LinkSwarm for July 28, 2023

July 28th, 2023

The Hunter Biden scandals refuse to go away, California continues to hemorrhage taxpayers, Texas teachers behaving very badly, more Flu Manchu heart attacks, and a golden new parking aid. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal collapsed. Here’s former federal prosecutor Will Scharf discussing how the DoJ’s trickery backfired:

    Typically, if the Government is offering to a defendant that it will either drop charges or decline to bring new charges in return for the defendant’s guilty plea, the plea is structured under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(A). An agreement not to prosecute Hunter for FARA violations or other crimes in return for his pleading guilty to the tax misdemeanors, for example, would usually be a (c)(1)(A) plea. This is open, transparent, subject to judicial approval, etc.

    In Hunter’s case, according to what folks in the courtroom have told me, Hunter’s plea was structured under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(B), which is usually just a plea in return for a joint sentencing recommendation only, and contained no information on its face about other potential charges, and contained no clear agreement by DOJ to forego prosecution of other charges.

    Instead, DOJ and Hunter’s lawyers effectively hid that part of the agreement in what was publicly described as a pretrial diversion agreement relating to a § 922(g)(3) gun charge against Hunter for being a drug user in possession of a firearm.

    That pretrial diversion agreement as written was actually MUCH broader than just the gun charge. If Hunter were to complete probation, the pretrial diversion agreement prevented DOJ from ever bringing charges against Hunter for any crimes relating to the offense conduct discussed in the plea agreement, which was purposely written to include his foreign influence peddling operations in China and elsewhere.

    So they put the facts in the plea agreement, but put their non-prosecution agreement in the pretrial diversion agreement, effectively hiding the full scope of what DOJ was offering and Hunter was obtaining through these proceedings. Hunter’s upside from this deal was vast immunity from further prosecution if he finished a couple years of probation, and the public wouldn’t be any the wiser because none of this was clearly stated on the face of the plea agreement, as would normally be the case.

    Judge Noreika smelled a rat. She understood that the lawyers were trying to paint her into a corner and hide the ball. Instead, she backed DOJ and Hunter’s lawyers into a corner by pulling all the details out into the open and then indicating that she wasn’t going to approve a deal as broad as what she had discovered.

    DOJ, attempting to save face and save its case, then stated on the record that the investigation into Hunter was ongoing and that Hunter remained susceptible to prosecution under FARA. Hunter’s lawyers exploded. They clearly believed that FARA was covered under the deal, because as written, the pretrial diversion agreement language was broad enough to cover it. They blew up the deal, Hunter pled not guilty, and that’s the current state of play.

    And so here we are. Hunter’s lawyers and DOJ are going to go off and try to pull together a new set of agreements, likely narrower, to satisfy Judge Noreika. Fortunately, I doubt if FARA or any charges related to Hunter’s foreign influence peddling will be included, which leaves open the possibility of further investigations leading to further prosecutions.

  • More on how Hunter Biden’s sweetheart deal blew up.

    The Hunter Biden defense and the Biden Justice Department hid the sweeping immunity term, shielding Hunter from all future prosecution, in a “diversion agreement” related to the gun offense on which Hunter was not pleading guilty and is anticipated not to be prosecuted. (See here, p. 7, para. 15.) The “diversion agreement” is separate from the plea agreement to the misdemeanor tax charges (see here) — i.e., the only charges to which Hunter actually planned to plead guilty. The plea agreement is where one would ordinarily find the all-important immunity term (since the immunity is given by the government in exchange for the guilty plea). Both the diversion agreement and the plea agreement incorporate an outrageous statement of facts (which is appended to the tax plea agreement, linked above). This fictitious presentation, which appears to have been drafted by Hunter’s lawyers, is nevertheless endorsed by the Biden Justice Department, even though it is utterly inconsistent with the prosecutors’ face-saving protestations, under pointed questioning Wednesday by Judge Maryellen Noreika, that they are conducting a continuing investigation in which Hunter is a subject and could be charged.

    It could not be more obvious that, if the government were truly conducting a continuing investigation, prosecutors would never in a million years give one of the main subjects of that investigation a plea to minor tax charges — with the promise of a recommendation of no imprisonment — in the middle of that investigation.

    This corrupt episode happened because this case is not a legitimate case — it’s a sham. In legitimate prosecutions, the defendant and the Justice Department are adversaries, with defense lawyers looking out for the defendant’s interest and the prosecutors vindicating the public interest in seeing that lawbreakers are held to account. The Hunter Biden case, to the contrary, is a travesty, in which the defense and the prosecution are on the same side.

    That is why the prosecutors have never filed an indictment that lays out the case against Hunter in exacting, painful detail — the way the Justice Department typically does. To do that would be politically devastating for the president, who is implicated in his son’s conduct. Plus, if prosecutors fully describe the serious charges that appear to be supported by evidence already known, it would become politically impossible to settle the case on two trivial tax misdemeanors with no jail time, in addition to disappearing a gun felony carrying a potential ten-year prison sentence.

    That is why the plea agreement could not be a normal plea agreement. The point of an agreement is to outline in detail the full extent of the immunity the defendant is getting in exchange for his plea. Because the Hunter Biden defense and the Biden Justice Department are on the same side, the collective objective was to give Hunter as much immunity as possible, with as little said as possible about why he needs it.

  • Still more Hunter Biden news:

    Biden family business associate and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s “best friend in business” has canceled his scheduled appearance on Monday to give testimony before the House Oversight Committee for a third time. Well, something seems to really have this guy spooked, wouldn’t you say? Why in the world would this guy cancel not once, not twice, but thrice, er, I mean three times? It doesn’t take someone with an IQ north of 180 to see this.

    Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, spoke with Fox News and stated that Devon Archer canceled the deposition he was scheduled to participate in before the committee. Archer is currently under a subpoena from the committee but has now backed out three times, according to Breitbart News.

  • Speaking of the difficulties in prosecuting Democratic Party bagmen: “Charges DROPPED Against Dem Megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried.” 

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped campaign finance charges against alleged ‘crypto scammer’ Sam Bankman-Fried, who was accused of misusing customer deposits and who made $90 million in campaign contributions to around 300 predominantly left-wing political candidates or action committees (PACs).

    Prosecutors argued the United States “mishandled” the process of extraditing Bankman-Fried from the Bahamas, writing a letter stating, “In keeping with its treaty obligations to the Bahamas, the government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count.”

    Bankman-Fried, who had a net worth of around $26.5 billion at his peak, ranked behind only George Soros in donations to the Democrats last year.

    How convienent. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Texas Teachers Arrested for Sex Trafficking Children.”

    Two Texas teachers accused in separate sex crimes against children were arrested on the same day and each charged with sexually assaulting a child and trafficking a child for sex.

    Red Oak ISD teacher and coach Gershon Caston, 38, was arrested Thursday and charged with three first-degree felonies:

    • Aggravated sexual assault of a child
    • Trafficking a child to engage in sexual conduct
    • Compelling prostitution by a minor

    Snip.

    Former Nacogdoches ISD teacher Annaleigh Andrews, 24, was also arrested Thursday and charged with a dozen felonies:

    • Three counts of trafficking a child to engage in sexual
    • Three counts of sexual assault of a child
    • Three counts of improper relationship between student and educator
    • Three counts of enticing a child with intent to commit a felony
  • “California has lost more than $340 million in yearly tax income as its wealthiest residents moved to lower-tax states, according to a study by national online real estate service MyEListing.” I suspect the real number is much higher. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Eventbrite canceled Austin ‘Let Women Speak’ event for the crime of daring to point out the reality of two biological sexes. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Carroll ISD is the latest school district to ban transexual bathroom and pronoun madness.
  • New York City to motel guests: “Who cares about your reservation? We need these rooms to house illegal aliens.”
  • Crazy-eyed aide lipsyncs congresswoman’s speech. You really need to see this, as she’s giving off Bride of Chucky vibes here.
  • Biden regime to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: “How dare you consider running against Biden The Great And Powerful? No Secret Service protection for you!” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Senate Democrats Clear the Way for Boycott of Israeli Products.”

    Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked a measure that would have stopped the Biden administration from discriminating against Jewish-made Israeli products.

    The Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee rejected a measure from Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) that would have blocked the Federal Trade Commission from penalizing products produced by Israelis living in contested territories, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights.

    (Hat tip: Ted Cruz’s Facebook page.

  • “Swiss study: heart injuries from COVID vaccine 3000x higher than thought.”
  • Speaking of unexpected heart attacks, LeBron James’ 18-year old son Bronny James suffered cardiac arrest during a basketball workout. He survived. You know, I never remember hearing about young athletes having heart attacks pre-Flu Manchu vaccines…
  • I suspect this Peter Zeihan video might count as trolling my readers: “Why Fiat Currencies Will Always Beat Gold.” I think it’s broadly true in the cases he articulates, but doesn’t take into account the possibility of hyperinflation and/or widespread social unrest.
  • Is Ferrari lying about the number of limited production cars made? “Ferrari officially admits to producing 400 Enzos total. I have, so far, 500 Enzo VINs.”
  • Old and busted: Smoking pot destroys your brain. The new hotness: Smoking pot destroys the brains of your children and grandchildren. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Secret Service Says Eight-Ball Of Cocaine Found In Courtroom Chair Hunter Was Sitting In Probably Left By Tour Group.”
  • “A little closer…a little closer…Good!”

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 4 Comments »

    Mark Zuckerberg Has Been A Very Bad Robot Boy

    July 27th, 2023

    Meta, AKA “The Artist Formerly Known As Facebook,” announced that they just lost $21 billion on their Reality Labs division, AKA the Metaverse, AKA the worst virtual reality environment since January 2022.

    Meta’s second-quarter earnings showed that Reality Labs, its virtual and augmented reality development business, has lost a staggering $21.3 billion since January 2022 — and executives warned the bleeding will only get worse.

    The unit recorded $276 million in Q2 sales this year — down from the $339 million it drew in during Q1, underscoring how VR and AR technology has yet to infiltrate the mainstream.

    The losses were wider than analysts expected, though CFO Susan Li suggested in the report that Meta will continue to invest in the tech, which is used to power the metaverse.

    “For Reality Labs, we expect operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and investments to further scale our ecosystem,” Li wrote.

    Just last month, Meta unveiled its Quest 3 headset for $499, which Mark Zuckerberg touted as “the first mainstream headset with high-res color mixed reality,” though it’s unclear how successful the tech has been so far.

    Hint: Not at all.

    Just how do you lose $21 billion? That’s a burn rate of over a billion a month. You could hire a mountain of developers and engineers for that money, maybe 100,000 or so of them even at California salary rates. Wikipedia (usual caveats apply) says Occulus only had 17,00 employees in 2022. Meta only paid $2 billion to acquire Occulas (which became Reality Labs) in the first place. Hell, you could fund over 200 startups at $100 million a pop, and it would still be more likely for any one of them to be profitable than Reality Labs.

    Usually you have to be a politician to lose that much money. I wonder if Reality Labs losses might be covering up losses in other divisions. Or if the money is getting siphoned off to somewhere else entirely…

    Earlier this month, Meta found itself on the defense in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by stand-up comic Sarah Silverman and authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, who alleged that Meta’s artificial intelligence-backed language models were trained on illegally-acquired datasets containing the authors’ work.

    The suit against Meta points to the allegedly illicit sites used to train LLaMA, the ChatGPT competitor the company launched in February.

    Naturally, anything involving large corporations ripping off science fiction writers attracts my attention, and I used to bump into Kadrey back when I was on the SF con circuit. The same firm is also suing on behalf of Paul Trem­blay and Mona Awad.

    There probably needs to be some sort of regulation on how much AI generated content can come from any particular living creator. If I feed an AI all of Paul McCarthy’s songs, and ask it to produce a new one based on those, is it copyright infringement?

    I suspect a number of lawyers are going to be getting a lot of money off AI in the near future…

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    Posted in Media Watch | 8 Comments »

    Bill Maher Interviews Jordan Peterson

    July 26th, 2023

    Bill Maher is a liberal Democrat who has been increasingly red-pilled following the Flu Manchu lockdowns and his party’s increasing embrace of censorship. So when I saw that he had Jordan Peterson, a veritable walking red-pill dispensing machine, on his interview show Club Random, that definitely piqued my interest.

    I’ve only watched a small fraction thus far, but it looks like it’s going to be another busy day, so here it is.

    BM: I read a quote from Justin Trudeau that was so dumb—
    JP: Which one?

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    Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, video | 5 Comments »

    Incompetent Uvalde Gun Lawsuit Draws Fines

    July 25th, 2023

    After every media-hyped shooting, ambulance-chasing lawyers come out of the woodwork to file lawsuits against the manufacturer of whatever gun this month’s eel-brain happened to lay his hands on to do the deed, despite the Protection in Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

    This time they’re doing it for the Uvalde shooting, but they’ve evidently been so sloppy in filing their lawsuit that they’re facing contempt charges.

    In the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 students and two teachers, California-based attorney Charles Bonner is facing heat over a federal case to sue the gun store and the manufacturer of the rifle used in the massacre, Daniel Defense.

    Bonner told media in August 2022 that he had been hired by Uvalde residents, consisting mostly of families of Robb Elementary students, to file civil lawsuits against numerous entities over the shooting.

    Now, he and other attorneys involved are facing both sanctions and criminal contempt charges in federal court over the lax handling of the case.

    Both Daniel Defense and gun store Oasis Outback, which sold the rifle to the gunman, have been named as defendants in the federal civil lawsuit seeking $6 billion in damages. Prior to filing the lawsuit, Bonner had announced his intent to file a $27 billion class action lawsuit, but it is unclear if he intends to seek additional damages from other parties in separate lawsuits.

    The case was initially filed in the Austin division of the Western District of Texas; however, the case was transferred to the Del Rio division, where the court instructed the plaintiffs to serve the defendants before the case could proceed.

    This simple process is where the case began to fall apart procedurally.

    Numerous documents beginning in June show federal Judge Alia Moses giving multiple orders to the plaintiff attorneys to properly serve the defendants, writing, “The Defendants must be afforded due process instead of plaintiff counsel’s apparent wish to improperly litigate this case ex parte,” accusing the attorneys of using the case to serve their interests alone.

    But the lax handling of the case didn’t stop with the first admonishment by the court.

    Moses set a hearing to discuss why the plaintiffs failed to properly serve the defendants, a hearing the attorneys did not attend.

    “Serving defendants the lawsuit” is hardly a deep, dark secret of the legal profession. Indeed, it’s why process servers exist as a profession.

    This prompted Moses to set another hearing, ordering the plaintiffs’ legal counsel to appear in a hearing where the court will consider sanctions for failing to follow its instructions and potentially issue contempt charges for failing to appear.

    “The Court will consider additional sanctions for the failure to appear and will consider referring the plaintiff’s counsel for contempt prosecution based on the failure to appear at the sanctions hearing,” Moses’s order states.

    Lawyers, even ambulance chasers, are supposed to be smarter than the average bear. But this is a pretty basic, stupid, unforced error on Bonner’s part…

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    Posted in Guns, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Mapping Austin’s Homeless Problem

    July 24th, 2023

    Despite the camping ban repeal, sprawling camps of drug-addicted transients lured here by departed mayor Steve Adler and the hard left Austin City Council continue to dot the landscape in and around Austin.

    Indeed, the problem remains so large that one Austinite has created a Google map to track homeless camps. If you live in or near Austin, click on that to see how big the problem is, and how many camps are near you.

    Says the New York Post:

    Liberal policies have led to a shocking explosion in homeless camps across the state capital, with around 168 different homeless camps across the city and 10,000 people living on the streets, sources tell The Post.

    The sheer amount of people living on the street, 10,000 according to the City of Austin’s own count, now makes up 1% of the entire population in the greater Austin area.

    His map reveals the clandestine encampments have spread to a far greater extent than many taxpaying residents had previously realized — dotting the entire city, including near popular tourist destinations like Zilker Metropolitan Park.

    Often hidden from public view in wooded areas, the encampments, banned by voter mandate, have become hotbeds for illegal activity and been the site of two deaths since April.

    [Jamie] Hammonds warns that an even bigger public safety threat could be looming as the sites remain largely unregulated by the Democratic city’s leadership.

    “A big fire is going to take place, and it’s going to burn up a lot of people. It’s going to happen,” Hammonds predicted.

    “I’ve been warning the city about this for over a year.”

    In the year and a half that Hammonds has been documenting the camps, he claims to have regularly witnessed people with mental health and drug issues use unsupervised fires for warmth and cooking.

    “We have fires in these camps every year, but thank the Lord the fire department has been able to put them out very quickly,” he added.

    The homeless sites are often nestled in wooded areas, surrounded by oak trees.

    “It gets really hot and really dry in the summer,” the filmmaker explained. “These folks build fires, and these greenbelts, when it gets dry, it’s like a match waiting to go off.

    That story, in turn, was a follow-up to this one in which Hammonds documented Violet Crown Trail being trashed.

    Hammonds has his own YouTube channel, as well as a domain (http://www.dashatx.org/) that currently seems to be suffering from a certificate problem.

    The Homeless Industrial Complex obviously benefits from these sprawling homeless camps (and, indeed, tried to directly financially benefit from cleaning them up before they got caught). They exist because those on the hard left benefit from their existence, no matter how many camps they burn down, piles of trash they leave behind, or how many law-abiding citizens they victimize.

    (Hat tip: Not the Bee.)

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 4 Comments »

    Remembering the Rosemary Lehmberg DWI Arrest 10 Years Later

    July 23rd, 2023

    Before linking to my original story from just over ten years ago in this week’s LinkSwarm, I hadn’t thought of the Rosemary Lehmberg DWI case in quite a while. A short summary of the basic facts at the time of the arrest:

    [Travis County Democratic] District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested and charged with drunken driving Friday night in Northwest Travis County…

    According to the arrest affidavit, a witness called 911 just after 10:45pm to report a four-door Lexus wandering into the bike lane and then into oncoming traffic while traveling southbound on FM 620 near Comanche Trail. The car was being driven by Lehmberg, according to the affidavit.

    Lehmberg told the deputy that she’d had two vodka drinks earlier in the evening and that she was on a prescription beta-blocking drug. According to the arrest affidavit, there was an opened bottle of vodka in the passenger area of the vehicle within reach.

    (Sorry for linking to the Austin Chronicle but a lot of the original stories on the arrest no longer seem online.)

    Here’s a pro-trip, boys and girls: If you you find yourself driving around at night (well, any time, but especially at night) while drinking from an open vodka bottle (she evidently had a blood alcohol level of .239), you have a problem, and you should seek professional help and/or check yourself into rehab.

    Like, the next day.

    Eventually Lehmberg spent 45 days in jail and declined to run for reelection, but wasn’t removed from office.

    But the thing I remember most about the Lehmberg case was her in restraints…


    Eh, not quite like that

    …screaming “Call Greg!” (Dwight even bought me a bumper sticker.) The “Greg” in this case was then Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton, who Lehmberg obviously believed would get the charges dismissed.

    Ten or twenty years before, that might have happened, but one big reason it didn’t happen in Lehmberg’s case was dashcam footage. (Another was that Travis County LEOs seemed to hate Lehmberg’s guts.)

    Speaking of “Call Greg!”, many of the videos of her arrest I previously linked to seem seem to be dead. (It seems more likely for a book to survive 100 years than an online video to last 10.) So here is sort of a compressed “greatest hits” of Lehmberg at the booking station, including the magic phrase:

    Some valuable takeaways still true ten years after the fact:

  • Being drunk makes you stupid.
  • Belligerent entitlement and threats don’t make police any more likely to let you off (unless, perhaps, your last name is “Biden”).
  • No, seriously, shut the fuck up. When arrested, remain silent except to ask for your lawyer.
  • DWI is expensive, even if you don’t kill anybody. At a defensive driving class many moons ago, the instructor noted that it would be cheaper to hire a limo to drive you to Dallas, stay in a five-star hotel, dine at the city’s most expensive restaurant, down three bottles of their most expensive champagne, and have the limo driver drive you back than it would be to pay the legal fees to successfully fight a DWI in court.

    • I did a search to see what Lehmberg was up to after leaving office, but I couldn’t find out anything. It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth. Hopefully she got some help for her alcoholism.

    Ironically, though Lehmberg was an obnoxious drunk-driving Democrat who used her office to launch partisan witch hunt investigations of statewide Republican politicians, she was still better than current DA Jose Garza. For all Lehmberg’s myriad flaws, I never got the impression that Lehmberg was actually on the side of the criminals over law-abiding citizens.

    Unlike Garza.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Texas | 10 Comments »

    Scalps Taken

    July 22nd, 2023

    It’s easy to get discouraged over the obscene metastasis of creeping social justice infecting our institutions. Even though only something like 15% of Americans back radical leftwing social justice, it often gives the impression of moving from victory to victory.

    But it’s important to note that forces of American liberty have won important victories against the woke Borg. Indeed, the good guys have recently taken scalps in the realm of higher education, and those victories are worth noting.

    Item one: VMI alumni managed to get that school’s diversity chief to quit.

    proactive alumni group working to curb diversity, equity and inclusion at the Virginia Military Institute has been given credit for prompting the school’s DEI chief to quit.

    An article in The Washington Post largely cites the actions of proactive alumni, most notably members of “The Spirit of VMI” group, for the decision by Jamica Love to leave her post.

    “Love, 49, who leaves her position at the end of June, was the highest-ranking Black woman at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college. But she faced intense backlash from some alumni and cadets as soon as her hiring was announced in May 2021,” the Post reported June 1.

    While the Post’s article suggested the dislike of DEI at VMI is due to disgruntled white male alumni, former students there have told The College Fix in recent years they seek to preserve honor and meritocracy at the institute in the face of equity programming. They also said they reject the argument the institute is steeped in racism and sexism.

    As The College Fix previously reported, the controversy dates back to a 2021 consultants report that accused VMI of “institutional racism and sexism” and recommended the implementation of new DEI measures.

    Last year alumni began actively writing to state lawmakers about their concerns, including Gov. Glenn Younking, as well as voice complaints on social media.

    Earlier this year, alumni said they will withhold donations as VMI implements DEI programming.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

    Item the second: Texas A&M rescinded a journalism professor’s tenure offer after public outcry, causing A&M’s president to resign.

    Texas A&M University has been at the focus of a media firestorm this past month after the school walked back the terms of a job offer extended to journalism professor Dr. Kathleen McElroy.

    The saga began with the publication of a story by Valerie Munoz, a Texas A&M journalism student, in Texas Scorecard that highlighted the school’s recent decision to hire McElroy as the new department head overseeing the school of journalism. The university offered McElroy tenured status similar to her present faculty position at the University of Texas.

    The story pointed to McElroy’s advocacy for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) measures in both academic settings and newsrooms, drawing a contrast between the journalism professor’s approach to education and new state public policy measures passed by the Texas Legislature this year banning DEI offices in public universities.

    In addition, the story reported on a statement by McElroy on her approach to journalism, that she opposes the equal representation of all sides of an issue in news reporting if one side is deemed “illegitimate.”

    After the story broke, the university began walking back elements of the job offer, causing McElroy to decide to take the details public.

    In an interview with the Texas Tribune, McElroy, who is black, stated she felt she was being “judged by race” and maybe gender after the school decided to rescind the tenure offer and instead offer a one-year contract and at-will employment terms. She said she didn’t believe other people would face the same bars or challenges and that she felt “damaged” by the entire process.

    The story has since snowballed into national headlines, and outrage over the hiring process has resulted in the resignation of both the university’s interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Jose Luis Bermudez and President Katherine Banks.

    If Bermudez and Banks are backers of social justice, and it very much appears they were, their departures (and scalps) are also welcome.

    The Texas A&M Faculty Senate recently voted to create a fact-finding committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the alteration of the job offer extended to McElroy. Shortly after that, Banks tendered her resignation to Chancellor John Sharp, writing that the mass negative press on the incident led to the decision.

    “The recent challenges regarding Dr. McElroy have made it clear to me that I must retire immediately. The negative press is a distraction from the wonderful work being done here,” Banks wrote.

    Numerous reports placed blame on “outside groups” improperly influencing hiring decisions at the school, a claim reportedly started by the faculty senate. That turned attention to one organization of former Aggies in particular, The Rudder Association (TRA).

    According to its website, TRA is “a group of dedicated Aggies committed to preserving and perpetuating the core values and unique spirit” of the university.

    In a series of press statements on the group’s website, TRA pushed back on reports characterizing its members, which includes taxpayers, tuition payers, and donors to the school, as “outside influence.” In addition, the group said that university regents and elected officials should not be characterized as such either.

    Firing by firing, progress is made.

    The bad news, of course, is that McElroy is still at UT…

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    Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 2 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for July 21, 2022

    July 21st, 2023

    More Biden corruption, a bit about music, and cute dogs. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Here’s a fairly extensive timeline of Biden corruption.

    2009 – The Obama-Biden administration takes office

    November 1, 2013 – China / BHR:

    Hunter Biden, business associate, and Chinese investors agree to create Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. (BHR), an investment fund controlled by the Bank of China, to focus on mergers and acquisitions, and investment in and reforms of state-owned enterprise.

    December 4, 2013 – China / BHR

    Vice President Biden travels with Hunter Biden on Air Force 2 to China and meets CEO of BHR, Jonathan Li. Shortly thereafter, BHR’s business license was approved and Hunter Biden was a board member.

    February 5, 2014 – Kazakhstan

    Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakhstani businessman, meets with Hunter Biden at a hotel in Washington, D.C.

    April 15, 2014 – Ukraine

    Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, appoints Biden business associate to their board of directors.

    Etc. etc. etc.

  • “California Democrats retreat on their effort to defend child slavers.”

    After initially killing a bill on July 12, 2023 that would have increased the penalties on child sex traffickers, the Democrats who completely control the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee reversed course one day later and voted to advance the bill.

    With a final vote of 6-0, including two abstentions from progressive Democrats, the bill now moves to the Appropriations Committee, after which, if it is approved, can move the bill to be voted upon by the entire State Assembly. If passed, SB 14 will make trafficking of minors a serious felony that would qualify under California’s three strikes law, which keeps dangerous, serial criminals off the streets, and make individuals convicted of the crime ineligible for early release.

    I highlight the two abstentions by Democrats. Even after a nationwide uproar over their willingness to block harsh penalties on those who traffic young children for sexual slavery, these two Democrats, including Assembly Majority Leader Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), still could not bring themselves to vote for the bill.

    (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • State Senator Charles Schwertner (my state senator) has his DWI charges dismissed. Still, he hardly crowned himself in glory. At least he didn’t yell “Call Greg!” (It did make me wonder what Rosemary Lehmberg is doing today, and if she ever conquered her alcoholism…)
  • Mexico surpasses China as America’s biggest trade partner. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Remember Toast Tab’s 99¢ fee from last week’s LinkSwarm? Well, public reaction was so negative that their shares cratered and they rescinded the fee.
  • Will the Biden Administration use a lizard to kill the Permian Basin shale revolution?
  • “This car has all the annoying things about EVs and none of the cool stuff…this car doesn’t live up to any expectations. Nothing
    works.    ”

  • TSMC delays Arizona plant opening due to labor shortage.
  • A detailed look at the recording of one of my favorite albums of all time: Peter Gabriel III.
  • Just what does electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick’s “Silver Apples of the Moon” sound like? You know that scene in a 70s SciFi dystopia where someone’s face gets ripped off to reveal they’re a robot? It sounds like that.
  • GWAR plays for NPR. So on one side you have horrible monsters who are unbearable to listen to, and on the other side you have GWAR…
  • That’s one sly kissing bandit.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    Number of Police Austin Adds In New Budget: Zero

    July 20th, 2023

    Despite a massive deficit in the number of police officers needed to patrol city streets, want to guess how many police Austin’s new budget plans to add?

    Would you believe zero?

    Austin’s far-left City Council continues to view police as the enemy, continuing it’s defund-the-police bias even after most city’s have abandoned it as madness. Their funding priorities continue to be finding new ways to rake off graft to the hard left.

    (Hat tip: Texas Scorecard.)

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats | 5 Comments »

    Movie Review: The Death of Stalin

    July 19th, 2023

    Title: The Death of Stalin
    Director: Armando Iannucci
    Writers: Fabien Nury (comic book and original screenplay)), Thierry Robin Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin
    Starring: Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor, Simon Russell Beale, Jason Isaacs, Michael Palin, Olga Kurylenko, Adrian McLoughlin, Paddy Considine, Paul Whitehouse, Paul Chahidi, Andrea Riseborough, Rupert Friend

    Time for another edition of “Lawrence reviews a movie that came out years ago,” because I don’t have cable or streaming. And The Death of Stalin is a movie I kept waiting to get cheaper or turn up used on DVD, but it never did. So I finally ponied up for a copy.

    Now that I’ve watched it, it’s the rare film that actually lives up to the hype, an absolutely scorching black comedy about high level commies scrambling for power (and survival) as Stalin is dying and after he kicks off.

    It’s a tremendous cast, each giving a great performance, as they play one off the other in the sudden power vacuum. Jeffrey Tambor’s Georgy Malenkov is theoretically in charge but too weak to make anyone fear his authority. Simon Russell Beale’s slimy NKVD head Lavrenti Beria (one of history’s nastiest pieces of work) is decisive and cocksure, believing he has enough dirt on everyone to keep his head above water, no matter how much blood he has on his hands. Steve Buscemi’s Nikita Khrushchev is the reluctant party toady who realizes he has to unite the rest of the Committee against Beria before the latter can purge him. Michael Palin (in echoes of his Monty Python and Brazil roles) plays Vyacheslav Molotov as a man who has so mastered communist doublethink that switches from condemning his imprisoned wife mid-sentence to praising her return when Beria produces her.

    Into the inner circle comes Stalin’s children, Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough), possibly the only main character without blood on her hands, and her drunken brother Vasily (Rupert Friend), whom the Politburo hacks immediately start sucking up to. Finally, into Stalin’s funeral swaggers Field Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs, having tremendous fun with the role), the macho, cocksure head of the military who ultimately provides the fulcrum upon which the others can rid themselves of Beria.

    All of this is done in the hilarious, profane, black comedy style of Director/Writer Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It, right down to the Scottish swearing. Just about everyone here is (as in history) an abhorrent cog in a genocidal totalitarian state, and it’s a pleasure to see them sink knives (rhetorical and otherwise) into each other.

    Beria, the nastiest of the nasty, overplays his hand and succeeds in uniting the others against him, for a bloody, satisfying end.

    Certain liberties have been taken, as historically there were more than nine months between Stalin’s death and Beria’s execution. But The Death of Stalin is faithful to the spirit of the thing, if not the letter.

    All in all, this is a hilarious black comedy, and the best film about communism since The Lives of Others.

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    Posted in Budget, Communism, Media Watch | 14 Comments »

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