LinkSwarm for June 2, 2023

June 2nd, 2023

Bit of a short LinkSwarm this time around, as I was focused on putting out a book catalog this week. Plus a lot of damn news from San Francisco.


  • Every Company Leaving California: 2020-2023. All the following have located to Texas:
    • Ruiz Foods
    • Cacique Foods
    • Kelly-Moore Paints
    • Landsea Homes
    • McAfee
    • Boingo Wireless
    • Obagi Cosmeceuticals
    • Chevron
    • Aviatrix
    • Review Wave
    • Tesla
    • NinjaOne
    • AECOM
    • MD7
    • Wiley X
    • Wedgewood LLC
    • Green Dot Corporation
    • Digital Realty
    • Lion Real Estate Group
    • Charles Schwab
    • Oracle
    • Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • CBRE Group
    • O. W. Lee
    • Incora
    • DZS (Dasan Zhone Solutions)
    • QuestionPro

    And those are just the ones with over 100 employees. There are much more with fewer (including Gordon Ramsay North America, which has a chain of restaurants, which has moved its headquarters to Irving, despite having no restaurants in Texas). (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Like so much of the rest of the welfare state, minority contracting is a scam.

    For the past few years, Atlanta has been roiled by corruption scandals centering on the city’s decades-old program to favor minority-owned businesses in government contracting. The troubles started when Elvin “E. R.” Mitchell, Jr., a black contractor, began paying what became more than $1 million in bribes to city official and friend of the mayor Reverend Mitzi Bickers. Mitchell and his associates wanted to ensure that they could keep winning city-favored contracts and subcontracts for minorities, despite submitting bids higher than their competitors’. Mitchell also helped Bickers bribe officials in Jackson, Mississippi, so that she could secure minority-favored contracts on some of that city’s projects. Meantime, Larry Scott, head of Atlanta’s Office of Contract Compliance, which ensures that minority firms win contracts, started a side gig to help such businesses get favorable deals with the city—receiving over $220,000 in unreported income and partnering with the mayor’s brother and sister-in-law in the scheme. Mitchell, Bickers, Scott, and several other city officials have been sentenced on federal charges ranging from bribery to wire fraud.

    Affirmative-action plans in schools or workplaces get the headlines, but the practice of favoring minorities in government contracts is almost as old, and even more far-reaching. Such favoritism—in the form of Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE), or Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) programs—exists across all levels of government and in states and cities of every political hue.

    The subject of government contracting, or procurement, may not seem exciting, but its importance can’t be overstated. Nearly 10 percent of the U.S. economy goes through government contracts. The federal government spends over $600 billion yearly on contracts, making it the largest buyer of goods and services on the planet. State- and local-government spending on contracts totals about $1.3 trillion annually. Government contracts and purchases range from aircraft carriers and highway construction projects to office supplies and human-resources software. Favoritism to minority-owned companies pervades this vast universe.

    Minority contracting was never a coherent way to make amends for the nation’s long, lamentable history of racism. Instead of righting historical wrongs, the policy has enriched a small subset of already-wealthy businesses, bred corruption and fraud, deepened racial divisions, and cost taxpayers countless billions of dollars—while doing nothing to help the truly disadvantaged. Indeed, minority residents of urban areas pay the highest price for lackluster and expensive services caused by such programs. One underappreciated reason for the unparalleled costs of American urban and infrastructure projects is that the government too often picks contractors based on their sex or race, not the quality or cost of their bids.

    Snip.

    Today, governments use several methods to favor minority contractors. At the federal level, Congress has stated that “not less than 5 percent” of all contracts should go to “disadvantaged” businesses. Regulations clarify a “presumption” that “Black Americans; Hispanic Americans; Native Americans,” and “Asian Americans” are disadvantaged. Government treats the goal as a floor, not a ceiling: in recent years, the true share of contracts going to disadvantaged firms has been around 10 percent, and politicians have urged the bureaucracy to push the total higher. The SBA then sets goals for individual agencies—recently demanding, for example, that the Department of Transportation offer 21 percent of all contracts to disadvantaged enterprises. It also requires that federal “prime contractors” (the lead contractor on a project) create subcontracting plans to maximize minority participation.

    State and local governments set even higher goals for minority procurement but usually focus on encouraging large businesses to subcontract out to minorities. Chicago insists that 26 percent of all construction dollars go to minority companies and 6 percent to women-owned businesses. But a city-funded report noted that “almost all City funded construction projects require M/WBE” goals for subcontractors and that “project goals should exceed the ‘baseline’ goal.” Maryland has a target of 29 percent of contract dollars to minority firms. New York City and State have set a goal of 30 percent of all contracts going to MWBE, and the city itself goes into more detail, setting precise contracting goals for each race and business category (for instance, black-owned businesses should get 11.81 percent of all city professional-service contracts).

    Agencies have various ways of meeting these benchmarks. Federal agencies can directly award contracts to minority firms, without a normal bidding process and through a no-bid deal, if they cost less than $5 million. This arrangement, of course, has caused abuse. After 9/11, the federal government, hoping to accelerate security purchases, expanded awards to “Alaska Native Corporations,” which had a special exemption that allowed them to get no-bid minority contracts of unlimited amounts. Federal contracts to these corporations increased 20-fold in the decade ending in 2009, when spending totaled almost $6 billion. The army’s infectious-disease center at Fort Detrick, in a no-bid deal, shifted the management of all its contracts to an Alaskan Native Corporation, whose most significant former venture was a failed cruise-ship line. Another such corporation won a port-scanning deal and then subcontracted it out to traditional defense companies; only 33 of the corporation’s 2,300 employees were Alaskan Natives. Though Native Americans are the smallest “disadvantaged” group assisted by the federal government, they get 2.7 percent of all federal contracts—more than twice the proportion of any other group.

    Snip.

    The City of Austin Disparity Study for 2022, conducted by Colette Holt & Associates, a large disparity-study firm started by a lawyer who had previously worked for Chicago’s city government, is typical. It approaches 300 pages and contains a recitation of every supposed ill that has befallen a minority business in the Texas capital. The report uses only anonymous quotes that make accusations against unnamed individuals about racism or sexism. “There is no requirement that anecdotal testimony be ‘verified’ or corroborated,” the report notes.

    Try as they might, these studies have had little success proving racism or sexism in contracting. They typically use a “disparity ratio” to show the difference between the number of available minority firms and the number of government contracts going to these firms, though these ratios rarely account for the ability of different firms to perform government jobs. Yet studies conducted by Austin and Washington State found that MWBE firms were more likely to get contracts than were those owned by white men. A Missouri disparity study found that minority firms were more likely to get contracts than nonminority firms. A Chicago disparity study found that black and Hispanic firms were about twice as likely to get construction contracts, and Asian firms four times as likely, relative to their availability.

    These reports’ surveys of minority firms find that most aren’t worried about discrimination. Of those MWBEs responding to a survey in Austin, 75 percent said that they had not experienced barriers to contracting based on race or gender. Over 85 percent agreed that they did not get different prices or terms because of their race or gender. Disparity studies ignore such data and argue that the minority of minorities who report unspecified discrimination need assistance.

    When studies admit that there is no discrimination in contracting, politicians refuse to abide by them. Miami-Dade County made the mistake of employing a legitimate accounting firm, KPMG, for a disparity study, which determined that companies owned by blacks and Hispanics were not underused. The Miami mayor rejected the study. Los Angeles’s city council rejected a study that found that black firms did not suffer discrimination in contracting. The occasional lawsuit will surface, challenging these disparity studies when they provide no evidence of discrimination. But in such cases, governments will simply look for another minority contractor to conduct another study calling for more minority contracting.

    Minority-contracting programs are a magnet for fraud. No-bid contracts represent an obvious avenue, but the most common kind of MWBE fraud is simple: contractors with subpar bids either lie about being run by minorities or lie about involving other minority businesses in the contract. The Wedtech scandal in the 1980s involved such fraud; though John Mariotta, a Puerto Rican immigrant, had started the company, it was partially run by Fred Neuberger, a Romanian Jew who escaped the Holocaust in Europe but did not count as “disadvantaged” for the purposes of the 8(a) program. Similar issues arose with the recent Atlanta scandals: while contractor Charles Richards was white and won many “prime” contracts, he promised to subcontract work to Mitchell’s minority firm, and then paid Mitchell without asking his firm to do any work. A 2016 Department of Transportation presentation stated that more than one-third of its contracting-fraud cases involved minority contracting and that, over the preceding five years, cases involving minority-contracting fraud had led to $245 million in financial penalties and 425 months of incarceration for offenders.

    These cases tend to follow a certain playbook. A minority-owned front company wins the government contract, takes a small cut, and issues a pass-through contract to a white-owned firm. The largest such case in American history involved Schuylkill Products, a Pennsylvania firm that manufactured concrete bridge beams but had used a Filipino-owned front company for 15 years to win more than $130 million in contracts. The federal investigation led to several prison sentences in 2014. Front-company and pass-through fraud has dogged construction work at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and New York casinos. According to the New York State inspector general, the minority firms in the casino-fraud case did little more than submit invoices. A former Dallas councilman, meantime, went to prison for his role in setting up minority front companies for government contracts. Sometimes, the fraud is even more direct: in Seattle, the owner of a company that was paid to clean up homeless camps falsely identified as black on city forms. She also happened to be a city employee.

    Hey, that sounds sort of familiar…

  • “Target Donates To Group That Promotes Secret Child Gender Transitions, LGBTQ Books In Schools.”

    Target has repeatedly boasted about efforts to support the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, also known as GLSEN, an entity which helps teachers place LGBTQ books in school libraries and hide their students’ so-called gender transitions from parents.

    Conservatives have launched a boycott against Target after the retail behemoth marketed a female swimsuit as “tuck-friendly” and with “extra crotch coverage,” as well as hired an artist who creates Satanic items to make various designs for the company. Links between the company and GLSEN, which supports “affirming learning environments for LGBTQ youth” and activates “supportive educators,” resurfaced amid the backlash against Target.

    The retail behemoth boasted last year about donating more than $2.1 million to GLSEN over the past decade, lauding the group’s mission to create “affirming, accessible, and antiracist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students.” Target also actively promotes GLSEN on its online store.

  • Strangely enough, having a DA who will prosecute criminal and not lawful citizens defending themselves makes a difference. “San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins follows the law and the evidence and does not make decisions based on what may be politically expedient.”
  • Chesa Boudin, the recalled Soros tool she replaced, was just named head of UC Berkeley’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center.
  • Speaking of Soros-plagued cities: “Citywide Youth Curfew Begins In Baltimore As Mayor Strives To Restore Law And Order.”I doubt Mayor Brandon Scott’s policy will make that much of a difference, though maybe with Soros-tool Marilyn Mosby out of office and awaiting trial on federal perjury charges, maybe there’s a chance of Baltimore improving. But remember:

  • Of course. “Just Stop Oil’s Hollywood Patron Has Holiday Home in Ireland That he Jets Off to ‘When the Going Gets Tough.'” “Oscar winner Adam McKay, whose films include The Big Short and Don’t Look Up, is one of a group of multi-millionaires behind the Climate Emergency Fund. The Beverly Hills-based fund raises cash from its mega rich supporters and distributes it to ‘disruptive’ activists, including handing almost £1million to help Just Stop Oil wreak havoc in the U.K.” Being a Democrat means never having to apologize for your hypocrisy.
  • Speaking of liberal hypocrites: Darren Mark Stallcup, a “World Peace Movement” activist, launched a fundraiser for other people to escape the zombie apocalypse hellhole San Francisco. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Shareholder value destruction update: Since their disasterous tranny pander, Anheuser-Busch has lost $27 billion in market cap.
  • Three Antifa supporting assholes arrested.

    The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and the Atlanta Police Department (APD) arrested Marlon Scott Kautz, age 39, of Atlanta, Savannah D. Patterson, age 30, of Savannah, Ga., and Adele Maclean, age 42, of Atlanta, on Wednesday on charges of money laundering and charity fraud in association with fundraising efforts for the domestic terrorists who are currently in jail.

    “The GBI, along with the Atlanta Police Department, have arrested three people on charges stemming from the ongoing investigation of individuals responsible for numerous criminal acts at the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center and other metro Atlanta locations,” reads the GBI’s press release.

    The trio ran a non-profit called Network for Strong Communities, which worked with another group called the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which, at least on paper, was a bail fund for the thugs who attacked the training center property and other areas in Atlanta.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • IMDB has chosen to actively suppress negative ratings of the Little Mermaid remake.
  • Given that, it might be time to take a look at Worth It or Woke for honest movie reviews.
  • Dwight has a good look at the Battleship Texas, and (for Memorial Day) seaman Christen Christensen, who was killed in combat during the bombardment of a German shore battery off Cherbourg.
  • Don’t let JinJin eat poop off San Francisco’s street, or they may end up tripping balls.
  • “America Votes To Add ‘Can You Walk And Speak In Sentences’ To Presidential Job Application.”

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Elections, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    Kicking The Debt Can Down The Road To 2024

    June 1st, 2023

    Another year, another punt in dealing with America’s ever-mounting debt problems.

    After intense negotiations between U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20) and President Joe Biden, an agreement was struck which passed the House with both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.

    The so-called “Fiscal Responsibility Act” (FRA) passed the House Wednesday in a 314 to 117 vote, with 71 Republicans joining 46 Democrats in the minority voting against the measure.

    The deal will suspend the nation’s debt ceiling until after the 2024 presidential elections, leaving it up to the next White House and Congress to navigate a deal that addresses the ever-expanding national debt.

    With the debt nearing $32 trillion, the congressional budget analysis estimates it will grow by around $4 trillion during the period the FRA is in place, or until early 2025.

    Congressman August Pfluger (R-TX-11) was one of the members who voted in favor of the bill but acknowledged in a phone interview that the bill was far from perfect and isn’t to be considered a home run by fiscal conservatives.

    Pfluger explained there were some major wins in the negotiations that caused him to vote yes.

    “The number one thing we took away from holding the Energy Committee meetings in Midland was calls from the oil and gas industry to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and I’m proud to say we got the most significant reforms to NEPA in 50 years as part of this deal, and Biden isn’t happy about it,” he said.

    Pfluger explained how under NEPA laws, oil and gas permitting and regulations can slow industry projects down, taking almost 10 years in some cases to get federal permitting. He also said the deal would greenlight important pipeline projects.

    In addition, Plfuger said he supported the welfare reforms, requiring 80 hours per month of work or job training from The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) recipients, and clawing back of IRS funding, and while the proposal didn’t cut as much spending as he would like to see, it was still a small step in the right direction.

    Here is where the usual blogging protocol would be to put in my analysis of the good and bad points of the deal. Nah, it stinks, because it doesn’t treat the looming national debt crisis seriously. We need a republican House, a Republican Senate, and a president who is willing to ride herd and veto non-balanced budgets to start fixing the problem, and we haven’t had that combination in my lifetime. Gerald R. Ford was the last Republican President who really fought to balance the budget, and republican congressional leadership hasn’t done so since the days of New Gingrich, Phil Gramm and Dick Armey.

    Democrats will always vote for higher deficits because their entire business model is predicated on raking off the graft and doing the bidding of elites who prosper from asset inflation. Republicans as a whole always cave to them because no one holds them in line and because every debt limit hike is always an emergency rushed into law at the 11th hour when nobody is paying attention and they can whine “But we had to!”

    Real austerity is limiting government outlays to receipts, and we haven’t had that since Gingrich and company held the line and the Dotcom boom brought in then record revenue in the late 1990s. Undoing Gramm-Rudmam-Lotta was disasterous.

    I’d like to think that DeSantis could hold the line on deficit spending if he gets in. Sadly, we know from experience that Trump (whatever his other strengths) won’t…

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    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans | 6 Comments »

    No. And No.

    May 31st, 2023

    Former Vice President Mike Pence is evidently getting into the 2024 Presidential race next week.

    So evidently is former New Jersey Chris Christie.

    No. And no.

    Both men had their time in the sun, and neither’s time extends to 2024. Pence’s was 2016, when he provided a dull, predictable counterweight to Trump’s wild ride. Christie’s was 2009-2010, when his unexpected election as governor of deep blue New Jersey gave him a high profile platform to criticize the Obama Administration’s many unpopular policy failures.

    Neither has a prayer of beating Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024.

    Pence combines the dynamic personal charisma of Jeb Bush with the national electoral chances of Jeb Bush.

    This meme still cracks me up.

    Christie combines the personal likeability of J. Edgar Hoover with the weight of a second J. Edgar Hoover.

    As long as we’re memeing…

    And Christie has no excuse running again, having already run a dismal 2016 campaign that earned him exactly zero delegates (one less than Carly Florina).

    All these political coelacanths are going to do is prevent the anti-Trump vote from consolidating around DeSantis.

    Both should give up on their quixotic campaigns and retire to the cushy corporate board and college President circuit.

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    Posted in Economics, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors | 13 Comments »

    The League of the Boned: Turkey

    May 30th, 2023

    I have an in-process post titled “League of the Boned” in embryonic form, which was going to be about how each country in the League has been screwed by deficit spending, high interest rates and endemic corruption. But there so much boning to write about, and so many members of the League, that I thought it best to split it up into individual posts.

    First up is Turkey, not because it’s the most boned, but the one whose immediate boning is made more acute by recent events, namely Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reelection.

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters are celebrating after Turkey’s long-time president won Sunday’s vote, securing another five years in power.

    “The entire nation of 85 million won,” he told cheering crowds outside his enormous palace on the edge of Ankara.

    But his call for unity sounded hollow as he ridiculed his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu – and took aim at a jailed Kurdish leader and the LGBT community.

    The opposition leader denounced “the most unfair election in recent years”.

    Mr Kilicdaroglu said the president’s political party had mobilised all the means of the state against him and he did not explicitly admit defeat.

    International observers said on Monday that, as with the first round on 14 May, media bias and limits to freedom of expression had “created an unlevel playing field, and contributed to an unjustified advantage” for Mr Erdogan.

    President Erdogan ended with just over 52% of the vote, based on near-complete unofficial results. Almost half the electorate in this deeply polarised country did not back his authoritarian vision of Turkey.

    Ultimately, Mr Kilicdaroglu was no match for the well-drilled Erdogan campaign, even if he took the president to a run-off second round for the first time since the post was made directly elected in 2014.

    But he barely dented his rival’s first-round lead, falling more than two million votes behind.

    Snip.

    The president admitted that tackling inflation was Turkey’s most urgent issue.

    The question is whether he is prepared to take the necessary measures to do so. At an annual rate of almost 44%, inflation seeps into everyone’s lives.

    The cost of food, rent and other everyday goods has soared, exacerbated by Mr Erdogan’s refusal to observe orthodox economic policy and raise interest rates.

    The Turkish lira has hit record lows against the dollar and the central bank has struggled to meet surging demand for foreign currency.

    “If they continue with low interest rates, as Erdogan has signalled, the only other option is stricter capital controls,” warns Selva Demiralp, professor of economics at Koc university in Istanbul.

    Tiny problem: Strict capital controls tend not to work. By the standards of the Middle East, Turkey is fairly open and fairly modern, and getting around currency controls is one of the use cases that cryptocurrencies are ideal for.

    Indeed, the currency problem is so severe that Turkey’s foreign currency reserves just turned negative.

    The Turkish central bank’s net forex reserves dropped into negative territory for the first time since 2002, standing at $-151.3 million on May 19, as the bank – following Erdogan’s strict orders – scrambled to counter demand for hard currencies (USD, gold, crypto) ahead of Sunday’s runoff vote.

    Forex demand in Turkey surged to record levels ahead of May 14 on companies’ and individuals’ expectations that the lira, which lost 44% in 2021 and 30% in 2022, will plunge after the vote (spoiler alert: those fears have been justified).

    As we discussed last week, the central bank’s forex reserves have sagged in recent years due to costly market interventions and other efforts to cool forex demand. The bank’s net reserves dropped by $2.48 billion in the week to May 19, to their lowest level since February 2002. They have dropped $27.7 billion since the end of 2022, and were at negative $3 billion as of May 19. The net forex reserves would be even more negative if outstanding swaps, courtesy of foreign central banks and which stood at $33.50 billion on Wednesday, are deducted (as they should be since the CBRT will have to repay these at some point).

    And while the endgame here is clear to all, few are willing to say it out loud for fear of retaliation by the Erdogan regime (no really, he has been known to throw people in jail for recommending a Turkish lira short); yet one bank which decided to double down on Goldman’s dire view of how it all plays out is Morgan Stanley, which in a note last week (available to pro subscribers in the usual place), wrote that the turkish lira plummeting to 28 by the end of the year, is likely in the cards (in our view, that’s a rather optimistic take since the lira is about to become the new Bolivar where soon new zeroes are added daily if not hourly).

    This is, I think, a bit of an exaggeration, since Turkey is a much bigger and more important country (and economy) than Venezuela, and while they’ve done several terribly stupid things with their economy, they haven’t gone full socialist starvation scenario on it.

    The biggest concern when Erdogan came to party was his Islamist roots, and how he dismantled Turkey’s own peculiar systems of checks and balances, namely that anytime the government would move too far in an Islamist direction, the military would step in, depose the current government, rule for a while, and then step down once things had calmed down again. That doesn’t look very much like classic western democracy, but it served well enough for Turkey, partially insulating it from the wild swings between different despots common in the rest of the Islamic world.

    The bad news is that Erdogan demolished those checks and balances in his drive to centralize power in his own hands, purging the military of anyone he thought might possibly oppose him. The good news is that, after all that, he turned out to mostly be a typical Middle Eastern strongman rather than a fervent jihadi. The bad news is that he’s also a complete economic ignoramus, and his stupidity is making Turkey’s economic problems much worse.

    Here Patrick Boyle explains just how stupid:

  • On Erdogan’s idea that low-interest rates can cure inflation: “The official annual inflation rate in Turkey was 43.7% as of April. This is actually down from the 80% inflation rate that Turkey saw the prior year. There is no guarantee that this slowdown will persist. There is in fact widespread suspicion that the official numbers understate an inflation rate that according to independent experts is actually closer to 100%.”
  • The February earthquakes didn’t help.
  • “Another term for President Erdoğan would likely imply a continuation of the current policies with a heightened risk of persistent very high inflation and severe currency pressures.”
  • “The high inflation, along with government largess and efforts to prop up the currency are threatening economic growth and could push the country into a deep recession.”
  • The Lira is trading near record lows against the dollar.
  • “Net foreign assets, a proxy for the size of Turkey’s foreign currency holdings, have declined to minus $13 billion dollars from $1.4 billion dollars a year ago, according to central bank data.”
  • “Those figures include billions of dollars in funds borrowed from the domestic banking system through swaps. Pressure on international reserves has been ‘significant in recent weeks’ as the government made efforts to prop up the economy ahead of Sunday’s elections.”
  • “Turkey’s foreign currency and gold reserves tumbled $17 billion dollars in the six weeks leading up to the first round of the election according to the FT, a decline of 15 percent.”
  • “Turkey had a painful experience of high and chronic inflation from 1975 through to 2004 caused by political instability, poor institutions, high public sector budget deficits and depreciation of the Turkish Lira which culminated in a severe financial crisis in 2000-2001.”
  • “The establishment of an independent central bank in 2001, which focused mainly on fighting inflation along with tight fiscal policies implemented at the same time brought inflation under control.”
  • “During his election campaign, Erdogan showed no intention of changing his policies, doubling down on his claims that low interest rates would help the economy grow by providing cheap credit to increase Turkish manufacturing and exports. ‘You will see as the interest rates go down, so will inflation’ he told supporters in Istanbul in April.”

  • With the cost-of-living crisis on many voters’ minds, Erdogan launched a range of expensive policies in the lead up to the election aimed at reducing the immediate impact of inflation on voters. He raised the minimum wage repeatedly, announced a free month of natural gas for consumers, reduced electricity prices increased civil servant salaries and changed government policies to allow millions of Turks to receive early government pensions. Just days before the first round of the election He gave a 45% pay rise to 700,000 Turkish public sector workers, saying he would “not let anyone be crushed by inflation”.

    So he combated inflation by guaranteeing there would be more inflation, just like Joe Biden.

  • Boyle thinks Turkeys problems can be solved by adopting sane economic policies. “For a country in crisis, Turkey’s problems are not that difficult to solve – it is not a total basket case economy like some other emerging markets. The country mostly just needs a sensible interest rate policy and an independent central bank. Turkey has a lot of positives, it has a diversified economy, growth is good, it has good demographics and an educated workforce.”

    • This is true, but it was also true before Erdogan got into power and screwed things up. Peter Zeihan thinks that Turkey has the right mix of geography and demographics to be a future regional power. But there’s an awful difficult present to get through before that happens…

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    Posted in Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 4 Comments »

    Memorial Day: Honoring George D. Keathley

    May 29th, 2023

    This Memorial Day we honor the memory of Medal of Honor George D. Keathley, born in Lamesa, Dawson County, Texas, and died September 14, 1944 in Italy having fought for 15 minutes after receiving a mortal grenade wound.

    For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, in action on the western ridge of Mount Altuzzo, Italy. After bitter fighting his company had advanced to within 50 yards of the objective, where it was held up due to intense enemy sniper, automatic, small-arms, and mortar fire. The enemy launched three desperate counterattacks in an effort to regain their former positions, but all three were repulsed with heavy casualties on both sides. All officers and noncommissioned officers of the 2d and 3d platoons of Company B had become casualties, and S/Sgt. Keathley, guide of the 1st platoon, moved up and assumed command of both the 2d and 3d platoons, reduced to 20 men. The remnants of the two platoons were dangerously low on ammunition, so S/Sgt. Keathley, under deadly small-arms and mortar fire, crawled from one casualty to another, collecting their ammunition and administering first aid. He then visited each man of his two platoons, issuing the precious ammunition he had collected from the dead and wounded, and giving them words of encouragement. The enemy now delivered their fourth counterattack, which was approximately two companies in strength. In a furious charge they attacked from the front and both flanks, throwing hand grenades, firing automatic weapons, and assisted by a terrific mortar barrage. So strong was the enemy counterattack that the company was given up for lost. The remnants of the 2d and 3d platoons of Company B were now looking to S/Sgt. Keathley for leadership. He shouted his orders precisely and with determination and the men responded with all that was in them. Time after time the enemy tried to drive a wedge into S/Sgt. Keathley’s position and each time they were driven back, suffering huge casualties. Suddenly an enemy hand grenade hit and exploded near S/Sgt. Keathley, inflicting a mortal wound in his left side. However, hurling defiance at the enemy, he rose to his feet. Taking his left hand away from his wound and using it to steady his rifle, he fired and killed an attacking enemy soldier, and continued shouting orders to his men. His heroic and intrepid action so inspired his men that they fought with incomparable determination and viciousness. For 15 minutes S/Sgt. Keathley continued leading his men and effectively firing his rifle. He could have sought a sheltered spot and perhaps saved his life, but instead he elected to set an example for his men and make every possible effort to hold his position. Finally, friendly artillery fire helped to force the enemy to withdraw, leaving behind many of their number either dead or seriously wounded. S/Sgt. Keathley died a few moments later. Had it not been for his indomitable courage and incomparable heroism, the remnants of three rifle platoons of Company B might well have been annihilated by the overwhelming enemy attacking force. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service.

    Today we honor George D. Keathley and all America’s war dead for their service and sacrifice.

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    Posted in Military, Texas | 8 Comments »

    The Tank Museum On The T-14 Armata

    May 28th, 2023

    We’ve already covered why Russia’s T-14 Armata tank isn’t all that. Here’s a somewhat more balanced look from David Willey of The Tank Museum:

    The first ten minutes covers the basics of Soviet tank design (the philosophy of favoring firepower over just about everything else, and how political rivalries led to various Soviet tank designs). Then he goes into the details of the Armata.

  • Much of the Armata comes from the abandoned T-95 project. “Although the T14 is looked at as new, it actually relies on systems and ideas from some much earlier projects.”
  • “The smoothbore 2A821M 125mm cannon is an upgrade from the weapon on the T-90. Russian sources claim its muzzle energy is far greater compared to the Rheinmetall 120mm gun.”
  • The unmanned turret means no need for a fume extractor.
  • Theoretical fire rate of 10-12 rounds a minute. I suspect this is highly optimistic and the fire rate is probably the slower one round every ten seconds we already covered.
  • “The new Vacuum One armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding-sabot round is fitted with a 90cm [900mm] long rod penetrator. That’s unusually long. It is said to be capable of penetrating one meter of rolled homogeneous armor at about 2000 meters.” That is quite long. The rod penetrator on the U.S. M829 APFSDS round is 684mm long. Western consensus seems to be that the Vacuum One and Vacuum Two penetrator cores are made of depleted uranium or tungsten.
  • “The A853 engine was a copy of a German x-shaped engine from the war years…the A853 was not however a reliable product, and from all reports it seems to have had major issues.”
  • When working, it theoretically has twice the horsepower of a T-72 engine and capable of reaching 56 miles and hour with a range of 500 kilometers.
  • “The T14 has new 70 centimeter diameter road wheels, and an electronically adjustable suspension system on at least the first two road wheels, and possibly the last ones, and [that’s] called an active suspension system but is fitted over a main torsion bar suspension. It also has rubber-blocked tracks.”
  • The Armata’s sealed crew compartment will have air conditioning, which was introduced in Russian tanks with the T-90M in 2016. (Starting with M1A2 SEPv2, the Abrams has cooling, but it’s mainly geared toward cooling the electronics.)
  • Digital screens with remote cameras.
  • “The gunner can see his target, but he can also choose through those screens a relevant ammunition type.”
  • “The chassis and turret are equipped with a ‘Malachit’ dual explosive reactive armor system, and on the front sides and the top there’s stealth coatings.” Assuming the ERA is actually there and not fake, as on so many captured and destroyed Russian tanks in Ukraine.
  • “The active protection system has a radar to detect and tract incoming anti-tank munitions it states a maximum speed of incoming interceptable target is 1700 meters a second, or Mach 5.” Let’s just say I have grave doubts that it actually works. The Pentagon went with Israel’s Trophy active protection system over Raytheon’s homegrown Quick Kill system for M1A2 SEPv3, and Raytheon is good at developing reliable, high tech weapons. Unlike Russia.
  • “The top of the vehicle is still vulnerable to top attack munitions.” So much for defense against Javelin. Which first entered service in 1996.
  • “However, on closer inspection a number of these technologies and features are not fitted to some of the vehicles. Some you can see there’s covers where the technology or that piece of equipment should be on others is fitted for, but not with.” And that was on parade demonstration vehicles before sanctions. Odds that Russia would have enough parts to fully equip high tech parts to all Armatas supposedly in Ukraine would appear to be slim.
  • Though reusing a lot of features from the abandoned T-95 project, “the new T14 tank is a radical departure in sense of its scale, its layout, its design features and technology from that era of evolutionary Soviet-designed vehicles.”
  • “Originally intended to replace all Russian army tanks, the Russian military had planned to acquire about 2,300 T-14s between 2015 and 2020…but by 2018, delays were announced until at least 2025. Subsequently announcements indicated the apparent cancellation of the main production run.” In between it announced it was going to build 100 of them, though that number may have included other armored vehicles using the same platform.
  • “The [Russian] Deputy Minister of Defense said, quote, there is currently no need to mass produce the Armata when it’s older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the T-72, remain effective against American, German, and French counterparts.” Here the Deputy Minister of Defense is engaged in a time-honored Russian rhetorical device known as “lying his ass off.”
  • “The gradual tightening of sanctions, and then with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the problem of sourcing the essential microelectronics has come to the fore. Russian industry has been critically dependent on foreign microelectronics and associated technologies. These are no longer available due to sanctions.”
  • “The sights from France and other components are no longer available.”
  • “Other issues come into play that affect the wider Russian defense industries. One is the perennial Russian problem of corruption. Since 2011, a staggering 72,000 officials have appeared before the course on corruption charges.”
  • “The mythic way many Russian military systems and products have been promoted and sold has met a crushing reality in Ukraine.”

  • Even though there may only be 20 test vehicles available, there is an expectation they will make appearance in the battle. A British ministry defense statement said, and I quote, any T-14 deployment is likely to be a high-risk decision for Russia. 11 years in development, the program has been dogged with delays reduction in planned Fleet size and reports of manufacturing problems. If Russia deploys a T-14 it will likely primarily be for propaganda purposes. Production is probably only in the low tens, while commanders are unlikely to
    trust the vehicle in combat.

    • So even a balanced, objective analysis of the T-14 Armata isn’t particularly optimistic about its chances in combat.

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    Posted in Media Watch, Military, unions, video | 13 Comments »

    8 Californians Who Left For Texas Say Why

    May 27th, 2023

    Californians continue to flee the no-longer golden state, and many of them end up in Texas. ABC7 News in the bay area interviewed eight who fled as to why California dreaming has become a nightmare.

    Some takeaways:

  • “In the span of two years, California’s population has dropped by more than a half million people.”
  • “I was assaulted twice on the BART.”
  • “I’ve never had a house this large in my life.”
  • “It is definitely a lower cost of living in Texas.”
  • “The home that I once remembered and knew back in the 1980s and the 1990s, a lot of that’s gone now.”
  • “Home prices are lower [in Texas], and there’s plenty of job opportunities.”
  • The former mayor of Ventura, CA moved to Texas in 2014. “One of the things I greatly fear about Venture and elsewhere in coastal California is that it’s not a place for everybody anymore, and especially not a place for young families. It’s a place basically where older, affluent people now live. And I think something has really been lost there.”
  • “Home prices in Texas cost less than half of homes in California. U.S. Census Bureau numbers show that the middle and lower classes are leaving California at a higher rate than the wealthy.”
  • “Many who have left in recent years say they simply couldn’t afford to stay.”
  • A mother with six kids says it’s simply impossible to afford a house large enough in California. “I feel like the California Dream was the American Dream in my grandparents’ and parents’ era. That’s just not possible for our generation to live that American Dream in that state anymore. It’s so expensive that you’re struggling every month just to get by and pay your rent and your mortgage and put food on the table.”
  • Food truck owner: “The reason why I left California, honestly, is just the cost. The cost of living, the cost of running a business, regulations.”
  • Mention of the Move to Texas Facebook group for Californians looking to get the hell out of their failing state.
  • “Some people are moving to Texas because of their conservative values.”
  • ” It seems that the environment, politically in California, has just been a one-party rule. Republicans have done absolutely nothing to change anything in any way, it seems to me. They’ve been cowardly about it.”
  • “It’s very sad in Contra Costa County. You can’t even be conservative. You kinda have to hide if you’re conservative almost.”
  • Man whose family moved to California from South Korea in the 1970s: “Unfortunately my parent’s grocery stores were burned down in the L.A. riots, two of them, near Koreatown. And so that was, you know, quite a traumatic experience for my family.”
  • “I definitely think [California] is mismanaged. We moved primarily because of the crime. And, for me, it was not only the crime but also, you know, the amount of homelessness, needles. I was assaulted twice on the BART. Those particular assaults I really do think it had to do with the same kind of violence that I saw in the Bay Area towards Asian Americans.”
  • “I miss the ocean but not enough to move back.”
  • What would it take to move back to California? “Number one, the whole state would have to clean up. Get some of those rotten politicians. Be tough on crime again, like you should. People’s attitudes would just have to change. But for the most part, I really am happy here.”
  • “My commute is seven minutes to work.”
  • “Yeah, we definitely have not even contemplated moving back. We are just really happy out here.”

    • One party Democratic rule has hollowed out the state of California, and the people Democrats used to claim to represent (the working poor and the middle class) are the ones most harmed by the graft, corruption, incompetence, and radical social justice-engendered spiraling crime rates.

    Until that changes, expect people to continue to flee California.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 4 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for May 26, 2023

    May 26th, 2023

    More woke going broke, San Francisco is (still) a shithole, and Baggage Claim Fight Club. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • “FBI Concerned Jan. 6 Footage Would Expose Undercover Agents, Informants.” You don’t say.
  • “Layoffs are hitting HR and DEI teams at a disproportionately high rate.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer profession. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Target loses $9 billion in market cap for trying to tranny dress toddlers. I would boycott them over that, but I was already boycotting them over the tranny bathrooms.
  • “Innocent Multi-Billion Dollar Corporation Ruthlessly Attacked By People Not Giving Them Money.”
  • Bud Light sales drop another 25%.
  • Soros-backed Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price lets man off with no jail time despite him setting a man on fire with a blowtorch. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “‘There’s Poop Everywhere’: San Francisco’s Office District Not Only A Ghost Town, It’s Also Covered In Sh*t.”

    Everyone knows that San Francisco is the nation’s largest public toilet – requiring the city to employ six-figure ‘poop patrol’ cleanup team, however a new report from the city Controller’s Office really puts things in poo-spective.

    For starters, feces were found far more often in commercial sectors, covering “approximately 50% of street segments in Key Commercial Areas and 30% in the Citywide survey,” second only to broken glass as can be seen in the ‘illegal dumping’ section.

    If you’re wondering about the city’s fecal methodology, look no further than a footnote on page 43;

    Feces also includes bags filled with feces that are not inside trash receptacles. Feces that are spread or smeared on the street, sidewalk, or other objects along the evaluation route are counted. Stains that appear to be related to feces but have been cleaned are not counted. Bird droppings are excluded.

    As far as where most of the poo is found, Nob Hill takes the top spot, followed by the Tenderloin and The Mission districts.

    (Previously.)

  • “After California health authorities in 2014 imposed a mandate requiring requiring churches to provide elective abortion coverage to its employees, four churches sued, and after a long court battle, have now won a $1.4 million settlement.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • “The University of Texas at Austin spends more than $13 million on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) salaries for close to 200 jobs.”
  • Cycling bans men from women’s competition. Another sentence that shouldn’t have to be written…
  • FDA bans farmers from caring for their own animals with antibiotics. Man, it sure seems like our elites are trying to destroy the food supply… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The DeSantis campaign raised $8.2 million raised within 24 hours of announcing his presidential run.
  • In a classic case of bad timing, Tim Scott also announced that he’s running for president. I don’t see him making much headway against Trump or DeSantis, but he’s a serious veepstakes contender.
  • C. Boyden Gray, RIP. Among his most important tasks was spearheading the campaign for Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court.
  • Sudden Putin Death Syndrome strikes again.
  • It’s weird to be on the same side of an issue as Taco Bell. Namely that no one should be able to trademark “Taco Tuesday.”
  • Citing air-worthiness concerns, the FAA grounds the…B-17? Good to know they’re finally working through that 1946 backlog… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • The first rule of baggage claim fight club is you don’t talk about baggage claim fight club. The second rule of baggage claim fight club is that the blue zone is for loading and unloading only.
  • What is it like to cross the Darien Gap by car? A green hell.
  • A really amazing BattleBots match.
  • “Dodgers Summon Satan To Throw Out First Pitch At Pride Night.”

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Paxton vs. Phelan Slap Fight

    May 24th, 2023

    This would be an entertaining slap fight if it weren’t for the fact it was distracting two of the highest profile Republican office-holders in the state from real work.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called on Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan to resign for being a drunkard.

    Texas’ top lawyer says House Speaker Dade Phelan needs to resign after being in a state of “apparent debilitating intoxication” while presiding over the House.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton made the announcement in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.

    “After much consideration, it is with profound disappointment that I call on Speaker Dade Phelan to resign at the end of this legislative session. Texans were dismayed to witness his performance presiding over the Texas House in a state of apparent debilitating intoxication,” said Paxton.

    His comments are in reference to a viral video that circulated on social media over the weekend showing Phelan slurring words and acting in a manner that some allege is consistent with intoxication.

    Here’s video of Phelan, and I’ve got to say: Point Paxton. Pretty positive Phelan’s pickled:

    Is asking him to resign an overreaction? Probably. Back in the halcyon days of yore, back when Democrats controlled the chamber, legislating blotto was a regular occurrence, though I’m not sure any speakers were visibly soused.

    Then again, I think Paxton’s pronouncement was predicated on Phelan probing Paxton:

    A case of improprieties was laid out by a Texas House committee Wednesday morning against Attorney General Ken Paxton, detailing long-public allegations against the state official of securities fraud and abuse of office dealings with real estate mogul and donor Nate Paul.

    The House General Investigating Committee heard three hours of testimony from its team of legal counselors, who since March have been looking into various cases against Paxton that have been playing out in court for years.

    Chief Counsel Erin Epley announced formally that the investigation into “Matter A,” one of the anonymous titles the committee uses to conceal the identities of those being investigated and the topics therein, concerns the attorney general himself.

    The handful of attorneys involved in the committee’s investigation each have a Harris County background, including working in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office or a U.S. Attorney’s Office. In an apparent attempt to underscore credibility, Chairman Andrew Murr (R-Junction) made a point to note that Epley worked under former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Ryan Patrick, son of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

    Epley said the committee has interviewed 15 individuals with connections to Paxton and the allegations, including the four whistleblowers involved in the years-long lawsuit by multiple former employees of his: David Maxwell, Ryan Vassar, Mark Penley, and Blake Brickman.

    “General Paxton refers to these men as ‘political appointees,’ but they are his political appointees,” Epley told the committee.

    In November 2020, those former employees accused Paxton of abusing his office to assist Paul — who’s donated substantial sums of money to the attorney general — with an ongoing federal probe into his real estate business.

    Paxton settled with the whistleblowers in February this year for $3.3 million to conclude the case out of court, but that settlement has since stalled out after the Legislature — specifically the House — denied the attorney general’s request that the state pay for the settlement.

    In February, Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) said he did not consider the settlement a “proper use of taxpayer dollars.”

    The committee also laid out in detail the findings surrounding the eight-year-old securities fraud indictment against Paxton that has bounced around in court for years with no resolution.

    The securities charges are bunk that’s already dismissed at the federal level. I’m not sure how much fire can be found in all the smoke of the more recent charges.

    My rooting interest here would generally be with Paxton, since he’s doing an excellent job of suing the federal government over various far left lawbreaking, while Phelan is another in a line of squishy Republican speakers backed by business interests to thwart conservative legislation. But neither have exactly covered themselves in glory this week…

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    Posted in Regulation, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »

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