Greetings! Welcome to an extra-late Friday LinkSwarm! I had a doctor’s appointment and have been running behind all day. This week: #BlackLivesMatter activists raking off that sweet, sweet graft, mainstream media keeps up its assault on independent thought, and a bunch of Texas news.
Hustling the rubes for #BlackLivesMatter Dane-geld must really pay well for “trained Marxist” Patrisse Khan-Cullors, because she just bought herself a $1.4 million home in an exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood where “the vast majority of residents are white.” Evidently disdaining “whiteness” is for .
Cullors isn’t the only BLM biggie buying houses on the grift. The FBI arrested Toledo, Ohio #BlackLivesMatter activist Sir Maejor Page for allegedly spending “over $200,000 on personal items generated from donations received through BLMGA Facebook page with no identifiable purchase or expenditure for social or racial justice” and is facing “federal wire fraud and money laundering charges for allegedly spending the money on tailored suits, a home in Ohio, and guns.”
I am suing Twitter for defamation because they said I, James O’Keefe, ‘operated fake accounts.’” O’Keefe wrote in an emailed statement to The Federalist. “This is false, this is defamatory, and they will pay. Section 230 may have protected them before, but it will not protect them from me. The complaint will be filed Monday.”
The discovery process for that is going to be lit…
Speaking of censorship, the Epoch Times had to suspend printing of its Hong Kong edition after its presses were busted up. For the fourth time.
“NYT Journalist Erases ENTIRE Twitter After National Pulse Unearths Posts Admitting “Working For The Chinese Communist Party.” That would be one Jonah K. Kessel.
There are three main elements in what @nytimes reporter @farnazfassihi does which infuriates Iranian people.
1. She consistently spreads misinformation regarding Iran. All this misinfo is in one direction: whitewashing the IR regime's actions against its people. Examples follow.
2. She has blocked almost all Iranians who may point out the falsehood of the information she spreads. She used to do that on any instance of noting the lies. But as I will show below, she is now using a bot to block ANY mention of her name in Persian.#NYTimesPropaganda
Public officials across the country are only now discovering the foreseeable consequences of these decisions. City legislatures are realizing that in their attempt to make life better for marginalized groups, they have only contributed to the disproportionate hardships they already face. As it becomes apparent that moves to defund the police have exacerbated criminality, some local authorities are reversing cuts to police budgets passed last year amid much radical breast-beating but without much thought for who would bear the likely consequences.
Minneapolis is the epicentre of the defund movement—the city in which George Floyd died last May as he was being taken into police custody. In spite of a spike in crime there in 2020, including a 70 percent increase in homicides, the Minneapolis City Council decided in December to redistribute $8 million from the police budget to other violence prevention services. At the time, Mayor Jacob Frey said there were “good reasons to be optimistic about the future in Minneapolis.” The move to reallocate funds away from the police department was proclaimed a “Safety for All” plan by its supporters. Unfortunately, it has made the streets of Minneapolis considerably less safe. In the first three weeks of 2021, Minneapolis saw a 250 percent increase in gunshot wound victims from the same time last year.
“Texas Supreme Court Delivers Dallas Salon Owner Shelley Luther a Delayed Victory.” “The remaining five days in jail and $7,000 fine ordered by the district court is now off the table entirely.”
Until Biden came along, every single covid-19 relief bill was approved with overwhelming bipartisan support in both houses. Congress passed three covid relief packages in March 2020 with margins of 96-1, 90-8, and 96-0 in the Senate, and with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House. This was followed in April by the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which passed 388-5 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate. Indeed, the votes were so bipartisan that Democrats blocked another covid relief package until after Election Day — because they did not want to let President Donald Trump claim credit for another bipartisan victory before voters went to the polls. But after he lost and they finally allowed another covid bill to come up for a vote in December, it passed both houses of Congress with similar margins.
Yeah, but bipartisan doesn’t curry favor with the hard left who want massive graft payoffs and total control.
Former Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was arrested on Class A Misdemeanor Assault Family Violence charges in Dallas after a scuffle over a laptop. “Hotel management told police officers that the woman was assaulted by Dewhurst. Officers spoke with the woman who said that Dewhurst was boarding a bus when the woman remembered that she had his laptop. It was a shared laptop that they both had access to, the affidavit said.” I wonder if the woman is the same 40-year old “live-in girlfriend” Leslie Caron who allegedly broke two of his ribs last year. Also makes you wonder: 1. Just what was on that laptop, and 2. What Dewhurst, a man with a reported net worth of over $200 million, was doing riding a bus…
I want everybody who works hard and plays fair to prosper. I want everybody to be able to support themselves. But if you just pull the money out of midair you’re going to create other problems, like there is a ladder of success that people climb and some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour, in my view, they’re simply not intended to be careers.
The problem with Austin this time of year is that the air is just filled with pollen:
There is no doubt that part of the goal of Allen v. Farrow was to finish off both Allen’s career and his legacy by presenting a definitive guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. The filmmakers, aided by a mostly uncritical press, have undoubtedly won over a large segment of the public—those who come to this subject for the first time through their HBO subscriptions, or who aren’t inclined to question “survivors.” But for those of us who are familiar with the story, or who take the trouble to check it out, the effect is the opposite. If making the case against Allen requires his cultural prosecutors to weave this kind of intellectually dishonest, emotionally manipulative, selectively edited account of the underlying drama, then the case for acquittal becomes stronger, not weaker.
For some reason, WordPress is now putting random gaps between bullet points in the LinkSwarm, so I’m having to tinker with the look and feel a bit. I may even have to update to a more current version…
Why water heaters, dryers and freezers aren’t eligible I couldn’t tell you, but if you needed to get any covered appliances, this weekend is a good time.
There is no such evidence in the unmasking list that acting national intelligence director Richard Grenell provided to Senators Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.). I suspect that’s because General Flynn’s identity was not “masked” in the first place. Instead, his December 29 call with Kislyak was likely intercepted under an intelligence program not subject to the masking rules, probably by the CIA or a friendly foreign spy service acting in a nod-and-wink arrangement with our intelligence community.
“Unmasking” is a term of art for revealing in classified reports the names of Americans who have been “incidentally” monitored by our intelligence agencies. Presumptively, the names of Americans should be concealed in these reports, which reflect the surveillance of foreign targets, primarily under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Broadly speaking, FISA governs two kinds of intelligence collection.
The first is “traditional” FISA — the targeted monitoring of a suspected clandestine operative of a foreign power. If the FBI shows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) probable cause that a person inside the United States is acting as a foreign power’s agent, it may obtain a warrant to surveil that person. If the foreign power’s suspected agent communicates with Americans, the latter are incidentally intercepted even though they are not the targets of the surveillance.
The second kind of FISA collection occurs under Section 702 of the statute. It brings under FISC jurisdiction various intelligence-collection programs that target categories of non-Americans outside the United States. These foreigners also communicate with Americans, so the latter are incidentally intercepted.
Under federal law, both kinds of FISA collection are subject to so-called minimization procedures. These aim to safeguard the privacy of Americans who have been incidentally monitored. When raw intelligence is refined into intelligence reports (including transcripts of recorded conversations) that are disseminated to U.S. officials, the identities of these Americans do not appear. Rather, a designation such as “U.S. Person” is substituted — the “mask,” as it were.
If, upon reviewing intel reports, an official with national-security or foreign-relations responsibilities believes that the reporting is critical, and that the identity of the U.S. person must be known in order for our government to reap the full benefit of the intelligence, then that official may request unmasking. Decisions on such requests are made by specialists assigned to the agency that reported the intelligence in question — usually the FBI or the NSA for intelligence collected, respectively, inside or outside the United States. Our intelligence agencies, led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), keep records of these requests. This underscores that unmasking — because of its privacy implications, because foreign intelligence must never be a pretext for government spying on Americans — is a big deal that should be done only rarely and carefully.
With that as background, let’s get back to Flynn.
For three years, we’ve been led to believe that Flynn’s December 29 conversation with Kislyak was intercepted because the latter was “routinely” monitored. (Kislyak was replaced as ambassador in 2017.) That is, Kislyak was an overt agent of Russia, stationed at its embassy in Washington, so the FBI kept tabs on him. Indeed, the “routine”-surveillance story line was repeated by the New York Times just this week.
The implication is that Kislyak was probably subjected to traditional FISA surveillance by the FBI; or, since he lived in Russia and traveled to other places when not in America, perhaps he was also a FISA Section 702 target. In either event (or both), Kislyak was interacting with Americans, who were thus incidentally intercepted.
That, the story goes, is what must have happened to Flynn. Trump’s designated national security advisor was unmasked because, once intelligence agents intercepted the December 29 phone call, they decided it was essential to identify the person with whom the Russian ambassador was discussing sanctions that President Obama had just imposed against Moscow.
I no longer buy this story. If it were true, there would be a record of Flynn’s unmasking. DNI Grenell has represented that the list he provided to Senators Grassley and Johnson includes all requested unmaskings of Flynn from November 8, 2016 (when Donald Trump was elected president) through the end of January 2017 (when the Trump administration had transitioned into power). Yet, it appears that not a single listed unmasking pertains to the December 29 Kislyak call.
Timeline details and Strzok-Page comms snipped.
Well, the possibility that first leaps to mind is: Maybe Flynn was a FISA surveillance target. That is, his interception was not incidental. Rather, the FBI was monitoring him under FISA because he was a suspected agent of a foreign power — the theory based on which the bureau opened their counterintelligence investigation of Flynn in August 2016. But that can’t be right. After an exhaustive investigation of the FBI’s abuse of FISA, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there is no evidence the FBI “requested or seriously considered FISA surveillance of . . . Flynn.” (IG Report’s “Executive Summary,” p. vi.)
It is more likely, then, that the Flynn–Kislyak call was captured by intelligence operations that are not governed by FISA.
Snip.
Readers of my book Ball of Collusion know I have argued that the Obama administration’s Trump–Russia probe/political-narrative long predated the FBI’s July 2016 opening of “Crossfire Hurricane.” I believe there were several strands of the Trump–Russia probe, and that they trace back to 2015, around the time of Donald Trump’s entry into the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The CIA played a central role. The agency collaborated — I’m tempted to say colluded! — with a variety of friendly foreign intelligence services, especially NATO countries that Trump made a habit of bashing on the campaign trail.
Barack Obama warned his successor against hiring Michael Flynn. It was Nov. 10, 2016, just two days after Donald Trump upset Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States. Trump told aide Hope Hicks that he was bewildered by the president’s warning. Of all the important things Obama could have discussed with him, the outgoing commander in chief wanted to talk about Michael Flynn.
The question of why Obama was so focused on Flynn is especially revealing now. The Department of Justice recently filed to withdraw charges against the retired three-star general for making false statements to the FBI in a Jan. 24, 2017, interview regarding a phone call with a Russian diplomat. The circumstances surrounding the call and subsequent FBI interview have given rise to a vast conspiracy theory that was weaponized to imprison a decorated war hero and a strategic thinker whose battlefield innovations saved countless American lives. There is no evidence that Flynn “colluded” with Russia, and the evidence that Flynn did not make false statements to the FBI has been buried by the bureau, including current Director Christopher Wray.
So if the Obama administration wasn’t alarmed by Flynn’s nonexistent ties to Russia, why was he Obama’s No. 1 target? Why were officials from the previous administration intercepting his phone calls with the Russian ambassador?
The answer is that Obama saw Flynn as a signal threat to his legacy, which was rooted in his July 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Flynn had said long before he signed on with the Trump campaign that it was a catastrophe to realign American interests with those of a terror state. And now that the candidate he’d advised was the new president-elect, Flynn was in a position to help undo the deal. To stop Flynn, the outgoing White House ran the same offense it used to sell the Iran deal—they smeared Flynn through the press as an agent of a foreign power, spied on him, and leaked classified intercepts of his conversations to reliable echo chamber allies.
Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., criticized her own party’s coronavirus legislation this week as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pressured the Republican-controlled Senate to adopt what Porter described as a Democratic “wish list.”
“The HEROES Act is dead on arrival,” Porter said Tuesday, referring to the $3 trillion package the House passed last week as a follow-up to the CARES Act. Her comments during an online meeting hosted by the Tustin [Calif.] Democratic Club were first reported by the Washington Examiner.
“There was no bipartisan negotiation here and no effort at bipartisan negotiation,
Snip.
But tucked into the legislation are provisions that rankled the Republicans, including expanding $1,200 checks to certain undocumented immigrants, restoring the full State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT) that helps individuals in high-taxed blue states, a $25 billion rescue for the U.S. Postal Service, allowing legal marijuana businesses to access banking services and early voting and vote-by-mail provisions.
“I did find myself, Porter said, “on the House floor thinking [of] my Republican colleagues who said, ‘This bill is a Democratic wish list written by a handful of Democrats, and shoved down the throats of the rest of the Congress.’
Restoring SALT is a giveaway to blue state billionaires. Sounds like the marijuana banking part should be passed, but there’s no reason to cram it into a coronavirus relief bill. And the early voting and vote-by-mail provisions are designed to help further voting fraud. Speaking of which:
A former Judge of Elections in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has been charged and pleaded guilty to illegally adding votes for Democrat candidates in judicial races in 2014, 2015, and 2016.
On Thursday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against former Judge of Elections Domenick DeMuro, 73, for stuffing the ballot box for Democrats in exchange for payment by a paid political consultant.
The charges, and guilty plea, include conspiracy to deprive Philadelphia voters of their civil rights by fraudulently stuffing the ballot boxes for specific Democrat candidates in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections and a violation of the Travel Act.
“The Trump administration’s prosecution of election fraud stands in stark contrast to the total failure of the Obama Justice Department to enforce these laws,” Public Interest Legal Foundation President Christian Adams said in a statement. “Right now, other federal prosecutors are aware of cases of double voting in federal elections as well as noncitizen voting. Attorney General William Barr should prompt those other offices to do their duty and prosecute known election crimes.”
As Judge of Elections, DeMuro was paid to oversee the election process in the 39th Ward, which encompasses Philadelphia.
DeMuro’s guilty plea states that he was paid by a political consultant to illegally add votes for particular Democrat candidates in primary judicial races. The political consultant who allegedly paid DeMuro had been hired by those Democrat candidates.
According to the indictment, the political consultant allegedly solicited payments from Democrat candidates who hired him, classifying them as “consulting fees.” The payments — which ranged from $300 to $5,000 — were then allegedly used to pay Election Board Officials, such as DeMuro, in exchange for those officials illegally adding votes for the consultants’ Democrat candidates.
In addition to certifying fraudulent results to help Democrats, DeMuro also took a hands-on approach to voting fraud: “Demuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear.” (Hat tip: Chuck DeVore.)
Several posts here suggested that Sweden’s model of reaching herd immunity might be a better method than what we were doing. Now that the data is in: not so much. “Sweden becomes country with highest coronavirus death rate per capita.”
Speaking of data, the way media dashboards count the numbers are skewed high. “At the time of Colorado’s announcement on Friday, the CDC-definition tally, used in CNN’s “dashboard” and all the other media reports, stood at 1,150 statewide. But only 878 of those, more than 23 percent less, are identified as deaths due to COVID-19.”
CNN has staked out a position in its coverage of Wuhan virus that can only be explained in one way. They perceive a drawn-out lock down of America as something that will damage President Trump’s reelection chances and therefore it is something to be preserved. The move by a handful of governors to re-open their states to normal life despite the latest pronouncement from the latest M.D. or Ph.D. who fancies himself as Galactic Commander, threatens to reveal the Wuhan virus’s new clothing, so to speak. Therefore, anything that can be done to discredit the incontrovertible data that shows whatever threat Wuhan virus presented is now largely abated must be discredited.
More tests are being given, and the positives rate is actually declining.
Oregon’s Democratic governor Kate Brown: “No shopping in open counties for those in closed counties!”
Speaking of California: More suicides than coronavirus deaths? I know that “data” is not the plural of “anecdote,” but maybe somebody should run the numbers…
Is Tesla planning a Gigafactory near Austin? There are still big tracks of land available out near 130…
Wargaming a war between the U.S. and China in 2030. Don’t be so sure they could knock out our carriers with hypersonic missiles, and our drones and submarines would wreck havoc with their trade.
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine professor and former Cleveland Clinic employee was arrested Wednesday over his alleged ties to China.
The Justice Department announced that Qing Wang was arrested at his Shaker Heights, Ohio home as part of a joint operation conducted by the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Service Office of the Inspector-General. Wang was charged with wire fraud related to more than $3.6 million in grant funding that Wang and his research team at the Cleveland Clinic had received from the National Institutes of Health.
According to the criminal complaint, Wang failed to disclose affiliations with Chinese universities. He also allegedly failed to disclose that he had received grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China for a nearly identical research project. He held the title Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Technology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Cleveland Special Agent-in-Charge Eric Smith said this wasn’t “a simple case of omission, ” adding that “Wang deliberately failed to disclose his Chinese grants and foreign positions and even engaged in a pervasive pattern of fraud to avoid criminal culpability.”
The 40-year old girlfriend of 74-year old former Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst cracked two of his ribs. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Magazine publisher Conde Nast lays off about 100 employees. Maybe the entire Teen Vogue Anal Sex department got laid off. Hopefully there are some good Python courses available in their area…
Universally respected mystery expert Otto Penzler was let go as editor of the Best American Mystery Stories of the Year so the publisher could pick stories based on “affirmative action” criteria rather than excellence.
When you're 24 and break into a 73 year-old’s house and threaten him and his wife with a knife and don't know he was a boxer, a marine, and hand-to-hand combat instructor. pic.twitter.com/Ep5pao8GKN
One of two things happened in Louisiana. We know that the margins between the top three candidates in the state shifted dramatically between votes cast by absentee ballot and those cast on Saturday, the day of the election. That means that either that: 1) A candidate had a very strong get-out-the-vote effort, or 2) There was a broad shift in attitudes about the candidates.
When we looked at this Saturday night, it wasn’t clear which was the case. Now, we have a better sense.
If we look at the votes in counties* for which we have data (culled from the AP’s initial and final vote tallies), you can see that Ted Cruz gained strength after the absentee vote.
Snip.
this looks like the state of Louisiana bailed on Marco Rubio in favor of Ted Cruz. Which could explain why Cruz is targeting Florida all of a sudden. On Saturday night, Donald Trump called for Rubio to drop out of the race. If he can repeat what he did in Louisiana in Florida in just over a week, Cruz will take Rubio out himself.
This pattern mirrors what Cruz did in the 2012 Texas Senate race. Dewhurst beat Cruz by 18% in early voting, but only 3% on primary day, a massive momentum shift that turned into a Cruz victory in the runoff.
Cruz is a smart, disciplined, relentless campaigner, and after Trump’s early successes in open primaries, we’re finally seeing Trump hit his ceiling and Cruz surge ahead as the superior candidate, especially in closed primary and caucus states.
That momentum, and the widespread distaste for Trump, is why many in the Republican establishment are finally, reluctantly, turning to Cruz as the only way to stop Trump.
Ted Cruz has picked up the endorsement of former Texas governor Rick Perry for President, and will help campaign as a surrogate for Cruz in Iowa. It’s not a huge endorsement, given how Perry’s own presidential campaign flamed out, but it’s a nice pickup for Cruz, and solidifies his odds for winning Texas on March 1. Also, it’s not as automatic a choice as some out-of-state commentators may believe, given that Perry endorsed (however tepidly) Cruz’s opponent David Dewhurst in his 2012 senate race. It may also indicate conservatives are coalescing around Cruz as the alternative to Donald Trump.
In any case, it’s a worth a hell of a lot more than Lindsey Graham’s endorsement of Jeb Bush…
Former Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has settled his lawsuit against Houston oilman Michael Looney, who evidently received money embezzled by Dewhurst campaign adviser Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield:
Former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the once powerful Republican who was bilked by an adviser for at least $2.8 million, has settled a lawsuit against a Houston oilman who used a chunk of the stolen money to invest in a new business.
The out-of-court settlement ends years of litigation by the three-term ex-lieutenant governor aimed at recouping funds embezzled from two campaign accounts by former adviser Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield, a Dewhurst spokesman said.
Once a trusted consultant to one of Texas’ wealthiest politicians, Barfield was sentenced in February to more than seven years in federal prison for orchestrating a complex money funneling scheme in which he falsified records, bank statements, invoices and campaign finance reports.
Dewhurst filed a civil lawsuit against Barfield in 2013 to get some of the money back. That lawsuit was settled when Barfield signed over his multi-million dollar West Austin home as part of the agreement.
However, Dewhurst’s lawyers also set their sights on Houston businessman Michael Looney, who partnered with Barfield and, according to court documents, received “several hundred thousand dollars” of stolen Dewhurst money.
The funds, according to the lawsuit, were used to start a new oil and gas business co-owned by Looney and Barfield that would make use of valuable seismic data under license from ExxonMobil.
Dewhurst’s lawsuit was asking for an award of one-half interest in the seismic data and the new company. The exact value of the data was not released, but Looney’s lawyers said in a filing that Barfield “stood to make millions and millions of dollars” if the deal went through.
The terms of the lawsuit settlement were not disclosed.
Every time new revelations come to light about the UT Admissions Scandal, they’ve always proven that UT regent Wallace Hall was right to launch his investigation, and that his critics were wrong to attempt to bury it (and him). The latest revelations are no exception:
University of Texas at Austin President Bill Powers used his authority to get “must have” applicants admitted to the state’s flagship school and misled internal lawyers looking into influence peddling in the admissions process in both the undergraduate college and UT’s top-ranked law school, an independent investigation obtained by The Dallas Morning News has found.
The wide-ranging investigation ordered by former Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa found that Powers overruled his admissions office and exercised broad control when it came to favored applicants – some of whom had the recommendation of powerful people in this state.
That report is the Kroll Report. What they found was what Wallace Hall alleged: That there was one admissions process for ordinary applicants, and another for the well-connected. “Applicants with special connections had a 72% acceptance rate compared to 40% overall.”
Let’s look at some details of the process from the Kroll report summary:
Review of Undergraduate Admissions Process
When an inquiry or recommendation concerning a candidate for admission is forwarded to the President’s Office from a “friend of the university” or other “person of influence” – which may include a public official, a member of the Board of Regents or UT-System official, an important alumnus or alumna, a major donor, a faculty member or other UT-Austin official – a long-standing practice has been to place a “hold” on that candidate’s application. The purpose of a hold is to indicate that a negative decision may not become final until the party which placed the hold is notified.
Since 2009, certain hold designations have been entered on UT-Austin’s mainframe computer with the designation of “Q,” “L,” or “B.” A designation of “Q hold” indicates the application is being monitored by the President’s Office. An “L hold” indicates that the application is of interest to one of the college Deans. When both the President’s Office and a college Dean request a hold, the file is designated as a “B hold” applicant. (Several other types of holds exist for a variety of reasons; however, as explained later in this report, the only holds within the scope of Kroll’s investigation, and thus of interest for purposes of this report, are Q, L, and B holds.)
Due in part to the increased competitiveness of undergraduate admissions at UT-Austin, and in part because recordkeeping is now computerized, Q-hold volumes have escalated considerably 13 over the past several years. Under President Powers, Q holds have totaled as many as 300 applicants of interest per year. The majority of holds appear to be based on requests from Texas legislators and members of the Board of Regents, while others are instigated by requests from the Chancellor’s Office, donors and alumni.
The existence of holds combined with end-of-cycle meetings between the Admissions Office and the President’s Office, during which final decisions are made on all hold candidates not already admitted, has caused increasing levels of tension between the Admissions Office and the President’s Office. In recent years, President Powers, acting through his Chief of Staff, has at times made holistic determinations that differed from that of the Admissions Office. Consequently, it appears that a select handful of applicants each year are admitted over the objection of the Admissions Office. The President’s Office has acknowledged to Kroll that this has occurred, but insists that decisions are always made with the “best interests of the university” in mind.
Based on our investigation, there is no evidence that any applicants have been admitted as a result of a quid pro quo or other inappropriate promise or exchange. There also is no evidence that efforts were made to “save spots” for certain applicants or that a dual system of admissions has been informally established. However, it is acknowledged that additional acceptances are sent out each year to accommodate special cases. With certain “must have” applicants, the President’s Office ordered applicants admitted over the objection of the Admissions Office.
Because written records or notes of meetings and discussions between the President’s Office and Admissions are not maintained and are typically shredded, it is not known in particular cases why some applicants with sub-par academic credentials were placed on a hold list and eventually admitted. Rarely was it discussed why particular applicants needed to be admitted, or what, if any, connections the applicants had with persons of influence. But President Powers acknowledged to Kroll that “relational factors” do occasionally play an important role in determinations to admit some applicants who might not have otherwise been admitted.
Over a six-year period, applicants on whom a hold of any type was placed were admitted 72% of the time, compared to an overall admission rate of approximately 40%. Texas residents accounted for 82% of all applicants placed on a hold list. Email correspondence reviewed by Kroll further confirmed that a relationship with university officials has on occasion provided applicants a competitive boost in the admissions process.
The total number of arguably less-qualified applicants who have benefitted from the hold system and the President’s oversight of the hold candidates appears to be relatively small. Indeed, from 2009 to 2014, Kroll identified a total of only 73 enrolled applicants who were admitted with both a combined SAT score of less than 1100 and a high school GPA of less than 2.9. Kroll’s review of the available “outlier” files found that political connections may have influenced the admission decision in a small number of cases, while other cases suggested the possibility of alumni/legacy influence despite the prohibition under Texas law against legacy admissions. Several other cases, however, suggested a demonstrated commitment to ethnic and racial diversity and the consideration of other appropriate criteria.
While it is often not clear why a particular applicant was placed on hold or received special consideration, the President’s Office acknowledged to Kroll that legislative letters and calls are typically accorded more weight than other letters and calls because legislative oversight impacts the university.
In short, while it is impossible to conclude with absolute certainty from a review of the data and selected files alone that any one particular applicant benefitted from undue influence or pressure exerted on the admissions process, it is readily apparent that certain applicants are admitted at the instigation of the President over the assessment of the Admissions Office. The end-of-cycle meeting between the President’s Office and Admissions Office results each year in certain applicants receiving a competitive boost or special consideration in the admissions process. The data reviewed by Kroll confirms what President Powers and others have acknowledged, that relationships matter and are the deciding factor in admissions decisions for a select handful of applicants each year.
Although the practice of holds and exercise of presidential discretion over Admissions may not violate any existing law, rule, or policy, it is an aspect of the admissions process that does not appear in UT-Austin’s public representations.
Several other important constituents are at least partially complicit for this ad-hoc system of special admissions. For example, the Board of Regents sends approximately 50 to 70 names of applicants to the President’s Office each year. Similarly, many names are placed on a hold list as a result of requests from the Chancellor’s Office, the UT-System Office of Government Relations, major donors and alumni. In most years, there are certain legislators and Regents whose names are noted more than others. It would appear that these other bodies send inquiries concerning student applicants to the President’s Office with the expectation that such applicants be closely monitored by that office.
Kroll notes that the existence of holds and watch lists, and the end-of-cycle meetings between the President’s Office and the Admissions Office, were not disclosed or specifically addressed by President Powers and his Chief of Staff during an internal Admissions Inquiry previously conducted by the UT-System. Although President Powers and his Chief of Staff appear to have answered the specific questions asked of them with technical precision, it appears that by their material omissions they misled the inquiry. At minimum, each failed to speak with the candor and forthrightness expected of people in their respective positions of trust and leadership.
Review of Law School Admissions Process
By design and practice, UT Law School also utilizes a holistic admissions process. Although the law school requires no minimum LSAT score and only a 2.2 undergraduate GPA from an accredited institution, it is apparent that GPA and LSAT scores play a prominent role in admissions decisions. This fact, which is true of virtually all nationally ranked law schools, is driven in large part by the importance of GPA and LSAT in the perceived competitiveness of the law school and how it affects national rankings.
Unlike many law schools, UT Law School does not rely on an Admissions Committee to review application files or to render individual admissions decisions. Instead, almost all individual admissions decisions are made by either the Assistant Dean for Admission and Financial Aid or by the Director of Admission Programs. Consequently, although Kroll found that the professionals in these positions perform their jobs with expertise and integrity, the system as designed insufficiently prevents final admissions decisions from potentially being influenced by external factors, including informal discussions with the Dean after receiving letters, phone calls or contacts from persons of influence. For example, members of the Texas legislature and other persons of influence frequently call or write in support of particular law school candidates outside of normal application procedures, and the Dean’s Office receives numerous calls from legislators urging the admission of certain applicants.
Kroll found no evidence that the Dean or others at the law school acted improperly or in any way compromised the integrity of the admissions process. Nevertheless, the system as designed presents these well-intentioned professionals with potentially difficult balancing acts and ethical quandaries. When the Dean’s Office receives information about a law school applicant from a trusted source, the recent practice has been for the Dean to informally review the applicant’s credentials and determine whether a case for admission is plausible. If so, the Dean discusses the matter with the Assistant Dean for Admission and Financial Aid. As long as a final decision has not been made and communicated to the applicant, the Dean feels free to discuss any information received about an applicant with the Assistant Dean. In some instances, the resulting discussions have changed the mind of the Assistant Dean regarding a candidate for admission.
The President of UT-Austin also receives calls and letters from persons of influence concerning law school applicants. When this occurs, the President’s Office advises the law school (usually the Dean) of these interests. From 2006 to 2012, former Dean Larry Sager received 10 to 20 calls a year from Nancy Brazzil about President Powers’ interest in certain law school applicants. Brazzil made clear she spoke for the President’s Office. Sager acknowledged that the intensity of Brazzil’s interest in a candidate may “have on occasion swayed my decision.”
There’s a good bit more, but those are some of the highlights.
Indeed, Cigarroa admitted that “Fairness has at times been compromised in the admission of students into the University of Texas at Austin.”
Over at Watchdog.org, Jon Cassidy puts the total admissions number of unqualified applicants as in the thousands.
He’s not the only one who thinks it’s a big deal. Over at The Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze says “To every single applicant who ever got turned down by UT, I say this: Your wildest most paranoid imagining of why you got screwed and how they really do admissions at UT was nowhere near wild or paranoid enough. We’re talking about admissions meetings where university officials shred all their notes before leaving the room.” He also notes, yet again, what a horrific whitewash job UT’s own internal investigation was.
Also this: “Kroll looked at a sample of 73 smelly admissions files tied to legislators. In that sample, four affluent high schools in Texas accounted for 45 percent of the sample. Among the four, Highland Park High School was way out ahead at No. 1 with a third of all the dicey admissions in the whole sample.”
Well, who could possibly object to rich, well-connected kids getting to cut into the admissions line ahead of mere commoners?
While UT defenders are quick to assert that “no criminal activity occurred,” Cassidy believes that the blatant favoritism for legacy admissions may have violated the state education code, which states “the university must continue its practice of not considering an applicant’s legacy status as a factor in the university’s decisions relating to admissions for that academic year.”
The Dallas Morning News piece notes:
Many of Powers’ current problems can be traced to the work of UT Regent Wallace Hall, a man who has been pilloried for personally examining the admissions process.
The Kroll report appears to vindicate Hall’s work and add weight to his concerns that political and financial influence dictated some admissions decisions.
Hall’s inquiries into the admissions process led to him being targeted by state legislators, including House Speaker Joe Straus and former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
Dewhurst was forcibly retired by Dan Patrick. Straus, have course, has been one of Hall’s staunchest foes, and shows every sign of desiring to continue UT’s culture of admissions favors for the well-connected indefinitely…
Remember Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield, the political consultant who was accused of embezzling over $2 million from David Dewhurst campaign funds? When last we checked, he had sold his house to settle a civil lawsuit from Dewhurst.
Well, Barfield just plead guilty to embezzling $1.8 million from various David Dewhurst campaigns.
“While working on behalf of the David Dewhurst Campaign and Dewhurst for Texas, Barfield knowingly and intentionally engaged in a scheme to defraud the entities of campaign dollars for his own benefit,” a plea agreement signed by Barfield stated.
“Barfield used the stolen funds to pay for expenses such as his home mortgage, school tuition for his children, personal investments and other living expenses.”
Dewhurst campaign officials said Barfield concealed his theft from the campaign accounts by falsifying bank deposit slips, vendor invoices and finance reports to make it appear that the accounts had far more cash on hand than they actually contained.
In the meantime, Barfield and his side businesses, such as Alexander Group Consulting, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for services that were never performed.
As I noted in the original story, the embezzlement was a symptom of disorder in the Dewhurst campaign, not its cause. It also shows why it’s a good idea for any political campaign with funds of $1 million or more to have outside auditing…
Both Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton were hovering around 64-65% of the vote, which is pretty decisive.
Ryan Sitton is currently winning with 58% to Wayne Christian’s 42% for Railroad Commissioner. That’s a mild surprise to me, but down ballot races are harder to predict, and I did notice a late direct mail push from Sitton.
Sid Miller is currently leading Tommy Merritt 54-46% for Agriculture Commissioner, but they haven’t called the race yet.
On the Democrat’s side, David Alameel beat Larouchite Keisha Rogers fairly handily, 72% to 28%, for the chance to be slaughtered by John Cornyn in the Senate race. And Kinky Friedman appears to have lost to non-campaigning candidate Jim Hogan 55%-45% for Agriculture Commissioner. As to why, maybe Texas Democrats hate one or more of: Marijuana, Jews, country music singers, mystery writers, guys who smoke cigars, or guys named Kinky. Or they still hate him for running as an independent in 2006. Or they like guys with nice Anglo names. Take your pick.
Tomorrow is the Texas primary runoff, so now would be a good time to find your voting card and confirm your polling place.
A final roundup of runoff tidbits:
The Dallas Morning News says that Dan Patrick is poised to win due to his staunch opposition to illegal immigration. Oversimplified, but not entirely wrong. They also say Patrick has done a good job connecting with Ted Cruz supporters.
Dan Branch would have raised more money for the Attorney General race than Ken Paxton…were it not for the $1 million loan from Midland oilman Tim Dunn via Empower Texans PAC. Now you see why so many liberal reporters call Michael Quinn Sullivan the most powerful figure in Texas politics.
Talk show host Dana Loesch endorses Paxton. Less a move-the-needle endorsement than a reminder that conservatives are united on Paxton’s side.
On the Democrat side of the Ag Commissioner runoff, Kinky Friedman is running against an invisible opponent. “In the May 27 runoff the choice for the party’s faithful is either Friedman or Jim Hogan, a former dairy farmer who hasn’t campaigned for the office or even has a campaign website…Hogan could not be reached for comment because a phone number listed under his name was out of service and the Democratic Party of Texas did not respond to a request for other contact information.” Also, win or lose, Kinky said this is his last race.
Here’s a Texas Tribune piece on the runoff between rich guy David Alameel and Larouchite Kesha Rogers for the Democratic Senate nomination. Fun as it would be to see Rogers upset Alameel, I don’t see it in the cards.
Finally, just in case you were unclear, Texas Monthly‘s Paul Burka is very upset that Republican primary voters continue to prefer actual Republicans over Republicans who act like Democrats once in office.
Here is who I will be voting for tomorrow (all of whom I expect to win):
David Jennings of Big Jolly Politics, who was notable for being perhaps the only conservative blogger in Texas to back David Dewhurst over Ted Cruz in 2012, has declared that “the despicable attacks on Sen. Dan Patrick make me sick.”
I’m sickened by the type of attacks that the guy I support, David Dewhurst, has put out in the last two months. The worst possible thing he could have done was take on Jerry Patterson and let him have control of his campaign, which is why I coined the term “Dewtterson”…. You don’t have to support Dan or vote for him to know that what the Dewtterson campaign, along with one compliant media outlet, has done to Dan is just plain wrong.
Patrick announced he’s raised $4 million between February 23 and last week. Patrick also spent “$3.75 million on statewide media advertising and says he has $400,000 in cash remaining before the May 27 runoff.”
Missed this earlier: Ron Paul endorses David Dewhurst. Unlike other recent Dewhurst endorsements, that one might actually give him a point or two, or at least prompt another look from the Paul faithful.