Posts Tagged ‘superheroes’

LinkSwarm For December 13, 2024

Friday, December 20th, 2024

Because I had to get out my book catalog last week, I’ve been as busy as Kathleen Kennedy on Ruin Star Wars Day, so this is another two-weeks crammed into one LinkSwarm. It’s just been a packed two weeks, with so many major stories breaking up not going to tease them up here, so let’s jump right in.

  • 21 Soros-linked district attorneys replaced since 2022 by voters seeking ‘tough-on-crime’ policies.”

    A new report has revealed that 21 George Soros-linked district attorneys across the United States have been replaced by “tough-on-crime” prosecutors. The report also noted that four have left office, either through recall efforts or other means.

    Among those listed by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund were former Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who lost a May election to Democrat challenger Nathan Vasquez, Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, who lost her reelection bid to Kalki Yalamanchili, and Kim Foxx, the former Cook County State’s Attorney who in 2023 announced that she would not seek reelection.

    For those who were removed from office, there is Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, who in November was indicted on federal bribery charges, and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who was recalled last month after serving just 18 months in office, per The National News Desk.

    Replacements also noted by the report were Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who lost to challenger Nathan Hochman in last month’s election, and former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who lost the 2022 Democratic primary election to Ivan Bates. Since her election loss, Mosby has been found guilty of one count of mortgage fraud.

    All of them need to go.

  • Speaking of Soros tools: Subway Samaritan Daniel penny found not guilty on all charges. Just like Kyle Rittenhouse, he never should have been charged in the first place. Soros tool Alvin Bragg needs to be impeached and removed from office.
  • Christopher Wray steps down as FBI head. This shouldn’t keep the Trump Administration from prosecuting for his manifest interference in the political process.
  • More Democratic Party fundraising fraud. “ActBlue, the massive online fund-raising platform for liberal causes, has informed Congress it did not automatically block donations made with foreign-bought gift cards until recently.” Almost like the entire party is a giant money laundering scam…
  • Busted. “Georgia Court Removes Fani Willis from Trump Case over Relationship with Special Prosecutor.”

    An appellate court removed Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis (D) from the racketeering case against President-elect Donald Trump over her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

    Georgia’s court of appeals ruled Thursday that Willis will be removed from the case because of the appearance of misconduct surrounding her relationship with Wade, but did not throw out the case all together.

    “While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety is generally not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the three judge panel ruled.

    Left unstated is that her lawfare attack on Trump was both illegal and unconstitutional.

  • Law enforcement arrested and charged a suspect on Monday in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which occurred in New York City on Wednesday outside a Manhattan hotel. Luigi Mangione, 26, of Towson, Md., was stopped by auth0rities in Altoona, Pa., on Monday. The detained suspect had a handwritten manifesto that criticized the health care industry.
  • Biden’s Department of Education spent $1 billion to infect schools with DEI, because of course they did.
  • He also handed Iran access to $10 billion, because promoting terrorism, plotting to destroy Israel, and trying to build nuclear weapons are activities that Democrats seem eager to reward.
  • Winning. “ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a settlement in a defamation suit brought by President-elect Donald Trump, which requires the network to apologize, contribute $15 million to a ‘Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff,’ and pay Trump’s legal team $1 million.”
  • Believe it or not, that wasn’t the biggest settlement ABC owner Disney agreed to pay out this month. They also agreed to pay $233 million to settle a minimum wage lawsuit.
  • How DeSantis and Abbott bussing illegal aliens to blue sanctuary cities changed the game.

    As Saul Alinsky once said, make your enemies live up to their words.

  • Let the Democratic Party Civil War commence.

    The battle lines are now drawn between West Coast liberals, Bernie Sanders-socialists and moderate technocrats in the Midwest, who insist the party has completely lost touch with the average American voter.

    But first, there is one thing that all sides seemingly agree on: The current political establishment must be chased out of national politics for good. A reckoning is coming.

    ‘The people that are responsible for this s**tshow are the Obama people. They’re just grifters,’ a well-connected Democratic donor exclusively told Daily Mail. He singled out Jen O’Malley Dillon, who went from Biden 2024 campaign chair to serve in the same role for Harris’s camp, and David Plouffe, an ex-Obama 2008 campaign manager turned top Kamala adviser.

  • “Trump sues Des Moines Register, pollster for ‘brazen election interference’ over faulty polling in presidential race.” I think it’s very unlikely that Trump will win this lawsuit, thanks to First Amendment protections and the “absence of malice standard.” Plus pollster Ann Selzer can always just claim “I just sucked at my job.” She retired after the election.
  • After Assad fell, Israel pounded the snot out of his remaining military assets.

    Israel pounded Syrian army bases on Tuesday in strikes it says aim to keep weapons from falling into hostile hands, but denied its forces had advanced into Syria, toward Damascus, beyond a buffer zone at the border.

    Regional security sources and officers within the now-fallen Syrian army who spoke to Reuters described Tuesday morning’s airstrikes as the heaviest yet, hitting military installations and airbases across Syria, destroying dozens of helicopters and jets, as well as Republican Guard assets in and around Damascus.

    The rough tally of 200 raids overnight had left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets, said the sources.

    The Israeli Air Force has carried out over 300 airstrikes in Syria since the collapse of the regime, destroying advanced weapons and other capabilities.

    Strikes reportedly carried out by Israel in Damascus’s Barzeh area completely destroyed a defense ministry research center, AFP correspondents reported on Tuesday. Western countries including the United States struck the facility in 2018, saying it was related to Syria’s “chemical weapons infrastructure.”

    Plus they sunk the entire Syrian navy.

  • Speaking of pounding the snot out of things:

  • Videos of Russia buggering out of Syria.
  • Ukraine hit a solid rocket propellant plant in Russia.
  • “Palantir CEO Alex Karp Eviscerates Democrats: Voters ‘Do Not Want To Hear Your Woke Pagan Ideology.'”

    Alex Karp, the co-founder and CEO of Palantir, said late last week that Democrats lost the 2024 election because they did not understand the fundamental human desire to feel safe.

    Karp made the remarks during a panel discussion at the Reagan National Defense Forum while talking about what Americans expect out of the U.S. government.

    “Americans are the most loving, God-fearing, fair, least discriminatory people on the planet,” he said. “They want to know that if you’re waking up and thinking about harming American citizens, or if American citizens are taken hostage and kept in dungeons, or if you’re a foreign power sending fentanyl to poison our people, something really bad is going to happen to you and your friends and your cousins, and your bank account and your mistress, and whoever was involved.”

    He continued, “When Americans are spending a trillion dollars on ‘defense,’ what I want and what I think my peers want is: why are these people keeping our citizens as hostages, torturing our people, attacking our allies, maligning us in what was once called the United Nations — basically a discriminatory institution against anything good? We need to stand up and those people need to be scared.”

    He said that it was critical for the U.S. to dominate because “we have the best products in the world, and we can not have parity.”

    “Our adversaries do not have our moral compunction,” he said. “If it is even, they will take advantage of our niceness, our kindness, our desire to be at home in Nebraska and New Hampshire or wherever we live, in our peaceful environments.”

    “They need to wake up scared, and go to bed scared, and if you give that to the American people, the American people will go back and say — and honestly, I probably shouldn’t say this, this is why I thought the Democrats were going to lose the election, and why they did, because people want to live in peace,” he continued. “They want to go home. They do not want to hear your woke pagan ideology. They want to know they’re safe. And safe means the other person is scared. That’s how you make someone safe.”

  • Democrats are now, finally, pissed at Obama. “There are people there are people who are now multi-millionaires as a result of the Harris campaign, and we know exactly who they are. And I just want to say that half a billion dollars in advertising went to just four well-heeled Democratic firms. This whole thing is deeply incestuous.”
  • China cracks down on economists telling the truth about how much their economy sucks rather than parroting Beijing’s approved lies.
  • “Ozy Media Founder Carlos Watson Sentenced To Hefty Prison Term For Defrauding Investors. [He] was sentenced to 116 months, or nearly ten years, in prison for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in an unusual case that briefly captivated the media world.”
  • Crystal Mangum admits to fabricating 2006 Duke lacrosse scandal accusations.” And by “scandal” they mean “false accusations of rape.” So when can we expect apologies from Nancy Grace and Amanda Marcotte? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • “Biden’s EPA just made the first-ever “climate change” related arrest.”
  • More of that voting fraud Democrats swear doesn’t exist. “2020 Carrollton Mayoral Candidate Admits to Mail Ballot Fraud. Zul Mohamed pleaded guilty Monday to 109 voter fraud felonies.”
  • “After Donald Trump flipped his county for the first time in a century, longtime Democratic Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina has announced he is switching parties to the Republicans saying that “the [Democratic] party left me, and the people of South Texas behind.”
  • Three soldiers arrested for smuggling illegal aliens into the country.

    Three U.S. Army soldiers have been arrested in Texas on criminal charges relating to smuggling illegal aliens.

    The three soldiers were based at Fort Cavazos, which is near Killeen in Central Texas.

    Fort Cavazos is The Fort Formerly Known As Fort Hood. I might have been a little more worked up over the name change if Hood hadn’t been such a shitty general.

    U.S. Border Patrol agents made an initial traffic stop of a suspicious vehicle in the city of Presidio, located in West Texas on the Rio Grande. As an agent approached the vehicle’s passenger side, the driver sped away—hitting a second Border Patrol vehicle and injuring the agent inside.

    The vehicle was eventually stopped by local law enforcement officers who detained four individuals in the car. Three were illegal aliens, and one was identified as U.S. Army soldier Emilio Mendoza Lopez.

    The driver of the vehicle was reported as being another soldier named Angel Palma, who fled on foot from the vehicle but was located in Odessa a day later.

    Presidio is nearly 500 miles away from where the soldiers were stationed.

    “Mendoza Lopez and Palma allegedly traveled from Fort Cavazos to Presidio for the purpose of picking up and transporting undocumented noncitizens,” announced the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas. “A third individual, Enrique Jauregui, is alleged to be the recruiter and facilitator of the human smuggling conspiracy.”

  • Tren De Aragua Gun Runner Released by Biden Admin Charged in Texas Capital Murder.” Democrats sure love murderous gang members… (Hat tip: Issues and Insights.)
  • Laredo Educator Arrested for Production of Child Pornography. Carlos Jobany Castaneda Lechuga was a lecturer at Texas A&M International University, but has since been removed from the staff directory.”
  • Three More Texas Teachers Nabbed for Child Porn.”

    Three Texas teachers made news last week over charges of child pornography—also known as child sexual abuse material, as the images and videos depict sex crimes being committed against minors.

    The educators worked in Dallas, Leander, and Wall Independent School Districts. Two of the three taught band.

    On December 13, Dallas Police arrested Sean Turner, 34, and charged him with possession of pornography featuring a child younger than 10 years old—a first-degree felony.

    Snip.

    Retired principal Curtis John Locklear was arrested December 12 and charged with felony possession of child porn.

    Locklear was arrested by the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office working with the Houston-area Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.

    Snip.

    Also on December 12, a federal judge sentenced Joshua Carroll to 30 years in prison for possessing and producing child porn.

    Carroll was an assistant band director in Wall ISD from January 2022 until his crimes were discovered earlier this year.

  • Texas Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw got dinged by the Internet for insider trading. So then Crenshaw attacked the Internet. It didn’t go well for him.
  • Phllly man awarded $41 million for overturned murder conviction is back in jail for murder.
  • AOC loses an election to be the ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to 74-year-old Gerry Connolly. “Connolly is undergoing chemotherapy and immunotherapy for esophagus cancer.”
  • In addition to being a brutal dictator, Bashar Assad was also a drug pusher.
  • Google unveils a newer, more powerful quantum chip.

    Google on Monday introduced a new chip called Willow, which solved in five minutes a computing problem that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe.

    Tech companies are chasing quantum computing in hopes of developing systems that perform at speeds far faster than traditional silicon-based computers.
    The building blocks of quantum computers, called “qubits”, while being fast, are error-prone, making it hard to ensure quantum computers are reliable and commercially viable.

    The more qubits used in quantum computing, the more errors typically occur. But Google said on Monday it found a way to string together qubits in the Willow chip so that error rates decline as the number of qubits rise, adding that it can also correct errors in real time.

    My understanding of how quantum computers work is limited to popular explanations, but D-Wave is evidently still in business, so maybe they work?

  • It’s been a long time since I found Louis Black funny, but this rant on the Democrats post-election reactions is pretty good.
  • MSNBC viewers haven’t returned.

  • City in Florida tries to fine man over $1 million for 10 year old code violation fines against the previous owner for a home the new owner bought on foreclosure.
  • Company YesMadam surveys employees to see how stressed they feel…then lays off employees feeling stressed. Then reveals the whole thing was a publicity stunt.

  • Assad had a really shitty survival bunker. Plus a garage of luxury cars.
  • Jordan Peterson Flees “Totalitarian Hellhole” Canada For U.S. Due To Censorship, Taxes.” Welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
  • How Now, Woke Longhorn? An Open Letter to University of Texas President Jay Hartzell.”
  • “Trump announces $100 BILLION investment to create 100,000 US jobs from Japanese company Softbank.”
  • Add Big Lots to the list of retail chains that died thanks to the Biden Recession. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Broadcom hit $1 trillion in market cap this week.
  • Jaguar is going all in on woke thanks to new CEO Adrian Mardell, and the infection is spreading to fellow Tata subsidiary Land Rover.
  • First reaction to Mufasa: The Lion King: “Profoundly awful.”
  • The trailer for James Gunn’s Superman dropped. I’ve never seen a Superman film in theaters, and this will not be getting me in. But you’ve got to give Gunn credit for thinking way outside the box and including Krypto the Superdog and Hawkman, two characters that absolutely no one in the greater viewing public was clamoring for.

  • Don McMillan has cracked the Hallmark Christmas movie code.
  • Heh:

  • “Now Now, Let’s Not Be So Hasty To Find And Assassinate Everyone Responsible For The Healthcare Crisis,’ Says Nervous Obama.”
  • “Assassin Luigi Mangione Takes Lead In 2028 Democratic Primary Polls.”
  • “Members Of Congress Explain They Need Pay Raises To Keep Up With The Inflation They Caused.”
  • “Biden Calls For New Gun Laws He Can Pardon His Son For Breaking.”
  • “Running Low On Ideas, God Makes Oklahoma.”
  • “Unclear If Pianist Total Beginner Or Professional Jazz Player.”
  • In you go:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • LinkSwarm for January 28, 2022

    Friday, January 28th, 2022

    More Democrats accepting foreign payola, Russia sabre-rattles over Ukraine, a Supreme Court justice retires, Canada revolts, Harris County’s soft-on-crime policies are getting cops killed, and the war over tranny madness spreads. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm.
    

  • “China’s Huawei Pays Tony Podesta $1 Million for White House Lobbying.”

    Long time Democratic power broker Tony Podesta has earned $1 million over the past half year lobbying the Biden White House at the behest of a blacklisted Chinese tech giant, recent federal disclosures show. Huawei, which was placed under trade sanctions during the Trump administration, paid Podesta $500,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021 in an attempt to shake off the trade impact of the restrictions, according to the disclosure form filed on the evening of Jan. 20.

    With the $500,000 Podesta made from the previous three months lobbying the White House, he has been compensated $1 million over a six-month period for the lobbying effort.

    Podesta’s latest lobbying campaign targeted the Executive Office of the President and centered around “telecommunications services and impacted trade issues,” the disclosure said.

    Huawei, once the world’s largest telecom makers, has been facing international scrutiny in recent years. U.S. authorities have flagged the China-based company as a national security threat, saying the company’s close ties with China’s ruling communist regime, as well as Chinese law, could make it a potential espionage tool for Beijing.

    A stream of U.S. sanctions since 2019—which have barred Huawei from using U.S. technology and software, and shut out its gears from critical U.S. infrastructure—have slashed the company’s annual revenue by a third. In November, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that further tightened restrictions on Huawei by restricting it from receiving new equipment licenses from U.S regulators.

    Battered by the restrictions, Huawei has ramped up its U.S. influence operation in recent months. Podesta is one of half a dozen lobbyists the firm has engaged since July, which includes a former congressman and one former congressional aide, according to disclosure filings….

    Tony Podesta’s brother, John Podesta, served as White House chief of staff to former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He was also a former counselor to President Barack Obama, overseeing climate and energy policies.

    There’s your swampy Democratic Party corruption and graft, right there out in the open for all to see.

  • Speaking of open corruption: “Companies Linked to Putin’s Pipeline Contributed to Schumer Campaign.”

    Affiliates of two European companies that fund Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline contributed to the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who Republicans say has blocked sanctions on the Kremlin-backed project.

    ENGIE North America and BASF Corporation each gave $2,500 to Schumer in September through their corporate political action committees, according to newly disclosed Federal Election Commission records. ENGIE North America’s parent company and a BASF subsidiary are part of a consortium of five companies that finance Nord Stream 2, which will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. While President Joe Biden has called the pipeline a geopolitical threat to Europe that helps Russian president Vladimir Putin, last year he waived sanctions on the project.

    Republicans have pushed for legislation to enforce sanctions only to be met with resistance from Senate Democrats and the White House. Schumer for months blocked Republican requests to vote on a sanctions bill. He approved a vote on sanctions legislation proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) earlier this month in exchange for Cruz lifting holds on several State Department nominees. The bill received bipartisan support by a 55-44 vote, but Senate Democrats used filibuster rules to block its passage. Democrats say they want to use sanctions against the pipeline as a last resort should Russia invade Ukraine.

    (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)

  • Nor is this foreign influence peddling new: “Convicted Pedophile Funneled Millions In Foreign Cash Into Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign.”

    Convicted pedophile, UAE adviser and central witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, George Nader, has pleaded guilty to his role in helping the UAE funnel millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions into US campaigns during the 2016 presidential election, according to The Intercept, citing federal court documents filed last month.

    In a December sentencing memo, federal prosecutors disclosed that Nader had agreed months early to plead guilty to a single count of felony conspiracy to defraud the US government by pumping millions in donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign – concealing the foreign origin of the funds.

    Snip.

    Nader is accused of taking instructions from UAE Crown Prince [Mohammed bin Zayed], and gave regular updates on his efforts to get close to Clinton.

    In total, Nader transferred nearly $5 million from his UAE business to [Los Angeles businessperson Ahmad “Andy”] Khawaja – CEO of a Los Angeles-based payment processing company. According to prosecutors, the funds were disguised as a routine business contract between the two men. Of the total transferred, more than $3.5 million came from the UAE government and was given to pro-Clinton Democratic political committees. Prosecutors have yet to publicly identify what happened to the remaining $1.4 million Nader transferred to Khawaja.

    Khawaja’s money laundering for Democrats was previously mentioned in this LinkSwarm. How many of the travails of the last five years boil down to Democrats trying to avoid going to jail for their corruption?

  • Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer announced he’s retiring. Biden, pandering as always, announces he’s going to nominate a black woman.
  • Speaking of the Supreme Court, the Biden Administration has reluctantly decided to obey its ruling on business vaccine mandates.
  • Canadian truckers have formed the largest convey in history to protest vaccine mandates and lockdowns. It seems pretty massive:

    How massive would the protest have to be to make Justin Trudeau change course? Leftists hate giving up government control of people’s lives, no matter how unpopular….

  • “Trudeau Claims Truckers Only Hate Him Because He’s Black.”
  • Speaking of which: “L.A. Schools Will Require Non-Cloth Masks (Even for Sports) and Vaccination Next Year.” As if parents even needed another reason to flee Los Angeles public schools…
  • School masking and closure policies are even driving liberal moms out of the Democratic Party.

    Tracy Compton, a mother of two in Fairfax, Virginia, had voted for Democrats for as long as she can remember, until the COVID-related school closures.

    ‘I tried and went to apply to work with the Democratic Party. I was told I was not allowed to become a member of the Democratic Party [in Fairfax].’

    A recording of a reorganization meeting showed fellow Democrats deeming Compton too ‘anti-school’ to be part of their political efforts.

    What made Compton anti-school?

    She wanted the public schools to fully reopen.

    When Compton worked to collect signatures for a recall petition for the local school board, she was welcomed out of the rain by a Republican party tent, even after telling them she was a Biden voter.

    In contrast, when Compton offered the petition to those inside the Democrat party tent, she was yelled at.

    Now? Given a hypothetical matchup between Kamala Harris or President Joe Biden vs. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, she said she’d vote for the Republican in a heartbeat.

  • “Florida Is so Red, Democrats Can’t Even Field Candidates in Some 2022 Races.”

    All Florida trends are coming up sunshine for continued freedom from Covidstan. Recently Republican registrations surpassed Democrats in the state for the first time. Net domestic migration to the state also increased during COVID. Many commentators attribute both to Governor Ron DeSantis’s pandemic management policies. Just how bad does 2022 look for Democrats in the state? According to the Miami Herald:

    Evidence is piling up that Democrats in Florida have no clear bench of candidates willing to challenge Republican incumbents in South Florida, in what’s expected to be a daunting and expensive 2022 cycle for their party.

    Two first-time candidates who made early announcements they would run for South Florida House seats have both since dropped their bids to pursue runs for state office. A rumored likely candidate for federal office, former state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez, was recently nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as an assistant secretary at the Department of Labor.

    The three Florida seats in question represent districts in Miami, including Reps. Carlos Giménez, Maria Elvira Salazar, and Mario Diaz-Balart. Giménez is the former mayor of Miami-Dade County and an immigrant from Cuba. Salazar defeated Clinton ally Donna Shalala in 2020, and Diaz-Balart has represented his district since 2002. The Herald called these districts competitive and said redistricting provided Democrats an opportunity.

    However, the only potential candidates are a few retreads who lost in 2020. Reportedly, Shalala, who is knee-deep in Clinton ick, may be considering a rematch with Salazar. She served as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Health and Human Services and as President of the Clinton Foundation from June 2015 to March 2017. Former representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who lost to Giménez in 2020, may also jump in the race. To date, neither woman has announced their intentions.

    Unless you owe someone favors, why run an almost certainly losing campaign in a red wave year?

  • Masks don’t work:

  • Lockdowns don’t work:

  • “During the last year’s attempts to defund the police and reduce the number of violent encounters on the street, Baltimore kicked off what they call the Safe Streets Project.” Surprise! A Safe Streets worker was one of three people killed in a shootout. Dwight would be disappointed if I didn’t include this:

  • In addition to looting, murder and arson, the primary accomplishment of #BlackLivesMatter seems to be making donations disappear.

    No one appears to have been in charge at Black Lives Matter for months. The address it lists on tax forms is wrong, and the charity’s two board members won’t say who controls its $60 million bankroll, a Washington Examiner investigation has found.

    BLM’s shocking lack of transparency surrounding its finances and operations raises major legal and ethical red flags, multiple charity experts told the Washington Examiner.

    “Like a giant ghost ship full of treasure drifting in the night with no captain, no discernible crew, and no clear direction,” CharityWatch Executive Director Laurie Styron said of BLM.

    BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors appointed two activists to serve as the group’s senior directors following her resignation in May amid scrutiny over her personal finances. But both quietly announced in September that they never took the jobs due to disagreements with BLM. They told the Washington Examiner they don’t know who now leads the nation’s most influential social justice organization.

    Paul Kamenar, counsel for conservative watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, said a full audit and investigation into Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the legal entity that represents the national BLM movement, is warranted.

    “This is grossly irregular and improper for a nonprofit with $60 million in its coffers,” Kamenar said.

    You don’t say…

  • Fifty years ago yesterday, three Black Liberation Army gunman ambushed and murdered NYPD officers Gregory Foster, 22, and Rocco Laurie, 23.
  • Are illegal aliens being given fake IDs at the border? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Sundown Joe unwittingly greenlights a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Right now there’s a lot more jaw-jaw than war-war. I’ve avoid penning a thumbsucker on the situation because I’ve been too busy.
  • China deploys satellite grappling technology. Gee, if only an American president had created a special branch of the armed forces to handle space-related national security concerns… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Virginia Republican Delegate Nick Freitas is done with having Critical Race Theory advocates calling all who oppose them racist:

    (Hat tip: Not The Bee.)

  • Pro-illegal alien amnesty Americans for Prosperity: Here, Republicans, have some endorsements. Republicans: Hard pass.
  • Illegal alien charged in murder of Harris County Constable Corporal Charles Galloway.
  • And three more Houston police officers were shot yesterday.
  • In California, 26 year old child molester sentenced to juvenile detention because he identifies as female. Another gift from Soros-backed DA George Gascon.
  • Today’s unexpected ally in the war on transgender madness: actor Sean Penn.

    Sean Penn is doubling down on his defense of traditional gender roles.

    In two separate interviews this month, the two-time Academy Award-winner and ex of Madonna made comments bemoaning his perception that men are becoming more feminine.

    “I am in the club that believes that men in American culture have become wildly feminized,” the 61-year-old told the UK-based publication The i in an interview ahead of the UK release of his new film “Flag Day.”

    “I don’t think that being a brute or having insensitivity or disrespect for women is anything to do with masculinity, or ever did. But I don’t think that [in order] to be fair to women, we should become them.”

    In a subsequent interview the “Milk” star did with The Independent this week, he dug his heels into the polarizing opinion, going even further in his critique of men who challenge gender norms.

    “There are a lot of, I think, cowardly genes that lead to people surrendering their jeans and putting on a skirt,” he told the publication. Furthermore, he noted that the women in his life don’t seem bothered by the patriarchy.

    “I have these very strong women in my life who do not take masculinity as a sign of oppression toward them,” he said.

    Penn is wrong about an awful lot, but he’s right about this.

  • Intel to build $20 billion chip manufacturing facility near New Albany, Ohio (near Columbus), starting with two fabs. Intel had already announced a big investment initiative, and announced their were building two new fabs in Arizona last year. The Ohio location is a surprise, since there’s no fab infrastructure there, but evidently Ohio is throwing lots of money at them.
  • Vegetarian “meat” company Impossible Foods just laid off a bunch of people. “Technocratic elites have decided in the so-called ‘Great Reset’ in a post-COVID world that peasants should eat plant-based meat instead of the real thing as a way for ‘sustainable nutrition.'”

  • Yikes!

  • Bill Burr contracts Flu Manchu, reacts to it in Bill Burr-esque ways.
  • The new Superman is a “bisexual climate warrior.” Those comic book issues aren’t exactly flying off the shelf.
  • Speaking of comics: This comic page just sold for $3.3 million. A wee bit rich for my blood. And is possibly more than the artist made over his entire career working at Marvel…
  • Heh.

  • “Biden Warns Russia That If They Invade Ukraine, America Will Evacuate Haphazardly And Leave $86 Billion In Weapons Behind.”
  • “Biden Administration Mounts Daring Mission To Evacuate Hunter’s Remaining Cash From Ukraine.”
  • “Amy Schneider’s Winning Streak Ended After Being Asked To Name The Gender That Has Two X Chromosomes.”
  • I’m sending out a new SF/F/H book catalog Real Soon Now. Drop me a line if you want a copy.
  • I think my dogs want me to step away from the laptop.

  • Batman, Iron Man…Trump?

    Monday, November 14th, 2016

    Still working on a big post-election reaction roundup, but in the meantime it occurred to me: Have half the superhero films Hollywood was made this century been mentally preparing America for a Trump presidency?

    Billionaire vigilante has to work outside the system to protect common people. His wealth is a tool to achieve that aim, and he has no trouble flaunting it when he needs to, or to dropping a well-timed quip at the expense of his opponents.

    Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark…and Donald Trump. Sure, he’s considerably older, with worse hair, but he still fits the mold.

    For all Hollywood’s leftism, they’ve spent the past decade plus (Batman Begins came out in 2005, Iron Man in 2008) mentally preparing the American public for a Trump presidency.

    Irony! It’s what’s for dinner!