The fake Kamala bubble evaporates, another would-be Trump assassin is arrested, more Chinese spies on the staff of high profile Democrats, more NYC corruption raids, Ukrainian drones heat things up around Moscow, Intel and Stellantis layoff thousands each, another Harris County Democrat double-dips, a bit about Idaho, and some really stupid sailor shenanigans.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Evidently jailing Trump right before an election was a kangaroo too far even for this kangaroo court, so Trump’s sentencing has been pushed to after the election. “Judge Juan Merchan ruled Friday that Trump’s sentencing will take place on November 26, three weeks after election day, ensuring that Trump will not be sentenced in any of his criminal cases leading up to the election.”
In the friendliest possible format — a joint interview with VP nominee and emotional-support midwesterner Tim Walz, conducted by Dana Bash with the delicacy of an ornithologist gently hand-feeding hatchling chicks — Harris has revealed that her gaseously mindless word-cloud of a campaign is in fact an accurate reflection of her own personal vacuousness.
To be sure, Harris did not memorably self-destruct tonight. Whatever her failings, they are not those of Joe Biden, who couldn’t even articulate his words without slurring by the end. Her inarticulateness tonight was of the sort already known to be a Harris trademark, the endless jumble of nonsensical, comically vapid stock language. When she could fall back on a memorized list of talking points, she presented somewhat normally; the second she was required to respond directly to a question, then she began to spin out otiose nonsense like a pasta chef catering a Sicilian banquet. You could practically see the gears turning inside her head as she cast her eyes downward, stared laser-beams into the floor, and groped for cliches. She was more muted tonight than usual — her aides clearly ordered her never to display mirth under any circumstances, for fear the Kamala Kackle might emerge — and as a result, while she simulated sobriety for the most part, her body language was pronouncedly downbeat.
And all throughout she offered no answers to any policy questions whatsoever, nor any explanation for her various changes of position between 2020 and now. In theory, Bash asked most of the “right questions”; in practice, the way she solicitously asked them — sometimes even helpfully offering in advance a multiple-choice list of acceptable answers for Harris to choose from — turned them into cream puffs that Harris immediately used to serve up word salad.
Bash’s most pointed moment was when she pushed Harris about why she changed her position on a national fracking ban between 2020 and the present campaign. Harris’s answer was little more than, “Well, because I changed my mind when I became Joe Biden’s VP.” In the real world, anyone familiar with politics well understood that her “position” changed because Joe Biden — the presidential nominee — demanded it, and no other reason. Which of course is why it’s impossible to believe her when she says this is now her sincerely held view, as opposed to something to later be discarded once she can set her own priorities.
Eric Weinstein told Chris Williamson on the “Modern Wisdom” podcast that Donald Trump’s presidency has disrupted the old “rules-based international order,” which many view as an attempt to control global stability and wondered if the Republican nominee will “be allowed” to reenter the White House if elected in 2024. Weinstein argued that Trump’s unorthodox approach challenged the status quo, exposing flaws in the system and revealing that the impact of populist leaders on democracy and international agreements is more complex and significant than previously understood.
CHRIS WILLIAMSON: When we spoke at the start of the year, I said it was way too close to November to switch anybody out. Turns out that I was wrong.
ERIC WEINSTEIN: Beginner’s luck.
CHRIS WILLIAMSON: You said what are the odds that Joe Biden has a debilitating event between now and November including death, so he runs a one in 20 chance of dying in any given year or above that. I don’t think you know whether he’s even going to make it to November debilitating event could have been a debilitating public event
ERIC WEINSTEIN: I purposefully left it vague. I didn’t say the other part of it, which I now feel comfortable saying, which is…
CHRIS WILLIAMSON: What do you mean by that?
ERIC WEINSTEIN: I think there’s a remarkable story, and we’re in a funny game, which is: are we allowed to say what that story is? Because to say it, to analyze it, to name it, is to bring it into view. I think we don’t understand why the censorship is behaving the way it is. We don’t understand why it’s in the shadows or why our news is acting in a bizarre fashion. So let’s just set the stage, given that that was in February.
There is something that I think Mike Benz has just referred to as the rules-based international order. It’s an interlocking series of agreements, tacit understandings, explicit understandings, and clandestine understandings about how the most important structures keep the world free of war and keep markets open. There has been a system in place, whether understood explicitly or behind the scenes or implicitly, that says the purpose of the two American parties is to prune the field of populist candidates so that whatever two candidates exist in a faceoff are both acceptable to that world order.
From the point of view of, say, the State Department, the intelligence community, the defense department, and major corporations involved in international issues—from arms trade to, oh, I don’t know, food—they have a series of agreements that are fragile and could be overturned if a president entered the Oval Office who didn’t agree with them. And if the mood of the country was, “Why do we pay taxes into these structures? Why are we hamstrung? Why aren’t we a free people?” So what the two parties would do is run primaries with populist candidates and pre-commit the populist candidates to support the candidates who won the primaries. As long as that took place and you had two candidates that were both acceptable to the international order—that is, they aren’t going to rethink NAFTA or NATO or what have you—we called that democracy. And so democracy was the illusion of choice, what’s called magician’s choice, where the choice is not actually, you know, “pick a card, any card,” but somehow the magician makes sure that the card that you pick is the one that he knows.
In that situation, you have magician’s choice in the primaries, and then you’d have the duopoly field: two candidates, either of which was acceptable, and you could actually afford to hold an election. That way, the international order wasn’t put at risk every four years because you can’t have alliances that are subject to the whim of the people in plebiscites.
Under that structure, everything was going fine until 2016, when the first candidate ever to not hold any position in the military nor any position in government in the history of the Republic, Donald Trump, broke through the primary structure. Then there was a full court press: “Okay, we only have one candidate that’s acceptable to the international order. Donald Trump will be under constant pressure—he’s a loser, he’s a wild man, he’s an idiot, and he’s under control of the Russians.” And then he was going to be, you know, a 20-to-1 underdog, and then he wins. There was no precedent for this. They learned their lesson: you cannot afford to have candidates who are not acceptable to the international order and continue to have these alliances. This is an unsolved problem.
A Missouri man is facing federal charges following a series of alleged violent threats made via social media against former President Donald Trump, Republicans at large, and law enforcement officers, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Western District of Missouri on Aug. 30.
Justin Lee White, 36, is accused of using interstate communication to spread a slew of online threats to injure Trump, Republicans, and law enforcement in violation of federal law, culminating in a multi-agency investigation led by the FBI, according to the complaint.
Speaking of Trump assassination attempts, DHS personnel assigned to the protective detail for Trump’s Butler rally were given rigorous training. And by “rigorous training” I mean “they sat through a two hour webinar.”
Remember that “Harris Surge” in polls? Yet again, it was a case of oversampling.
As we’ve been highlighting since 2016, polls are not to be trusted thanks to various ‘tricks of the trade’ – most commonly, oversampling.
Last month we noted how the founder of the main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris for president says their own internal opinion polling is “much less rosy” than public polls.
“Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” said Future Forward super PAC president Chauncey McLean said during a Monday event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.
Now, the Washington Times reports that some pollsters are even sounding the alarm over Vice President Kamala Harris’ so-called ‘surge’ in the polls – which Harris pulled ahead in after replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee on July 21.
Since the switch, Harris is leading Trump nationally by nearly 2 percentage points and is either leading or tied with him in all seven battleground states. However, Republican analysts argue that these polling numbers may not accurately reflect voter sentiment due to biased polling methodology…
Critics point out that many polls have been sampling a disproportionately smaller share of Republican voters compared to exit poll data from the 2020 presidential election. The result, they say, is a misleading “phantom advantage” for Ms. Harris. According to them, this skewed sampling could be a strategic move to boost enthusiasm and fundraising for Ms. Harris’ campaign.
Trump campaign strategist Jim McLaughlin echoed this sentiment, stating, “They undersample Republicans” intentionally “to tamp down support and donations for Trump.” He added that the polls are part of a larger effort to create a narrative that favors Harris.
Trump has openly criticized the poll results. “It’s fake news,” Trump declared during a rally in Michigan. “They can make those polls sing.”
“Billionaire Mark Cuban Asked His Followers If They’d Prefer Their Kids Be Like Trump or Harris.” Turns out they preferred Trump by more than 2-1. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Another week, another high profile Democrat’s aide turns out to be a Chinese spy.
Linda Sun, a former aide to New York governor Kathy Hochul, acted at the direction of Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party officials while serving in state government, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment Tuesday.
In a statement, the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York said that Sun was arrested Tuesday morning with her husband, Christopher Hu. They were expected to be arraigned later in the day.
Sun is a former deputy chief of staff to Kathy Hochul and has served in numerous roles throughout New York State government since her first post under the administration of former governor Andrew Cuomo in 2012. Before that, she served as Representative Grace Meng’s chief of staff, when the Queens Democrat served in the New York State assembly.
“As alleged, while appearing to serve the people of New York as deputy chief of staff within the New York State Executive Chamber, the defendant and her husband actually worked to further the interests of the Chinese government and the CCP,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said.
The federal government is alleging that Sun was an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and that her husband engaged in money-laundering while they benefited from millions of dollars in bribes from Chinese officials.
The indictment details a shocking pattern of collaboration with China’s consulate general in New York, with Sun at one point in 2020 letting a Chinese diplomat listen in on a private conference call for New York officials regarding the state government’s response to the Covid pandemic.
Chinese-government and CCP officials directed her to block Taiwanese officials from engaging with officials from New York. Beijing views the current government of Taiwan as a traitorous separatist movement and wants to annex the country.
According to court documents, Taiwan’s de facto consulate in New York City invited an unnamed politician, a description that matches the profile of then-governor Andrew Cuomo, to attend a banquet honoring then-Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen during her stopover in the city in 2019. Sun forwarded information about the invite to a Chinese official, telling that individual, “I sent you an email / Just an FYI / I already blocked it.” She then declined the invitation without consulting other New York executive chamber officials.
When Sun later asked a colleague to check if the politician was registered for the banquet, that staff member said that it was not on the schedule. Sun replied: “Perfect!”
She also manipulated messaging from the New York governor’s office, while consulting Chinese diplomats, the indictment stated.
Federal agents on Wednesday zeroed in on the highest ranks of Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, searching a home and seizing the phones of the New York City police commissioner, the first deputy mayor, the schools chancellor and others, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The police commissioner. They seized the police commissioner’s phones. Wow.
Among the other officials the federal investigators sought information from were the deputy mayor for public safety and a senior adviser to the mayor who is one of his closest confidants, the people said. Both men have had other legal challenges.
The agents also searched the home and seized the phone of a consultant who is the brother of both the schools chancellor and one of the deputy mayors, the people said.
The nature of the investigations is unclear, but it appears that one is focused on the senior City Hall officials and the other touches on the police commissioner, the people said.
…
Representatives of the City Hall officials — the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright; her partner, Schools Chancellor David C. Banks; the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III; and a senior adviser to the mayor, Timothy Pearson — could not be reached or declined to comment.
The consultant, Terence Banks, a brother of Philip Banks and David Banks, recently opened a government and community relations firm aimed at closing a gap “between New York’s intricate infrastructure and political landscape.” He, too, could not be reached for comment.
Several of the officials had their phones seized or records of their communications subpoenaed.
…
In addition to the police commissioner, Edward A. Caban, several other department officials, including Mr. Caban’s chief of staff and two Queens precinct commanders, also had their phones taken by federal agents, two of the people said.
Says Dwight: “It sounds like the whole Adams administration is so packed with corruption, they can’t even keep the lid screwed on.”
Behind the statistics: “August: 635K Foreign-Born Workers Gained Jobs as 1.3 Million Americans Lost Jobs.”
Germany’s conservative, populist, pro-border security Alternative for Germany won big in this week’s elections. Of course, the media, in unison, denounces anyone who objects to the mass importation of unassimilated Muslims into any European country as “far right.” And in Germany, this means they invariable compare Alternative for Germany to a certain mustachioed National Socialist.
President Trump endorses marijuana decriminalization vote. “Florida’s Amendment 3, titled Recreational Marijuana, would allow adults who are at least 21 years of age have up to 3 ounces of marijuana (a ‘small amount’?) and up to 5 grams of marijuana concentrate. At present, the state only allows medical patients with qualifying conditions to legally buy and possess cannabis.” Marijuana prohibition hasn’t worked. Full-bore marijuana legalization seems to have brought a whole host of problems, especially in blue states. Florida will provide another statewide laboratory of democracy to calibrate an approach.
Lowes may be getting out of the culture wars, but Home Depot is still in, having “partnered with LGBTQ mafia organization Human Rights Campaign on a school program that taught radical gender theory to elementary school kids.”
That budget deficit might also cause the Labour government to pull out of the F-35 procurement program. “Despite previous plans to acquire 138 F-35s, only 48 have been ordered.”
The head of Harris County’s Public Health Department, who was fired last week, has also been working for a California county since last January. Questions are swirling about her work in Texas, including her role in awarding a contract for sending mental health workers instead of police on some 911 calls.
Sources also say there is a pending criminal investigation into the county’s health department and related contracts.
County officials announced last Friday that Executive Director of Harris County Public Health Barbie Robinson had been dismissed, just days after the Houston Chronicle reported on communications surrounding a $6 million contract awarded to DEMA, a California-based company, to run the county’s Holistic Assistance Response Teams (HART).
The Texan has learned that in January 2024, Robinson also contracted with Yuba County, California to provide services for a three-year period. Robinson’s work for Yuba County’s public health department provides her with nearly $200,000 in compensation for hundreds of hours of work, all while managing Harris County’s public health department.
Sources familiar with the matter say that Robinson claimed to have obtained approval from former County Administrator David Berry and the County Attorney’s Office to engage in the additional work, but that current County Administrator Diana Ramirez was unable to confirm Robinson’s claims.
Other sources indicate that the Harris County District Attorney’s Office (HCDAO) has been investigating Robinson and nearly a dozen other individuals with the county, HART, and DEMA for several months.
This week, the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office dismissed murder charges against two Houston men involved in the self-defense incident at a party near the Baylor University campus, finally determining it was a justifiable homicide. While that was good news to Calvin Nichols Jr., it hardly makes up for the 635 days the man spent locked up in jail while the DA’s office slowly dragged its feet over the case.
According to police reports, on the night in question Nichols and his cousin, Jaytron Damon Scott, were invited to a party attended by a number of Baylor students, including football players. According to partygoers, Joseph Craig Thomas Jr. showed up uninvited and began threatening others with a gun, including a female student who asked him to move his car.
He later stuck a gun under the chin of a Baylor football player. And when Scott and Nichols were leaving the party, Thomas began to pistol whip Nichols.
That’s when Scott, acting in defense of his cousin, fired his pistol at Thomas, striking him multiple times and killing him. Murder charges were then filed against Scott and Nichols, a fact that Scott’s attorney, Bryan Cantrell, found unbelievable.
“I don’t know how this case got indicted,” Cantrell told KWTX.com. “This was the clearest self-defense case I have ever seen. And I think the problem is a lot of attorneys and, certainly the people of the community, don’t understand the law of self-defense.”
You would hope that the end of Abel Reyna’s term as McLennan County DA put a stop to this sort of thing, but evidently not.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to implement the Biden-Harris administration’s Sustains Act which aims to regulate who will own environmental services.
According to private property rights advocates, American Stewards of Liberty (ASL), examples of environmental services include “the air we breathe, photosynthesis, pollination, and even the health benefits of open space.”
Specifically, the new law allows private funds to be used for conservation efforts on private land. The USDA will oversee the program, and the Secretary, preparing its implementation, will also decide who owns the environmental service.
Although the public may still provide the USDA with comments about the plan until September 16, 2024, ASL refers to the new law as “critical for proponents of the United Nations’ sustainable development agenda to achieve.”
The private property rights advocates see the program as a means to “provide the path to transfer America’s real assets from private citizens to federal and international interests.”
Screw both the Biden Administration and the UN.
The latest Stolen Valor Democrat is Maryland governor Wes Moore, who didn’t earn the Bronze Star he claimed he did.
Speaking of Idaho, how Micron defied the odds to become one of the biggest DRAM manufacturers in the world.
Intel just cancelled their 20A (2nm) node and will be fabbing their Arrow Lake processor at TSMC. “Intel projects it will save half a billion dollars by skipping the 20A node. The announcement comes as Intel embarks on a vast restructuring in the wake of troubling financial results last quarter. The company continues to lay off 15,000 workers, among the largest workforce reductions in its 56-year history.” It’s supposedly going full speed ahead with its 18A node, theoretically due in 2025. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Intel and Japan are teaming up to work on EUV. Hard to see them making much progress given how large a lead ASML has…
Rael Enteen, Vice President of the Washington Commanders football team (AKA The Artist Formerly known As The Washington Redskins) has been fired.
He told…that, “over 50% of our roster is white religious, and God says, ‘F— the gays.’ Their interpretation. I don’t buy any of that. Another big chunk is low-income African Americans that comes from a community that is inherently very homophobic.”
…Enteen also said some players are “dumb as hell” and said some who were smart don’t stay that way after getting hit in the head too many times. He also said those who “get their heads knocked around a few times” are more susceptible to conspiracy theories.
Enteen also said, “I don’t think the commissioner of the NFL hates gay people, hates black people. Jerry Jones, who really runs the NFL, I think he hates gay people, black people.”
And James O’Keefe claims another scalp…
Legal Insurrection’s William A. Jacobson just got dis-invited from speaking on antisemitism at a synagogue in Tampa. “How could any Jew look around at the current geopolitical landscape and conclude that it’s safe to ignore all the various threats to their existence — not just Hamas terrorists in Gaza, but also the various murderous entities backed by the Islamic radical regime in Iran, to say nothing of Democratic primary voters in Dearborn, Michigan — because Trump is the real danger? What kind of cocoon are these people living in?”
Happy Black Friday, everyone! (Here’s my prepping/gift guide, if you haven’t seen it already.) I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Some interesting international election results, unreasonable gun control legislation gets struck down in two different states, more legal trouble for Houston Democrats, and a weed company goes bankrupt. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The average price American families will have to pay to celebrate Thanksgiving with a traditional dinner will be the most expensive in history after years of sky-high inflation that experts attribute partially to President Joe Biden’s policies, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The price of all goods has risen dramatically under Biden following a period of sustained high inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in March 2022 and has since remained elevated, measuring at 3.2% in October, while the index for food rose 3.3% year-over-year for the month. The total increase in costs for a Thanksgiving dinner is about 26% since the beginning of Biden’s term, culminating in the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner in history.
Don’t buy the cookies. “Girl Scouts To Host Training Sessions On ‘Internalized Racism,’ ‘White Supremacy Culture.'” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
In a surprising turn of events, Argentina has elected the libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its new president. The hotly contested presidential run-off saw Milei defeating left-wing candidate Sergio Massa — a consequential shift in the country’s political landscape. Massa brusquely conceded on Sunday night, stating, “Milei is the president elected for the next four years.”
The victory of Milei, a self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist,” introduces an unconventional leader with what are considered to be radical economic views relative to Argentina’s neighbors. His campaign, characterized by anti-establishment rhetoric and metaphorical gestures such as wielding a chainsaw to show his fervor for cutting taxes, resonated with voters frustrated by Argentina’s economic decrepitude, including triple-digit inflation. One of Milei’s key proposals is the adoption of the U.S. dollar as Argentina’s national currency, an unprecedented move for a country of its size (Argentina is home to some 45.8 million people).
Massa — a lifelong politician and representative of Argentina’s left-wing political establishment — emphasized his government’s actions to address inflation during his tenure.
But Milei’s appeal, particularly among the younger generation, suggests a desire for change to break free from the cycle of economic crises.
Milei’s victory has produced excitement and concern alike. While some see him as the catalyst for much-needed economic reforms, others fear the potential austerity measures tied to his plans, such as shutting the central bank and slashing spending. Despite the uncertainty, Milei’s supporters view him as the only viable option to break the political status quo and address Argentina’s persistent and extreme economic challenges.
The election is not just a political shift but also a generational one, with Milei’s popularity among the youth reflecting a desire for a new direction. The effect of Milei’s win extends beyond Argentina’s borders, potentially influencing trade relationships, especially with his criticism of China and Brazil and his preference for stronger ties with the United States. As for the U.S., the hour is late, and we’ll take all the friends we can get, and Argentina is doubly welcome because the Millennium must be nigh if a libertarian won an election outside of New Hampshire.
Note: Linking to MSN rather than NRO because the latter has now raised it’s war against ad-blockers to obnoxious levels. Year-by-year, the TDS-infected NR has become ever-more sad and useless.
Geert Wilders, the Dutch populist whose anti-Islam comments have led to death threats, could become the next leader of the Netherlands following an election upset for his Freedom Party (PVV) on Wednesday.
After 25 years in Dutch politics without holding office, Wilders was set to lead coalition government talks and has a good chance of becoming prime minister.
An exit poll on Wednesday evening showed the PVV in a clear lead, 10 seats ahead of its closest rival, Frans Timmermans’ Labour/Green Left combination.
“We will have to find ways to live up to the hopes of our voters, to put the Dutch back as number one”, Wilders said in his first response, adding that “the Netherlands will be returned to the Dutch, the asylum tsunami and migration will be curbed.”
Maryland is one of 14 states that require background checks for all firearm purchases, whether or not the seller is a federally licensed dealer. Since 2013, Maryland has imposed an additional requirement on handgun buyers: They must first obtain a “handgun qualification license,” which entails completing at least four hours of firearm training and undergoing a seemingly redundant “investigation” aimed at screening out people who are legally disqualified from owning guns. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, that process, which can take up to 30 days, violates the Second Amendment.
In a decision published on Tuesday, a divided 4th Circuit panel concluded that Maryland’s handgun ownership licensing system is not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Writing for the majority in Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore, 4th Circuit Judge Julius Richardson notes that Bruen “effected a sea change in Second Amendment law,” making a variety of gun control laws newly vulnerable to constitutional challenges. Maryland’s handgun licensing law is the latest example.
Speaking of unconstitutional gun laws being struck down: “It turns out that bullets are an essential part of a gun, and limiting the number of rounds in a gun violates the Oregon constitution. A county judge in Oregon made that decision on Tuesday overturning Measure 114, a citizen-passed measure that outlawed what gun grabbers call ‘high capacity magazines’ and required that Oregon serfs get a permit to be allowed to purchase a gun.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Funny how no Arab nation wants to take in Palestinians. They know the simple truth: They suck.
The Palestinians tried to take over Jordan in the 1970s, leading to the late King Hussein declaring war on them and driving them out. They were booted from Kuwait after collaborating with Saddam Hussein’s forces before the Gulf War. They set off a powder keg in Lebanon, a nation that has yet to recover from its brutal civil war that lasted 15 years. No Arab country wants these people because they bring instability and trouble.
Outgoing Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner gets to enjoy a new host of scandals on his way out.
As term-limited Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner finishes his final days at the helm of the state’s most populous city, a new set of scandals have emerged over city contracts and a dispute over who will pay for a book touting the mayor’s legacy.
In the most recent dustup, an investigation by Houston’s KPRC 2 discovered that city contracts for much-needed water repairs were awarded to two relatives of Houston Public Works (HPW) employee Patrece Lee, including one for $4.5 million to Lee’s brother, who had only created his company six months before the city council approved the “emergency contracts.”
When KPRC reporter Amy Davis attempted to question Turner about the issue at a public event last week, Turner became irate and told his communications director to escort Davis from the room.
“You are not going to get away with this,” said Turner to Davis. “You are rude.”
Late Friday, HPW Director Carol Haddock announced that the employee had been placed on leave while the city’s Office of the Inspector General investigated the allegations.
In another contract scandal, Houston Landing media reported last week that the Midtown Redevelopment Authority had referred information to law enforcement on a since-fired manager who allegedly steered more than $4 million in taxpayer-funded landscaping contracts to himself and another contractor.
The latest developments came hard on the heels of Turner’s squabble with Houston First Corporation, the city’s marketing organization. During the “State of the City” luncheon last September, hosted by Houston First, attendees were given copies of Turner’s book “A Winning Legacy,” which celebrates the mayor’s accomplishments during his eight years in office.
As first reported by Bill King, Turner told President and CEO Michael Heckman that Houston First must pay a $123,979 invoice for the 600 copies, but Heckman refused, saying it was not in the corporation’s budget and not an appropriate expense. Houston First Chairman David Mincberg later told FOX 26 that the corporation would develop a strategy to raise private funds to pay for the books.
Controversy has also surrounded Turner’s management of city finances. Last year, Controller Chris Brown warned that the city was using $160 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to plug budget holes and even to cover ongoing expenses.
Speaking of governments in trouble for spending Flu Manchu funds on other priorities, Germany is also in trouble for pulling the same trick after their high court told them to stop. As Europeans, spending within their means is unacceptable, so they’re now plotting to suspend debt limits…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorses Donald Trump for President. This is interesting in that Abbott is a careful, cautious Republican, who might be more ideologically inclined to endorse Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. That Abbott has endorsed Trump indicates he thinks Trump is a lock for the 2024 nomination. He may be right.
“Stacey Abrams’ Brother-In-Law Arrested, Accused Of Human Trafficking, Choking Underage Girl…Jimmie Gardner, a well-known Georgia-based youth motivational speaker, is accused of human trafficking, lewd or lascivious touching, and battery…According to the Tampa Police Department, Gardner invited a 16-year-old girl to his hotel room in the early hours of Friday, offering to pay her for sexual acts.” Sounds like the wrong sort of youth motivation…
Israel rolls on in Gaza, Democrats get indicted on election fraud, Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty, censorship schemes get busted, and George Soros’ evil fingers are everywhere. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Israel’s ground offensive has surrounded Gaza City, where it seems to think most of Hamas infrastructure is located.
The blue circles indicate Israel military activity, which does rather suggest they’re pounding the snot out of Hamas.
House Republicans on the GOP’s “weaponization” subcommittee said in a Friday report that the IRS has agreed to end its “abusive” policy of surprise visits to taxpayers’ homes following pressure from the panel.
The Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s oversight revealed, and led to the swift end of, the IRS’s weaponization of unannounced field visits to harass, intimidate, and target taxpayers,” reads the report. “Taxpayers can now rest assured the IRS will not come knocking without providing prior notice—something that should have been the IRS’s practice all along.”
The IRS announced in July that it would end most unannounced agent visits to the homes of Americans, citing security concerns.
But it also came after the agency engaged in what appeared to be witness intimidation, after visiting the New Jersey home of journalist Matt Taibbi on the same day he appeared before Congress to testify on government abuse.
Following the incident, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded answers from the IRS, writing “In light of the hostile reaction to Mr. Taibbi’s reporting among left-wing activists, and the IRS’s history as a tool of government abuse, the IRS’s action could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate a witness before Congress.”
Taibbi thanked Jordan on Saturday, writing in response to the report:
One of the cases outlined is my own. My home was visited by the IRS while I was testifying before Jordan’s Committee about the Twitter Files on March 9th. Sincere thanks are due to Chairman Jordan, whose staff not only demanded and got answers in my case, but achieved a concrete policy change, as IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel announced in July new procedures that would “end most” home visits.
Anticipating criticism for expressing public thanks to a Republican congressman, I’d like to ask Democratic Party partisans: to which elected Democrat should I have appealed for help in this matter? The one who called me a “so-called journalist” on the House floor? The one who told me to take off my “tinfoil hat” and put greater trust in intelligence services? The ones in leadership who threatened me with jail time? I gave votes to the party for thirty years. Which elected Democrat would have performed basic constituent services in my case? Feel free to raise a hand.
If silence is the answer, why should I ever vote for a Democrat again?
In the conversation with [Joe] Rogan, Musk then explains George Soros’ massive bet (now overseen by his son, Alexander Soros) on funding city and state district attorney elections nationwide. He said, “The value for money in local races is much higher than in national races – the lowest value for money is a presidential race.”
“Soros realized you don’t actually need to change the laws – you just need to change how they’re enforced – if nobody chooses to enforce the law – or the laws differentially enforced – it’s like changing the laws,” Musk said.
This leaves with a new interview from one Maryland sheriff, just outside of crime-ridden Baltimore City, in Wicomico County, who drops a truth bomb about radical progressive lawmakers in the state, some of whom have likely been funded by Soros, who purposely fail to enforce law and order and only embolden criminal.
“I’m in my 40th year of law enforcement, and I have never ever seen it this bad,” Sheriff Mike Lewis said.
Lewis continued: “I’ve never seen a government so ingrained – and quite frankly complicit – in the criminal activity taking place in our nation.”
Speaking of Soros: “Soros has funneled over $15M to pro-Hamas organizations through Open Society Foundations.” Of course he has.
A jury has found Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, guilty on all seven criminal fraud counts for his role in the crypto exchange’s downfall.
Those counts include wire fraud on customers of FTX, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers of FTX, wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research, conspiracy to commit securities fraud on investors in FTX, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud on customers of FTX, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
He faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for March 28 at 9:30 a.m.
During a month-long trial in a Manhattan federal court, prosecutors claimed Bankman-Fried misled investors and mishandled billions in funds. He was accused of misusing customer funds deposited with FTX to boost his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.
Nicolas Roos, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Bankman-Fried committed crimes of “epic proportions.” He alleged during closing arguments that Bankman-Fried built his company on a “foundation of lies and false promises.”
Snip.
Bankman-Fried was a Democrat megadonor, giving nearly $39 million to Democrat-aligned causes during the 2022 election cycle.
Prosecutors said he “misappropriated and embezzled FTX customer deposits, and used billions of dollars in stolen funds for a variety of purposes, including … to help fund over a hundred million dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation,” according to an August indictment.
Both Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend and the former head of Alameda, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, testified against Bankman-Fried during the trial. Ellison and Wang both pleaded guilty in December to multiple charges.
“The Department of Health and Human Services has sent over $800,000 to a group in Texas where they distribute crack pipes, according to the Dallas Express…The funds were sent to the El Paso Alliance, a non-profit that helps people recover from alcoholism and drug addictions, according to its website.” Knowing what I know about leftwing activists, I’m guessing that $80,000 went to crack pipe distribution, and the rest disappeared into various leftwing pockets.
California is still having trouble managing this newfangled electricity thing. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
China’s least awful communist official, former Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, just died of a heart attack at age 68, and the CCP is banning memorial wishes for him.
Despite the Texas law against teaching Critical Race Theory, Katy ISD students are being told to reflect on their white privilege.
More than two dozen top U.S. law firms have issued a stern warning that law schools move with “urgency” to address the rising antisemitism on campus, or else it could affect recruitment, National Review has learned.
“Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the State of Israel. Such anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of our firms,” the statement published on Wednesday reads.
“As educators at institutions of higher learning, it is imperative that you provide your students with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged issues, in a manner that affirms the values we all hold dear and rejects unreservedly that which is antithetical to those values,” the letter continued. “There is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our communities.”
Snip.
Signatories included: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, McDermott Will & Emery LLP, Milbank LLP, O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Paul Hastings LLP, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Proskauer Rose LLP, Ropes & Gray LLP, Shearman & Sterling, Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Watchtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Norton Rose Fulbright, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.
Jewish homes in Paris marked with Stars of David. It’s good that sort of thing has never led to any negative outcomes in Europe…
Good: Disney is making it’s live-action Snow White remake a more traditional film, including actual dwarfs rather than random guys. Bad: The CGI dwarfs look absolutely horrible. It’s as though Disney wants to punish movie-goers for rejecting their woke vision…
In addition to getting over a cold, I spent most of the non-work day trying to assemble a pressure washer so I could attach a water-jetting attachment so I can clean out a blocked exterior line so I can run my dishwasher without it overflowing my sink.
The result of all this labor is that I still need to call a plumber. So enjoy yet another abbreviated LinkSwarm.
Hmmmmmm! “Hunter Biden Business Partner Flips, Now ‘Cooperating’ With GOP Investigators.”
Eric Schwerin, a close business associate of Hunter Biden who also dealt with Joe Biden’s business and tax affairs, is now working with House GOP investigators looking into Biden family dealings – particularly in Ukraine and China, where the family collected millions of dollars, Just the News reports.
Eric Schwerin, a close business associate of Hunter Biden who also dealt with Joe Biden’s business and tax affairs, is now working with House GOP investigators looking into Biden family dealings – particularly in Ukraine and China, where the family collected millions of dollars, Just the News reports.
“He is cooperating with us,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told the outlet.
“His attorneys and my counsel are communicating on a regular basis. Now, I feel confident that he’s going to work with us, and provide us with the information that we have requested,” Comer continued. “I think that Schwerwin is going to be a very valuable witness for us in this investigation.”
Of note, Schwerin, the former president of Hunter Biden’s now-dissolved investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, visited the White House at least 19 times from 2009 to 2015, according to White House visitor log records reviewed by The Epoch Times and first reported by the New York Post.
Patrick L. Wojahn, the Democratic mayor of College Park, MD, resigns over child porn charges. Name that party: His political affiliation only shows up in the 19th paragraph of the piece. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Illnesses to Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman mean that Democrats have temporarily lost their senate majority. That will teach you to rely to Octagenerians and visibly impaired stroke victims to carry your water. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta submits $5.5 billion bid for NFL’s Commanders.” He should move them to Austin and change the name back to the Redskins, just to spite them.
Did MacKay get Tulipmania wrong? It turns out he was also an enthusiast for the far more destructive “Railway Bubbles” that struck England in the 19th century.
As with most cultural revolutions that wish to start things over at “year zero,” the violence is aimed at America’s past in order to change its present and future.
The targets are not just the old majority culture but also classical statues and buildings, hallowed institutions, religious icons, the renowned names of streets and plazas, and almost every representation of tradition and authority.
For the majority of Americans who do not buy into the revolution, it all seems so surreal — and hypocritical.
Only a despised, dynamic American economy allows millions to divorce from it for a summer of protest.
A ridiculed U.S. Constitution ensures that looters and arsonists have due process.
The Bill of Rights guarantees peaceful assembly and electrically amplified profanity rarely protected elsewhere.
Affirmative action; federally ensured and subsidized college grants and loans; and cheap smartphones, headphones and laptops all give youth choices unimagined in the past.
No matter — cultural revolutions are incoherent and nihilist.
Those who signed up for the Jacobin Reign of Terror wanted violence, not a constitutional republic to replace the French monarchy.
The Bolsheviks were less interested in substituting an elected prime minister for the Russian czar than in grabbling power and murdering millions of their enemies.
Mao Zedong did not just hate the warlords, landlords, Mandarins and Nationalists. He wished to reinvent 1 billion Chinese in his own narcissistic image by first killing millions.
There is, of course, reason to oversee the police more effectively.
Universities are partly culpable for a collective $1.4 trillion in student loan debt.
Globalization eroded the middle class. Inner-city America is far too violent — and far too neglected.
But these are not the apparent concerns of those who carry off shoes and phones in U-Hauls, kick the unconscious on the pavement, destroy art and sculpture, or seek to torch public buildings with public servants inside.
The point of the mob is to wipe out what it cannot create.
It topples what it can neither match nor even comprehend.
It would erode the very system that ensures it singular freedom, leisure and historic affluence.
The brand of the anarchist is not logic but envy-driven power: to take it, to keep it, and to use it against purported enemies — which would otherwise be impossible in times of calm or through the ballot box.
More fundamentally: where do you think the country would be without him? Even if you’re disappointed with less than 200 miles of wall, remember that leading Democrats not only insist that every single new inch is a moral atrocity, they want to tear down sections that already exist.
Think the trade agenda is progressing too slowly? Well, President Trump already renegotiated two of our worst trade deals. How many new, bad ones do you think a Hillary administration would have signed by now? Trump not tough enough on China for you? A little too much talk about his “good friend” Xi Jinping? I sympathize. But he’s still done more than all the last four presidents combined. More than that, he’s reversed the China policy of the last four presidents combined. Have you heard how Joe Biden kowtows to China?
And I know that some will insist that, so long as a single American soldier, sailor, airman, or marine is deployed anywhere in the Middle East, then Trump has failed—or worse, betrayed them. But in fact, the president has mostly succeeded at the tasks he promised for that region: defeating ISIS, revitalizing our alliances while requiring more from our allies, and prudently disengaging from existing conflicts while not starting any new ones.
All of these trends, changes, policies, and initiatives, and many others—however incomplete—would be reversed in the event of a Trump loss. The ruling class would hail the president’s defeat as a historic repudiation of his (allegedly) “racist and xenophobic” vision, etc., as a vindication of every charge and complaint they’ve made against him and his supporters since Day 1. Their goal would be to erase the last four years and the 2016 election as if they never happened. If think-tank conservatives want above all to get into a DeLorean and go back to 1985, the ruling class wants to cram America into a Prius and force us back to 2015. And then resume the trajectory the country had been on back then, i.e., the road to woke managerial tyranny.
Password is: “Enthusiasm Gap,” with six times as many CSPAN viewers for the RNC than the DNC. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
President Trump’s poll numbers rise in swing states. Adjust by the usual 3% polls historically favor Democrats over election results, and Trump is tied or ahead in all of them. And that was before the RNC. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
The reason I fight so hard against the Fine People Hoax and race hoaxers in general is that it was always obvious it would escalate to mass shootings. A legitimate press could have stopped all of this months ago.
This is how cities die: “Shaken by summer looting in affluent neighborhoods, some Chicagoans are moving away.”
Jerry Seinfeld tries to refute that New York City is dead piece, but it just amounts to “New York is awesome and we’re tough” yadda yadda, and doesn’t address the insanely high taxes or actually changes in economic justification that used to make living in the city a requirement that isn’t there anymore. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Powerline has additional thoughts on that New York Times article mentioned yesterday that shows that, amazingly, riots, looting and arson aren’t popular with average Americans.
If you believe the mainstream media, Donald Trump is involved in a nefarious scheme to somehow make the USPS into something inefficient and incompetent, which comes close on the heels of his plot to make the sun start setting in the West. If that’s his plan, he already pulled it off decades before he first hit the cover of the New York Post. We conservatives think the president has done a lot of great stuff since humiliating Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit in 2016, but not even the most hardcore Trump Train engineer would go as far as Trump’s frothy pie-holed critics and credit the president with the mastery of time and space.
The correspondence conspiracy is pretty much liberal Q, except the eccentric Q folks at least like America.
And here’s a special shout-out to the Democrats pushing this intellectual fentanyl for deciding it is a good idea to choose the competence of the post office as their hill for the crusty crustacean’s campaign to die on. Please, continue pointing to the USPS as an example of what you’ll make the entire government into if we’re dumb enough to elect Gropey J. Good thinking, because if there’s anything that real people outside the MSNBCNN bubble love, it’s the post office. It’s the federal DMV, except with stamps.
Snip.
What is clear is that the real goal of this conspiracy theory is to launch a preemptive attempt to find another excuse for a Democrat defeat. Last time it was PUTIN PUTIN PUTIN and this time it’ll be POSTAGE POSTAGE POSTAGE.
Apparently, his plan is to somehow make it so the post office will be unable to deliver vote by mail ballots in order to prevent Democrats from winning the election that their senile old weirdo nominee is in the process of blowing. It might be interesting to examine the details of this conspiracy theory if there was even a coherent conspiracy theory to examine, but there’s not. It’s mostly “Trump bad!,” then low and undecipherable mumbling, then “And that’s how he will steal the election!”
The specifics of the alleged plot, to the extent you can identify them, are puzzling and elusive. What exactly is Trump going to do again? Is he going to order the mailmen to toss ballots in the shredder? Seems like it would be hard to pull off that flex with all those crack journalists out there. We are also told that he is rounding-up blue mailboxes from America’s street corners, and that this has been going on for a couple of decades is only further proof of his evil plan, somehow. What is not clear is how this might work in practice – so, the idea is that the Democrat voter comes home, ballot in hand, weeping because there are no blue mailboxes anymore to place his ballot into, and then he walks back inside his house past … his own mailbox? And then he just gives up? He sits at his dinner table, head in hands, sobbing at his inability to figure out how to drop a piece of correspondence into the postal system?
Good news! Yaser Abdel Said, the man accused of murdering his own two daughters in an Islamic honor killing, has finally been apprehended after a 12 year manhunt.
Reporter: Why are the NBA’s ratings down? Expert: Woke politics and China. Reporter: Do you have any idea? Expert: Woke politics and China. Any idea at all? Expert: WOKE POLITICS AND CHINA! Reporter: 😑.
Funny how the P word seems to be used by those too lazy to make anything out of their lives so they make up a term to label people so they can play victim to their own laziness. https://t.co/IJK0XOd8pW
I’ve been too busy to watch the RNC, but I have been watching selected videos and reading recaps, so here’s my recap of the recaps, starting with videos of some of the most notable speakers.
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott:
“In an overwhelmingly white district, the voters judged me not on the color of my skin but on the content of my character.”
“Our family went from cotton to congress in one lifetime.”
Running back legend Herschel Walker:
“I take it as a personal insult that people would think I’ve had a thirty seven year friendship with a racist. People who think that don’t know what they’re talking about. Growing up in the deep south, I’ve seen racism up close. I know what it is, and it isn’t Donald Trump.”
Maryland Republican congressional candidate Kim Klacik:
Democrats have controlled this part of Baltimore for over 50 years, and they have run this beautiful place right into the ground. Abandoned buildings, liquor stores on every corner, drug addicts, guns on the street: that’s now the norm in many neighborhoods. You’d think Maryland taxpayers would be getting a lot, because our taxes are out of control. Instead we’re paying for decades of incompetence and corruption. Sadly, the same cycle of decay exists in many Democrat-run cities, and yet the Democrats still assume black people will vote for them, no matter how much they let us down and take us for granted. We’re sick of it. We’re not going to take it any more.
Georgia Democratic State Representative Vernon Jones:
“Unfortunately, Democrats have turned their backs on our brave police officers. They call it defunding, and it’s a danger to our cities, our neighborhoods, and our children…Our police need more funding, not less.”
Maximo Alverez, entrepreneur and survivor of Cuban communism:
“The country I was born in is gone, totally destroyed. When I watch the news from Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and other cities, when I see the history being rewritten, I hear echoes of a former life I never wanted to hear again. I see shadows I thought I had outrun.”
Transcript of the McClokey’s speech: “Whether it’s the defunding of police, ending cash bails or criminals can be released back out on the streets the same day to riot again, or encouraging anarchy and chaos on our streets, it seems as if the Democrats no longer view the government’s job as protecting honest citizens from criminals, but rather protecting criminals from honest citizens.”
One major theme of the Democratic convention was that America is a racial hell-hole and Donald Trump is racist. It is quite typical for Democrats and other political groups to incite or exploit racial hatred, prejudice, or tension for political gain around the time of elections. While black voters are some of Democrats’ most reliable supporters, fear of a larger segment of them being recruited by Trump has led to particular hysteria among Democratic strategists this election season.
The typical Republican response is to cower in fear or respond defensively that they are not racist. But the first night of this convention was not that at all. At this convention, Republicans traded defense for offense.
Whether it was Jones or Klacik speaking about their frustrations with how Democrats handle race issues, Haley describing the racism she faced as a little brown girl growing up in South Carolina, Walker talking about how offended he gets when people claim his friend Trump is racist, or Scott describing how his family went from “cotton to Congress in a lifetime,” the speeches and rhetoric weren’t timid or tiptoeing around issues but tackling them head on. It was a surprising change of pace.
You might remember Kimberly Klacik’s name from these 2019 videos featuring the filth and squalor of West Baltimore. She’s running against Democrat Kweisi Mfume to represent Maryland’s 7th congressional district, the one previously represented by the late Elijah Cummings. Her website is here.
Like the garbage French elite of long ago, our American garbage elite of today has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. For four years, it has been focused entirely on deep sixing Donald Trump for his unforgivable crime of demanding that our ruling caste be held accountable for its legacy of failure. Instead of focusing on not being terrible at their job of running America’s institutions, our elitists have decided that the real problem is us Normals being angry about how they are terrible at their job of running America’s institutions. So, let’s imagine that they finally vanquish Trump, though every time they come up against him they end up dragging themselves home like Ned Beatty after a particularly tough canoe trip.
What happens then?
What happens then is that it’s back to business as usual, and for decades, business as usual for our garbage elite has not merely been running our institutions badly but pillaging and looting our country for power, prestige and cash.
The difference is that in the future they will be much more careful to ensure that no one who is not in on the scam will ever again come anywhere near the levers of power. You can already see it – the demands that we defer to the bureaucrats they own, the attacks on the idea of free expression, and the campaign to disarm us. Their objective is no more Trumps, just an endless line of progressive would-be Maduros with the march toward despair occasionally put on pause for a term by some Fredocon Republican who hates us Normals just as much as the Dems, but won’t admit it until after he’s out of office.
So #NeverTrumpers are upset because Trump called them scum? Well boo freaking hoo:
If you were involved in the 2016 election and, at any point, decided that Hillary Clinton was very bad for the nation and that Evan McMullin was a f***ing bug-eating tool and that Donald Trump was not Beelzebub incarnate, then you became the target of abuse. In my personal experience, there are people who I’d considered friends for several years who I would no longer pee on if they were on fire today because of the abuse and scorn the heaped upon people who disagreed with them and the cheap bullying that they engaged in. Trumpkin. Trumptard. Trumpaloo. Trumphumper. And all manner of other cute names.
Snip.
For three years these people have degraded, demeaned, and libeled anyone who simply decided that, for all his flaws, Trump was better than any Democrat. No grace was offered to people who had considered them friends and colleagues. No common cause was allowed to be made. They stopped being conservatives and Republicans who simply disliked the candidate and then the president and became active Democrat partisans who simply called themselves something else. Every hoax and bad faith allegation made against the President and his administration, from the Russia bullsh** to defending illegal FISA warrants to the “Muslim ban” to “kids in cages,” was spearheaded by NeverTrumpers flagellating themselves with their principles and yodeling “we’re better than that.”
In 2020, these people have a choice to make. They can either earn their way back in–Prodigal Son, and all that–or they can stay gone. I don’t care who they vote for because Trump won last time without them and he’s in a much stronger position today than he was in November 2016. But, no matter what path they choose, there should be no forgetting of how these people have acted and what they’ve done. No one should allow them to forget why no one–right or left–wishes to have anything to do with them. No one should ever forget that they are dangerous, timorous and unfaithful allies and should not be allowed to do any more than hold the coats for the rest of us.
President Donald Trump begins process to formally withdraw from the Paris climate accord. I’m not sure this is strictly necessary, as it was never binding on the U.S. because it was never submitted to the senate for ratification. As opposed to being nonbinding on the rest of the world because they’re just lying about following it anyway.
Sanctions against Iran really biting into its oil revenues, especially as the U.S. becomes more sophisticated about counter attempts to evade it.
As recently as mid-2019, Iranian leaders openly boasted of selling its oil to foreign customers despite the 2017 sanctions. At the time of that boast, Iran was getting a million BPD (barrels per day) out to export customers. In contrast, before the sanctions, Iran exported two million BPD. But by July 2019 exports had been reduced to 365,000 BPD and in August it was a record low 160,000 BPD and that did not change much in September. What the Iranians don’t issue press releases about is how well sanction enforcement efforts have been at reducing those illegal exports to record lows.
The UK is finally having a general election after essentially a year of deadlock. If history is any guide, parties promising to deliver Brexit will win, then not deliver Brexit…
Related: Sanctuary city proposition goes down in flames in Tucson. Funny how not enforcing laws against illegal aliens enjoys crushing defeat when actual voters get a chance to chime in.
Meanwhile, the illegal alien debate in the Democratic Party is between the hard left and the loony left. “While the rest of America frets about illegal alien criminals escaping authorities with the eager help of liberal politicians, liberals are more concerned about proving to each other how wonderful and tolerant they are by opening the border and allowing anyone and everyone with a sob story to be welcomed and cared for.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
A recent string of high-profile comments brought “Cancel Culture” to the fore. Stand-up routines by Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr and Sebastian Maniscalo forced the subject back into the limelight.
“No Safe Spaces,” a documentary about the Left’s serial attacks on free expression, debuts this weekend at the near-perfect time. Comedian Adam Carolla and syndicated radio star Dennis Prager unite to explore how universities are clamping down on healthy debate, and why that woke sentiment is leaking into society at large.
“Joker” director Todd Phillips, who previously helmed the “Hangover” series, amplified the cause. He told Vanity Fair he created “Joker” because making comedies is no longer fun.
“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” he says. “There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the f***ing funny guys are like, ‘F*** this s***, because I don’t want to offend you.’
Science Fiction tries to erase its past over crimes against Social Justice Warrior orthodoxy. To be fair, the people who handed out the (now being renamed) James Tiptree Award were always far-left radical feminist lunatics. The question is why have the theoretically more sober people behind the John W. Campbell and World Fantasy Awards also given in to this Orwellian, history-erasing lunacy?
Is anyone really surprised when a progressive treats institutional charity money as a personal slush fund?
The former head of the L.A.-based anti-poverty nonprofit Youth Policy Institute improperly used the organization’s funds to pay the property taxes on his house, buy furniture for his home office and make national political donations, the group alleged in court documents filed this week.
Dixon Slingerland, who was fired as the group’s chief executive in September, spent the nonprofit’s money on an array of unauthorized and personal expenses, including private tutoring for his children, contributions to his wife’s pension, and “lavish” dining, travel and entertainment, according to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing lodged by the nonprofit in federal court.
Texas candidate Jessica Cisneros has been one of the most high profile candidates backed by Justice Democrats, the liberal group seeking to defeat incumbents they perceive as insufficiently progressive. While Cisneros has received praise from freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), local residents appear more skeptical. She has received just $3,585 of her $190,000 (1.8 percent) in itemized contributions from inside the San Antonio district she hopes to represent.
Cisneros is primarying Democratic incumbent Henry Cueller for the Texas 28th Congressional District. She does not appear to be former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros’ daughter.
“Democrat Elizabeth “Eliz” Markowitz and Republican Gary Gates are headed to a runoff to decide who will fill the unexpired term of State Rep. John Zerwas (R–Richmond)” for Texas House District 28. Gates is a seven time loser, the founding money behind the “Texas Citizens Coalition” (whose mailers I have not seen recently), and was last seen running a dishonest campaign against Wayne Christian for the Railroad Commission. Still, I can only imagine that he’ll be preferable to a Democrat, and even though Markowitz garnered more votes in the election, all the other candidates were Republicans for a Republican-leaning seat, giving Gates a good chance to retain it.
“Plastikov 3D printed AK. 900 rounds on the front receiver, 550 on the rear – with no signs of damage. 7.62×39 goodness in a 7 dollar PLA receiver.” Not quite a revolution, since he used metal parts for the ejector and rails, and spent a total of $393 for all the parts, but definitely interesting, since the receiver is what the federal government counts as the “gun.” Caveat: 7.62x39mm evidently generates lower firing pressure than 5.56 NATO. But I’m hardly an expert here. Still: interesting. (Hat tip: Sal the Agorist.)
Lebanon is burning over the ruling coalition’s decision to impose higher taxes.
Nationwide protests paralyzed Lebanon on Friday as demonstrators blocked major roads in a second day of rallies against the government’s handling of a severe economic crisis and the entire country’s political class.
The protests were the largest since 2015, and could further destabilize a country already on the verge of collapse and with one of the highest debt loads in the world.
The protests could plunge Lebanon into a political crisis with unpredictable repercussions for the economy, which has been in steady decline for the past few years. Some of the protesters said they would stay in the streets until the government resigns.
Time and again, the protesters shouted “Revolution!” and “The people want to bring down the regime,” echoing a refrain chanted by demonstrators during Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region in 2011.
“We are here today to ask for our rights. The country is corrupt, the garbage is all over the streets and we are fed up with all this,” said Loris Obeid, a protester in downtown Beirut.
Entire Des Moines Register-sponsored charity bike rideresigns over their handling of Carson King story. That’s the “hey, this guy just raised millions for charity, let’s destroy his life over an eight year old Tweet because we can, then refuse to admit we did anything wrong” story.
Chinese develop helicopter flying saucer? Color me skeptical that it actually works. And if it does work, it’s less a helicopter than a flying turbofan.
If you think Wayne Messam’s longshot presidential campaign is embarrassing, it’s a veritable juggernaut next to Republican congressman Mark Sanford’s longshot presidential campaign launch. One person showed up: the story’s reporter. And if Sanford’s name rings a faint bell: “It’s been more a decade since Sanford, now 59, faced potential impeachment, was censured by his own legislature, and got slapped with dozens of ethics violations after that infamous rendezvous in Buenos Aires. While the then-married governor was out of the office, his staff initially said he was just out ‘hiking the Appalachian Trail,’ a phrase that became the 2009 version of a meme and was used as a euphemism for anything related to politics and sexual escapades.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
The Biden clan gets rich, Klobuchar kills a duck, O’Rourke threatens a kitten and calls Journey punk rock, while Yang channels The Dead Kennedys and the Q3 fundraising deadline looms. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
Polls
Too damn many polls this time around…
CNN (Nevada): Biden 22, Sanders 22, Warren 18, Harris 5, Buttigieg 4, Steyer 4, Yang 3, Booker 2, Gabbard 1, Klobuchar 1, Ryan 1, Williamson 1. 4% is as high as we’ve seen Steyer in any poll. Is his airdropping money on his campaign finally moving the needle?
CNN (South Carolina): Biden 17, Warren 16, Sanders 11, Buttigieg 4, Harris 3, Steyer 3, Booker 2, O’Rourke 2, Gabbard 1, Klobuchar 1. These numbers are from the RealClearPolitics summary, as they’ve double-linked the Nevada poll on their source link.
Harvard/Harris: Biden 28, Warren 17, Sanders 16, Harris 6, O’Rourke 3, Buttigieg 3, Yang 3, Castro 2, Booker 2, Steyer 2, Klobuchar 1, Gabbard 1. be prepared to click the zoom button a lot…
Landmark Communications (Georgia): Biden 41.4, Warren 17.4, Sanders 8.1, Harris 5.6, Buttigieg 4.9, Booker 2.0, Yang 1.9, O’Rourke 1.4, Klobuchar 1.1, Gabbard 0.8, Bennett(sic) 0.1, Steyer 0.1, Castro 0.0. While I should theoretically appreciate the greater precision, I don’t understand how you get a 0.1 out of a sample of 500. Doesn’t that work out to half a person?
Emerson Biden 26, Warren 23, Sanders 22, Yang 8, Buttigieg 6, Harris 4, Booker 2, Castro 2, O’Rourke 1, Ryan 1, Gabbard 1, Sestak 1, Williamson 1. Small sample size of 462, but 8 is a new high for Yang. A couple more points and he’s in Ron Paul territory…
The other candidates have not yet started seriously spending on TV. To date, most candidates have been committed more resources to Facebook and Google ads than to television ads (Pete Buttigieg, for example, has spent $5.3 million on digital vs. just $302,200 on TV). After Steyer, the active candidate who has spent the most on TV is Joe Biden, who has aired 882 spots for an estimated $384,220, almost all of it in Iowa.
Evidently Saturday Night Live is still on, and they had a DNC Town Hall skit Saturday:
If you think this section is light this week, you’re right: I think the impeachment nothingburger has sucked a lot of the air out of the room for the 2020 race. One way or another, Trump always manages to do that…
Now on to the clown car itself:
Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says he’s staying in the race until New Hampshire. Gets a Politico interview, says he’s not on the impeachment train. Also says far left candidates hurt Democratic chances of beating Trump. He’s the third richest Democrat running, behind Steyer and Delaney. “Within days of the appointment [to the senate in 2009], Bennet sold off at least $2 million worth of stock, in companies like Philip Morris, Eli Lilly and Chevron, according to federal filings.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Wherever Joe Biden went, son Hunter cashed in.”
Biden has been leading the Democratic field. The central case for his candidacy rests on the supposedly exemplary work he did as a senior member of Team Obama. Well, in 2016, acting as the Obama administration’s point man in Ukraine, the vice president — unlike Trump — openly threatened to withhold $1 billion in American loan guarantees if the embattled nation didn’t fire the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.
As Biden later bragged, “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.’ ”
Most of the media assure us that, though by the Democrats’ new standards this kind of intimidation constitutes a flagrant abuse of power, Biden’s reasons for threatening Ukraine were chaste.
But simply repeating this talking point doesn’t make it true. Granted, Shokin was a shady character. Yet at some point he had been investigating Burisma, the largest gas company in Ukraine, which also happened to be paying Hunter Biden a $50,000 monthly salary as a board member.
By coincidence, Hunter had landed this cushy gig in a foreign country only a few months after the Obama administration began dispatching his father, Joe, to the very same foreign country on a regular basis.
There was, of course, absolutely nothing in Hunter’s résumé to indicate that he would be a valuable addition to foreign energy interest. He didn’t speak the language, and he had no particular expertise in the energy industry. Oh, he did have one thing, though: his last name.
I suppose, that isn’t entirely fair. Hunter once ran a hedge fund with his dad’s brother, James Biden, and associated with a notorious Ponzi schemer. James would go on to snag a job as executive vice president of a construction company in 2010, despite having virtually no experience in the field. And only a few months into his tenure, the company would win one of its biggest contracts in its history, a $1.5 billion deal to build affordable homes in Iraq.
By pure happenstance, Joe was also the Obama administration’s point man in Iraq at the time. Funny how these things work out.
Liberal reporters, who are framing Trump’s conversation with Zelensky as the most perilous threat in the republic’s history, have shown little curiosity about Biden’s dealings with the Ukrainian government. Many media personalities, in fact, have rallied to Biden’s defense, calling any intimation of wrongdoing a smear.
NBC’s Chuck Todd dismissed any Biden talk as a mere distraction. CNN called questions into the former vice president’s actions “baseless.” Other liberals now argue that the Biden firing of Shokin actually worked against the interests of Hunter.
We have no way of knowing if this is true, either. According to The New York Times, Hunter’s work for Burisma had “prompted concerns” among Obama administration State Department officials, because it undermined diplomacy in Ukraine. Was Biden really the only person available to pressure Ukrainian officials while his son was raking in the cash? Does anyone really believe Biden’s claims that he never once spoke to his 49-year-old son about business in the two years they spent working in the same country?
Late Summer 2006: Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, purchase the hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors. According to an unnamed executive quoted in Politico in August, James Biden declared to employees on his first day, “Don’t worry about investors. We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.” At this time, Joe Biden is months away from becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second bid for president.
The unnamed executive who spoke to Politico charged that the purchase of the fund was designed to work around campaign-finance laws:
According to the executive, James Biden made it clear that he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.
Joe Biden’s brother told executives at a healthcare firm that the former vice president’s cancer initiative would promote their business, according to a participant in the conversation, who said the promise came as part of a pitch on behalf of potential investors in the firm.
The allegation is the latest of many times Biden’s relatives have invoked the former vice president and his political clout to further their private business dealings. It is the first that involves the Biden Cancer Initiative, a project Joe Biden made the centerpiece of his post-White House life following the death of his son Beau.
Biden’s brother, James, made the promise to executives at Florida-based Integrate Oral Care during a phone call on or around November 8, 2018, according to Michael Frey, CEO of Diverse Medical Management, a health-care firm that is suing James Biden. At the time, James Biden’s business partners were pursuing a potential investment in Integrate, according to Frey and court records. Frey, who had a business relationship with James Biden and his associates, had introduced the group to Integrate.
James Biden told the Integrate executives that he would get the Biden Cancer Initiative to promote an oral rinse made by the firm and used by cancer patients, Frey, who said he participated in the call, told POLITICO. He added that James Biden directly invoked the former vice president on the call. “He said his brother would be very excited about this product,” Frey said.
Make no mistake: This is a risky game the Democrats are playing. On the one hand, their most energetic voters practically demand Trump’s immediate removal. On the other hand, most voters are apathetic at best to the idea of impeachment, and will probably turn against it quite sharply if yet another investigation fails to reveal enough dirt on Trump. But as I wrote at Instapundit earlier today, maybe the only thing worse to the Democrats’ kamikaze wing than not going ahead with an impeachment inquiry would be an unsuccessful one.
But for some Democrats, that might be a risk worth taking. So let’s go back to our earlier thought, courtesy of GMU law prof David Bernstein.
My conspiracy theory of the day is opening an impeachment inquiry over Ukraine is less about Trump, and more about some very powerful Democrats wanting to get Biden out of the way early. https://t.co/3Mcg7Dpt3Z
The payoff here for “some very powerful Democrats” — and it wouldn’t be prudent to point fingers at anyone in particular — might be well worth the risk. Weaken Trump and force Biden out of the race, probably before Iowa? You can picture a particular presidential candidate or three saying “Deeeeeeliiiiiicious” in their best Dr. Evil voice.
In order to win the nomination in a crowded race, Biden needs to cultivate support across demographic groups, to at least feint at his ability to win back the Obama coalition in the general election. His bedrock of support is black voters. Black voters made up around one-quarter of the 2016 Democratic primary electorate and are a crucial demographic group for any candidate. According to Gallup, 63 percent of non-Hispanic black Democratic voters self-identify as moderate or conservative. This, even as the Democratic Party overall has gotten more liberal — 2018 was the first year that over half of Democrats (51 percent) identified as liberal (in 1994, that number was only 25 percent.)
But while black voters have remained more moderate or conservative, white voters have become increasingly likely to identify as liberal — 65 percent of non-Hispanic white Democrats called themselves liberal and have become rapidly more liberal on issues of race over the past 10 years. With white liberals comprising a key demographic not just in the first two primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, but also in the media, it’s no wonder that Biden’s campaign has felt the pile-on of Twitter chatter.
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Swears he’s not going to run for the senate even if he drops the presidential run. Which is understandable, since (like O’Rourke) he would lose either. “Julián Castro’s campaign manager says fundraising email not ‘a threat to quit.'” Like I said last week about Booker, it’s the standard campaign solicitation shuck.
Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. His Iowa State Director Monica Biddix left the campaign to “pursue other opportunities,” which is hardly reassuring for Delaney’s longshot hopes. “His campaign announced later Friday that it had named Brent Roske the new Iowa state director. Roske earlier served as Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson’s Iowa state director.” I’m guessing this is a step up in neither prestige nor likelihood of success, but probably a much stronger chance of receiving additional paychecks until the caucuses. BEEEEEFCAAAAKE!
Some big bank executives and hedge fund managers have been stunned by Warren’s ascent, and they are primed to resist her.
“They will not support her. It would be like shutting down their industry,” an executive at one of the nation’s largest banks told CNBC, also speaking on condition of anonymity. This person said Warren’s policies could be worse for Wall Street than those of President Barack Obama, who signed the Dodd-Frank bank regulation bill in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown.
She’s all about leading the charge…except when it comes to fulfilling her actual senate voting duties:
$5 for anyone who can find a video of him doing a karaoke cover of “Holiday in Cambodia.” Gets a BBC profile. He proposed a VAT, which a New York Times writer says will raise more money than Warren’s wealth tax. In truth, both will earn exactly the same amount: zero, since neither has a hope in hell of passing.
Out of the Running
These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:
