Greetings, and welcome to a LinkSwarm so large I had to start working on it Wednesday! Unemployment rises too much to rig it away, home sales crash to Carter levels, Europe’s voters rise up to throw out the left, Hunter is guilty guilty guilty, another blow to the Biden Administration’s tranny Title IX rewrite, Israel rescues some hostages and smokes a Hezbolli terror master, and California continues to do California things.
Every so-called “strong” jobs report has been a disaster if one puts in even a little work to dig below the pristine, if fake, surface. And while we expected this charade to continue indefinitely, and certainly at least until the November election, at which point suddenly all the truth about the ugly labor market would be revealed to usher in the new president amid an economic crisis, we were shocked when none other than the Fed chair admitted today that the Biden admin was rigging jobs data.
In response to a question from a Bloomberg journalist during the post-FOMC presser, asking the Fed chair to comment on the state of the labor market, the Fed Chair said that two years ago the labor market was “overheated” and has since gotten back to “normal”, largely thanks to “supply from to immigration” – translation: illegal aliens have been the main reasons for the increase in employment and the drop in wages and thus, overall inflation, which as we discussed recently, is the narrative that is being pushed out to mitigate demands by most Americans to halt illegal immigration.
Where things got very interesting, however, is when Powell was discussing the demand-side of the labor market: here, he addressed the dropping quits level, the decline in job openings and wages, but more importantly, the rising unemployment rate – from 3.4% to 4.0% which clearly goes against the narrative of red hot payrolls – all of which the Fed chair summarized as strong job creation, yet caveated by saying that “there is an argument that [payrolls] may be a bit overstated.”
Note: he didn’t say “understated” because the “-stating” always goes in just one direction: the one that makes the resident of the White House look good.
In other words, the jobs – like so many things about this Potemkin economy – are a lie, and while Powell immediately realized what he had said, and tried to couch it by adding that payrolls are “still strong”, suddenly the entire narrative of a strong labor market imploded in front of our eyes, because if the Biden admin will lie about a “bit” of the jobs report, it will lie about any part of it.
And, as we have shown above and every month this year, lie is precisely what the Biden administration has been doing, month after month, year after year.
And the biggest stunner, as Edward Snowden put it so eloquently, is that he’s “not sure I’ve ever seen the chairman of the Federal Reserve publicly accuse the White House of cooking the books on employment numbers, but here we are.”
Speaking of which: “Initial Claims Surge To 10-Month Highs As California Joblessness Soars.” “Did we suddenly get a peek at economic reality? The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the first time surged last week to 242k (up from 229k and well above the 225k exp). That is the highest since August 2023.” And California, which just happened to implement a minimum wage hike, led far and away with the most claims…
Home sales have dropped so far during the Biden Recession that they’re now back to 1978 levels.
The recession in the U.S. existing home sales market has been so deep that we’re back to late ‘70s levels—despite us now living in a much bigger country:
April 1978: 4.09 million U.S. existing home sales print
April 2024: 4.14 million U.S. existing home sales print*
1978: 223 million U.S. population
2024: 341 million U.S. population
The reason, of course, is that housing affordability has deteriorated so much that many buyers and sellers alike have pulled back from the market. Many homeowners who would otherwise like to sell and buy something else are staying put rather than trading in their 3% mortgage rate for a 7% mortgage rate.
The bad news?
According to a forecast published this week by Goldman Sachs, the recovery for existing home sales could be a slog.
1978: Jimmy Carter was still President, the Bee Gees dominated the music charts thanks to Saturday Night Fever, and a brand new comic strip about a lasagna-loving cat named Garfield debuted. And the average price of a home was somewhere around $56,000. (Yet, somehow, home sales were still stronger during the 1981-82 interest rate hikes than under Carter in 1978…)
A jury of Hunter Biden’s peers found him guilty on all three felony charges on Tuesday after a six-day trial that demonstrated that the first son lied on a federal gun-purchase background-check form when he claimed not to be a drug addict.
The verdict was reached after the jury deliberated for three hours, beginning Monday afternoon with the conclusion of closing arguments. Hunter was surrounded by family members, including wife Melissa Cohen Biden and his uncle James Biden, as the verdict was read. First lady Jill Biden missed the verdict announcement and rushed to greet Hunter afterward.
Hunter was found guilty on two charges for lying about his crack-cocaine addiction on federal gun paperwork when he bought a Colt Cobra revolver at a sporting-goods store in Wilmington in October 2018. He was also found guilty on a third charge for possessing the firearm while he was using crack cocaine.
The first son faces up to 25 years in prison, though he’ll likely receive a lighter sentence as a first-time, nonviolent offender. Judge Noreika, who presided over the trial, said that a sentencing hearing will be held in September.
Though Hunter Biden still has a pending tax trial, don’t hold your breath about him going to trial for his role as the Biden crime family’s bagman…
I’ve pointed out time and again (including yesterday) that Biden Justice Department AG Merrick Garland’s “special counsel” appointment of Biden Justice Department Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss in the Hunter Biden case is a fraud on the public.
In a pretrial ruling denying the younger Biden’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Maryellen Noreika has confirmed that Garland’s appointment of Weiss did not comply with federal regulations for appointing special counsels. That, however, was not a basis to dismiss the case — particularly with Garland and Weiss quietly citing the last special-counsel regulation, §600.10 (of Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations), which provides that no one may hold the Justice Department accountable for flouting its own regulations.
To be clear, I have never contended that Garland lacked the authority to assign Weiss, or whoever he wanted to assign, to investigate the Biden case. As Judge Noreika correctly explained, federal statutory law — in particular, §§509, 510, 515, and 533 — vest attorneys general with sweeping power to run the Justice Department as they see fit, including power to designate any DOJ lawyers they choose to run investigations anywhere in the country.
Weiss, for example, is now prosecuting Hunter Biden in Los Angeles, on the tax case scheduled to begin trial on September 5, in addition to the gun case in Weiss’s own Delaware district. That’s because Garland doubled-down in assigning the investigation of the president’s son to the same prosecutor — Weiss — who had just schemed with defense lawyers on a failed sweetheart plea deal that was designed to make all conceivable cases against said son disappear (and only after Weiss had consciously dithered as the statute of limitations steadily eviscerated serious criminal offenses).
Garland is the attorney general, and he has that power. It is power he wields with no fear that Congress will slash the DOJ’s budget, censure him, impeach him, or do anything else but caterwaul over how he abuses it. My point is that Garland has been engaged in a nearly four-year fraud — trying to con the country into believing the Justice Department is neither protecting its boss nor trying, to the extent politically feasible, to protect the president’s son.
The AG refused to appoint a special counsel for the Biden investigation, despite the president’s (and other Biden family members’) being implicated in Hunter’s malfeasance, particularly crimes arising out of his peddling of his father’s political influence for huge pay days from agents of corrupt and anti-American regimes.
Europe’s ruling center left just got smashed in European elections.
Early projections of the EU-election results show that the continent’s right-wing parties have made significant advances as voters signal their dissatisfaction with illegal immigration and inflation. Formerly powerful left-wing parties seem to have been routed, while centrists stayed the course.
This antiestablishment sentiment was expressed most strongly in Germany and France, two of the European bloc’s most powerful countries.
The French results prompted President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the French parliament in preparation for snap elections on June 30 and July 7, as his party lost badly to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which is part of the Identity and Democracy coalition in the European Parliament.
Before crowds in Paris, Le Pen responded to Macron’s announcement: “This historic vote shows that when people vote, people win. . . . We are ready to exercise power, to end mass migration, to prioritize purchasing power, ready to make France live again.”
In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats were trounced by a combination of support for the right-wing CDU/CSU and Alternative for Germany (AfD). The left-wing Social Democratic Party (14.6 percent) and the Greens (12 percent) underperformed. Katarina Barley, speaking for the Social Democrats, called it “a bitter evening.” “I am very disappointed.” The AfD, having won 14 percent as of this reporting, is intent on carrying its EU wins to the national elections in October 2025.
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni was the only leader of a European power to see success, with the right-wing politician’s allied faction, European Conservatives and Reformists, placing first in Italy.
In Spain, the conservative People’s Party took 34.2 percent of the vote, a rejection of socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Workers’ Party, which received 30.2 percent. Two other right-wing parties, Vox and Se Acabó La Fiesta (The Party’s Over), received another 14.2 percent between them.
The Greens ceded more ground than any other party in the EU, losing more than a quarter of their seats.
For decades, the ruling Euroelite have insisted that there is no alternative to their high tax, high spending, high debt, high regulation, high immigration, environmental leftist EU superstate. Voters seem to have finally grown tired enough of it that they’re willing to embrace Marine Le Pen if that’s what it takes to make their voices heard.
In his opinion, Thomas wrote that, though a bump stock does increase a rifle’s rate of fire, it does not turn it into an automatic weapon.
“A bump stock does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun any more than a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does,” Thomas wrote. “Even with a bump stock, a semiautomatic rifle will only fire one shot for every ‘function of the trigger.’”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his concurrence that, while the ATF’s interpretation of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act was an incorrect reading of the statute, there are legislative remedies for the issue of bump stocks.
“The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning,” Alito wrote. “That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b). But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning.”
“The Lies and Fall of Ibram X. Kendi.” “This man gave America the simplest, most easily applicable binary solution to all of our racial problems. It didn’t matter that it was stupid, at least not from the perspective of his personal enrichment. For a while, it sold…What we lived through in 2020, during the Floyd meltdown and its aftermath, was a onetime necrotic bloom during which the first carrion-feeders on the scene were able to fatten themselves up to spectacular proportions on the collapsed body of American progressive racial and political angst.”
The US has broadened its sanctions on Russia, including a fresh crackdown on banks dealing with sanctioned entities.
It expands a December programme to target foreign banks deemed to be aiding Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
The US also placed sanctions on the Moscow stock exchange, leading to it halting trading in dollars and euros.
It also moved to try to restrict Russia’s use of technology, including chips and software.
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order in December that imposed sanctions on banks dealing with about 1,200 individuals and companies deemed to be helping Russia’s war machine.
Those measures, which expose banks to the risk of being cut off from the US financial system, have now been expanded to about 4,500 entities.
The US will also target gold-laundering.
Peter Harrell, a former White House senior director for international economics, told the Reuters news agency that the US “is shifting towards something that begins to look like an effort to set up a global financial embargo on Russia”.
As part of this effort, the US Treasury announced that it would impose sanctions on parts of Russia’s financial system, including the Moscow Exchange, which is one of Russia’s main stock exchanges.
The stock exchange, which is Russia’s largest foreign exchange market, said the sanctions had forced it to stop trading in dollars and euros.
The US also focused on technology. Chips and other technology made in the US have been found in downed Russian equipment on Ukraine battlefields, including drones, radios, missiles and armoured vehicles.
The sanctions aim to make it more difficult for companies to supply that tech.
The US will target shell firms in Hong Kong selling chips to Russia.
There are YouTubers saying “Russian economy is crippled” etc., but I remain skeptical. The chips going into Russian drones aren’t anything special, they’re COTS stuff and EPROMs you can get almost anywhere.
“Israeli Military Rescues Four Hostages from Gaza.” Naturally this is good news for decent human beings everywhere and a tragedy for the radical left.
“Lebanon: Israeli Airstrike Kills One Of Hezbollah’s Most Senior Terror Commanders. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday night eliminated one of Hezbollah’s senior-most terror commanders operating in Lebanon. Sami Taleb Abdullah, who headed Hezbollah’s Nasr terrorist force, and three other Hezbollah commanders were killed in an Israeli airstrikes on a terrorist base located in southern Lebanon.” Good. Remember how commentators have repeatedly opined on the possibility of Hezbollah opening up a “second front” while Israel settles Hamas’ hash? They seem to have done very little but the usual pinprick terror attacks. With all the terror money Iran is sloshing around to Hamas and the Houthi’s, one wonders if they’re stretched to thin to send much Hezbollah’s way…
Western District of Louisiana Chief Judge Terry Doughty in an order Thursday declared that Title IX, a federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination, “was written and intended to protect biological women from discrimination.”
“Such purpose makes it difficult to sincerely argue that, at the time of enactment, ‘discrimination on the basis of sex’ included gender identity, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics,” Doughty, a Trump appointee, wrote. “Enacting the changes in the Final Rule would subvert the original purpose of Title IX.”
Of course the U.S. Women’s basketball has left Caitlyn Clark off the team. Because we all know queer identity trumps winning a medal for your country…
On the upside, also not competing: “Lia” Thomas. Turns out the Olympics don’t want men competing in women’s swimming. Who could have possibly seen that coming?
“In Hindsight Fans Realize They Were Too Quick To Call The Holiday Special The Worst Star Wars Project Ever…After watching the latest Disney Star Wars offering The Acolyte, however, many fans admit they might have been too harsh to call the holiday show the worst thing to come out of the franchise.”
We have the results of yesterdays runoff election, and it’s a mixed bag. Sitting Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan survived Dave Covey’s challenge by less than 400 votes. Evidently a ton of gambling special interest money an encouraging Democrats to vote Republican pulled him over the line. However, almost all Phelan’s political allies pulled into a runoff went down:
Former Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson defeated incumbent Justin Holland in the Texas House District 33 runoff.
Challenger Alan Schoolcraft beat incumbent John Kuempel in the Texas House District 44 runoff.
Helen Kerwin whomped incumbent DeWayne Burns in the Texas House District 58 runoff by 15 points.
Challenger Keresa Richardson knocked out Frederick Frazier in the Texas House District 61 runoff with 67.6% of the vote.
Challenger Andy Hopper defeated incumbent Lynn Stuckey in the Texas House District 64 runoff by just shy of 4,500 votes.
Challenger David Lowe went into the Texas House District 91 runoff behind Stephanie Klick, but beat her by over 1,000 votes.
“While we did not win every race we fought in, the overall message from this year’s primaries is clear: Texans want school choice,” Abbott said. “Opponents can no loner ignore the will of the people.”
The governor’s electoral crusade for school choice came to a head this week, as eleven out of the 15 Republican challengers Abbott backed this cycle defeated House incumbents in their primaries. Abbott also worked to boot seven anti-voucher Republicans off the ballot in the state’s March Republican primaries.
Voucher bills have failed in Texas, most notably, last year, when 21 House Republicans voted against expanding school choice as part of an education-funding bill. Abbott’s push to oust school-choice dissidents was backed by major Republican donors and groups, such as Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children Victory Fund, which spent $4.5 million on the races altogether, Club for Growth, which poured $4 million into targeting anti-voucher runoff candidates, and Jeff Yass, an investor and mega-donor, who made about $12 million in contributions to both Abbott and the AFC Victory Fund. Abbott spent an unprecedented $8 million of his own campaign funds to support pro-voucher candidates.
Not every incumbent went down. Incumbent Gary VanDeaver beat challenger Chris Spencer by some 1,500 votes. But backing Phelan, opposing school choice and voting to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton has proven so toxic for incumbents used to romping to easy primary victories that it’s hard to imagine Phelan being able to get reelected as speaker.
Brandon Herrera entered the runoff 21 points behind Tony Gonzalez for U.S. District 23. Ultimately that gap was too large to make up, but he only lost 50.7% to 49.3%. That a sitting congressman with a huge name and money advantage only managed to beat a YouTuber by one and a half points shows that Republican incumbents ignore gun rights at their peril.
Other Republican U.S. congressional race runoff results:
Caroline Kane edged Kenneth Omoruyi by less than 50 votes for the Houston-based U.S. District 7. Democratic incumbent and pro-abortion favorite Lizzie Fletcher got 2/3rds of the vote in 2022, so Kane has quite an uphill slog ahead. Still, a Republican blowout like 1994 or 2010 could theoretically put it within reach.
Craig Goldman pulled in 62.9% against John O’Shea for Fort Worth-based U.S. District 12, which retiring Republican incumbent Kay Granger won by 64.3% in 2022. He’ll face Democratic nominee Trey Hunt in November.
Jay Furman beat Lazaro Garza, Jr. by just shy of 2/3rds of the vote for the right to face indicted Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar in San Antonio to the border U.S. District 28 in November. Cuellar beat Cassy Garcia 56.7% to 43.3% in 2022, but Cuellar’s indictment and widespread dissatisfaction with Biden’s open borders policies make this a prime Republican pickup target in November.
In a very low turnout runoff, Alan Garza defeated Christian Garcia, 419 to 361 votes in the heavily Democratic Houston-based U.S. District 29. As Democratic incumbent Sylvia Garcia pulled in 71.4% in 2022, it would take a Democratic wipeout of Biblical proportions to make this race competitive, but you can’t win if you don’t play.
In Dallas-Richardson-Garland based U.S. District 32, another heavily Democratic district, Darrell Day beat David Blewett to take on Democrat Julie Johnson. Incumbent Democrat Colin Allred is taking on Ted Cruz in the Senate race.
Finally, in Austin-based U.S. District 35, Steven Wright edged Michael Rodriguez by 11 votes for the right to take on commie twerp Greg Casar, who garnered 72.6% in 2022.
House District (HD) 21 is the largest chip on the table and the warring sides in this raging intra-GOP trench war have gone all-in.
Including third-party groups, more than $12 million is likely to be spent on both sides of the clash between Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) and David Covey. The challenger beat the incumbent by 3 points in the primary, but this round is winner-take-all.
Not only is a legislative seat on the line, but so is a speakership, one that comes with lots of influence for the area — a fact that’s been fashioned into an argument by Phelan and team.
The last time a speaker lost re-election was in 1972, though it was a substantially different circumstance.
Legislative hopes for next session are on the line — both in terms of what Phelan himself hopes to accomplish in 2025 and for everything that may end up on the chopping block should he and other incumbents survive, opening the door for a kind of revenge tour against Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Patrick’s legacy as one of the most influential and powerful politicians in Texas history is already cemented. But he never likes losing a fight; he wouldn’t be where he is if he did. To that end, Patrick wants to ensure the speaker with whom he’s feuded so prolifically and publicly meets his political end on Tuesday…and Phelan hopes to deny Patrick what he wants yet again.
The lieutenant governor has likened the speaker to everything under the sun except the first over the wall at the Alamo. And the speaker has returned fire in-kind. Fences can always be mended, but this fence is more like the Great Wall of China or the Trump border wall that was never finished.
Should the speaker escape his political doom tonight, it’s more likely than not that slings and arrows will again be lobbed as the Legislature is eventually brought to a grinding halt.
Whether they’ll admit it publicly or not, more members than one might believe think Phelan will retain the speakership in that scenario; pour one out for all the “the King is dead”-type of columns written right after the primary.
And if Phelan loses tonight, that’ll mark the true beginning of the 2025 House speaker race. Jockeying for position behind the scenes has been going on since November, but at that point it would significantly ramp up.
The bomb-throwing contingent on the right of the House GOP caucus is bigger than it’s ever been and will have a legitimate run at pushing for various reforms. And after their faction won the Texas GOP chairmanship, the political relevance that waxed last year and during the primary waxed further.
Instead of “bomb thrower” I’d call them “the Republican wing of the Republican Party,” the one that actually wants to enact conservative policies and the one that doesn’t want to rule at the head of a Democrat-dominated coalition. Unlike Phelan.
Given widespread Republican dissatisfaction with Phelan’s faction, who is throwing money to keep Phelan’s toadies in office? Gambling interests.
Special interest casino gambling is spending big to protect incumbents who have carried their water in the Texas legislature.
According to campaign finance reports filed on Monday, Sands PAC donated nearly $650,000 in a mixture of races, including returning incumbents, failed candidates, and those taking part in primary runoff elections,
Already defeated incumbent Kronda Thimesch (R-Lewisville) received $54,000 from the PAC following her loss to attorney Mitch Little in the March primary. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo), who notched an unimpressive primary victory in March, received $25,000.
Embattled House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) received $100,000 in direct contributions from the Sands PAC and $512,163 in-kind spending, which the Speaker and other candidates obtained from a newly formed and well-funded vehicle for Sands and its owner.
Earlier this week, Texas Scorecard reported on the political spending of the “Texas Defense” PAC, a newly established committee funded by Miriam Adelson, the owner of Sands Casino.
Along with Phelan, the Texas Defense PAC supports embattled incumbents Frederick Frazier, Justin Holland, John Kuempel, and John McQueeney, a candidate for the open seat vacated by State Rep. Craig Goldman.
Frederick Frazier’s felony-plagued candidacy received $496,000 from the Defense PAC and $50,000 from Sands, as did Holland.
Seguin-based State Rep. John Kuempel also received $50,000 from Sands. Kuempel’s father, the late John Kuempel, was a proponent of expanded gambling and authored measures during his time in the legislature to that end.
Alan Schoolcraft, a former lawmaker, is challenging Kuempel and has the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott after Kuempel voted to strip school choice from an omnibus education bill in 2023.
All incumbent lawmakers forced into runoffs (Frazier, Holland, Kuempel) voted to expand gambling in Texas during the 2023 legislative session, despite the issue not being a priority for Texas voters. The only incumbent who missed out on funding and voted likewise was Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston).
Democrats Jarvis Johnson and Nathan Johnson (no relation) received $50,000 and $9,000 in funding from Sands, respectively.
Details on the people and organizations dedicated to burning America down, more Biden corruption, more of his censorship regime, a few Russo-Ukrainian War updates, and a pedophile gets ventilated. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Have America’s college students suddenly converted en masse to anarcho-communist-jihadism? Not quite. Many are far left and anti-Israel. Some are foreigners, or the children of foreigners, who have imported the conspiracies and hatreds of their homelands. More, admitted under relaxed pandemic-era admissions standards and proudly ignorant of both American and world history, are taking the “decolonial” half-knowledge pushed by their elders to its logical conclusion.
But students are not the only, and perhaps not even the most important, faction active in the campus protests. As in the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, “outside agitators”—professional radicals and organizers, black bloc antifa thugs, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, and Palestinian and Islamist radicals—have played a central role in organizing and escalating the campus protests, just as they have organized and escalated the wider anti-Israel protest campaign that began almost immediately after Oct. 7. This largely decentralized network of agitators is, in turn, politically and financially supported by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups ultimately backed by big-money donors aligned with the Democratic Party.
The first hint that the protests are not entirely organic is their striking resemblance to previous rounds of organized far-left agitation, from the “uprising” of summer 2020 to the rolling antifa vs. Proud Boys brawls of 2016-17. The creation of “liberated” or “autonomous” zones on campus, for instance, is a hallmark of anarchist organizing familiar from Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and New York’s City Hall Autonomous Zone four summers ago. Familiar, too, is the governance of these zones, with masked security details prohibiting filming from outsiders and directing reporters to trained media representatives. During clashes with police or with counterprotesters, students and their allies have deployed classic “bloc” tactics, covering their faces and dressing in matching outfits to promote anonymity, linking arms to interfere with police attempts to conduct arrests, and attempting “de-arrests”—i.e., the coordinated swarming of police officers—to rescue apprehended comrades. At Yale, student activists doxxed the police officers sent to clear them out of the encampment—another harassment tactic frequently deployed by antifa.
These resemblances are no accident. All of these tactics require a degree of instruction and training. Footage from Columbia showed the professional “protest consultant” Lisa Fithian, a veteran of Occupy, BLM, Standing Rock, and Stop Cop City, teaching students at Columbia how to barricade themselves into Hamilton Hall. Recent video from inside the protest encampment at UCLA, meanwhile, showed masked men leading a hand-to-hand combat training. When police cleared out encampments at the University of Texas-Austin and Columbia and the City University of New York last week, roughly half of those arrested—45 of the 79 in Texas, 134 of the 282 in New York—had no connection with the university at which they were arrested. Some, like the 40-year-old anarchist heir James Carlson, arrested at Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, had protest related rap sheets going back two decades.
“What you’re seeing is a real witches’ brew of revolutionary content interacting on campuses,” says Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and an expert on far-left domestic extremism. “On the left-wing side, you have a broad variety of revolutionary leftists, who serve as rent-a-mobs, providing the warm bodies for whatever the leftist cause of the day is. And on the other side you have the Islamist and Palestinian networks: American Muslims for Palestine and their subsidiary Students for Justice in Palestine, CAIR, the Palestinian Youth Movement. We’re seeing a real mixture of different kinds of radical foment, and it’s all being activated at the same time.”
The far-left groups active in the protests include antifa and other anarchists: Anarchist literature has been distributed in the encampments, and antifa websites have published dispatches from “comrades” on the inside. They also include various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition, a PSL front group that worked with several Muslim groups to organize the Jan. 13 March on Washington for Gaza, at which protesters flew the black jihadist flag. On April 29, for instance, shortly before masked assailants stormed Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves inside, The People’s Forum—a Manhattan event space affiliated with the PSL and funded by Neville Roy Singham, a wealthy businessman who “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide,” according to an August profile in The New York Times—urged its activists to rush up to Columbia to “support our students.” Similar calls for an “emergency action” were distributed throughout radical networks in New York City.
Snip.
The “movement,” in turn, while it recruits from among students and other self-motivated radicals willing to put their bodies on the line, relies heavily on the funding of progressive donors and nonprofits connected to the upper reaches of the Democratic Party. Take the epicenter of the nationwide protest movement, Columbia University. According to reporting in the New York Post, the Columbia encampment was principally organized by three groups: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime (WOL). Let’s take each in turn.
JVP is, in essence, the “Jewish”-branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, backed by the usual big-money progressive donors—including some, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, that were instrumental in selling Obama’s Iran Deal to the public. JVP and its affiliated political action arm, JVP Action, have received at least $650,000 from various branches of George Soros’ philanthropic empire since 2017, $441,510 from the Kaphan Foundation (founded by early Amazon employee Sheldon Kaphan), $340,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and smaller amounts from progressive donors such as the Quitiplas Foundation, according to reporting from the New York Post and NGO Monitor, a pro-Israel research institute. JVP has also received nearly $1.5 million from various donor-advised funds—which allow wealthy clients to give anonymously through their financial institutions—run through the charitable giving arms of Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, Vanguard, and TIAA, according to NGO Monitor’s review of those institutions’ tax documents.
SJP, by contrast, is an outgrowth of the Islamist networks dissolved during the U.S. government’s prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and related charities for fundraising for Hamas. SJP is a subsidiary of an organization called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP); SJP in fact has no “formal corporate structure of its own but operates as AMP’s campus brand,” according to a lawsuit filed last week against AJP Educational Fund, the parent nonprofit of AMP. Both AMP and SJP were founded by the same man, Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian academic who formerly fundraised for KindHearts, an Islamic charity dissolved in 2012 pursuant to a settlement with the U.S. Treasury, which froze the group’s assets for fundraising for Hamas (KindHearts did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement). And several of AMP’s senior leaders are former fundraisers for HLF and related charities, according to November congressional testimony from former U.S. Treasury official Jonathan Schanzer. An ongoing federal lawsuit by the family of David Boim, an American teenager killed in a Hamas terrorist attack in 1996, goes so far as to allege that AMP is a “disguised continuance” and “legal alter-ego” of the Islamic Association for Palestine, was founded with startup money from current Hamas official Musa Abu Marzook and dissolved alongside HLF. AMP has denied it is a continuation of IAP.
Today, however, National SJP is legally a “fiscal sponsorship” of another nonprofit: a White Plains, New York, 501(c)(3) called the WESPAC Foundation. A fiscal sponsorship is a legal arrangement in which a larger nonprofit “sponsors” a smaller group, essentially lending it the sponsor’s tax-exempt status and providing back-office support in exchange for fees and influence over the sponsorship’s operations. For legal and tax purposes, the sponsor and the sponsorship are the same entity, meaning that the sponsorship is relieved of the requirement to independently disclose its donors or file a Form 990 with the IRS. This makes fiscal sponsorships a “convenient way to mask links between donors and controversial causes,” according to the Capital Research Center. Donors, in other words, can effectively use nonprofits such as WESPAC to obscure their direct connections to controversial causes.
Something of the sort appears to be happening with WESPAC. Run by the market researcher Howard Horowitz, WESPAC reveals very little about its donors, although scattered reporting and public disclosures suggest that the group is used as a pass-through between larger institutions and pro-Palestinian radicals. Since 2006, for instance, WESPAC has received more than half a million in donations from the Elias Foundation, a family foundation run by the private equity investor James Mann and his wife. WESPAC has also received smaller amounts from Grassroots International (an “environmental” group heavily funded by Thousand Currents), the Sparkplug Foundation (a far-left group funded by the Wall Street fortune of Felice and Yoram Gelman), and the Bafrayung Fund, run by Rachel Gelman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune. (A self-described “abolitionist,” Gelman was featured in a 2020 New York Times feature on “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism.”) In 2022, WESPAC also received $97,000 from the Tides Foundation, the grant-making arm of the Tides Nexus.
WESPAC, however, is not merely the fiscal sponsor of the Hamas-linked SJP but also the fiscal sponsor of the third group involved in organizing the Columbia protests, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), formerly known as New York City SJP. Founded by the Palestinian American lawyer Nerdeen Kiswani, a former activist with the Hunter College and CUNY chapters of SJP, WOL has emerged over the past seven months as perhaps the most notorious antisemitic group in the country, and has been banned from Facebook and Instagram for glorifying Hamas. A full list of the group’s provocations would take thousands of words, but it has been the central organizing force in the series of “Flood”-themed protests in New York City since Oct. 7, including multiple bridge and highway blockades, a November riot at Grand Central Station, the vandalism of the New York Public Library, and protests at the Rockefeller Center Christmas-tree lighting.
More info on the people backing the Stop Cop City protestors:
Where did the money come from? From donations solicited through left-wing fundraising and organizing networks. One of those networks was the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), an umbrella group for more than 80 “community organizations,” including the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, which organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested. CJA’s website promotes a grab bag of far-left causes, and includes a “Free Palestine” page proclaiming that “the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” To this day—eight months after the Georgia RICO indictment alleged that the Forest Justice Defense Fund was a fraudulent charity paying for ammunition purchases in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy—CJA maintains a Stop Cop City page urging readers to donate to the Forest Justice Defense Fund and the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. CJA also endorsed a “statement of solidarity” with Stop Cop City, which claimed, by the inexorable logic of intersectionality, the fight against “gentrification and police violence” in Atlanta as part of the fight against climate change.
CJA is a subsidiary of the Movement Strategy Center, a California-based 501(c)(3) that has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and various branches of the Open Society network. But it has another financial supporter, one that may come as a surprise: You, the American taxpayer. In November, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was entrusting $50 million in federal grant money under the Inflation Reduction Act to the CJA, to be distributed in sub-grants to fund “environmental justice” projects by “community-based nonprofit organizations.”
Read the whole thing.
More on the same subject: “Pro-Palestinian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors.” Surprising to people who haven’t been paying attention, maybe.
The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker, according to a POLITICO analysis.
Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change.
Soros declined to comment, but a spokesperson with the Open Society Foundations, of which Soros is the founder and chairman, said in a statement that it “has funded a broad spectrum of US groups that have advocated for the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and for peaceful resolution to the conflict in Israel.” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has previously funded the Tides Foundation and other groups, said it no longer has active grants to Tides. It also does not support Jewish Voice for Peace or IfNotNow.
Covers some of the same ground as the Tablet piece, but still worth reading the whole thing. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Former president Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents is being postponed indefinitely.
Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon ordered a new pretrial schedule for motions and discovery Tuesday afternoon after the classified documents case was originally scheduled to go to trial later this month.
“The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming — would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury,” Cannon said in her order.
The trial will likely be pushed until after the 2024 presidential election this November.
It’s hard to exaggerate how abysmal Biden’s polling has been lately.
No incumbent president should ever want to be near 43 percent in a head-to-head ballot test. Yet here is Joe Biden at 43 percent in the latest CNN poll, 43 percent in the latest Morning Consult poll, 43 percent in the latest Economist/YouGov poll, and 43 percent in the latest Harvard/Harris poll. (NB: Biden ticked up to 48 when Harvard/Harris pushed respondents to choose between Trump and Biden, and the Economist/YouGov poll had RFK Jr. in the mix.)
Detect a trend? (There are other polls that have Biden a little higher.)
It’s no mystery why Biden’s polling is at crisis levels.
An incumbent president’s level of support in a reelection bid is typically tethered closely to his job approval. It’s hard to get much more than a couple of points above it. Biden’s job approval is at 40 percent in the RealClearPolitics polling average and at 39.3 in the 538 polling average.
Desperate for cash, James Biden traveled to Qatar with the aim of personally presenting to Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi who was later arrested and charged with bribery and laundering over $5 billion and sentenced to 20 years in prison. While little is known about the details behind the internal power struggle in the corrupt terror state, Al Emadi had been accused of “channeling Qatari support to various Islamist groups over the years” as well as subverting American and European institutions with sizable infusions of Qatari money.
As the American end of the deal fell apart in recriminations and lawsuits, one of the litigants received “blood-stained currency” and a “torture ticket” after suing James Biden and his partners. The blood money came from a Middle Eastern country known to be associated with terrorists. But the FBI refused to name the country and insisted the media also hide its identity.
Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an 800-page report that reads like Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”
Take a look:
In March 2021, an Amazon employee emailed others within the company about the reason for the Amazon bookstore’s new content moderation policy change: “[T]he impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden Administration about sensitive books we’re giving prominent placement to.”
In March 2021, just one day prior to a scheduled call with the White House, an Amazon employee explained how changes to Amazon’s bookstore policies were being applied “due to criticism from the Biden people.”
In July 2021, when Facebook executive Nick Clegg asked a Facebook employee why the company censored the man-made theory of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the employee responded: “Because we were under pressure from the [Biden] administration and others to do more. . . . We shouldn’t have done it.”
There’s chutzpah, and then there’s chutzpah: “Denver Illegals Make Demands, Include ‘Culturally Appropriate’ Food, Lawyers, Unlimited Showers And Warnings Before Evictions.”
It was fun seeing Ukraine’s Bradley’s take out Russian tanks with their Bushmaster, but they just took out a T-80 from a mile away with their TOW missile, which is the recommended method of a Bradley killing a Russian tank.
In addition to using high tech weapons against Russia, Ukraine is also using caltrops to shred their tires, a weapon first deployed by the Roman empire.
So the City of Pasadena, Texas was hassling Azael Sepulveda’s Oz Mechanics car repair shop over parking for no apparent reason, came to an agreement to settle his lawsuit, and now says, get this, they don’t have to follow the agreement because they claim the city enjoys “immunity” from lawsuits. “The property he purchased had housed another auto mechanic shop for more than 30 years and included five parking spaces, but under revised ordinances, the city demanded that Sepulveda provide 28 parking spots.” Somebody in the Pasadena city government deserves a dick punching…
More corruption from the Biden family (plus a Texas Democratic congressman), more bad news from the Biden Recession, more pedophile sex offenders, more college madness, and virtue signaling, Third Reich style. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
And remember: If you’re in a large Texas county, there’s a tax appraisal district election tomorrow, so be sure to get out and vote if you haven’t already voted early.
Another week, another corrupt Biden family scheme exposed. “Joe Biden’s Brother Embroiled In High-Ranking Qatari Scheme To ‘Provide Wealth Of Introductions’ Through ‘My Family.'”
Qatar has had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. While we knew about the EU’s ‘Qatargate,’ investments with the Kushner family, and of course Sen. Bob Menendez advancing Qatar’s interests, Politico reports that the Biden family’s ties to Qatar “would constitute some of the closest known financial links between a relative of President Joe Biden and a foreign government,” if courtroom testimony about Jim Biden’s foreign fundraising efforts is substantiated.
In June 2017, Qatar’s neighbors – led by Saudi Arabia, banded together and cut diplomatic ties with the country, citing its alleged support for terrorism. As a result, the country was thrown into a sustained crisis.
To dig themselves out, Qatari rulers began showering well-connected Westerners with gifts and financial benefits, according to Politico, “sometimes in the form of investment funding.”
Around this time, Jim Biden was trying to raise $30 million for embattled hospital chain Americore – teaming up with Florida businessman Amer Rustom, CEO of the Platinum Group, who boasted of his ties to officials in the Middle East, as well as fund manager Michael Lewitt. Together, the three sought investment funding from various Middle Eastern sources for Americore and other ventures – “which came to focus largely on Qatar,” according to a former Americore executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to public records obtained by the outlet, Jim Biden leveraged ties to his older brother and “sought workarounds to restrictions on international money movements,” including one discussion about trying to move money across a Middle Eastern border in the form of gold bars that may or may not have happened.
Let ye who has never smuggled gold across the border of an Arab country cast the first stone.
“My family could provide a wealth of introductions and business opportunities at the highest levels that I believe would be worthy of the interest of His Excellency,” Jim Biden and Rustom wrote in a draft letter to an official at the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. “On behalf of the Biden family, I welcome your interest here,” the draft continues.
Corrupt to the core.
More evidence from the Biden recession: “Job Openings Tumble, Quits Plunge, Hires Unexpectedly Crater To January 2018 Levels.”
After several months of relatively boring JOLTS prints, this morning Janet Yellen’s favorite labor market indicator once again got exciting, and not in a good way.
Starting at the top, according to the March JOLTS reported, job openings unexpectedly tumbled by 325K – the biggest drop since October 2023 – from an upward revised 8.813 million in February to just 8.488 million, far below the 8.690 million expected – and the lowest number since February 2021 when it last printed below 8 million.
The Department of Justice has arrested two Chinese nationals who allegedly plotted to export U.S. technology to advance the People’s Republic of China’s military operations.
Han Li, 44, and Lin Chen, 64, have been charged with several counts of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), in addition to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), for attempting to export a machine used to process silicon microchips….
“Specifically, the defendants sought to illegally obtain for CGTC a DTX-150 Automatic Diamond Scriber Breaker machine from Dynatex International, a Santa Rosa, California company.”
That’s a backend semiconductor machine for slicing finished individual computer chips off a processed wafer.
Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife were indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery, foreign influence, and money-laundering charges, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday afternoon.
The Texas Democrat and his wife are accused of accepting roughly $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities starting in December 2014 and continuing through 2021. The foreign entities are a Mexican bank and an oil and gas company linked to the government of Azerbaijan, according to the Justice Department.
In exchange for the bribes, Cuellar agreed to use his office for promoting favorable U.S. foreign policy towards Azarbaijan and pushing legislative and executive branch officials to adopt policy measures beneficial to the bank, authorities said.
In 2022, Cuellar’s home and office were searched during a federal investigation into Azerbaijan and American businessmen linked to the Middle Eastern nation. Cuellar formerly co-chaired the congressional Azerbaijan caucus.
Cuellar represents TX28. Republicans Jay Furman and Lazaro Garza Jr. are competing in the runoff to challenge Cuellar this fall.
Columbia shows some semblance of a spine, threatens to expel students occupying administrative buildings.
Related: “Columbia Student Who Said ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve To Live’ Reportedly ‘Thrown Out Of School.'”
Also: “Police Begin Detaining UCLA Protesters Occupying Campus.”
“Tucked away in the $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan is a $3.5 billion slush fund to open new processing centers for Muslim migrants, in what Sen. Eric Schmitt described as a bid to “supercharge mass migration from the Middle East.” Republicans in congress asleep at the switch again.
It’s not just China that the CCP’s crazy policies are ruining. There are over 500 abandoned, unfinished buildings in Cambodia. A crackdown on online gambling also hastened the demise of many real estate ventures there.
Tranny sex offender tries to snatch a child from an elementary playground in broad daylight. “Trans-identifying male Solomon Galligan [simply] walked on campus last Friday afternoon during recess at Black Forest Hills Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado, and straight-up tried to steal a kid.”
The suspect, who is identified as male in the arrest affidavit, shared news of his transition on Facebook back in 2011.
‘So im starting my hormone shots and i relly cant wait im on my hormone pills ive been on them for almost 4 months i wake up all depressed and crying but in the end its gonna be totally worth it you know what io mean im really excited my measurements are already changing and im super thrilled,’ he wrote.
Galligan was put on the sex offender registry and was convicted that same year of non-consent sexual contact, according to his latest arrest affidavit.
Ernest Herrera, 56, was arrested Monday after he admitted to sexual contact with a 13-year-old student, claiming they had “developed a relationship.”
Herrera taught social studies at Southside Independent School District’s Losoya Middle School in San Antonio.
He was charged with improper relationship between educator and student, a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison.
Herrera was booked into Bexar County Jail and held on a $75,000 bond.
The district superintendent stated that Herrera was fired “effective immediately.”
Andrew McCown, 27, was arrested Wednesday and charged with having an “improper relationship” with a 17-year-old female student.
McCown is a math teacher and football coach at Roosevelt High School in San Antonio’s North East ISD.
He was reportedly placed on leave in March and will be terminated.
McCown, who is related to former NFL quarterbacks Josh and Luke McCown, was arrested in 2022 for drunk driving while he was a teacher and coach at Robinson ISD.
According to a statement to MySA, the district “conducted a background check on April 25, 2023, and at that time, it was clear and McCown was hired.”
Another football coach, Perryton ISD athletic director Cole Underwood, was arrested Wednesday and charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony.
The alleged victim is a Perryton High School student, reportedly a 14-year-old girl.
Underwood was released from Ochiltree County Jail on Thursday after posting a $125,000 bond.
According to a statement from Perryton ISD, Underwood resigned.
Chinese officials are asking villagers to take out fake business licenses. Is that for their own business scams, or to artificially pump up Chinese economic statistics?
Profiles in Cowardice: “PEN America, a leading nonprofit dedicated to free expression, canceled its 2024 World Voices Festival late last week under pressure from pro-Palestinian activists. Many writers affiliated with the organization either threatened to boycott the event unless PEN acceded to certain demands, including labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘genocide,’ or distanced themselves from the free-speech group in response to online pressure from pro-Palestinian activists.”
Many Texans will have their first opportunity to elect representatives to the governing boards of their local appraisal districts, making the agencies that assess property values for tax purposes more accountable to citizens.
A new property tax relief law, passed last year and approved in November by voters statewide, included a provision for voters in counties with a population of 75,000 or more to elect three new members to their county appraisal district board of directors.
The three elected board members will serve alongside the five appointed directors and the county tax assessor-collector, who will become an ex-officio board member.
Directors elected in May will take office on July 1 and serve a term that expires on December 31, 2026.
Going forward, elected appraisal district directors will be on the ballot in November of even-numbered years and serve staggered four-year terms.
The five directors appointed by local taxing units (counties, cities, school districts) that participate in the appraisal district will also transition to staggered four-year terms, starting in 2025.
Property tax consultant Chandler Crouch, who has championed appraisal district reforms for years, told Texas Scorecard, “I believe the legislation that implemented these changes is a direct result of the trouble I’ve experienced and would not have happened if it weren’t for concerned Texans demanding change.”
Crouch was targeted by his local Tarrant County appraisal district officials after helping thousands of residents protest their property taxes and calling attention to problems within the system.
In the wake of several scandals, longtime Tarrant Appraisal District Chief Appraiser Jeff Law resigned last September.
“Over the past few years I’ve seen plenty of corruption at the appraisal district. I believe the problems I encountered would have been dealt with much quicker if we had someone at the appraisal district that was directly accountable to the taxpayers,” said Crouch.
In addition to adding elected appraisal district directors in the state’s 50 largest counties, the new law puts the directors in charge of appointing members to the appraisal review board.
The appraisal review board (ARB) is the group of citizens that hears taxpayer protests and resolves disputes between property owners and appraisal districts. Currently, ARB members are appointed by the county’s local administrative judge.
At least two members of the majority voting for ARB members must be elected directors.
Any possibility for voters to check tax increases is a good thing.
According to this Facebook thread, Buell, Sanders and Klein are running a taxpayer-friendly slate, while Hisle-Piper, Lux and Moses are already appointed members of the board, using a loophole to run for the elected seats. Sanders asserts “If they win, each of them will then hold two positions on the Appraisal Board.” That hardly seems kosher. On that basis, I’m tentatively recommending a vote for Buell, Sanders and Klein, but if you have any countervailing information, please share it in the comments below.
Note: Early voting for this election has already started and runs through April 30.
The U.S. Senate race in Texas is shaping up to be an expensive bout between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX-32), with both candidates posting high fundraising totals and the challenger burning through most of his haul.
Both candidates announced close to $10 million raised in the April quarterly report last week. The two touted the fact that their contributions came from every — or in Allred’s case, almost every — county in Texas. The pair’s average donations were both around $35.
Cruz reported $15.1 million cash-on-hand at the end of this period — which includes monies raised into the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Texas GOP itemized for his race — to Allred’s $10.5 million left on hand.
Cruz’s number is $2.7 million more than he raised in the first two quarters of 2018 combined. Allred’s haul exceeded 2018 candidate Beto O’Rourke’s first-quarter number by close to $3 million.
Though he posted a record first quarter haul in 2018, the biggest money for Beto’s bid really started flowing in during the spring and summer following the primary; he raised nearly $80 million in that race, and narrowly lost to Cruz, who raised $45 million that cycle.
Both Cruz and Allred have raised around half of their money in 2024 from within Texas, with big money figures and organizations on both sides of this fight salivating for another high-profile clash. More than 12 percent of Allred’s haul came from California to Cruz’s 32 percent from Virginia, the vast majority of which is due to the GOP’s small-dollar donor interface, WinRed, being headquartered there.
The Democrats’ version, ActBlue, is headquartered in Massachusetts.
One of the most interesting factors in these reports is Allred’s burn rate — the amount of money spent relative to what he raised. Allred has plenty of money left over, but he spent 96 percent of his haul, more than two-thirds of which was spent on media advertising.
I would be lying if I said I was up to date on the latest campaign finance trends, but it’s universally acknowledged that a burn rate that high this far out from the general election is “bad”…
…and that media buys this far out from the general are fools gold. Maybe Allred thinks he needs to get to the same level of name recognition as O’Rourke did in 2018, but that’s simply not possible. He’d need just as many fawning media profiles as O’Rourke got, and the national media is too busy ramping up the Orange Man Bad machine to do that. This time in 2018, I’d already seen a zillion Beto signs and bumper stickers, and I doubt I’ve even seen five for Allred. And, after all that money and name-recognition, Beto still lost…
The latest poll on the race from the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation — which pegged Allred down 5 points to Cruz — showed the challenger with a +24 net favorability rating to Cruz’s +3. However, Allred’s undecided total was 40 points, showing that there are loads of movable voters who could go either way on him; Cruz’s undecided number was 1 percent.
Polls this early mean very little. But cash on hand is rarely overrated…
In his nascent bid for Congress, Brandon Herrera is putting two things to the test: embattled Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23), and the ability of next-generation politicians to overcome statements — and jokes — made on social media.
Known popularly as “The AK Guy,” Herrera is a YouTuber boasting a large following whose schtick is firing cool guns and teaching his viewers about their characteristics and history. His X bio reads, “Congressional Candidate (R TX-23) YouTuber, Second Amendment Absolutist, VERY Politically Incorrect.”
The field of Republican primary challengers pushed Gonzales to a runoff, with the incumbent falling 4.6 points away from winning the primary outright; Herrera received 24 percent of the vote, finishing a comfortable second place and securing a runoff against the incumbent.
Now he’s the last man standing between Gonzales and a third term in Congress.
But standing between Herrera and the upset is the very reason he has such a large following: his irreverent, and very entertaining, streaming persona. Herrera’s YouTube channel has 3.3 million subscribers and the pinned video is him testing out the “magic bullet theory” related to the JFK assassination — namely that the bullet attributed to the president’s death looks as if it didn’t actually hit anything, let alone a human being.
But it was a different video that caught the attention of his opponent — and a national media outlet.
“Rep. Gonzales’ right-wing GOP challenger posted videos featuring Nazi imagery, songs, jokes,” reads a headline from the publication Jewish Insider. The video in question is an informational on the MP-40 submachine gun, developed in Germany during the Nazi Third Reich.
Discussing the gun, Herrera refers to it as “the original ghetto blaster” and then shows a sardonic black and white montage firing the weapon as the German military marching song “Erika” plays.
“If the MG-42 was Hitler’s buzzsaw, the MP-40 was Hitler’s street sweeper,” he adds.
At the end of the video, Herrera says of the sarcastic tone and jokes, “The best way to not repeat history is to learn about history. And the best way that I know to get you guys to learn about history, is make really f—– up jokes about it.”
In acknowledging the “edgy” humor, Herrera unknowingly handed ammunition to his future political opponents — the effectiveness of which remains to be seen and a potential dagger that Herrera brushed aside.
“Whereas before you have little statements that can be taken out of context or jokes that were made that would tank careers, it’s no longer that way,” Herrera told The Texan in an interview, suggesting the current political climate has passed the point of caring about such remarks.
“One of the big catalysts for that change was the way that Trump ran his campaign. I think people related to him and people aren’t really afraid to see that side of elected representatives anymore.”
About the potential shift, Herrera added, “[Candidates] don’t have to be as squeaky clean, and really, fake as they have been in years past. And I think we’re getting closer to an era of real people.”
“Being representatives now, which I think is going to be a net positive because people are realizing it doesn’t matter what jokes have been made in the past, and it doesn’t matter if your congressman was caught swearing or something like that. People care about how you vote and I think that’s the core of it. And that should be what people vote on.”
Is a post-Trump disdain for political correctness going to prevent it from being used on other candidates for edgy humor? Maybe. But a bigger problem for Herrera is that he came out of the primary 21 points behind Gonzales. That’s a large gap to make up, especially since Gonzales is out-raising Herrera. Absent dramatic developments, the vote and money gaps may be too big for Herrera to make up between now and May 29.
Lots of gratifying results came out of yesterday’s primaries. Perhaps the most gratifying is that the Straus-Bonnen-Phelan Axis, which has thwarted conservative priorities for decades, finally had a stake driven through its heart.
First statewide and national office races:
President Trump crushed Nikki Haley in Texas with over 76% of the vote.
Former president Donald Trump seems poised to breeze to the Republican presidential nomination after nearly sweeping the party’s Super Tuesday contests.
By 11 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Trump had won the Republican presidential contests in at least twelve of the Super Tuesday states: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Maine, Alabama, Massachusetts, Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, and delegate-rich California.
Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, meanwhile, earned her first — and likely only — win of the night in Vermont.
Results from caucuses in Alaska and Utah were still outstanding around 11:30 p.m. ET.
Ted Cruz cruised to a victory with just under 90% of the vote, and will face Democrat Collin Allred in November. Allred won a clear majority in a five-way race, with Roland Gutierrez coming in at very distant second that was more than 40 points behind.
In the Republican primary race for Texas Congressional District 23, Brandon Herrera has taken incumbent Congressman Tony Gonzales to a runoff.
According to unofficial totals, Gonzales captured 46 percent of the vote to Herrera’s 23 percent.
Leading into the election, much of the discussion centered on Gonzales’ multiple censures from Republican organizations.
The congressman had been censured by the Medina County Republican Party, which was followed by a censure from the Republican Party of Texas (RPT).
The RPT censure was only the second time in history the party had used the maneuver for a sitting politician, the first being in 2018 with then-House Speaker Joe Staus (R-San Antonio). House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) then became the third sitting member to be censured by the State Republican Executive Committee when they approved the official resolution in February.
Gonzales’ censure came after RPT found that he had violated the multiple tenets of the party platform with his votes in Congress.
The incumbent Gonzales had also been criticized for his stance on border security.
In December, he penned a letter to both Democratic and Republican federal leadership stating that he believes the border crisis could reach a “point of no return” if lawmakers do not act soon.
The letter came after a disagreement with Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX-21) over a border security bill Roy introduced to require the detention or expulsion of illegal immigrants, which would prohibit “all asylum” claims. Gonzales has also labeled some of his GOP colleagues “insurgents” and accused 20 Republicans of planning to push “anti-immigrant” legislation under the guise of border security policy.
The leading issue for voters statewide leading into the primary election is border security and immigration, which is represented by the vote totals in this race.
Herrera describes himself as a “Second Amendment activist, and social media personality,” known online as “The AK Guy.”
He proclaimed, “Texas is done with RINO’s,” during the night of the primary election.
But in Texas, the big news was that Dade Phalen, the latest in the Joe Straus/Dennis Bonnen cabal that has stayed in power with Democratic Party backing to thwart conservative priorities, is headed into a runoff with David Covey for Texas House District 21, with less than half a point separating the two.
The Speaker of the Texas House Dade Phelan will be heading to a runoff, after failing to receive the support of a majority of Republican voters in his district.
Phelan, who was first elected to the House in 2014 and has been speaker since 2021, will face off against former Orange County GOP chairman David Covey in a runoff election that is certain to garner attention from across the state.
Phelan had been criticized by conservatives for failing to pass conservative priorities, placing Democrats in leadership positions, and leading the charge to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton last year. Former President Donald Trump endorsed Covey, calling any Republican who backed Phelan “a fool.”
Phelan received 45.8 percent of the vote with Covey earning 45.3 percent.
Alicia Davis, a Jasper County activist, took 8.9 percent of the vote.
“The people of House District 21 have put every politician in Texas, and the nation, on notice,” said Covey. “Our elected officials are elected by the people and work for the people, and when they don’t, there will be consequences.”
“Since 1836, Texans have answered the call to defend liberty and fight for our freedoms. I have every intention of continuing that tradition,” he added.
Covey was joined by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick at his election night watch party. Patrick, who has been a vocal critic of Phelan, had not officially endorsed Covey.
But it wasn’t just Phelan! A whole bunch of the Republican state reps who backed Phelan either lost outright or are headed to runoffs:
The runoff rematch between state Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Graford) and Mike Olcott went entirely unlike the first round two years ago, with Olcott defeating the incumbent in a landslide.
Once Palo Pinto County returns came in, it was clear which way the bout would go. Olcott won Rogers’ home county by 365 votes and cleaned up in the rest of the district.
Last go-around, Rogers nipped Olcott by a few hundred votes, thanks in large part to support from Gov. Greg Abbott. This time in the rematch, the governor switched sides after Rogers voted against his education savings account plan — opposition to which the incumbent has remained steadfast. On Monday, state Sen. Phil King (R-Weatherford) announced his support for Olcott in the race.
Rogers outlasted his previous two stiff primary challenges, the first in 2020 for the open seat against Jon Francis, the son-in-law of conservative mega-donors Farris and JoAnn Wilks. Then in 2022 Olcott challenged Rogers, the incumbent, and narrowly lost.
This time, Abbott has made multiple trips to the district, stating at one that, “There are many reasons we are here today, and one of those is that I made a mistake last time in endorsing Glenn Rogers. And I’m here to correct that mistake. I’m here to make sure everyone knows, I’m here to support Mike Olcott to be your state representative.”
Olcott swept the top-level endorsements with Abbott, Donald Trump, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
uring the 88th Legislative session last year, Clardy was one of the House members who voted in favor of stripping education savings accounts from the November education omnibus bill.
Leading into the election a central issue was how each candidate landed on school choice, as both Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have based their candidate endorsements on support for education freedom.
Clardy was also issued a cease and desist letter by Abbott for “representing to the public that Governor Abbott has endorsed you in your bid for re-election,” when in fact Abbott had endorsed his opponent Joanne Shofner, whom the letter called “a true conservative.” Clardy has continued to express vocal opposition to school choice: “Right now, the price to get his endorsement was I had to bend the knee and kiss the ring and say that I will vote for vouchers[.]”
Shofner, along with both Abbott and Cruz’s support, also had the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
Conservative activist Shelley Luther has won her rematch against incumbent Republican State Rep. Reggie Smith of Van Alystne to represent House District 62 in North Texas.
House District 62 includes Grayson, Fannin, and portions of Delta and Franklin counties.
Smith, who has served in the Texas House since 2018, is part of the House leadership team, serving as chair of the House Election Committee under House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont). As chair, Smith either slow-walked or killed several Republican priority measures addressing election security.
Smith’s record from the past year also includes voting to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton—who was later acquitted by the Senate—and voting against school choice legislation.
Luther, who made state and national headlines in 2020 when she was jailed after refusing to close her salon during the COVID-19 shutdowns, said previously she looks forward to working with the governor to pass school choice this next session.
Allison voted with Democrats to strip a school choice measure from a school spending measure.
His opposition to school choice drew the ire of Gov. Greg Abbott, who endorsed LaHood.
During Allison’s two terms, he has earned an “F” rating on the Fiscal Responsibility Index for his votes on fiscal issues. He was also one of the 60 Republican House members who voted to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Belton mom and pro-family advocate Hillary Hickland has won the Republican Primary Election for House District 55, unseating incumbent State Rep. Hugh Shine of Temple.
HD 55 encompasses part of Bell County.
School Choice has defined the HD 55 race, as Shine voted against Gov. Greg Abbott’s proposed school choice package.
Hickland meanwhile accumulated endorsements from Abbott, former President Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas Home School Coalition, and Young Conservatives of Texas.
Businessman Matt Morgan has defeated State Rep. Jacey Jetton of Richmond in the Republican Primary.
House District 26 includes part of Fort Bend County.
The failed impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton featured prominently in the race.
Jetton was among the Republicans who voted to impeach Paxton.
Morgan—who fell short to Jetton in a runoff in 2020—quickly earned the endorsement of Paxton. He also had the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, who called Jetton a “liberal.”
During his two terms in office, Jetton earned an “F” rating on the Fiscal Responsibility Index for his votes on fiscal issues.
State Rep. Justin Holland (R-Rockwall) and challenger Katrina Pierson will duke it out for another three months after neither eclipsed 50 percent, both advancing to the runoff.
The pair were neck and neck in the Rockwall County and Collin County portions of the district.
Holland’s clash with Pierson and London was highly-anticipated. Pierson has the largest profile of any challenger in this 2024 primary, having served as a Donald Trump campaign spokeswoman in 2016. On top of that, London challenged Holland in the 2022 primary, giving him some level of ballot name ID.
Despite that Trump affiliation, Pierson was omitted from the former president’s endorsement list in Texas races.
The incumbent found himself in the political right’s crosshairs after three consequential votes: impeaching Attorney General Ken Paxton, striking down Gov. Greg Abbott’s school choice plan, and advancing through committee a proposal to raise the age of purchasing certain semi-automatic rifles to 21.
Holland far outraised and outspent his two opponents, who combined raised $337,000 to the incumbent’s $1.2 million.
He was the beneficiary of around $170,000 from Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont), $225,000 from the Charles Butt Public Education PAC, $50,000 from the casino group Texas Sands PAC, $40,000 from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, and $115,000 from the Associated Republicans of Texas.
Mitch Little, Ken Paxton’s impeachment lawyer, appears to have won Texas House District 65 over incumbent Kronda Thimesch . “Little, with Paxton’s backing, defeated State Rep. Kronda Thimesch, who had the backing of Governor Greg Abbott, by about 300 votes.” Which means a recount is likely.
In Texas House District 1, Chris Spencer forced incumbent Gary Vandeaver into a runoff, with less than 2.5% separating them.
Helen Kerwin takes a seven point lead over incumbent DeWayne Burns into the Texas House District 58 runoff, and only missed an outright win by 1.2%. Kirwin was also endorsed by President Trump.
Challenger Keresa Richardson takes a seven point lead over incumbent Frederick Frazier into the Texas House District 61 runoff. Looks like I’ll have to wait until May to use the “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!” joke…
Given the usual run of only one or two incumbents getting knocked off in primaries (and those usually involved in prominent scandals), having 17 reps meet that fate is a political earthquake on par with Newt Gingrich-lead Republicans capturing the House after 40 years of Democratic rule in 1994. All the outside gambling and other special interest money was on the Phelan Axis side, and they still got stomped. I credit this in large measure to Trump, Paxton, Abbott and Cruz getting involved in statehouse races.
The Phelan Axis decided that killing school choice and the Paxton impeachment were the hills they wanted to die on, and a large number of them did.
But not every rep who voted for the Paxton impeachment and/or against school choice lost or got taken to a runoff:
Keith Bell defeated Joshua Feuerstein in District 3.
Cole Hefner defeated Jeff Fletcher in District 5.
Jay Dean defeated Joe McDaniel in District 7.
Cody Harris stomped Jaye Curtis in District 8.
Trent Ashby thumped Paulette Carson.
Steve Toth defeated Skeeter Hubert in District 15.
Stan Gerdes beat Tom Glass in District 17.
Ellen Troxclair won against Kyle Biedermann in District 19.
Terry Wilson beat Elva Chapa in District 20.
Greg Bonnen destroyed Larissa Ramirez in District 24.
Gary Gates beat Dan Mathews in District 28.
Ben Bumgarner won a three-way race in District 63.
Matt Shaheen beat Wayne Richard in District 66.
Jeff Leach beat Daren Meis in District 67.
David Spiller beat Kerri Kingsbery in District 68.
Stan Lambert beat Liz Case in District 71.
Drew Darby defeated Stormy Bradley in District 72.
Dustin Burrows defeated Wade Cowan 2-1 in District 83.
Stan Kitzman defeated Tim Greeson by a similar margin in District 85.
John Smithee defeated Jamie Haynes in District 86.
Ken King walloped Karen Post in District 88.
Candy Noble edged Abraham George in District 89.
Giovanni Capriglione beat Brad Schofield in District 98.
Charlie Geren defeated Jack Reynolds in District 99.
Morgan Meyer edged Barry Wernick in District 108.
Angie Chen Button decisively Chad Carnahan in District 112.
Briscoe Cain stomped Bianca Gracia in District 128.
Mano Deayala defeated John Perez in District 133.
Lacey Hull defeated Jared Woodfill in District 138.
That’s 31 Republican reps that could theoretically reconstitute the Phelan axis, but I’m not sure they have the stomach for it.
Of those, Bell, Dean, Lambert, Darby, King and Geren were the only ones to vote both for the Paxton impeachment and against school choice. Michael Quinn Sullivan (who I’m pretty sure is ecstatic at the numbers of Phelan enablers taken down yesterday) has identified Burrows and Harris as the two most likely Phelan axis members to attempt to take the gavel next year, and Geren and Capriglione have always struck me as among the biggest supporters of the axis. But a lot of those other names strike me as “soft” axis supporters who might be persuaded to support an actual Republican for speaker, least the same fate befall them as all the other Phelan backers taken down.
All in all, it was a very, very good day for Texas conservatives.
Brandon Herrera, a YouTube influencer with a focus on firearms, has announced that he is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales for Texas’ congressional district 23 seat.
Herrera, who has over 2 million YouTube subscribers, had been hinting towards a congressional run for weeks on his YouTube channel. He previously made an appearance at a congressional hearing earlier this year after being invited by U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) to testify against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Congressional District 23 is a rural, majority-Hispanic area that encompasses western San Antonio and contains a large span of the Texas-Mexico border—including Uvalde, Eagle Pass, and El Paso county.
Herrera first announced his run at the Young Americans for Liberty conference and then in a YouTube video.
“Several Republicans who swore to defend gun rights, to protect borders, just in general, putting the rights and interests of the American people above their own, turn their back on these values,” Herrera said.
“There can be no more incumbent politicians who vote time and time again against the interests of the American people without fear of losing their positions,” he continued.
Herrera calls himself a “Second Amendment absolutist” and has repeatedly criticized Gonzales for being the sole Texas Republican member of the U.S. House to vote for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a Biden-backed law meant to enact stricter background checks for gun purchases.
Here’s his campaign announcement (which looks like it was filmed in a hotel room):
“I have a deep love for the values that this country was founded on, the ideas of freedom of self-governance. You see, America was never supposed to be the country that gave you everything you always wanted. It was simply a place that gave you the freedom and the opportunity to chase those things for yourself to pursue happiness to build great things.”
“I’m working with groups like The Firearms Policy Coalition, National Association for Gun Rights, and Gun Owners of America.” Notice who’s missing?
“Tony Gonzalez claimed to be in favor of gun rights, but he voted in favor of Biden’s post-Uvalde gun control and claims he would do it again.”
And here he is at Young Americans for Liberty:
“ATF is out of control.”
“They are a regulatory body that does not have the Constitutional authority to write the law, yet they write the law. They’re banning FRTs [forced reset triggers], they’re banning arm braces, they’re banning bump stocks. All things, I will remind you, comply to the letter of the law and were actually previously approved by the ATF for sale.”
“The American experiment was about having the freedom to be who you want to be, to live how you want to live to do what you want to do. Unless that means you want to fuck kids. That’s that’s when the wood chipper gets hungry.”
Here’s his website. His six highlighted issues (gun rights, immigration, budget deficits, censorship, leftwing control of education and abortion) are all solidly conservative, but he might want to throw up paragraphs about the lousy Biden economy and protecting the oil and gas industry (TX-23 includes big chunks of Eagle Ford and Permian Basin fields).
Herrera is one of the biggest gun bloggers in Texas, but sometimes it’s difficult to translate “internet famous” into electoral success. (In 2015, Fark’s Drew Curtis drew a paltry 3.7% of the vote as an independent in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race.)
On the other hand, Second Amendment rights are a hot-button issue for Texas Republican voters, and Herrera has just under 3 million subscribers on YouTube. If 1/10th of them sent him $5 each, his campaign would have enough money to run a competative race.
TX-23 used to be a full-blown swing district, with Will Hurd and Gonzalez winning by narrow margins, but it’s gotten redder thanks to redistricting and a Hispanic swing toward the GOP thanks to Biden’s feckless border policies. Swing districts tend to produce squishy congressmen like Hurd and Gonzalez.
Pretty much nothing about Herrera makes me think he’d be squishy.
Remember the U.S. Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon, AKA the XM-5, AKA the XM-7, AKA 6.8 x 51mm? Brandon Herrera has managed to get Sig Saur to send him the prototype of the new weapon (the Sig Spear) to test, and…he has some reservations.
The caveat here is that this is not an actual 6.8 x 51mm XM-7, it’s chambered in 308 Winchester/7.62 x 51mm (two calibers that are extremely close but not exactly the same), so the ballistics and operation are likely to be slightly different. (To make matters worse, the civilian version of the round is being marketed as 277 Fury. As far as I can tell from looking at Gunbroker, 277 Fury ammunition is available now, but models of the Sig Sauer MCX Spear chambered for the round aren’t yet on the civilian market.)
Pros:
Short stroke piston doesn’t need a buffer tube, meaning that the gun can have a folding stock. “Actually pretty cool.”
Decent trigger.
“This little right side bolt release here. Kind of a fan. Feels a little flimsy, but I like the placement.”
Left side fold-out charging handle is good.
“Hand guard here offers a lot of space to mount whatever shit you want.”
Two gas settings.
Silencer works (even if not hearing-safe quality).
Likes the flat dark earth (FDE) finish. “In my opinion, it’s a pretty sweet looking gun.”
“Gun recoil impulse not bad.”
“Running it suppressed it’s not that gassy.”
Very reliable, at least over the initial 200 rounds.
The cons:
“It’s fucking heavy, dude!…Unloaded it comes in at 8.9 pounds. For reference that is one full pound, or 13% heavier, than a full-size SCAR 17, which is also a semi-automatic 308 with a 20 round magazine.”
Folding aside, the stock isn’t great and wants to slip.
“This charging handle in the back is borderline fucking unusable. It feels, really flimsy, like I feel like I’m gonna fucking break it. And it’s stiff. It is so
fucking stiff! ‘How stiff is it, Brandon?’ Joe Biden in a room full of school kids.”
Potentially the biggest combat problem: Overinsertion of the magazine. “If you put too much force on the magazine when you’re inserting it, you will actually run up past the magazine release and get the weapon jammed.” Yeah, that sounds like a huge problem, and Sig needs to get that fixed ASAP.
The spring is a bit hard to get back in.
Super expensive right now.
From the comments on the video: “The fact that he’s actually able to unironically hold up a Scar 17 as a lighter, more affordable option is just batshit insane.”
Yeah, looks like Sig needs some more work here before it’s ready to field…
“AK Guy” Brandon just dropped the fourth installment of his “Weird Guns Being Used in Ukraine Right Now” on YouTube, showing some of the funky, modified, and just plain ancient weapons be used in active combat there. The first installment is age limited and non-embeddable, but the other three are below.
Highlights:
Both sides are using he original Maxim belt-fed machine guns, a World War I mainstay “patented in 1883. Timeline-wise this weapon was designed closer to the beginning of the American revolution in 1776 than it was to the current Ukrainian conflict.”
PKM machine guns taken off armored vehicles and converted for individual use. Which is more difficult than it sounds, since the firing mechanism is triggered by an electric solenoid. “They had to rig up an entirely new firing system to rig up to these things, and quickly, and frankly I’m impressed. Ghetto gunsmith to ghetto gunsmith, crisp internet high five.”
Chechen soldiers (assuming there are any of them still around) are better equipped than Russian soldiers.
“You’re seeing all sorts of modern munitions, anti-armor stuff, aircraft drones. But then in the exact same confrontation, you’re also having guys that are carrying around weapons that are so old that their great grandfathers could have easily carried in the Great War to end all wars. And while the reality of war is obviously very tragic, the significance of some of the stuff being used in the field is extremely interesting.”
Highlights:
“Modified mortar RPG rounds…in guerrilla warfare, it’s always useful to have a couple of rednecks around.”
That ridiculous “six antipersonnel grenades attached to an RPG” thing.
“Some poor Ivan got handed a squirrel killer (a Chinese QB-57 single shot air rifle) and was thrown into the middle of 21st century combat with drones and tanks and was told good luck, have fun. It’s no wonder a lot of young Russian men are leaving the country rather than being conscripted…nothing says the government cares about your well-being quite like being tossed into fucking combat with a Red Ryder from A Christmas Story.”
Russia is also using World War II era DPM or DP-28 Degtyarev machine guns. “It’s basically like a PKM, if a PKM wasn’t belt fed and was instead fed by a pizza dish. It’s the closest thing to a full dinner plate most Soviets ever got to see.”
Other World War II era machine guns seeing combat: MP40s, Sturmgewehr (STG) 44s and MG 42s.
“There’s a lot of Russians now rolling around with
[American Thompson] .45 ACP submachine gun, AKA of course the Tommy Gun.” A legacy of Lend-Lease.
Plus: Anti-tank rifles! Including a PTRS-51 chamber in 14.5mm. “I guarantee you that shit will buttfuck the engine of any vehicle ever, as well as probably penetrate some of the light armor on some of the lightly armored armored personnel carriers.”
A suppressed Barrett M107, which is every bit as monstrously long (and no doubt heavy) as you would suspect.
Ukraine is also using everyone’s favorite space-alien looking FPS gun, the FN FS-2000.
Lots of ghetto gunsmithing.
A really funky glider with an RPG-7 on top. It actually looks slightly funkier than the flying yeet of death. Which comes next in the video.
Russians using old-fashioned sporting break action shotguns against drones.
More Maxims, including in duel, triple, and quad mounts. “We’re starting to get in the territory of like those mech things from Matrix Revolutions. [Now] we have something that is basically just a ghetto-rigged Minigun.”
If you’re interested in vintage, weird and improvised weapons, all the videos are worth taking a look at.
