Posts Tagged ‘Cook County’

LinkSwarm For November 1, 2024

Friday, November 1st, 2024

Happy Day of the Dead, AKA All Saints Day!

We’re in the last stretch of the 2024 campaign, Joe Rogan did a great interview with J. D. Vance, all sorts of sketchy voting problems surface, IDF dirtnaps another Hamas terrorist scumbbag, Nvidia replaces Intel, and influencers prioritize selfies over survival. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Joe Rogan did a really great interview with J.D. Vance. The Trump interview was good, but Trump did his usual looping and weaving thing. Vance comes across as not only smart and confident, but seems (unlike Kamala Harris) extremely comfortable in his own skin.
  • “Pennsylvania: Fraud scheme involving 2,500 voter registrations found in Lancaster County.”

    A large number of suspicious voter registration applications were dropped off at the county elections office near Monday’s deadline, county officials said. An investigation by the district attorney’s office found incorrect addresses, false identification information, false names and names that did not match Social Security information.

  • Shenanigans: “Kentucky County Clerk Confirms Voting Booth ‘Glitch’ Shifted Trump Votes To Kamala.”
  • A victory. “Supreme Court Allows Virginia to Remove Noncitizens from Voter Rolls before Election.”
  • “More States Join Fight Against Biden-Harris Lawsuit Preventing Removal of Non-citizen Voters.”
  • Colorado secretary of state Jena Griswold, the same official who tried to kick Trump off the ballot, “inadvertently” leaked voting machine passwords in public spreadsheet.”
  • Trump leads in every swing state.
  • More Biden-Harris economic magic: “US Manufacturing Survey Hits 16-Month-Lows.”
  • “The Harris Campaign Is Testament to the Toxicity of Woke Politics.”

    We’ve passed the peak of woke politics in the U.S., and the Harris for president campaign is the leading indicator.

    Of all the things that Kamala Harris wants you to know about her — that she grew up in a middle-class family, that she’s not Joe Biden, that she has a “to-do list” for the American people — perhaps foremost among them is that she’s not woke.

    She doesn’t have any rote line asserting this, but achieving distance from the fashionable left-wing politics that defined the Trump years and their immediate aftermath motivates much of what she says and does.

    That Harris now feels compelled to disavow so many of the ideas that she once embraced is powerful testament to their political toxicity.

    An idea has won or lost in American politics when both parties favor or oppose it, or simply don’t want to fight over it anymore. Ronald Regan’s economics truly prevailed when the Democratic Party, via Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, accepted his basic approach. Gay marriage won politically when Republicans decided to stop talking about the issue.

    By this standard, woke attitudes and policies are in marked decline, and Kamala Harris is Exhibit A.

    Except for her abortion radicalism, she’s turned her back on much of what she once professed to believe or sympathize with.

    Defund the police? Absolutely not.

    Abolish ICE? No way.

    DEI? Haven’t heard of it.

    Medicare for all? That was a long time ago.

    The Green New Deal? Let’s not get carried away.

    She has backed off her extravagant positions on the trans issue and the border. She now insists that rather than pushing the envelope on either, she simply wants to follow the law. You could be forgiven for thinking the only pronouns she knows are she/her and he/him.

    Harris doesn’t bring up identity politics at all. Not only does she not talk about the once-ubiquitous concepts of white privilege or “equity,” she doesn’t even talk about breaking the glass ceiling or the history-making nature of her candidacy. Listening to her campaign, you’d have no idea that the twin -isms, racism and sexism, have been consuming obsessions of the Left for years now.

    But if she gets elected, just like Obama, she’ll abandon all of her moderate positions and rush back to her radical roots.

  • Harris campaign pulls $2 million in ad money out of North Carolina.
  • “Donald Trump says he’ll task Elon Musk with auditing the entire federal government.”

    Former President Donald Trump says that if reelected, he’ll create a government efficiency task force — and that Elon Musk has already agreed to lead it. During a speech in New York on Thursday, Trump said the new efficiency commission would conduct a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and make recommendations for “drastic reforms.”

    I hope Musk gets out a big axe and that the Trump Administration actually balances the budget. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)

  • The Green New Scam is dying. Color me skeptical as long as there’s graft to rake off…
  • Speaking of which: “Up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for, Oxfam finds.” This is my shocked face.
  • Who watches the watchmen? “Eagle Pass Detective Sentenced to 10 Years for Hiding Illegal Aliens in Rental Properties. Hazel Eileen Diaz ran stash houses for a human smuggling organization.”
  • Al Qaeda just killed 600 civilians in Burkina Faso.
  • Analysis shows that Israel hit Iran’s former nuclear weapons test and missile production facilities.
  • Another Hamas bigwig dirtnapped:

    The IDF eliminated Hamas’s National Relations head Izz al-Din Kassab on Friday in Khan Yunis, Gaza, who was also one of the last remaining members of the terrorist organization’s political bureau still inside the Palestinian enclave.

    The strike that killed Kassab was completed based on IDF and ISA intelligence. His assistant Ayman Ayesh was also killed in the strike.

    He was also responsible for Hamas’s relations and cooperation, whether strategic or military, with other terrorist organizations within the Gaza Strip such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Ukrainian drones hit Spetznaz Special Forces University in Chechnya.
  • The IRS is still retaliating against the Hunter Biden whistleblower.
  • Poland shuts down a Russian consulate citing sabotage.
  • The rise and fall of China’s “mistress villages.” Bonus: The Hong Kong businessmen who used to keep mistresses in Shinjin are now evidently buying houses for a new generation of them in the Rowland Heights area of Los Angeles…
  • Another day, another released illegal alien killing an American citizen in a DUI.
  • Rapper and big money Cook County Democratic Party donator Lil Durk, AKA Durk Devontay Banks, has been arrested in a murder-for-hire scheme against a fellow rapper. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Sewage explosion turns Moscow into a literal shit show.
  • TGI Fridays closes 49 locations. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • In their ongoing quest to make YouTube completely unusable, they’re thinking of removing date, time and view counts.
  • Texas A&M sticks their money in Commie Chinese companies.

    Records show the investment arm of two major Texas universities bought shares in more than 50 Chinese companies.

    On September 23, the American Accountability Foundation exposed how the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company’s asset managers advanced leftist ideology through their shareholder resolutions.

    On October 17, UTIMCO President and CEO Richard Hall told state senators that he was “not happy with those votes” and the firm “would do better.”

    However, a deeper dive into the records AAF acquired also revealed concerning investments. According to records, UTIMCO has invested money in Chinese companies.

    UTIMCO allocated some of its assets to the following entities: Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management, JP Morgan Asset Management, and Acadian Asset Management. The three asset managers participated in shareholder votes in China-based companies, revealing the UTIMCO investments in these businesses.

    In October 2023, Connor, Clark & Lunn participated in a shareholder vote for Topsec Technologies Group, a China-based cyber security company. Reuters reported that Topsec provides “network security products, big data products, and cloud services to customers in various industries such as government, finance, operators, energy, health, education, transportation, and manufacturing.”

    There were shareholder votes for Huaneng Power International, Inc., a power company that boasts of being “one of the largest listed power producers” in China. Their parent company is China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd., which owns more than 50 percent of HPI shares. According to their website, the company is “a key state-owned company established with the approval of the [China] State Council.”

    In December 2023, the management company Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management voted 19 times for electing various individuals as directors or supervisors of the Chinese company.

    Snip.

    AAF records showed other investments into China by UTIMCO fund managers, including BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd., Opple Lighting Co., Ltd., and LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd.

  • Teacher certification cheating ring exposed.

    A million-dollar cheating ring resulted in at least 210 unqualified teachers, including two sexual predators, receiving teacher certifications. The ring was exposed this week after the Harris County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against five individuals involved.

    The alleged ringleader is Vincent Grayson, the head boys basketball coach at Houston’s Booker T. Washington High School.

    Also charged are Tywana Gilford Mason, the teacher certification test proctor; Nicholas Newton, an assistant principal who served as the proxy test-taker; Darian Nikole Wilhite, another proctor; and LaShonda Roberts, an assistant principal at Yates High School who helped recruit would-be teachers.

    All are charged with two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity.

    Allegedly, candidates seeking certification would pay Grayson $2,500. He would then give a 20 percent portion to Gilford Mason, who would then allow Newton to sit for the test under the teacher’s name. The candidates would be given a testing time and location by Gilford Mason, then show up, sign in, and leave. Newton would then arrive and take the test for them.

    And now the unqualified teachers who got in on this scheme are out there teaching children…

  • Sony shuts down studio that released disastrous $400 million woke shooter Concord.

  • Speaking of which, Dragon Age: Veilguard has an unskipable cutscreen that lectures you on pronouns.
  • Dropbox lays off 20% of global workforce.
  • Big news for your portfolio: “Nvidia To Replace Intel In The Dow Jones Industrial Average.” Nvidia has certainly been on a tear as of late, but if Intel hadn’t screwed up their sub 10nm process, this wouldn’t be happening.
  • It would take a heart of stone not to laugh. “These influencers refused to wear life jackets on a yacht because it would ruin their selfies. They drowned when their boat sank.”
  • Jazz Shaw, RIP.
  • Wizards of the Coast is trying to rip off artist Donato Giancola.
  • Though Halloween is over, this is horrifying enough.
  • Speaking of Halloween, you can find all the Halloween posts on my other blog here.
  • “In Devastating Blow To Democrats, Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Following The Law.”
  • “Trump Holds Most Ethnically Diverse, Pro-Israel Nazi Rally In History.”
  • Ghost dogs!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Global Warming, Jihad, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    Are Chicago Citizens Tired Of Ranking Lower On Democratic Party Priorities Than Illegal Aliens?

    Thursday, October 19th, 2023

    Have Chicago residents finally had enough of rankling lower on the totem pole than the illegal aliens that seem a top priority of the Democratic Party?

    “You want to take the little scraps of resources that we have and put us at the bottom of the bar? That’s not fair!”

  • “Illinois warns to prepare for up to 25 buses of migrants a day as state pleads for help from the federal government. And now the good people of the city of Chicago have had enough.”
  • “Now the good people of the city of Chicago have had enough and said this needs to stop, and these woke policies of open borders and ‘we want to be a sanctuary city’ needs to end.”
  • Illinois is one 11 states that have declared themselves a “sanctuary state,” i.e. they passed laws prohibiting some forms of cooperation with ICE and won’t hold the fact that they’re illegal aliens against them when doling out government welfare state goodies.
  • Under Lori Lightfoot, the city would actually interfere with ICE conducting raids.
  • Other Democrats, like Senator Dick Durbin, were all on-board with the pro-illegal alien agenda.
  • “Now, because of Chicago’s love of immigrants and welcoming nature, Texas was like ‘Well, hey, if the immigrants are coming here and you guys want the immigrants and we don’t want them, let’s just send them to you. You guys can obviously take care of the millions and millions of immigrants coming across the border.’ So they started bussing immigrants to Chicago.”
  • Naturally Lightfoot called Abbott’s bussing strategy “racist” and “Xenophobic.”
  • “Guess what’s going on in Chicago now? Well, it’s turned into a quote unquote migrant crisis, and now the governor is asking the federal government to step in and ‘Stop! We have too many! We have too many! It was okay when it was going on in Texas, but it’s going on in Illinois and we need money, resources, and the border to be closed!'”
  • “The governor directly asked President Biden to intervene in the border busing program that has brought thousands of migrants to Chicago. He went on to call the situation ‘untenable’ and again asked for expedited work authorizations. He said the state is struggling to find more housing for the migrants as tensions rise throughout the city.”
  • “In Chicago, you have poor black and brown people who are American citizens, and they needed help and weren’t getting the help from the city. But now the city all of a sudden can spend tens of millions of dollars on illegal immigrants coming to the city to shelter them, house them, feed them and clothe them. So the city residents are like ‘What the hell, bro? What about us? We’ve already been here! This is ridiculous!'”
  • “The Southside has been underresourced, underfunded for years for decades. We have schools that need to be reopened, we have buildings that are abandoned that need to be business operated.” Yet I’m willing to be that during those years and decades of underfunding, you and your friends kept pulling that “D” lever no matter what. And Democrats know you’re not going to stop voting for them, so why should they work to solve your problems when they know they’ll get your vote anyway?
  • “The true kicker here is because people who live in Chicago who are poor who don’t have those resources are wondering ‘Well, hell, when I’m homeless here in Chicago, they weren’t building new tent cities for me, they weren’t putting me in hotels.’ It was kind of like well, be damned good luck to you, but now you get somebody coming from Venezuela, now we’re opening up the pocketbook for them?”
  • “The people of Chicago seem to be finally waking up. But we’ll only see when there’s the next election because, are they going to vote for this mayor? Are they going to vote for this city council? Because those are the people who are screwing them.”

    • Of course those are the people who are screwing them. And of course they’re going to vote for them again. Their entire focus seems to be “Other people are getting goodies from the government, and I want those goodies!” Not: “How can I make safer communities for private enterprise to invest in and provide jobs?”

    Those people will never stop voting for Democrats. And Democrats know it. So they have no incentive to dispense crumbs from their graft machine when there are new victimhood identity politics groups to pander to.

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Economics, Texas, Welfare State | 6 Comments »

    Crime Is Rising In America Because George Soros Wants It To Rise

    Monday, December 6th, 2021

    We’ve covered George Soros’ baleful effect on American law and order many times before, and will no doubt again. But the Daily Mail has published this handy piece about how Soros-backed DAs have led to spiraling crime rates in deep blue cities:

    Billionaire Democrat donor George Soros has bankrolled District Attorneys in America’s most crime ravaged cities, where criminals are being allowed to walk out of jail on low cash bonds or aren’t even being charged.

    Soros, the most prolific Democratic donor, is most known for giving to Presidents Clinton and Obama but he has also been pumping money into a far-left effort to overhaul the criminal justice system by giving millions to a network of woke prosecutors in Democratic races.

    Among them is Kim Foxx, the State’s Attorney for Cook County, Chicago, where murder is at its highest in nearly 30 years.

    In 2020, Soros donated $2 million to a PAC that backed Foxx in her re-election campaign. She won the race and has since offered deferred prosecutions and softball deals to criminals.

    In 2021, there were more murders in Chicago than in any other year since 1994.

    There have been more than 1,000 murders in Cook County, Foxx’s district, this year.

    Soros bolstered her re-election campaign by donating to the Illinois Justice and Public Safety PAC.

    Attorney Buta Biberaj is refusing to recuse herself from the case to remove School Board Chair Brenda Sheridan, despite what district parents say is an apparent conflict of interest.

    Fight for Schools, the parent organization that filed to remove Sheridan, has now also filed a petition to remove Biberaj – who received a $861,039 contribution from the George Soros-funded Justice and Public Safety PAC during her 2019 election – from the case.

    Ian Prior, executive director of the group, claimed Biberaj was ‘very involved in two of the very serious incidents’ that were catalysts for the push for Sheridan’s recall.

    He said Loudoun County residents need to know the case will be handled fairly and that Biberaj’s involvement makes that nearly impossible.

    ‘It is necessary to have faith that the prosecutor in this removal proceeding has no actual or perceived conflicts, that she will go where the evidence takes her, and litigate this case with appropriate prosecutorial zeal,’ Prior told Fox News.

    ‘In this case, Commonwealth Attorney Biberaj was very involved in two of the very serious incidents that gave rise to the recall. There is simply no way that the people of Loudoun County can be confident in a fair process for the removal of Brenda Sheridan unless Ms. Biberaj either recuses herself, or is disqualified based on her conflicts of interest, and an independent prosecutor is appointed by the Court.’

    The PAC spent over $500,000 on materials to damage one of her challengers. It’s a pattern that can be seen in other parts of the country.

    He has also donated to PACs that support Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who is being widely condemned for not cracking down on shoplifters and violent criminals.

    Soros has also donated to the campaign of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

    He donated $1.7 million to Krasner’s campaign, according to The New York Post.

    Soros also donated to Super PACS that prop up Democratic prosecutors and politicians across Republican states.

    Republican pundits say he has blood on his hands now for the deaths of innocent people like those killed at the Waukesha Christmas Parade by Darrell Brooks, a career criminal who had been bonded out of jail days earlier for other crimes.

    In 2016, Soros pumped $3million into seven local district-attorney campaigns including races in Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas.

    That includes Austin’s Jose Garza.

    Larry Krasner, a 60-year-old longtime civil rights and defense attorney who sued the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times, won election in 2017 against a crowded field by billing himself as the outsider candidate capable of making radical change.

    Krasner’s campaign benefitted from the largesse of controversial Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, who poured an eye-popping $1,7million into the race to support the Democratic candidate’s criminal justice reform agenda.

    Under Krasner, the future years of incarceration have been cut by half, and the length of parole in probation supervision have been slashed by nearly two-thirds compared to the previous DA.

    Krasner, who previously defended Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia protesters as a lawyer, has clashed with the city’s top cops over his reluctance to prosecute non-violent gun and drug possession crimes, despite a surge in gun violence and rising homicide rates in the City of Brotherly Love.

    As of November 21, 2021, there have been 491 homicide victims, a 14 per cent increase from last year’s number of 436, and 283 in 2019.

    The Philadelphia Police Department and Krasner have been at loggerheads over a steep drop in convictions related to gun offenses.

    This year, police in Philadelphia have made a record number of arrests for illegal gun possession, but the suspects’ chances of getting convicted have dropped from 63 per cent in 2017 down to 49 per cent in 2021, according to an analysis by the Philadelphia Inquirer published in March.

    Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw was previously quoted as saying that Philadelphia’s criminal justice system has become a ‘revolving door’ for repeat gun offenders since Krasner was sworn into office in January 2018.

    Krasner has blamed the decrease on police submitting weaker evidence in cases, or on witnesses failing to show up in court to testify.

    The progressive Democrat DA has contended that his main focus is on convicting people who use guns to kill or hurt others, not those who are caught being in possession of the weapons.

    Krasner’s office has argued that there is little evidence that suspects accused of being in possession of guns are responsible for the uptick in gun violence.

    Compared to the previous DA term, Krasner’s has imposed 24,000 fewer years of incarceration and 102,000 fewer years of supervised probation or parole since 2018.

    We covered some of Krasner’s follies here.

    Other Soros-backed DAs include:

  • Kim Ogg (Harris County)
  • Joe Gonzalez (Bexar County)
  • Chesa Boudin (San Francisco)
  • Kim Gardner (St. Louis County)
  • Mike Schmidt (Multnomah County (Portland))
  • Rachael Rollins (Suffolk County, MA)

    • There are probably several I’ve missed. (Feel free to add them in the comments below.)

    The question remains: How does Soros benefit from raising crime rates in Democratic Party-controlled cities? What is the endgame?

    I’ve seen various theories, but I want to throw it open to readers as well. Feel free to share your thoughts and theories in the comments below.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 12 Comments »

    Pending House Races Update

    Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

    National Journal updates the state of play in the House races that still haven’t been decided yet.

    Short version:

    • California 11: Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney holds a 628-vote lead over Republican David Harmer, but not all ballots from Republican-leaning locales have been counted yet.
    • California 20 Republican Andy Vidak leads Democratic incumbent Jim Costa by a mere 145 votes.
    • Illinois 8: Republican Joe Walsh leads Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean, which should hold up unless Cook County cooks up some fraud (and when has that ever happened?).
    • Kentucky 6: Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler leads Republican Andy Barr by 649 votes, recanvass starts next week
    • New York 1: Republican Randy Altschuler leads Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop by either 392 votes or 383 votes.
    • New York’s 25: Republican Ann Marie Buerkle leads Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei by 659 votes, but there are still ballots to be counted.
    • Texas 27: Republican Blake Farenthold leads Democratic incumbent Solomon Ortiz by 792 votes, with only 736 overseas and provisional ballots left to count. Ortiz wants a manual recount.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »