news: a federal judge has ruled that US Government Back Door FISA Searches Are Unconstitutional.

    The federal government’s method of searching through information incidentally collected on U.S.-based individuals violates the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, a federal judge has ruled.

    “To countenance this practice would convert Section 702 into precisely what Defendant has labeled it – a tool for law enforcement to run ‘backdoor searches’ that circumvent the Fourth Amendment,” U.S. District Judge LaShann Dearcy Hall said in the ruling, which was released on Jan. 21.

    Government officials acquired information on the defendant, Agron Hasbajrami, a legal permanent resident who they arrested in 2011 and charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization. The information was gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which lets authorities spy on people.

    After Hasbajrami pleaded guilty, authorities disclosed that some of the evidence they used in the case was the fruit of information they obtained without a warrant under a FISA supplement called Section 207, which enables authorities to conduct surveillance on non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States.

    FISA abuse was, of course, was a key tool in the deep state’s war against Trump.

  • The problem with this Victor Davis Hanson piece is what not to quote.

    Donald Trump won the 2024 election in part because the Left’s hysterical style of attacking Trump no longer worked.

    After a decade of this unhinged furor, it proved worthless in winning public support — and for two simple reasons.

    One, after years of Russian collusion hoaxes, the laptop disinformation farce, and the warped lies about the “suckers” and “fine people on both sides” — the shrill Left became predictable.

    So, the bored public began tuning them out, switching channels, hitting the mute button, and pulling the plug.

    Like the deleterious effects of inflation that eventually render a currency worthless, nonstop hectoring, hysterics, pontification, and distortion finally made all such criticisms of Trump mostly as valueless as 1930s German marks.

    Second, the wearied public never heard reasoned counterarguments from the likes of a Rachel Maddow. Instead, on spec, she kept mouthing, “The walls are closing in” on Trump.

    Former President Joe Biden did not explain why his open border was a better idea than Trump’s closed one. He preferred mumbling about “semi-fascists!” and the “ultra-MAGA!”

    The Never Trumpers did not critique the Trump deficits. Instead, they hammered away that Trump was Hitler, or Mussolini, or Putin — or just a dangerous dictator or autocrat.

    Angry retired generals never demonstrated why Trump was, in their view, an existential threat to democracy. Instead, they shouted nonstop in op-eds and interviews that he was a fascist, Nazi-like, no different from the guards at Auschwitz, a pathological liar, and should be summarily removed.

    Worn-out voters began to understand that these psychodramas were substitutes for substantive criticism or occasions for legitimate debate.

    Indeed, the exhausted public finally concluded that the hysterics increased in direct proportion to the poverty of the charges.

    So, what did 10 years of such derangement achieve for the Left?

    Trump now has control of the White House and both houses of Congress operate under Republican majorities.

    The Supreme Court is mostly conservative. Almost all of Trump’s issues — the border, immigration, the economy, foreign policy, and crime — poll well over 50 percent.

    No matter, the Left is still hammering away at the trivial and irrelevant — and remains paralyzed in furor and hysterics.

    Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Breaking: Trump Department of Defense head pick Pete Hegseth confirmed, with Vice president J. D. Vance breaking a 50-50 tie.
  • Former Okaland mayor Sheng Thao was “indicted [last] Friday. Also indicted: Andre Jones, who the NYT describes as her ‘boyfriend,’ David Trung Duong, and Andy Hung Duong. David Duong is the head of a local waste management company, and Andy is his son.”
  • “Starbucks Lost $25 Million Lawsuit Because They Fired An Employee For Being White.” Good. Don’t be racist and don’t violate anti-discrimination laws. It’s not rocket science.
  • Left UK Guardian newspaper staffers: We’re striking for better wages! Guardian management: Enjoy being replaced by AI.
  • Three North Koreans are wanted in Russia for fragging Russian soldiers.
  • And another huge Russian oil facility goes up in a giant fireball, this one in Ryazan, some 476 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
  • Biden: Stop attacking American ships. Houthis: LOL. Trump: Stop attacking American ships…or else. Houthis: “Yes, Mr. President. Please don’t kill us.”
  • “West Texas Teacher, Coach Charged With Continuous Sexual Assault of a Child. Justin Esquell is accused of sexually abusing a victim for four years, starting when the child was under the age of 14.”
  • Too many Texas cities are too cozy with Communist China.
  • Harvard settles an antisemitism lawsuit.
  • This could be a very big story. “Trump Announces Tech Companies Will Invest $500 Billion in AI Infrastructure.”

    President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a joint venture between three large tech companies to invest as much as $500 billion into building out U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure.

    The joint venture, known as Stargate, involves Oracle, Open AI, and Softbank and will see the companies join together to build out American data centers to power artificial intelligence systems, including ChatGPT. Stargate, which could cost up to $500 billion over a four-year period, will begin with a data center in Texas, a state friendly to crypto and other parts of the tech industry.

    More from Open AI.

    The initial equity funders in Stargate are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility. Masayoshi Son will be the chairman.

    Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners. The buildout is currently underway, starting in Texas, and we are evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses as we finalize definitive agreements.

    That’s a lot of heavy hitters, but some of them (I’m looking at you Microsoft) have embraced wokeness. Hopefully their AI project won’t be infected with it.

    If they need a technical writer, I know one who’s going to be available soon… (Update: I’m hearing it will be built out in Abilene.)

  • “Massive Fire Burns at World’s Largest Lithium Battery Plant Near Monterey, CA.” Quite far away from, and probably unrelated to, the wildfires.
  • And in case you were wondering, lots of wildfires are still burning.
  • A good question: “How did Joe Biden get rich?”
  • An end to flag madness. “State Department implements “one flag policy,” meaning no more Pride or BLM flags flown at U.S. facilities.”
  • CNN laid off 210 people or about 6% of it’s staff of 3,500. That still seems an unsustainably high staff for a network that averages less than a million viewers. Indeed, it’s something like 286 viewers per staffer. What advertisers are willing to pay money to reach so few people?
  • The Biden Recession + Hollywood wokeness + streaming means that Alamo Draft House just laid off 15 people at their HQ.
  • EV Startup Canoo Files For Bankruptcy.”
  • Dave Ramsey is shocked to learn that Canadian capitals gains tax is 66%.
  • That’s not a mannequin.
  • Every book I bought in 2024.
  • Are comedian Bill Burr and Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan related?
  • Elderly Dementia Patient Cruelly Evicted From Home.”
  • “Aides Gently Guide Biden To Retirement Home Room Disguised As Oval Office.”
  • “Sad Hunter Biden Wondering Why No One Buying His Paintings Anymore.”
  • “With TikTok Ban, Americans Now Only Being Spied On By Pentagon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Samsung, Doorbell, Toaster.” They forgot Microsoft and the FBI…
  • I have a contract position but it may be ending soon, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.