Posts Tagged ‘Arkansas’

Texas Sues Biden Administration Over EV Trucking Mandates

Wednesday, May 15th, 2024

Another day, another Texas lawsuit against the Biden Administration over regulatory overreach.

A coalition of Republican-led states is suing the Biden administration and the State of California in an attempt to prevent new electric vehicle mandates on truck owners and operators throughout the country from going into effect.

Two legal challenges were filed over the new emissions rules, Nebraska Attorney General Hilgers said in a statement on May 13.

They include a petition for review filed by a coalition of 24 states in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit which challenges the Biden administration’s new regulation setting stronger greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

Texas isn’t mentioned in the article, but it is in the filing:

Under 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1), Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15, and D.C. Circuit Rule 15(a), the States of Nebraska, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming petition this Court for review of the final agency action taken by Respondents United States Environmental Protection Agency and Michael S. Regan, in his official capacity as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, titled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles—Phase 3,” published at 89 Fed. Reg. 29,440 (April 22, 2024). A copy of the agency action is attached to this petition.

Petitioners will show that the final rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and otherwise is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law. Petitioners thus ask that this Court declare unlawful and vacate the agency’s final action.

Back to the article:

That petition lists the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its administrator Michael Regan as defendants.

In the legal filing, plaintiffs argue the EPA’s rule imposing stringent tailpipe emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles effectively forces manufacturers to produce more electric trucks and fewer internal combustion trucks.

The EPA has said the new rules, which are set to take effect for model years 2027 through 2032, are needed to help combat climate change and will help avoid up to 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades.

However, the infrastructure needed to support such vehicles is “virtually nonexistent” and they also have shorter ranges and require longer stops, according to Mr. Hilgers.

The new regulation will also negatively impact the economy and put extra pressure on power grids, according to the lawsuit.

A separate coalition of 17 states and the Nebraska Trucking Association also filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California seeking to block a package of regulations that they say are “targeting trucking fleet owners and operators.”

That lawsuit lists the EPA and the California Air Resources Board as defendants.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are challenging a string of California regulations called “Advanced Clean Fleets” which aims to “accelerate a large-scale reduction in tailpipe emissions focusing on zero-emissions medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” according to the California Air Resources Boards’s (CARB) official website.

The rules would ban big rigs and buses that run on diesel from being sold in California starting in 2036.

Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers seems to be walking point on this one but, as usual, Texas is joining in another lawsuit against Biden Administration regulatory overreach.

Better to get this law thrown out now than to wait until food become unaffordable because there aren’t enough reliable trucks to deliver it…

Texas Sues Biden Over New ATF Rule

Thursday, May 2nd, 2024

Another day, another Texas lawsuit against Biden Administration “legislation by regulatory fiat” overreach.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, alongside Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Gun Owners of America Texas director Wes Virdell, held a press conference on Wednesday morning announcing the filing of two lawsuits against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regarding new rules about private firearm sales.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced new rules adding definitions of certain terms under the Safer Communities Act that will expand the circumstances requiring individuals to obtain Federal Firearm Licenses (FFL) and perform background checks to sell guns. This is to close the so-called “gun show loophole,” which has been a priority for the Biden administration.

If they are talking about the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, there’s absolutely nothing in the text of the act about closing any “gun show loophole.”

Texas’ lawsuit was filed on the morning of May 1, 2024 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division. It was filed by Texas with the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah; Jeff Tormey; Gun Owners of America; Gun Owners Foundation; Tennessee Firearms Association; and the Virginia Citizens Defense League also listed as plaintiffs.

Kansas’ lawsuit was filed on the morning of May 1, 2024 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Delta Division. It was filed by Kansas alongside the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, with Phillip Journey, Allen Black, Donald Maxey, and the Chisholm Trail Antique Gun Association also listed as plaintiffs.

Both lawsuits seek declaratory and injunctive relief.

“Today, Texas is leading a multi-state coalition that is suing to stop the final rule issued by the ATF that criminalizes private firearm sales. Biden’s latest effort to unilaterally curtail our constitutional rights is completely illegal,” said Paxton in his speech.

“Yet again, Joe Biden is weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to rip up the Constitution and destroy our citizens’ Second Amendment rights. This is a dramatic escalation of his tyrannical abuse of authority. With today’s lawsuit, it is my great honor to defend our Constitutionally-protected freedoms from the out-of-control federal government.”

Kobach also spoke at the announcement of the lawsuits.

“Biden’s latest attempt to strip away the Second Amendment rights of Americans through ATF regulations will make many law-abiding gun owners felons if they sell a firearm or two to family or friends. This rule is blatantly unconstitutional. We are suing to defend the Second Amendment rights of all Americans,” said Kobach.

“Until now, those who repetitively purchased and sold firearms as a regular course of business had to become a licensee… This rule would put innocent firearm sales between law-abiding friends and family members within reach of federal regulation,” the Kansas court filing reads. “Such innocent sales between friends and family would constitute a felony if the seller did not in fact obtain a federal firearms license and perform a background check.”

While not at the announcement, the attorneys general of Utah and Mississippi both offered statements in the lawsuit’s press release.

“Nearly 40 years ago, Congress condemned ATF for targeting innocent gun owners instead of focusing on felons, calling ATF’s actions ‘reprehensible.’ Congress even changed the law to limit ATF’s authority. But ATF is at it again, this time trying to require a citizen selling even a single firearm to obtain a license. Utah is proud to join the 26 states — in three separate lawsuits— protecting their citizens from this bureaucratic overreach.” said Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.

“By seeking to treat every legal gunowner as a commercial gun dealer and every gun sale or trade into a commercial transaction, this rule unmasks the Biden Administration’s anti-gun agenda in ways many of its other actions have not. The Second Amendment could never have contemplated this kind of regulation and it will not withstand scrutiny in the courts. On behalf of Mississippi gunowners, we are proud to stand with the citizens who have come forward in this lawsuit,” said Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch.

Twenty-five states are suing the ATF across both lawsuits. Florida has also filed its own suit against the ATF for declaratory and injunctive relief about the same rule.

For those counting along on the home game, that’s more than half the states in the union suing the Biden Administration over their latest attempt at gun legislation by fiat.

This is not the first lawsuit that Paxton has filed against the ATF this year. In February, the State of Texas sued the ATF over the Biden administration’s recent decision to redefine firearms with pistol braces as short-barrelled rifles under the National Firearms Act (NFA).

Complete civilian disarmament has been a longterm goal of the Democratic Party, and to that end they would love to ensnare ordinary Americans in FFL laws and paperwork for private firearms transactions, despite such restrictions never being contemplated by the founding fathers. In the post-Bruen judicial landscape, expect the courts to be extremely skeptical of unconstitutional firearms regulation, especially those with no basis in the underlying statute language, and expect Paxton to notch another victory over the Biden Admistration in his belt.

LinkSwarm For January 13, 2023

Friday, January 13th, 2023

Fallout from the House speaker’s race, Biden busted for mishandling classified files, more blue state teachers raping their students, Cadillac’s EV breaks into double digit sales, and the Imelda Marcos disco musical! It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!


  • Kevin McCarthy finally wins Speaker of the House race on 15th vote after offering concessions to the House Freedom Caucus.
  • How is McCarthy doing? Early signs are encouraging. “The House of Representatives passed a new rules package Monday that overhauls the way it functions by putting up more barriers to congressional spending and creating a more deliberate process for passing legislation, which were key demands of the more conservative members of the Republican Party.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
    

  • Shot: Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw calls members of the House Freedom Caucus “terrorists” for opposing Kevin McCarthy for speaker. Chaser: “Freedom Caucus Member Mark Green Beats Dan Crenshaw in Race to Chair Homeland Security Committee.”
  • Heh:

    (Hat tip: Not the Bee.)

  • “After 15 Grueling House Speaker Votes, America’s Long National Nightmare Can Finally Begin.”
  • “Nation In Shock As Politicians Show Up To Work 4 Days In A Row.”
  • After the whole absurd raid on Trump because “OMG he has classified documents/nuclear codes/eleventy!!!!” it turns out that Biden kept at least two different batches of classified documents in insecure locations.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) used Thursday morning’s press briefing to criticize the Department of Justice’s handling of the issue.

    “They knew this happened to President Biden before the election, but they kept it secret from the American public,” McCarthy told a scrum of reporters on Capitol Hill.

  • A whole lot of Chicago teachers are sexually abusing the children in their care

    Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Will Fletcher reported 470 sexual complaints against Chicago Public School employees from students in 2022.

    “The report details students being abused, groped, groomed, assaulted and threatened by school officials.

    “One investigation found a former Junior ROTC staff member had sex with a 16-year-old high school student for a year. When he learned there was an investigation, the staff member threatened to kill the girl and her family if she cooperated with investigators.”

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • More on the same subject.

    The teachers’ union in Chicago, Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers, so praised by Joe Biden, has done nothing and said nothing about it so far as I can tell, and I did look, focusing instead on promoting critical race theory into the school system. Left unsaid is that the union ensures that firing any of these teachers involved in this activity is virtually impossible. Chicago’s public schools’s firing rate of bad teachers owing to their union membership, as of a few years ago, is 0.1%.

    What’s vivid here amid all this widespread predatory behavior from the teaching classes, which like Harvey Weinstein, are prolific campaign donors to Democrats, is that the low outrage factor stands in sharp contrast to the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church, which was ordered by courts to pay billions in reparations to the victims, has seen its leaders publicly apologize for the abuses, and has many programs now to prevent child abuse by perverts in authority. This activity was evil and inexcusable and rightly punished.

    As for the more widescale abuse now seen in Chicago’s public schools, along with comparable scandals in the Los Angeles public school system, and other bad cases in New York and other blue cities, well, crickets. The perversion has gotten out of control in Chicago and the story barely makes the national news. 

  • West Virginia Law Restricting Sports By Biological Sex Is Constitutional.”
  • How Biden’s inflation is destroying family budgets:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Federal appeals court strikes down bump stock ban.

    A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a firearm accessory that enables a semi-automatic gun to shoot at an increased rate of fire.

    In a 13-3 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), acting under “tremendous” public pressure, short-circuited the legislative process by approving a rule to define bump stocks as “machineguns,” which are illegal to possess. The court said ATF did not have the authority from Congress to do so.

    Damn straight it doesn’t.

  • Pentagon ditches Flu Manchu vaccine mandate. Where do the wrongly discharged sue to get their careers back?
  • This is what a real pro-natalist policy looks like: “Hungary addresses falling birthrates by exempting moms under 30 from income tax for life.” More:

    Hungary has taken several measures in recent years to encourage its citizens to have more children, including three years of paid parental leave and state-funded daycare.

    The country previously suspended income tax for moms with four or more children, but this new policy specifically encourages women to have children sooner, which in the long run means a higher likelihood of having more children overall.

  • Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs executive order banning Critical Race Theory in state schools.
  • Israel hit Syria again, and I heard just about nothing about it. Ukraine has really pushed Syria out of the headlines.
  • Speaking of Ukraine, Russia has largely captured the salt mining town of Soledar, though at a high cost in man. And good luck checking those hundreds of miles of salt tunnels for partisans…
  • Tesla plans Houston-area expansion with large new industrial site in Brookshire…Little is known about Tesla’s plans, but the Fortune 500 company signed a lease late last year for about 1.03 million square feet at 111 Empire West, part of the 300-acre Empire West Business Park in Brookshire.” A bold move, considering how radically car sales have dived this year.
  • Other EVs update: “GM delivers record Cadillac Lyriq deliveries in Q4 – 12 per month.”
  • Sequel to The Passion of the Christ about to start filming.” This is pretty much obligatory:

  • “David Byrne, Fatboy Slim Disco Musical ‘Here Lies Love’ Sets Broadway Debut. The musical, which has had a long journey to Broadway, centers on the life of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.” They say the mirror ball shine bright on Broadway… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Celebrity Who Travels On Private Jets And Collects Luxury Sports Cars Says You’re The Reason For Climate Change.”
  • “Experts Say They Don’t Know What Thing Is Causing Everyone To Suddenly Collapse, But It’s Definitely Not That One Thing.”
  • LinkSwarm for November 7, 2022

    Monday, November 7th, 2022

    Greetings, and welcome to a special Election Eve Monday LinkSwarm! My Internet is back up, and tomorrow night I will be liveblogging the election returns starting around 7 PM.
    

  • A red tsunami?

    For the past week or so, my back-of-the-envelope math envisioned a GOP House majority somewhere between 229 and 241, and I’m sticking to that. Give the Republicans the 212 seats in Cook Political Report, with two-thirds of the 35 races in the toss-up category, and you end up with 235 Republicans and 200 Democrats, so put those down as my final prediction numbers.

    Snip.

    With Bolduc, Laxalt, and Johnson winning, I come out to a 51–48 GOP advantage by the end of the week, with Walker and Warnock headed to a runoff. It wouldn’t shock me if Oz or Masters or both won, giving Republicans a 53- or 54-seat majority.

  • “Dem Strategist Admits Her Party ‘Did Not Listen to Voters’ and Will Lose Midterms.”

    On Sunday, Hilary Rosen, a longtime Democratic strategist, predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party will have a bad night on Tuesday because they did not listen to voters.

    “I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just think we did not listen to voters in this election, and I think we are going to have a bad night,” she said.

    She faulted the Democratic Party for ignoring voters’ concerns about the economy, and implored them to “stop talking about democracy being at stake.”

    “When voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them,” she said. “Stop talking about democracy being at stake. Democracy is at stake because people are fighting so much about what elections mean. Voters have told us what they wanted to hear. I don’t think Democrats have delivered this cycle.”

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
    

  • Republican senators release more details of Hunter Biden’s suspicious finances.

    Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson gave the federal prosecutor probing Hunter Biden a little nudge Wednesday — sending him more than 200 pages of bank records showing millions in transactions between the first son’s companies and Communist Chinese-tied entities.

    Snip.

    The senators’ analysis of banking records, first reported by Fox News, finds that between August 2017 and October 2018, $6 million was transferred to a company allegedly set up by Hunter Biden called Hudson West III, $5 million came from Northern International Capital, a [Chinese energy compan] CEFC affiliate, and $1 million was transferred from CEFC itself.

    From the pool of cash, $4.8 million was transferred from Hudson West III to other Biden companies, such as Owasco P.C. and Owasco LLC, and to a company associated with President Biden’s brother James, the Lion Hall Group.

    The bank records also show that Hunter Biden and his aunt and uncle, Sara and James Biden, went on a “spending spree,” in the senators words, after Hudson West III received the millions in payments from CEFC, through a line of credit that was opened.

    “We are also providing bank records showing that credit cards were collateralized by a $99,000 preauthorized withdrawal from Hudson West III,” Grassley and Johnson write, noting that the money was spent for airfare, at Apple stores, hotels, and restaurants, as they detailed back in 2020.

    Grassley and Johnson also mention two $3 million wire transfers sent to Robinson Walker LLC, another Hunter Biden-associated company; and by State Energy HK Limited, another CEFC affiliate, saying the purpose of those transfers “is unclear.” The Post reported on those mysterious transactions back in 2020.

    The senators also make reference to JiaQi Bao, Hunter Biden’s Chinese secretary, who reportedly pushed for “Uncle Joe” Biden to run for president and has been linked to the Chinese government. The bank transactions included in Grassley and Johnson’s letter show that Hunter Biden made payments to Bao totaling $29,795.84 after Hudson West III received the $6 million from the Chinese firms.

    Some names and entities will be familiar to BattleSwarm readers, but other bits are new.

  • Big ballot-havesting operation busted in Orlando, Florida.”

    Ballot harvesting, according to the California Democrats who’d like to take it national, is an innocent practice where union members and activists, some of them illegally present in the country, do voters the favor, see, of helping voters fill out their ballots and then collecting those ballots for them so that they need never go to the polls. They call it “a new service.” It’s part of their “make every vote count” agenda, and who could be against that?

    But out in Florida, where there’s still some semblance of objectivity, investigators found another story.

    According to the Washington Times:

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security is requesting a criminal investigation into charges of ballot harvesting in Orlando, a Democratic stronghold in the critical swing state.

    Cynthia Harris, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for District 6 commissioner in Orange County, which includes Orlando, provided a sworn complaint to the election crimes office, alleging left-leaning organizations have been perpetrating a scheme to encourage residents in black neighborhoods to apply for mail-in ballots and to fill out those ballots, which she said have been collected by paid canvassers, and sometimes altered, all in violation of state law.

    In an interview with The Washington Times, Ms. Harris said she has video evidence of paid ballot harvesters operating in Orlando neighborhoods in both 2014 and 2017, and that the scheme has been going on for decades, continuing through the 2020 election and the 2022 primary.

    If voting fraud is this massive in Florida, how widespread and massive is it in states controlled by Democrats? (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • “Pennsylvania Supreme Court Orders Undated, Wrongly Dated Ballots To Not Be Counted…siding with national and state Republican groups in a lawsuit filed just over two weeks ago.”
  • “GOP Reps Go Public After Uncovering What Biden Gave to Soros-Backed Group.”

    Two members of Congress from Texas and one former Trump administration official who now serves in the Texas House of Representatives are asking for answers from the Biden administration after discovering that an open borders group funded by George Soros received millions of dollars in federal grant money last year.

    Alianza Americas, a nonprofit that says it is “committed to a human rights agenda for all people, with an emphasis on the inclusion and support of Latin American immigrant communities, and people on the move in Latin America,” received $7.5 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February 2021, according to the Washington Examiner, and then another $1 million from the Health Resources and Services administration in July.

    Both organizations fall under President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services organization, and both grants were to fund COVID relief and vaccination efforts.

    The group has also received nearly $1.4 million from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation from 2016 through 2020.

    Federal law prohibits government grant money from being spent on lobbying, but Alianza Americas may have violated that prohibition in its activities as a “political advocacy group,” according to a letter from former HHS Chief of Staff Brian Harrison.

  • Chicago teacher’s unions want to pass an Illinois state constitutional amendment that would basically let them run the state.

    If approved by Illinois voters in November, Amendment 1 will give government teachers’ unions an unfettered constitutional right to demand not just anything in their interests, but in what they see as the interests of every Illinoisan. The amendment is not limited to employee matters at the workplace.

    Don’t take my word for that. Look at the first sentence of the argument in favor of it as written in the official summary as published by the Illinois Secretary of State: “This amendment will protect workers’ and others’ safety.” [Emphasis added.]

    hat particular sentence is just about safety, but it shows the broad interpretation of the amendment beyond the workplace that government unions will assert. The language of the amendment itself supports that broad interpretation, and will extend to anybody’s “economic welfare,” which is pretty much everything.

    What will government unions, especially radical teachers’ unions, demand with that new constitutional right?

    The Chicago Teachers Union has long been quite open about its purpose. It sees itself as the vanguard of a national movement, led by unions like itself, that is textbook Marxism.

    That purpose is well documented. It goes beyond the radical curriculum they teach in schools and encompasses an entire rearrangement of how America works.

    Among the first things we wrote about on this site, ten years ago, was the role of the CTU and other teachers’ unions at a Marxism conference held that year:

    The event was teeming with teachers who spoke about the new found bond” between Socialism and teachers’ unions according to reports, and Chicago teachers were on the stage. Chicago Teachers Union [then] VP Jesse Sharkey spoke at one breakout session. Becca Barnes, a Chicago Teachers Union teacher and organizer with Chicago Socialists, proclaimed at the beginning of the conference that “the struggle here in the United States has entered a new phase. Nowhere have we pointed the way forward more clearly than here in Chicago with the teachers union strike….”

    Since then, militant radicalism has become still more firmly embedded in the CTU. That history is well documented – quite proudly by radicals themselves. The International Socialist Review, for example, lays out a good history of the CTU, saying the CTU “transcended a simple labor dispute and was transformed into a social movement, with the teachers fusing their struggle with that of the community they serve…joining in the Occupy Chicago movement that pointed out the root of societal problems—social and economic inequality.”

  • Shockingly, those who suffer the most from spiking urban crime hate defunding the police.

    A poll that shows ridiculously low support from black voters for defunding the police should be the final nail in the coffin for Democrats’ anti-law and order campaign of the last seven years.

    TheGrio.com commissioned a poll, along with the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that 82% of black respondents want police funding either to be kept about the same (48%) or increased (34%). Only 17% wanted it decreased.

    It’s just like Kari Lake said in a recent confrontation with a reporter. If you go into most black neighborhoods and talk about defunding the police, they’ll look at you “like you’re the craziest person on the planet.” But it’s one thing for a white, conservative Republican to say it — it’s far more important to hear black respondents in a poll confirm it overwhelmingly.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Things that make you go “hmmmm“: “San Francisco DA Won’t Release Police Bodycam Video, 911 Calls From Paul Pelosi Attack.”
  • Great line in the middle of this Ben Shapiro election roundup video: “Andrew Cuomo came to kill all the old people and grab ass, and he ran out of old people.”
  • Twitter Is Still Censoring Conservatives.”
  • Remember all those stories of how bad it sucked for workers in Foxconn’s iPhone factory? It’s worse now.

    Hundreds and perhaps thousands of workers fled a Chinese manufacturing complex that accounts for 85% of iPhone assembly capacity. The mass migration, which began this weekend, called into question that country’s COVID-control measures and, more broadly, its reliability as a part of global supply chains.

    “Something snapped over the weekend,” Bloomberg News reports. Employees suddenly fled the Zhengzhou plant of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., better known as Foxconn. Videos show, in what is now called the “Foxconn Great Escape” or the “iPhone Long March,” workers scrambling over high chain fences at the plant, known as “iPhone City.”

    To avoid detection, workers traveled through cropland by day. At night, they took to the roads. “Some people were walking amid wheat fields with their luggage, blankets, and quilts,” said a poster on WeChat, the popular Chinese social media platform. “I couldn’t help but feel sad.”

    Residents of neighboring areas rallied, for instance leaving water and provisions in the open on roadsides. Social media postings reported signs such as “For Foxconn workers returning home.”

    Truckers also pitched in. Risking criminal prosecution, they took workers in pick-up, dump, and flatbed trucks. One video shows a woman standing on the back of a big tank truck speeding down a highway in the rain.

    Workers fled Foxconn’s “closed loop” system, which isolated the plant from the rest of society. Inside the loop, the company went to great lengths to stop COVID. As a disease-control measure, it had ended canteen service on October 19, forcing workers to eat boxed food in dormitory-style sleeping quarters. Food was reportedly scarce, and conditions in the dorms rapidly deteriorated. On Sunday, Foxconn announced it would resume cafeteria dining.

  • Democrats want a “covid amnesty” so moms won’t destroy them at the ballot box.

    The political establishment—left and right—want desperately to move on, to pretend the last 30 months didn’t happen. With very few exceptions (Ron DeSantis, Kirsti Noem, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Ron Johnson, and a few others, later), they betrayed their core values. Many Republicans and so-called Libertarians quickly capitulated the primacy and importance of individual liberties. Whereas supposedly equality-loving democrats embraced policies that in no uncertain terms screwed women, children and the poor. The 2020 democrat campaign slogan might as well have been “protect the rich, infect the poor.” Or “only the rich need to learn.” They’d all very much like that you forget about that. They’d like to go back to the fights they know how to fight, the golden oldies that turn the bases out, and turn us against each other. But COVID policies turned the whole thing on its side, jumbling us all up and resulting in all sorts of hitherto unheard of alliances. And when your business is maintaining the status quo, that is very dangerous.

    Which is why Emily Oster is pleading for an amnesty.

    First, let’s be clear to whom Emily Oster is speaking. She’s speaking to the furious well-educated suburban women who are swinging towards Republicans in this cycle, even in the bluest of states. Because it was the bluest of states that were hit hardest by these policies. It was in blue states that the schools were closed longest, that the economic devastation was worst, that crime spiked the most, where masks were required longest. The damage done by these policies is at its beginning, not its end. Dr. Oster, would like women to believe that it was all just a mistake, a mis-understanding, and remember that it is the Republicans who are looking to limit the freedoms that really count. That while democrats had no problem sacrificing the well-being of our living children for three years in support political power, it is Republicans that pose the real threat.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Blue city blues: “Nearly 20% Of Seattle Shootings Happened Near Homeless Encampments.”
  • Man who used to get all his information on conservatives from the mainstream media realizes he’d been lied to.

  • Questions that shouldn’t even have to be asked: “Should Schools Notify Parents if Their Child Claims to Be Transgender?”

    Wendell Perez received a call from the elementary school that would alarm any parent. School officials told him that his 12-year-old daughter had attempted suicide in the school’s bathroom. He was told it was because she wanted to be a boy, with a male name and pronouns.

    Wendell couldn’t believe it. At home, his daughter hadn’t shown any signs of gender dysphoria or discomfort in being a girl. The Perez family is Catholic, and they raised their children with a biblical and scientific understanding of biological sex.

    But when Wendell and his wife Maria arrived at the school, they found out that school officials had been having confidential meetings with their daughter and discussing her discomfort with her gender. Wendell and Maria found out that teachers and staff at school had begun treating their daughter as a boy at school without their consent or knowledge. Wendell was told by staff that they didn’t share information about his daughter’s “transition” with him or his wife because of “confidentiality issues.”

    Whatever happened to in loco parentis? Or does that just not apply when there are radical transexual activists to mollify?

  • When it comes to school boards shoving radical transexism down students throats, it doesn’t just happen in big cities.

    When the school called his 14-year-old son to the principal’s office for refusing to say a female student was a boy, Matthew Duncan decided he’d had enough.

    When the school called his 14-year-old son to the principal’s office for refusing to say a female student was a boy, Matthew Duncan decided he’d had enough.

    “There was never a push towards dominance and control like it is now,” said Duncan. “You can’t voice your opinion.”

    In response, many families in Grants Pass have withdrawn their children from public school, enrolling them in private school or starting to homeschool, Grants Pass teachers, school administrators and parents told The Epoch Times.

  • Meanwhile, in a civilized state: “Florida Bans Puberty Blockers and Transgender Surgery for Minors.”
  • “Campaign Aide Threatens to ‘Punch You’ for Not Voting for Beto O’Rourke.”
  • Also, an O’Rourke rally too close to a voting location violated Texas law.
  • Still more Beto: “New poll shows Abbott gaining six points in eight weeks, 53/40.”
  • “More California companies moving headquarters out-of-state than ever before.” Texas once again tops the list of destination states, followed by Tennessee, Nevada, Florida and Arizona.
  • Life imitates Grosse Point Blank: “Man shot dead in NYC while bicycling to shoot someone else.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Democrat Nominee In Arkansas Arrested For Felony Terroristic Threatening. Law enforcement officials in the state of Arkansas arrested Diamond Arnold-Johnson, the Democrat nominee for Arkansas auditor, on Friday for first-degree terroristic threats.” Bonus:

    Arnold-Johnson’s husband was on trial in August for allegedly posting terroristic threats on Facebook, police said. During the trial, Arnold-Johnson, 32, admitted that she, not her husband, posted the threatening messages on Facebook that led to the criminal charges, KATV reported.

    A warrant was served for Arnold-Johnson’s arrest on October 13, but she refused to comply and a SWAT team was dispatched to resolve the matter.

    However, police made the decision to cancel using the SWAT team to force compliance from Arnold-Johnson in an apparent attempt to not risk an explosive situation happening right before an election.

  • The counterpoint to quiet quitting: Quiet firing.
  • I’m not much for baseball, but did want to note that the Astros won the World Series, and threw only the second No-Hitter in World Series history.”
  • Guy Who Decided To Ban The Babylon Bee Wondering If He Might Be In Hot Water.”
  • “Citizens Being Able To Vote The Ruling Party Out Of Power Is The End Of Democracy.”

    I cannot believe democracy is about to die in America, again.

    After years of living under a dictatorship, America rose from the ashes. Democrats took control of the Presidency, the House, the Senate, the university system, Big Tech, the entertainment industry, and major corporations – and thereby defeated fascism by seizing every major lever of power in the nation. With one-party rule established, and all of our critics silenced, democracy was once again free to flourish.

    Now, our dear democracy is under attack – by America holding a so-called “election” and allowing idiots to vote. Let us be clear about what the stakes are: if a single person I disagree with is elected in a free and fair election, democracy will be DEAD. If citizens have the power to simply vote the ruling party out of power – when I really like the current ruling party – all is lost.

  • “Galactic Empire Requests Amnesty For Anyone Who May Have Gotten Carried Away And Blown Up A Planet.”
  • Surf’s up:

  • Man With Rifle Stops Mass Shooter

    Sunday, May 23rd, 2021

    Good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun in Fort Smith, Arkansas:

    Good thing Colion Noir is doing the reporting the national media refuses to do…

    LinkSwarm for April 9, 2021

    Friday, April 9th, 2021

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Lying media and Biden’s Border Crisis dominates news this week:

    

  • 60 Minutes proves that they’re lying scumbags again:

    CBS’s “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an exchange that reporter Sharyn Alfonsi had with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) two weeks ago about the way the Sunshine State has rolled out its vaccination program.

    In the clip, Alfonsi suggested that Publix, the largest grocery store chain in Florida, had engaged in a pay-to-play scheme with DeSantis where they donated money to his campaign in exchange for him awarding a contract to the grocery store chain to host vaccinations.

    CBS edited the interaction between DeSantis and Alfonsi when she showed up to a press conference a few weeks ago and repeatedly confronted the governor. The network cut out a lengthy portion of DeSantis’ response in which he explains what happened and how decisions were made.

  • The editing hit job was so egregious that even Palm Beach County’s Democratic Mayor Dave Kerner slammed it. “The reporting was not just based on bad information — it was intentionally false.”
  • What is it about tranny panders that it makes Republican governor’s destroy their careers defending them?

    The Arkansas General Assembly voted Tuesday to enact a ban on gender transition surgery for minors, overriding a veto by Governor Asa Hutchinson.

    Arkansas is the first state to ban transition surgery for minors, although similar legislation is under consideration in other states. The bill also prohibits doctors in Arkansas from administering hormones or puberty blockers to residents under age 18.

    Here’s a word to every single Republican office holder in America: this is not an optional fight. You fight on this hill or we’ll replace you with someone who will.

  • Remember how President Trump “detaining kids in cages” was the Worst Thing In The World? Well, Joe Biden is detaining 18,000 illegal alien minors, almost seven times as many. And Democrats aren’t uttering a peep of protest because they never really cared about those kids anyway, they just wanted to: A.) Bash Trump, and B.) Open up the border so they can amnesty a new wave of illegals as Democratic Party voters.
  • “Texas Governor Greg Abbott Orders Texas Rangers to Investigate Joe Biden Detention Facility for Sex Crimes Against Children.” It’s like Abbott has been in hibernation for six months and finally woke up last week.
  • Speaking of illegal aliens: “New York is reportedly going to spend $2.1 Billion on a fund to give illegal aliens COVID relief payments up to $15,600 per person.” Did any of these Democrats actively campaign on giving taxpayer money to illegal aliens? It’s like they want to live down to the most outlandish Republican parodies of Democrats.
  • Since Democrats will cry “racist!” no matter what, you might as well pass the strongest election reform and Voter ID laws you possibly can.
  • Related: “MOVE Texas Launches $100,000 Ad Campaign To Fight Against Election Integrity. Is this MOVE related to the crazy Philadelphia MOVE? I wanted to do some research into this but haven’t had the time.
  • Pennsylvania finally agrees to remove the dead from its voter rolls. Presumably the Pennsylvania Democratic Party will now removed BRAINS from their list of promised subsidies. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Trump adviser Stephen Miller (AKA “Not RedSteeze”) wants to launch his own lawfare group against Democrats. Good. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Liberal writer Thomas Frank says that fellow liberals are deluding themselves if they think “misinformation” is the source of all their problems and censorship is the answer:

    In liberal circles these days there is a palpable horror of the uncurated world, of thought spaces flourishing outside the consensus, of unauthorized voices blabbing freely in some arena where there is no moderator to whom someone might be turned in. The remedy for bad speech, we now believe, is not more speech, as per Justice Brandeis’s famous formula, but an “extremism expert” shushing the world.

    What an enormous task that shushing will be! American political culture is and always has been a matter of myth and idealism and selective memory. Selling, not studying, is our peculiar national talent. Hollywood, not historians, is who writes our sacred national epics. There were liars-for-hire in this country long before Roger Stone came along. Our politics has been a bath in bullshit since forever. People pitching the dumbest of ideas prosper fantastically in this country if their ideas happen to be what the ruling class would prefer to believe.

    (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.)

  • 48 Of 79 ‘Catastrophic Climate Change’ Predictions Have Failed…The Other 31 Just Haven’t Expired Yet.”
  • Hmmmm:

  • New York wants to raise its tax rates higher than most European countries.
  • Largest Meth Seizure In Miami History Brings Cartel Arrests.”

    Authorities have charged Adalberto Fructuoso Comparan-Rodriguez, whose nickname is “Fruto,” the former mayor of Aguililla, Mexico, and the reported leader of the United Cartels in Michoacán, Mexico, with drug trafficking crimes, according to the indictment.

    Alfonso Rustrian, of Mexico, has also been charged as a co-conspirator. Another four defendants were charged for their roles in the alleged methamphetamine scheme.

    According to court filings, Comparan-Rodriguez and Rustrian met in Cali, Colombia, with whom they believed were members of Hezbollah but were actually undercover DEA agents. Comparan-Rodriguez and Rustrian agreed to send 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine from Mexico through Texas to the Miami area, according to the charges.

    Once the meth arrived in Miami, Comparan-Rodriguez and Rustrian allegedly cracked open the concrete tiles and dissolved the meth inside 5-gallon buckets of house paint. The men are alleged to have extracted the pure crystal meth from the paint.

  • The woke monster has come for Obama! Activists label him an ‘oppressor’ in their quest to rename Jefferson school.”
  • Another day, another fake hate crime hoax.
  • The mysterious case of “Dr. Jialun,” an anti-Trump Twitter troll who got his account verified despite having a fake profile and all of 100 followers.
  • Legal Insurrection is suing SUNY Upstate Medical University for refusing to comply with a New York Freedom of Information Law request on information related to Critical Race Theory training.
  • Man tells his estranged girlfriend he’s driving to Florida to kill her, is shocked when he gets there and gets arrested.
  • Sgt. Charles H. Coolidge, previously America’s oldest living Congressional Medal of Honor winner, went to his final muster. I previously mentioned him here. That makes Hershel Woody Williams America’s last living Congressional Medal of Honor winner from World War II.
  • Jordan Peterson jujitsus Red Skull.
  • Heh:

  • Heh II:

  • We expect nasty hit pieces on Republicans. But why did NBC publish this nasty hit piece on Paul Simon?
  • New MST3K Kickstarter.
  • “Biden Bans High-Capacity Assault Stairs.”
  • Google removes Georgia from Google maps.
  • Golden Retriever has had enough of your fake news:

  • Paxton’s Supreme Court Gambit

    Wednesday, December 9th, 2020

    Multiple lawsuits over election fraud are preceding through the courts and appeal process. One of the most important is a lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton yesterday against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin seeking to have their state legislatures appoint electors due to widespread election fraud in those states:

    The filing, first reported by Joel Pollak at Breitbart, is under a procedure where the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in suits between states. That means the lawsuit does not need to be filed in District Court, then work its way through the normal appeals process.

    The lawsuit is in the form of a Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint. (The Brief in support of the Motion appears starting at page 50 of the pdf. A more complete pdf. with all filings, including the Motion for Preliminary Injunction and a Temporary Restraining Order is available here starting at pg. 111)

    The relief sought is a delay of the December 14 statutory deadline for electors to vote, arguing that the Supreme Court has the power to delay that deadline since “[t]he only date that is mandated under the Constitution … is January 20, 2021. U.S. CONST. amend. XX.” The purpose of the delay would be for state legislatures to consider appointing the electors given the unreliability in the way the elections were handled.

    This is in line with some commenters here suggesting that January 20 is the only real Constitutional deadline.

    I’m not sufficiently familiar with this procedure to opine right now on whether it is proper procedurally…

    You and me both!

    …but if it works it puts the election squarely in the hands of the Supreme Court. There is no guarantee that if the issue were put to the legislators in these states that they would select Trump electors in the face of certified vote counts showing Biden the winner.

    More on the lawsuit:

    The suit alleges a variety of different constitutional violations in each state, all relating to the loosening of mail-ballot processing rules. Some of the changes were implemented by state and local election officials using the Chinese coronavirus as a pretext; others pre-date the presidential election and COVID.

    Texas argues the impact of the rules’ changes was the same in each of these battleground states, saying election officials “flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how they were received, evaluated and counted.”

    The requested remedy is the same, as well: toss out all mail-ballot votes and the presidential election results for all four states, which currently show Joe Biden receiving more votes than President Donald Trump.

    To safeguard public legitimacy at this unprecedented moment and restore public trust in the presidential election, this Court should extend the December 14, 2020 deadline for Defendant States’ certification of presidential electors to allow these investigations to be completed.

    “Trust in the integrity of our election processes is sacrosanct and binds our citizenry and the States in this Union together,” Paxton said in a press statement. “Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election. The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution. By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections.”

    “Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election,” he added. “We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”

    My fear is that the very novelty of this lawsuit will work against it. I’m not sure any state has ever filed to alter election results from other states, or that the Supreme Court would grant standing in the lawsuit. But by making it a state suing another state, it makes it a clear Supreme Court case under Article III of the Constitution.

    Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is also supporting the lawsuit:

    As is Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.

    Indeed, seven states have joined the lawsuit: Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, and South Dakota. It’s quite possible that more have joined by the time you read this.

    With the lawsuit to invalidate Pennsylvania’s certification thrown out, the Texas lawsuit may be the best chance to get the Supreme Court to look at the massive election fraud that occurred in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

    Edited to Add: Missouri signs onto the lawsuit.

    LinkSwarm for September 25, 2020

    Friday, September 25th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to the first LinkSwarm of fall! Strangely enough, we’re already getting some fall in our fall in Texas, as opposed to our usual Ever So Slightly Less Hot Late Summer. This week: Still more riots, Supreme Court pick news, more ugly truths about Crossfire Hurricane, and Lebanon goes boom again. Plus a bit of news that goes to eleven.

  • Yet another rash of Antifa/#BlackLivesMatter riots, this one ostensibly over the return of a single non-murder charge in the Breonna Taylor killing case.
  • Speaking of those idiots:

  • “Why Amy Coney Barrett is hands-down best pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

    Amy represents an opportunity to showcase a generationally brilliant, special intellect — who also is a mom,” says O. Carter Snead, Barrett’s longtime faculty colleague at the Notre Dame law school, where Barrett also received her law degree.

    Her rare combination of hyper-intelligence and humility is a matter of bipartisan consensus. “The smartest person in the room and also the most humble” was how Snead and two other sources intimately familiar with Barrett described her, echoing each other almost verbatim.

    Harvard Law School prof Noah Feldman — a liberal who testified before Congress in favor of ­impeaching the president — hailed her as “a truly brilliant lawyer” in a 2018 column. Feldman should know. He and Barrett were members of the same class of Supreme Court clerks in 1998.

    “She was one of the two best lawyers” of the 40 clerks “and arguably the single best.” Feldman concluded: “She was legally prepared enough to go on the court 20 years ago.”

    When Trump nominated Barrett to the Seventh Circuit, every single one of those 40 fellow clerks endorsed her as a “first-rate” thinker, ­including such vehemently anti-Trump figures as Neal Katyal, solicitor general under Team Obama. The entire Notre Dame law faculty likewise endorsed her, “and that includes people who identify as liberal,” as Snead was quick to note.

    She is recognized as an expert on how judges are supposed to interpret statutes — a crucial role, as demonstrated by Justice Neil Gorsuch’s bizarre recent reading of “gender identity” into a civil rights statute enacted in the 1960s. She has also thought deeply about the relationship among the branches of government, a gnarly and seriously important area of law.

    To these achievements Barrett marries a vibrant Christian faith. For the evangelicals and Catholics the president needs to turn out in November, her pro-life bona fides are on display not just in her activities and statements, but also in her own family: She is a mother of seven, including one biological child with intellectual disabilities and two adopted from Haiti.

    Yes, Democrats and their ­media allies will attack and demonize her — viciously. But that’s no reason to nominate other candidates who have no record on life issues. As one conservative activist told me, “the left is going to burn everything down no matter whom we pick, so we might as well get the right person on the court.”

  • And why she’s the odds-on favorite.
  • Democrats worry that Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is too old and senile to handle a Supreme Court nomination fight. Of course, they put it in slightly more delicate terms:

    Feinstein sometimes gets confused by reporters’ questions, or will offer different answers to the same question depending on where or when she’s asked. Her appearance is frail. And Feinstein’s genteel demeanor, which seems like it belongs to a bygone Senate era, can lead to trouble with an increasingly hard-line Democratic base uninterested in collegiality or bipartisan platitudes.

    Just this week, Feinstein infuriated progressives after declaring her opposition to ending the Senate’s legislative filibuster — a top goal of party activists if Democrats win full control of the Congress and White House in November. Some on the left called on her to resign over the comments, although other Democratic moderates have expressed similar views.

    It’s hard to pick which is the more interesting angle here: The hard-left planning to push for their suicidal court-packing/filibuster ending agenda, or the old guard of elderly Democrats hanging on to power ghastly Ringwraiths. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Democrats: “We have the following list of demands for this Suprem-” Republicans: “Sorry, we remember your outrageous smear job on Kavanaugh. Suck it!” Also, remember this:

    There were electoral consequences, with every “incumbent Senate Democrat in battleground states who opposed the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination” losing his or her re-election bid. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Bill Nelson of Florida were all replaced by their Republican opponents, while Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia saved his seat by backing Kavanaugh. That fall-out handed Republicans the votes they now need to push through a new nominee to the Supreme Court before Nov. 3, 2020.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Trump wants the Supreme Court at full strength to thwart any Democratic attempts to steal the election. Foresight. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “The ‘primary sub-source’ for the Steele dossier was suspected of being a possible Russian agent and a ‘threat to national security,’ according to newly declassified FBI documents.”
  • The goal of the Michael Flynn investigation wasn’t enhancing national security, but to get Flynn fired. “The explosive new documents support Flynn’s latest claims that Obama-era Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI officials had conspired to set him up from the beginning and that they never had any legitimate basis for investigating him.”
  • “Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents tasked by fired former Director James Comey to take down Donald Trump during and after the 2016 election were so concerned about the agency’s potentially illegal behavior that they purchased liability insurance to protect themselves less than two weeks before Trump was inaugurated president, previously hidden FBI text messages show.”
  • More on the same subject. I get the impression that there’s so much information coming out about malfeasance during Crossfire Hurricane/FISAgate that I can’t keep up with it all…
  • “Gov. Abbott proposes increased penalty, mandatory jail time for 6 riot-related offenses.”
  • It’s not just Texas: Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis just proposed similar anti-riot legislation. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • For construction workers, not just a V-shaped recovery, but a Super-V.

  • Hezbollah arms depot in Lebanese town of Ayn Qana blows up real good.
  • Follow-up: Wirecard’s business was “almost entirely fraudulent.”
  • Arkansas Kroger’s fires Christian employees for refusing to wear a gay rights pin.
  • Ratings for NBA conference finals way down.
  • “‘This Is Spinal Tap’ Creators Reach Settlement On Long-Running Court Battle Over Rights And Income.” Good. Studios shouldn’t screw creators out of rightfully owed money, even if it is Meathead.
  • Today’s market to be hit by crazy high valuations is…(spins wheel)…rare plants? Now if only it would hit science fiction first editions I would be set!

  • Microsoft buys Bethesda.
  • Boom:

  • Child brought down by wild pack! Oh the humanity!

  • LinkSwarm for May 15, 2020

    Friday, May 15th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Today’s theme is Democratic Governor’s ignoring the constitution to keep their precious lockdowns going, Obamagate, spying (domestic and foreign), a bit about aircraft, and funny animals. Dig in!

  • The economy: is the worst over? Let’s hope.
  • Remember how Georgia lifting the lockdown and opening the economy was going to kill everyone’s granny? Yeah, not so much: “Georgia Records Lowest Number of Coronavirus Patients in over a Month.”
  • More medical hope:

    Ever since President Trump expressed optimism about the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, the mere mention of that drug can elicit instantaneous, strident, and finger-wagging condemnation by the mainstream media and all those who are pulling for the pandemic to lay waste to the economy and pave the way for a fundamental progressive transformation of America. Despite its use by health-care providers across the country and around the world to successfully treat COVID-19, you will be mocked as either a fool or a snake oil salesman if you approvingly utter the word “hydroxychloroquine” or even express hope that it can be used to save lives. The word is simply not to be tolerated in polite, progressive society.

    Well, it appears that the list of forbidden words is about to get longer. The new additions include “corticosteroids” and “Methylprednisolone.”

    What do these widely available and relatively inexpensive drugs with known safety profiles have in common with hydroxychloroquine? Leading physicians are using them in addition to hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat COVID-19. And they are doing so without waiting two or three years for the results of randomized clinical trials.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • “Wuhan Virus Watch: Over Half of All U.S. Deaths Have Occurred in Just Five States.” “New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania. New York remains the hardest-hit state of any in the country by far, having logged nearly 27,000 deaths as of Saturday afternoon. The next-hardest-hit state, New Jersey, had recorded over 9,100.”
  • Speaking of Michigan:

    It is difficult to describe, and impossible to exaggerate, just how badly Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID-19 response has been, and it has been a catastrophe from the very beginning. In early March, when the country was already becoming concerned about the spread of the virus, Whitmer did not cancel the Democratic presidential primary, and indeed, there was record turnout for the March 10 primary, which turned into a “super spreader” event in metropolitan Detroit. She has since bungled practically every aspect of the pandemic, including her deliberately punitive and irrational lockdown policy. Now she would have us believe that she is the real victim of all this:

    Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Wednesday that the lockdown protests are “racist and misogynistic” and called on those with a platform to discourage the demonstrators.

    Whitmer told ABC’s “The View” that the protests are “really political” as demonstrators have brought nooses, Confederate flags and Nazi symbolism.

    “This is not appropriate in a global pandemic,” she said. “But it’s certainly not an exercise of democratic principles where we have free speech. This is calls to violence. This is racist and misogynistic.”

    I have no idea who brought nooses, etc., to these protests, although I suspect these were false-flag agents provocateurs — leftists pretending to be part of the protest and acting in ways intended to discredit Whitmer’s opponents. None of this, however, justifies her policies.

  • Just in case you thought there was an end to her awful policies: “Michigan state Rep. Leslie Love (D-Detroit) is blasting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) policy of returning coronavirus patients to nursing homes, making the Detroit lawmaker the second Democrat to criticize the governor publicly in less than a month.”
  • Speaking of which: “NY officials allowed COVID-positive workers to stay on the job at nursing homes — the facilities account for 25% of deaths in the state.” More of that brilliant one-party Democratic rule…
  • “Media Lies: Democrat Governors Doing Great Jobs Despite Higher Wuhan Death Rates.”
  • Continuing the theme (click to expand image):

  • Wisconsin Governor and bureaucracy: “Screw your rights. Stay at home.” Wisconsin Supreme Court: “Unconstitutional.” Wisconsin Governor and bureaucracy the very same day: “Oh yeah? Then screw your religion! No meetings for you God weirdos!” Every. Knee. Must. Bend.
  • That crap doesn’t fly in Texas:

    Dallas County Commissioner Judge Clay Jenkins has repeatedly tried to act as the ruler of Dallas County by attempting to force his will on everyone within it and each time he’s been put back in his place by everyone from the citizens of Dallas County to his own fellow commissioners.

    Jenkins has now awakened the wrath of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who issued a warning to him and other officials in other Texas counties who are trying to illegally prevent Texans from living doing things such as attending church.

    According to Paxton’s office, a warning was issued to three county judges and two mayors telling them to back off their make-believe thrones, or else there will be consequences:

    Attorney General Ken Paxton today issued letters to three Texas counties (Dallas, Bexar, and Travis) and two mayors (San Antonio and Austin), warning that some requirements in their local public health orders are unlawful and can confuse law-abiding citizens. These unlawful and unenforceable requirements include strict and unconstitutional demands for houses of worship, unnecessary and onerous restrictions on allowing essential services to operate, such as tracking customers who visit certain restaurants, penalties for not wearing masks, shelter-in-place demands, criminal penalties for violating state or local health orders, and failing to differentiate between recommendations and mandates.

  • The curve Democrats really want to flatten:

  • The government-imposed lockdown needs to end. But lot’s of people have (properly) set their own lockdown standards:

    Many of the most important mitigation strategies are unknown to the general public because they’ve taken place behind closed doors on the initiative of employers, not bureaucrats, and have little or nothing to do with legal mandates (which are themselves, as I can attest is the case here in Canada, a contradictory, hastily-conceived patchwork of federal and provincial directives and advisories). To give but one example I happen to be familiar with: Many of the men and women you see driving delivery trucks and construction vehicles are now governed by all sorts of rules, at pickup and drop-off, that allow them to perform their functions without coming within six feet of others. In some cases, they’ve been enabled with apps on their phones or dash-mounted tablets that permit them to coordinate these functions without any direct on-site human interaction whatsoever. Or they might be subject to thermometer-gun screenings to determine if they have a fever. Having implemented these lockdown-lite policies at great cost and inconvenience, employers aren’t going to dump them the moment the government gives them permission to do so, even though these procedures have increased costs and decreased output.

    Many employers I speak to are actually far more constricted by the concerns of their own employees than by the law itself. At one workplace that I know of, the boss announced that loosened provincial restrictions mean that everyone can come back to work this month. To his surprise, his employees announced that they’d voted on the issue through Facebook, and, no, they would not be coming back, at least not yet. And in Quebec, which is starting to let elementary-school students come back to class this month, thousands of parents—a majority at some schools—have decided to keep their children home. I am told by reliable sources within my own family that some of these parents are even pressuring their neighbours to do likewise, and are shaming dissenters on social media as bad parents. It’s lockdown by mob.

    To some extent, I find this attitude of populist hyper-vigilance to be exasperating, because sending your young kids to school is now generally safe (and, selfishly, because I think my own seven-year-old could benefit from getting back to a structured education environment). But we got into this mess by letting our guard down, and so it’s not surprising that many ordinary people want to err on the other side of the equation for a month or three. Whatever your views, though, if you’re all in a fuss about lockdown policy, please remember that the real lockdown was never imposed by government. It turns out that it was inside each and every one of us all along.

  • Devin Nunes thinks that the entire Trump transition team was under surveillance by the Obama Administration. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Don Surber asked a question back in 2017 that we ought to take a fresh look at: Was Obama using the NSA to spy on Romney during the 2012 election? Given what we know of Crossfire Hurricane, would anyone put it past him?
  • Related:

  • Russia, Russia, Russia!

  • Oh, lovely. Crowdstrike admits that there was no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC server.
  • Lives better for the living:

  • Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would like to know the truth behind Obama’s Fast and Furious illegal gun running program. A lot of us would like to know the same thing…
  • EU and German courts (strangely two different things in this story) are having a pissing match over whose gavel is bigger.
  • Canadian Broadcasting Company can’t decide just how it wants to lie about The Epoch Times and its reporting on the Chinese Communist Party’s culpability in the Wuhan Coronavirus. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • TSMC to build chip foundry in Arizona. This is a pretty big deal, as TSMC currently has the best fab tech in the world, and this will be their first ground-up American foundry (they currently have (I think) two other American fabs as the result of acquisitions from WaferTech and TI).
  • Arkansas Professor Arrested For Concealing Communist Chinese Funding.”

    An engineering professor at the University of Arkansas has been arrested by the FBI and faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly hiding funding that he received from the communist Chinese government.

    The New York Times reports that “Simon Ang of the University of Arkansas, was arrested on Friday and charged on Monday with wire fraud.”

    “He worked for and received funding from Chinese companies and from the Thousand Talents program, which awards grants to scientists to encourage relationships with the Chinese government,” the report notes, adding that “he warned an associate to keep his affiliation with the program quiet.”

    The report explains that Ang’s alleged hiding of the funding enabled him to also get US government subsidies, specifically from NASA, to the tune of more than $5 million.

  • “Chinese Government Lays Off Entire Propaganda Team As American Media Doing Their Job For Them.
  • CNN Replaces President Trump’s Press Briefings With President Xi’s.”
  • Capitalist fungus. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Billy doesn’t respond well to pressure.”
  • “Why we at $FAMOUS_COMPANY Switched to $HYPED_TECHNOLOGY.”
  • Important safety tip: Don’t stand on an active airport runway. This was Austin, so odds are it was an adler.
  • For Rich:

  • The Los Angeles Rams uniforms are horrible garbage.
  • “Democratic States Deploy Greta Thunberg Drones To Lecture People Who Go Outside.”
  • Water sausage eats breakfast:

  • Goat rodeo:

  • This dog is on my wavelength:

  • Super Tuesday Results: The Two-And-A-Half Men Race

    Wednesday, March 4th, 2020

    All that “Bernie is the inevitable nominee” talk?

    Yeah, not so much. They’re still counting, but it looks like Biden won:

  • Alabama
  • Arkansas
  • Oklahoma
  • Maine (though less than a point separates them there)
  • Massachusetts(!)
  • Minnesota
  • North Carolina
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Virginia
  • While Sanders won:

  • California
  • Colorado
  • Utah
  • Vermont
  • Also looks like Michael Bloomberg is going to pick up delegates in Arkansas, Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee, while Elizabeth Warren will pick up delegates of her home state of Massachusetts (coming in third), Colorado, Minnesota and Maine. Bloomberg also won American Samoa, picking up four delegates, where Tulsi Gabbard also picked up one, which is more than Tom Steyer, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris or James Inslee will ever pick up.

    Biden won all the states Hillary won in 2016, plus Maine, Minnesota and Oklahoma.

    Biden now has more projected delegates than Bernie, 397 to 356.

    It’s now the Biden and Bernie show, with a side-order of Mini-Mike for as long as he wants to waste his money. Warren is toast, but right now she says she’s going to continue running.

    Too busy this week to offer up much analysis than that. Likewise thoughts on Buttigieg and Klobuchar leaving the race and endorsing Biden, which will have to wait until Monday’s Clown Car Update.