Trump keeps winning, Democrats are screwed, more “questionable” Democratic vote drops, a couple of disturbing deaths (only one TDS-related), and a Disney princess dines on shoe yet again. Plus: Satan!
There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth among Democrats, following Donald Trump’s unexpected (by them) victory. How could this possibly have happened? is the question newspapers, television hosts, and Democratic pundits are asking.
It actually isn’t a hard question to answer. The Biden/Harris administration had an indefensible record, and Kamala Harris didn’t seriously try to defend it, absurdly presenting herself as the candidate of change, while at the same time unable to identify a single respect in which her administration would be different from Biden’s.
Voters were unhappy about inflation, about the economy in general, and about the border. The Democrats, having created these problems, had no solutions to offer. Instead, they tried to tell voters that their concerns were imaginary.
Also, Kamala herself was a lousy candidate.
But the reality is worse than that. As the dust settles, I think Democrats will realize they are in a deeper hole than they thought. It was no coincidence that Harris refused to say what her position was on a variety of issues, earning the title of the “no comment” candidate–something that must be unprecedented in presidential history. The problem wasn’t that Kamala was tongue-tied, the problem was that the Democrats no longer have a coherent policy agenda.
The one issue that Harris never refrained from talking about was abortion. That is, today, the Democrats’ signature–and arguably only–issue. Apart from a fervent devotion to abortion, up to the moment of birth and beyond, what do they stand for?
A few years ago, the energy in the Democratic Party was in its socialist wing. Several of its seemingly up-and-coming representatives were members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and Bernie Sanders is the grand old man of socialism. On one memorable occasion, Nancy Pelosi was unable to explain how a Democrat is different from a socialist.
But the bloom is off that rose. Socialism was never a serious alternative for America; it is a discredited ideology that has been rejected around the world. And socialism is not a plausible ideology for a party whose core demographic is people who earn over $200,000 a year.
The Democrats are the party of DEI and Kamala Harris was a DEI candidate, but DEI is widely unpopular. The United States has labored under affirmative action, of which DEI is the current iteration, for 50 years. But Americans don’t like race discrimination or sex discrimination, and they believe in merit. An unbroken history of polling, stretching back for decades, has found that race and sex discrimination in employment and education are unpopular. Despite the massive corporate, government and cultural pressure that has tried to force DEI on Americans, that remains true. DEI, now on its way out, can hardly be the basis for future Democratic campaigns.
Opening the borders and admitting millions of illegal immigrants has been the core policy priority of the Biden administration, as reflected in Biden’s day-one executive orders. But it was a policy prescription that Democrats were never able to openly articulate and defend. Thus, as the 2024 election approached they were reduced to making the absurd claim that “the Southern border is secure.” Open borders are deeply and correctly unpopular, and do not provide a platform on which any future Democrat can run, although no doubt we will see plenty of tearjerking stories about illegals who are being deported.
Etc. Democrats are on the loser side of pretty much every issue.
It’s confirmed that Trump won Arizona, completing his sweep of all swing states.
The most pro-Trump demographic in 2024 was…American Indians. Huh. Maybe they want jobs and oil and gas money more than “land grab statements” and changing the names of sports teams.
Just because Trump won an overwhelming victory doesn’t mean that Democratic Party vote fraud has stopped. “Bucks County Commissioners Vote to Count Illegal Ballots as Pennsylvania Senate Race Heads for Recount…”I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws anytime they want,” Marseglia said. “So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.” I didn’t get the outcome I wanted so I’m going to break the law is quite the legal strategy.
The Texas Democrat Party Chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, has announced his resignation after a significant statewide electoral defeat in Tuesday’s election.
Hinojosa, a South Texas lawyer first elected to the role in 2012, has overseen a period marked by Democrat losses, particularly among Hispanic voters and in border counties.
Despite ongoing claims that Texas was on the verge of “turning blue” for over a decade, Democrats have failed to secure a statewide victory in 30 years. In Tuesday’s election, President Donald Trump won Texas by more than 13 points, including victories in 12 of the state’s 14 border counties. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz also defeated his Democrat opponent by approximately nine points.
Speaking to KUT News on Wednesday, Hinojosa attributed the party’s loss partially to its focus on radical gender ideology. For example, during the party’s convention in June, delegates were addressed by a female drag queen (a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman). When asked about “transgender rights,” he responded, “I think what the Democratic Party has to realize is that there’s some things that we can support and some things that we cannot. And when we’re pressed upon to take votes of these kinds, we need to be mindful of the long-term consequences of these choices.”
Of course, then he had to issue a groveling apology to the alphabet people. And that’s why you continue to lose…
Republicans select John Thune as the next majority leader, beating out John Cornyn and Trump pick Rick Scott (another Floridian), who came in a distant third. Senate’s gonna Senate.
Confirms an educated guess:
I VOTED TRUMP/MAHA/UNITY. I hope others will do the same.
For some reason, many people seem to think I’m not voting. For the record, that is NEVER my move. My typical approach is: “If you don’t have a candidate in this election, vote (as if) in the next one.” That usually means…
“The mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, Antar Lumumba, has been indicted on federal bribery charges. Also indicted: Aaron Banks, who is a councilman, and Jody Owens, the county DA…another city council member, Angelique Lee, pled guilty to “conspiracy to commit bribery” charges in August. I get the impression she hasn’t been sentenced yet, and I’m wondering if she’s now a ‘cooperating witness.'” I know you’ll be shocked to learn that Lumumba is a Democrat…
The wins keep coming. “Republicans Flip 23 Texas Appeals Court Seats. GOP judicial candidates won 25 of 26 contested courts of appeals races on Tuesday’s ballot.”
“Union Member in Austin Files Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of National Labor Relations Board. Dallas Mudd was prevented from holding a decertification election at his workplace.” Given recent Supreme Court rulings against the administrative state, this probably has a fair chance of success.
Major Nielsen ratings plunge at MSNBC since Trump won, practically every day since. Just one example – 10/30 Wednesday vs Fri 11/8 – Morning Joe 1st hour – down 39.6% Morning Joe 2d hour – down 36.9% Andrea Mitchell – down 39.7% Ari Melber – down 49.6% Joy Reid’s Reidout – down…
Speaking of Hollywood liberals who can’t help themselves, Rachel Zegler has, yet again, opened her mouth and inserted her foot, wishing hatred on Trump voters. There’s a brilliant strategy, alienating more than half the country in a fit of pique. Seriously, has any actress in all Hollywood history ever done more damage to a film’s prospects than Zegler has to the live-action Snow White reboot? Update: Disney forced her to apologize.
Costco recalls 80,000 pounds of butter because it doesn’t say it contains milk. They can’t define a woman or butter. Now enjoy a vaguely related Family Guy clip.
The wife of a well-known transgender writer has been charged with murdering her father with an ice axe the night of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. She then allegedly shattered the windows of the $800,000 Rainier Valley, Washington, home in which she and her father lived in what she claimed was an “act of liberation,” according to charging documents.
Corey Burke, 33, who is married to transgender writer Samantha Leigh Allen, the author of “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States,” was discovered after the death of her father, Timothy Burke, 67 — who had health issues — “smiling and clapping covered in her loved one’s blood, cops said,” according to The New York Post, which added that Burke “allegedly confessed to investigators the next day that she killed her father with the ax and also by strangling him. She also admitted to biting her father while choking him, the docs alleged.”
Yikes. I guess a lesbian who married a guy pretending to be a woman isn’t the most stable person in the world…
Another disturbing death: “Man found dead in Planet Fitness tanning bed three DAYS after entering gym.”
“Three Activists Charged with Burning-Cross KKK Hoax to Benefit Black Mayoral Candidate.” “Derrick Bernard Jr. (aka Phoenixx Ugrilla), 35; Ashley Danielle Blackcloud, 40; and Deanna Crystal West (aka Vital Sweetz and Sage West), 38, are accused of conspiring to stage the phony hate crime and then alerting the media to prop up Mobolade’s ultimately successful campaign.” All this to support candidate Yemi Mobolade…who won.
“Hollywood Braces for a Woke Backlash in the Wake of Trump’s Election.”
“Liberal users are leaving X in a huff in the wake of President Trump’s 2024 election victory over the support of its owner, Elon Musk, for the President-elect and the platform’s right-ward shift.” Why yes, when you just lost an election in which every single demographic group and region moved away from you and toward the candidate you hate, then obviously the problem is that you just came in contact with too many dissenting voices and the solution is to retreat further into your own echo chamber where non-leftwing/non-SJW thought cannot penetrate. Brilliant!
“Documentary alleges 21,000 workers have died working on Saudi Vision 2030, which includes The Line,” AKA Neom. Now the Saudis are scumbags, and I wouldn’t put shockingly poor work conditions and covering up worker deaths past them, but those numbers are absolute bullshit, since that’s around four times as many as died during the entire period building the Panama Canal, and I’m pretty sure 21st century Saudi Arabia doesn’t have as big a problem with malaria as late 19th and early 20th century Panama.
“Democrats Denounce Satan As ‘Too Moderate.'” “Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly confided in aides that Satan was being kind of a pest by continually asking Democrats to pretend to be sane just for a while so he could get some of them elected. ‘The nerve of that guy!'”
What a freaking epic (and tiring) week! I waited until Fox and Decision Desk had declared Trump the winner past 1 AM Wednesday morning, and then had to get up a few hours later to get ready to work. So we’ve got more election fallout, Israel bags more terrorist scumbags, Elon Musk and Ron Paul may team up to fight government waste, Texas continues to purge wokeness from public institutions, and a song mystery is solved.
Last time around, Trump squandered his momentum. He passed the tax bill that the establishment GOP wanted, after which they didn’t need anything from him and turned to obstructing him….
Like airplanes on a runway. Trump’s approach this time around should be what he should have done last time: Shock and awe. Shut down departments, fire bureaucrats, exercise emergency powers, all so fast that the establishment’s responses are saturated. Javier Millei’s whirlwind assault in Argentina should be the model, sometimes in specifics but also in general approach. Bureaucrats move slowly; Trump should move fast.
Elon Musk says he can cut $2 trillion easily; do it. Also, set bureaucrats competing with each other for what funds remain. Divide and conquer.
The FBI’s files on its policing of domestic dissent should be opened up, as should the details of the NSA’s illegal domestic spying. Trump should have outsiders investigate possible (likely) prosecutorial misconduct in the January 6 prosecutions – something judges have already raised – and fire those responsible, as well as subjecting them to what other legal consequences may apply. The lesson that the deep state can’t intervene in domestic politics needs to be driven home, and the only way to do that is to ruin a lot of lives on the part of people who deserve to have their lives ruined, from the top of the Justice Department and the intelligence agencies to the bottom. Likewise those involved in social media censorship programs, “Operation Chokepoint” style economic warfare, and the like. Abuse of government power against the citizenry should be treated as a criminal matter, because it is.
Trump should also announce that the federal government is waiving qualified immunity on the part of such officials.
There are lots more ideas – you can submit your own in the comments below, and the much-maligned Project 2025, though not actually a Trump initiative, contains some – and Bloomberg is already warning that if elected Trump will dismantle the White House’s gun control ministry. Oh no!
The specifics aren’t really the point here, though I should probably post another essay just about those. But the point here is rapid action across a wide variety of fronts. Trump should take advantage of the precedents that Biden has set for far-reaching executive action, though you can bet that when he does the press will pretend this is the first time anything like that has ever been done.
The story of how Harris pocketed record sums while failing to gain support from voters will be studied by campaigns for decades to come. Democrats who successfully pressured octogenarian President Joe Biden to pass the torch to the former California senator are now conducting an internal autopsy of the 2024 race, in which Trump raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars less than Harris.
“A billion dollars paled in comparison to the increased prices Americans were seeing across the country,” Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch and a longtime Trump ally, told the Washington Examiner. “Voters weren’t fooled.”
The Harris campaign and its affiliated committees dropped more than $654 million on advertising from July 22 to Election Day, whereas Trump spent $378 million, or 57% less, in the same category, according to data from AdImpact.
Future Forward, the $500 million “ad-testing factory” and super PAC that supported Harris, was a reliable clearinghouse for checks from wealthy Democrats such as Reid Hoffman, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Dustin Moskovitz. And anonymous donations, or so-called “dark money,” also benefited Harris at a faster and more substantial clip than Trump thanks to lax federal laws that progressives often criticize but, nonetheless, exploited in 2024.
The Harris campaign declined to comment on its finances. A fuller portrait will be public after the election, as the Federal Election Commission mandates post-general election reports for candidates within 30 days.
In mid-October, the Harris campaign disclosed that it had spent over $880 million this election, almost $526 million greater than the roughly $354 million that the Trump campaign had disclosed spending, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of federal filings. Much of the Harris campaign’s spending was allocated for digital media advertising, polling, and travel from state to state, including to a private jet company called Advanced Aviation.
Payroll and the taxes that accompanied it accounted for $56.6 million of the Harris campaign’s spending. In comparison, the Trump campaign reported spending $9 million on payroll — employing hundreds fewer staff members.
There was also the army of political, digital, and media consultants who were paid over $12.8 million by the Harris campaign, filings show.
One vendor, Village Marketing Agency, received over $3.9 million and reportedly worked to recruit thousands of social media influencers to boost Harris online. Others that scored lucrative consulting gigs from the campaign included the likes of Precision Strategies, a Democratic-aligned marketing agency; Ethos Organizing, founded by former Ohio Democratic Party director Malik Hubbard; and the Biden-allied SKDK communications firm.
Snip.
“Event production” was also a staple spending area of the Harris campaign, which notably hosted a star-studded lineup of musicians from Lady Gaga to Katy Perry for an election eve rally.
The campaign paid more than $15 million, according to federal filings, to companies for such services.
There was $1 million for Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions on Oct. 15 in West Hollywood, California.
Winfrey, a top Harris ally, appeared at a town hall with the vice president in September and was at her final rally in Philadelphia before Election Day.
Viva Creative, a marketing agency that has touted its work with Oprah, comedian Trevor Noah, the Washington Nationals baseball team, and American Express, scooped up $1.8 million from the Harris campaign for event production from September to October. A company called Production Management One in Maryland received $1.7 million, with large payments also going to Vox Productions, Temple University, Wizard Studios North, the Park Hyatt Chicago, and other entities for event production, filings show.
Then there was Majic Productions, a Wisconsin-based company, which has worked the NBA playoffs, the Super Bowl, and at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The Harris campaign paid that company $2.3 million.
A source familiar with the matter told the Washington Examiner that the Harris campaign spent six figures on building a set for Harris’s appearance on the popular Call Her Daddy podcast with host Alex Cooper. The interview came out in October and was reportedly filmed in a hotel room in Washington, D.C.
In the end, San Francisco mayor London Breed’s recent efforts to crack down on homelessness and crime weren’t enough to save her from the wrath of voters frustrated by years of disorder and talk of a “doom loop” in the famously progressive city.
After 14 rounds through the city’s ranked-choice voting process, Breed lost decisively to Daniel Lurie, a more moderate Democrat and a wealthy heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.
Lurie was ahead from the first round, and after 14 rounds led with 56.2 percent of the vote to Breed’s 43.8 percent, according to the San Francisco Department of Elections.
With San Francisco actually restoring sanity, pretty soon Austin will be the only crazy leftwing city left in America…
“UK Conservative Party elects ‘anti-woke’ Kemi Badenoch as new leader. The UK’s Conservatives on Saturday elected Kemi Badenoch as their new leader, replacing Rishi Sunak after the party’s poor performance in July’s general election. Badenoch, a staunch “anti-woke” advocate, faces the challenge of uniting a divided party while redefining its future.”
Israel seems to be on another winning streak. Israeli Commando Raid Captures Hezbollah Naval Commander….The terrorist, identified by Lebanese media as Imad Amhaz, chief of Hezbollah’s naval operations, was picked by Israeli commandos from the town of Batroun, some 100 miles into the terrorist-held hostile territory.”
Today, the Board of Regents of Texas A&M University System pushed back against “shared governance” with woke faculty members. They voted to end 52 low-performing programs, including an LGBTQ minor.
Over the course of many months, State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) repeatedly criticized DEI courses and the LGBTQ studies minor at Texas A&M. In September 2024, a university spokesperson confirmed that they would deactivate 38 certificates and 14 minors, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor.
On November 7, the Board of Regents unanimously approved the deactivation of these programs by voice vote.
The only question is why it took so long to fight back against the woke mind virus…
Want to be infuriated? “A federal disaster relief official ordered workers to bypass the homes of Donald Trump’s supporters as they surveyed damage caused by Hurricane Milton in Florida, according to internal correspondence obtained by The Daily Wire and confirmed by multiple federal employees.”
“The Grift Is Ending: ESG Fund Managers Being Told To “Keep Their Lawyers Very Close.”
Green New Boom: “Lithium-Ion Battery Recycle Plant Explodes in Missouri.”
RIPeanut. “Outrage Ensues After Beloved Rescue Squirrel Seized By NY, Euthanized.”
Speaking of sickening, you might want to skip to the next LinkSwarm entry if you don’t want to hear about horrific child abuse: “Animator Bolhem Bouchiba was sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering the torture of children on live streams, paying parents to abuse their own kids.” Now he works for Disney.
Remember all that money to was supposed to flow to semiconductor companies that fabbed chips in America thanks to the CHIPS Act? Well Intel has seen exactly jack and squat from it. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger: “As we said on our [earnings] call, we are disappointed by the time it is taking to get it done: it is well over two years since the CHIPS Act passed and over that period I have invested $30 billion in U.S. manufacturing and we have seen $0 from the CHIPS grants.” What are the odds that the money has actually been raked off into the usual Democratic pockets? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Followup: “For five years, Mickey Barreto lived in Room 2565 at the storied New Yorker Hotel without paying a dime. But the free ride ended when he was not only evicted, but also charged earlier this year with a criminal scheme to claim ownership of the Midtown Manhattan hotel. Now, two doctors and prosecutors have said that he is not mentally competent to stand trial, and a judge has given him seven days to find inpatient psychiatric care.” (Hat tip: Dwight.) (Previously.)
Kotaku lays off more writers, though ultra-woke leftist Alyssa Mercante evidently left on her own. Evidently they’re down to six fulltime staffers.
Everything you know is wrong. “A new peer-reviewed study led by Sydney-based researchers Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falleti has found that the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets, and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe.”
“Democrats Admit Trump Actually Won In 2020 And Is Now Unable To Serve Third Term.” “We probably should have been more up-front about the fact that we stole the election and Biden was never president, but oh well. Hindsight is 20-20. I guess Kamala wins by default now, right?”
Fallout from Trump’s decisive victory over the Obama Machine continues to land fast and heavy. So let’s do a roundup before the Friday LinkSwarm gets unwieldy.
Harris officially conceded. In a sane world, this would be the end of Democrats “we have to keep Trump out of office by any means necessary” efforts, but alas, the TDS-wrecked Democratic Party is far from sane…
“David McCormick Wins Pennsylvania Senate Seat, Ousting Longtime Incumbent Democrat Bob Casey.” Casey’s team says they still think they can win, so don’t put it past Pennsylvania Democrats to “discover” a whole bunch of “uncounted” ballots…
Tablet’s Park MacDougald calls Trump’s win a landslide.
For months now, they have been saying that mainstream pollsters and pundits predicting a Harris victory were full of it. They were right. The late Harris surge in the polls was a mirage. The stories that recently appeared in outlets such as Politico about massive last-minute swings to Harris among independents, Hispanics offended by a comic’s Puerto Rico joke, and educated women—all of it was bullshit, invented out of whole cloth by Harris campaign operatives and repeated by journalists such as Jonathan Martin as if it were fact. In the end, none of it was real. The election wasn’t even close.
How did Trump do it? We’ve seen some suggestive exit polls showing, for instance, Trump winning more than 40% of the Jewish vote in New York City; that sounds right, but we’d caution that exit polls are notoriously unreliable. County data, on the other hand, is rock-solid…
To put that in simple terms: Pretty much the entire country shifted toward Trump. That includes deep-blue strongholds. The New York Post reported Wednesday morning that Harris was leading New York by a little more than 11% with 95% of votes counted—the worst performance by a Democrat in the Empire State since Michael Dukakis in 1988. Trump cracked 30% in New York City—also the best performance by a Republican since 1988, driven by a 35% improvement in the Bronx relative to 2020 and improvements of 20% and 16.5% in Manhattan and Queens, respectively. Finally, Trump blew the doors off of several heavily minority counties across the country, flipping Florida’s Osceola County (home to a large Puerto Rican population) and Texas’s 97% Hispanic Starr County. He won the latter by nearly 16% after losing it by 5% to Biden—a 21-point swing in four years. It was, as Ryan Girdusky observed on X, the first time Starr County had voted for a Republican since 1892.
We’ve seen some talk of a “realignment election,” with the Republicans broadening their appeal among the multiracial working class while the Democrats become more entrenched in affluent white suburbs. We’ll have to wait for more detailed demographic breakdowns to say for sure, but what the above table suggests to us is something different: a “whole of society” (to borrow a term) rejection of Kamala Harris and her party. Punchbowl’s congressional reporter, Max Cohen, cited a Democratic House source this morning who summed up the result nicely: “This was a total and complete repudiation of the Democratic Party. People are not buying what we’re selling. Period.”
Now that we have the election results, it appears that the gender gap actually shrunk.
In 2020, President Joe Biden won women by a 15-point margin, 57% to 42%. This year, Vice President Kamala Harris won women by a much smaller 8-point, 53% to 45% margin.
But while the gap between men and women actually shrank this year, another gap widened. In 2020, married voters narrowly chose President Donald Trump by a 7-point, 53% to 46% margin. This year that margin grew to 13 points at 56% to 43%.
For all the talk of Trump’s problem with women, Trump actually won married women by three points, 51 to 48. To repeat, Trump won a majority of not just married white women, but a majority of all married women.
Trump also handily won married men 60-38 and he even eked out a victory among unmarried men 49-47. Where Trump got crushed was among unmarried women, who chose Harris (who didn’t get married until age 50, by the way) by a 60-38 margin.
Republicans trimmed the Democratic advantage in Harris County. Harris won Harris County by 5 points, but four years ago Biden won it by 12. Likewise, Ted Cruz lost Harris County (where he lives) by 9 points, but in 2018, the year of Betomania, he lost it by 17 points. As I keep reminding people, Harris County was a competitive Republican county not that long ago, and Bush43 won it in 2004.
The editor in chief of @sciam, Laura Helmuth, has increasingly pushed the publication to take ideological stances on scientific issues, such as gender medicine. Despite evidence that when Nature endorsed Joe Biden, this compromised readers’ trust, she had SciAm endorse Harris. https://t.co/QjyNP17wJw
Voters in the state [reversed] course after previously supporting a measure that lightened penalties for theft and otherwise gutted crime-control efforts in this state. California Proposition 36, also known as the “Allows Felony Charges and Increases Sentences for Certain Drug and Theft Crimes” measure, passed with over 70% of the vote.
Proposition 36 would walk back much of the decade-old Proposition 47, turning some theft misdemeanors into felonies, requiring a warning about a possible murder charge for selling or providing drugs, and creating a new “treatment-mandated felony,” according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
…[T]he Family Business Association of California has called Proposition 47 “catastrophic” for the state, saying homelessness has gone up by 51% and smash-and-grab crimes have cost businesses nearly $9 billion a year. It says Proposition 36 will fix a loophole in Proposition 47 that allows thieves to take less than $950 in property from different stores and remain a misdemeanor.
Under Proposition 36, theft would be classified as a felony offense if the suspect has two or more past convictions for certain theft crimes, such as shoplifting, burglary and carjacking. The sentence would then be up to three years in county jail or state prison.
With 51 percent of the vote reported, Proposition 33—which would have repealed all state-level limitations on local rent control policies—is capturing the support of just 38 percent of voters. The New York Times is declaring the initiative done and dusted.
This is the third failed ballot initiative sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) that would have loosened or repealed California’s state-level limits on rent control. Prop. 33 could also be the AHF’s last ballot initiative.
That’s thanks to the apparent (narrow, but not yet confirmed) victory for Proposition 34, which would effectively prevent AHF from spending money on political activism.
Prop. 34 requires beneficiaries of federal discount prescription drug programs to spend 98 percent of their revenue on direct patient care.
AHF benefits from just such a federal program that requires pharmaceutical companies to sell their drugs at discounted rates to hospitals and other organizations that primarily serve low-income patients. Those discount drug–buying organizations are then allowed to bill federal insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid the standard reimbursement rates for those drugs.
The AHF has benefited handsomely from this program through its network of discount pharmacies serving AIDS patients. It has spent the proceeds on the heterodox pet causes of AHF President Michael Weinstein, which includes supporting rent control policies.
And the beat goes on. “Leftist Arrested for Threatening to Kill Trump and Conservative Christians if Trump Wins.” “Isaac Sissel, a 25-year-old from Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been charged by the Department of Justice following an online threat of political violence.”
Rasmussen crows about getting things right, including trump winning the popular vote. “What you probably heard on the media, over and over again like a mantra, is that Donald Trump has a hard ceiling at 47%. No, he’s been at 49% this entire time. Turns out Kamala Harris is the one with the ceiling. And the reason that it came out that way is because all of their polls are bogus, they’re leftward leaning, they always show that Donald Trump has a favorability disadvantage.” Also:
This is the shill period right here. Boom! All of a sudden Trump dropped a point when Kamala Harris went in the race. It’s like everybody gave her a shove to get her over the starting line, and then they massively shift left. They shilled for Harris all fall, and then right at the end they decided ‘Well, it’s time to save our credibility,’ and Trump, look at that, all of a sudden Trump got this great momentum. Where’d it come from? Oh, he never lost it. This is all fake all here this whole period, and Trump was actually up in the national popular vote and nobody said sorry.
Following an awesome 2.5 hour podcast with Elon Musk, Joe Rogan announced his endorsement of Donald Trump.
In a post on X dropping the podcast, Rogan said of Musk “He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way. For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump.”
Trump thanked Rogan:
Nuggets from the interview:
Musk and Rogan discussed how an influx of illegal migrants to swing states followed by some sort of amnesty program would turn the country into a one-party state.
Vote for @realDonaldTrump or the Dems will legalize so many illegals in swing states that this will be the last real election in America. @JoeRogan agrees.
Rogan and Musk both note they were formerly Democrats…
The Georgia Supreme Court quashes a plan to cheat with late ballots in one county. “The Georgia Supreme Court ordered the Cobb board to keep separate the absentee ballots of those voters that are received after the deadline on election day but before November 8 in a secure, safe, and sealed container separate from other voted ballots,’ WSB reported. ‘The court also ordered the board to notify the voters by email, text, or public announcement of the change,” the report continues. At this point, all votes will need to be in by 7 p.m. on Election Day.'” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Tomorrow it’s finally election day, so here’s a small pre-election LinkSwarm:
“Fifth Circuit Ruling Restores the ‘Day’ to Election Day. Court finds federal law requires mail ballots to arrive by Election Day and preempts state laws to the contrary.”
A ruling by a federal appellate court returns the “day” to Election Day in at least three states including Texas.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion Friday that federal law requires mail ballots to arrive by Election Day and preempts any state laws to the contrary.
Opinions issued by the Fifth Circuit set precedent for the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, but the court’s ruling is expected to have national impact.
The Republican National Committee and Mississippi Republican Party sued in January to challenge a Mississippi law that counts mail-in ballots that arrive up to five days after Election Day.
Mississippi changed its election laws during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to extend the acceptance period for absentee ballots.
“Federal law requires voters to take timely steps to vote by Election Day. And federal law does not permit the State of Mississippi to extend the period for voting by one day, five days, or 100 days,” stated Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, writing on behalf of a three-judge panel:
If only we could get blue states outside the Fifth Circuit to obey those guidelines…
Presently, the Democrat nominee’s presidential bid exemplifies why understanding what a campaign is doing is the best barometer of how a candidate is performing with the electorate—not a poll.
On the micro-level, one can view the Harris campaign’s targeting of individual constituencies, which have traditionally comprised integral parts of the Democrat coalition. From young African-American men to Hispanics to Arab-Americans to Jewish-Americans, the Harris campaign’s assumed, almost unanimous, and necessary support has been lacking. As a result, we see not only an increase in her campaign’s messaging to these constituencies, we see the surreal hectoring of young black males—and males, in general—by surrogates, such as the Obamas. Asking voters to support your candidate indicates your campaign is okay; urging voters to support your candidate indicates your campaign is troubled; criticizing voters as not being “man” enough to vote for your candidate indicates your campaign is cooked. Other targeted messages abound within the Harris campaigns, including the emphasis on increased federal spending within the African-American community (in one of the most patronizingly racist appeals imaginable); abortion (though it is hard to imagine those who believe abortion is the overriding issue not already voting for the vice president); and the big lie about “Project 2025” being Donald Trump’s post-election agenda—all of which are designed to unite and rally a presently eroding and unenthusiastic Democrat voter base.
“Democrats undermined by radical agenda. If Kamala Harris loses, she can reflect on her party’s mania for progressive ideas on immigration, policing and race.”
t wasn’t so long ago that progressives were riding high in the United States. Their radical views set the agenda and tone for the Democratic Party and, especially in cultural areas, dominated discourse. Building in the 2010s and cresting at the start of this decade with the Black Lives Matter protests and the heady early days of the Biden administration, few of their ideas seemed off the table.
Defund the police and empty the jails? Sure! Abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and decriminalise the border? Absolutely! Get rid of fossil fuels and have a Green New Deal? Definitely! Demand trillions of dollars for a “transformational” Build Back Better bill? We’re just getting started! Promote DEI and the struggle for “equity” (not equal opportunity) everywhere? It’s the only way to fight privilege! Insist that a new ideology around race and gender should be accepted by everyone? Only a bigot would resist!
In reality, a lot of these ideas were terrible and most voters outside the precincts of the progressive left itself were never interested in them. That was true from the get-go but now the backlash against these ideas is strong enough that it cannot be ignored. As a result, politics is adjusting and the progressive moment is well and truly over.
Astute observers on the left acknowledge this, albeit with an undertone of sadness. So how did the progressive moment fall apart? It is not hard to think of some reasons.
Loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea and voters hate it. When Joe Biden came into office, he immediately issued a series of executive orders loosening the rules for handling illegal immigrants, a move that was applauded by progressives.
The predictable result was a surge in illegal immigration and the diffusion of these immigrants into overburdened cities, which caused a spike in negative sentiment towards Democrats for letting the situation get out of control. This has resulted in huge advantages for Donald Trump and the Republicans that have continued even as the Biden administration moved in mid-2024 to tighten the border and Kamala Harris runs commercials promising to be tough on border security.
The Democrats should have seen this coming. Polling over the years has consistently shown overwhelming majorities in favour of more emphasis on border security. And now voters are increasingly open to draconian restriction measures. An astonishing 62 per cent of voters in a June CBS News survey supported starting a “new national programme to deport all undocumented immigrants currently living in the US illegally”. Progressives’ failure to understand this reality is a big reason why the progressive moment is over.
Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was another terrible idea and voters hate it too. In the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the climate for police and criminal justice reform was highly favourable. But Democrats blew the opportunity by allowing the party to be associated with unpopular slogans like “defund the police” that did not appear to take public safety concerns seriously. Democratic non-white and working-class voters tend to live in areas that have more crime and are therefore unlikely to look kindly on any approach that threatens public safety.
A survey conducted for my new report with Yuval Levin, Politics Without Winners: Can Either Party Build a Majority Coalition?, confirmed the strength of these sentiments. By 73 to 25 per cent, voters backed keeping police budgets whole in the interests of public safety over reducing them and transferring money to social services.
Among non-white working-class voters there was a 30-point margin against reducing police budgets, which ballooned to 50 points among moderate to conservative working-class non-whites, the overwhelming majority of this demographic. By contrast, white college-grad liberals favoured reducing police budgets by 20 points. That tells you a lot.
Democrats are the party of voter fraud: “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed that hundreds of noncitizens are on Iowa’s voter rolls. And yet, incredibly, the DHS refuses to share who these individuals are with state officials.” Let’s hope its only hundreds…
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.
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.”
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.
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…
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.”
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.
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…
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.)
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.
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.
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.”
Israel hits Iran, everyone wants to delete illegal aliens, Kamala loses a one-person debate, WaPo refuses to pick Kamala over Hitler, the WNBA continues to bleed cash, and Tim Walz gets his ABBA on. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Reminder: Early voting in Texas is going on now and extends through November 1st, and Joe Rogan’s interview with Donald Trump is tonight.
A new Fox News poll shows that two-thirds of American voters favor deporting illegal aliens—a dramatic increase over the past decade.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made mass deportation a major policy promise throughout his campaign, as the open border policies of the Biden-Harris administration have allowed millions of illegal aliens to enter the U.S.
The October 2024 poll of registered voters shows that support for deportation has increased dramatically since 2015. Among nonwhite voters, 57 percent now support mass deportations, while only 33 percent said they did in 2015.
Additionally, 91 percent of Republicans now say they support deportations—a 21-point increase since 2015. Rural voters’ support has risen by 20 points, urban voters by 19 points, and men’s support increased by 16.
Democrat support for deportations has increased to 42 percent from 34 percent in 2015.
Voters were also asked if they were in favor of allowing illegal aliens who have jobs to apply for legal status. While 68 percent said they were in favor in 2015, it dropped to 58 percent in favor this year.
Another Fox News poll shows that immigration is voters’ second top issue as they head into the November election. The economy is the number one issue for 40 percent of voters, while 17 percent said immigration and 15 percent said abortion.
is out of gas. The weather is choppy, the navigation system completely unreliable, and the best guess is that you’re still short of the runway. (Oh, and the captain had a stroke while in the cockpit a few hours ago, leaving only a flight attendant as the pilot. She refuses to read the instruction manual or listen to the passengers.) Yes, it’s easy enough to spin up lovingly bespoke metaphors for how the Harris campaign is handling the late stages of the 2024 race — a race they very much could still win, I must always emphasize — but I’ll conclude this one by saying that if last night’s Kamala Harris CNN town hall (with Anderson Cooper hosting in the Philadelphia suburbs) is any indication, the plane may already be disintegrating in midair, before it even hits the ground.
You may have noticed that I’ve had a decidedly muted reaction to Harris’s other recent “serious” media interviews, whether Bret Baier at Fox News or Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes, in the sense that while Harris was predictably awful in both sit-downs (almost relentlessly so), she was boring and unrevelatory in her awfulness. In other words, we learned nothing new about the depths to which she is capable of sinking performatively that we didn’t already know. They were water-treading exercises for the most part.
Last night’s CNN town hall, on the other hand, was memorably bad. This is the moment her campaign dreaded, the moment when the fundamental emptiness and inadequacy of their candidate was revealed for all the world to see without helpful edits or someone to bail her out. There Harris stood exposed — with an unpersuaded audience and a moderator in Cooper who handled his task without showing any particular solicitude for her electoral fortunes — and she withered in the spotlight. (As Dylan might have said, “Even the vice president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.”) There are moments from this event — many moments, oh so terribly many of them — that will haunt Harris in retirement forever should she lose, the sorts of ghastly stammering failures destined to go into YouTube clip reels ten years later explaining “How We Got Here….”
As for myself, I found Harris’s answer to Anderson Cooper’s pointed question about the border fence to be perhaps the lowest moment of her entire public career to date, and I mean that in the specific sense that nobody who watches it — not even her fiercest partisans — will be able to come away from it with anything save a reflex-level revulsion.
I did not have Anderson Cooper cooking Kamala on my bingo card but here we are.
She’s exposed as a total hypocrite here. First the wall was racist, stupid and xenophobic but now that she needs votes she’s pandering. pic.twitter.com/ctk6nmQcvZ
“What was most remarkable about the disaster is how even CNN’s own analysts panned Harris’s performance as well, some with a palpable sense of disgust.”
Some excerpts of that:
NEW: CNN’s Scott Jennings says Kamala Harris is a “double-threat” because she can’t think on her feet and can’t answer the expected questions.
CNN has railed on Harris after her town hall event.
Next, after weeks of courting Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, Harris rejected him for Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota – the state that gave us Gov. Jesse “the body” Ventura and Saturday Night Live’s Al Franken as a U.S. Senator.
Another misstep for Harris. While Shapiro isn’t Biden, he is well known in greater Philadelphia and seems comfortable campaigning in Scranton and towns like it across the state.
It still isn’t clear if Harris rejected Shapiro because he is Jewish and supports Israel’s right to defend itself or because he is a tireless campaigner, well-received on the stump, who might show her up. Did she reject Shapiro because picking him would offend “the Squad” in Congress and endanger the electoral votes of Michigan, home to a large Muslim population? Or did she spurn the Pennsylvania governor because she didn’t want her supporters murmuring: “We should’ve run him?
Harris compounded her mistake by picking Walz, who represents the Democratic Party’s modern left wing. Walz won’t help Harris win votes in Pennsylvania; in fact, he makes it harder. She picked someone who is un-relatable everywhere, from Philadelphia’s neighborhoods to small town and rural Pennsylvania. And, he’s just plain “weird.”
It gets worse. Her message, agenda, and policies are not resonating here.
She has tried to stress that the economy is actually good – “Bidenomics is working,” she maintained. They tried charts, graphs, and “experts.” No one in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods is buying it, especially blacks and Hispanics, who are being crushed by inflation and violent crime.
So Harris pivoted to a new message: she would “fix” the economy and “fight” inflation. Her now comically repeated line about being “raised in a middle-class family” draws blank stares, laughs, or anger, even among some in her usual base.
It’s even worse in rural Pennsylvania, where Walz and “second man” Doug Emhoff tried a “real men for Kamala tour,” complete with ads and Zoom calls about why men should support her.
Then they sent “Elmer Fudd” – aka Walz – out hunting. In newly purchased hunting clothes, using the wrong rifle (plus demonstrating that he didn’t know how to load it), Walz resembled something like King Charles attending the Indianapolis 500.
Harris was against fracking – that is, before she was for it, as she now claims to be. No one in rural Pennsylvania is buying it. Her “values haven’t changed,” as she herself says. Rural Pennsylvanians know that her preferred policy would hurt the economy of northern, central and western Pennsylvania, to say nothing of the national economy and national security.
Democrats want to win Pennsylvania, of course – but they have selected the wrong candidate, through the wrong method. Harris then dug the hole deeper by picking the wrong running mate. And to top it off, they’re running on a misguided, if not delusional, platform.
“Black, Latino, and Asian Trump supporters shout down white, liberal Harris supporters in Lancaster.”
The left-wing, liberal, and Democratic narrative about former President Donald Trump being a racist is falling apart.
For years, labeling Trump as a racist was an integral part of Democrats’ political strategy. It was never really true, mind you. It was just baseless hyperbolic hysteria that was at the foundation of the Democratic political propaganda machine. They have used it against every Republican presidential candidate for the last 40 years.
They used it to brainwash, scare, and manipulate racial minorities and white liberals in the previous two presidential elections, in which Trump was the GOP nominee. They wanted to create a narrative that the only people who supported Trump were a bunch of lowly, uneducated, racist white people. It worked in 2016, and it worked in 2020. It’s not working in 2024.
The sanctimony of white, liberal Democrats is predicated on their unhinged arrogance of moral superiority involving race. The white, liberal Democrats think racial minorities cannot succeed in the United States without white, liberal Democrats saving them. The white, liberal Democrats think they are more intelligent, enlightened, and compassionate than Republicans. So, imagine their surprise when, outside the venue that hosted a town hall for Trump in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, it was black, Latino, and Asian Trump supporters shouting down Vice President Kamala Harris’s white, liberal supporters.
I witnessed, firsthand, white, liberal Harris supporters screaming that Trump is a racist and then demeaning the many black, Latino, and Asian Trump supporters holding Trump signs and wearing MAGA hats and shirts. These smug, arrogant white people were trying to tell racial minorities what was best for them. It was a sight to behold, but not one that has not become commonplace in American society. It was a reflection of just how out of touch with reality white, liberal Harris voters are.
Dominicans for Trump sign holders outside Trump town hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Christopher Tremoglie)
The crowd at the town hall was diverse, with a larger-than-expected minority presence, given the tall tales of Harris supporters’ fails regarding diversity and race among Trump supporters. It was immediately noticeable upon arriving at the town hall. Those in attendance were greeted by boisterous Asian Americans waving American flags in front of Trump posters, wearing red MAGA hats, and chanting the name “Trump!”
A few hundred feet away, a group of Dominican Trump voters were cheering for the former president and shouting down anyone who dared insult the GOP nominee. They stood outside the venue holding signs that read “Dominicans for Trump” and “Boricuas for Trump.”
A Harris supporter passed the group and chastised them, asking how they could be a minority and support a racist and a bigot. A person holding a “Boricuas for Trump” sign shouted back at them, asking the white Harris supporter who they thought they were telling a Dominican who to support. The Harris supporter kept walking. Other incidents played out similarly nearby.
Later, this group gathered at a main intersection near the Lancaster Convention Center and engaged in a shouting match with a group of Harris supporters, who had gathered to protest Trump. There did not appear to be any mention of race, just two groups shouting back and forth at each other. However, again, I noticed the Harris supporters were white, and the most vocal Trump supporters were black, Latino, and Asian.
Also: “Initial GOP Early Vote Turnout in Texas Substantially Higher Than 2020 Levels.”
But don’t get cocky! “Schumer-Backed Democratic PAC Makes $5 Million Texas Ad Buy Backing Allred….Schumer’s group, Senate Majority PAC (SMP) had mostly abstained from the Texas race, playing ball in other, seemingly more competitive races like in Ohio and Montana — much to Congressman Colin Allred’s (D-TX-32) chagrin. But clearly the calculus has changed for the group, which has now put substantial skin in the game in Texas.”
The Democratic Party’s election dirty tricks begin. “Montana Dem Operative Caught Tampering With Ballot Box…The operative, Laszlo Gendler, has been paid by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), according to OpenSecrets.org, as Montana Talks reported. The DSCC is attempting to help incumbent Democrat Senator Jon Tester against GOP senatorial candidate Tim Sheehy.”
A decade and a quarter of a billion dollars later, students and faculty are more frustrated than ever….
A decade ago, Michigan’s leaders set in motion an ambitious new D.E.I. plan, aiming “to enact far-reaching foundational change at every level, in every unit.” Striving to touch “every individual on campus,” as the school puts it, Michigan has poured roughly a quarter of a billion dollars into D.E.I. since 2016, according to an internal presentation I obtained. A 2021 report from the conservative Heritage Foundation examining the growth of D.E.I. programs across higher education — the only such study that currently exists — found Michigan to have by far the largest D.E.I. bureaucracy of any large public university. Tens of thousands of undergraduates have completed bias training. Thousands of instructors have been trained in inclusive teaching.
Michigan inaugurated what it now calls D.E.I. 1.0, it intentionally placed itself in the vanguard of a revolution then reshaping American higher education. Around the country, college administrators were rapidly expanding D.E.I., convinced that such programs would help attract and retain a more diverse array of students and faculty.
Today that revolution is under withering attack. Energized by backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement and the right-wing campaign against “critical race theory” in public institutions, at least a dozen states have banned or limited D.E.I. programs at public universities. After the Oct. 7 attacks, as campuses across the country erupted with protests against Israel, critics accused D.E.I. programs of fostering antisemitism. In the fever of the 2024 campaign, Republican influencers and politicians have recast D.E.I. as an all-purpose boogeyman — the root cause of defective airplanes, the collapse of a Baltimore bridge and the near-assassination of Donald J. Trump.
But even some of Michigan’s peer institutions have soured on aspects of D.E.I. Last spring, both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences said they would no longer require job candidates to submit diversity; such “compelled statements,” M.I.T.’s president said, “impinge on freedom of expression.”
Michigan hasn’t joined the retreat. Instead, it has redoubled its efforts, testing the future of an embattled ideal. A year ago, the university inaugurated what it calls D.E.I. 2.0. At Michigan’s flagship Ann Arbor campus, the number of employees who work in D.E.I.-related offices or have “diversity,” “equity” or “inclusion” in their job titles increased by 70 percent, reaching 241, according to figures compiled by Mark J. Perry, an emeritus professor of finance at the university’s Flint campus and a D.E.I. critic. (The school’s own figures, which count the D.E.I. work force differently, show less growth over time and a much smaller staff as of last year.) When school began in August, brightly colored flags around campus promoted the goals of D.E.I. 2.0.
According to a confidential report I obtained, a committee appointed by Michigan’s provost — and stocked with professors with D.E.I.-related appointments — urged the school this summer to continue using diversity statements in hiring and promotion, arguing that eliminating them “would be seen as a capitulation to the winds of political expediency.”
In many respects, Michigan’s entire D.E.I. initiative can be understood as a sustained act of defiance against such pressures. Nearly two decades ago, voters in Michigan banned racial preferences in university admissions and hiring. When the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action across the land last year — stripping selective colleges of their most powerful tool for building racially diverse classes — Michigan’s president, Santa J. Ono, went on PBS’s “NewsHour” to offer his university as the model for achieving diversity in a post-affirmative action world.
But over months of reporting this year, I found a different kind of backlash building, one that emanated not from Washington or right-wing think tanks but from inside the university’s own dorms and faculty lounges. On Michigan’s largely left-leaning campus, few of the people I met questioned the broad ideals of diversity or social justice. Yet the most common attitude I encountered about D.E.I. during my visits to Ann Arbor was a kind of wary disdain.
D.E.I. at Michigan is rooted in a struggle for racial integration that began more than a half-century ago, but many Black students today regard the school’s expansive program as a well-meaning failure. The university now has a greater proportion of Hispanic, Asian and first-generation students and a more racially diverse staff. But in a state where 14 percent of residents are Black, the school’s Black undergraduate enrollment has long hovered stubbornly at around 4 percent, before ticking up just past 5 percent this fall. (The figures are slightly higher if, as school officials strongly urged, you include students who identify as more than one race.) …
Michigan’s own data suggests that in striving to become more diverse and equitable, the school has also become less inclusive: In a survey released in late 2022, students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging. Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics — the exact kind of engagement D.E.I. programs, in theory, are meant to foster.
Social Justice is racist garbage that destroys everything it touches.
'We must not publish a study that says we're harming children because people who say we're harming children will use the study as evidence that we're harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children.' pic.twitter.com/hS4CcswkXg
Hezbollah launches a drone attack against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house, though they cause no injuries. Honestly, this is a huge step up from their usual targeting of women and children, as a country’s political leaders are a legitimate war target.
“Half of Millennials and Gen Z homeowners are, quote, trapped in their starter homes, which are now losing tens of thousands in value thanks to the same Federal Reserve that put them in a housing hell to begin with.”
Ammo.com sent over a report on defensive gun use in the U.S. “Although many dispute the plausibility of more than one million DGUs yearly, it is entirely plausible. With millions of gun owners in the U.S. and millions of unreported crimes, more civilians likely stop threats than are harmed by them. Furthermore, states with permitless carry and stand-your-ground laws experience reduced violent crime rates. Therefore, armed civilians are, at least, not a danger to society.”
Another one. “North Texas Teacher Arrested for Sexual Relationship With Former Student. Carroll ISD middle school teacher Angela Barnes was charged with sexual assault of a child and improper relationship between an educator and student.”
Lin Chen pleaded guilty in federal court today to illegally exporting U.S. technology to a prohibited end user in China, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The plea was accepted by the Hon. William Alsup, Senior U.S. District Judge.
In pleading guilty, Chen, 65, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), admitted to acting on behalf of Jiangsu Hantang International Trade Group Corp., Ltd. (JHI), a company headquartered in Nanjing, PRC, to procure a wafer cutting machine on behalf of Chengdu GaStone Technology Co., Ltd. (GaStone), an entity located in Chengdu, PRC. Chen admitted to knowing that GaStone was designated on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List on Aug. 1, 2014. Federal regulations restrict the export of certain items to companies, research institutions, and other entities identified on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List. Under applicable Department of Commerce regulations, wafer cutting machines, which are used to cut thin semiconductors used in electronics (also known as silicon wafers), require a license for export to end-users such as GaStone.
According to the plea agreement, by no later than Dec. 4, 2015, Chen knew that GaStone was prohibited from receiving restricted exports without a license, including a DTX-150 Scribe and Break Machine, a machine for processing silicon wafer microchips. On approximately Dec. 10, 2015, Chen worked with a co-defendant to arrange the sale of a DTX-150 to GaStone by shipping it to the PRC in the name of JHI without an export license from Commerce. Chen used JHI’s status as an intermediary to conceal GaStone as the true end-user of the technology.
That’s a slice-and-dice machine, not some cutting-edge process tech that’s embargoed to China. They might have been able to get that legally by just filling out the proper forms.
The last full-sized Kmart closes. I would say “Thanks, Joe Biden,” but this particular death, thanks to Walmart and Amazon, has been a long time coming.
“WNBA will lose $40 million this season. So naturally the players are thinking of opting out of their labor agreement to ask for more money… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Postcards From Barsoom has an extensive, reasonably compelling case that men gravitate toward jobs that allow them to compete with other men, mainly to impress women, and as become the majority in each of these fields, those particular arenas no longer convey status for achievement, because men do not win status by defeating women. Thus men who enter female-dominated fields for greater access to women are barking up the wrong tree, because even their co-workers will view them as low status. This theory has a certain amount of explanatory power, and posits that the feminization of academia begat social justice, not vice versa, but seems to me to be too totalizing an explanation for our current woes. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
Harris plagiarizes Wikipedia and blows off Catholics, Gwen Walz assigns America homework, social justice groomers keep trying to trans your kids, Williamson County’s sheriff gets accused of pay-for-play corruption, another Hamas leader eats a last meal of kosher drone, Columbia U wants to silence a pro-Israel professor, and a meat recall expands to my local supermarket.
The Biden-Harris administration announced [last] Friday that it was filing a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for enforcing voter integrity laws in the state that aim to curb illegal voting in elections.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who has a history of espousing racist views, claimed without evidence that Virginia’s move to increase election integrity was an “eleventh hour effort” intended, in part, to “disenfranchise qualified voters.”
The DOJ claimed that it was doing so because it was “too close to the Nov. 5 general election” to remove voters:
Section 8(c)(2) of the NVRA, also known as the Quiet Period Provision, requires states to complete systematic programs aimed at removing the names of ineligible voters from voter registration lists no later than 90 days before federal elections.
However, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order requiring that non-citizens be removed from voter rolls was signed on August 7, 2024 — exactly 90 days before Election Day.
The problem is the people who are being removed from the voter rolls are not, in fact, voters because they are not citizens, said Youngkin.
“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls – a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote,” Youngkin said.
Youngkin said that the lawsuit was a “desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy.”
At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal-justice issues.
However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)
Let’s consider a selection of these excerpts from Harris’s book, beginning with one in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited NBC News report, with the duplicated material marked in italics:
In Detroit’s public schools, only 25 percent of the students who enrolled in grade nine graduated from high school, while 30.5 percent graduated in Indianapolis public schools and 34 percent received diplomas in the Cleveland Municipal City School District. Overall, about 70 percent of the U.S. students graduate from public and private schools on time with a regular diploma, and about 1.2 million students drop out annually. Only about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation’s largest cities receive diplomas.
There’s more. In another section of the book, Harris, without proper attribution, reproduced extensive sections from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release. She and her co-author passed off the language as their own, copying multiple paragraphs virtually verbatim. Here is the excerpt, with the airlifted material in italics and abbreviations, such as percentages and state names, treated as verbatim substitutions:
High Point had its first face-to-face meeting with drug dealers, from the city’s West End neighborhood, on May 18, 2004. The drug market shut down immediately and permanently, with a sustained 35 percent reduction in violent crime. High Point repeated the strategy in three additional markets over the next three years. There is virtually no remaining public drug dealing in the city, and serious crime has fallen 20 percent citywide.
The High Point Strategy has since been implemented in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Raleigh, North Carolina; in Providence, Rhode Island; and in Rockford, Illinois. The U.S. Department of Justice is launching a national program to replicate the strategy in ten additional cities.
In a section about a New York court program, Harris stole long passages directly from Wikipedia—long considered an unreliable source. She not only assumes the online encyclopedia’s accuracy, but copies its language nearly verbatim, without citing the source. Here is Harris’s language, with duplicated material in italics, based on the page as it appeared in December 2008, before she published the book:
The Mid-town [sic] Community Court was established as a collaboration between the New York State Unified Court System and the Center for Court Innovation. The court works in partnership with local residents, businesses, and social service agencies to organize community service projects and provide on-site social services, including drug treatment, mental health counseling, and job training. What was innovative about Midtown Court was that it required low-level offenders to pay back the neighborhood through community service, while at the same time it offered them help with problems that often underlie criminal behavior.
To make matters worse, in duplicating Wikipedia’s language, Harris seems to have missed critical information and misstated a relevant detail. She claims, in prose identical to the online encyclopedia’s, that “illegal vending was down 24 percent” as a result of the court’s policies. Early in the paragraph, Harris cites the Bureau of Justice Assistance report to substantiate the figure. But she made a mistake: On Wikipedia, the “24 percent” figure was apparently tied to a different report, which found that “arrests for unlicensed vending,” rather than unlicensed vending as such, “fell by 24 percent” (emphasis mine). Her reliance on Wikipedia, an unreliable source, led to an unreliable conclusion.
While the BJA report was not the proper source for the “24 percent” claim, it did appear in the Wikipedia entry’s list of citations, and apparently was a fruitful resource for Harris and her coauthor, as they reproduced substantial portions of its sentences.
Nothing says “commitment to rigorous academic scholarship” quite like not just quoting verbatim from Wikipedia, but doing so incompetently.
Host of Fox News “Special Report” Bret Baier finally snagged that interview with Vice President and selected Democrat nominee Kamala Harris. Harris was campaigning in Washington Crossing, PA and was proud of the former Republicans and Trump administration people who took the stage with her and happy with their endorsement, delighted in their support of her as a presidential candidate.
The entire interview was a train wreck, but there were particular moments that were exceptionally cringeworthy, damaging, and proved with glaring certainty why she is unfit to lead.
Baier started off with the topic of illegal immigration, and you could visibly see Harris deflate like a balloon before the first question was asked.
Immediately Harris tried to filibuster Baier and do this interview’s version of “I’m speaking.” Harris brought up the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which she claimed addressed the flaws in the asylum system with more judges, 15 million more border agents, increased penalties, stemming the flow of fentanyl, shore up entry points, and how she has worked toward bipartisan efforts to strengthen the border.
Baier gently pushed back with documented facts, and Harris briefly got that deer in headlights look she gets when she is desperately trying to find her talking points. Then she jumped on her supposed record as California Attorney General (not her current position as VP) as proof that she knew how to handle this crisis. Failing to understand that the fact that a crisis exists is proof that you have no ability to correct it.
But the most purely evil and damning part of this topic of illegal immigration was the fact that Harris could not even form the words to apologize for allowing criminals into the country that resulted in the senseless deaths of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Rachel Morin.
Former president Donald Trump poked fun at vice president Kamala Harris during the Al Smith dinner on Thursday evening, criticizing his political rival for failing to show up at the charity event in person.
Harris addressed the crowd at the white-tie event, which raises funds for Catholics charities, in a pre-recorded video – a highly unusual move for a presidential candidate. It has become a tradition for presidential candidates to speak at the event since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared together in 1960.
The vice president is the first presidential contender to skip out on the dinner since Walter Mondale in 1984.
There’s an auspicious precedent.
“I guess you should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis and she would have been here, guaranteed,” Trump said.
He went on to joke that Harris must be “out receiving communion from Gretchen Whitmer,” a reference to a viral video from earlier this month of the Michigan governor feeding a chip to a leftist influencer on her knees.
Trump accused the vice president of being “disrespectful to Catholics.”
He also quipped about the Democratic nominee’s odd’s of winning the election, saying, “There’s a group called White Dudes for Harris but I’m not worried about them. Their wives and their wives’ lovers are voting for me.”
Does Kamala Harris need a mea culpa in PA? Or does her disconnect from voters in the Rust Belt go beyond state lines and religion?
That question has rolled around in my head since reading William McGurn’s column yesterday at the Wall Street Journal. McGurn uses Gretchen Whitmer’s bizarre mockery of the Catholic Eucharist while wearing a Harris-Walz hat to argue that the Democrat anointee for the presidency now has a Whitmer-created problem. But is that entirely true, or does it go beyond Whitmer’s blasphemy?
McGurn recognizes a broader problem, but perhaps not its scope. First, he outlines the direct issues with Catholics, who comprise 30% of Pennsylvania:
As California’s attorney general, Ms. Harris signed several friend-of-the-court briefs opposing religious exemptions for private employers such as Hobby Lobby and religious nonprofits such as the Little Sisters of the Poor. She said she was “proud” to have co-sponsored California’s Reproductive FACT Act, which compelled pro-life pregnancy centers to display notices about where women could get an abortion. The Supreme Court in 2018 rejected the law as a likely violation of the First Amendment.
But perhaps Ms. Harris’s most notorious Catholic moment came after she was elected senator. When Brian Buescher was nominated for a federal judgeship, she grilled him about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s fraternal organization. Although President John F. Kennedy was also a Knight, Ms. Harris treated the group as though it were the Ku Klux Klan.
She would later co-sponsor the Equality Act, which the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops said could force doctors and hospitals to perform abortions they oppose. Last month she snubbed New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan by declining to attend this Thursday’s Al Smith dinner, an election-year staple that has brought Democratic and Republican candidates together in a civil setting for decades.
Those are the direct issues, and those aren’t limited to Pennsylvania. Overall, Republicans now have a statistically significant edge in party ID among Catholics, according to Pew polling this year, 50/44. Nationally, Catholics accounted for 25% of the vote in 2020, although apparently pollsters didn’t include data on religion in state-level exit polling. One can expect a similarly significant number of Catholics in Wisconsin and Michigan, and perhaps slightly lower levels in states like Arizona and Georgia. In every state, however, Catholics make up a far larger part of the electorate than the Arab-Americans did in Michigan, and yet both Biden and Harris obsessed over their support all year long.
That’s one problem, but that’s not the only problem. A more recent Pew poll shows Harris trailing Donald Trump with Catholics by five points, even worse than Hillary Clinton performed in 2016. But the issue isn’t entirely religious:
Mr. Biden may be the last of the big-time Democrats whose base was the white working class. But it confers a sensibility Ms. Harris is conspicuously lacking. …
Politico reports that Ms. Harris’s prospects are “considerably dicier” because of a “cultural dissonance” between her progressive San Francisco persona and white working-class Catholic Pennsylvanians.
That gets closer to the real danger for Democrats, but it has less to do with “white” and “Catholic” than it does to working class. Biden had a political and cultural connection to working-class voters, not just because of his Catholicism but because of his background. He fit into that milieu even if that mainly came as a conceit, especially after fifty years in Washington DC, but he could talk in their language too … at least before his brain turned to jelly. People keep overlooking his 2012 address to the Democrat convention, which turned out to be the best of the week, in which he artfully bridged the gap between the working class and the Academia-drenched elite that had mainly taken over the party in the current generation.
Harris simply can’t do that. Not only is she incapable of connecting at anywhere near that level, she only recently even showed a desire to do so. Her lame attempt at repeating the mantra “I was raised in a middle-class household” ad nauseam is about as close as she gets. Culturally, she comes from the Academia-drenched elite and speaks their language, to the extent she speaks any political language effectively at all. Harris tosses around clichés as a means to connect to working class voters, which initially appeared to appeal to them but have turned into a major liability now.
The Democratic Party’s naked contempt for both religious believers and the actual working class has been evident for a long, long time.
More on the subject: “Blowing Off the Al Smith Dinner Might Have Cost Harris Pennsylvania — and the Election.”
The Catholic vote is not as monolithic as it used to be. In 1928, the Catholic vote was overwhelmingly Democratic, concentrated in urban centers. By 1960, the Catholic vote was fracturing through intermarriage and economic issues, but Kennedy still received about 65% of the vote from his co-religionists.
Today, Donald Trump can expect to get about 60% of the Catholic vote. In Pennsylvania, The Catholic vote might be pivotal in a state that Harris absolutely, positively has to win.
“Her San Francisco progressive persona isn’t a good fit for Joe Biden’s native state,” William McGurn wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday.
Snip. “In an election in Pennsylvania that will almost certainly be decided by less than 100,000 votes, Harris skipping the Al Smith Dinner was not only stupid but might be the mistake that cost her the White House.” Eh, probably not. Harris will probably lose the election because she’s part of an administration had presided over a wretched economy and let in millions of illegal aliens. Plus she’s a horrible candidate that literally nobody voted for. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Google is up to its old tricks, “hiding Conservative news on election 23 pages deep.””When using the search term “donald trump presidential race 2024,” researchers had to scroll through 23 pages of results before they come to a U.S.-based right-leaning news source, a single Fox News video six results down on the 23rd page.”
An excerpt from the book Walz' wife was reading to children shows them all riding the gay dad while he puts a vacuum cleaner up to his mouth. I'm sure it's nothing. From: Bathe the Cat. pic.twitter.com/2npr5s6mDN
Gwen Walz also seems to feel that the best way to get men to the polls is assigning them homework.
Can you put some really money behind that and put it on air? Maybe during college football?
There are still men out there who don’t hate this campaign with every fiber of their being, and I think this ad could be enough to nag them right into Trump’s arms. https://t.co/vk6jwJY9oM
Yes, social justice warrior teachers do want to trans your kids. “Court Shuts Down BLM Teacher Trying To Force Trans Ideologies On Kids.”
Megan Williams is a first-grade teacher who forced her 6 and 7-year-old students to “observe” so-called Transgender Awareness Day. This Black Lives Matter activist subjected these small children to non-curricular propaganda about “gender identity” and sex changes.
Williams disturbingly went so far as to tell these kids that their “parents ma[d]e a guess whether they’re a boy or a girl” and may have been wrong. Parents complained, but Williams was backed by her school principal and superintendent.
Three mothers fired back by filing a lawsuit against Williams, the school, the district, and district officials in June of 2022. Their goal was to obtain a moratorium “on gender dysphoria and transgender transitioning,” parental notice and opt-out rights on the topic absent such a prohibition, compensatory damages, and punitive damages.
Thankfully, Judge Joy Conti of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania just ruled largely in favor of these mothers.
Judge Conti stated that “parents have a constitutional right to reasonable and realistic advance notice and the ability to opt their elementary-age children of noncurricular instruction on transgender topics and to not have requirements for notice and opting out of those topics that are more stringent than those for other sensitive topics.”
Here’s the remarks in the aired clip shared by Johnson:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the FEMA Director says there’s only $11 billion left from that $20 billion that was allocated. So that’s a different accounting than this 2% you say was distributed.
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yeah. So they’ve obligated some funds, but they’ve only distributed 2%…The rescue and recovery efforts are still going on, and then we address the rest of it.
And here — I’ll put it in bold — is what CBS edited out for the broadcast:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the FEMA Director says there’s only $11 billion left from that $20 billion that was allocated. So that’s a different accounting than this 2% you say was distributed.
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yeah. So they’ve obligated some funds, but they’ve only distributed 2%, and when I was there on the ground, and you should go, I mean, bring the cameras and talk to the people there, they’ll tell you, don’t- don’t take politicians words for this or the administration’s word, talk to the people there on the ground they had not been provided the resources almost two weeks out from the storm that they desperately needed. And when I was there 13 days, post- you know, post the storm hitting that state, people are still being rescued. They’re stuck in the higher elevations in the mountains because the roads are down and all the rest. So they need every- every available resource and all hands on deck. The rescue and recovery efforts are still going on, and then we address the rest of it.
Issues in the debate ranged from abortion to the border crisis, and allowing boys in girls’ sports.
On abortion, Cruz said he supported Texas’ pro-life laws while acknowledging that other states would make different decisions.
“In Texas, we overwhelmingly support that parents should be notified and have to consent before their child gets an abortion. In Texas, we overwhelmingly agree that late-term abortions in the eighth and ninth months, that’s too extreme. And I’ll tell you, in Texas, we overwhelmingly agree that taxpayer money shouldn’t pay for abortions,” said Cruz.
He went on to attack his opponent’s position on abortion as extreme, noting that Allred “voted in favor of striking down Texas’ parental notification law. He voted in favor of striking down Texas’ parental consent law. He voted to legalize late-term abortions, including the eighth and ninth months.”
Allred, meanwhile, said he would fight to “restore a woman’s right to choose” and to “make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again.”
Snip.
One of the biggest issues playing out in the campaign thus far has been Allred’s position on allowing boys in girls’ sports. The issue has been the target of Cruz’s campaign ads and led to Allred denying the accusations, despite voting against legislation to protect girls sports.
“I know a lot of y’all at home, for example, saw two biological men competing in women’s boxing at the Olympics,” said Cruz. “That was wildly unfair. You know, my youngest daughter plays volleyball. It’s not fair for a biological boy or man, a teenage boy, to spike the volleyball at her, and he has voted repeatedly in favor of that.”
FEMA’s entanglement with the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous open southern border policies by diverting storm relief funds ($1.4 billion, according to NYPost) for illegal and legal aliens may have undermined the federal agency’s ability to effectively manage emergencies, such as the Katrina-like disaster unfolding in the US Southeast.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas dropped the bombshell [two weeks ago]: FEMA “does not have the funds” to see Americans through the rest of this Atlantic hurricane season. The federal agency drained the funds by prioritizing taxpayer funds for illegal and legal aliens versus US citizens as the Biden-Harris globalist team rolled out the red carpet to anyone, even terrorists, via the open southern borders.
Connect the dots, if you can,” Tim Murtaugh, an adviser to former President Trump’s campaign, wrote on X, adding, “DHS says FEMA might not have enough cash to help people through hurricane season. But in 2 years of a new Biden-Harris program, they’ve spent $1 BILLION on housing and other services for migrants.”
Shedding a whole heck of a lot of color on the situation, Savanah Hernandez, a reporter for Turning Point USA, wrote on X that she has uncovered some of the “first looks” inside fully furnished luxury apartments for migrants that received free rent and utilities for two years.
Hernandez wrote in a note on The Post Millennial:
The Brunswick Landing apartments in Maine sparked controversy earlier this year when it was discovered that homeless migrants in the area were getting the opportunity to live in the units rent-free for up to two years. Migrants living in the apartments shared that not only is the rent-free, the utilities are paid and we got an inside look at the furnished apartments that would run the average American about $2,300 dollars.
“FEMA: Disaster Relief No Longer About Emergency Response, It’s About ‘Disaster Equity.'”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is supposed to be the government’s premier emergency relief organization in times of disaster, like the situation now faced by victims of Hurricane Helene’s aftermath in North Carolina and Tennessee.
But according to the FEMA website, the agency now places higher priority on instituting Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity guidelines than on easing the suffering of Americans displaced by disaster.
Among the goals listed in FEMA’s strategic plan are to:
Instill equity as a foundation for emergency management
Lead whole of community in climate resilience
Promote and sustain a ready FEMA & prepared nation
What does that look like in action?
Here’s an example of a FEMA disaster preparedness meeting where participants discuss how LGBTQIA individuals were suffering disproportionally before the storm compared to other disaster victims.
Notice how the focus shifts from doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people to ensuring that they are promoting “equity in disaster relief.”
Social justice is racist poison that ruins everything, and now it’s costing Americans their lives.
Here we go again. “Report: Migrant Caravans Leaving Southern Mexico Headed Toward US Border.”
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has declared a “blood feud” against three federal lawmakers from neighboring North Caucasus republics in his first comments on last month’s deadly shooting outside the Moscow headquarters of Russia’s largest online retailer Wildberries.
Kadyrov has vowed to help Vladislav Bakalchuk, the estranged husband of Wildberries CEO Tatiana Kim — Russia’s wealthiest woman — to return his wife and block the merger of their e-commerce giant with the smaller outdoor advertising group Russ.
The family and business dispute escalated last month when Bakalchuk led a group of men to Wildberries’ Moscow offices and allegedly tried to force their way into the building. Two security guards, who were ethnic Ingush, were killed in the shootout and multiple felony charges, including murder, were filed against Bakalchuk and several other ethnic Chechens involved in the incident.
Kadyrov is a piece of work, but one with a sufficiently strong independent power base that Putin has felt compelled to buy him off. Kadyrov declaring a blood fued against Russian officials probably isn’t a sign of harmony in Russia’s government…
Sinwar is only the latest high-profile terrorist to meet his fate at the hands of the IDF. His predecessor at the top of Hamas’s hierarchy, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran when a bomb covertly smuggled into an Iranian diplomatic safehouse exploded in July. Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, was neutralized in a July airstrike after seven unsuccessful IDF attempts to deliver him to justice. Hamas deputy commander Marwan Issa met his fate in March, two months after his deputy, Saleh al-Arouri, was cut down in the suburbs of Beirut by an Israeli drone.
A little over a year after the war Hamas inaugurated against Israel on 10/7 in the deadliest one-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the terrorist organization has been entirely decapitated. Its fighters are scattered, disorganized, and reduced to chaotic rearguard actions against the Israeli troops busily rolling them up. Critics of Israel’s campaign like to insist that Hamas is an idea and therefore cannot simply be dispatched like the thousands of its fighters the IDF has cut down. True enough, but an idea cannot shoot at you or launch rocket attacks on your cities. That requires well-connected, deeply embedded commanders with years of experience conducting asymmetrical insurgent attacks on a superior force. Those commanders are all dead.
The Israeli officials who have pursued Hamas’s barbarians until the end have done so without much encouragement from the West. Indeed, the death of every Hamas commander was fretted over in the West as though it created a new impediment to peace and to the negotiations over the hostages Hamas itself captured on 10/7 — 97 of whom still have not yet been located. Joe Biden’s administration withdrew almost all rhetorical support for Israeli operations in places like Rafah, where Sinwar himself was taken out. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government deserves the gratitude of the civilized world for rejecting these entreaties seeking Israel’s surrender in its righteous war.
The Israelis did not choose the way this war began, but they will be the authors of its conclusion. And the end is near. The Israelis have brought the Gaza Strip closer to its day of liberation from the tyranny of an illegitimate terrorist regime than all the combined efforts of the peace processors in the global diplomatic corps ever achieved. It is a shame that the American administration that stood so stalwartly with Israel at the outset of this campaign willingly sacrificed its ability to celebrate alongside its Israeli counterparts. This should be America’s victory, too. But by spending months on end agonizing over how Israel was achieving its honorable objective, the Biden White House and its allies lost sight of our shared strategic goals.
We hit the Houthis with B-2s. I didn’t have that on my 2024 dance card…
“Williamson County’s Democrat Sheriff Accused of Accepting Pay-to Play Donation. On September 24, the Williamson County Commissioners Court issued a contract for over $500,000 to Family Hospital Management Company for ‘Jail Inmate Psychological Services’. Just four days before a county contract was issued, [Democrat Sheriff Mike] Gleason received a $20,000 campaign donation from the founder and CEO of the company that received the contract.” “Jail Inmate Psychological Services” sounds like a great avenue for leftwing graft…
“A North Carolina Democratic county leader, who is also running for a seat in the state House, was arrested after allegedly stealing Trump signs near a road last week. Moore County, North Carolina, County Chair Lowell Simon, 68, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor larceny of political signs after he admitted to removing Trump signs and keeping them in his car.”
“The Young Turks’ Ana Kasparian says she ‘woke up’ after being molested by LA homeless man and ‘the good people’ slammed her for talking about it. Kasparian described feeling “politically homeless” and shared how the backlash she received from liberals after the assault played a key role in her reevaluation.” Seems like social justice warriors feel that being molested by a homeless man or raped by an illegal alien is a small price to pay for taxpayer-subsidized abortion…
Boy dressed as girl assaults actual girl, gives her a concussion and blurred vision. You know what the school administrators did, don’t you? That’s right, they suspended the victim.
“Edgewood ISD Superintendent Gets Raise While Students Are Failing. Edgewood ISD extended Superintendent Eduardo Hernández’s contract until 2029 and raised his annual salary to $291,923.””Only 23 percent of Edgewood ISD students can read, write, and do math at or above grade level.” Edgewood is on the west side of San Antonio.
Columbia U is trying to make their campus Judenfrei.
Columbia University is temporarily suspending a prominent pro-Israel business professor’s access to campus after he publicly criticized school officials for permitting anti-Israel campus demonstrations on the anniversary of the October 7 massacre.
Columbia notified Israeli-American business professor Shai Davidai on Tuesday that he will be banned from campus for violating university policy on harassing school employees.
On Tuesday night, Davidai posted a video on social media accusing Columbia of retaliating against him for posting a video of himself asking Columbia’s chief operating officer Cas Halloway why he allowed pro-Hamas demonstrators to protest on the anniversary of October 7.
“Right now I was supposed to be at the school of social work at Columbia, where the Jewish students are holding their own memorial service for the senseless violence of October 7th. But then I got a call from my lawyer, who says the university has decided to not allow me to be on campus anymore,” Davidai said.
“Why? Because of October 7th. Because I was not afraid to stand up to the hateful mob. And because I was not afraid to expose Mr. f**king Cas Holloway for not doing anything about it.”
Davidai should sue them over equal rights violation for millions. Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.
Researchers have unearthed two sophisticated toolsets that a nation-state hacking group—possibly from Russia—used to steal sensitive data stored on air-gapped devices, meaning those that are deliberately isolated from the Internet or other networks to safeguard them from malware.
One of the custom tool collections was used starting in 2019 against a South Asian embassy in Belarus. A largely different toolset created by the same threat group infected a European Union government organization three years later. Researchers from ESET, the security firm that discovered the toolkits, said some of the components in both were identical to those fellow security firm Kaspersky described in research published last year and attributed to an unknown group, tracked as GoldenJackal, working for a nation-state. Based on the overlap, ESET has concluded that the same group is behind all the attacks observed by both firms.
The practice of air gapping is typically reserved for the most sensitive networks or devices connected to them, such as those used in systems for voting, industrial control, manufacturing, and power generation. A host of malware used in espionage hacking over the past 15 years (for instance, here and here) demonstrate that air gapping isn’t a foolproof protection. It nonetheless forces threat groups to expend significant resources that are likely obtainable only by nation-states with superior technical acumen and unlimited budgets. ESET’s discovery puts GoldenJackal in a highly exclusive collection of threat groups.
Then there’s this: “The basic flow of the attack is, first, infecting an Internet-connected device through a means ESET and Kaspersky have been unable to determine.” There’s a 99% chance that these air-gaped systems are being attacked through the usual human engineering or security lapse vectors. Which leaves a 1% chance of some form of electromagnetic witchcraft…
“WeightWatchers Squeezes Higher After Unveiling New Low-Cost GLP-1 Treatment…WW announced the addition of a new compounded semaglutide to its lineup to beat America’s obesity crisis sparked by the processed foods industrial complex. The new treatment starts at $129 per month, and each additional month will cost $189. This is significantly less than GLP-1 obesity treatments from big pharma, which cost north of $1,000 a month.”
Fiat/Stellantis merged with Chrysler in 2014, and now they’re threatening to shut it down in two years.
BrucePac listeria meat recall expands, now includes some HEB items.
Disney plans to slash budgets on Marvel movies going forward. On the one hand, that’s probably prudent, since it gets harder and harder to turn a profit with soaring budgets. On the other hand, Marvel’s recent problems aren’t a product of big budgets, they’re a product of wokeness and crappy scripts.
Rick Beato has an interesting video with R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills. I didn’t realize that the other three members wrote the music then handed it off to Michael Stipe, who would go off and create the lyrics by himself.
More than 200 people have been confirmed dead as a result of Hurricane Helene, and that total is expected to rise as search-and-rescue crews reach more remote communities. Roads have been destroyed, many towns are still without power, and people are beginning to run out of food as trucks cannot get in to provide aid.
Amid all of this, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the architect of the migrant invasion, warns that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is running out of money to aid hurricane victims. Meanwhile, thanks to the migrant crisis his catch-and-release policies created, FEMA has spent over $1 billion feeding, housing, and transporting illegal immigrants across the United States in just the last two years.
Before he was elected, President Joe Biden said of migrants wanting to enter the U.S. illegally, “We could afford to take in a heartbeat another 2 million.” Thanks to Biden’s subsequent policies, all supported by Vice President Kamala Harris, including the end of former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, the temporary suspension of all deportations, and the creation of the CBP One app parole program and the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans parole program, the number of illegal immigrants allowed into the U.S. by Biden has been closer to 4 million.
Unfortunately for communities across the U.S., the ability of this country to take in millions of illegal immigrants has not been as smooth as Biden predicted. Cities, many of them controlled by Democrats, have been begging the federal government for assistance in housing, clothing, feeding, education, and providing healthcare for the flood of migrants who are straining budgets in their communities.
In response, the Biden administration has spent tens of billions of dollars helping to ease the pain caused by their illegal migrant invasion. Local governments are required to provide education to all children, regardless of legal status, and the Department of Education helps local governments pay to educate these children. Hospitals must provide emergency care to all patients, even illegal immigrants without health insurance, and so the Department of Health and Human Services helps local hospitals stay afloat by reimbursing them through Medicaid.
And the Department of Homeland Security helps provide food, housing, and transportation to illegal immigrants through FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program and Shelter and Services Program Awards program. When the influx of migrants was bankrupting cities across the country this past winter, Democratic mayors traveled to the White House to beg Biden for more FEMA money to help their communities “meet the growing needs of these individuals.”
And the White House gave them the FEMA money they wanted. In just the last two years alone, the Biden administration has spent over $1 billion in FEMA funds giving local communities the resources needed to deal with the migrant crisis that the Biden administration created.
if Joe Biden had said he wanted to let 4 million illegal aliens into the country, and subsidize their food and clothing, do you think he would have been “elected” in 2020?
CBS lies, altering interview of Kamala Harris on Israel:
Here are the two different 60 Minutes edits layered on top of each other in full. You will hear where Whitaker's questions line up, and the different edited answers from Harris.
SC 1842 (bottom) is what aired on Monday night. SC 1843.5 (top) is what the Face the Nation X account… pic.twitter.com/FEuQp2o0kn
Beyond the word salad that people pointed out, CBS and 60 Minutes edited out everything she says about providing aide to Israel in order to defend itself from attacks.
Now when you contrast that with the fallout from the Coates interview, this all stinks. This is a CBS agenda…
On September 30th, anti-Israel author Ta-Nehisi Coates sat down for what turned out to be a spirited six-and-a-half-minute interview on CBS Mornings, during which co-anchor Tony Dokoupil challenged some of the claims made in Coates’ new book, “The Message.”
The book contains several essays about some of Coates’ travels, with the longest one being about his trip “to Palestine.” It was claims made in that essay that Dokoupil zeroed in on for closer examination during their exchange:
“I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim, took the cover off the book, publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” Dokoupil said.
“So then I found myself wondering, why does Ta’Nehisi Coates, who I’ve known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second Intifada, the café bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits. Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?” the CBS anchor continued.
Perhaps because Coates’ word is viewed as sacrosanct by woke leftists in the media, academia, and beyond despite his deeply flawed logic on issues like reparations, eruptions began almost immediately in the CBS newsroom, with tensions boiling over a week later during an editorial call:
During its editorial meeting on Monday at 9 a.m.—the morning of October 7—the network’s top brass all but apologized for the interview to staff, saying that it did not meet the company’s “editorial standards.” After being introduced by Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, Adrienne Roark, who is in charge of news gathering at the network, began her remarks by saying covering a story like October 7 “requires empathy, respect, and a commitment to truth.”
After quoting extensively from the CBS News handbook, she said, “We will still ask tough questions. We will still hold people accountable. But we will do so objectively, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door…”
Presumably, the “bias” accusations stem from the fact that, according to the New York Post, Dokoupil is “a convert to Judaism whose ex-wife lives in Israel along with their two children.”
“During its editorial meeting on Monday at 9 a.m.—the morning of October 7—the network’s top brass all but apologized for the interview to staff, saying that it did not meet the company’s ‘editorial standards.’”
Though Shalt Not Question the Holy Social justice.
A US judge has sentenced a disgraced Black Lives Matter leader to federal prison after he was convicted at trial in April on wire fraud and money laundering charges. Sir Maejor Page, 35, of Toledo, Ohio, who uses the alias Tyree Conyers-Page, was found guilty of running a “fake charity scheme” for personal profit, defrauding donors of more than $450,000 they had given to his nonprofit Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta.
US District Court Judge Jeffrey Helmick of the Northern District of Ohio sentenced Page on Thursday to 42 months in federal prison. He was also ordered to pay a $400 special assessment fee, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
Prosecutors accused Page of defrauding 18,000 donors who collectively gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to his fraudulent charity, Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta. Page took the donations and used them for his own personal benefit. He purchased entertainment, hotel rooms, clothing, firearms, and a property in Ohio that he intended to use as his personal residence, court documents showed.
Page continued to collect donations for his “social justice” charity through its Facebook page after the organization’s tax-exempt status was revoked for failing to submit IRS Form 990 for three consecutive years. He consistently shared content on Facebook relating to social justice and racial issues in order to establish the legitimacy of his nonprofit organization, despite the fact this it was no longer tax-exempt. The convicted fraudster used Facebook to communicate privately with donors, to which he falsely claimed that their contributions would be allocated to “fight for George Floyd” and the “movement.”
In a recent podcast interview, the political analyst who first predicted that Joe Biden would withdraw from the presidential race revealed that private polling he has seen appears to suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is in serious trouble ahead of the November election.
According to Breitbart, Newsmax commentator and former political director for ABC News Mark Halperin gave his analysis on The Morning Meeting with Sean Spicer and Dan Turrentine. Halperin said that internal polling could see Harris lose all but one of the seven swing states in this election, as her current lead in the national popular vote is not enough to win the electoral college against former President Donald Trump.
“So the new New York Times poll shows her up three nationally,” Halperin explained. “We all know that three is like the bubble point, right? If she’s up three, she’s got a chance to win the Electoral College, but they’d rather be at four, and they don’t want to be at two. So three is right at the bubble. I’m not saying this Times poll’s right. But it’s in line with international polls.”
“We all know from our contacts in both campaigns that Pennsylvania is tough for her right now. And without Pennsylvania, there are paths, but there aren’t many. There’s no path without Wisconsin,” Halperin continued. “So you see here, Tammy Baldwin’s Senate campaign poll shows Harris down three in Wisconsin. We all said yesterday, Wisconsin and Michigan are looking worse for Harris than before.”
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin’s (D-Wisc.) campaign had previously shared internal polling with both the Wall Street Journal and Axios, showing Harris losing to Trump in the state and Baldwin herself with a mere 2-point lead over her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde (R-Wisc.).
Such results in private polls align with the trend reflected in public polls, with pollsters such as Quinnipiac University and Emerson College showing President Trump gaining momentum in most of the swing states, now either leading Harris or tied in enough states to win the electoral college.
“I just saw some new private polling today that’s very robust private polling. She’s in a lot of trouble,” said Halperin. “The conversation I’m having with Trump people and Democrats with data are extremely bullish on Trump’s chances in the last 48 hours, extremely bullish. You think of the seven battleground states; which ones is Harris in danger of losing? I would say Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. I’m not saying she’ll lose all six, but she’s in danger.”
If Harris were to lose these six states but hold the seventh swing state, Nevada, then the result would be an exact repeat of the 2016 election, with President Trump winning 306 electoral votes to Harris’ 232.
“Law enforcement has arrested Estefania Primera, an illegal alien from Venezuela, following reports that she was the ring leader for a gang’s sex trafficking operation in El Paso. Primera was named by a sex trafficking victim as the leader of a Tren de Aragua sex trafficking ring.”
People have been asking about the Texas temporary ID ruling in other threads, and now we have an update.
Secretary of State Asks Attorney General to Rule on ‘Limited Term’ Driver’s Licenses as Voter ID. Paxton received a request from Secretary of State Nelson to rule on the validity of “limited term” driver’s licenses as voter ID.
Texas Secretary of State (SOS) Jane Nelson issued an advisory on Tuesday that describes “limited term” driver’s licenses as an acceptable form of voter ID, though recommending other forms of photo identification if possible.
While the Texas Election Code does not specifically designate “limited term” ID cards as a permissible form of voter ID, it does describe “a personal identification card issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety” (TxDPS) as an approved form of identification.
As Nelson’s advisory acknowledges, TxDPS distributes “temporary term” driver’s licenses to noncitizens, provided they are an individual with lawful temporary status in the U.S.
The SOS’s guidance concedes that if an individual is registered to vote and presents a “limited term” driver’s license or ID card, they may receive a ballot after being fully informed by the election judge or clerk of the “eligibility requirements” necessary to vote in Texas.
The issue cited by the SOS is that while the limited term ID denotes noncitizen status at one point, it doesn’t mean that the individual has not since been naturalized. Transportation Code also includes the limited term ID as a valid form of identification, creating a small window for a potentially legitimate use of the document to vote.
Additionally, if an individual presents a “limited term” ID card but is not registered to vote, they may receive a provisional ballot after election officials fully evaluate what their lack of registration and unique form of identification suggests.
Nelson recommended using language such as, “The limited-term driver’s license/identification card you presented suggests that you are not a United States citizen. Your name does not appear on the list of registered voters. Per the Texas Election Code, to be eligible to vote in the State of Texas, you must be a qualified voter of this state,” when explaining the situation to the unregistered voter and prior to distributing a provisional ballot.
Nelson requested on October 9 that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rule on whether a limited term driver’s license that “generates questions of voter eligibility” is a valid form of voter ID and if an election official must present a ballot to an individual who only provides such ID in person. The request is for a non-binding opinion by the Office of the Attorney General.
Nelson also asked Paxton how ballot workers ought to treat mail-in ballots that only list an ID number or driver’s license card that is “limited term,” in regards both to “counting” the vote and for investigating “instances of fraud.”
So Paxton will be able to nip this potential avenue of voting fraud in the bud.
“A former Democrat member of the Texas Senate is throwing his support behind a Republican candidate for the seat he once held. Former State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville announced his endorsement of Adam Hinojosa in the race against freshman Democrat State Sen. Morgan LaMantia, pointing to their shared pro-life values as a key reason.”
“The most fun I had going to see the new Joker movie was in the car ride and from it, because I was listening to Warhammer 40K lore on the Horus Heresy. And just listening to that was better than seeing Joker Folie a Deux.”
Finally, a non-insulting use for AI? They’re going to use AI to create dubs of original Japanese anime in voices that sound like the original Japanese voice actors. This would be a big improvement on a lot of the early crappy dubs, but I can’t imagine American voice actors being thrilled at losing those gigs…
“Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Fisker Inc. is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and faces formal objections from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after halting production in March…The DOJ contends in filings that Fisker’s proposed $750,000 cap on recall expenses in its bankruptcy plan is insufficient to cover both parts and labor costs required for vehicle repairs.”
Also: “New York-based company called American Lease was less deterred by this warning and in June agreed to purchase the remaining Fisker inventory—approximately 3,300 cars for a total of $46.3 million dollars. By October, American Lease had paid Fisker $42.5 million and had taken delivery of about 1,100 Oceans. That was the plan until the end of last week, at least. Last Friday evening, Fisker informed American Lease that the Oceans ‘cannot, as a technical matter, be ‘ported’ from the Fisker server to which the vehicles are currently linked to a distinct server owned and/or controlled by’ American Lease.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Also from Instapundit: Fisker left their California headquarters trashed when they vacated.
The issue originated in one of the Kia web portals used by dealerships. Long story short and a hefty bit of API abuse later, [Sam] Curry and his band of far-more-capable Kia Boyz managed to register a fake dealer account to get a valid access token, which they were then able to use to call any backend dealer API command they wanted.
“From the victim’s side, there was no notification that their vehicle had been accessed nor their access permissions modified,” Curry noted in his writeup. “An attacker could resolve someone’s license plate, enter their VIN through the API, then track them passively and send active commands like unlock, start, or honk.”
Bungled. “A founding member of the experimental rock band Mr. Bungle was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder in the killing of his girlfriend after prosecutors in California found an audio file the victim recorded on her phone as she fought for her life. A jury in Santa Cruz deliberated for a day before finding Theobald ‘Theo’ Lengyel guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of his girlfriend Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann on the night of Dec. 4, 2023, inside her Capitola home.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
The pianist cashed his ticket and drove an exhausting 500 miles to the concert venue on the only night he could play, only to find a broken, out-of-tune piano. The restaurant couldn’t get his order right before he had to leave to perform. He refused to play multiple times before finally relenting and, still in pain from the drive, improvised the best-selling solo piano album of all time.
A crippling dock strike gets the can kicked past election day, Hurricane Helene wrecks havoc on the highlands, illegal alien crime flourishes, two bombing plots aimed at “diversity” are thwarted, Texas A&M ditches woke classes, more Diddy dirt, and Japanese gamers aren’t onboard with Ubisoft’s “black samurai.”
The Biden-Harris administration’s ‘America Last’ policies have left the country vulnerable. Between draining the strategic petroleum reserve, sending hundreds of billions in cash and equipment to Ukraine (such as electrical transformers that are now needed for Hurricane Helene), and FEMA spending $640 million to help migrants, the agency tasked with emergency preparedness is now ‘broke,’ and doesn’t have enough money to get through hurricane season which typically lasts through November.
The agency is being stretched as it works with states to assess damage from Hurricane Helene and delivers meals, water, generators and other critical supplies. The storm struck Florida last week, then plowed through several states in the Southeast, flooding towns and killing more than 160 people.
Mayorkas was not specific about how much additional money the agency may need, but his remarks on Air Force One underscored concerns voiced by President Joe Biden and some lawmakers earlier this week that Congress may need to pass a supplemental spending bill this fall to help states with recovery efforts.
“This woman blasted Joe Biden live on NBC – she has family that has been trapped in NC for days and says FEMA is nowhere in sight. Why haven’t President Biden or Vice President Harris called a major press conference and/or landed on the ground in towns that were wiped off the map by last week’s flooding?”
Indeed, there are a lot of reports that some government agencies are actively hindering private rescue and relief efforts in North Carolina. “Let’s begin with this terrible report of a man who used his own helicopter to rescue stranded people above Asheville, N.C., and who was told if he continued, he would be placed under arrest.”
Also: “We have medical teams trying to access Burnsville (elevation 2,700ft) and Black Mountain. Authorities are threatening arrest. I’m gonna keep this short & simple; something is very wrong here.”
Also: “NEW – Federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has shut down aid flights into Western North Carolina. A NOTAM has been issued by the FAA that won’t allow anyone not approved by the state to fly aid missions.”
Plus a slate of 18-wheeler tire slashings in multiple locations that’s hopefully not government sanctioned. Hopefully…
The Trafalgar Group released a poll on Wednesday showing Trump has increased his lead in the vital swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.
The recent poll shows Trump beating Harris by 2.2 points in Michigan, with Trump scoring 47.5% of the votes to Harris’s 45.3%.
On August 31, the Trafalgar Group had Trump beating Harris 47% to 46.6%, a lead of only 0.4%.
Trump is winning in Wisconsin as well, topping the Kackler by 47.1% to 46%. The poll had Trump at 47.3% to Harris’s 46.2%.
“These numbers are the best we’ve seen for Trump in this election cycle. If this momentum holds, he could easily win by a significant margin,” a polling source stated.
In Pennsylvania, which many pundits believe Harris needs to win, Trump is up, with 47.5% of the vote, compared to Harris’s 45.3%.
The Biden-Harris administration has allowed well over half a million illegal aliens with criminal histories to enter the United States.
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-23) published the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data on social media platform X.
According to the newly released information, 662,566 noncitizens on ICE’s national docket have criminal histories. These numbers include 13,099 murder convicts, 15,811 sexual assault convicts, and 13,423 weapon offense convicts.
“We’ve known for far too long that the Biden-Harris border crisis poses a direct threat to Americans,” Gonzales said in a press release. “The truth is clear—illegal immigrants with a criminal record are coming into our country.”
The Texas congressman asserted that beyond the disturbing new data, it should also serve as a “wake-up call” for the federal government and cities across the United States that keep sanctuary policies in place.
Gonzales first requested the data on March 13 when he penned a letter requesting answers to several illegal immigration questions to President Joe Biden and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Of the seven million reported cases on ICE’s docket, the letter requested information on how many noncitizens were charged with a crime by a municipality. Additionally, the letter asked how many were noncitizens convicted of a crime and released into U.S. communities.
Over six months later, Gonzales has finally received a response.
Sure seems like Gonzales has been a lot more active on this issue since Brandon Herrera primaried him…
As ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris visited the southern border for a photo-op on Friday, alarming new revelations also emerged showing that far-left Democrats in the White House rolled out the red carpet to 650,000 migrants with criminal records. This has already fueled chaos nationwide, including a new report of an “explosion in migrant prostitution” networks across America.
A newly leaked law enforcement document obtained by New York Post journalists shows that the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua has exploited desperate migrant women into sex trafficking networks across eight states.
At least eight states have seen an explosion in migrant prostitution since the gang laid down roots in the US, with authorities in Texas, Nevada, Illinois, California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey and New York now fighting to curtail the sex trade, the memo shows. -NYPost
The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been linked to sex trafficking in eight states including New York.
In New York City, police sources told the NYPost that Tren de Aragua gangsters are recruiting their members and victims straight out of city-run migrant shelters.
In the Big Apple, Tren de Aragua is trying to recruit foot soldiers to force women into sex trafficking — in the hopes that it will become a main source of income for the gang, according to the leaked memo.
Funny how we didn’t see or hear a single story about Tren de Aragua prior to the Biden Administration, and now they seem to be everywhere.
Speaking of sexual slavery, a Yazidi woman captured by the Islamic State was just rescued…in Gaza. From the river to the sea/No sex slave shall be free…
“Philadelphia: Muslim teen hoped to make bombs for terror group, planned LGBTQ parade jihad massacre….Muhyyee-ud-din Abdul-Rahman, 18, of West Philadelphia, not only had bomb-making materials, that were found in the trash at his home, he had tested bombs in the woods behind his home and had likely considered an attack on Philly’s LGBTQ community.” Funny how some of the Democratic Party’s vibrant diversity wants to blow up other parts of the Democratic Party’s vibrant diversity…
John Kerry admits that the First Amendment is a huge barrier to forcing leftist views down people’s throats. “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. What we need is to win…the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.” If anyone you know is committing #Wrongthink, be sure to report them to the Ministry of Love…
Israel hits a Russian airbase in Syria. One wonders what Russian’s adventures in Syria have gotten them other than some dead mercenaries and weapons sales.
Virginia high school teacher fired for refusing to use tranny pronouns awarded $575,000. Make them pay.
Albania wants to createa microstate in their own capital for “Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order” for the moderate Sufi Muslim sect. “His hoped-for Muslim state in Tirana, the capital of Albania, will be a Vatican-style sovereign enclave that will control territory the size of five New York City blocks and will allow alcohol, allow women to wear what they want and not impose lifestyle rules.” Not the worst idea I’ve heard this year. At least they could sell postage stamps…
A Texas A&M spokesperson has confirmed that the university will deactivate 38 certificates and 14 minors, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor.
The A&M spokesperson told The Battalion that the official list of deactivated programs will not be public until it appears before the Faculty Senate on October 14. A university statement cited low enrollment as the reason for deactivating the programs.
However, Theresa Morris, the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, said that the LGBTQ Studies minor was among those ending.
An official in the Department of Communication & Journalism also confirmed that certificates for both Communication, Diversity and Social Justice and Communication & Global Media are being deactivated.
Additionally, the director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Performance confirmed that the certificates for popular culture and performing social activism were also in the deactivation process.
This comes after State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) repeatedly called DEI courses and the LGBTQ studies minor an “outrageous abuse of tax money” and examples of “taxpayer-funded indoctrination.”
Good. Maybe students will be forced to choose a major that adds to the world rather than tearing it down with social justice.
“Lawsuit Accuses Democrat State House Candidate of Not Paying Vendors. House District 80 Democrat candidate Cecilia Castellano is already under investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton in a separate voter fraud case.”
A lawsuit filed in Tarrant County is accusing a Democrat running for the Texas House of Representatives of failing to pay her vendors and subcontractors in the business she operates.
House District 80 candidate Cecilia Castellano, who operates Azteca Designs and Construction, allegedly failed to provide proper compensation for work done by one of Azteca’s subcontractors, the Glass Doctor of North Texas, according to the suit.
Glass Doctor had entered an agreement to work on a project with Azteca in November 2023, where the subcontractor was slated to earn $49,643.36, according to the filing. Later, Glass Doctor was tasked with replacing damaged glass installed by another subcontractor for an additional $18,487.77.
However, Glass Doctor says the payments never arrived.
Plaintiffs instead painted a picture of Azteca going out of their way to avoid providing the payments, claiming the project was “not built pursuant to written plans” and back-charging Glass Doctor to fix work done by a third party.
Fort Bend County Judge KP George has been indicted on misdemeanor charges related to faked racist messages on social media but could face felony charges over an alleged attempt to hide evidence.
A grand jury indicted George last Thursday in relation to a scheme in collaboration with Taral Patel, his former chief of staff and now Democratic candidate for county commissioner. Patel was indicted on four felony and four misdemeanor charges after investigators tied him to fake social media and email accounts used to make offensive posts and circulate falsified polls.
“Netflix Cancellations Skyrocketed After Founder Donated, Endorsed Harris. Netflix cancellations went through the roof after co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings endorsed and donated to VP Kamala Harris.”
“[German] Green Party co-chairs Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour are stepping down. The move could make things even harder for Germany’s fractious coalition government. Germany’s Green Party is going from crisis to crisis. Three days after regional elections in the eastern state of Brandenburg delivered a stinging defeat to the party, its entire leadership has resigned. Now, the party will have to choose a replacement at its party conference in November.”
My my, hey hey/Disney cancels the movie about Rei.
Who could possibly be pissed off about a historical game starring a black samurai? Well, for starters, Japanese gamers.
