Posts Tagged ‘Thom Tillis’

LinkSwarm For March 21, 2025

Friday, March 21st, 2025

More DOGE revelations, more leftwing violence, more pervert school teachers arrested, Baltimore builds a ghost city, astronauts get rescued, DVDs rot, and a bunch of fierce togers with a gentle mom.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Hamas-linked CAIR was given over $7,200,000 in taxpayer money, and that money is unaccounted for.

    Muslim charity with links to Hamas was awarded more than $7.2 million in taxpayer cash, which has now disappeared, according to a watchdog group.

    An “immediate investigation” needs to be launched into The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) California chapter’s use of funds, according to the watchdog, who sent a complaint to the Department of Justice Thursday.

    According to the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a California-based, non-partisan advocacy group, the money was given to the chapter to help re-settle impoverished immigrants in California between 2022 and 2024.

    In what appears to be a sleight of hand, the money – $7,217,968.44 — was sent to CAIR-Greater Los Angeles and not to CAIR-CA, which was the only group eligible to receive it, according to the complaint.

    The Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Muslim organization, which is not a registered non-profit and not eligible to handle charitable donations, received the entire pot of money according to the complaint, viewed by The Post.

    I think we all know where that money went: Leftwing pockets and murdering Jews.

  • Trump Signs Executive Order Dismantling Department of Education.”

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday shuttering the Department of Education, fulfilling a long-standing conservative wish to do away with the agency.

    Trump’s order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take the “necessary steps” to close the $268 billion agency and transfer its authority back to the states. The order does not immediately shutter the agency, and it will require programs and services to continue uninterrupted.

    “Everybody knows it’s right,” Trump said moments before signing the order, which he said was 45 years in the making. “We have to get our children educated.”

    The long-expected executive order will likely face significant legal challenges over whether Trump has the authority to dismantle the agency. Fully closing down the Department of Education will require congressional approval.

    Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, Republicans have sought to eliminate the Department of Education, created in 1979 under former President Jimmy Carter, for its role in promoting left-wing ideology and encroaching on state authority. The Education Department’s responsibilities primarily consist of allocating grant money, administering student loans, and enforcing federal civil rights laws

    Trump has long promised to terminate the agency and empower states to run their own education systems without federal interference. Shuttering the Education Department was a bullet point on the 2024 GOP platform.

    National Review seems to think Trump’s plan is more flawed than the previous Republican Presidential attempts to shutter the Department of Education by not doing a goddamn thing…

  • Republican Congresswoman Harriet Hageman explains exactly what the Department of Education does with your money.

    The Department of Education has a budget of about $280 billion dollars per year. Less than 25% goes to educating our students.

    It goes to a bureaucracy. It goes to a consultant. And that consultant then donates money back to the Democrats. And then it goes to a different consultant. And then it goes to an NGO. It is money laundering and money churning at its absolute best.

    It appears that the entire point of both the Biden and Obama Administrations was to turn the entirety of the federal government into a giant graft machine for the radical left.

  • “Paxton Opinion States District Courts Cannot Order Sex Changes on Government ID.” State district courts can no longer direct state agencies to change a person’s sex on government documents.”
  • “Trump Administration Pauses $175 Million in Funding to UPenn over Refusal to Bar Men from Women’s Sports.” Defunding will continue until sanity improves.
  • Victor Davis Hanson: The left knew they were lying to us.

    For years, the left has advanced utter untruths for cheap partisan purposes that it knew at the time were all false. And now when caught, they just shrug and say they were lying all along.

    Once it was known that the first COVID-19 case originated in or near a Chinese communist virology lab engineering gain-in-function deadly viruses—with help from Western agencies—the left went into full persecution mode.

    They damned as incompetent, racist, and conspiratorial any who dared follow logic and evidence to point out that the Chinese government and its military were both culpable for the virus and lying.

    A million Americans died of COVID. Millions more suffered long-term injuries. Still, the left-wing media and Biden administration demonized any who dared speak the truth about a lab origin of the deadly virus.

    The lies were designed to protect the guilty who had helped fund the virus’s origins, such as Doctors Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins.

    The Biden government also tried to use the lab theory to ridicule a supposedly pro-Trump “conspiracy.”

    Western corporate interests deeply invested in China did not want their partner held responsible for veritably killing and maiming hundreds of millions worldwide.

    Almost as soon as Joe Biden was inaugurated, the left knew that he was physically and mentally unable to serve as president.

    Indeed, that was the point.

    Biden’s role was designed as a waxen figurine for hard-left agendas that, without the “old Joe Biden from Scranton” pseudo-moderate veneer, could never have been advanced.

    His handlers operated a nightmare administration: the destruction of deterrence abroad, two theater wars, 12 million illegal aliens, a weaponized justice system, hyperinflation, and $7 trillion more in debt.

    By 2017, the public knew three truths about the so-called Christopher Steele dossier.

    One, it was completely fallacious—fabricated by a has-been, ex-British spy Christopher Steele. He childishly had cobbled together lurid sex stories, James Bond spy fictions, and Russian-fed disinformation to destroy the Trump candidacy and later presidency.

    Two, it was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. She hid her checks behind the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Fusion GSP paywalls.

    Three, the FBI under James Comey hired Steele as an informant. It helped disseminate his concocted files and was also instrumental in trying to subvert the Trump campaign and later administration.

    No sane person ever believed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was the work of “Russian disinformation.” Its contents a year before the 2020 election were verified by the FBI, but it kept mum about its confirmation.

    The pornographic pictures, the evidence of prostitution and drug use, the electronic communications implicating Joe Biden in his family’s illicit shake-down operation of foreign governments—all were never challenged by anyone who was associated with the laptop’s contents.

    Yet future Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, along with former interim CIA Director Mike Morrell, sought to fabricate a colossal lie to arm their candidate, Joe Biden, with plausible denial in the last presidential debate before the 2020 election.

    They rounded up a rogue’s gallery of 51 now utterly discredited former intelligence authorities to lie to the nation that the laptop was likely fake.

    All knew the FBI had verified the laptop. But they also knew that their titles would empower their lies that the Russians likely invented the laptop to aid the sinister Trump.

  • Fort Worth Teacher Arrested for Online Solicitation of a Minor. Christopher Rhodes was placed on leave from Young Men’s Leadership Academy during the investigation.”
  • Austin Elementary Teacher Jailed for Possessing ‘Large Quantity’ of Child Sex Abuse Material. Carl Innmon taught sign language at Baranoff Elementary School in Austin ISD.”
  • The question of whether federal judges can review alien deportation orders under the Alien Enemy Act has already been decided in Ludecke v. Watkins. “The Alien Enemy Act precludes judicial review of the removal order.” Pp. 163-166. (Hat tip: Grim’s Hall.)
  • Sanity: ” New York’s Highest Court Blocks NYC Law Allowing Noncitizens to Vote. ‘Instead, it is plain from the language and restrictions contained in Article II that “citizen” is not meant as a floor, but as a condition of voter eligibility.'”
  • You may not have heard in another packed news week, but once again Recep Tayyip Erdogan is doing Erdogan things in Turkey.

    Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul’s mayor and a high-profile member of the opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was arrested along with dozens of others Wednesday, state-run media reported, in what critics said was a significant escalation of the government’s crackdown on dissent.
    Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.

    The chief public prosecutor’s office ordered the arrest of about 100 people Wednesday, saying Imamoglu and others faced allegations including membership in criminal organization, bribery, aggravated fraud and unlawful acquisition of personal data. More than 80 people had been detained so far, according to local media reports.

    Imamoglu, a popular politician and member of the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, became mayor of Turkey’s largest city in 2019 and won reelection last year in high-profile races where he defeated candidates from Erdogan’s ruling party. He was expected to be selected as the CHP’s candidate for president in the party’s primary elections scheduled for this weekend. The mayorship of Istanbul is seen as a political stepping stone: Erdogan once held the role.

    Over two decades in power, Erdogan has tightened his control over state institutions and deepened restrictions on speech and expression, including within the judiciary, bringing charges against and imprisoning opponents. He has also exerted widespread control over the media, universities and other institutions.

  • Lefties suffering from Musk Derangement Syndrome are attacking Tesla centers.

    US Attorney General Pam Bondi released a statement overnight, calling the “violent attacks” on Tesla showrooms, service centers, Supercharger networks, and vehicles “nothing short of domestic terrorism.”

    “The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences,” Bondi stated in a press release.

    She continued: “We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”

    The latest domestic terrorism attack on Tesla occurred at a service center in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning.

  • And of course a Soros-funded NGO is paying for the campaign of terror.

    ver the next few days you’re going to see an organized progressional protest effort at Tesla stores put together by a group called Indivisible.

    George Soros foundation has given Indivisible nearly $8 million dollars for their “activism”.

    They’re calling these “Tesla takedown” events and they’re doing it in the midst of a domestic terror spree targeting Tesla and Tesla owners. They have these planned across the entire country. These images are just six examples.

    How can this not be seen as encouraging more violence and terrorism? I personally think that any violence occurring near locations they’ve chosen should result in Soros, his foundation, Indivisible and their founders being held criminally accountable as co-conspirators.

    The indivisible founders are Ezra Levin and his wife Leah Greenberg. They became “resistance” figures during Trump’s first term and their work is celebrated by elected Democrats. So yeah, it’s clear to me that the Democrats and their typical thugs are organizing this insanity.

    There’s reportedly even a form protest leaders can fill out to receive “reimbursement” payments for their protests.

  • “So the way you fight Nazis in 2025 is paint swastikas on Jewish people’s cars.”
  • Naturally, the Daily Show audience cheered at the news.
  • Meanwhile, Musk’s SpaceX Dragon crew compartment was busy returning stranded astronauts to earth, a path I’m assuming the Biden Administration didn’t pursue because there was no way to rake off leftwing graft from the rescue mission…
  • Plus Trump says they’ll get overtime, even if has pay it out of his own pocket:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • People called up North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ office to express polite disagreement with his policies. Ha, just kidding! They threatened to kill him and his family.
  • “Two Texas Universities Investigated by U.S. Department of Education for ‘Race-Exclusionary Practices.'” That would be Rice University and North Texas University.
  • Trump releases the JFK files and they raise more questions.
  • New York Times is now saying that lab leak theory is now plausible, after years of attacking anyone who mentioned it as “conspiracy theorists.” And yes, Not The Bee used the Hot Dog Guy meme.

  • “Federal Prosecutors Secure Convictions for 2022 Human Smuggling Event that Killed 53.”

    Federal prosecutors announced the convictions of two of the human smugglers responsible for the horrific 2022 mass casualty event wherein 53 people were killed and 11 injured after being locked into a tractor-trailer and left in the Texas heat.

    The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) described the tragedy as the single deadliest human smuggling case in U.S. history at the time. Four men, all Mexican nationals, were charged in connection with the crime: 30-year-old Riley Covarrubias-Ponce, 28-year-old Felipe Orduna-Torres, 37-year-old Luis Rivera-Leal, and 53-year-old Armando Gonzales-Ortega.

    Fast forward, and the DOJ confirmed in a press statement that Orduna-Torres and Gonzalez-Ortega were convicted for their roles in the alien smuggling conspiracy that led to the deaths.

  • In Mexico: There’s a big difference between “screwing up” and accidentally killing three of your fellow guardsman in a negligent discharge. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Speaking of negligent discharges, Brandon Herrera did not appreciate Sig Saur’s media team trying to gaslight people over the P320’s well-documented issues .
  • Japan’s “evaporated people,” who completely abandon their previous life, family and friends to move to slums anonymously. Some similarities with American homeless or China’s “lie flat” movement, but I get the impression a big difference is that evaporated people are primarily motivated by shame of failure.
  • Baltimore offers tax incentives to inner harbor development project, only to create a ghost city.
  • Kotaku gets a defamation lawsuit by former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. Some people are calling it “Gawker 2.0.”
  • Another day, another indicted rap mogul.

    A music bigwig who helped launch Nipsey Hussle’s career and was lauded as rap’s “godfather” has been accused of running a “Mafia-like” criminal enterprise involving murder, human trafficking, robbery and extortion on the streets of Los Angeles.

    Eugene Henley Jr. — known as “Big U” in the entertainment world — was one of 18 members of the Rollin’ 60s Neighborhood Crips street gang charged in a sprawling federal racketeering complaint, the US Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.

    Henley has “maintained the image of an entertainment industry entrepreneur running a music label and of somebody who gives back to the community here in Los Angeles,” US Attorney Joseph T. McNally said while announcing the indictment.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Carl Erik Rinsch, the guy who $55 million from Netflix to make an SF miniseries and instead bought stocks and Dogecoin has finally been indicted.
  • Amazon driver goes ballistic, cussing out woman’s doorbell camera for “buying all this shit.” Turns out the woman is in a wheelchair. Pink slip ensues.
  • New Yorker art critic Jackson Arn fired for “making ‘inappropriate overtures’ at some of the party guests and appeared to be drunk.” I hold no water for Arn (a lefty who used to write for The Nation) or Conde Naste (Teen Vogue), but “getting drunk and making a pass” at a holiday party used to be a forgivable sin in corporate American, but the woke religion of social justice is incapable of offering forgiveness or redemption. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Looks like I’m one of the authors that Meta ripped off to train their AI on without permission.
  • Warner Brothers DVD bit rot is a real problem.
  • A simplified description of how your brain actually operates. I wouldn’t take it as gospel, but I’m regretting that I never actually read Marvin Minsky’s The Society of Mind
  • Rick Beato interviews Hans Zimmer. “The job is not to listen to the director telling you what the music is he wants, because if if he knows what music he wants, then he can do it himself. My job is to sort of listen to him tell me the story and then do the thing that he can’t even imagine.”
  • “Federal Judge Orders Astronauts Be Returned To Space Station.”
  • “Democrats Say Fire At Tesla Facility Likely Caused By Climate Change.”
  • “Single Woman Constantly Stressed With No Man Around To Tell Her To Relax.”
  • Pack of tigers has Golden mom:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    Can We Stop The Runaway Pork Trainwreck?

    Monday, August 9th, 2021

    The more people look into the details of the massive “infrastructure” bill, they more reasons they find why conservatives should kill this giant pile of pork:

    Analysts from The Heritage Foundation have found a variety of flaws that should give pause to legislators in both chambers…

    1. Adds Hundreds of Billions to the National Debt.

    With the national debt having increased $5.2 trillion since the start of 2020 (or $40,000 per household) and the economy at risk of serious inflation, America is in dire need of fiscal responsibility from the nation’s leaders. Unfortunately, the Senate bill offers anything but.

    For starters, it bails out the Highway Trust Fund to the tune of $118 billion. The fund suffers from chronic deficits due to overspending. Rather than bring it into balance, senators are whipping out the national credit card, and then pretending they didn’t when it comes to keeping score.

    2. Fake and Inappropriate ‘Pay-Fors.’

    The bill includes many provisions designed to pay for the spending spree, which are dubious, inappropriate, or both.

    This includes a laundry list of tired budget gimmicks, including the sale of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, extending long-standing fees, and spectrum sales. Many of these gimmicks have a history of falling short of expectations.

    Another gimmick, known as “interest rate stabilization” (or “pension smoothing”) would allow corporations to reduce pension contributions and increase their profit margins, leading to more revenue from the corporate income tax. This would shortchange the pension funds by roughly $9 billion for the sake of less than $3 billion in additional tax revenue.

    In an attempt to increase capital gains tax revenue, the bill also includes a rule that would force cryptocurrency companies to disclose personal information on their users to the government. This surveillance mandate would be technologically impossible for many key parts of the industry to comply with, including “miners” who maintain the networks, “stakers” who save in crypto, and even software developers, potentially driving these functions offshore altogether.

    While legislators anticipate a $28 billion tax windfall from crypto, it will almost certainly bring in far less. For example, an IRS probe into the Coinbase crypto exchange market led to only $25 million in tax assessments.

    The bill also repurposes hundreds of billions worth of funds that were originally passed in COVID-19 relief bills. The vast majority of this amount (such as states turning down harmful unemployment benefit expansions) would not have been spent, meaning this represents fake savings.

    3. Sets Up a $3.5 Trillion Left-Wing Bonanza.

    Congressional Democrats have repeatedly stated that they will not allow any infrastructure bill to reach President Joe Biden’s desk for signature unless it is accompanied by a $3.5 trillion package passed along party lines through the budget procedure known as reconciliation.

    Another fun tidbit on the infrastructure bill: it includes $1 billion for The Appalachian Regional Commission, which, by some amazing coincidence, just happens to be run by Joe Manchin’s wife Gayle:

    Buried in the 2,702-page bipartisan infrastructure plan that senators could pass as soon as this week is $1 billion in funding for a commission run by the wife of Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the key Democratic negotiators.

    The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would allocate $1 billion for the Appalachian Regional Commission, an economic development partnership agency between the government and 13 states in the Appalachian region that’s co-chaired by Gayle Connelly Manchin.

    President Biden tapped Gayle Manchin for the role in March, and she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate one month later.

    The proposed legislation envisions spending $1 billion over the course of five years in order to fund the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization initiative, a program that provides grants to communities affected by coal-related job losses. Biden initially proposed the funding increase as part of his $4 trillion “Build Back Better” economic agenda.

    In a May statement, Gayle Manchin said the $1 billion – which will roughly double the commission’s current funding level – will allow it to “more adequately meet the overwhelming needs of communities impacted by job losses resulting from the decline in the coal industry. These grants will be instrumental to the long-term diversification and economic growth in Appalachia.”

    Which she really means, of course, is that the graft will flow to people Manchin, Biden and other Democrats approved of, including Democratic Party donors, leftwing activists, etc. Because this is how the game works.

    Shamefully, 17 Republicans have voted to help cram this crap sandwich down America’s throats:

    Roy Blunt (Mo.)
    Richard Burr (N.C.)
    Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.)
    Bill Cassidy (La.)
    Susan Collins (Maine)
    Kevin Cramer (N.D.)
    Mike Crapo (Idaho)
    Lindsey Graham (S.C.)
    Chuck Grassley (Iowa)
    John Hoeven (N.D.)
    Mitch McConnell (Ky.)
    Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
    Rob Portman (Ohio)
    James Risch (Idaho)
    Mitt Romney (Utah)
    Thom Tillis (N.C.)
    Todd Young (Ind.)

    Collins and Romney I can understand, but there’s no way in hell senators from North Carolina, Idaho or North Dakota should ever be supporting this giant pile of garbage.

    Is there still time top stop this garbage? It seems that D.C. insiders have greased the skids for this runaway pork train, but at least we should try. If you live in a state represented by any of the senators, I would suggest constacting them immediately and state your full opposition to the bill.

    Election Update for October 28, 2014

    Tuesday, October 28th, 2014

    Your “one week until Election Day” roundup of news:

  • Republicans lead going into the final stretch. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Thomas Sowell: “Many Democrats are running away from Barack Obama, but they can’t hide their record of voting for Obama’s agenda more than 90 percent of the time.”
  • Democrats: “Jerk your knees, women! Damnit, jerk your knees!
  • Speaking of pandering to women: Evidently, it isn’t working for Mark Udall in Colorado. “A myopic focus on reproductive freedom and the ‘War on the Women’ does not seem to be an effective way to mobilize and motivate women in a year when the economy and jobs are at the forefront of voters’ minds.”
  • Indeed, the gender gap is working against Udall, since Gardner’s lead among men is much bigger than Udall’s narrow lead among women.
  • Denver Post: Udall sucks so bad we’re actually endorsing a Republican.
  • An ad that targets Kay Hagan the same way the last one targeted Mary Landrieu:

    (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)

  • The latest poll has Hagan tied with Thom Tillis, a precarious place for a Democratic incumbent a week out from a Republican wave election.
  • Early signs point to Republicans picking up a new Nevada congressional district which was D+4 in 2012.
  • Texans favor voter ID by a 3-1 margin.
  • Wendy Davis has just over a half-million funds on-hand for the last week of the campaign.
  • Texas State Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-im): Greg Abbott is a guy who “just rolls around.”
  • Texas Democrats thinking “this time will be different!” because of money spent targeting Hispanic voters are forgetting Tony Sanchez’s big bucks 2002 campaign. “Perhaps Texas Latinos just don’t like the shoddy liberal product that Texas Democrats keep trying to sell them.”
  • Why you should vote against exapanding Capitol Metro’s toy trains.
  • More on the same theme.
  • Holly Hansen’s Round Rock ISD endorsements.
  • Remember: When in doubt, it’s always safe to vote against the Austin Chronicle‘s endorsements.