Posts Tagged ‘Stacey Abrams’

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LinkSwarm For March 7, 2025

Friday, March 7th, 2025

The Supreme Court lands on both sides of the same case, more fraud uncovered by DOGE, the Russo-Ukrainian War continues despite the White House dustup, Mark Steyn catches a break, and strange cell(block) fellows.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • The Supreme Court giveth: “Supreme Court pumps brakes on order forcing Trump to shell out $2B in foreign aid.”

    Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pumped the brakes on a lower court order that gave the Trump administration a midnight deadline Wednesday into Thursday to unfreeze $2 billion worth of foreign aid.

    Roberts paused the order Wednesday until further notice and gave plaintiffs suing the Trump administration until noon Friday to respond, marking the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with a case involving the president’s push to overhaul the federal government.

    The question at hand is the Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on US Agency for International Development spending amid a review to ensure the outlays were aligned with the president’s policies.

    District Judge Amir Ali, who was appointed to the bench by former President Joe Biden, temporarily mandated that the funds continue flowing while considering the case.

    Plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration did not properly unfreeze all of the money, which led to Ali giving the Trump administration a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to fully comply.

  • And the Supreme Court taketh away. “The Supreme Court has *upheld* a lower court’s order forcing USAID/State to immediately pay ~$2 billion owed to contractors for work they’ve already performed….The court in a 5-4 decision upheld Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work.”
  • “Mexico Extradites 29 Cartel Drug Lords To US As Trump Not Backing Away From Tariff War.”

    The US Justice Department revealed Thursday evening that Mexico has begun extraditing dozens of high-level cartel leaders to the US, as President Trump reiterated that 25% tariffs on Mexican goods will take effect next Tuesday.

    “The defendants taken into US custody today include leaders and managers of drug cartels recently designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” the DoJ wrote in a statement, adding these terrorists are facing charges including racketeering, drug-trafficking, murder, illegal use of firearms, money laundering, and other crimes.

    Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection released this statement: “This morning, 29 people who were deprived of their liberty in different penitentiary centers in the country were transferred to the United States of America, which were required due to their links with criminal organizations for drug trafficking, among other crimes.”

    The tariffs are currently on hold. CNN has a list of who was exchanged, including Rafael Caro Quintero, Alder Marin-Sotelo, Andrew Clark, José Ángel Canobbio Inzunza, Norberto Valencia González, José Alberto García Vilano, Evaristo Cruz Sánchez, Miguel and Omar Treviño Morales.

  • We touched on this in a previous LinkSwarm, but here’s more details on Stacey Abrams EPA-backed multi-billion dollar slush fund.

    Three short weeks ago, a newly confirmed Lee Zeldin got to his office at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and hit the broom closet to start sweeping.

    Thanks to the previous braggadocious occupants and their already well-documented pre-exit shoveling of cash and grants out the door, he had an inkling there might be plenty of questionable transactions to uncover that hadn’t exactly been notated ‘on the books’ or done ‘by the book’ either.

    I mean, what were the odds?

    It didn’t take long for Zeldin to find himself a whopper of a honeypot hidden away that made quite a splash when he announced it, particularly as it was tied to an infamous Project Veritas video from December boasting about its very surreptitious creation.

    David covered the reveal.

    Project Veritas dropped a shocker of a video back in December, in which an EPA manager was bragging that the Biden administration was metaphorically ‘dropping gold bars off the Titanic.’ They were shoving every dime they could out to their NGO buddies so they could harass the Trump administration and continue to suck off the taxpayers’ teat for years to come.

    We all know such things happen, but to have it so vividly described was revealing.

    Well, Lee Zeldin is retrieving those gold bars, and it turns out to be a lot of them. $20 billion, all sitting in the equivalent of a bank vault.

    The massive scale of this scam–which as with so many things is SOP at government agencies–blows your mind. Pushing $20 billion out the door to friends of the administration with little to no financial controls, zero accountability, and lots of malice aforethought is only different in scale and not in kind.

    Snip.

    …It’s a green slush fund. $20B parked at an outside bank towards the end of the Biden administration, given to just eight NGOs…These NGOs were created for the first time, many of them just to get this money. And their pass-throughs…So the EPA entered into this account control agreement with these entities, Treasury enters into a financial agent agreement with the bank, and they design it to tie the EPA’s hands behind their back -to tie the federal government’s hands behind its back. So when the money goes through the NGOs to subgrantees, many of them also pass-throughs, we don’t know where it’s going. We don’t have the proper amount of oversight. And, as you pointed out, it’s going to people in the Obama and Biden administrations, it’s going to donors. It’s not going directly…to remediate that environmental issue…deliver that clean air…’

    This is just some stunning stuff. As Zeldin told the NY Post:

    …As Zeldin told The Post: “Of the eight pass-through entities that received funding from the pot of $20 billion in tax dollars, various recipients have shown very little qualification to handle a single dollar, let alone several billions of dollars.”

    He’s called for the EPA’s inspector general to investigate; who knows what other rank misuse that might turn up.

    Bondi and Patel are already on the case, and I hope someone from Scott Bessent’s Treasury IG thinks they should be as well.

    Crawl up their collective butts, the lot of them.

    No wonder Democrats continued to treat Abrams like a rock star despite high profile electoral flameouts. She’s evidently a vitally important nexus in their graft distribution schemes. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Victor Davis Hanson on the Trump Counterrevolution.

    At some point, some president was going to have to stop the unsustainable spending and borrowing.

    To have any country left, some president would eventually have had to restore a nonexistent border and stop the influx of 3 million illegal aliens a year.

    Some commander-in-chief finally would have to try to stop the theater wars abroad.

    But any president who dared to do any of that would be damned for curbing the madness that his predecessors fueled.

    And so none did—until now.

    Not since Franklin Roosevelt’s rapid and mass implementation of the New Deal administrative state have Americans seen such radical changes so quickly as now in Trump’s first month of governance.

    Americans are watching a long-awaited counter-revolution to bring the country out of its madness by restoring the common sense of the recent past.

    It is easy to run up massive debts and hard to pay them back. Politicians profit by handing out grants and hiring thousands with someone else’s money or creating new programs by growing the debt.

    Yet it is unpopular and considered “mean” to spend only what you have and to create a lean, competent workforce.

    1776, not 1619, is the foundational date of America.

    Biological men should not manipulate their greater size and strength to undermine the hard-won accomplishment of women athletes.

    Affordable fossil fuels, when used wisely, are still essential to modern prosperity.

    American education must remain empirical and inductive, not regress into indoctrination and deduction. If college campuses no longer abide by the Bill of Rights, then perhaps they should pay taxes on income from their endowments and guarantee their own student loans.

    If American citizens are arrested and arraigned for violent assaults, destroying property, and resisting arrest, then surely foreign students who break the laws of their hosts should be held to the same account—and if guilty, go home.

    Tribalism and racialism, and government spoils allotted by superficial appearances, are the marks of a pre-civilized society. Such racialism leads only to endless factions and discord.

    It is easy to destroy a border, and hard to reconstruct it. And it was not Trump who invited in 12 million unaudited illegal aliens, a half million of them criminals.

    Who is the real culprit in the Defense Department—the new secretary with the hard task of restoring the idea among depleted ranks that our race, religion, and gender are incidental, not essential, to defeating the enemy and ensuring our national security?

    Is it really wise to divert money from needed combat units and weapons to indoctrinate recruits with social and cultural agendas that do not enhance, but likely undermine, our national defenses?

    Who is the real callous actor—Elon Musk, who is trying to prevent the country from insolvency by eliminating fraud and waste, or those who bloated the bureaucracy in the first place with jobs and subsidies for their constituents, friends, clients, and fellow ideologues?

    No one likes to fire FBI agents.

    That certainly is an unpleasant job for the new FBI Director, Kash Patel.

    But again, who are the true culprits who so cavalierly turned a hallowed agenda into a weaponized tool to warp elections, harass political enemies, lie under oath, surveil parents at school board meetings, doctor court documents, and protect insider friends?

    Massive borrowing is an opiate addiction that needs shock treatment, not more deficits to break the habit. An unchecked administrative state becomes an organic organism that exists only to grow larger, more powerful, and more resistant to any who seek to curb it.

  • “DOGE reveals most savings at Dept. of Education with nearly $1B cut. DOGE claims to have saved the most money at the U.S. Department of Education out of any government agency through cuts in wasteful spending. DOGE launched an ‘Agency Efficiency Leaderboard’ that ranks government agencies based on how much wasteful funding has been cut, and the Dept. of Education is ranked in first place.”

    Campus Reform reported that DOGE has canceled nearly $900 million in contracts and training grants at the Department of Education.

    This includes “over $600 million in grants to institutions and nonprofits that were using taxpayer funds to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies” such as critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), according to a press release from the department.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • DEI Was the Biggest Con of the Century.

    “Diversity” had already been around for many years, its hustler scratching at the university door. Not actual diversity, mind you, but the skin-deep diversity of noxious racialism tarted-up with fake Enlightenment discourse. This concept of “diversity, equity, inclusion” quickly metastasized until it was everywhere, and this was no accident. It was a bureaucratic initiative designed to anchor a new raft of social justice programs as an inescapable presence on the campus.

    It was no accident that it was violence and the threat of violence that opened the door for this effervescence of DEI. It sounded absurd. I knew it was absurd; I knew it was a con. Most people likely knew it was a con but then most people on the campuses also knew to keep their mouths shut in a time of hair-trigger tempers and performative chaos unleashed by well-funded activist groups. No college administration wanted the summer violence of 2020 overflowing onto the campuses. And so they opened the university to barbarian ideas rather than the barbarians themselves.

    This was the madness of crowds brought en masse onto the campuses, and it was wildly successful. It achieved this success with a superb combination of psychological factors—relentless hustling, a primitive ideology suffused with mysticism and “indigenous knowledges,” and the barely concealed violent urges of quasi-communist and terroristic revolutionaries. All of this shielded from criticism and even the mildest of questioning.

    You knew something was terribly wrong with it.

    Anyone on a college campus subjected to the mediocrity of a DEI hustler knew there was something wrong with it.

    It was not noble. It was not idealistic. It was not the many wonderful things its proponents said. It was one thing to the public, and it was another altogether when enacted on the campuses. It was weird and alien and hateful at its core, but the public is rarely exposed to any of this. It was the classic Potemkin village offering, with a façade masking a brute, racialist substance.

    In other words, it was a con. In fact, it was the biggest Con Story of the 21st century, with America’s universities the biggest suckers imaginable. And the crowning achievement of Western civilization—the modern university—tottered under the assault of mediocrity, racialism, and pseudoscience.

    I suppose that folks duped by the big cons will eventually retreat in their embarrassment at having been fooled by one of the shadiest Con Stories ever deployed. Even now, DEI is in retreat. As it plays out in its final act, I assure you that it will dissipate in a flurry of new acronyms and new labels designed to hide its failure.

    Its proponents will roll out new slogans to replace the vapid “Diversity is our strength.” Already, “inclusive excellence” is supplanting DEI as this trusty acronym becomes freighted with failure. The Con Story will morph and adapt. Reluctantly. Buzzwords will change, new slogans will be coined, but the underlying ideology will remain the same as it always has. It must serve yeoman’s duty for the Big Con.

    That’s from Stanley K. Ridgley’s DEI Exposed: How the Biggest Con of the Century Almost Toppled Higher Education.

  • A bill came up in the senate to block men from women’s sports and every Democrat voted against it. The social justice hive mind is still controlling the Democrat party.
  • California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, however, has broke ranks on men playing women’s sports. Sort of. Kinda. “Notice that at no point does Newsom add, ‘And thus, I will be pushing to repeal the 2013 law that gave students the right to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities based on their self-identification and regardless of their birth gender.’ He feels that those born male participating in women’s sports is unfair, but not quite strongly enough to do anything about it.”
  • In California, a boy pretending to be a girl won the triple jump by eight feet.
  • Guaranteed Income scheme once again fails to improve lives of recipients. “Receiving guaranteed income had no impact on the labor supply of full-time workers, but part-time workers had a lower labor market participation by 13 percentage points.” And recipients smoked more. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • In 2024, the EU spent more money on Russian energy than in aid for Ukraine.
  • Ukraine hits a refinery complex 1,500km inside Russia.
  • George Friedman thinks Russia has already lost the war.

    The first and most important question is whether Russia has lost the war. Wars are fought with an intent formed by an imperative. A prudent leader has to take steps to avoid the worst possible outcome, and Putin, as a prudent leader, prepared for the possibility that NATO would choose to attack Russia. He expressed this fear publicly so the only question was how to block an attack if it occurred. He needed a buffer zone to significantly impede a possible assault.

    That buffer was Ukraine, and he on several occasions expressed regret that Ukraine had separated from Russia. The distance from the Ukraine border to Moscow, on highway M3, is only about 300 miles (480 kilometers). Russia’s nightmare was that Germany could surge its way to Moscow. Three hundred miles by a massive force staging a surprise attack is not a huge distance. He rationally needed Ukraine to widen the gap.

    I predicted years before the war that Russia would invade Ukraine to regain its buffers. That Russia wanted to take the whole of Ukraine is confirmed in its first forays into the country. The initial assault was a four-pronged attack, one thrust from the east, two from the north and one from the south via Crimea. The two northern prongs were directed at the center of Ukraine and its capital, Kyiv.

    Details of the failure of that plan snipped since I covered that as it was happening.

    It is clear that the Russians intended to take all of Ukraine. They made minor gains in the east, but their northern penetration failed, as did any attempts to turn westward. It is true that they have gained territory in Ukraine, but it is far from what their initial war plan was designed for. Now their argument is that they never wanted more territory in other parts of the country.

    To call this a Russian success is false, and to call a failed war plan a defeat is reasonable. The war was meant to gain a buffer against NATO, and in that, Moscow failed. But it was also intended to be a demonstration that Russia was still a great power. After three years, a major commitment and, by most reports, close to a million dead Russian soldiers, Russia has little more than 20 percent of Ukraine. It also failed to demonstrate the power of the Russian army. Therefore, except for its nuclear capabilities, it is not a military threat or a great power.

    The issue now is whether Russia, assuming it agrees to some kind of negotiated settlement, can launch another war. Here it’s important to note that while Putin is powerful, he is not an absolute ruler. He cannot govern Russia the way, say, Stalin did. Under Stalin, Moscow ruled Russia down to the smallest homes in the smallest villages. He ruled not only through military and law enforcement but also through the rank-and-file members of the Communist Party who drew benefits from their membership in return for vigilance. They reported misdeeds, real and imagined, to the internal police, which was controlled by the party, which was controlled by the Politburo, which was controlled by Stalin. Later iterations would be slightly less deadly, but the instruments of oppression were always there.

    The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the collapse of the Communist Party. The structure of terror no longer functioned.

    Putin’s goal was to resurrect Russia. But with the Communist Party gone, the state structure was also gone. Putin had to find a new base. He had only one source of power: the oligarchs. Between Mikhail Gorbachev and Putin, the party’s assets were sold off to private citizens on the basis of their relationship with the government. The agreement was simple: Putin and his subordinates distributed vast industries and other things of value to the new oligarchs, who pledged to support the regime with money and deference, as well as a network of political and economic relationships that gave them significant influence.

    Putin handled the politics — and apparently was well paid. The oligarchs became fabulously wealthy, and for most Russians life improved, as the new arrangement ended the terror and created employment. Disagreement was no longer a capital offense, and the media was comparatively independent and reliable. It was not long before the new private enterprises started entering the global market.

    Putin was in charge at first, but in short order power was transferred to the oligarchs who underwrote the regime. They depended on access to European markets for their revenue, and many lived outside of Russia and expected Putin to facilitate trade. But when Putin’s initial invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 failed, many of the most lucrative markets closed their doors to the oligarchs and Western investment cratered. Putin ordered the oligarchs to return to Russia, which many did. However, some of the oligarchs were not happy with their former patron and left Russia permanently, or until the political and economic environment would shift. That this has gone on for three years has created serious problems for them. They wanted the war over and a settlement reached long ago.

    Snip.

    Putin must end the war and hope for the best. The best way to end a failed war is to declare victory and go home. Putin is declaring victory by saying he got all he wanted. But only Americans believe that. The Russians know they lost. The question is not how Putin will suppress dissent. It is how he will deal with the devils he created, and how the country responds if he doesn’t. A reign of terror might help, but there is no mechanism to carry it out now, and later is too late.

    U.S. President Donald Trump knows the game that is playing out. The one who blinks loses. It won’t be Trump. He will take every bit of power and every cent he can from Putin’s weakness. Like a good hedge fund manager, one moment he says he is Putin’s friend, the next moment he will walk away from the deal. Then, after the borrower really starts sweating, he will come back. Trump holds the cards in this business. And he wants some of Putin’s economic and geopolitical power.

    Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)

  • How SpaceX’s Starship could become a tremendous military asset.

    What SpaceX is building is more than just a rocket. Starship is a strategic weapon, not as a one-off but as a fleet. A fully reusable heavy-lift system capable of hauling 200 tons per launch per rocket is not just an engineering marvel: it’s a military revolution.

    Why? Because a fleet of Starships could land an entire armored division anywhere on Earth in under an hour and keep it supplied in the field.

    Just as the speed of tanks revolutionized warfare between the World Wars, this development changes everything. Forget C-17s and cargo ships: you might as well use horses and wagons. A fleet of Starships is not just an incremental improvement in logistics: it’s a fundamental shift in the nature of warfare. The ability to almost instantaneously create and reinforce a whole combat theater anywhere on Earth will give the United States overwhelming power, unlike anything heretofore seen outside of science fiction.

    And let me stress: we’re not just talking about the initial deployment. The bigger deal is the resupply. It took six months in 1990-91 for the United States to get its forces in position to invade Kuwait. Maintaining them in the field required a constant stream of slow-moving cargo ships from U.S. ports halfway around the world. A decade later, and for 20 years thereafter, a similar supply chain ran through Karachi, Pakistan, up a rail line, then on truck convoys over the Khyber Pass. Since that was often impractical (there were these pesky Taliban guys about), the military frequently had to rely on the only available alternative, a grueling 36 hours on a C-17 (including layovers). All of this depended on deals with shady, unfriendly countries, subsidies (bribes), and endless risk of attacks on our personnel.

    What if you could ship everything you wanted anywhere in the world straight from Texas? Or Florida? Or anywhere else? In under an hour?

    Wars are often won by those who can move the fastest, supply the best, and sustain their forces longest. A conflict in Taiwan or the Baltics could see adversaries complete their objectives before the U.S. military can even begin meaningful counter-operations.

    Starship negates all these timelines. Instead of waiting days or weeks for military assets to arrive by conventional means, forces could be on the ground on the same day as an invasion. No need for prepositioned stockpiles, forward operating bases, or painfully slow sealift capabilities. Those days are over.

    In a Taiwan crisis, Starship could land American armor and mechanized infantry before the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) finishes crossing the Strait. It would change the strategic calculus entirely. Every U.S. war game predicting Taiwan’s fall under a rapid Chinese assault assumes conventional response times. Starship forces a complete rethink, for both sides. It will allow American forces to arrive in time to fight the decisive battle, not the delayed counter-offensive.

    I think the Starship assembly timeline is a bit optimistic, but point-to-point global logistics really is a game-changer. (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)

  • So what are Maryland Democrats pushing to win back ordinary Americans? Condoms for elementary school kids and repirations for slavery.
  • French theater invites illegal aliens in for for free event. Illegal aliens promptly take over theater and refuse to leave.
  • Behold the modern Democratic Party’s id, where they refuse to applaud a teenage brain cancer survivor for fear of setting aside their Trump Derangement Syndrome for even a second.
  • California is getting the energy policy it deserves, good and hard.

    Back when I served in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010, California ranked 7th or 8th in the nation for electricity costs. At the time, the Democratic majority in Sacramento was pushing bill after bill mandating greater reliance on renewable energy, assuring everyone that these policies would make us look like “geniuses” when the price of fossil fuels inevitably soared.

    I warned that these laws, regulations and subsidies would instead drive up electricity costs for Californians, making the grid less reliable and California’s economy less competitive.

    Now, two decades later, the results are in. In 2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that California had the second-highest electricity prices in the nation for the second year running, behind only Hawaii. The Golden State’s misguided energy policies have steadily increased the price of electricity as green energy mandates, grid instability and regulatory burdens have taken their toll. Meanwhile, states with more balanced energy policies — natural gas, coal and nuclear power — have fared far better.

    What’s worse, California’s natural advantage in AI will be lost to Texas and other low-cost energy states. California’s industrial electricity prices averaged 21.98 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2023 vs. 6.26 in Texas, a whopping 251% price premium that no electricity-hungry AI installation or server farm operator is going to pay.

    The core issue is simple: California’s policymakers prioritized renewable energy mandates over affordability and reliability. Over the years, they have forced utilities to integrate ever-growing amounts of wind and solar power while discouraging natural gas, nuclear and large-scale hydroelectric projects. These decisions ignored the reality that intermittent renewables require extensive grid upgrades, costly backup power sources and expensive storage solutions — all of which drive up costs for consumers and industry.

    California’s high electricity prices are not an accident; they are a direct consequence of these policies. The state’s cap-and-trade system, restrictive permitting laws and mandates like the Renewable Portfolio Standard (which requires utilities to generate 60% of their electricity from renewables by 2030) have all contributed to rising rates.

    At the same time, bureaucratic obstacles have made it nearly impossible to build new natural gas plants or modernize existing infrastructure. From 2014 to 2024, California approved or built only five natural gas plants, four of which replaced older facilities for a total output of up to 4 gigawatts. By comparison, in the prior 10 years, California commissioned dozens of plants totaling more than 20 gigawatts of nameplate capacity.

  • “Union Prez On Gov’t Payroll Was Banned From Federal Buildings For Sexual Misconduct, Sources Say. Witold Skwierczynski was paid by taxpayers for 34 years without working a single hour for the government.”
  • Clueless Veep pick Tim Walz says he’s willing to run for president. I believe the whole Republican Party encourages him to run…
  • Could all of Biden’s evil be undone by the fact that he didn’t sign any of his own laws? Seems unlikely, but it’s worth a shot… (Hat tip: Charlie Martin at Instapundit.)
  • Follow-up: Remember the guy who opened fire at a band competition before being tackled by four band parents? He died in the hospital.
  • “Honors student sues Connecticut school district for not teaching her to read and write. Meet Aleysha Ortiz, a 19-year-old who graduated with honors from Hartford Public High School in Connecticut. It would seem congratulations are in order … except she says she’s functionally illiterate.”
  • A scandal at the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board suggest that dirty dirt politics are afoot…
  • Yo dawg, Serbian parliament is lit.
  • “Christi Craddick, Don Huffines Announce Candidacies for Texas Comptroller” in 2026. This is after existing Comptroller Glenn Hegar resigned to become Texas A&M System Chancellor.
  • Convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is sharing a cellblock with Sean “Diddy” Combs. If either of them have any of their money left when (if) they get released, the release party is going to be off the hook…
  • The punitive judgement against Mark Steyn in Mann vs. Steyn has been reduced from $1 million to $5,000. (Hat tip: Evil Blogger Lady.)
  • Which country has the world’s top four bestselling whiskies, America or Scotland? Neither. It’s India.
  • How a Greek fascist youth organization worked with the allies against the Nazis. Bonus: Their primary symbol is now used by lesbian feminists…
  • “FBI Investigation Shows Epstein List Shredded Itself.”
  • “Europe Pledges To Send Ukraine Their Entire Military Might Of 3 Panzer Tanks And A Nazi Motorcycle With A Sidecar.”
  • That is one happy, grateful dog.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for February 28, 2025

    Friday, February 28th, 2025

    Pinkslipapalooza in BureaucratLand, more DOGE savings, the deportation machine gets cranked up, Apple invests in America. Plus some depths of human depravity.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Federal Judge Rules In Favor Of Trump Government Layoffs.” “U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who was appointed by Barack Obama, ruled that the labor unions which filed the lawsuit against the government layoffs had to take their case before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) rather than a federal court.”
  • “USAID Funneled $122 Million to Charities Tied to Designated Terrorists.”

    The now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development has funneled at least $122 million in approved grants to terror-tied aid charities, including an evangelical Christian group that in 2014 facilitated a $125,000 sub-grant to a Sudanese terrorist organization linked to al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden.

    USAID has long been complicit in funding humanitarian aid groups associated with designated terrorists, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. This is just one egregious example of the waste, fraud, and abuse within USAID that the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency are working to uncover.

    “There’s a fox loose in the henhouse of our foreign aid system—a system intended to uplift lives abroad that instead has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to radical and terrorist-linked organizations,” Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, said in his testimony before House Oversight’s DOGE Subcommittee on Wednesday.

    The Middle East Forum published these findings in a years-long study earlier this month, as DOGE head Elon Musk started targeting USAID and its wasteful, often ideologically-driven spending.

    One organization, World Vision, was given $200,000 in taxpayer funding to direct toward the Islamic Relief Agency a decade ago. Of those funds, a $125,000 sub-grant was approved by the Obama administration. A whistleblower came forward to reveal the improper relationship between the two groups.

    The evangelical non-governmental organization claimed in 2018 it had no knowledge of the al-Qaeda affiliate’s terrorism ties. In 2010, two members of Islamic Relief’s U.S. branch pleaded guilty to money-laundering, theft of public funds, conspiracy, and other charges. Six years earlier, the Treasury Department designated Islamic Relief as a terror-financing organization.

    Despite the scandal, World Vision obtained $200 million in approved grants from USAID last year. It has received an estimated $2 billion since 2008.

    Additionally, Helping Hand for Relief and Development received a $78,000 USAID grant in 2023 even after USAID’s inspector general launched an investigation into a prior grant. The group held ties to Pakistan’s Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, a designated terrorist organization that played a role in the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

    Helping Hand is partnered with the Unlimited Friends Association, a charity affiliated with Hamas and known for promoting violent antisemitism.

    Another Hamas-tied group, Bayader Association for Environment and Development, received its last USAID grant on October 1, 2023, just before the October 7 terror attack on Israel. Bayader previously featured senior Hamas officials, including the son of the late Ismail Haniyeh, who orchestrated the October 7 massacre.

    Other examples of aid groups involved in funding terrorists, sometimes knowingly, include the American Near East Refugee Agency, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, and Tides Foundation.

    Is there no evil in the world George Soros doesn’t have his fingerprints on?

  • Surprise! Trump’s policies are hugely popular…even among Democrats.
    • 81% of Americans, including 70% of Democrats and 80% of Independents, support deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes.
    • 76% of Americans support a “full-scale effort” to eliminate government fraud and waste.
    • 76% of Americans want to close the border and add extra security.
    • 69% of Americans, including half of all Democrats, want to ban men from women’s sports – and a similar number want the government to declare that there are only two sexes.

    And yet the Left has spent the last month railing against ICE arrests and DOGE audits while stumping for the right to castrate kids and let boys in girls’ restrooms.

    Some more key findings:

    • 70% of Americans said government should hire people “strictly on the basis of merit and objective evaluations.”
    • 79% of Americans said the government should make sure that categories “like race, gender, and religion” are not used to discriminate against applicants.
    • 66% of Americans, including more than a third of Democrats, think Democrats shouldn’t oppose everything Trump is doing out of the gate and help Trump eliminate government waste.
    • 58% of Americans say Trump is doing a better job than Biden.
  • How republicans have been so successful with getting Trump’s cabinet picks confirmed.

    Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Morning Wire that the Senate GOP “has not let up the pressure at all” on Democrats as Republicans ram President Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments through their confirmations.

    Senate Republicans, with their 53-47 majority, have cleared nearly all of the president’s most controversial picks after Kash Patel was confirmed to be the next FBI director in a 51-49 vote on Thursday. Mullin, who has gone to bat for each of Trump’s cabinet picks, told Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley that the confirmation process had gone smoothly thanks to Republican leadership that is laser-focused on supporting Trump’s agenda.

    “What you’ve seen is a new leader in the Senate with Leader [John] Thune. He is just 100 percent grinding the Democrats down from the get-go,” Mullin told Morning Wire.

    “And so once the president got confirmed and sworn into office on the 20th, what we did is we immediately started the clock on these nominees, and [we] haven’t stopped,” he added.

    The Republican senator from Oklahoma explained that the party didn’t wait for Trump to be sworn in on January 20 to push his nominees through the confirmation process. Since the new Republican-controlled Senate began on January 3, the GOP immediately went to work putting pressure on Democrats to speed up confirmations.

    Mullin said that Thune “has literally kept that clock running 24/7, seven days a week” on cabinet confirmations.

    After a cabinet nominee gets reported out of committee, “there’s a 24-hour soak,” followed by a 30-hour debate, he explained, adding, “On directors, like Kash Patel, when you invoke cloture on them, you have a two-hour debate. So while you still have a 24-hour soak, you only have two hours of debate on that person. So you can move those faster.”

    “Even when we’re not here, the Democrats will negotiate and say, ‘If you don’t make us stay over on the weekend, we’ll allow the clocks to run consecutively, even though we’re not here.’ So we’ll go ahead and invoke cloture on the next person,” Mullin told Morning Wire. “So when we get back here on Monday, we can confirm two people at once. That’s why we’re so far ahead — because Leader Thune has not let up the pressure at all, not one bit on the Democrats.”

    Sounds like Thune is a vast improvement over Cocaine Mitch…

  • “DOGE and EPA Work to Reclaim $67M in ‘Environmental Justice’ Grants.”

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working with the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cancel over $67 million in grants that had been issued by the Biden Administration.

    According to Fox News, the EPA is focusing on $77.1 million in spending that was earmarked by the Biden-era EPA for “environmental justice” grants, distributed to 20 different recipients. Although approximately $10 million has already been spent and is irretrievable, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency was able to successfully cancel $67.4 million in planned funding.

    “We will make sure every penny spent by EPA goes towards protecting human health and the environment, and Powering the Great American Comeback,” said Zeldin. “I am proud to partner with DOGE to restore fiscal responsibility and accountability in our government.”

    In response, the official X account for DOGE lauded the EPA cuts as “good work.”

    Among the canceled grants was a $4.2 million grant to San Diego State University Foundation, which planned to use the money to bring “environmental justice” to “tribal, indigenous, and Pacific Island communities.”

    Under Zeldin, the EPA has revealed that the previous administration’s EPA was freely giving at least $20 billion in taxpayer dollars, with the spending being determined solely by eight agency entities “at their discretion.” Among this spending was a $2 billion grant sent to Power Forward Communities, a far-left non-profit with ties to failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

    We’re very fortunate that those on the left were too greedy and incompetent to keep rigging elections…

  • Tiffany Henyard, the crooked, free-spending mayor of Dolton, Illinois, got slaughtered in a Democratic primary this week. “[Jason] House won the primary with 3,896 votes (87.91%), compared to Henyard’s 536 votes (12.09%).”
  • “Whistleblower: There’s a Trans Cult Inside the NSA.”

    Christopher Rufo: Tell me about this culture and how it’s been spreading through the NSA. And talk to me about what it was like, even a year ago or a few months ago, before Trump reentered the White House.

    NSA Whistleblower: About ten years ago, they started doing the “employee resource groups”: African-American, veterans, Pride. It was just a meeting here and there, almost like a potluck—culture, food, a speech. Then it started to get more and more. Instead of just one day a month, it was one week a month, or the whole month. You could be hired as a mathematician, a staff officer, or system engineer, but you would spend your time going to these events and having meetings all day about it. They got themselves into position to help craft policy and started pushing the idea that if you want to get promoted, you have to participate in these events.

    And then everything became Pride. You would go to a training, and it would be about “privilege” and “how to be a better ally.” A lady would give classes on how to talk “gender-neutral” to people. You had analysts that didn’t want to do the reporting they were supposed to be doing because they were going to have to report on somebody’s “dead name.” They were having this crisis of conscience about reporting the adversary’s actual name because they thought it was their “dead name,” and they didn’t want to disrespect the person. It was like a cult that was hellbent on pushing gender ideology.

    Rufo: It seems like this is a clique of very activist male-to-female transgender agents. Tell me about this community.

    Whistleblower: There is a very small number of them, but they wield an enormous amount of power. And outside of the sick stuff, you also see a prevalent Marxist philosophy going on with these people in their chat rooms. They hate capitalism. They hate Christians. They’re always espousing socialist and Marxist beliefs.

    I know several people at the agency brought that up, like, “Hey, we’re here to fight for the U.S.A. and go after the adversaries.” And they just got hammered. They would just start coming out with “transphobe” and “homophobe” right away or calling you a “racist.” And that’s why a lot of folks are still hesitant to say anything, because you still have people at these agencies in those key spots. It infected everything.

    If this is true, intelligence head Tulsi Gabbard needs to purge the Puzzle Palace of all transculters and commies with a pink slip machine gun. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ. )

  • Bill Clinton advisors saying Democrats are screwed is nothing new, but this time it’s not James Carville.

    “It’s very hard to be optimistic about the Democrats,” the advisor to President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign, Douglas Schoen, tells The New York Sun. The party is “totally off base.” Lacking a message, strategy, or leader, the pollster says President Trump may defy expectations in next year’s midterms.

    In a telephone interview, Mr. Schoen likened Mr. Trump to the boxing legend, Mohammed Ali, at his peak. He’s “moving so quickly, he has the Democrats totally unnerved,” he said. “They can’t hit him. They can’t find him. He’s way ahead of them.”

    Mr. Schoen, “exaggerating” for illustration, said the Ukraine War “could be settled and resolved before the Democrats develop a coherent position.” They’re “MIA,” with “no interesting voice.” He suggests governors take the lead, rather than Senator Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

    “There is nobody making policy,” Mr. Schoen said. “There is nobody with an overarching strategy.” That weakness is reflected in his Schoen Cooperman Research surveys. It “sort of tells you how off base the Democrats are” that their favorability is 31 percent versus Mr. Trump’s 53 percent.

    “The Democrats spent $2 billion on Kamala Harris,” Mr. Schoen said, “and her percentage was lower than where she started. It’s an inescapable conclusion that $2 billion bought Democrats nothing at all.” Mr. Trump dodged every uppercut, jab, and haymaker.

    Mr. Schoen said that Mr. Trump “gets the public mood” that “people are frustrated with government and angry about immigration.” The president also gets that Americans “want plain speaking and somebody outside the system.”

    Democrats, in Mr. Schoen’s view, aren’t counterpunching against these strengths. He sees them as “off-putting and scolding,” whereas on the other side, “people love” Mr. Trump. “His rallies and his approach were entertaining — and, in their own way, positive.”

    Mr. Schoen cites as another misfire the way Democrats went after Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees on “personal stuff rather than policy.” He adds: “It wasn’t, ‘We disagree with you on this,’ etc. It was all, ‘You had an affair, you were drunk, etc.’”

    In a flip from Mr. Schoen’s time in the Clinton White House, voters now judge Democrats, not Republicans, as focusing too much on “social issues” and personal lives. “Abortion,” Mr. Schoen said, “may be good in a midterm. It’s not going to win a presidential election.”

    Even modest gains next year could give Democrats control of one or both chambers of Congress, but Mr. Schoen has doubts. “I worry about 2026,” he said, “because I don’t see a message, a strategy at all — and the Republicans have a message and a strategy.”

  • “Apocalyptic environmentalism by Maryland’s far-left Democratic leadership in Annapolis has plunged the state into a severe energy crisis, with power bills doubling in some cases and 20% of households in Central Maryland now behind on payments.”
  • Soros DAs seem to love illegal alien criminals a whole lot more than they hate “gun violence.” “Two men arrested in a Feb. 5 gun and drug raid at a New York City auto repair shop were later released on reduced charges that may not lead to prosecution, according to police and court records – despite being suspected members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, which has been spreading violence across the country. Jose Tamaronis-Caldera, 27, and Richard Garcia, 33, were taken into custody after authorities seized a Glock handgun, two imitation pistols, and a significant amount of drugs.”
  • “Obama IRS Targeted Conservatives, Biden IRS Leaked Taxpayer Data.” Of course they did.

    A new disclosure by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the House Judiciary Committee reveals that, under the Biden administration, the IRS leaked the taxpayer information of more than 405,000 Americans–including President Trump.

    Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, began an inquiry into the leaks last year and with this latest disclosure has found that the scope of the leak was much larger than the Biden administration initially led the public to believe.

    The scandal began in late 2019 when an IRS contract worker named Charles (Chaz) Littlejohn, illegally accessed and stole tax returns and return information for President Trump and other wealthy Americans and then leaked that information to news outlets.

    Littlejohn pled guilty to the unauthorized disclosure in Oct 2023 and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

    In April 2024, the IRS issued letters of notification to victims whose data had been leaked but the notifications prompted deeper questions into how many people’s data may have actually been disclosed.

    One month later, an IRS spokesman stated that “more than 70,000” taxpayers had been affected by the leak.

  • Turns out that when you put warfighters in charge of the Pentagon rather than social justice weasels, recruiting problems disappear.

    After years of struggling recruitment numbers — in 2022, the Army faced a shortfall of 15,000 recruits — the service celebrated record-breaking enlistment in December 2024 with nearly 5,877 recruits joining up.

    “@USArmy: @USAREC had their most productive December in 15 years by enlisting 346 Soldiers daily into the World’s greatest #USArmy!” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote in a post on X.

    A Navy spokesperson tells National Review the service has contracted 4,000 more sailors and shipped 5,000 more sailors to boot camp at this point in the fiscal year, which began in October, than the year prior. (Navy officials said last month it will take three years of meeting recruiting goals to recover from the Navy’s current 20,000 operational gaps at sea.)

    Hegseth and Senator Tom Cotton praised the “Trump effect” for the rise in recruiting numbers, though the trend does pre-date Trump’s election.

    “Army’s recruiting started getting better much earlier. We really started seeing the numbers, the monthly numbers, go up in February of 2024,” former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told Fox News. “We were seeing sort of in the high 5000 contracts per month, and that accelerated, you know, into the spring all the way into August, when the Army really hit a peak.”

    Still, the record-setting December is nothing to sneeze at, and regardless of who would go on to win the 2024 election, the boost began as Biden prepared to exit the White House.

    Veterans tell National Review they feel confident the recruitment wave is here to stay, with prospective service members feeling more confident in our current commander in chief.

  • Hegseth is also purging the tranny lunacy from the ranks.

    The Department of Defense is giving the military branches 30 days to identify service members who identify as transgender in order to remove them from the armed forces.

    Pentagon senior leadership were notified in a Wednesday memo that they must begin setting up mechanisms for finding troops with gender dysphoria by March 26th to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order barring transgender-identifying people from the military.

    “The medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service,” defense undersecretary for personnel Darin Selnick said in the memo…

    The Department of Defense recognizes the two sexes, male and female, and will only allow service members to be subject to standards based on their biological sex. Pronoun usage and access to facilities will be determined by biological sex, ensuring that males will not be allowed into female spaces for sleeping, changing, or bathing, the memo clarifies.

    Were it not for social justice madness, these essential truths wouldn’t even need to be explicated…

  • “Trump tops 50,000 migrant removals including fugitives who evaded justice for 20 years.”

    When immigration agents were first ordered to deport Ivan Oramas and Santos Maradiaga-Villalta, President George W. Bush was in the White House and the iPhone was a distant dream.

    That was over two decades ago—yet both men were arrested this week, according to federal data reviewed by DailyMail.com.

    They were among over 50,000 illegal immigrants removed so far, a Department of Homeland Security official revealed to DailyMail.com.

    News of their arrest was circulated Thursday in an internal immigration memo noting recent enforcement actions made by President Donald Trump’s administration.

    Oramas, 61, is a citizen of Cuba with a rap sheet including convictions for sexual battery and aggravated assault.

    His sexual battery case caused serious injury, according to his charges in the file.

    ICE Houston nabbed Oramas this week, enforcing a deportation order first handed down in October 2003—21 years overdue.

    Maradiaga-Villalta, a 40-year-old alien from Honduras, has convictions for smuggling aliens into the U.S. He was arrested recently by ICE in Phoenix. His first deportation order dates back to January 2006, a 19-year lapse in action.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Democratic Policies At Work: ‘Almost Half’ Of Seattle’s Homeless Population Is Not From Seattle.”

    A new study from the Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness reveals the devastating consequences of Seattle’s failed policies, which have not only failed to address homelessness but have actively worsened the crisis, according to 770 KTTH.

    Driven by progressive ideology rather than practical solutions, city leaders have fostered a system that attracts homeless individuals from outside the region while keeping them trapped in cycles of addiction, crime, and dependency.

    Rather than tackling the root causes, these policies have invited more homelessness, turning the issue into a manufactured disaster rather than a problem to be solved.

    The study reveals that nearly half of the city’s homeless population became homeless outside of Seattle or King County, drawn in by the city’s permissive policies—free tents, open-air drug use, and a refusal to enforce encampment laws. An overwhelming 86.6% were born elsewhere, and 80.2% didn’t even attend high school in the area.

    As in Austin, homeless programs in Seattle are not designed to solve the homeless problem, they’re designed to provide conduits of graft to the far left.

  • First drone intercepted with a laser in Russo-Ukrainian War.
  • “Texas Joins Coalition Lawsuit Against New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act. The New York law seeks to penalize energy producers for emissions dating back to 2000.”

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with a coalition of 22 states and several industry groups, has initiated legal action against New York over its Climate Change Superfund Act.

    “New York’s law is nothing more than an unconstitutional shakedown of vital American energy industries that form the bedrock of our national economic independence,” said Paxton.

    The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the act, which seeks to impose significant financial burdens on energy producers for past greenhouse gas emissions.

    New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, signed into law in December 2024, aims to collect approximately $75 billion over the next 25 years from oil and gas companies to fund “climate change adaptation” and infrastructure projects within the state. It retroactively holds energy producers accountable for emissions dating back to 2000, regardless of whether the companies operate within New York.

    New York is quite ambitiously stupid to cram two different unconstitutional provisions into a single law, adding a lack of jurisdiction cherry on top of an ex post facto sundae…

  • Transsexual madness is alive and well in the Democratic Party. “Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers introduces budget recommendation that replaces ‘mother’ with ‘inseminated person.'”
  • Jeff Bezos made liberal heads explode with an editorial shift at the Waswhington Post.

    Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is overhauling the paper’s opinion section and shifting its editorial stance towards defending personal freedom and free markets.

    Bezos emailed Washington Post employees Wednesday morning to inform them of the dramatic change and told them contrary opinions could be found elsewhere.

    “I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages,” Bezos wrote. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars can be left to be published by others,” Bezos added.

    “There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.”

    Bezos’s announcement, which he posted on X after emailing it to Post staffers, also revealed that opinion editor David Shipley opted against staying on in the role given the section’s new direction.

    I think Bezos has figured out that WaPo has a bad infestation of social justice, and the cheapest way to get rid of it is to publically announce policy changes that encourage the SJW termite to quit…

  • Apple to invest $500 billion in America.

    The latest onshoring trend, spurred by President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports, has led to a major announcement from Apple. The company has embraced “Make America Great Again” with plans to hire 20,000 US workers to manufacture high-tech AI servers in the Heartland and invest hundreds of billions of dollars in new factories.

    Bloomberg reports Apple plans to unleash a tsunami of investments in the US, upwards of $500 billion over the next four years, including a new AI server manufacturing plant in Houston, Texas, and a supplier academy in Michigan.

    This disclosure comes just days after President Trump announced that Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to relocate manufacturing operations from Mexico to the US.

    He’s investing hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said after his meeting with Cook at the end of last week, adding that the executive is ramping up US investments because he wants to avoid tariffs.

    Earlier this month, Trump imposed a 10% US levy on Chinese imports, where Apple manufactures most of its iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other products. In a tit-for-tat effort, Beijing announced retaliatory tariffs on US goods shortly after.

    Apple’s $500 billion investment and promise to add 20,000 new US jobs over Trump’s second term is more evidence that corporate America is more willing to participate in onshoring efforts this time.

    I live less than a mile away from Apple’s Austin campus, so it would be nice if they could open some technical writer recs there…

  • On the other hand, somebody on Apple’s programming team needs firing for their shenanigans.
  • Connecticut puts a cannibal back on the streets.

    A man accused of cannibalism and murder has been granted conditional release, according to the Connecticut Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB).

    The board granted Tyree Smith’s release after a careful review of his clinical progress, officials said.

    He’s currently at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. Smith is accused of hacking a man to death with an axe in Bridgeport and eating part of the victim’s brain and an eyeball….Smith stood trial for the murder of Angel Gonzalez with an axe and consumed parts of the victim’s brain and eyeball in 2011. He was found not guilty because of insanity in 2013 and ordered confined to Whiting Forensic Hospital for 60 years.

    I apologize if you find this story…

    ( •_•)
    ( •_•)>⌐■-■
    (⌐■_■)

    …unappetizing.

  • “East Texas Teacher Charged With Child Porn and Bestiality.”

    An East Texas teacher and her boyfriend have been arrested on child pornography charges.

    Authorities allege the couple had child sexual abuse images and video of her performing a sexual act on a male dog on their phones.

    Hillary Danielle Williams, 33, was arrested Saturday in Lufkin and charged with bestiality and possession with intent to promote child pornography.

    Her partner, 37-year-old Michael Scott McCary, was charged with possession of child pornography.

    Texas public schools seem to have let some real filthy degenerates teach kids…

  • “New Caney ISD Teacher, Coach Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison for Sex With Student. Samantha Cummings had sex with a 17-year-old female student at New Caney High School.”
  • Liberals are staging a boycott today in a vain attempt to prove they matter, so now would be a good day to buy something from Amazon or Walmart. In fact, today I went to Walmart for the first time in, I don’t know, probably over a year…
  • What happens when a Detroit water main breaks during a deep freeze? This.
  • The difficulty of restoring Se7en.
  • A drag race between a Koenigsegg Jesko and a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. Just in case you were wondering which multi-million dollar hypercar you should buy…
  • Golfer 1, Gator 0.
  • “Federal Judge Declares Constitution Unconstitutional.”
  • “Congressional Gridlock After DOGE Fires Only Government Employee With Key To Capitol.”
  • “Trump Claimed, Without Evidence, That 2+2 Makes 4. Not So Fast, Experts Say.”
  • Gobble, gobble/Gobble, gobble/We accept you!/One of us!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for November 24, 2023

    Friday, November 24th, 2023

    Happy Black Friday, everyone! (Here’s my prepping/gift guide, if you haven’t seen it already.) I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Some interesting international election results, unreasonable gun control legislation gets struck down in two different states, more legal trouble for Houston Democrats, and a weed company goes bankrupt. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Bidenomics Is Making This The Most Expensive Thanksgiving In History.”

    The average price American families will have to pay to celebrate Thanksgiving with a traditional dinner will be the most expensive in history after years of sky-high inflation that experts attribute partially to President Joe Biden’s policies, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

    The price of all goods has risen dramatically under Biden following a period of sustained high inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in March 2022 and has since remained elevated, measuring at 3.2% in October, while the index for food rose 3.3% year-over-year for the month. The total increase in costs for a Thanksgiving dinner is about 26% since the beginning of Biden’s term, culminating in the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner in history.

  • Don’t buy the cookies. “Girl Scouts To Host Training Sessions On ‘Internalized Racism,’ ‘White Supremacy Culture.'” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “While Hamas Planned Its Attack on Israel, Biden’s Intel Community Was Focused On Climate Change.”
  • To the surprise and shock of the international community, Argentina elects an Anarcho-Capitalist president.

    In a surprising turn of events, Argentina has elected the libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its new president. The hotly contested presidential run-off saw Milei defeating left-wing candidate Sergio Massa — a consequential shift in the country’s political landscape. Massa brusquely conceded on Sunday night, stating, “Milei is the president elected for the next four years.”

    The victory of Milei, a self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist,” introduces an unconventional leader with what are considered to be radical economic views relative to Argentina’s neighbors. His campaign, characterized by anti-establishment rhetoric and metaphorical gestures such as wielding a chainsaw to show his fervor for cutting taxes, resonated with voters frustrated by Argentina’s economic decrepitude, including triple-digit inflation. One of Milei’s key proposals is the adoption of the U.S. dollar as Argentina’s national currency, an unprecedented move for a country of its size (Argentina is home to some 45.8 million people).

    Massa — a lifelong politician and representative of Argentina’s left-wing political establishment — emphasized his government’s actions to address inflation during his tenure.

    But Milei’s appeal, particularly among the younger generation, suggests a desire for change to break free from the cycle of economic crises.

    Milei’s victory has produced excitement and concern alike. While some see him as the catalyst for much-needed economic reforms, others fear the potential austerity measures tied to his plans, such as shutting the central bank and slashing spending. Despite the uncertainty, Milei’s supporters view him as the only viable option to break the political status quo and address Argentina’s persistent and extreme economic challenges.

    The election is not just a political shift but also a generational one, with Milei’s popularity among the youth reflecting a desire for a new direction. The effect of Milei’s win extends beyond Argentina’s borders, potentially influencing trade relationships, especially with his criticism of China and Brazil and his preference for stronger ties with the United States. As for the U.S., the hour is late, and we’ll take all the friends we can get, and Argentina is doubly welcome because the Millennium must be nigh if a libertarian won an election outside of New Hampshire.

    Note: Linking to MSN rather than NRO because the latter has now raised it’s war against ad-blockers to obnoxious levels. Year-by-year, the TDS-infected NR has become ever-more sad and useless.

  • Of course, Milei also says Argentina claims sovereignty over The Falklands, so you have to take the bad with the good.
  • Speaking of election results the international community finds “unacceptable,” Geert Wilders anti-Jhad Freedom Party came in first in elections in The Netherlands.

    Geert Wilders, the Dutch populist whose anti-Islam comments have led to death threats, could become the next leader of the Netherlands following an election upset for his Freedom Party (PVV) on Wednesday.

    After 25 years in Dutch politics without holding office, Wilders was set to lead coalition government talks and has a good chance of becoming prime minister.

    An exit poll on Wednesday evening showed the PVV in a clear lead, 10 seats ahead of its closest rival, Frans Timmermans’ Labour/Green Left combination.

    “We will have to find ways to live up to the hopes of our voters, to put the Dutch back as number one”, Wilders said in his first response, adding that “the Netherlands will be returned to the Dutch, the asylum tsunami and migration will be curbed.”

  • “The 4th Circuit Says Maryland’s Handgun Licensing Law Is Unconstitutional.”

    Maryland is one of 14 states that require background checks for all firearm purchases, whether or not the seller is a federally licensed dealer. Since 2013, Maryland has imposed an additional requirement on handgun buyers: They must first obtain a “handgun qualification license,” which entails completing at least four hours of firearm training and undergoing a seemingly redundant “investigation” aimed at screening out people who are legally disqualified from owning guns. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, that process, which can take up to 30 days, violates the Second Amendment.

    In a decision published on Tuesday, a divided 4th Circuit panel concluded that Maryland’s handgun ownership licensing system is not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Writing for the majority in Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore, 4th Circuit Judge Julius Richardson notes that Bruen “effected a sea change in Second Amendment law,” making a variety of gun control laws newly vulnerable to constitutional challenges. Maryland’s handgun licensing law is the latest example.

  • Speaking of unconstitutional gun laws being struck down: “It turns out that bullets are an essential part of a gun, and limiting the number of rounds in a gun violates the Oregon constitution. A county judge in Oregon made that decision on Tuesday overturning Measure 114, a citizen-passed measure that outlawed what gun grabbers call ‘high capacity magazines’ and required that Oregon serfs get a permit to be allowed to purchase a gun.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Funny how no Arab nation wants to take in Palestinians. They know the simple truth: They suck.

    The Palestinians tried to take over Jordan in the 1970s, leading to the late King Hussein declaring war on them and driving them out. They were booted from Kuwait after collaborating with Saddam Hussein’s forces before the Gulf War. They set off a powder keg in Lebanon, a nation that has yet to recover from its brutal civil war that lasted 15 years. No Arab country wants these people because they bring instability and trouble.

    (Hat tip: Instapundut.)

  • California’s Democratic convention gets derailed by all the vibrant diversity.
  • Outgoing Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner gets to enjoy a new host of scandals on his way out.

    As term-limited Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner finishes his final days at the helm of the state’s most populous city, a new set of scandals have emerged over city contracts and a dispute over who will pay for a book touting the mayor’s legacy.

    In the most recent dustup, an investigation by Houston’s KPRC 2 discovered that city contracts for much-needed water repairs were awarded to two relatives of Houston Public Works (HPW) employee Patrece Lee, including one for $4.5 million to Lee’s brother, who had only created his company six months before the city council approved the “emergency contracts.”

    When KPRC reporter Amy Davis attempted to question Turner about the issue at a public event last week, Turner became irate and told his communications director to escort Davis from the room.

    “You are not going to get away with this,” said Turner to Davis. “You are rude.”

    Late Friday, HPW Director Carol Haddock announced that the employee had been placed on leave while the city’s Office of the Inspector General investigated the allegations.

    In another contract scandal, Houston Landing media reported last week that the Midtown Redevelopment Authority had referred information to law enforcement on a since-fired manager who allegedly steered more than $4 million in taxpayer-funded landscaping contracts to himself and another contractor.

    The latest developments came hard on the heels of Turner’s squabble with Houston First Corporation, the city’s marketing organization. During the “State of the City” luncheon last September, hosted by Houston First, attendees were given copies of Turner’s book “A Winning Legacy,” which celebrates the mayor’s accomplishments during his eight years in office.

    As first reported by Bill King, Turner told President and CEO Michael Heckman that Houston First must pay a $123,979 invoice for the 600 copies, but Heckman refused, saying it was not in the corporation’s budget and not an appropriate expense. Houston First Chairman David Mincberg later told FOX 26 that the corporation would develop a strategy to raise private funds to pay for the books.

    Controversy has also surrounded Turner’s management of city finances. Last year, Controller Chris Brown warned that the city was using $160 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to plug budget holes and even to cover ongoing expenses.

  • Speaking of governments in trouble for spending Flu Manchu funds on other priorities, Germany is also in trouble for pulling the same trick after their high court told them to stop. As Europeans, spending within their means is unacceptable, so they’re now plotting to suspend debt limits…
  • Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorses Donald Trump for President. This is interesting in that Abbott is a careful, cautious Republican, who might be more ideologically inclined to endorse Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. That Abbott has endorsed Trump indicates he thinks Trump is a lock for the 2024 nomination. He may be right.
  • “Stacey Abrams’ Brother-In-Law Arrested, Accused Of Human Trafficking, Choking Underage Girl…Jimmie Gardner, a well-known Georgia-based youth motivational speaker, is accused of human trafficking, lewd or lascivious touching, and battery…According to the Tampa Police Department, Gardner invited a 16-year-old girl to his hotel room in the early hours of Friday, offering to pay her for sexual acts.” Sounds like the wrong sort of youth motivation…
  • “Paxton Impeachment Leader Andrew Murr Won’t Seek Re-Election.” Good.
  • Ouch! “450 Patients at Massachusetts Hospital Possibly Exposed to Hepatitis and HIV.”
  • You know you suck at business when you can’t make money selling pot to Californians. HERBL, California’s largest pot distributor, collapsed with $17 million in unpaid taxes.
  • Speaking of weed, the Snoop Dogg announcement turned out to be a head fake to flack for a smokeless outdoor fireplace.
  • Alabama woman with two uteruses is pregnant with twins…one in each womb.
  • The Critical Drinker liked The Killer.
  • Wish is shaping up to be the latest Disney box office disaster.
  • “Palestinian Authority Warns That Gaza Hospitals Running Dangerously Low On Ammunition.”
  • “10 Clues The Hospital You’re At Is Actually A Hamas Base.

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for December 24, 2022

    Saturday, December 24th, 2022

    I just ran out of time to post all the links I had for yesterday’s LinkSwarm, so here’s the rest.

  • “Life expectancy in the US declined by 5% last year, lowest level since 1996.”

    Life expectancy in the United States last year dropped to its lowest point in a quarter century, and it’s not all because of Covid.

    Last year saw a 5% decline in life expectancy for Americans, dropping to under 77 years of age.

    And while some experts want to try to tie the drop to Covid-19, the numbers reveal that there’s much more at work here than people being killed by the China Virus. There’s another epidemic that is killing Americans at an alarming rate: The Opioid Epidemic.

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    Covid-19 was the third-leading cause of death for a second consecutive year in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, and a rising number of drug-overdose deaths also dragged down life expectancy. Overdose deaths have risen fivefold over the past two decades.

    The death rate for the U.S. population increased by 5%, cutting life expectancy at birth to 76.4 years in 2021 from 77 years in 2020. The CDC in August released preliminary estimates demonstrating a similar decline. Before the pandemic, in 2019, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 78.8 years. The decline in 2020 was the largest since World War II.

    While the drop coincides with the Covid pandemic, the increased numbers aren’t caused by the disease alone.

    The leading cause of death in the US is still heart disease and cancer.

    Then there’s the opioid epidemic.

    The country during the pandemic has recorded more than 1.2 million excess deaths, which is a measure of all deaths beyond prior-year averages and can represent both undercounted Covid-19 deaths and collateral damage from other causes, including more overdoses. The CDC put the final count for 2021 overdose deaths at about 106,700, a record that is 16% higher than the prior year. The final count differs from a preliminary count for last year that topped 108,000 because the CDC in its final counts doesn’t include overdose deaths that occurred among non-U. S. residents.

    Opioid deaths increased because of lockdowns.

    People locked in their homes are more likely to have heart disease.

    Thousands and thousands and thousands of people missed cancer screenings and got lesser treatment thanks to lockdowns.

    As we covered here at NTB recently, the excess deaths we are seeing aren’t because of Covid, but the lockdowns.

  • Speaking of unexpected post-Flu Manchu deaths, Pfizer and Moderna are suing each other.

    n August of this year, I reported that Moderna is suing Pfizer and BioNTech for infringing patents that are key to Moderna’s mRNA technology platform that was used to develop the covid vaccine.

    In response, Pfizer has now countersued Moderna.

    The ongoing legal battle now sees Pfizer and its partner BioNTech reject its rival’s claims it copied the shot.

    Pfizer has accused Moderna of rewriting history, and dubbed its lawsuit ‘revisionist history’.

    Manhattan-based Pfizer requested from a federal court in Boston that Moderna’s lawsuit be dismissed.

    Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, fired back at Moderna on Monday in a patent lawsuit over their rival Covid-19 vaccines.

    They are seeking dismissal of the lawsuit in Boston federal court and an order that Moderna’s patents are invalid and not infringed.

    We need effective biotech companies that are not infected by politics or social justice. Unfortunately, those don’t appear to be the companies we have.

    Pfizer asserts their vaccine technology was arrived at through independent research.

  • Commies never change.

    Everything you need to know about the motives and methods of the 21st-century Left can be learned from studying 20th-century Communism. What Mises said about Marx and Engels, and the ad hominem quality of their rhetoric — slander and insults, rather than actual arguments — was even more true of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, et al. Having once seized power, the Bolsheviks immediately proceeded to suppress all potential rivals. Within a month, they established the Cheka (predecessor of the NKVD and, later, the KGB) and appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky as its leader. Eight months later, the Red Terror began in earnest, and within a matter of weeks, the Bolsheviks had summarily executed more victims than were sentenced to death in the entire preceding century by the Tzarist regime

    Snip.

    The other day I wrote a piece about how the Left can’t argue anymore. My thesis was pretty simple: because they have owned the cultural means of production so long they have lost the need for or ability to argue things logically.

    I still believe that. Having rarely been exposed to a conservative argument that [they] haven’t been able to dismiss merely through repeated ridicule the Left pretty much only engages in ad hominem attacks. Even very smart prominent Lefties . . . seem incapable of doing much more than insulting their opponents any more. It all boils down to Bad Orange Man or MAGA simps. . . .

    But I ran into a slightly different perspective on the matter while cruising Twitter, and I think it deserves consideration: sometimes, at least, the person throwing out an absurd take isn’t actually hoping to convince you of anything. They are, rather, trying to discredit the source and do nothing more. The ad hominem attack is the only point — to destroy the credibility of their opponent, without actually convincing you of any particular argument.

    Thus the need to label anything that refutes The Narrative as “disinformation.”

  • “‘Hyde Amendment’ Equivalent for Gender Modification Filed in Texas House.”

    State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) filed proposed legislation to prohibit state tax dollars from being used to pay for gender modification procedures.

    House Bill 1029 states, “No funds authorized or appropriated by State law shall be expended for any gender reassignment.”

    “Just as the Hyde Amendment, which has enjoyed bipartisan support for almost 50 years, bans tax dollars from funding abortions, I’m proud to file a bill which protects Texans from being forced to pay for their neighbor’s sex change,” Harrison said in a statement. “Irrespective of how anyone views these procedures, it should be uncontroversial that tax money should not fund them.”

    Harrison added that the bill was filed in response to a statement made by President Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra that public money should be used to provide these procedures to those who want them.

  • On the same theme: “Kristi Noem’s Health Department Fires Transgender Group Ahead of ‘Gender Summit.'”

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, directed her state Department of Health to terminate a contract with The Transformation Project, a transgender activist group that is hosting a “Gender Identity Summit” next month, after The Daily Signal drew the governor’s attention to the summit and the group.

    “Gov. Kristi Noem is reviewing all Department of Health contracts and immediately terminated a contract with The Transformation Project,” Ian Fury, Noem’s chief of communications, told The Daily Signal on Friday. “The contract was signed without Gov. Noem’s prior knowledge or approval.”

    Fury sent The Daily Signal a copy of the document dissolving the state contract.

    “South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,” Noem told The Daily Signal in a statement provided by Fury. “We should not be dividing our youth with radical ideologies. We should treat every single individual equally as a human being.”

    Fury said that The Transformation Project had not complied with its state contract. The organization had failed “to submit required quarterly reports for two consecutive quarters,” among other violations.

    All funding to any radical social justice group should be cut, and the people responsible for funding them fired for cause.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Even Sweden is done with the transexual nonsense.

    The very progressive and liberal nation of Sweden is showing that they still have at least a little bit of common sense in health leadership.

    Sweden has decided to cut ties with WPATH, the World Professional Association of Transgender Health because they’re a bunch of activists.

    Swedish health authorities have officially broken ranks with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) with the announcement that gender clinics will no longer be attempting to perform experimental sex changes on under-18s but will instead offer “psychological support to help youth live with the healthy body they were born with.”

    According to an article published in the Swedish medical journal Läkartidningen, new guidelines will be published before the end of the year advising against puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery for under 18s. This is in direct contrast with the WPATH Standards of Care 8 (SOC8) released earlier this year which advises affirmation and medical intervention as the first line of treatment for gender-confused minors.

    Sweden is rejecting these recommendations because it’s clearly an extreme measure to do sex change operations on minors.

    However, the Biden admin has told us that they’re totally on board with the radical recommendations.

  • “Oh look, Biden’s cross-dressing, women’s-luggage-stealing nuclear waste official also helped craft an LGBT school policy adopted by districts around the country.” Maybe we shouldn’t have freaks like Sam Brinton running the asylum.
  • How come a Dalton, GA Walmart has sex toys being sold next to children’s toothbrushes?
  • I’m shocked, shocked to discover that two-time loser Democrat Stacey Abrams is bad with money.

    Despite surpassing her 2018 fundraising record, Stacey Abrams’s 2022 Georgia gubernatorial campaign fell into deep debt due to reckless expenditures, according to staffers and operatives who worked on the failed campaign.

    The campaign still owes more than $1 million to vendors, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo confirmed to Axios.

    Some of the campaign’s lavish expenditures included the rental of a home near Piedmont Park in Atlanta, which Abrams envisioned as a “hype house” for TikTok videos but which was ultimately underutilized, staffers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some aides occupied the empty large house as a work space. It can now be rented for $12,500 a month, the publication noted.

    The campaign’s youth outreach strategy also proved pricey. Against the better judgement of many staffers, who found the idea irresponsible, Abrams launched a pop-up shop and “swag truck” to hand out merchandise, such as T-shirts and hoodies.

    Abrams burned through cash on polls that ended up being inconsequential and consultants whose contributions were unclear, staffers also said.

    Many employees in the campaign were given generous salaries compared to other candidates’ teams. For example, the campaign advertised paid canvasser jobs at $15 an hour, higher than the typical rate, according to a Georgia Tech blog discovered by the Journal-Constitution.

    Benefitting from glossy, identity-focused coverage, Abrams brought in nearly $98 million as of early November. Yet, her campaign nearly ran out of money in the final stretch. Most of the 180 full-time staffers who worked for her were told they’d receive their last paycheck just a week after Election Day, according to Axios.

  • “‘Walk Away’ Founder Brandon Straka Sues MSNBC Hosts For Defamation Over False Statements.”
  • YouTube bans Pornhub.

    YouTube has banned the official Pornhub account, which boasted more than 900,000 followers, after repeated violations.

    The platform’s move comes in the wake of other Big Tech companies, like Meta/Instagram and TikTok, removing such accounts. Other corporations, like Visa, Mastercard, Roku, Comcast, Unilever, Kraft-Heinz, and PayPal, have also cut ties with Pornhub.

    “Upon review, we terminated the channel Pornhub Official following multiple violations of our Community Guidelines,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon said, according to Variety. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate or are dedicated to violative content are terminated.”

    MindGeek, Pornhub’s parent company, has been hit with multiple lawsuits from survivors of child sex trafficking who claim videos of their abuse were platformed on the pornographic site.

  • Dispatches from Generation Eloi: “NYC Students Refuse To Leave Campus Building Until They’re Given All “A” Grades.” I’d not only give them all Fs, I’d erase any earned credits and expel them without a refund. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Texas Legislator Files Prohibition Against Higher Education Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Offices.”

    A ban on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices within institutions of higher education has been filed in the Texas House.

    State Representative-elect Carl Tepper (R-Lubbock) filed House Bill (HB) 1006 that requires higher education institutions in Texas to “foster a diversity of viewpoints [and] maintain political, social, and cultural neutrality.”

    The teeth of the bill command these universities to “demonstrate a commitment to intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” by eliminating DEI offices or anything like them “beyond what is necessary to uphold the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

    It also allows anyone to bring forth civil action against an entity for violation of the prohibition, something Tepper confirmed was modeled after a similar mechanism within the Texas Heartbeat Act.

    Additionally, the definition of “expressive activities” protected under state law is expanded to include “published or unpublished faculty research, lectures, writings, and commentary.”

    Tepper told The Texan, “These offices have been out of control for a while now and people are getting really frustrated with them.”

    Faster, please.

  • Weather update: Some power outages in central Texas, but no more than 2-3 thousand. As of this writing, the outage map only shows 109 homes without power in the Austin area.

    • Merry Christmas!

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    Posted in Austin, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    Liveblogging the 2022 Election

    Tuesday, November 8th, 2022

    Right now Republicans in 2022 are looking like a Kickstarter that hit their initial funding ask, but didn’t hit any of their stretch goals…

    Republican John Kennedy avoids a runoff in Louisiana. NY Post/RCP: “Republicans were expected to pick up three Senate seats from Democrats, gaining a 53-47 majority after two years out of power, according to the latest projection by RealClearPolitics. The same outlet predicts the GOP will regain their House majority by winning at least 227 seats.”

    “Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria has lost her bid for re-election in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district to Republican State Sen. Jen Kiggans. Luria, a veteran naval officer, was elected to the House of Representatives as part of a Democratic wave in 2018. In the past year, she has risen in prominence as a member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”

    Yeah, you can see how important voters found the January 6 farce.

    Going off to walk my dogs. Republicans had a good night, and will likely take the House and Senate, but not any better than you might expect in a regular midterm, and not nearly as much as you might expect with a president as unpopular as Biden.

    Beto concedes. So long, and thanks for the $160 million!

    Cahill, U.S. Marshall. Must be George Kennedy Night.

    Paxton back up over Garza.

    Beto O’Rourke’s livecam is running on a 56K modem.

    Abbott giving a victory speech.

    J. D. Vance projected winner in Ohio, and flip from the way-to-early returns.

    Republicans behind in those south Texas US congressional seats.

    Walker leading Warnock in GA. According to Telemundo. Because with mute, it isn’t any less informative.

    The ABC network dude looks like he has a haircut from Frank Gehry.

    Ha! DeSantis is WALLOPING Charlie Crist, 60%-40%

    So far not a good night for Republicans in Arizona.

    Eric Scmitt wins in Missouri.

    Chris Sununu looks like football pundit Peter King.

    Honestly, I’m seeing a red wave, but not the red tsunami some were predicting in the last week.

    Williamson County judge too close to call. Possibly headed to a runoff.

    Dan Patrick now up much more substantially in TXLT GOV race.

    Kemp wins in Georgia. Barring any 3 AM pipe breaks.

    Unfortunately, the Social Justice Warrior slate is up in RRISD races.

    Six years later, and we’re still laughing at the Jeb! meme.

    Pause while I get the doggies some food.

    OMG! Ron Paul is up 3 points!

    Now Patrick is leading Collier.

    KVUE is talking as though Beto might win. Nah, he’s toast.

    Austin commie twerp Greg Cesar is headed to the U.S. House. On behalf of Texas, we apologize in advance.

    Garza up just slightly over Paxton. Still early.

    KVUE’s team is sortof crap, but still better than anything else on.

    Abbott only wolloping Bobby Francis by 8 points right now.
    Collier/Patrick tied for Texas Lt. Gov. right now. Early votes tend to favor Dems, though.

    Looking like an Israel-Watson runoff in Austin mayor’s race.

    Democratic incumbent Bennet, he of the Presidential flameout, up big in Colorado.

    Election coverage, or the car wash scene from Cool Hand Luke? Circle, verily you tempt me!

    The people of News 24 are really blathering.

    Back. Had to lightly punch someone up request.

    Guam goes Republican!

    Sununu, DeSantis and Rubio all winning headily.

    Scury County recording ZERO votes for Dan Patrick? I call Shenanigans.

    VA7 flipping red.

    Chip Roy is crushing his opponent right now.

    Too early for meaningful Texas results.

    Stand by. We’re on the air.

    CNN’s exit polls are disasterous for Democrats.

    Charlie Crist: Less popular than Jeb!

    Back from voting. I’ve never seen higher turnout for a midterm, and possibly never higher turnout even for a Presidential year.

    “In a shocking turn of events, data analysts at Fox News have called the gubernatorial race in Arizona for Stacey Abrams.”

    538 now gives Dr. Oz the edge over Fetterman. But is it beyond the range of Philadelphia fraud?

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    LinkSwarm for September 23, 2022

    Friday, September 23rd, 2022

    California is (still) broke, Stacey Abrams is (still) not very bright, Joe Biden tried to deal gas to the commies, and the FBI can’t be bothered to investigate such trivia as “sex crimes involving children.” It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    

  • Remember how the State of Texas came in with record revenues and a $27 billion surplus? Well, the flip side is California, which just saw 11% personal income tax revenue drop. Funny how chasing away productive taxpayers through punitive taxation and insane over-regulation isn’t a recipe for success…
  • In a related story, U-Haul in California literally ran out of trucks leaving the state.
  • “Joe Biden Was Deeply Involved With Selling U.S. Natural Gas to the ChiComs, New Docs and Whistleblowers Reveal.”

    Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have obtained bombshell documents proving that Joe Biden was deeply involved in the family business of selling American natural gas to the Chinese–while he was planning to run for President. According to multiple whistleblowers, the Biden family made promises to those who worked with them in 2017 and onward that they would “reap the rewards in a future Biden administration.” These explosive revelations “pose national security concerns,” Oversight Republicans proclaimed Tuesday night.

    The Biden clan enriched itself by selling the natural resources to a Chinese firm closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—just a few years before the cost of gas in the United States hit record highs, the Oversight Republicans stated.

    In a letter to United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the ranking Republican on the Oversight Committee, alleged that according to whistleblowers, Joe Biden was heavily involved in this treachery.

    “This comes to light at a time when the cost of natural gas is at a 14-year high and Americans struggle to pay their energy bills,” Comer wrote in the letter to Yellen. “The President has not only misled the American public about his past foreign business transactions, but he also failed to disclose that he played a critical role in arranging a business deal to sell American natural resources to the Chinese while planning to run for President.”

    Comer sent a letter to Yellen in July complaining that the Treasury Department was restricting access to over 150 Suspicious Activity reports (SARs) on Hunter Biden, amid explosive revelations that came out from Biden’s “laptop from Hell,” and iPhone.

    On Sept. 2, 2022, the Treasury Department stated in a letter to Committee Republicans, that the SARs may be provided “upon a written request stating the particular information desired, the criminal, tax or regulatory purpose for which the information is sought, and the official need for the information.”

    In response, Comer said that “based on the documents provided in this letter, we request all SARs from Biden family transactions, including those involving President Biden, related to transactions with Chinese entities. We are concerned that the President may have compromised national security in his dealings with the country most adverse to U.S. interests—China. These SARs will inform our analysis of this matter.”

    Comer said Oversight Republicans have obtained a “presentation” emailed to Hunter Biden’s firm Hudson West III LLC (Hudson West) on December 13, 2017. The document, translated from Mandarin Chinese, is titled, “Overview of the U.S. Natural Gas Industry Chain, and is concerned with selling American natural resources to China.”

    “Jiaqi Bao, who created the presentation, was previously an employee of the CCP, and worked for Hunter Biden’s corporate entity Hudson West,” the letter states.

    Comer provided Yellen with two maps that were part of a presentation emailed to Hunter Biden. The maps include sophisticated analysis written in Chinese, and show the United States carved up based on natural gas reserves “with particular emphasis on Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.”

    “The emails that accompany the transmitted maps reveal a plan to sell natural gas reserves to China via the same corporate entity branded on the presentation-Hudson West III LLC (Hudson West)–set up by Hunter Biden with officials from the Chinese company CEFC, at the time, one of the largest oil companies in China,” the letter stated.

    (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt (and her shocked face) at Instapundit.)

  • Kurt Schlichter on New York State Attorney Letitia James filing a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump.

  • FBI investigations of child sex abuse claims are no longer a priority with all these conservatives and Trump supporters they need to prosecute for WrongThink…
  • Speaking of enabling perverts: “Sex fiend gets ‘sweet’ deal from [Soror-backed] Manhattan DA Bragg on teen rape charge — then attacks 5 others.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Another groomer teacher. “Teacher charged with 24 sex crimes after posting TikToks of students, school says.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Russian Vehicles Flock To Georgian Border Following Partial Military Mobilization.” Don’t be sad! Die for Vlad!
  • Ukrainians capture a Russian T-90M, the most modern tank they’ve actually fielded. (The T-14 Armata is still MIA in the Russo-Ukrainian War…)
  • Meant to mention this last week: Republican J.D. Vance Now Leading Democrat Tim Ryan in Ohio U.S. Senate Race.
  • “Majority of Likely Voters Support Migrant Busing.” Suck it, Martha’s Vineyard.
  • US Bank CEOs: If China invades Taiwan, they can kiss their access to U.S. banks goodbye.
  • Stacey “Not Very Bright” Abrams claims that six-week old fetal heartbeats are “Manufactured’ to Help Men Control Women.”
  • New treatment sends Lupus patients into remission.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • RIP APD Officer Anthony “Tony” Martin.
  • Commies being commies, the Soviet Union tried to reorder the calendar. Just like the French Revolution, it didn’t work.
  • “Migrants Decline Newsom’s Offer Of Asylum In CA Since They Just Came From A Collapsing Communist Hellhole With No Electricity.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for September 9, 2022

    Friday, September 9th, 2022

    Ukraine is carving out big gains in Kharkiv, Texas is in the money, Biden taps Clinton’s bagman to divy up the graft manage climate change funds, more groomers unmasked, and some big changes in the UK. Plus a bit about tanks. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kharkiv has been extremely successful.
    • Ukrainian successes on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line are creating fissures within the Russian information space and eroding confidence in Russian command to a degree not seen since a failed Russian river crossing in mid-May.
    • Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv Oblast counteroffensives advanced to within 20 kilometers of Russia’s key logistical node in Kupyansk on September 8.
    • Ukrainian forces will likely capture Kupyansk in the next 72 hours, severely degrading but not completely severing Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum.
    • Ukrainian forces are continuing to target Russian GLOCs, command-and-control points, and ammunition depots in Kherson Oblast.

    

  • “Texas Tax Haul Soars By Record 26% in 2022 Fiscal Year.”

    On Thursday, the state comptroller reported that the Lone Star State’s tax revenue rocketed by 25.6% to a total of $75.21 billion.

    It’s only the fifth time since 1988 that revenue grew by a double-digit percentage — and it’s double the next largest increase over that 34-year span.

    “Revenues continue to outpace even our most recent forecast as All Funds tax collections closed the fiscal year $841 million above the projection in our Certification Revenue Estimate,” said state Comptroller Glenn Hegar in an official release.

    That’s a stark contrast to California, which saw July revenue come in 12% below forecast.

    Texas has been a major beneficiary of migration from California: Over the last census cycle, 34% of new Texans arrived from California alone. Meanwhile, New York saw personal income tax collection fall 3.2% from April 1 through July.

  • “Biden Brings in Professional Bagman John Podesta to Divvy Up the $316 Billion in Climate Change Money to DNC Donors Ahead of Midterm Election.”

    Joe Biden has hired John Podesta to be the new Clean Energy Czar, citing his experience in progressive causes….

    Bottom line, John Podesta is being now being hired to divvy up the $316 billion in Green New Deal money recently authorized by congress. That is what Podesta specializes in, the distribution of taxpayer money to DNC allied groups and networks in advance of the 2022 midterms. Podesta, Hillary’s fixer, is a bagman, nothing more.

  • Worse, one of the many bag clients he’s adept at channeling money into Democratic pockets for is China.

    President Joe Biden on Friday tapped John Podesta to oversee $370 billion in climate spending, a move that has China hawks on Capitol Hill concerned over Podesta’s encouragement of Chinese investment in American infrastructure and praise for the top U.S. adversary on climate change.

    Podesta has called for Chinese investment in American infrastructure, arguing in 2013 that there are “great opportunities for Chinese firms to directly invest in this nation, to build American infrastructure, to create American jobs, and generate steady and handsome returns.” He added, “There’s also the ability for Chinese firms to invest here and learn best practices, and take those home to the tremendous and growing middle class market in China.”

    Instead, in the intervening decade, the Chinese government has committed widespread economic espionage—one 2017 estimate found that China steals up to $600 billion in trade secrets a year. Engineers in China, meanwhile, use popular social media platform TikTok to access nonpublic data from U.S. users.

    Podesta has also praised China’s efforts to combat climate change, arguing in 2015 that the Chinese “are beginning to do a fair amount.” China, which is the world’s top carbon emitter, went on to dramatically accelerate its coal consumption, which reached a record high in 2020.

    That record has China hawks on the Hill concerned that America’s top adversary has a new—and powerful—ally in the White House. Podesta’s role will see the liberal consultant implement $370 billion in spending toward alternative energy, a sector that China dominates when it comes to raw materials. As such, alternative energy companies receiving the Podesta-steered funding could turn to China to secure supplies. The new Biden aide will likely take no issue with that dynamic, given that he has argued the United States and China should “align” on a green economy. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Ted Cruz (R., Texas) argued that the move reflects the White House’s soft-on-China stance.

    (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)

  • Russia halts natural gas to EU, saying it won’t resume until sanctions are lifted.
  • Related: “European energy trading risks collapse over $1.5 trillion in margin calls.” Seems like there’s a lot of news about margin calls this week…
  • More European fun: Greece and Turkey are slouching toward war with each other.
  • “Teachers’ Union Boss Admits Teachers Have Become ‘Social Justice Warriors.'” Randi Weingarten is the gift that keeps giving. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “California Gov. Newsom Reaped $10.6 Million In Campaign Cash From 979 State Vendors Who Pocketed $6.2 Billion.”
  • Democratic County Administrator Robert Telles charged in the death of journalist Jeff German, “an investigative reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had spent the last few months exposing misdeeds and turmoil in the official’s office.” For all Sundown Joe’s dark mutterings about “UltraMAGA,” it seems like Democrats are the ones doing all the killing…
  • “Special Master Order Reveals Biden’s Direct Involvement In Trump Raid.”
  • “More North Texas Teachers Charged with Sexual Assault of Students.”

    A now-former elementary school teacher previously charged with sexual abuse of a 7-year-old student was arrested again and charged with sexually assaulting a second victim.

    Victor Moreno, 28, was charged in July with continuous sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, and an improper relationship between a student and educator, a second-degree felony.

    The accused pedophile’s victim was a second-grade girl in Irving Independent School District, where Moreno was a teacher at the time of the alleged assaults during the 2020-2021 school year.

    Snip.

    Meanwhile, a teacher’s aide in Mesquite Independent School District was arrested Tuesday after being accused of engaging in inappropriate relationships with students.

    Bryan Garcia, 22, was charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child.

  • “American Library Association Removes Webpage Promoting ‘Secret’ LGBT Messaging In Libraries.”
  • Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says he might call it quits.
  • Chilean voters reject Social Justice constitution. Good.
  • “Germany: Green Politician Resigns After Inventing Nazi Death-Threats Against Himself.”
  • Queen Elizabeth II dead at age 96. As an American, I hold no truck with royalty, but she always struck me as a classy broad. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Stacey Abrams Announces That With A Heavy Heart She Will Succeed Elizabeth II As Queen.”
  • “Clinton nonprofit funneled $75,000 to ‘defund the police’ group.” This is my shocked face. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “Higher Ed’s New Woke Loyalty Oaths: A ballooning number of hiring and tenure decisions require candidates to express written fealty to political doctrines.” And you can bet those doctrines have nothing to do with constitutionally limited government based on universal rights…
  • Russia seems a lot more interested in selling T-14 Armata tanks abroad than in sending them to Ukraine.

  • Indeed, they’re talking about restarting old production lines to start manufacturing older BMP-2s. “The costs and challenges of bringing more modern designs into production are now surely aggravated by Western sanctions cutting access to many basic electrical components, requiring pricey and time-consuming workarounds.”
  • This is like a scene from a porn movie, only a lot creepier. “Las Vegas landlord requires tenant to sign sex contract in order to lease home.”
  • “Libs of TikTok returns to Twitter, threatens lawsuit if removed permanently.
  • The Supreme Court is going to bitchslap Eric Adams halfway to Albany: “Mayor Adams vows door-to-door checks on gun permits.”
  • Fat Leonard is on the lam.
  • “Employees Shocked as Lesbian Vegan Doughnut Shop Goes Out of Business.” The landlord hadn’t been paid for months, and the owners bounced paychecks to employees.
  • Take this, low prices! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “No turkey, however bloated and stupid, could ever be big enough to convey the mesmerising awfulness of Amazon’s billion dollar Tolkien epic.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Amazon is so confident that actual viewers will hate it that they put a three day waiting period on reviews. In any case, here the one-star reviews they allowed to slip through. Makes you wonder what other reviews they’re manipulating… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.
  • “Kim Kardashian Is Starting Her Own Private Equity Company.” Why not? But I’m betting being a genius at self-promotion doesn’t equate to being a genius at investing, especially since she’s starting in the middle of a fierce, widespread downturn…
  • Easiest way to win Dad of the Year? Pick your son up from school in a tank. Looks like a Scorpion light tank, most likely the FV107 Scimitar reconnaissance variant.
  • “FBI Drops Investigation After Discovering Trump’s Top Secret Nuclear Documents Were Just Print-Outs Of Hillary Clinton Emails.”

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud | 5 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for July 16, 2021

    Friday, July 16th, 2021

    Greetings, and welcome to a Friday LinkSwarm! Once again, this is a mixture new and ever-so-slightly older links.

    As for the whole Democratic lawmakers flee Texas to thwart election reform story, I don’t currently have any particular insights…
    

  • Suddenly Democrats are waking up to the fact that wokeness is not an electoral winner.

    The gist of the article is that many Democrats are just noticing the problem, which is laughable. The far-left, ultra-woke territory was staked out by all Democrats years ago. They can’t suddenly act like it’s only the fringe that feels this way and the mainstream Dems aren’t on board with the madness. Virtually every Democrat of note has been slobbering all over chances for woke posturing for years. There has been pushback but they’ve been dismissive of it, resorting to their boilerplate “RACIST!” retort each time.

    Snip.

    While watching the Democrats go mega-woke — especially this year — I’ve wondered aloud whether any of the party’s Beltway elite have recently had a conversation with a Democrat in flyover country. It would seem not.

    It’s not unthinkable that Dems running next year would do a temporary 180 on wokeness in an effort to dupe people into voting for them. In recent weeks, we’ve seen them pretend that it was Republicans who wanted to defund the police and also try to convince the public that they’ve always been fans of voter ID. If they’re now worried about the extremely woke look on top of those two issues, the internal polling must really be rattling them.

    Honestly, I don’t see how Democrats can uncouple themselves from the woke train they enthusiastically hooked themselves up to so long ago.

    The caveat is that we’ve seen this sort of articles before, and the madness still continues…
    

  • Old and Busted: Voters hate Kamala Harris. The new hotness: Her own staffers hate Kamala Harris:

    When Vice President Kamala Harris finally made the decision to visit the Mexico border last week, people inside her own office were blindsided by the news.

    For days, aides and outside allies had been calling and texting with each other about the political fallout that a potential trip would entail. But when it became known that she was going to El Paso, it left many scrambling, including officials who were responsible for making travel arrangements and others outside the VP’s office charged with crafting the messaging across the administration.

    The handling of the border visit was the latest chaotic moment for a staff that’s quickly become mired in them. Harris’ team is experiencing low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials. Much of the frustration internally is directed at Tina Flournoy, Harris’ chief of staff, a veteran of Democratic politics who began working for her earlier this year.

    In interviews, 22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials and associates of Harris and Biden described a tense and at times dour office atmosphere. Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.

    While much of the ire is aimed at Harris’ chief, two administration officials said the VP herself also bears responsibility for the way her office is run. “It all starts at the top,” said one of the administration officials, who like others requested anonymity to be able to speak candidly about a sensitive matter.

    “People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s—.”

    Of course, we’ve already seen similar reports before, but this one is a lot more nakedly critical. Having such deeply critical pieces launched at a sitting Democratic Vice President in their first year in office is highly unusual, to say the least. Either Harris really is horribly bad at managing her staff, or powerful people in the Biden administration have the knives out for her. Or both.

  • Federal officials gave Hunter Biden special treatment because of course they did.

    Last summer, federal officials in Delaware investigating Hunter Biden faced a dilemma. The probe had reached a point where prosecutors could have sought search warrants and issued a flurry of grand jury subpoenas. Some officials involved in the case wanted to do just that. Others urged caution. They advised Delaware’s U.S. Attorney, David Weiss, to avoid taking any actions that could alert the public to the existence of the case in the middle of a presidential election.

    “To his credit, he listened,” said a person involved in the discussions, reported here for the first time. Weiss decided to wait, averting the possibility that the investigation would become a months-long campaign issue.

    Translation: They withheld the truth from the public because they wanted the Democrat to win.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • States ending extra Flu Manchu payments are are doing better than other states:

    Thanks to recently released Labor Department data on unemployment claims, we can now, quite predictably, see the welfare rolls expanding in the states where the unemployment bonus remains in place. Yet the number of people on welfare is rapidly shrinking in the states where the supplement is set to expire or already has expired.

    “The 26 states that have announced their plan to end participation in the $300 weekly unemployment bonus have seen a 12.7 percent decline on average in initial claims over the past week,” the fiscally-conservative Foundation for Government Accountability reports. “Meanwhile, states that have indicated they will continue participating in the unemployment bonus programs have seen an increase in initial claims by an average of 1.6 percent during this same period. The 12 states that have officially opted out of the $300 weekly bonus thus far have seen consistent declines each week since ending participation in the bonus.”

    In other words, people are leaving the welfare rolls and returning to work in the states where the government is getting out of the way. They are not doing so as much in the states where expanded welfare continues to create dysfunctional incentives.

  • Could San Francisco residents finally be fed up with turning their city into an open-air drug market?

    Tucked deep in San Francisco’s sixth district is Dodge Place, a residential street located in the notorious Tenderloin neighborhood. It’s been overtaken by drug users who come to get high, descend into madness, and then destroy themselves and their surroundings. Dodge is a dead end, literally and figuratively—a combat zone, with all sides fighting for their lives.

    Citizens’ cries for backup have gone virtually unanswered. Elected officials and government bodies from the district’s supervisor, Matt Haney, to the Department of Public Health have abandoned residents so completely that it’s hard not to wonder if the neglect isn’t deliberate.

    Though most of the sixth district, an area that includes City Hall, already rivals the world’s worst slums for its inhumane conditions, Dodge Place is a particularly intense concentration of immiseration. In effect, the dead-end street is at the end of a funnel, into which flow customers from San Francisco’s most rampant illegal drug trade. In fact, mere steps away from the street, residents recently held a rally against the scourge of fentanyl, the potent synthetic opioid responsible for the majority of the city’s fatal overdoses. Organized by journalist Michael Shellenberger, the rally focused on Jacqui, a distraught mother searching for her addicted, homeless son. Jacqui pleaded for help, and community members raged against the city’s inaction. Politicians gave speeches, including Haney, who proclaimed his outrage, conceded government’s failings, and told the crowd to hold him accountable.

    Yet the death toll from drug abuse continues to escalate. Data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner indicate that fatal overdoses this year in San Francisco are on pace to exceed the 2020 total, a record-breaking year in which more than 700 died.

    Hanging around in the Tenderloin is dangerous. Gangs rule the drug-dealing business. Scores of dealers, nearly all young males from Mexico and Central America, openly sell narcotics. Gunfire and homicides are common. On June 14, the San Francisco Police Department’s Tenderloin station reported three shooting incidents, with five victims, and 29 arrests on the corner. Law enforcement doggedly does its part, but the arrestees nearly always return to their spots within hours.

    As mayhem in the Tenderloin intensifies, many who have just made drug purchases drift over to Dodge Place so that they can use away from the drama. Once there, they create their own brand of chaos. The result is a place so bizarre and horrific that adequate descriptions sound hyperbolic.

    At any given time, dozens of people congregate in the small alley to inject or smoke their substance of choice. Teenagers to seniors, of all races and demographics, jab needles into their bloody, bloated limbs, hands, and feet. One inexplicably common figure is a man neatly dressed for a day at the office who drives syringes deep into other people’s necks. Soon after imbibing, users stand still as statues but bent at the waist, colloquially known as the “fentanyl fold.” Some collapse and crawl, while others sit listlessly on the curb, lining the walls. Or they wander, run, or flail, screaming at each other as well as invisible demons. Many urinate and defecate in their clothes, on the pavement or doorsteps.

    Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s George Soros-backed DA who refuses to prosecute drug dealers, is facing a recall election. This is the future that awaits Austin if Jose Garza stays in the DA’s office…

  • Los Angeles: Surprise! The mask mandate is back. Sounds like something that calls for widespread civil disobedience.
  • Vietnam is not the threat that China is, but don’t forget that their communist government still oppresses anyone who objects to their rule. “Vietnamese Dissident Writer Jailed for Five Years, Six Months by Hanoi Court. Pham Chi Thanh was charged under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, a law frequently used by authorities to stifle dissident voices.”
  • Being a black Democratic grifter really pays: “Stacey Abrams now owns two homes totaling $1.4M after starting 2018 campaign in massive debt.”
  • “Company Behind Keystone XL Pipeline Seeks $15B Damages After Biden Nixes Project.” As well they should.
  • Paul Ehrlich is spewing the same gloom and doom that’s proven wrong for the last half century.
  • “Basketball player uses nationally televised CBS interview to show off his ‘Free the Uyghurs’ T-shirt.” Good for him. Though, since this is Royce White, the first round draft pick who never suited up for the Rockets, “player” may be misleading in this case…
  • Democratic megadonor Ed Buck’s murder trial for giving young men fatal drug overdoses for sexual gratification finally gets under way. (Previously.)
  • Somebody hacked NATO’s cloud computing platform.
  • Kaseya VSA ransomware attack succeeded because the company didn’t include a NULL test for login bypass. Jesus. Freaking. Christ. That’s one of the first things you should set up in your QA automated regression testing suite.
  • Shenanigans at the College Republican National Committee?
  • Computers don’t argue. French woman Jeanne Pouchain spends five years trying to prove to authorities that she’s not dead.
  • Too unbelievable and unsubtle for fiction: “Lightning Strike Destroys George Floyd Mural in Toledo.”
  • Thinking outside the box:

  • How long does it take a ball to drop 1 KM on various bodies in our solar system?
  • “‘You Just Don’t Understand Socialism Like I Do,’ Says College Freshman To Man Who Escaped Socialism On A Raft.”
  • “Leftists Fear Communism Failing All The Time Is Making Communism Look Bad.”
  • “A Florida man stole an alligator from a mini-golf course and tried to heave the reptile onto the roof of a building to ‘teach it a lesson,’ authorities said.
  • Hey Bambi, do you like Phil Collins?
  • Hot dog:

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    Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for May 7, 2021

    Friday, May 7th, 2021

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! The Biden economy kicks in, China behaves badly (again), and rock stars are fed up with woke. Let’s lead off with this weird photo people have been taking about all week:

    Puppet people aside, what better image for the week in which Biden seems to be bringing stagflation back?

  • If you were wondering when the Trump boom would end and the Biden bust begin, it just did:

    U.S. job growth for the month of April fell far below what experts had predicted, as data reported Friday showed an increase of 266,000 jobs, versus an estimate of 1 million — the largest miss relative to expectations since at least 1998.

    Economists had suggested a positive outlook for the report, with the White House hoping for a gain of at least 700,000 jobs — making Joe Biden the first president ever to hit 2 million new jobs in his first 100 days. But expectations came crashing back to reality with data showing an overestimation of nearly 800,000 — the worst miss in decades.

    The U.S. unemployment rate rose slightly from 6.0 percent to 6.1. March’s payroll gains were also revised downward by nearly 150,000 jobs, from an initial print of 916,000 to 770,000. Labor force participation rate rose slightly, to 61.7 percent.

    Huh, irresponsible tax-and-spend policies, rampant inflation and paying people not to work evidently aren’t a recipe for economic success. Who knew?

  • Speaking of inflation, it looks like it’s back, baby! Rising metal, oil, and ag commodity prices all point to inflation. “Wood prices are at an all-time high at over $1,370 per 1,000 board feet.”
  • China pollutes more than the U.S. and all developing countries combined.
  • Speaking of China: Did Bill Gates dip his wang into Chinese spy Wang’s ‘tang??
  • Biden Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm owns stock in “Proterra, an electric vehicle company that is being actively promoted by the Biden administration. Further, Granholm being the Secretary of Energy means she gets to make regulations that can directly enrich herself.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Joe Biden lied about gun shows. Again.

    Joe Biden said today, “Most people don’t know: you walk into a store and you buy a gun, but you go to a gun show you can buy whatever you want and no background check.”

    This isn’t even close to being true. In fact, gun shows are subject to the same rules as apply everywhere else, which are that:

    1. commercial transfers require federal background checks, but that
    2. private transfers only require federal background checks if they are conducted within one of the thirteen states that superintend non-commercial firearms transactions

    There are no special rules for gun shows. The same set of laws applies to them as applies to, say, your kitchen table: If you are in the business of selling guns, you are federally obliged to run a check. If you are not, you are not — unless your state requires you to. That’s it. There’s no “loophole” here, and nothing about gun shows that separates them from the broader debate about private sales.

  • Lockdowns, riots and pushes to defund the police all lead up to cratering support for gun control among young people:

    A new poll from ABC and the Washington Post published on Wednesday found a significant drop in support for new gun-control laws, especially among young people.

    The number of Americans supporting enacting new gun laws over protecting gun rights fell from 57 percent to 50 percent, a seven-point drop from when the poll was last conducted in 2018. The number of Americans favoring gun rights jumped from 34 to 43 percent, a nine-point jump. The difference between the two positions narrowed by 16 points overall.

    The sharpest decline in support for new gun-control measures came among 18 to 29-year-olds and Hispanics. Both groups saw a 20 percent drop. Rural Americans and strong conservatives saw a 17-point drop.

  • Worker shortage is so acute that a Tampa MacDonald’s is paying people $50 just to interview for a job. “Some 17 million Americans remain on jobless benefits. Perhaps many of these people want jobs but are getting paid more to sit on the couch.”
  • Supply chains implode because there’s not enough shipping capacity to meet demand.
  • How Michael Dell used several financial maneuvers to turn $3.6 billion into more than $50 billion.
  • The Who’s frontman Roger Daltry says that the woke are ruining the world. “It’s terrifying, the miserable world they’re going to create for themselves. I mean, anyone who’s lived a life and you see what they’re doing, you just know that it’s a route to nowhere.”
  • And Daltry wasn’t the only rock star calling BS on the woke. Also taking aim: punk rock icon John Lydon:

    Johnny Rotten blames ‘wokeness’ for US ‘collapse’

    Sex Pistols’ frontman Johnny Lydon had some rotten things to say about “wokeness.”

    In a recent profile with the Times UK, the aging punk rocker decried “cancel culture” and the activists who campaigned to tear down national monuments which they say promote historical racism. The statues include that of Winston Churchill, one of the UK’s most revered prime ministers.

    He also blamed academia as well as the media for giving “the space” to “tempestuous spoilt children.”…

    Addressing calls to tear down Churchill’s statue in London, Lydon dismissed criticism that the wartime prime minister was racist. However, critics point out that the leader once referred to Indians as “the beastliest people in the world next to Germans,” and thought that black people are “[not] as capable or as efficient as white people.”

    “This man saved Britain,” Lydon asserted. “Whatever he got up to in South Africa or India beforehand is utterly irrelevant to the major issue in hand.”

    If there are any bigger haters in history than today’s cancel culture, Lydon conceded, it’s the Nazis — and Churchill took care of that.

  • Florida “whistleblower” Rebekah Jones is a big fat liar. “NPR describes Jones as a ‘top scientist’ leading Florida’s pandemic response. In fact, Jones has held three jobs in her field; all three have ended in her being terminated and criminally charged.”
  • “Texas House Approves Election Integrity Bill After 17 Hours of Deliberation.” Good.
  • University of Tennessee offensive line coach fired for daring to make fun of Stacey Abrams. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Company Basecamp bans “wokeness” in the workplace. One third of employees quit. Sounds like a win-win to me. Get woke, go broke…
  • Charles C. W. Cooke channels Swift on teenage knife fighting:

    Just when I thought that America couldn’t possibly get any softer, people start suggesting that there’s a role for the police in preventing knife murders. The snowflake generation strikes once again.

    Is there any tradition that the radicals won’t ruin? As the brilliant Bree Newsome pointed out on Twitter, “Teenagers have been having fights including fights involving knives for eons.” And now people are calling the cops on them? I ask: Is this a self-governing country or not? When Newsome says, “We do not need police to address these situations by showing up to the scene & using a weapon,” she may be expressing a view that is unfashionable these days. But she’s right.

    Disappointingly, my colleague Phil Klein has felt compelled to join the critics. In a post published yesterday, Phil asked in a sarcastic tone whether the police should “somehow treat teenage knife fights as they would harmless roughhousing and simply ignore it.” My answer to this is: Yes, that’s exactly what they should do — yes, even if they are explicitly called to the scene. I don’t know where Phil grew up, but where I spent my childhood, Fridays were idyllic: We’d play some football, try a little Super Mario Bros, have a quick knife fight, and then fire up some frozen pizza before bed. And now law enforcement is getting involved? This is political correctness gone mad.

    It’s hypocrisy, too. Who among us hasn’t come within a second or two of murdering someone else with a steak knife? My best friend in school, Bobby “The Blade” Simpson, used to throw shivs at the smaller kids in the music room. Did we need the authorities to step in when that happened? No, we did not. As MSNBC’s Joy Reid argued smartly on her show last night, pranks such as these were dealt with by our teachers — just as we all expected they would be. And if something went wrong? Well, that’s why we had substitutes.

    In all honesty, I worry that this sort of helicopter policing is making us weak. Back in my day, the people who survived a good stabbing came out stronger for it. I learned a lot of lessons from my time in the ring: self-reliance, how to overcome fear, the importance of agility, the basics of military field dressing. And, given the turnover, I also learned how to make new friends.

  • Sad news (and possibly foul play). “University of Texas linebacker Jake Ehlinger, the younger brother of former Longhorns quarterback Sam Ehlinger, was found dead Thursday.”
  • Season 13 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is now fully funded.
  • Scott of Kentucky Ballistics continues to heal.
  • “There’s a lot of value to being the idiot.”
  • Heh:

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

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