Posts Tagged ‘pedophilia’

LinkSwarm for October 4, 2024

Friday, October 4th, 2024

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.”

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Striking Dockworkers Agree to Take a Measly 62 Percent Raise and Not Spoil the Election for Democrats.” How convenient.
  • “America Last: After Spending $640 Million On Migrants And Billions Abroad, FEMA Suddenly ‘Broke.'”

    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…

  • Trump announces that Elon Musk is providing free Starlink terminals to areas affected by hurricane Helene.
  • Musk will also be a Trump’s October 5 rally in Butler, PA, the same site as the attempted assassination attempt against Trump.
  • One pollster thinks Trump could win swing states by a landslide.

    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%.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Texas Congressman Confirms Thousands of Murderers, Rapists Entered the Country Illegally.”

    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…

  • Another side effect of Biden-Harris open borders policy: An explosion of illegal alien prostitution networks.

    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…
  • “A paralegal at a New York City district attorney’s office has been arrested after he attempted to make an explosive to bomb a migrant shelter located across from his apartment, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.” See, here in Texas, we just want to deport illegal aliens, not blow them up…
  • “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…
  • Iran hit mostly Jack and Squat in its missile attack on israel, though it did evidently hit one airbase hanger.
  • Hamas Commander Killed in Israeli Strike Led U.N. Refugee Agency Teachers’ Union.” [Fateh Sherif] was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives, as well as Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.”
  • MSM media outlets fell all over themselves to praise dead terrorist scumbag Hassan Nasrallah.
  • 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.
  • Russia Captures Vuhledar: After Over 800 Vehicle Losses and Over Two Years of Trying.”
  • The Babylon Bee filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Monday after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of “deepfake” laws that target outlets that publish satire and parody.”
  • 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&M to Deactivate ‘LGBTQ’ Studies Minor and Social Justice Certificate.”

    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 Indicted Over Fake Racist Messages. Warrants indicate George may have attempted to conceal evidence.”

    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.”
  • Following up on last week’s Diddy arrest story, the accusations just keep piling on, with 120 more sexual abuse claims, including 25 from minors. If even 10% of these claims are true, how did he get away with such massive abuse for so long? Who does he have dirt on?
  • “[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.
  • “Kamala Announces Construction Of ‘Murderers Only’ Express Lane At Southern Border.”
  • School Shooters Distance Themselves From Tim Walz.”
  • “Hezbollah Reaches Out To U.S. For Advice On How To Govern With A Dead Leader.”
  • “Young Hezbollah Recruit Can’t Believe He’s Already Made Regional Manager.”
  • OK, I’m awake!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Also, a hearty thanks to everyone who has already donated.

    LinkSwarm For September 27, 2024

    Friday, September 27th, 2024

    Democrats refuse to let rapists be deported, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Democratic assassin’s tree, Israel decapitates Hamas, more illegal alien voting schemes exposed, the boom falls on Eric Adams, Goines goes down, another Russian ammo dump goes boom, a commie sub sinks, Raptor 1 Cylon 0, and 50 Cent throws down some Diddy dirt for your amusement.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Man, Democrats sure love illegal alien rapists. “158 Democrats voted against a bill that would ensure ‘aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed sex offenses or domestic violence are inadmissible and deportable.’ The Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act (H.R.7909) bill was introduced by Republican Representative Nancy Mace.”
  • No, they really, really do. “ICE Detains Illegal Migrant Accused Of Raping Pre-Teen In Nantucket…More Than A Month After He Walked On Bail.” “After being charged with one count of rape of a child with a 10-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, [Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo] was allowed to ‘walk free on bail’ and immigration authorities were never called, according to a report from the New York Post.”
  • “Ryan Wesley Routh Wrote of ‘Failed’ Assassination Attempt in Letter to ‘World’ Months Ago; Offered $150,000 Bounty to ‘Complete the Job.’” Plus a refresher to the would-be assassin the media already seems to be trying to memory hole: “While Trump was golfing at his International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel with a scope sticking out of the fence and ‘engaged’ with the person, who was later identified as Routh, a Biden-Harris supporter and Democrat donor with an extensive criminal background.”
  • “Son of would-be Trump assassin arrested for child porn.” “Investigators say they discovered ‘hundreds’ of files with child pornography during a search of Oran Routh’s residence in Guilford County, North Carolina, on Saturday conducted ‘in connection with an investigation unrelated to child exploitation.’ The two charges he faces include receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography.”
  • Former Border Official Accuses Biden-Harris Administration of Covering up Border Crisis. Retired San Diego Sector Chief Agent Aaron Heitke says the administration provided two flights a week to take illegal aliens from San Diego to Texas.”
  • The Biden Magic continues. “US Manufacturing PMI Plunges To 15-Month Lows; Prices Are Soaring Again.”
  • No wonder “Consumer Confidence Plunges Most In 3 Years As Labor Market Weakens Significantly.”
  • “How bloodthirsty Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua used NYC migrant shelters to build a criminal empire: ‘Hiding in plain sight.’”

    In little more than a year, a once-obscure South American street gang has taken hold in the Big Apple, exploiting the migrant crisis to build a violent criminal enterprise from within the walls of city shelters.

    Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-bred crew of thugs, now terrorize Gotham with gun-toting, moped-riding hoods, sell illegal guns under the very noses of private shelter security guards, and run sleazy prostitution rings in neighborhoods suddenly besieged by the marauding migrants.

    The gang, which also peddles a lethal fentanyl mix called Tussi or “pink cocaine,” has grown so fast that it has so far overwhelmed both average New Yorkers and the city’s elite police force.

    Given how many FBI arrests have been sprung on NYPD brass over the last few months, I’m not sure how well that “elite” appellation still applies.

    “Not every migrant is here to commit crimes, not every migrant is a gang member,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. “But these TDA guys hide very well in plain sight in the migrant community.

    “We aren’t looking to grab the food delivery guy, but these guys go so far as to wear Uber Eats clothing, [use] the delivery bags while they’re out there committing their crimes,” the chief told The Post. “When we do arrest them, they are very eager to talk about the crime they have committed.

    “They are unwilling to talk about TDA itself.”

    The gang, whose name means “train from Aragua” (a state in north-central Venezuela) in Spanish, now runs citywide theft and robbery crews that have terrorized neighborhoods.

    In Jackson Heights, a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue dubbed the “Market of Sweethearts” has become a testament to TDA’s muscle and influence, with vendors peddling stolen items and an open-air red light district that has migrant hookers walking the streets day and night.

    Plus a feud between Tren de Aragua and rival illegal alien gang El Carro De Lost Caragijos 666, as well as a guide to gang tattoos. (Hat tip: TPPF.)

  • “Harris Honeymoon Fizzles Out As Trump Leads In Sun Belt Battlegrounds.”

    Former President Donald Trump has gained ground and is leading Vice President Kamala Harris in key Sun Belt states, according to a New York Times/Siena poll from Monday.

    Trump gained in Arizona and is now leading Harris by five points with the two candidates polling at 50% and 45% among likely voters respectively, according to the poll. At the same time, Trump has also held onto his lead over Harris in Georgia by four points and in North Carolina by two points. (RELATED: Experts Say Major Swing State Is Once Again ‘Pivotal’ To Trump’s Chances Of Retaking White House)

    While the Republican candidate is leading, a significant portion of likely voters across all three states are independents, according to the poll. On average, 31% of likely voters in the Sun Belt consider themselves Democrats, 33% identify as Republicans and 31% say they are independents.

  • But Democrats have a plan to steal the election in Arizona.

    The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and the guerilla journalists at Muckraker have teamed up to unearth a little scheme down in Arizona — registering illegal aliens to vote. And shocker, I wonder which political party those new “voters” might be supporting? I’ll give you one guess, and I bet you’ll get it right.

    The illegals Muckraker interviewed said they were registered to vote at grocery stores, while others reported activists visiting their apartment complex and encouraging them to register to vote. Why does this matter? In 2020, fewer than 11,000 votes tipped Arizona’s electoral votes to Biden.

    Fast forward to today, and recent polling shows former President Donald Trump holding a narrow lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Arizona, a critical swing state. With the race shaping up to be just as tight in 2024, the integrity of voter registration efforts takes on even greater significance — as does the lack of concern from the left.

    It gets worse. The Oversight Project tried to track these individuals on the voter rolls but came up empty-handed — they were nowhere to be found.

    This development comes just days after the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled that nearly 98,000 people with unverified citizenship documents are still eligible to vote in state and local elections.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Trump-Hating Colorado Secretary Of State Loses Another Election Integrity Battle.”

    Jena Griswold, Colorado’s rabidly leftist Secretary of State who will forever be known for her anti-democratic drive to knock former President Donald Trump off the ballot, has suffered another election law loss in federal court.

    The U.S. District Court for the Colorado District last week issued an order demanding the Democrat secretary of state release Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) reports suspected of containing dead registrants on the state’s voter rolls. The reports, according to a settlement, include individuals who may have died within the past three years.

    It’s another significant election integrity victory for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), and another stunning loss for election transparency-stifling Griswold and ERIC.

    “PILF has knocked down ERIC’s wall of secrecy in the voter list maintenance process,” J. Christian Adams, president of the election integrity watchdog organization, said in a press release. “States cannot use third parties to hide election records that the public has a right to see.”

    Griswold ultimately signed the stipulation after the court denied her original request to dismiss the case. Judge Philip Brimmer ordered the secretary of state’s office to disclose the requested 2021 ERIC Reports by Nov. 1. Brimmer did allow minimal redactions to the ERIC Report Key. With the agreement reached, the judge dismissed PILF’s claim that Griswold violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993.

  • More on what’s actually going on in Springfield, OH. Including names and amounts for the NGOs involved. (Hat tip: BattleSwarm reader Malthus.)
  • The long awaited indictments of New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams finally comes down.

    New York City mayor Eric Adams engaged in a nearly decade-long conspiracy that included accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources to benefit his political career, according to the federal indictment unsealed Thursday morning.

    Adams is accused of accepting free airline flights and staying in luxurious hotels on behalf of Turkish business and government officials who sought to influence him.

    He sought foreign money in part to benefit his 2021 mayoral campaign, according to the indictment. But some of the criminal conduct Adams is accused of dates as far back as 2015 when he was the Brooklyn borough president.

    Adams had been charged with five counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national in two instances; and bribery.

    He is the first sitting New York mayor to face criminal charges.

    The 57-page indictment accuses Adams of funneling illegal foreign money through U.S.-based straw donors, including at least two New York construction companies, to reap over $10 million in public-matching funds based on false certifications that his campaign complied with finance regulations. The funds provide “eligible candidates with public funds to match small-dollar contributions from New York City residents,” the charging document says.

    Adams also received free or discounted travel benefits on Turkey’s national airline from a Turkish official, who facilitated the funneling of the straw donations to Adams. These overseas trips included flights from New York to Turkey, India, France, Sri Lanka, China and Hungary from 2015 to 2019. These trips are valued at more than $100,000.

    Other luxurious benefits included “free rooms at opulent hotels, free meals at high-end restaurants, and free luxurious entertainment while in Turkey,” the indictment states.

    In January 2022, when Adams was inaugurated as mayor, Adams agreed to accept foreign contributions intended for his 2025 campaign while meeting with a Turkish entrepreneur whom the indictment dubs the “Promoter.”

    The Turkish government sought influence over Adams, in part, to get his help to open a new consulate building in the city before the country’s president visited in 2021, prosecutors say. The 36-story skyscraper would have failed a fire inspection at the time.

    Prosecutors say Turkish officials cashed in on their influence with Adams and he pressured the fire officials to open the building, which they did because they “were convinced that they would lose their jobs if they didn’t back down.”

    The question, of course, is how the boom fell on Adams, but Bill de Blasio’s wife “mishandled” hundreds of millions in homeless funds and never received an investigation…

  • “Ukraine Destroys ANOTHER Ammo Dump! In Kammenyi, Krasnodar Krai.” Here’s my quick, handy description of the different between an “oblast” and a “krai’: I have no frigging clue.
  • “House Foreign Affairs Committee Holds Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Contempt of Congress.”

    The House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly voted 26–25 to recommend Antony Blinken be held in contempt of Congress following the diplomat’s failure to appear for Tuesday’s hearing.

    “Secretary Blinken’s refusal to comply with the Committee’s subpoena — despite months of notice and offers of accommodations — warrants contempt,” the resolution read.

    The Republican-led committee has long sought to host the secretary of state as it investigates the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan over three years ago that left 13 U.S. service members dead.

  • Russia likes to claim they have all the manpower in the world for Vlad’s big Ukraine Adventure, but they just formed a mechanized battalion from the crew of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier.
  • China shows sub, sinks same.
  • Israel took out Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut. You would think Hezbollah honchos wouldn’t be hanging around their headquarters in the current conflict, but Israel reportedly took out five senior Hezbollah officials. Not sure if this is the strike or not, but it’s pretty shock-and-awe:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Here’s what operations in Gaza look like today:

    The blue is Israel. The lack of counter-activity (which would be in red) suggests Israel may have already crushed Hamas in Gaza.

    Here’s a very long range look at Lebanon and northern Israel, showing that while Hezbollah is still launching a few rocket attacks at Israel, Israeli air power is bombing the absolute snot out of Hezbollah, not only with strikes in southern Lebanon, but even all the way up near the northern border in the Bekaa Valley.

    Israel is obviously able to hit targets in Lebanon with impunity.

    You feel sorry for Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire, but pity is tempered by the fact that Hezbollah is part of the ruling March 8 coalition.

  • International law expert covers Operation Grim Beeper. “In the context of distinction, necessity, proportionality these principles of the laws of armed conflict being adhered to in an exemplary fashion.”
  • Bill to strip the tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations (like the Council on American-Islamic Relations) moves forward in the house.
  • Pentagon to Send Additional U.S. Troops to Middle East as Regional Tensions Boil Over.” “The U.S. maintains about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, primarily tasked with counterterrorism operations. U.S.-controlled military bases also exist in Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, with a total count of U.S. military personnel in the region numbering around 40,000, up from the 34,000 troops stationed in the Middle East before the October 7 massacre.” But wait! Kamala Harris said we had no troops in a war zone!
  • Reporting a Rape in the UK Is a Crime.”

    A woman from Warrington, Cheshire, has revealed how her attempt to report a sexual attack led to her own arrest while the perpetrator remained free to assault others for nearly two years.

    Helen Ingham, 48, recently waived her right to anonymity in order to share her harrowing experience with law enforcement after reporting an assault by Ahmed Fahmy, 45, a hotel manager whose reign of terror against women spanned more than 15 years.

    There, as here, the left doesn’t want foreign rapists deported…

  • Democrats chances to take the senate this year appear to be dim. Good.
  • How Facebook lets the U.S. government censor you.
  • U.S. House Passes ‘Kelly-Cruz Amendment’ to CHIPS Act, Sent to Biden’s Desk.

    The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday aimed at streamlining permitting laws to facilitate the domestic construction of semiconductor factories.

    The bipartisan legislation passed by a vote of 257 to 125, with 49 members not voting, and now moves to the president’s desk for approval.

    The bill passed the Senate last year, and was passed in the House of Representatives this week as the “Kelly-Cruz substitute amendment.”

    Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) submitted the amended text of their Senate bill in December 2023.

    When a bill passes as a “substitute amendment” in Congress, the original text is entirely replaced with new content. This new version of the bill, offered as an amendment, becomes the text that is voted on and passed.

    It aims to accelerate the construction of U.S. semiconductor facilities, as the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 has made over $50 billion available to promote domestic production and innovation.

    It will also streamline federal permitting by designating the Department of Commerce as the lead agency for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, exempting certain projects from NEPA, providing the Secretary of Commerce with greater authority to expedite reviews in coordination with state and local governments, and limiting court challenge timelines.

    Snip.

    Cruz supported one portion of the CHIPS Act but disagreed with another.

    Cruz explained in 2023 that the CHIPS Act consisted of two key parts: the Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors (FABS) Act, offering a tax credit to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing investment, and the CHIPS Act itself, providing billions in direct subsidies to companies. While Cruz co-sponsored the FABS Act, he voted against the CHIPS Act due to his opposition to direct subsidies, favoring the more indirect incentive of the tax credit.

  • “Many companies have fired Gen Z workers just months after hiring them and several business owners said they are hesitant to bring on recent college graduates due to concerns about their work ethic, communication skills and readiness to do the job, according to a new survey. Six in 10 employers said they have already let go recent college graduates this year, while one in seven said they are inclined to refrain from hiring new graduates next year, according to a survey conducted by Intelligent.com.” Also: “Although they may have some theoretical knowledge from college, they often lack the practical, real-world experience and soft skills required to succeed in the work environment.” Also: “75% of companies reported that some or all of their recent college graduates were unsatisfactory.” There may be a bit of truth to this, but a lot of companies seem to be laying off and firing people of whatever age right now…
  • Rep. David Cook Chosen as House Reform Group’s Challenger to Speaker Dade Phelan.” “The unanimous selection occurred after state Rep. John Smithee (R-Amarillo) dropped out of the race when neither candidate could meet the threshold needed head-to-head five hours after the meeting first convened.”
  • Texas State Rifle Association’s Voter’s Guide. I think all of two Democrats managed to earn as high as a B…
  • Remember Gerald Goines, the ex-HPD cop whose lies led to a drug raid based on false information that killed two people? Finally, five years after first being charged, he was found guilty of felony murder. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Dear Fifth Circuit Judge David Ezra: Which part of Judge Willett’s majority opinion in the border buoy case was unclear to you? Reverse your opinion and drop your stay you feeble-minded git.” The last part is only implied… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Boise State University shuts down coffee shot on campus for being pro-police. Coffee shop owner sues and wins a $4 million settlement.
  • Bjorn Lomborg schools Bill Maher on environmental panic.
  • Seems like an Air Force F-22 Raptor shot down a UFO over Canada in 2023. This was during the Red Balloon Menace, but it sort of looks like a Cylon Raider from the BattleStar Galactica reboot.

    And now, with the thinnest of justifications:

  • How string theorists destroyed the careers of non-string theorists for 40 years. Plus: “Science is fine, it’s THE Science that needs to die.”
  • Has Zuckerbot been redpilled? Like Rubin and company, I’m quite skeptical.
  • Lacrosse is evidently really hard on the pecs.

  • Critical Drinker gives thumbs up on The Penguin. “Just the right balance between grounded realism and industrial gothic. It’s obviously still based on New York, but rundown, neglected, stricken by crime, corruption and decay. So basically just actual New York, then.”
  • 100 year old American sledgehammer survives 100 tons pressure in a hydraulic press with no significant changes. Modern Chinese sledgehammer starts deforming at 40 tons.
  • Via Not the Bee, here’s a pretty good Kamala Harris impression.

  • In a follow-up to yesterday’s Diddy story, 50 Cent’s timeline is fire.
  • “Democrats Warn That If Public Libraries Are Defunded Homeless People Will Have Nowhere To Watch Porn.”
  • “First Baptist Church Softball Team Defeats Chicago White Sox 7-2.”
  • I am in this picture, and I don’t like it: “After 20 Years, Man Makes Tearful, Difficult Decision To Change Wallets.”
  • I’ve never seen anyone as happy learning English as this young Japanese girl.
  • I’ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Also, a hearty thanks to everyone who has already donated.

    I Say, This “Diddy” Fellow Seems Like A Bit Of A Scoundrel

    Thursday, September 26th, 2024

    I follow neither rap music nor Hollywood gossip, so I was only vaguely aware of Sean Combs, AKA Puff Daddy, AKA P. Diddy, AKA Diddy. I knew he was a rapper and a rap mogul with his own label, but that was about it, except for noting he was raided by the FBI back in March. And I’m never surprised when a rap star (or really, just about any rich entertainment figure) is involved in a drug or sex scandal.

    But the sheer range of Mr. Combs alleged criminality is fairly breathtaking:

    Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William S. Walker, the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), announced that SEAN COMBS, a/k/a “Puff Daddy,” a/k/a “P. Diddy,” a/k/a “PD,” a/k/a “Love,” was arrested last night and charged in a three count Indictment with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. The Indictment unsealed today alleges that between 2008 and the present, COMBS abused, threatened, and coerced women and others, and led a racketeering conspiracy that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other crimes….

    According to the Indictment unsealed today:[1]

    From at least 2008 through the present, COMBS led a criminal enterprise that existed to facilitate his abuse and exploitation of women, to protect his reputation, and to conceal his conduct. As part of that criminal enterprise, COMBS, along with other members and associates of the enterprise, committed crimes including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.

    Among other things, COMBS’ sexual abuse of women included causing them to engage in frequent, days-long sexual activity with male commercial sex workers, some of whom were transported over state lines. These events, which COMBS referred to as “Freak Offs,” were elaborate sex performances that COMBS arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded. To ensure participation in Freak Offs, COMBS used violence and intimidation, and leveraged his power over victims—power he obtained through obtaining and distributing narcotics to them, exploiting his financial support to them and threatening to cut off the same, and controlling their careers. COMBS also threatened his victims, including by threatening to expose the embarrassing and sensitive recordings he made of Freak Offs if the women did not comply with his demands.

    COMBS’ efforts to control women included repeated physical abuse. COMBS assaulted women by, among other things, striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them. COMBS similarly assaulted witnesses to his abuse. These assaults often resulted in injuries to the victims, which took days or weeks to heal.

    To commit these crimes, COMBS relied on his power as the leader of a multi-faceted business empire. Employees of COMBS’ businesses—including high ranking supervisors, security staff, personal assistants, and household staff—acted as COMBS’ intermediaries to, among other things, arrange travel and hotel rooms; stock the hotel rooms for COMBS’ commercial sex activity; contact or locate women and other individuals whom he targeted for abuse; and conceal and cover up the abuse. This criminal concealment included efforts to prevent law enforcement from learning about his abuse.

    If you believe you are victim of a crime perpetrated by Sean Combs, please contact HSI at Sextrafficking_outreach@hsi.dhs.gov or via their mobile tip-line at 1-877-4-HSITIP, and reference this case.

    * * *

    COMBS, 54, of Miami, Florida, is charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison; one count of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison; and one count of transportation for purposes of prostitution, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

    That’s a fairly breathtaking array of sleazy, slimy criminality. And it doesn’t even mention some of the other allegations against Combs, so here are not one, not two, but three videos covering his illegal, unsavory antics.

    First up, the originally Penguinz0 video that first clued me in to the magnitude of Combas alleged misdeeds.

  • “This is a moment for celebration. For so long, P. Diddy has gotten away with heinous crimes that tons of people knew about, from car bombs to assaults to sex crimes. It’s like P. Diddy was going for some kind of high score, trying to catch every possible crime like a Pokemon.”
  • “The allegations mirror 11 civil complaints filed against him since 2023.”
  • “Really, that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the P Diddy lore.”
  • “Also mentioned is that he had thousands of bottles of lube and baby oil that were seized from his home during those raids as part of his freak off supplies.”
  • “He also had tons of narcotics as well.”
  • “Diddy became infamous for his freak off parties that would go on for days, where he’d force attendees to not only stay there and perform non-consensual sex acts in front of him, but he would just be pumping them full of drugs and he would be watching while furiously masturbating like a coked-out goblin.” Sounds like the MO of Democratic megadonor and convicted sex offender Ed Buck.
  • “He’d allegedly distribute cocaine, Oxy, Xanax, GHB, MDMA and Ketamine.”
  • “He was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but drugs instead of candy.”
  • “There’s overwhelming evidence to support the decades worth of allegations against Mr. Combs here.” Like the video of him beating up then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.
  • Oh, and he also had “Puffy Flavor Camp” for kids. I would really rather not imagine what went on there…
  • “They done caught the diddler.”
  • “50 Cent has been like, I would say, an elite level hater of P Diddy for quite a while.”
  • “In plain sight, right under everyone’s nose for years. Finally, though, they’re acting on all of this shit. Much like Epstein, it feels like everyone knew he was on some heinous shit, but no one came forward, cuz he’s so influential.”
  • “He had like a lot of dirt on everyone through throwing his Diddy parties, so I think that was a big piece of leverage for him and keeping people quiet for so long. But yeah, tons of people knew all about Diddy and the terrible shit.”
  • One young artist was told to perform sex on Diddy’s bodyguard in exchange for a record contract, only to be told it was a joke just before following through. “Which shows you how things have worked in Hollywood for literally ever. People use the impression of power and access in order to get people to do truly awful things with one another, and celebrities fall right into it, because when you’re a celebrity, they let you do what they want.”

    Here’s a much longer Penguinz0 video on Diddy that goes into more details about the allegations, including the car bomb (you would think something like that would attract the attention of the authorities) and other women he’s abused. I haven’t watched all of it, but plunge on in if you need more details of Diddy’s Depravities.

    Finally, a video from none other than Ben Shapiro:

  • “Here is my theory: everyone in Hollywood knew about all of it. And not only do they they know about all of it, they all participated in it. I don’t know what else to take away from many of the pictures of these so-called white parties.”
  • Video has surfaced of Diddy telling his guests to take their children home so the “real” party could begin.
  • “And the the pictures of the people who showed up to this thing are just amazing. I mean, he was dating, at one point, Jennifer Lopez from like 99 to 2001. But one picture alone at one white party was Kimora Lee Simmons, Russell Simmons, Damon Dash, Aaliyah, Diddy, Jennifer Lopez, Lisa Zane, Billy Zane, Victor Matthews, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andre Harell and Veronica Webb.”
  • “Photos of the gatherings are like a time capsule of the late 90s. Howard Stern, Kelly Osborne, Aretha Franklin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martha Stewart, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon, Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson, a young Kim Kardashian.”
  • “The parties were separated into tiers of access. There was general admission, then a series of tiers ending with entrance to the inner sanctum where the real partying went on.”
  • Khloe Kardashian tells a story on video about attending a party where “half the people were butt naked” and name checks Justin Bieber, “Quincy” (I’m assuming Jones), (Hannah?) Montana, etc. (I apologize. When I began this post, I didn’t realize it would have Kardashians in it…)
  • Bieber’s presence is not a shock because Diddy was “preying on young men.” There’s a supercringe video where Diddy brags about “hanging out” with Bieber for 48 hours. “We can’t really disclose, but it’s definitely a 15 year old’s dream.” He also talked about having legal guardianship of Usher. “It would be hard to imagine Justin Bieber was not abused by Diddy.”
  • “Free people of their morality and give them insane levels of power and wealth, and it turns out they do awful things with those things.”
  • “The story here, once again, is as it was with Jeffrey Epstein. The story about Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t really about Jeffrey Epstein, it was about who’s in the little black book. The story about Diddy here is not just about Diddy being abusive and awful, the story is who knew when and what did they do about it.”
  • “I don’t know when it became a de rigueur for powerful people in our society to simply go to random drug and sex parties as though this is the late Roman Empire, but that’s effectively what we have here, and again it’s not restricted to Hollywood.”
  • “We now know that [Dr. Jay Varma], the head of the New York City Health Commission was going to sex and drug parties in the middle of the pandemic in violation of covid protocols that he himself had written.”
  • The real Diddy story is that we have one of the worst “elite” classes in history.

    Did Diddy contribute money to Democrats? Of course he did, but by the standards of celebrity music moguls, the amounts were rather paltry. $1,000 to Hillary Clinton in 1999 (remember how she became a New Yorker to run for the senate?), $2,000 to Al Sharpton in 2003, and $2,900 to Nina Turner (two ran two unsuccessful runs for Ohio’s 11th congressional district) in 2021. (I’m assuming the Sean Combs donations from Ohio, Arkansas and D.C. are from other people, as are the two donations from a Sean Combs in Los Angeles, 90048, because one is listed as “Sean L. Combs” and Diddy’s middle name is John. And I’m betting that Sean L. Combs is pretty pissed at his nomenganger’s crimes right now…)

    Bonus from The Babylon Bee: “Justice Department Assures Americans Diddy Is Securely Locked Away In Epstein’s Old Cell.”

    Edited to add: Please note that a photo being circulated of Kamala Harris standing with Sean Combs at an awards event is fake, as the original image showed her standing with Montel Williams.

    LinkSwarm For August 30, 2024

    Friday, August 30th, 2024

    More bad Biden Recession news, Kamala Harris wants a $5 trillion tax increase, a power-mad Brazilian judge wants to punish Elon Musk for refusing to censor his political enemies, more Texans sue the Biden Administration for failing to secure the border, Texas trims the voter roles, Harris County gets closer election supervision, two DEI-infected video games tank hard upon release, and the Navy runs put of pants.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • More Biden Recession inflationpalooza:

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • More flashing red signs: Home sales crash to record lows.

    After tumbling in April, and rebounding modestly in June, analysts expected a continued gain in pending home sales in July, but it wasn’t meant to be: moments ago the NAR reported that in July, Pending Home Sales tumbled 5.5% MoM, a huge miss to the 0.2% expected gain (and down from a 4.8% increase in June), and also slumped 4.6% YoY, a modest improvement from the 7.8% plunged in June but also missing expectations of a -2.0% drop.

    That dragged the Pending home sales index to 70.2%, a fresh record low.

    The Pending Home Sales Index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.

    “A sales recovery did not occur in midsummer. The positive impact of job growth and higher inventory could not overcome affordability challenges and some degree of wait-and-see related to the upcoming U.S. presidential election,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.

    Sales decreased in all four US regions, especially in the Midwest and South.

  • $5 Trillion List of Tax Hikes Kamala Harris Just Endorsed.

    Vice President Kamala Harris wants to extract a $5 trillion tax increase from American households and businesses, her campaign confirmed on Monday.

    The Harris campaign officially endorsed the laundry list of new and higher taxes included in the Biden-Harris administration’s fiscal year 2025 budget, a plan that would increase taxes by $5 trillion over ten years.

    The burden of Harris’s tax increases will hit households in the form of diminished wage growth and higher costs of goods and services. These Harris tax increases will make the U.S. less competitive vs. our adversaries.

    Harris also endorsed further increasing the size and power of the already-supersized IRS and erode taxpayer rights by watering down procedures designed to protect taxpayers from abusive and dishonest IRS agents (details below.)

    Kamala Harris’s tax increases include:

    Small business tax rate hike to 39.6%

    Small business owners pay business taxes on their individual tax return. The Harris endorsed budget raises the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from the current 37%.

    Corporate tax rate higher than the EU and communist China.

    Kamala Harris wants to hike the current 21% federal corporate income tax rate to 28%, higher than communist China’s 25% and the EU average of 21%, her campaign said Monday.

    The Kamala Harris federal 28% rate is higher than the Asia average corporate tax rate of 19.8%, the EU average of 21%, the world average of 23.5%, and the OECD average of 23.7%. (See the Tax Foundation’s comprehensive listing here.)

    The Harris federal 28% rate is also higher than Canada (26.2%), the UK (25%) Sweden (20.6%), and even Russia (20%), Afghanistan (20%), and Iraq (15%).

    After adding state corporate income taxes, the combined federal-state tax burden in most states will easily exceed 30% under the Harris plan.

    The Harris rate hurts the USA vs. China with its 25% rate. And note: Industry sectors of strategic use to the Chinese government pay an even lower rate of 15%.

    American workers will bear the brunt of Harris’s corporate tax increase.

    The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation affirmed in congressional testimony that corporate tax rate hikes hit “labor, laborers.” A study compiled by the Tax Foundation found that “labor bears between 50 percent and 100 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax, with 70 percent or higher the most likely outcome.”

    Capital gains and dividends tax more than twice as high as communist China

    Here is a direct quote from the Biden-Harris budget: “Together, the proposals would increase the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to 44.6 percent.“

    Yes, you read that correctly: A Kamala Harris capital gains and dividends tax rate of 44.6%

    China’s capital gains tax rate is 20%. Is it wise to have higher taxes than China?

    Under the Harris plan, the combined federal-state capital gains tax exceeds 50% in many states. California will face a combined federal-state rate of 57.8%, New Jersey 55.3%, Oregon at 54.5%, Minnesota at 54.4%, and New York state at 53.4%.

    Unconstitutional wealth tax on unrealized gains

    The Harris-endorsed budget calls for an annual 25 percent minimum tax on the unrealized gains of individuals with income and assets exceeding $100 million. Once in place, it won’t be long before the threshold is lowered to hit more and more Americans.

    Americans overwhelmingly oppose taxes on unrealized gains, by a factor of three to one, including 76% of independents. Americans know that a “gain” isn’t “real” until it is actually realized, in hand.

    This Harris tax is similar to the wealth taxes pushed by radical progressives such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

    Capital gains taxes should only be paid when a gain is realized. Harris’s wealth tax would break with current tax policy and impose tax Americans based on the value of an asset on a particular arbitrary date.

    This unprecedented tax would give even more power to the IRS, encourage taxpayers to move assets overseas, and will only expand to hit millions of Americans over time.

    And more at the link. (Hat tip: TPPF.)

  • I don’t agree with every single item on this new RFK, Jr. hit job on Democrats, but it is pretty brutal, and the perfect thing to post to really annoy your facebook friends the next time they post an anti-Trump meme:

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “What’s Kamala Harris’ greatest accomplishment?” Harris voters: “Uhhhh….”
  • A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit against leftwing pressure group Media Matters can go forward.

    X, formerly known as Twitter, filed the suit in November after Musk threatened to bring a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the left-leaning nonprofit and “all those who colluded” for “completely misrepresenting” the real user experience on X.”

    According to the lawsuit, Media Matters – founded by Democratic operative David Brock, who left the organization in 2022, used manipulative and deceptive tactics to convince advertisers like Apple, IBM and Disney that ‘hateful’ content was being displayed next to their brands – leading them to pause their X advertising campaigns.

    X claims Media Matters fabricated the results. From the original complaint:

    Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.

    Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed.

    First, Media Matters accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users. Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.

    But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and content that Media Matters aimed to produce.

    Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts.

  • Pretty much everyone saw this coming. “Elon’s SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing.”
  • Speaking of Elon Musk, a Brazilian Supreme Court Judge has declared that Twitter/X must censor the accounts of political enemies he specifies, and Musk, citing the Brazilian constitution, is having none of it.

    On Thursday night, X’s Global Government Affairs account posted a dire warning over service availability in Brazil, after dictatorial Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes punished them for not complying “with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” according to the post.

    More:

    When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.

    We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.

    In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency.

    Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders.

    To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to protecting your freedom of speech.

    Meanwhile, Musk says that SpaceX is going to continue to provide Starlink in Brazil to schools and hospitals for free…

    * * *

    One day after Brazillian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes threatened to suspend social media platform X unless Elon Musk appoints a new legal representative in 24 hours, the judge – dubbed “Brazil’s Darth Vader” by Musk – issued a subpoena against the company.

    Today, he blocked the financial accounts of Musk-owned Starlink Holdings, due to the absence of an attorney.

  • More context on de Moraes’ abuses of power.

    Alexandre de Moraes might be the second-most powerful person in Brazil.

    He does not quite have the reach of the president. But as a judge on the Supreme Court, until recently the president of the Electoral Court, and especially as head of two sprawling investigations against groups spreading disinformation, Moraes has wielded a rare combination of judicial powers. He has unilaterally handed out fines, ordered arrests, social media bans and other sanctions, and even acted as investigator and judge at once.

    Moraes, 55, has used those powers prolifically, including against several members of the right-wing opposition to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government.

    Brazilian conservatives have long contended he is abusing his power. But “Xandão” (“Big Alex”), as he is semi-jokingly called by supporters and detractors alike, earned the gratitude of many members of Brazil’s political establishment who believed his actions were fundamental to defending democracy during and after Jair Bolsonaro’s tumultuous 2018-22 presidency.

    Now, that goodwill is being put to the test. As international voices add to a swelling domestic chorus, criticism of Moraes is starting to break through into the mainstream of Brazilian discourse.

    The most public clash has been between Moraes and the South African billionaire Elon Musk, who has vigorously resisted the judge’s efforts to control speech on his X platform and other social media. Late Wednesday, Moraes used X itself to send Musk an ultimatum to appoint a new legal representative for his company in Brazil, and threatened a total ban of the platform in Latin America’s largest country unless he complied. Several Brazilian legal experts told Estado de S.Paulo newspaper that Moraes was overstepping his powers—that his use of social media to deliver the order was invalid, and that any suspension would be illegal.

    Also recently, reporting by Fabio Serapião and Glenn Greenwald, the well-known American journalist who lives in Brazil, in Folha de S.Paulo newspaper indicated that Moraes and his lieutenants skirted official procedure in preparing sanctions for targets of his investigations.

    These controversies have put renewed focus on several questions: Is Moraes censoring the opposition, or guarding Brazilian democracy? What should be the balance between allowing political speech on social media—and fighting back against disinformation and other threats? And finally: Has Moraes’ power outlived its usefulness, placing due process and the rule of law under threat in a different but also harmful way?

    “It’s clear he’s pushing the limits,” said Conrado Hübner, a professor of constitutional law at the University of São Paulo and columnist at Folha. “There’s no precedent, nothing remotely similar to having a minister leading … investigations that almost become permanent institutions.”

    “It’s been a year and a half since the 2022 election and the departure of a president who threatened institutions,” wrote the editorial board of Folha on August 26. “But for minister Alexandre de Moraes and his colleagues at the Supreme Court, it’s as if it was still that time—at least as a pretext for maintaining the anomalous concentration of power in this magistrate and his court.”

    Snip.

    Moraes banned the social media accounts of right-wing influencers Rodrigo Constantino and Paulo Figueiredo, for allegedly spreading Covid-19 misinformation and casting doubt on the Brazilian electoral system. He also banned the accounts of department store chain owner and right-wing influencer Luciano Hang, allegedly for agitating for a coup in a pro-Bolsonaro message group. Blogger Allan dos Santos, in self-imposed exile in Florida, had his passport revoked after calling for the dissolution of the STF, and being accused of involvement in an “organized crime network” that operates through monetized videos online. The U.S. refused an extradition request—reportedly because it determined Santos’s actions aren’t considered a crime in the U.S.

    “It’s persecution, pure and simple,” Santos said.

    The political temperature has moderated in Brazil over the past year, as a degree of institutional harmony has returned under Lula’s watch. But Moraes has remained on the offensive, threatening earlier this year to block Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, for refusing to comply with his orders. (Pavel Durov, the service’s founder, was arrested in France earlier this week for failing to prevent illegal activity on the platform.)

    As part of the reporting on leaked documents from Moraes’ office in August, Greenwald wrote that former Bolsonaro advisor Filipe Martins had been detained under an order by Moraes for almost six months without charges, based on evidence that (Greenwald wrote) had been disproven. Less than a week later, Moraes ordered him released.

    In reporting over the last several weeks, Greenwald and a co-author have used leaked messages to level accusations that Moraes directed his aides to compile reports on individuals, setting them up for social-media bans and other sanctions, and pass off the reports as having come from other legal organs or as anonymous complaints. The reports exacerbated concerns that Moraes was blurring the lines between legal roles—and so did his response, which was to order an inquiry into the source of the leaks.

    Some of those actions sound familiar… (Hat tip: Glenn Greenwald.)

  • “Hamas Official: 10/7 Was Needed To Undermine Israeli Ties With Arabs; Jews ‘Must Be Finished’, No ‘Two-State Solution.’”

    Hamas terrorist official Ghazi Hamad said during a recent interview that the terror group views its October 7 massacre as an enormous success because it damaged attempts to establish diplomatic ties between Israel and the Arab states.

    Hamad, who previously said that the terror group aims to repeatedly carry out October 7-style attacks, said during an interview earlier this summer that was only translated this week that the terrorist attack — in which 1,200 were murdered, 5,300+ wounded, and hundreds more taken hostage — was “able to slap at the progress of the normalization of effort, and this is, of course, a very important political success.”

    He said that the attack has also been successful in creating divisions among Israelis and uniting other Islamic terrorist organizations to attack Israel.

  • US Strike Eliminates Senior Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorist Leader In Syria. A U.S. military drone strike has killed a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, a group in Syria aligned with the al-Qaeda terrorist group, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in an Aug. 23 statement. The strike targeted Abu-‘Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, a prominent figure within the group’s Shura Council, responsible for overseeing terrorist activities from Syria, according to the statement.”
  • Hostage held by Hamas in Gaza rescued by IDF.
  • Are you an senior citizen living in Communist Cuba? Good luck surviving on $10 a month.

    Cubans continue to flee a worsening economy in record numbers while the elderly have been left behind, fighting to survive on the communist regime’s $10 monthly pension and a critical lack of basic supplies.

    Food, power, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical shortages have ignited persistent protests this year and driven Cuba’s ongoing exodus of working-age adults.

    The result has been nothing short of devastating for the country’s retirees.

    “It’s a nightmare in every direction. This is an SOS. Cuba is about to collapse in a fatal way,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, a long-time anti-Cuban regime activist and president of the Democracy Movement in Miami.

    “People can’t really imagine, especially from outside, making elderly people live in such inhumane conditions,” Sanchez told The Epoch Times.

    “Because of the deterioration of the economy and the lack of interest of the Cuban regime, they aren’t helping those who need it,” he said. “Retirement pension maybe allows you to buy a dozen eggs a month. That’s it.”

  • Another lawsuit from Texas over the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border, but this one wasn’t from Ken Paxton. ” Border Counties, Residents Sue Biden Administration, Alleging Refusal to Enforce Immigration Laws.”

    A grim scene of death, destruction, and crime is described among the harms suffered by two Texas border counties in a lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging that the “willful and unconstitutional” refusal to enforce federal law has resulted in unprecedented harm inflicted upon the rural communities.

    Kinney and Atascosa counties, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe, and rancher Dr. Michael Vickers are the plaintiffs in the petition filed in the federal district court for the Southern District of Texas this past week naming President Joe Biden, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Majorkas, and other federal immigration officials as defendants.

    The plaintiffs raised unique arguments not yet seen in other legal disputes over the border crisis, including that the Biden administration violated the U.S. Constitution’s Take Care Clause and a law requiring environmental impact studies.

    The Take Care Clause in Article II, Section 3 states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

    “Immediately upon being sworn into office, the current Administration has pursued immigration policies that are not only at odds with Congress’s statutory scheme and directives but are objectively calculated to dismantle proven border security programs or craft novel administrative processing ‘pathways’ to permit inadmissible aliens to enter and remain inside the country,” the lawsuit alleges.

    Among the examples contained in the complaint, the Biden administration is accused of abusing prosecutorial discretion to effectively rewrite immigration law, paroling more illegal aliens into the nation in the past year than lawful aliens.

    The administration also adopted a policy allowing illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds to remain in the country, contrary to laws that require deportation.

    “Collectively, Defendants’ actions signaled to potential border crossers—and to the human trafficking and drug cartels that coordinate illegal border crossing—that the Administration is unwilling to secure our border,” the lawsuit states, adding, “Defendants have completely abdicated their statutory responsibilities, allowed or encouraged the southern border to be overrun, and are violating their duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

    The plaintiffs then described the harms they have suffered as a result of the alleged policies, with Vickers noting illegal aliens have caused $50,000 worth of damages on his ranch since 2021, not including trash the aliens have left behind that has harmed both livestock and the environment.

    Vickers said he must also constantly remain armed, noting that with the increased illegal immigration, numerous gang members are also coming to his ranch, including MS-13, Tango Blast, the Pistoleros, and the Mexican Mafia.

    Citing another shocking result of the policies, he said that since 2021 over 270 dead bodies have been found within 15 minutes of his home.

    The counties also described the unprecedented burden the crisis places on local government.

    The lawsuit explains that in 2020, before the Biden administration implemented its current border policies, Kinney County handled 134 criminal charges.

    From there, it skyrocketed within a year to 2,708 criminal cases and continued to climb to 6,800 in 2022. Most recently, it faced 5,826 cases in 2023.

    The crime has strained the rural communities’ limited financial resources.

    The lawsuit asks the court to enjoin the Biden administration’s policies that run contrary to federal law, citing causes for relief under both an administrative rule-making statute and the Take Care Clause.

  • Texas State Rep. Shawn Thierry Leaves Democratic Party, Joins GOP After Vote for Child Gender Modification Ban.”

    State Rep. Shawn Thierry (D-Houston) is switching parties to the GOP, she announced Friday at an event in Washington, D.C. held by Moms for Liberty.

    “The Democratic Party has veered so far left, so deep into the progressive abyss, that it now champions policies I cannot, in good conscience, support — policies like promoting sex changes for vulnerable children and dismantling Title IX protections for women in sports. That’s why I am leaving the left and joining the party of family, faith, and freedom,” Thierry said in a release.

    “I now stand with colleagues, friends, neighbors, women, and mothers in the Republican Party.”

    Thierry lost her primary runoff to Lauren Simmons, and the legislature is out of session, so no change in the legislative status quo.

  • That oil depot Ukraine hit was still burning ten days later.
  • Current rate per megawatt hour: $36. What New York pays for wind power $155 per megawatt hour.
  • Here’s an interesting ruling: “US judge tosses machine gun possession case, calls ban unconstitutional.”

    A federal judge has dismissed charges against a Kansas man for possessing a machine gun, saying prosecutors failed to establish that a federal ban on owning such weapons is constitutional.

    The decision, by U.S. District Judge John Broomes in Wichita on Wednesday appeared to mark the first time a court has held that banning machine guns is unconstitutional after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 issued a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights.

    In that ruling, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court established a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

    The Supreme Court clarified that standard in June as it upheld a ban on people subject to domestic violence restraining orders having guns, saying a modern firearms restriction needs only a “historical analogue,” not a “historical twin,” to be valid.

    Broomes, an appointee of Republican then-President Donald Trump, said prosecutors in Tamori Morgan’s case failed to identify such a historical analogue to support charging him with violating the machine gun ban.

  • Texas Secretary of State to Monitor Harris County’s 2024 Election After Audit Findings.”

    The Texas Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) will send multiple staff members to Harris County to inspect records and procedures and assist the elections division during the 2024 general election, citing multiple issues uncovered in a state audit of the county’s management of past elections.

    According to a press release from Secretary of State Jane Nelson, the SOS “will assign state inspectors to Harris County to perform checks on election records, including tapes and chain-of-custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media during the November 2024 election period.”

    SOS will also send staff to assist the county for the duration of the election period, from early voting to Election Day and through tabulation.

    The SOS announced the planned “enhanced presence” along with the final results of an audit of the 2022 elections, which included findings the county had not followed state law in maintaining voter registration rolls and in providing the required minimum amounts of ballot paper to all polling sites.

    Ballot paper shortages halted voting at multiple locations on Election Day 2022.

    According to state law, officials must provide each polling site with ballots equivalent to 125 percent of voter turnout in the last corresponding election. Under former Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum the county only provided 600 ballots to locations that had processed twice that many voters in 2018; a former county employee has been charged with six felonies in relation to the ballot paper allocation.

    SOS Elections Division auditors also found that the county had not provided adequate training to election workers, which contributed to widespread equipment failures across multiple elections, and had failed to comply with state paperwork requirements.

    During a Texas House Committee on Elections hearing on Monday, SOS Elections Director Christina Adkins briefed lawmakers on the results of the audit. She noted that after moving from a paperless system to paper ballots in May 2021, Harris County had not provided hands-on training for election judges and clerks.

    As a result, Adkins said voting ceased for an hour or more at multiple polling locations during the November 2021 elections, with 17 sites not processing any voters until more than an hour after the scheduled opening due to equipment problems. Despite the issues, then-County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria did not revise training procedures prior to the March 2022 primary election, which had similar problems.

    Adkins also noted that Harris County failed to include 10,000 ballots in preliminary counts after the March 2022 primaries, a discrepancy that was identified by a reconciliation report required by election reform legislation enacted in 2021. The ballots were kept on a thumb drive, but Adkins noted that counties develop their own tracking procedures for the devices.

    ”I don’t recall that they had a lot of paperwork to show us on tracking that process,” said Adkins.

    The county has also struggled to maintain voter registration rolls. Adkins told lawmakers that Harris is one of 33 counties that use a third-party vendor for management of voter rolls, leading to significant discrepancies between state and local databases.

    The final audit noted that while the discrepancies “may seem minor in comparison to the total number of registered voters, the inconsistencies make it difficult to validate election data.”

  • Speaking of which: “Abbott Announces Over One Million People Removed From Texas Voter Rolls.”

    In his stated effort to uphold election integrity in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that more than one million people have been removed from the state’s voter rolls.

    As part of the announcement, Abbott provided a chart that shows over 1.1 million voters in various categories are flagged as “removed,” including over 457,000 deceased individuals and over 463,000 voters on the “suspense list.”

    Additionally, over 134,000 voters failed to respond to an address confirmation notice, while over 6,500 are noncitizens and over 6,000 have felony convictions.

    Abbott highlighted Senate Bill (SB) 1, which was signed into law in 2021, that added provisions designed to prevent fraud by adding criminal statutes, prohibiting unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, and setting additional ground rules for early voting and voter registration.

    “Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” said Abbott in his recent press release.

    “I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crack down on illegal voting. These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state.”

    Abbott added that the Texas Secretary of State has “an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution.”

    “Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated.”

    In addition to SB 1, Abbott has signed multiple other bills to crack down on illegal voting. This includes House Bill (HB) 1243, which increases the penalty for illegal voting to a second-degree felony; SB 1113, which empowers the Secretary of State to withhold funds from counties that fail to remove noncitizens from voter rolls; and HB 574, which criminalizes knowingly counting invalid votes.

  • Democrat Colin Allred isn’t following Beto’s playbook in his senate run against Ted Cruz.

    Whereas O’Rourke spent much of his time on the road doing a glorified whistle-stop tour of the state, Allred’s camp has opted for carpet bombing the Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Beaumont, and Rio Grande Valley media markets with ads.

    According to the Cruz campaign, the television spend breakdown so far is $5.9 million for Allred and $265,000 for Cruz; Allred’s campaign declined to confirm any numbers. National political ad-tracking firm AdImpact put the Cruz deficit among all entities and groups at a much larger figure: $21.7 million to $2.2 million.

    I expect Cruz to win by more than he did in 2018, especially in a Presidential election year, but I’m sure Ted could use more money.

  • 5th Circuit Court finds geofencing warrants unconstitutional.

    A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit held that a novel type of search warrant used to collect digital record data is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

    The case arose from the robbery of a postal service worker in Mississippi, where surveillance video showed one of the robbers checking his cell phone during his escape after taking a mailbag containing $60,706 at gunpoint from the postman.

    After coming up short of other ways to identify the perpetrators, postal inspector agents obtained what are known as geofencing warrants, which ultimately led to Gilbert McThunel’s arrest and conviction for the crime.

    Geofencing warrants, the court explained, are different from normal search warrants that are based on probable cause and allow the police to search a known specific person or thing. Instead, law enforcement uses geofencing warrants when the identity of the suspect isn’t known, such as in this instance.

    The warrants work in reverse from traditional search warrants. Most commonly, as with this case, investigators ask Google to search a database containing data from every one of their users who has their location history enabled on their smartphones.

    Approximately one-third of Google’s 592 million users have their location history feature turned on, which silently tracks the location of the device through cell signals, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth every two minutes, uploading that location data to a “Sensorvault.”

    When Google receives a geofencing warrant, the company must search all records in the Sensorvault for location data that corresponds to the warrant — for all accounts that were within a certain geographic location at a certain time.

    I’m conflicted on this. I can see situations where a geofence warrant may be justified for serious crimes, but they also offer a real possibility of government abuse (such as January 6th defendants).

  • California continues to California: “Dems Pass Bill to Give Illegal Immigrants $150,000 Home Loans — but the Program Is Broke.”
  • The latest business slammed by the Biden Recession: RVs. Also, holy crap, have RVs gotten ridiculously expensive. I guess they’re pricing them against owning a home these days…
  • Dwight alerted me to this story last week, and I told him “I’m waiting for the followup when the police capture the man and it turns out his name is Abbas Mohammed Jihad.” Well: “3 people were killed and 6 others injured at a diversity festival in Solingen, Germany, when a man with a knife went on a rampage…According to reports from the scene, and according to a German newspaper, witnesses heard the unidentified attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” during what is being called a potential act of terrorism.” Sometimes it sucks to be so psychic…
  • Dispatches from Tim Walz’s Minnesota: CBS News was running a segment on car thefts and a car theft happened while they were filing.
  • Ford backing away from DEI. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Another day, another social justice warrior on the make.

    She dug deeper into the nonprofit’s bank records and found much more that concerned her. Mansion rentals. Vet bills. Luxury clothes. Finally, a stay at a Cancun resort. Ms. Banks scrolled back through Facebook to the week that resort bill was paid. She saw her boss, [Raheem AI president] Brandon D. Anderson, posing in a pool.

    The photo was tagged: “Cancun.”

    Snip.

    They investigated and questioned more than $250,000 in charges since 2021 alone, internal documents show.

    Among them: Mr. Anderson — who was paid a salary of $160,000 — had spent $1,500 of the charity’s money at a chiropractor; $5,000 on veterinary care; and an astounding $46,000 on ride-share services like Uber and Lyft. Most confoundingly, the nonprofit had paid $80,000 for luxury vacation rentals, including a service that let members stay in luxury mansions around the world, according to the board’s accounting.

    And since Raheem AI is an anti-police organization, no one wanted to go to the cops… (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Male Child Molester Housed in Women’s Prison under Investigation for Sexually Harassing Female Cellmate.” A sane society wouldn’t have headlines like that…
  • For all their talk of getting out of the culture wars, O’Keefe Media Group finds that Disney is funding puberty blockers for children.
  • “Round Rock Teacher Arrested for Child Sex Crimes.”

    A teacher in Round Rock Independent School District was arrested for sex crimes involving children.

    Domingo Perez Jr., also known as Dominic, was a science teacher at Stony Point High School through the 2023-2024 school year.

    Perez was arrested and booked into the Williamson County Jail on August 21.

    He is facing charges of indecency with a child by sexual contact—a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison—and possession of 50 or more images or videos of child pornography, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison.

  • Yes, they are trying to Trans your kids:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Loews becomes the latest company to scrap racist DEI policies.
  • “Rogue” Tarrant County College staff are still trying to mandate DEI in violation of state law. These unnamed “rogue” employee should get pink slips.
  • Concord and Dustborn were two AAA gaming title that had three things in common: they both cost a lot of money, they both pushed social justice, and they both tanked hard on release. Unlike Black Myth Wukong, which social justice game journalist sites criticized relentlessly and which sold 10 million copies…
  • Critical Drinker calls The Crow reboot the worst film of the year. “A violent, grimy and bleak exercise in stupidity.”
  • Wells Fargo worker dies at her desk. No one notices for four days.
  • The Navy runs out of pants. Insert your own joke here.
  • Did you even know college football had a mercy rule? Stephen F. Austin was beating NAIA school North American University by 70 at the half, so they shortened the third and fourth quarters to five minutes each.
  • Comedian Gary Gulman on how the states got their abbreviations. Conan O’Brien said this was one of the funniest bits ever on his show, and it’s pretty good.
  • “Trump Adds A Kennedy In Hopes He Will Draw All The Sniper Fire.”
  • “Kamala Explains 93% Of Staff Quit Because They Couldn’t Handle The Joy.”
  • “Reporter Who Asked Kamala A Question Charged With Hate Crime.”
  • Five Guys Down To Just Two Guys After California Minimum Wage Increase.”
  • Too sweet:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Grant For Social Justice Org For Illegal Aliens = Widespread Child Sex Abuse

    Wednesday, July 24th, 2024

    In addition to setting the stage for amnesty to create more Democratic Party voters, the Biden Administration’s aiding and abetting an illegal alien invasion of the southern border has allowed leftwing social justice organizations to rake in billions of dollars in federal subsidies to house, feed, etc. those same hordes of illegal aliens.

    One organization that took federal money was Austin-based Southwest Key, an organization that claims to be on the frontier of social justice, and now they’re accused of allowing wildspread child sex abuse to flourish on their watch.

    Disturbing allegations are detailed in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against a large Texas-based nonprofit organization tasked and funded by the federal government for years with housing unaccompanied minor children (UMC) who are not legally present in the country.

    According to data from the Congressional Research Service, the number of UMCs entering the United States has spiked to record numbers in recent years, with 2021 and 2022 seeing over 140,000 UMCs annually — one of many elements of the ongoing crisis at the southern border.

    The lawsuit explains that UMCs are children largely from Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and all over the world who arrive at the U.S. southern border alone, with no parent or legal guardian. Immigration authorities turn the UMCs over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

    ORR then uses grant funding, usually by hiring nonprofit housing organizations, to provide shelter care for the UMCs in the “least restrictive setting possible” and that “will be in the best interest of the child.”

    In this case, one of those nonprofits is Austin-based Southwest Key, which from 2015 to 2023 received $3 billion in federal grant funding and operates 29 facilities in Texas, Arizona, and California, housing 6,350 children.

    The DOJ said during this timeline, multiple Southwest Key employees subjected children as young as 5 years of age to “repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment, misconduct, and hostile housing environments.”

    The suit further details allegations that the children were victims of sexual abuse, rape, and inappropriate touching. The perpetrators employed by Southwest Key took advantage of the multiple vulnerabilities to carry out their crimes, such as language barriers.

    The DOJ also said that despite Southwest Key knowing their employees were harming the children in their care, they did nothing, violating the federal Fair Housing Act.

    Graphic details are included in the lawsuit, including how one of the workers sexually abused a five-year-old girl and an eight-year-old girl at the facility in El Paso, and kept them silent about their abuse by threatening to kill their families if they told anyone.

    Pages of the lawsuit lay out in horrific detail similar instances occurring at Southwest Key facilities across Texas.

    Remember how “kids in cages” under the Trump Administration (never mind that it started under Obama) was the Worst Thing Ever? So instead of cages, illegal alien children now have to endure rape at the hands of those paid to take care of them.

    Funny how social justice Democrats have shifted their focus to the homeless and illegal aliens, two constituencies among the least able to complain that they’re being abused, or that promised services aren’t being delivered, making it all the easier to siphon off allocated funds for graft.

    And illegal alien children are the least capable of complaining of all…

    How Did So Many Sex Offenders Get Jobs In Texas Schools?

    Tuesday, June 4th, 2024

    Both Texas Scorecard and The Texan have done good work highlighting a disturbing reality: Numerous public school teachers of all grade levels have been arrested for sex offenses, many involving children.

    I’ve been running several of these in LinkSwarms, but Texas Scorecard has featured a number over the last week:

  • “Former Texas Teacher Gets 30 Years in Prison for Producing Child Porn.”

    A former Texas teacher received the maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography—specifically videos showing her performing sexual acts on a prepubescent child.

    Sonya Conchita Murillo, 33, was a substitute teacher for the Marfa Independent School District in West Texas.

    Murillo was arrested in June 2023 on federal sexual exploitation of children charges, a month after her boyfriend was arrested on similar charges. She has been held in federal custody without bond ever since.

    The former teacher pleaded guilty in January to one count of production of child pornography; four additional counts were dropped.

    “The fact that the judge delivered the maximum allowed 30-year imprisonment to this defendant for producing child pornography, is indicative of the utterly horrendous predatory acts Murillo committed,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza in a Justice Department statement.

    Murrillo’s one-time boyfriend Patricio Javier “PJ” Serrano, a youth softball coach in Marfa, was arrested in May 2023 for possessing child sexual abuse materials featuring images and videos of prepubescent boys.

    While investigating Serrano, authorities found at least eight Snapchat videos of Murillo performing sexual acts on a boy who was 3 to 5 years old, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

    If you had done this on a 3-5 year old 40 years ago in west Texas, I strongly suspect you’d get a bullet in the back of your head and a shallow grave, no law enforcement involvement required.

  • Judge Rejects Immunity Claim of Lorena ISD Principal Who Ignored Teacher’s Sexual Abuse of 5-year-old Student.

    A federal judge has rejected an immunity claim by a Central Texas school administrator accused of facilitating a male teacher’s molestation of a 5-year-old female student in 2020-21.

    The judge found that Lorena Primary School Principal April Jewell’s lack of action to protect pre-K children from a teacher’s sexual abuse “shocks the conscience.”

    According to a lawsuit filed last year by the victim’s parents, Jewell ignored months of warnings from multiple school employees about inappropriate behavior by the teacher, Nicolas Scot Crenshaw, toward two of his female students.

    Crenshaw eventually pleaded guilty to multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault of a young child and other sex crimes against the students and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

    Jewell kept her job as the school’s principal, shocking many parents who say the ordeal has shattered their trust in the local school system.

    In a May 20 report to U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Manske rejected Jewell’s claim to qualified immunity and recommended that her motion to dismiss the parents’ case against her be denied.

    Parents of the victim, identified as Jane Doe, are suing April Jewell and Lorena Independent School District for failing to protect their then 5-year-old daughter from months of sexual abuse by pre-K teacher Nicolas Scot Crenshaw during the 2020-21 academic year.

    Crenshaw was a long-term substitute teacher at Lorena Primary School, where Jewell was—and still is—the principal.

    At the beginning of the school year, Crenshaw shared a class with another teacher.

    According to court documents, in January 2021 teachers and other school staff began reporting to Jewell about Crenshaw’s inappropriate behavior with Jane, which included him lying under a blanket with Jane during nap time and frequently placing her on his lap or having her straddle him.

    An aide even gave Jewell photos of Crenshaw’s suspicious behavior, but she was reprimanded by Jewell for taking the pictures.

    What principled principal would receive repeated reports of a teacher creeping on young children and go “Nah, it’s fine?”

  • Texas Charter School Teacher Charged with Sexually Assaulting Student.

    A Texas charter school teacher is in jail after being accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old student. The visiting international teacher had been reprimanded and then fired for placing his hands on students, but the school later rehired him.

    International Leadership of Texas teacher Jose Adrian Hernandez Grimaldo, 46, was arrested last month and charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony punishable by 5 to 99 years in prison.

    At the time of the alleged assault, Hernandez Grimaldo taught at the ILTexas K-8 school in College Station. He later transferred to the school’s Lancaster K-8 campus where he worked at the time of his arrest.

    According to an arrest report from the College Station Police Department, the female victim alleges the teacher attacked her in a bathroom in February 2023. She told police he threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the attack.

    Hernandez Grimaldo denied the allegations, but according to a report by KBTX, he failed a polygraph test.

    ILTexas Superintendent Eddie Conger confirmed in a statement Friday that, as a result of the arrest, Hernandez Grimaldo was terminated from ILTexas on May 24.

    The ILTexas statement included a timeline of Hernandez Grimaldo’s employment with the school system.

    Hernandez Grimaldo, who is in the U.S. on a teaching visa, was hired in August 2022 to teach Spanish at ILTexas’ College Station K-8 campus. According to the timeline, he cleared a standard background check and additional security clearance from the Department of Homeland Security.

    I hardly think we need to be importing child molesters from other countries. We seem to have quite enough trouble with the home-grown variety.

    He was placed on administrative leave and reprimanded in October 2022 for putting his hands on a student.

    In March 2023, Hernandez Grimaldo was terminated from ILTexas following more complaints about him touching students.

    He then filed a grievance and the district overturned his termination in May 2023.

    “We can’t hire this guy! He had multiple complaints that he was molesting students!” “But wait! He filed a grievance! We have to hire him back so he can molest more children!”

    Sounds like the person in charge of managing the grievance process also needs to be fired.

    The teacher was offered a transfer and began working at ILTexas Lancaster K-8 in August 2023.

    In September 2023, a parent reported to the ILTexas College Station principal that inappropriate sexual interactions took place between their then-6th-grade student and Hernandez Grimaldo.

    He was again placed on administrative leave in October 2023.

    Superintendent Conger said ILTexas investigated but was unable to substantiate the sexual assault claims. Hernandez Grimaldo was reinstated as a teacher at ILTexas Lancaster K-8 in January 2024.

    The superintendent said ILTexas filed “required reports with the local police department, Department of Family and Protective Services within 48 hours of initial notice, and the State Board of Education as appropriate.”

    Just how many sexual assault claims are needed until a charge is considered “substantiated?” People were willing to give Bill Cosby the benefit of the doubt when it was one or two women accusing him, but the scale tipped well before the 60 or so who eventually came forward. Grimaldo should never have been put back into a position to molest children after the initial charges.

  • Let’s end with a teacher sex offense much lighter than molestation, but still amazingly stupid, namely taking explicit videos of herself in the classroom that were uploaded to social media.

    A Houston-area elementary school teacher filmed sexually explicit videos of herself while on campus, and community leaders are demanding that her teaching certificate be revoked.

    Adrienne Harborth was a music teacher at Gray Elementary in Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in Fort Bend County near Houston.

    Harborth can be seen in two videos shaking her bare breasts and buttocks while in a classroom and a bathroom at the school. Harborth’s school ID badge with her name printed on it is also visible.

    [Blinks] This is not exactly what people think of when discussing the perfect crime. I think the Babylon Bee would reject the ID badge detail in one of their stories. “Nah, too heavy handed.”

    Censored versions of the videos, first posted by Grizzy’s Hood News under the title “Teacher Gone Wild,” have gone viral on the internet.

    My cousin told me about Grizzy’s Hood News a while back. Basically a Houston woman went “OK, I’m gonna start my own news web page,” and now she breaks a lot of news that seems too spicy for mainstream Houston media. That “Teacher Gone Wild” video is no longer up, but, having watched a bit of it, I can assure you that you didn’t miss anything…

    Harborth has since told Texas Scorecard she filmed the videos on the weekend, not during school hours, and that an ex-boyfriend released the videos as revenge porn.

    “I want to shoot a nude video of myself. I know! I’ll go down to my school and wear my name tag! That can’t possibly backfire on me!”

    Shooting a nude video of yourself is a pretty stupid thing to do, especially if you’re not a porn star. While people may be inclined to forgive such a thing if it was a mistake made in youth (say, drunk college girls on spring break), doing it at your place of work is going to be a firing offense pretty much everywhere, but especially at a public school.

  • Texas Scorecard has a Bad Apples tag for such incidents, and an interactive map of incidents at the bottom of the relevant news stories that I don’t see a way to embed or link to directly.

    I am not so naive as to believe we’ve never had sex offenders as teachers before the 21st century, but when one seems to pop up every week in Texas, there’s a problem. (I’m also willing to bet that the problem is actually worse per capita in blue states.) Something has certainly changed in society, and new “pedo friendly” element seems to have entered political discourse in western society, from Jeffrey Epstein to Salon to Germany decriminalizing child pornography, today’s leftwing elites can’t seem to help being soft on child rape.

    Texas citizens need to demand better screening by schools, and swifter action when sex offenders are discovered.

    LinkSwarm for May 24, 2024

    Friday, May 24th, 2024

    More worrying signs of inflation, more evidence of Biden family corruption, more creepy child sex offenders, F-35s are stacking up, and an infamous movie may finally have a premiere. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    This is Memorial Day weekend, and in Texas there’s a runoff election on May 28, so be sure to vote if you have a runoff in your area. (There are no Republican runoffs in Williamson County.)

  • The Social Justice revolution is being imposed on Democrats through a handful of the ultrawealthy: “Billionaires Funding Protests Donate Millions To House Dems.”

    House Democrats’ reelection campaigns have accepted $6.5 million from three major political families, which have helped bankroll several student groups participating in the protests. The family members cut most of those checks over the last two years, although some of the donations to longstanding House members came over the last decade.

    The names are well-known among Democratic funding circles: Soros, Rockefeller, and Pritzker. Yet before the anti-Jewish protests swept college campuses over the last few months, their financial ties to the student groups were not widely known. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a member of the same wealthy Pritzker family, is not among the donors.

    Several investigative media reports over the last month have uncovered the extensive financial ties between these families and student groups involved in organizing anti-Israel protests and activism across the country predating the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and in its aftermath and during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

    The donors to student groups include George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and Democratic campaign contributor who helms the Open Society Foundation and his family members; the Pritzkers, the owners of Hyatt Hotels Corporation; and members of the famed Rockefeller family, including relatives of the wealthy American Banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller. The donations have either gone directly to student groups involved in campus demonstrations or to umbrella foundations and organizations, which have, in turn, channeled the funds to the protestors.

    The House Democratic Congressional Committee and the House Majority PAC, which was founded by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and is directly affiliated with the House Democratic leadership, collected most of those funds, nearly $5.5 million by those two Democratic campaign entities alone, FEC records show.

    Meanwhile, 30 House Democrats, including Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of the leadership, received a combined total of $856,858 from the Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller families, while a dozen Democratic candidates in competitive races received a total of $139,000. RCP did not examine Senate recipients.

    The House members in competitive races who received funds from at least one of the three families include Reps. Mary Peltola of Alaska, Mike Levin of California, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Johana Hayes of Connecticut, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, Frank Mrvan of Indiana, Sharice Davids, Jared Golden, Hillary Scholten, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Don Davis, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, Susie Lee of Nevada, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Paty Ryan of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Andrea Salinas of Oregon, Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, and Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania.

    Craig’s campaigns have received the most of any other House member from the three families: $96,490 since 2018. Lee’s campaign received the second most: $75,000 since 2017.

    The Democratic candidates who accepted donations from at least one of the three families include Kirsten Engel in Arizona; Adam Gray, Rudy Salas, George Whitesides, and Will Rollins in California; Lanon Baccam in Iowa; Tony Vargas in Nebraska; Lauren Gillen, Mondaire Jones, and Josh Riley in New York; Ashley Ehasz in Pennsylvania; and Michelle Vallejo in Texas.

  • American households gained net worth under Trump. Under Biden, adjusted for inflation, it’s gone negative.
  • Bidenflation is making McDonald’s meals too expensive for ordinary people.

  • Inflation isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. “In fact, the progressive political class does have a plan to deal with the national debt. Their plan is to perpetuate inflation and thereby to engineer a slow-motion stealth default on the debt that will enable them to continue to enjoy without disruption the political benefits that flow to them from their irresponsible debt-funded vote buying.”
  • CIA Blocked Probe Into Hunter’s Hollywood Tax ‘Sugar Brother.'” Of course they did.

    A trove of new whistleblower documents provided to House GOP investigators reveal, among other things, that the CIA prevented federal investigators from pursuing Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris as a witness in their investigation of Hunter Biden.

    Morris, a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who has ‘long supported’ Hunter (and why?) has loaned the First Son more than $6.5 million, according to a January letter to the House oversight committee.

    We’ve known about the CIA connection since March, when the Chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) said that a whistleblower has brought them information that ‘seems to corroborate our concerns’ that the CIA directly interfered with DOJ and IRS investigations of Hunter Biden.

    According to a whistleblower, the CIA “intervened in the investigation of Hunter biden to prevent the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from interviewing a witness,” the letter, addressed to CIA Director William Burns, reads.

    Specifically, the Committees were concerned at how “the DOJ deviated from its standard processes to afford preferential treatment to Hunter Biden,” which they learned “after two brave whistleblowers testified to Congress” that the Justice Department had done just that.

  • Try to contain your shock for this one: “New evidence indisputably shows Hunter Biden lied to Congress in at least three separate instances during his February 28, 2024 transcribed interview.

    According to Hunter Biden’s business associate, Devon Archer, he and Hunter Biden were equal owners of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and that entity was used by both individuals. According to evidence provided by the IRS whistleblowers, Hunter Biden was the beneficial owner of the entity’s associated bank account, which was used to receive Hunter’s salary from Burisma and to receive foreign wires, such as funds allegedly transferred from a Kazakhstani individual through an entity that were then used to purchase a Porsche for Hunter Biden. Congressional investigators questioned Hunter Biden during his February 28th deposition regarding his connection to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, as well as bank accounts associated with the entity.

    (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty at National Review.)

  • Confirming what everyone already knew: Joe Biden lied when he said he never met with Hunter’s business partners. (Hat tip: Charles Glasser at Instapundit.)
  • Progressive Portland DA Ousted as Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Soft-on-Crime Policies.” Former Republican Nathan Vasquez defeated leftwing tool Mike Schmidt, though for some reason National Review omitted the fact that Schmidt has long been backed by George Soros.
  • Biden judge sent a 6’2″ serial child rapist to a women’s prison.
  • Germany just decriminalized child pornography.
  • Tranny surgery increases the risk of suicide twelvefold.
  • Supreme Court upholds South Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional district maps.
  • New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu dishes the truth on fellow governors. Andrew Cuomo? “Complete jackass. No one like him.” Gavin Newsom? “Just a prick.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Bill Maher Scolds Pearl-Clutching Lefties Over Harrison Butker Tradwife Speech.” For feminists, evidently being a traditional wife and mother isn’t an allowable “choice.”
  • Hmmmm: “Lockheed Running Out Of Parking Space For F-35s Pentagon Refuses To Accept.” “Last summer, the DOD put a complete freeze on accepting the stealth fighters until Lockheed fixed huge hardware and software problems associated with ‘Technology Refresh-3′ (TR-3), a $1.8 billion package intended to expand the planes’ capabilities.”
  • Media Matters for America, the group that thinks American journalists just aren’t leftwing enough, just had a massive layoff, thanks in part to a defamation lawsuit from Elon Musk. Thanks, Elon! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Electric cars need lithium for batteries.

    I like it…

    One rich source for Lithium has been discovered: groundwater from fracking operations.

  • The Minnesota Republican Party has selected former NBA player Royce White as it’s nominee to run against Democratic incumbent Amy Klobuchar for the senate. Houston Rockets fans will find this a particularly unlikely turn of events, since White never suited up for the Rockets (the team that drafted him) due to a dispute over mental health protocols and White’s fear of flying. At least he should be plenty comfortable on the campaign bus…
  • Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy and is closing 87 locations, none in Austin. Evidently an “Endless Shrimp” promotion was a big contributing factor, which suggests executive learned nothing from the losses they incurred in a similar endless crab promotion in 2003…
  • Computer pioneer C. Gordon Bell, RIP.
  • Woke tranny Dr. Who hits the lowest ratings in 60 years after telling critics not to watch.

  • Could the infamous, uncompleted Jerry Lewis movie The Day the Clown Cried finally be screened this year? Maybe. Lewis gave the footage to the Library of Congress in 2014, specifying it couldn’t be seen for ten years, which puts it next month. But evidently there are a lot of editing required before that debacle could be seen in anything close to final form.
  • Doggie gone. Much sadz.
  • “Biden Placed In Presidential Weeble-Wobble To Keep Him From Falling Down.
  • Still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm for May 17, 2024

    Friday, May 17th, 2024

    More Biden corruption unearthed, the Biden Recession has canaries dying left and right, yet another Katy ISD teacher involved in child sex crimes, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is being given another tomb raider to destroy. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Missouri AG Accuses Biden DOJ Of Coordinating With Trump Prosecutors.

    Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Thursday as part of a probe into whether the Biden DOJ coordinated with Trump prosecutors.

    Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Thursday as part of a probe into whether the Biden DOJ coordinated with Trump prosecutors.

  • More shady Biden accounts discovered.

    House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer dropped a bombshell on Thursday, revealing that his panel had unearthed new financial accounts tied to the Biden family investigation. Adding to the drama, Comer announced a fresh subpoena aimed at an undisclosed bank, ramping up the pressure in this ongoing probe.

    “This morning, I issued a subpoena for targeted financial information from a certain financial institution related to Jim Biden, Sarah Biden and Hunter Biden. This is a result of many of the documents that Devon Archer turned over,” Comer told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business.

    The Oversight Committee began investigating the Biden family’s alleged shady business dealings over two years ago. In March, they called for Biden to testify before Congress, stating that “the committee has accounted for over $24 million that has flowed from foreign sources to you, your family, and their business associates.”

    “It is unbelievable,” Comer continued. “I don’t think you would find very many people that have a billion-dollar net worth that have as many different bank accounts as this Biden family had. Many of these were shell companies.”

    Those were “companies [whose] sole purpose was to launder the money that the Bidens were receiving from China, from Romania, from Russia,” Comer added. “And never one time through the course of this entire investigation, even during the depositions with Hunter Biden and the transcribed interview with Jim Biden, were they able to answer exactly what the family did to receive this money.”

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Don’t look now, but silver just broke the $30 mark for the first time in forever. A whole lot of investors think inflation is baked into the cake now.
  • IKEA says that the current economy is the worst they’ve ever seen. There are lots of other canaries keeling over as well…
  • “Hunter Biden Loses Bid To Halt Tax Evasion Court Proceedings As 9th Circuit Dismisses Appeal.” Will a member of the Biden crime family actually serve time for their misdeeds?
  • “Nearly Half of All Masters Degrees Aren’t Worth Getting. According to new research, 23 percent of bachelor’s degree programs and 43 percent of master’s degree programs have a negative ROI.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • If your farm is in the state of California, State Farm no longer wants your business.
  • Meanwhile, the government of San Francisco is buying booze for homeless people.
  • Daniel Perry Pardoned by Gov. Abbott Following Parole Board Recommendation.”

    Gov. Greg Abbott has pardoned U.S. Army Sergeant Daniel Perry following a recommendation of pardon and restoration of his firearm rights by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

    The board voted unanimously on the recommendation.

    Shortly after the recommendation was made, Abbott officially pardoned Perry.

    “The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles conducted an exhaustive review of U.S. Army Sergeant Daniel Perry’s personal history and the facts surrounding the July 2020 incident and recommended a Full Pardon and Restoration of Full Civil Rights of Citizenship,” Abbott wrote in a press release.

    “Among the voluminous files reviewed by the Board, they considered information provided by the Travis County District Attorney, the full investigative report on Daniel Perry, plus a review of all the testimony provided at trial. Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws on self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney. I thank the Board for its thorough investigation, and I approve their pardon recommendation.”

    Perry was convicted of murdering Air Force veteran and Black Lives Matter protester Garrett Foster in 2023. A Travis County jury deliberated for 17 hours before finding Perry guilty of murder but not aggravated assault of Foster at the intersection of 4th Street and Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, as well as threatening a crowd with his car during the 2020 protest.

    Perry, who was working as an Uber driver, shot and killed Foster with a .357 Magnum revolver after Foster approached the driver door of his Hyundai Ioniq.

    This dispassionate description hides the fact that Perry’s car was surrounded by a crowd of rioters, including the one who aimed a gun at Perry. This was a clear case of self defense that never would have gone to trial if Travis County’s far left Soros backed DA Jose Garza weren’t so in favor of radical left wing rioters and hostile the right of self defense.

  • Is the DOJ trying to protect Pfizer from a whistleblower lawsuit?

    The Department of Justice recently argued that a whistleblower lawsuit against Pfizer, filed by Brook Jackson, should be dismissed.

    Jackson, a 20-year veteran in clinical trial administration employed by a third-party vendor (Ventavia Research Group), worked on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trials in 2020. Alarmed by what she witnessed, Jackson raised concerns to her superiors, Pfizer, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2020.

    She claimed the trial was being run, documented, and reported in a manner that violated Federal law and was potentially dangerous.

    Hours after contacting the FDA on September 25, 2020, Jackson was fired. Her sealed whistleblower complaint seemed to stall, with the FDA not investigating her claims. Faced with inaction, Jackson filed a lawsuit.

    As the case progressed towards discovery, the DOJ intervened, asking the judge to dismiss the case. Jackson argues that the government failed to articulate a legitimate reason for dismissal and did not demonstrate why the burdens of continued litigation outweigh its benefits.

    Disturbingly, a former FDA lawyer who worked at the agency when Jackson’s complaint was filed has moved to the DOJ and is now representing the government in its attempt to shut down the suit, raising concerns about regulatory capture and the use of government to shield companies from accountability.

    In 2021, the British Medical Journal published an article investigating Jackson’s claims and found them credible. The journal’s investigation concluded that Jackson’s account was supported by documentation and raised serious questions about the integrity of Pfizer’s vaccine trials and the FDA’s oversight.

    Other former Ventavia employees vouched for Jackson’s complaint, describing a “helter-skelter” work environment and lack of oversight.

    Despite evidence and corroboration, the FDA did not inspect Ventavia after Jackson’s complaint, and Pfizer did not mention any problems at Ventavia in its FDA submission for emergency use authorization.

    BMJ’s findings lend significant credibility to Jackson’s claims and raise serious questions about the integrity of Pfizer’s vaccine trial data, the adequacy of regulatory oversight, and, ultimately, the approved emergency use authorization.

    Follow the money…

  • Court throws DEI amendment to NY constitution, off November’s ballot. “The NY State Supreme Court (trial court) in Livingston County (near Rochester), granted summary judgment throwing the ERA off the November ballot, on the ground that the proponents of the legislation did not follow the constitutionally required procedure for advancing a ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment.”
  • “Katy ISD Teacher Arrested on 9 Counts of Possession of Child Pornography.”

    A Tompkins High School teacher has been arrested on nine counts of possession of child pornography.

    James Paul Stone was booked into the Fort Bend County Jail Monday.

    According to the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable’s office, thousands of images of child pornography were recovered from Stone’s residence, including several images that Stone admitted to producing himself.

  • Ah, not this crap again. “Venezuela Moves ‘Substantial Quantities’ Of Troops To Guyana Border.”
  • China’s latest car has every bit of the outstanding quality we’ve come to expect of products from China.
  • “Army of Leftist wackos storm Tesla factory like Orcs attacking Helm’s Deep.” This was in Germany.
  • Princeton pro-Hamas hunger strike collapses after nine days.
  • New York City raised the minimum wage to $16 an hour, and now restaurants are using Zoom hostesses from the Philippines.
  • Nobody fucks with my snowy, psychotic hat.”
  • Google AI can’t understand or answer any questions about the Holocaust, but sure loves to spit some Hamas talking points.
  • Which is a bit worrying, given how hard Google is pushing AI:

    (Hat tip: Not the Bee.)

  • Comcast, Netflix and Apple+ are going Voltron to defeat Disney.
  • Spider-Man, Spider-Man/A Nick Cage Noir Spider-Man/Anime? No my friend/It will be live action/Whoa, Nick Cage Noir Spider-Man.
  • As a reward for destroying Indiana Jones, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is going to be given another tomb raiding franchise to destroy.
  • If you have mounds of money lying around, you can own Elvis Presley’s very first record.
  • Robert “Bob” Reale, of Reale’s Italian Cafe, RIP. It’s our favorite Austin Italian restaurant, and would come around and check on you while you were there.
  • “Latest Polls Show Biden Will Need Twice As Many Fake Ballots To Win Election This Year.”
  • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For May 10, 2024

    Friday, May 10th, 2024

    Details on the people and organizations dedicated to burning America down, more Biden corruption, more of his censorship regime, a few Russo-Ukrainian War updates, and a pedophile gets ventilated. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Park MacDougald at Tablet has a really in-depth look at the radical network setting America on fire.

    Have America’s college students suddenly converted en masse to anarcho-communist-jihadism? Not quite. Many are far left and anti-Israel. Some are foreigners, or the children of foreigners, who have imported the conspiracies and hatreds of their homelands. More, admitted under relaxed pandemic-era admissions standards and proudly ignorant of both American and world history, are taking the “decolonial” half-knowledge pushed by their elders to its logical conclusion.

    But students are not the only, and perhaps not even the most important, faction active in the campus protests. As in the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, “outside agitators”—professional radicals and organizers, black bloc antifa thugs, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, and Palestinian and Islamist radicals—have played a central role in organizing and escalating the campus protests, just as they have organized and escalated the wider anti-Israel protest campaign that began almost immediately after Oct. 7. This largely decentralized network of agitators is, in turn, politically and financially supported by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups ultimately backed by big-money donors aligned with the Democratic Party.

    The first hint that the protests are not entirely organic is their striking resemblance to previous rounds of organized far-left agitation, from the “uprising” of summer 2020 to the rolling antifa vs. Proud Boys brawls of 2016-17. The creation of “liberated” or “autonomous” zones on campus, for instance, is a hallmark of anarchist organizing familiar from Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and New York’s City Hall Autonomous Zone four summers ago. Familiar, too, is the governance of these zones, with masked security details prohibiting filming from outsiders and directing reporters to trained media representatives. During clashes with police or with counterprotesters, students and their allies have deployed classic “bloc” tactics, covering their faces and dressing in matching outfits to promote anonymity, linking arms to interfere with police attempts to conduct arrests, and attempting “de-arrests”—i.e., the coordinated swarming of police officers—to rescue apprehended comrades. At Yale, student activists doxxed the police officers sent to clear them out of the encampment—another harassment tactic frequently deployed by antifa.

    These resemblances are no accident. All of these tactics require a degree of instruction and training. Footage from Columbia showed the professional “protest consultant” Lisa Fithian, a veteran of Occupy, BLM, Standing Rock, and Stop Cop City, teaching students at Columbia how to barricade themselves into Hamilton Hall. Recent video from inside the protest encampment at UCLA, meanwhile, showed masked men leading a hand-to-hand combat training. When police cleared out encampments at the University of Texas-Austin and Columbia and the City University of New York last week, roughly half of those arrested—45 of the 79 in Texas, 134 of the 282 in New York—had no connection with the university at which they were arrested. Some, like the 40-year-old anarchist heir James Carlson, arrested at Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, had protest related rap sheets going back two decades.

    “What you’re seeing is a real witches’ brew of revolutionary content interacting on campuses,” says Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and an expert on far-left domestic extremism. “On the left-wing side, you have a broad variety of revolutionary leftists, who serve as rent-a-mobs, providing the warm bodies for whatever the leftist cause of the day is. And on the other side you have the Islamist and Palestinian networks: American Muslims for Palestine and their subsidiary Students for Justice in Palestine, CAIR, the Palestinian Youth Movement. We’re seeing a real mixture of different kinds of radical foment, and it’s all being activated at the same time.”

    The far-left groups active in the protests include antifa and other anarchists: Anarchist literature has been distributed in the encampments, and antifa websites have published dispatches from “comrades” on the inside. They also include various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition, a PSL front group that worked with several Muslim groups to organize the Jan. 13 March on Washington for Gaza, at which protesters flew the black jihadist flag. On April 29, for instance, shortly before masked assailants stormed Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves inside, The People’s Forum—a Manhattan event space affiliated with the PSL and funded by Neville Roy Singham, a wealthy businessman who “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide,” according to an August profile in The New York Times—urged its activists to rush up to Columbia to “support our students.” Similar calls for an “emergency action” were distributed throughout radical networks in New York City.

    Snip.

    The “movement,” in turn, while it recruits from among students and other self-motivated radicals willing to put their bodies on the line, relies heavily on the funding of progressive donors and nonprofits connected to the upper reaches of the Democratic Party. Take the epicenter of the nationwide protest movement, Columbia University. According to reporting in the New York Post, the Columbia encampment was principally organized by three groups: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime (WOL). Let’s take each in turn.

    JVP is, in essence, the “Jewish”-branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, backed by the usual big-money progressive donors—including some, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, that were instrumental in selling Obama’s Iran Deal to the public. JVP and its affiliated political action arm, JVP Action, have received at least $650,000 from various branches of George Soros’ philanthropic empire since 2017, $441,510 from the Kaphan Foundation (founded by early Amazon employee Sheldon Kaphan), $340,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and smaller amounts from progressive donors such as the Quitiplas Foundation, according to reporting from the New York Post and NGO Monitor, a pro-Israel research institute. JVP has also received nearly $1.5 million from various donor-advised funds—which allow wealthy clients to give anonymously through their financial institutions—run through the charitable giving arms of Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, Vanguard, and TIAA, according to NGO Monitor’s review of those institutions’ tax documents.

    SJP, by contrast, is an outgrowth of the Islamist networks dissolved during the U.S. government’s prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and related charities for fundraising for Hamas. SJP is a subsidiary of an organization called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP); SJP in fact has no “formal corporate structure of its own but operates as AMP’s campus brand,” according to a lawsuit filed last week against AJP Educational Fund, the parent nonprofit of AMP. Both AMP and SJP were founded by the same man, Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian academic who formerly fundraised for KindHearts, an Islamic charity dissolved in 2012 pursuant to a settlement with the U.S. Treasury, which froze the group’s assets for fundraising for Hamas (KindHearts did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement). And several of AMP’s senior leaders are former fundraisers for HLF and related charities, according to November congressional testimony from former U.S. Treasury official Jonathan Schanzer. An ongoing federal lawsuit by the family of David Boim, an American teenager killed in a Hamas terrorist attack in 1996, goes so far as to allege that AMP is a “disguised continuance” and “legal alter-ego” of the Islamic Association for Palestine, was founded with startup money from current Hamas official Musa Abu Marzook and dissolved alongside HLF. AMP has denied it is a continuation of IAP.

    Today, however, National SJP is legally a “fiscal sponsorship” of another nonprofit: a White Plains, New York, 501(c)(3) called the WESPAC Foundation. A fiscal sponsorship is a legal arrangement in which a larger nonprofit “sponsors” a smaller group, essentially lending it the sponsor’s tax-exempt status and providing back-office support in exchange for fees and influence over the sponsorship’s operations. For legal and tax purposes, the sponsor and the sponsorship are the same entity, meaning that the sponsorship is relieved of the requirement to independently disclose its donors or file a Form 990 with the IRS. This makes fiscal sponsorships a “convenient way to mask links between donors and controversial causes,” according to the Capital Research Center. Donors, in other words, can effectively use nonprofits such as WESPAC to obscure their direct connections to controversial causes.

    Something of the sort appears to be happening with WESPAC. Run by the market researcher Howard Horowitz, WESPAC reveals very little about its donors, although scattered reporting and public disclosures suggest that the group is used as a pass-through between larger institutions and pro-Palestinian radicals. Since 2006, for instance, WESPAC has received more than half a million in donations from the Elias Foundation, a family foundation run by the private equity investor James Mann and his wife. WESPAC has also received smaller amounts from Grassroots International (an “environmental” group heavily funded by Thousand Currents), the Sparkplug Foundation (a far-left group funded by the Wall Street fortune of Felice and Yoram Gelman), and the Bafrayung Fund, run by Rachel Gelman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune. (A self-described “abolitionist,” Gelman was featured in a 2020 New York Times feature on “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism.”) In 2022, WESPAC also received $97,000 from the Tides Foundation, the grant-making arm of the Tides Nexus.

    WESPAC, however, is not merely the fiscal sponsor of the Hamas-linked SJP but also the fiscal sponsor of the third group involved in organizing the Columbia protests, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), formerly known as New York City SJP. Founded by the Palestinian American lawyer Nerdeen Kiswani, a former activist with the Hunter College and CUNY chapters of SJP, WOL has emerged over the past seven months as perhaps the most notorious antisemitic group in the country, and has been banned from Facebook and Instagram for glorifying Hamas. A full list of the group’s provocations would take thousands of words, but it has been the central organizing force in the series of “Flood”-themed protests in New York City since Oct. 7, including multiple bridge and highway blockades, a November riot at Grand Central Station, the vandalism of the New York Public Library, and protests at the Rockefeller Center Christmas-tree lighting.

    More info on the people backing the Stop Cop City protestors:

    Where did the money come from? From donations solicited through left-wing fundraising and organizing networks. One of those networks was the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), an umbrella group for more than 80 “community organizations,” including the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, which organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested. CJA’s website promotes a grab bag of far-left causes, and includes a “Free Palestine” page proclaiming that “the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” To this day—eight months after the Georgia RICO indictment alleged that the Forest Justice Defense Fund was a fraudulent charity paying for ammunition purchases in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy—CJA maintains a Stop Cop City page urging readers to donate to the Forest Justice Defense Fund and the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. CJA also endorsed a “statement of solidarity” with Stop Cop City, which claimed, by the inexorable logic of intersectionality, the fight against “gentrification and police violence” in Atlanta as part of the fight against climate change.

    CJA is a subsidiary of the Movement Strategy Center, a California-based 501(c)(3) that has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and various branches of the Open Society network. But it has another financial supporter, one that may come as a surprise: You, the American taxpayer. In November, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was entrusting $50 million in federal grant money under the Inflation Reduction Act to the CJA, to be distributed in sub-grants to fund “environmental justice” projects by “community-based nonprofit organizations.”

    Read the whole thing.

  • More on the same subject: “Pro-Palestinian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors.” Surprising to people who haven’t been paying attention, maybe.

    The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker, according to a POLITICO analysis.

    Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change.

    Soros declined to comment, but a spokesperson with the Open Society Foundations, of which Soros is the founder and chairman, said in a statement that it “has funded a broad spectrum of US groups that have advocated for the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and for peaceful resolution to the conflict in Israel.” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has previously funded the Tides Foundation and other groups, said it no longer has active grants to Tides. It also does not support Jewish Voice for Peace or IfNotNow.

    Covers some of the same ground as the Tablet piece, but still worth reading the whole thing. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • MIT bans diversity statements. Good. Such racist dross only hinders real engineering.
  • Something resembling justice? “Judge Indefinitely Postpones Trump’s Classified Documents Trial.”

    Former president Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents is being postponed indefinitely.

    Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon ordered a new pretrial schedule for motions and discovery Tuesday afternoon after the classified documents case was originally scheduled to go to trial later this month.

    “The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming — would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury,” Cannon said in her order.

    The trial will likely be pushed until after the 2024 presidential election this November.

  • “The Only Problem Joe Biden Has Is That People Think He’s a Bad President.”

    It’s hard to exaggerate how abysmal Biden’s polling has been lately.

    No incumbent president should ever want to be near 43 percent in a head-to-head ballot test. Yet here is Joe Biden at 43 percent in the latest CNN poll, 43 percent in the latest Morning Consult poll, 43 percent in the latest Economist/YouGov poll, and 43 percent in the latest Harvard/Harris poll. (NB: Biden ticked up to 48 when Harvard/Harris pushed respondents to choose between Trump and Biden, and the Economist/YouGov poll had RFK Jr. in the mix.)

    Detect a trend? (There are other polls that have Biden a little higher.)

    It’s no mystery why Biden’s polling is at crisis levels.

    An incumbent president’s level of support in a reelection bid is typically tethered closely to his job approval. It’s hard to get much more than a couple of points above it. Biden’s job approval is at 40 percent in the RealClearPolitics polling average and at 39.3 in the 538 polling average.

  • How Hamas Bought Joe Biden.

    Desperate for cash, James Biden traveled to Qatar with the aim of personally presenting to Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi who was later arrested and charged with bribery and laundering over $5 billion and sentenced to 20 years in prison. While little is known about the details behind the internal power struggle in the corrupt terror state, Al Emadi had been accused of “channeling Qatari support to various Islamist groups over the years” as well as subverting American and European institutions with sizable infusions of Qatari money.

    As the American end of the deal fell apart in recriminations and lawsuits, one of the litigants received “blood-stained currency” and a “torture ticket” after suing James Biden and his partners. The blood money came from a Middle Eastern country known to be associated with terrorists. But the FBI refused to name the country and insisted the media also hide its identity.

  • In one of the world’s least anticipated sequel, a Chinese lab has spliced snippets of Ebola to create a deadly new virus.

  • More details on the Biden Administration’s censorship regime.

    Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an 800-page report that reads like Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

    Take a look:

    • In March 2021, an Amazon employee emailed others within the company about the reason for the Amazon bookstore’s new content moderation policy change: “[T]he impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden Administration about sensitive books we’re giving prominent placement to.”
    • In March 2021, just one day prior to a scheduled call with the White House, an Amazon employee explained how changes to Amazon’s bookstore policies were being applied “due to criticism from the Biden people.”
    • In July 2021, when Facebook executive Nick Clegg asked a Facebook employee why the company censored the man-made theory of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the employee responded: “Because we were under pressure from the [Biden] administration and others to do more. . . . We shouldn’t have done it.”
  • There’s chutzpah, and then there’s chutzpah: “Denver Illegals Make Demands, Include ‘Culturally Appropriate’ Food, Lawyers, Unlimited Showers And Warnings Before Evictions.”
  • It was fun seeing Ukraine’s Bradley’s take out Russian tanks with their Bushmaster, but they just took out a T-80 from a mile away with their TOW missile, which is the recommended method of a Bradley killing a Russian tank.
  • Ukrainian drone hits Bashkiria Oil Refinery some 1,500km from Ukraine’s border.
  • In addition to using high tech weapons against Russia, Ukraine is also using caltrops to shred their tires, a weapon first deployed by the Roman empire.
  • “Pedophile Surprised By Seattle Police Takes The Hallway Temperature Challenge.” Purp pulls a gun and gets multiple mags dumped into him. (Hat tip: Active response via KR Training.)
  • I have heard the Social Justice Warrior suing, each to each. I do not think that they will sue for me… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • The most gun-friendly states of 2024. Texas ranks 8th.

  • So the City of Pasadena, Texas was hassling Azael Sepulveda’s Oz Mechanics car repair shop over parking for no apparent reason, came to an agreement to settle his lawsuit, and now says, get this, they don’t have to follow the agreement because they claim the city enjoys “immunity” from lawsuits. “The property he purchased had housed another auto mechanic shop for more than 30 years and included five parking spaces, but under revised ordinances, the city demanded that Sepulveda provide 28 parking spots.” Somebody in the Pasadena city government deserves a dick punching…
  • Brandon Herrera finally produces an AK-50 that doesn’t jam or spontaneously disassemble.
  • The Jerry Seinfeld Pop-Tart Movie Is The Least Funny And, Quite Possibly, Worst Movie Ever Made.” I rather doubt the latter, but the trailer I saw of it did look pretty dire.
  • Hamas Celebrates Proposed Ceasefire With Rocket Barrage.”
  • “Uighur Slaves Struggling To Keep Up With Demand For Palestinian Headscarves.”
  • Save the puppies!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.