Iowahawk Sticks It To Harvey Weinstein

May 26th, 2018

The news that Harvey Weinstein had turned himself in to be charged with rape had Iowahawk in rare form:

LinkSwarm for May 25, 2018

May 25th, 2018

Looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend…

  • Are we supposed to have Strong Opinions and Takes of Elevated Temperature over the fact that President Donald Trump has cancelled the summit with North Korea? Because the MSM certainly seems to have no shortage of such takes, despite the fact that Scott Adams (who keeps explaining President Trump’s persuasion techniques again and again to a press that refuses to listen) called it a month ago:

    It isn’t just that liberals, the MSM and #NeverTrump hate President Trump, it’s that they hate him with such a blinding, all-encompassing rage that they refuse to learn from their mistakes and keep making the same ones over and over again…

  • President Trump’s immigration crackdown is forcing companies to actually hire women.
  • Israel says it’s the first country to actually use F-35s in combat. (Hat tip: Neontaster’s Twitter feed.)
  • President Trump is killing off what little leftwing idealism of the 1960s remained:

    The children of the ’60s — you know, the hippies — and their ideological offspring in academia, politics, and, most especially, the media, are now not only okay with a sitting president’s weaponizing the intelligence community against a rival presidential campaign; they are all rolling over like whipped dogs to believe everything the intelligence community tells them, most especially when it is coming from the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI.

    Basically, Trump has driven the hippies and their offspring so crazy they are not only A-okay with the CIA’s spying on American citizens, totally cool with FBI spies infiltrating a rival campaign, and feeling warm all over about wiretaps, unmasking, and lying to federal judges, they do not want any of this investigated.

    The other day, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame was on CNN fuming over the fact that there will now be an investigation of the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the FBI, after it was discovered they are all guilty of spying on the political rival of a sitting president.

    Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want the watchmen watched. Carl freakin’ Bernstein is swallowing every treat being fed to him by the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI. Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want an investigation, does not want to learn anything more than what he is being told (by the CIA!), and does not want the public to know anything more.

  • A Russian in Norway thinks the Norwegians are crazy to let their country be Isalmicized.
  • War with China within two years? I’m not sold on that idea, but it’s something to consider. (Hat tip: Ace.)
  • Bird is an annoying “scooter sharing” startup plaguing a few cities. Turns out that a recharging reward makes it even more annoying than it sounds, with rechargers gaming the system for maximum rewards by hoarding scooters. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Bomb detonates inside Indian restaurant in Canada, injuring 15.
  • Three more arrested in south Texas on that voting fraud that Democrats swear doesn’t exist.
  • President Trump nominates Texan Andy Oldham to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • Harvey Weinstein finally charged with rape.
  • Moses Farrow, adopted son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, talks about why he believes Allen and what a nightmare it was to live with Farrow:

    It was common knowledge in Hollywood that my grandfather, the director John Farrow, was a notorious drinker and serial philanderer. There were numerous alcohol-fueled arguments between her parents, and Mia told me that she was the victim of attempted molestation within her own family. Her brother, my uncle John, who visited us many times when we were young, is currently in prison on a conviction of multiple child molestation charges. (My mother has never publicly commented on this or expressed concern about his victims.) My uncle Patrick and his family would often come by, but those visits could end abruptly as Mia and Patrick would often wind up arguing. Patrick would commit suicide in 2009.

    My mother, of course, had her own darkness. She married 50-year-old Frank Sinatra when she was only 21. After they divorced, she moved in to live with her close friend Dory Previn and her husband André. When my mother became pregnant by André, the Previns’ marriage broke up, leading to Dory’s institutionalization. It was never spoken of in our home, of course, and not even known to me until a few years ago. But, as I look at it – as a licensed therapist as well as an eyewitness – it’s easy to see the seeds of dysfunction that would flourish within our own home.

    It was important to my mother to project to the world a picture of a happy blended household of both biological and adopted children, but this was far from the truth. I’m sure my mother had good intentions in adopting children with disabilities from the direst of circumstances, but the reality inside our walls was very different. It pains me to recall instances in which I witnessed siblings, some blind or physically disabled, dragged down a flight of stairs to be thrown into a bedroom or a closet, then having the door locked from the outside. She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression.

    Snip.

    The summer between first and second grades, she was having new wallpaper installed in the bedroom I slept in, across the hall from hers on the second floor of the Connecticut house. I was getting ready to go to sleep, when my mother came over to my bed and found a tape measure. She gave me a piercing look that stopped me in my tracks and asked if I had taken it, as she had been looking for it all day. I stood in front of her, frozen. She asked why it was on my bed. I told her I didn’t know, that perhaps a workman had left it there. She asked again and again and again.

    When I didn’t give the answer she wanted, she slapped my face, knocking off my glasses. She told me I was lying and directed me to tell my brothers and sisters that I had taken the tape measure. Through my tears I listened to her as she explained that we would rehearse what should have happened. She would walk into the room and I would tell her I was sorry for taking the tape measure, that I had taken it to play with and that I would never do it again. She made me rehearse it at least a half-dozen times.

    That was the start of her coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing – in essence, brainwashing. I became anxious and fearful. Once, when I was given a new pair of jeans, I thought they would look cool if I cut off a couple of the belt loops. When Mia saw what I had done, she spanked me repeatedly and had me remove all my clothing, saying, “You’re not deserving of any clothes” and making me stand naked in the corner of her room, in front of my older siblings who had just returned from dinner with their father André.

    Plus how Farrow had drilled her children into reciting the details of the alleged “assault” over and over again.

    Read the while thing. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Amazon demonetizes Legal Insurrection, lies about the reasons.
  • Rachel Dolezal charged with welfare fraud. That’s taking your “I was born a poor black child” cosplay way too far…
  • One of those “Yeah, you just have to put it up” tweets:

  • Scumbag Update: Dem. State Rep. Ron Reynolds Finally Going To Jail

    May 24th, 2018

    Remember Democratic State Rep. Ron Reynolds? The one whose barratry conviction was overturned, only to be retried and convicted again?

    Well, he’s finally going to jail:

    After being denied a review of his 2015 misdemeanor conviction by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Democratic State Rep. Ron Reynolds (Missouri City) will likely serve a one-year jail sentence for illegal solicitation of legal services.

    The sentence stems from a scheme in which chiropractic firms would persuade patients to unwittingly sign contracts rendering Reynolds their legal counsel without either his presence or even a physical examination. He was found guilty of 5 misdemeanor charges in 2015, after which he appealed his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeals.

    The kicker?

    Although Reynolds will likely serve jail time, he is not required under Texas law to resign his Texas House seat, as the Texas Election Code only requires resignations in the case of felony convictions. Reynolds won his Democratic primary election in March with over 60% of the vote and faces no Republican opposition in November.

    Someone in the state GOP fell down in the recruiting department…

    (Also, I missed this: Rep. Reynolds had to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2016…)

    Random Tweet: Trump Derangement Syndrome Edition

    May 24th, 2018

    2018 Texas Primary Runoff Results

    May 23rd, 2018

    Here’s a brief rundown of Texas primary runoff results:

    Democrats

  • Lupe Valdez beat Andrew White 53.1% to 46.9% in the Democratic gubernatorial runoff. In addition to her Metroplex base, Valdez won Hispanic-heavy areas like the Rio Grande valley and 5 of the 6 most popular counties (Dallas, Travis, Bexar, Tarrant, El Paso), something White’s clear strength in Harris County was unable to overcome. Valdez goes on to see if she can top Wendy Davis’ 38.9%.
  • Lorie Burch beat “other” Sam Johnson 75$% to 25% in the U.S. 3rd Congressional District race. She’ll face (and most likely lose to) Republican Van Taylor in the general. (Previously.)
  • Jana Lynne Sanchez beat Ruby Faye Woolridge, fueling the narrative that Hispanics are overtaking blacks as the Democratic Party’s key minority voting block, 53.1% to 46.9%, in the U.S. 6th Congressional District race. She’ll face (and likely lose to) Republican Ron Wright in November. (See below.)
  • In a very closely-watched race, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher slaughtered DCCC target Laura Moser 67.1% to 32.9% in the U.S. Seventh Congressional District. It seems that the DCCC’s #1 priority this year wasn’t winning, but burying anyone with any ties to Bernie Sanders. Fletcher will face incumbent Republican John Culberson in November. Culberson won his 2014 off-year election by a solid 63.3% to 34.5%, but Hillary Clinton carried the district (even as Culberson won by a narrower 56.2%) in 2016.
  • Mike Siegel beat Tawana Walter-Cadien handily in the U.S. 10th congressional district race, and the right to lose to well-funded Republican incumbent Mike McCaul in November.
  • Joseph Kopser beat Mary Wilson 58% to 42% in the U.S. 21st Congressional District race. Kopser is a throwback to the sort of candidate the Democrats used to love to run: A rich white businessman with ties to government and the military who could win in swing districts. He’ll face Republican Chip Roy in November (see below).
  • Sri Preston Kulkarni beat Letitia Plummer decisively in the U.S. 22nd Congressional District race for the right to lose to incumbent Republican Pete Olsen, who won 59.5% of the vote in 2016.
  • Gina Ortiz Jones beat Rick Trevino with 67.9% of the vote in the U.S. 23rd Congressional District race. The 23rd is the only true swing district in Texas, and Republican incumbent Will Hurd only won by 3,000 votes over former incumbent Pete Gallego in 2016 (a rematch of a 2014 race Hurd won by 2,000 votes). Hurd has a fundraising advantage, but Jones has raised over $1 million herself, and this is likely to be a very competitive race in November.
  • Julie Oliver edged Chris Perri with 52.2% of the vote in the U.S. 25th Congressional District, and will face Republican incumbent Roger Williams in this solidly Republican district.
  • Eric Holguin beat Raul (Roy) Barrera by 61.9% in the U.S. 27th Congressional District race, and will face Michael Cloud (see below) to replace disgraced retired incumbent Blake Farenthold.
  • Mary Jennings Hegar beat Christine Eady Mann with 62.2% of the vote in the U.S. 31st Congressional District race for the right to face incumbent Republican John Carter in November. This is my district, and is still pretty solidly Republican.
  • Colin Allred trounced Lillian Salerno with 69.5% of the vote in the 32nd Congressional District, and will face incumbent Republican Pete Sessions in November. Sessions had no Democratic opponent in 2016, but Hillary Clinton edged Trump in the district. Probably still solidly Republican.
  • Republicans

  • Ex-SEAL Dan Crenshaw walloped Kevin Roberts with just shy of 70% of the vote in the U.S. 2nd Congressional District race, and should easily beat Democratic political newcomer Tod Litton to succeed retiring Republican incumbent Ted Poe in this heavily Republican district.
  • State representative Lance Gooden edged conservative favorite Bunni Pounds with 53.1% of the vote in the U.S. 5th Congressional District race. He should easily handle Democrat Dan Wood in November to succeed retiring Republican incumbent Jeb Hensarling.
  • Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector Ron Wright beat Jake Ellzey 52.2% to 47.8%, which is a bit closer than I expected. Republican votes totaled twice those of Democrats in this heavily Republican district, so he should have no trouble dispatching Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez in November (see above). (Previously.)
  • Conservative favorite Chip Roy beat Matt McCall with 52.7% of the vote in the in the U.S. 21st Congressional District, underperforming expectations. Though a solidly Republican district, he’ll have to step it up against well-heeled incumbent Joseph Kopser (see above) if he wants to succeed retiring Republican incumbent Lamar Smith.
  • Michael Cloud beat Bech Bruun with in 61.0% in the U.S. 27th Congressional District race to replace the disgraced Blake Farenthold. The state legislature made this a solidly Republican district after Farenthold’s surprise win over Solomon Ortiz in 2010, so expect Cloud to easily beat Democratic nominee Eric Holguin (see above).
  • Andrew White Concedes Dem Gov Race to Valdez

    May 22nd, 2018

    Lupe Valdez has won the right to get walloped by Greg Abbott in November:

    In Republican races, Chip Roy is winning, Bunni Pounds is losing, and Dan Crenshaw beat Kevin Roberts handily.

    More tomorrow.

    Texas Primary Runoff Today

    May 22nd, 2018

    If you didn’t participate in early runoff voting, today is the day!

    Also note that, at least here in Williamson County, a lot of the regular voting locations don’t seem to be open, so plan accordingly…

    It Begins

    May 21st, 2018

    (I’ve always wanted to do a post that portentously starts out “It begins!”)

    President Donald Trump may have signaled that the endgame on the Clinton/Obama/FBI/CIA/FISA/campaign spying scandal may finally be at hand:

    This comes on the heels of the revelation that the FBI had an “informant” (read spy) inside the Trump campaign:

    A Cambridge professor with deep ties to American and British intelligence has been outed as an agent who snooped on the Trump presidential campaign for the FBI.

    Multiple media outlets have named Stefan Halper, 73, as the secret informant who met with Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos starting in the summer of 2016. The American-born academic previously served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.

    The revelation, stemming from recent reports in which FBI sources admitted sending an agent to snoop on the Trump camp, heightens suspicions that the FBI was seeking to entrap Trump campaign aides. Papodopoulous has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, while Page was the subject of a federal surveillance warrant.

    “If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal,” President Trump tweeted Saturday, calling for the FBI to release additional documents to Congress.

    The Halper revelation also shows the Obama administration’s FBI began prying into the opposing party’s presidential nominee earlier than it previously admitted.

    Halper’s sit-downs with Page reportedly started in early July 2016, undermining fired FBI Director James Comey’s previous claim that the bureau’s investigation into the Trump campaign began at the end of that month.

    Halper made his first overture when he met with Page at a British symposium. The two remained in regular contact for more than a year, meeting at Halper’s Virginia farm and in Washington, DC, as well as exchanging emails.

    The professor met with Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis in late August, offering his services as a foreign-policy adviser, The Washington Post reported Friday, without naming the academic.

    Clovis did not see the conversation as suspicious, his attorney told the paper — but is now “unsettled” that “the professor” never mentioned he’d struck up a relationship with Page.

    Days later, Halper contacted Papadopoulos by e-mail. The professor offered the young and inexperienced campaign aide $3,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to write a paper about energy in the eastern Mediterranean region.

    “George, you know about hacking the e-mails from Russia, right?” the professor pressed Papadopoulos when they met, according to reports — a reference to Trump’s campaign-trail riffs about Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server.

    Sources close to Papadopoulos told NBC News that he now believes Halper was working for an intelligence agency.

    Highly detailed descriptions of the FBI informant in Friday reports in The New York Times and Washington Post pegged Halper in all but name. Outlets including NBC and Fox News subsequently connected the dots. The revelation confirms a March report in the Daily Caller that outlined Halper’s repeated meetings with Papadopoulos and Page.

    Indeed, conservative media has been constantly ahead of MSM outlets like New York Times on the scandal, mainly because those outlets function as extensions of the Democratic Party. As National Review puts it:

    What the Times story makes explicit, with studious understatement, is that the Obama administration used its counterintelligence powers to investigate the opposition party’s presidential campaign.

    That is, there was no criminal predicate to justify an investigation of any Trump-campaign official. So, the FBI did not open a criminal investigation. Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation and hoped that evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would emerge. But it is an abuse of power to use counterintelligence powers, including spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct what is actually a criminal investigation.

    The Times barely mentions the word counterintelligence in its saga. That’s not an accident. The paper is crafting the media-Democrat narrative. Here is how things are to be spun: The FBI was very public about the Clinton-emails investigation, even making disclosures about it on the eve of the election. Yet it kept the Trump-Russia investigation tightly under wraps, despite intelligence showing that the Kremlin was sabotaging the election for Trump’s benefit. This effectively destroyed Clinton’s candidacy and handed the presidency to Trump.

    It’s a gas, gas, gas!

    It’s also bunk. Just because the two FBI cases are both referred to as “investigations” does not make them the same kind of thing.

    The Clinton case was a criminal investigation that was predicated on a mountain of incriminating evidence. Mrs. Clinton does have one legitimate beef against the FBI: Then-director James Comey went public with some (but by no means all) of the proof against her. It is not proper for law-enforcement officials to publicize evidence from a criminal investigation unless formal charges are brought.

    In the scheme of things, though, this was a minor infraction. The scandal here is that Mrs. Clinton was not charged. She likes to blame Comey for her defeat; but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her — in exactly the manner President Obama encouraged them to do in public commentary.

    By contrast, the Trump case is a counterintelligence investigation. Unlike criminal cases, counterintelligence matters are classified. If agents had made public disclosures about them, they would have been committing crimes and violating solemn agreements with foreign intelligence services — agreements without which those services would not share information that U.S. national-security officials need in order to protect our country.

    In the scheme of things, though, the problem is not that the FBI honored its confidentiality obligations in the Trump case while violating them in the Clinton case. The scandal is that the FBI, lacking the incriminating evidence needed to justify opening a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign, decided to open a counterintelligence investigation. With the blessing of the Obama White House, they took the powers that enable our government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans — Americans who just happened to be their political adversaries.

    The timing of Halper’s payments is particularly important:

    Again, the name is Stefan Halper, who, as I wrote here last week, was paid a substantial sum by the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment.

    If it was for this work – and it suspiciously looks like it because the payments were made in July and September of 2016 when he was weaseling his way into the campaign – then we know we have the DNI, CIA, DOJ, FBI, Dept. of State and the Defense Department working for Hillary’s election and to smear and create a basis for further spying on Trump and his campaign.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

    The general shape of Hillary’s attempt to “Steele” the election has been known for a while:

    The intensity of the media’s attacks on a Republican is always in proportion to the degree to which he is impeding one of its causes. The doggedness of Nunes — his refusal to let a politicized FBI and Justice Department stonewall his committee — has thrown considerable light on the real scandal of 2016: not that Trump colluded with the Russians to win but that the Obama administration colluded with Hillary to defeat him.

    One government most certainly did meddle in the election — ours. In desperate denial mode, the media will talk about everything but the fact that the United States government was spying on one campaign by using opposition research from the other, all while hoodwinking FISA court judges and leaking to the press about its politicized investigation.

    The more that the probe is put under the microscope, the more outrageous it appears, with Hillary partisans and Trump haters figuring into it at every crucial turn. Hillary didn’t need a campaign headquarters in Brooklyn; she already had one in Washington, D.C. John Brennan, auditioning to be her CIA director, laid the groundwork for the Trump-Russia probe by hyping bogus intelligence; Trump hater Peter Strzok formally opened the probe at the FBI just weeks after whitewashing Hillary’s mishandling of emails; the slop of Christopher Steele, Hillary’s opposition researcher, served as the basis for spying on all of Carter Page’s communications with the Trump campaign, while the spouse of a Justice Department official involved in the probe shoveled more of the slop to her husband.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    Quoting President Donald Trump yet again:

    Indeed. Use of the federal national security state to spy on political opponents dwarfs the Nixon reelection campaign’s dirty tricks department using bumbling outsiders to plant bugs.

    At this point, the only question is: How high in the Obama Administration did the orders to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign come?

    Further reading:

  • Director Blue’s Timeline of Treason.
  • The Conservative Treehouse has been all over this story from the beginning.
  • Shoe0nHead Debunks “The Pink Tax” (Again)

    May 20th, 2018

    Shoe0nHead did a video debunking the idea of “the pink tax” (i.e., that women pay more than men for the exact same goods). So what does YouTube do?

    It puts ads promoting the pink tax at the beginning of her videos.

    So, naturally, she has to produce another pink tax debunking video.

    Liberal Texas Republican Follies

    May 19th, 2018

    Two primary runoff tidbits, courtesy of Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans:

  • A silly but effective fake 911 call from liberal Republican Lance Gooden, who’s in a tight runoff with Bunni Pounds in the U.S. Fifth Congressional District race against Bunni Pounds. (Previously.)
  • Liberal Scott Milder, who got walloped in the Lt. Governor’s republican primary by incumbent Dan Patrick, endorsed liberal Democrat and perennial candidate Mike Collier for the office and announced he was launching a campaign called http://conservativesforcollier.com/. One tiny little problem: Empower Texans already owns that website. That’s some mighty fine planning there, Lou…