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 »

College Kids: “I’ll Be Making A Six-Figure Salary When I Graduate!” Reality: “LOL!”

July 18th, 2023

There’s a difference between “young and naive” and “young and stupidly naive.”

Today’s college jkids thinking they’re automatically going to make six-figure salaries thanks to their college degrees is the latter. Let’s look at this clip from Dave Ramsey’s show:

  • “Current college students expect to…a hundred and three thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars in their first job.”
  • “Yeah, that’s a problem.”
  • “I interviewed a bunch of high schoolers, and when I talked to them, they all were, like, ‘Well, yeah, I’m gonna make six figures when I graduate,’ and I was like ‘What makes you think that,’ right? There’s no reality.”
  • “They are way overestimating their starting salaries.”

    • The top comment on that video:

    I’ll never forget a college prep after school program I was in during high school. They were supposed to be telling us how to fill out applications and talking about student loans. The instructors actually said that you won’t need to pay off your student loans; they don’t expect you to. When I told my dad that, he pulled me out of there immediately.

    Can you earn six figures right out college? Potentially…if you’re getting a highly technical degree (Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, etc.) and you already have demonstrable mastery of some highly technical skills. Say, you’re getting a CS degree and you already know C and JavaScript, and you have multiple projects on GitHub that demonstrate coding ability, and maybe a desirable technical cert or two, then yes, a six figure salary right out of school is certainly possible.

    But if you have a Liberal Arts degree? No. Not unless your last name is “Clinton” or “Biden.”

    People who have told kids “Hey, you can party for four years, get a degree, waltz into a six figure salary and have the government forgive your student debt” have done them a grave disservice. Life is hard, and earning a living is work. I worked a lot of crappy jobs immediately after college (retail sales, phone sales) before bootstrapping my way into a technical writing career. (It didn’t help that I’m a smart ass.) There were a lot of post-college roommates, cheap used cars, and pasta, rice and ramen meals along the way.

    Earning a college degree does not hand you a “Get Out Of Poverty Free” card, it only gives you a chance to get out of poverty, and not a very good one if you’re dragging a ton of student debt behind. The best way to avoid the boat anchor of student debt is to avoid taking out student debt. And there are a whole lot of decent paying trade jobs out there (welder, plumber, electrician, HVAC, etc.) that don’t require college degrees to get your foot in the door.

    College graduates need to avoid the debt trap of a lavish lifestyle. Live modestly, pay off your debts, and build wealth. And realize that it may be many years (if ever) before you’re pulling down a six-figure income.

    Live within your means and avoid debt.

    Here endeth the lesson.

    [Title edited.]

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    Posted in Democrats, Economics, video | 27 Comments »

    Crimean Bridge Hit Again

    July 17th, 2023

    The Kerch Bridge connecting Russia with occupied Crimea has been hit again.

    Two people have died after an “attack” on the bridge linking the occupied Crimean peninsula to Russia.

    Moscow has blamed Ukraine for the incident, alleging US and UK involvement, but Kyiv has not officially said it was responsible.

    The Kerch bridge was opened in 2018 and enables road and rail travel between Russia and Crimea – Ukrainian territory occupied by Moscow’s forces since 2014.

    Russia’s transport ministry said the bridge’s supports were not damaged.

    The ministry said investigations were continuing, but unconfirmed reports said explosions were heard early on Monday.

    It is the second major incident on the Kerch bridge in the past year. In October 2022, the bridge – which is an important supply route – was partially closed following a major explosion. It was fully reopened in February.

    Ukraine had previously hit the Kerch Strait Bridge back in October of 2022.

    Suchomimus has a video showing the damage. One of the road spans has been dropped by the attack, but not completely. It took several months to repair the road span damage from the last attack.

    He says that a sea drone appears to be responsible.

    With Russia’s supply lines in Zaporizhzhia under increasing pressure due to the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive there, even partially disabling the bridge is going to put more pressure on Russia’s logistics network to keep their troops supplied, not to mention encouraging even more Russians to get out of Crimea while the getting is good.

    Now if Ukraine can just hit the rail span again…

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    Posted in Media Watch, unions, video | 19 Comments »

    Why Homelessness in California is Worse Than In Other States

    July 16th, 2023

    If you’ve wondered why homelessness in California seems so much worse than in other states, Siyamak Khorrami’s interview with El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson for California Insider provides some answers:

    Some takeaways:

  • “According to the latest report, California alone has one third of the U.S homeless population today.”
  • “What we have is you can be arrested or cited did over and over and over and over again, and there’s no consequences. And it’s just getting worse and worse.”
  • The same transients sprawling unconscious on city streets in LA and San Francisco are now found in San Diego.
  • “If you look at the people and look in their eyes, you see a lost [soul], almost like a post-apocalyptic look. It’s not somebody who’s lost their job or lost their housing, it’s someone who is addicted to drugs. In large part have fried their brains. They’re suffering from mental illness.”
  • “Stanford recently looked at it last year, their school of economics looked at it, and they found were over the last 10 years, most of the United States homelessness dropped by roughly 9%. In the same period here in the state of California, it went up by 43%.”
  • He says that other blue states aren’t having the same problem California is, but that’s slightly misleading. There are blue cities that are starting to see some of the same problems (Seattle, Portland, Austin) that are starting to have the same problems because they follow the same playbook. But they do touch on Seattle at the end of the interview.
  • “The most notable, unique difference is our decriminalizing hardcore drug use, and decriminalizing large or low-level property crimes.”
  • You can’t trust crime statistics, because people have just stopped reporting things. Auto thefts are still reported for insurance purposes. “Vehicle thefts here in the state of California have gone up significantly, so much so that on a per capita basis we are double the State of Florida.”
  • One Target accurately reporting thefts for a month doubled San Francisco theft statistics.
  • “Employees that don’t want to come to work and be exposed to that, because of being told don’t contact anyone.”
  • “Shoppers stop coming to stores. You just had Nordstrom’s in San Francisco close after 35 years. They’re one of their hallmark stores. That is a huge store in San Francisco closed because theft.”
  • “Every year more people leaving than are coming to the state because of poor public policy decisions.”
  • “The single dividing line between us and everywhere else in that regard is the legalization of hardcore drug use, or the decriminalization of hardcore drug use.”
  • “Harm reduction centers” just prevent people from dying on that particular day, and do nothing to keep drug users from gradually killing themselves over months and years. Those non-profits are “simply enabling them to continue to that that addiction and to use those drugs, knowing it will kill them.”

  • Pierson: HUD, uh, in 2015, 2016 decided…”Hey, we’re a housing entity. Why are we spending 60%, 70% percent of our resources on rehab for people? And so let’s get out of that business and go and do this other one.” I think that happened at a time which was critical in for California, to where we were already going down this housing housing first, or type in harm reduction type philosophy.

    Khorrami: Then you exacerbate it by giving the homeless housing, and then you give them, let them use the drugs, and then you’re not really thinking about dealing with their addiction, right?

    Pierson: Yeah, it’s absurd.

  • “We have based all of our policy on the slogan called ‘Housing First.’ What it says is, if you provide them housing and you provide this, provide some services to him, the person will stop using drugs.”
  • New York (which I personally would not point to as a model, it’s simply less of an obvious failure) has a ratio of one social worker to eight homeless people. California has a ratio of one to thirty-two.
  • “Compassion isn’t enough.”
  • “Compassion isn’t letting someone die in a ditch somewhere. Compassion isn’t letting someone lay on the street with a needle in their arm. That’s not compassion.”
  • “Enough is enough. You’ve tried this grand social experiment over the last eight or ten years. It didn’t work. We need a course correction, and we need to do something about it now.”

  • Seattle is an extreme example of what’s happening here in California. Everybody, the businesses are fleeing. The people who are living there that can leave are leaving. And it is very similar to what we’re doing, where open rampant hardcore drug use, little or no consequence for property crimes, and they also have a horrendous problem with law enforcement staffing. They simply can’t hire law enforcement officers because, frankly, the way they’ve treated them. It is a handful of really bad policy decisions that created this problem.

  • No one wants to work at Nordstrom’s because they know their car will be broken into while they work.

    • One flaw with the interview is that they did not discuss the role of the Homeless Industrial Complex in creating the situation. My working theory is that the appalling decisions we see being made on homelessness and crime are because the hard left is actively benefiting from the situation because it provides myriad ways to rake off graft and fraud. Ditto the lunacy of defunding the police.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, video | 14 Comments »

    Nicholas Moran Rates Realism of Tank Scenes in Movies (Again)

    July 15th, 2023

    Just as he did about a year ago, Nicholas Moran rates the realism of tank scenes in various movies and TV shows.

    Good: Band of Brothers.
    Bad: Rambo III (“Is he driving or is he gunning?” You can’t do both in any Soviet tank.)

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    Posted in Military, video | 5 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for July 14, 2023

    July 14th, 2023

    More Biden crime family news, Toast Tab burns diners, and a judge blocks the Biden regime censorship. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Biden DOJ Indicts Whistleblower Prepared To Testify Against Biden Family.”

    Dr. Gal Luft, the “missing witness” from the Biden corruption investigation, told the NY Post last week that he was arrested in Cyprus to stop him from testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family received payments from individuals linked to Chinese military intelligence, and that they had an FBI mole who shared classified information with the Biden benefactors from the China-controlled energy company CEFC.

    “I told the DOJ that Hunter was associated with a very senior retired FBI official who had a distinct physical characteristic—he had one eye,” Luft said.

    That FBI official is widely believed to be former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who gave $100,000 to a trust for two of then-Vice President Joe Biden’s grandchildren in 2016 shortly before telling Hunter, “I would be delighted to do future work with you.”

    Now, Biden’s DOJ has charged Luft with failing to register under the Foreign Agents Act (FARA), as well as Iranian sanctions violations. He’s alleged to have conspired with others to act in China’s interest, including recruiting and paying a former high ranking U.S. government official to support policies beneficial to China.

    Democrats are turning the federal justice apparatus into banana republic keystone cops to hide their own crimes.

  • Speaking of Hunter: “How reckless Hunter Biden photographed himself driving at 172mph while behind the wheel of his Porsche en route to a days-long Vegas bender with prostitutes and pictured himself smoking CRACK while behind the wheel.” No doubt left-wingers will crow about how Hunter is “living his best life.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Federal judge blocks Biden’s censorship schemes. “Terry Doughty, a Louisiana federal judge, issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday blocking certain federal agencies and officials, including the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services, from communicating with social-media platforms.” Good.
  • The U.S. Navy blocks Iran from hijacking two tankers.
  • Dispatches from The Biden Recession: “‘Something Just Snapped’: Consumers Panic Search ‘Pawn Shop Near Me.'”
  • Poland is sending Ukraine Mi-24 Hind helicopters. The Hind is getting pretty long in the tooth, but it was a tough beast in its day.
  • “I’m willing to make a bold prediction and say that by the end of October, Mr. Biden will withdraw his reelection bid, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom will be declared the Democrats’ most viable option for the presidency.” I think he’s wrong. I think they’ll try to have Newsom replace Biden at the convention.
  • Just another week in Baltimore: “30 People Shot, 2 Dead As Block Party In Baltimore Turns Into ‘War Zone.'”
  • “CDC Altered Death Certificates to Remove ‘COVID Vaccine’ as Cause.”
  • Nigel Farage is being systematically unbanked.
  • Meta/Facebook’s new Twitter rip-off Threads is filled with “dark design patterns” created to thwart the user’s wishes. (That tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Black Georgia state rep defects from the Democrats to the Republicans over school choice.

    “When I decided to stand up on behalf of disadvantaged children in support of school choice, my Democrat colleagues didn’t stand by me,” [Georgia State House Rep. Mesha] Mainor explained of her decision in a statement to Fox News Digital. “They crucified me. When I decided to stand up in support of safe communities and refused to support efforts to defund the police, they didn’t back me. They abandoned me.”

    “For far too long, the Democrat Party has gotten away with using and abusing the black community,” she added. “For decades, the Democrat Party has received the support of more than 90% of the black community. And what do we have to show for it? I represent a solidly blue district in the city of Atlanta. This isn’t a political decision for me. It’s a moral one.”

  • Nasdaq rebalances.
  • The New York Times is doing such gangbusters business that they just laid off their entire sports department.
  • Garbage restaurant QR code menu app Toast Tab is now taking money directly out of your pockets for a “processing fee.” They’re a garbage company run by garbage people and I hope they go bankrupt.
  • For a mere $950,000, you own the home of the Butthole Surfers in Driftwood, Texas.
  • Happy Bastille Day! Here’s Jerry Pournelle’s timeless essay on the original event.
  • “Hollywood Confused By New Movie That Depicts Child Sex Trafficking As Bad.”
  • Star Turn Doggy:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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    Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Military, Supreme Court, Texas | 6 Comments »

    Texas Mini-News Roundup for July 13, 2023

    July 13th, 2023

    Just a quick roundup of Texas news to cut tomorrow’s LinkSwarm down to size, as this is another insane week.

  • Property tax relief is finally heading to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s desk.

    After months of caterwauling and posturing, the Texas Legislature’s property tax plan ended up about where it began, with additional rate compression, an increased homestead exemption, and an appraisal cap.

    The Texas House and Senate put the final bow on their recently announced deal on property tax relief to put to bed the months-long standoff — after which the pair adjourned sine die for the third time this year. The plan is expected to be signed quickly by Gov. Greg Abbott.

    The toplines of the $13 billion deal are:

    • More than $7 billion to compress school district Maintenance & Operations rates
    • An increase of the standard homestead exemption to $100,000
    • A three-year trial run for a 20 percent appraisal cap on commercial and non-homestead residential properties valued at or below $5 million
    • A $1.47 million increase to the state’s franchise tax exception
    • The creation of three elected positions on Appraisal Review Boards in counties above 75,000 population

    That compression is on top of the $5.3 billion already passed in the 2024-2025 state budget to continue the 2019 reform.

    The new compression and the homestead exemption — should it be approved by voters in November — will be effective this tax year. The appraisal cap will begin next year and run through the end of 2026 unless continued by the Legislature.

    Estimates project the reform will provide a $1,200 “savings” for the average homeowner in Texas — meaning a reduction from what tax bills would yield without the reform, not a reduction from the previous year’s tax bill.

    Good news, if long in coming.

  • You know the “incident” Austin City Council used as an excuse to end DPS patrols? It never happened.

    The City of Austin canceled its recently-resumed partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Tuesday after allegations were made that officers pointed a gun at a child during a traffic stop — but DPS has now released body camera footage disputing that claim.

    The patrol partnership that deployed DPS officers throughout the capital city to assist the ailing Austin Police Department was set to resume this month after a May pause to bolster enforcement at the border as Title 42 expired. But city officials — Mayor Kirk Watson and Interim City Manager Jesús Garza — abruptly canceled the partnership on Tuesday.

    The onus for that decision was an allegation made by Carlos Meza and his son Angel that during a Sunday evening traffic stop, DPS officers pointed their sidearms at the child.

    DPS said that did not happen. The agency released three angles of footage of the incident.

  • “Texas Department of Transportation Attempts to Hide DEI-related Records.”

    The Texas Department of Transportation is attempting to withhold documents concerning the agency’s use of materials related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG).

    Responding to a tip from a whistleblower, Texas Scorecard sought agency records that would either confirm or debunk allegations that the agency has been pushing a “woke” agenda on its 12,861 employees.

    Texas Scorecard sent an open records request to TxDOT under the Texas Public Information Act (PIA). This request sought to unveil whether or not TxDOT employees are being paid to discuss such issues.

    Specifically requested were communications referring to DEI and ESG in the possession of the Texas Department of Transportation commissioner, chief of staff, director of human resources, and/or the director of the DEI section.

    Obviously TxDoT must be hiding considerable social justice subversion.

  • “Keller ISD Adopts New Student Pronoun and Bathroom Policy Based on Biological Sex.”

    A northeast Texas school district has adopted new policies related to the continued hot-button topics of restroom accommodations for transgender students and pronoun usage by school employees.

    On June 28, the Keller ISD board of trustees voted 5 to 0 with one abstention to establish a new pronoun policy wherein “district staff, educators, and other district employees shall not promote, encourage, or require the use of pronouns that are inconsistent with a student’s or other person’s biological sex as it appears on the individual’s birth certificate or other government issued record.”

    Additionally, the school district shall not compel any employee or “other students to address or refer to students in any manner that would violate the speaker’s constitutionally protected rights.”

    Prior to the vote, the board engaged in back-and-forth discussion of hypotheticals, such as if a teacher is asked by a student to be referred to by a pronoun that does not correspond with their biological sex.

    “The policy is pretty clear,” board President Charles Randklev said of the hypotheticals. When asked if the trustees will support teachers who might come to them with concerns following the passage of the pronoun policy, he said that “this board has always supported teachers.”

    Randklev added that the new policies “lay the groundwork for protecting kids and educators.”

    “I also think they basically help us get off to a good start for the upcoming school year.”

    The board did pass an additional bathroom policy that will “maintain separate restrooms” based on biological sex, but will make accommodations for students who are “seeking privacy” such as in a single-use bathroom.

    This move by Keller ISD comes on the heels of a federal judge’s ruling in 2022 that Texas had the ability to vacate the Biden administration’s guidance on allowing people to use restrooms based on their gender identity that do not correspond to their biological sex.

    Remember: Keller ISD voters kicked social justice school board members out and took a solid turn toward sanity instead. Elections matter.

  • Meanwhile, La Joya ISD down in RioGrande Valley, which has been pushing DEI, is so scandal-ridden that they’re being taken over by the state.

    A small public school district in the Rio Grande Valley is the latest to face a state takeover under Texas law, but district officials have vowed to fight the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in court.

    Located on the U.S.- Mexico border west of McAllen, the La Joya Independent School District (LJISD) operates 38 schools and serves 24,804 students. However, enrollment has steadily declined over the past decade and the district has been embroiled in multiple scandals.

    After an FBI investigation into corruption in Hidalgo County, five LJISD officials pled guilty last year to federal charges that included theft, bribery, money laundering, extortion, and wire fraud.

    In January 2022, Trustee Armin Garza admitted to participating in a kickback scheme regarding a district energy-saving plan under which he received more than $234,000. Later, central office administrators Luis Morin and Alex Guajardo would both also plead guilty for their part in the conspiracy.

    In a separate case, trustee Oscar Salinas pled guilty to federal extortion charges related to kickback payments he received from contracted vendor L&G Engineering. After discovering that L&G Engineering’s chief operating officer supported a political opponent, Hidalgo County Commissioner Everardo Villarreal, Salinas demanded additional funds and threatened to cancel a contract with Villareal’s wife. When the CEO refused, Salinas voted to terminate the contract.

    Another LJISD administrator, Rodrigo Lopez, pled guilty to federal charges of theft and bribery in August 2022 in relation to contracts for athletic equipment. Lopez also served as the mayor of Penitas, Texas.

    Earlier this year, TEA officials notified La Joya ISD Board President Alex Cantu and interim Superintendent Beto Gonzales that investigators had substantiated allegations related to fraud and violations of conflict of interest and contract procurement laws.

    Those who have been following the blog for a while know that fraud in border school districts and Hidalgo County (still Democratic Party strongholds) has been a recurring theme.

  • NBA power forward Grant Williams choose to sign with the Dallas Mavericks over the Boston Celtics due to tax differences between the two states.

    By approving a new wealth tax last year, Massachusetts voters might have dented the Boston Celtics’ chances of chasing down a National Basketball Association (NBA) championship.

    Grant Williams, a talented power forward drafted by the Celtics in the first round just four years ago, declined to re-sign with Boston this summer. Instead, he’ll be playing next season in Dallas, where his new contract won’t be subject to Massachusetts’ so-called “millionaire’s tax.”

    Williams told The Athletic that his decision to sign a $54 million deal with Dallas over a $48 million offer from Boston was “a little strategic” and that the gap between the two offers was larger than it might seem.

    “In Boston, it’s…$48 million with the millionaire’s tax, so $54 million in Dallas is really like $58 million in Boston,” Williams said.

    In Texas, which has no state income tax, Williams can keep more of his earnings, though it is worth noting that professional athletes unfortunately owe taxes in states where they play road games. His new state’s tax situation gives Williams a nice incentive to move, considering Massachusetts would have taken 9 percent of those earnings—thanks to its 5 percent flat income tax and newly created 4 percent tax on income in excess of $1 million.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    Problem: Austin PD Is Down 500 Officers. Austin City Council Solution: Fire DPS

    July 12th, 2023

    Back when DPS was patrolling the streets of Austin, crime went down. So naturally Austin City Council is ending DPS patrols because they made one person uncomfortable.

    The City of Austin has suspended its recently restarted partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), established to aid the city’s struggling police department.

    Announced back in March, the partnership between the Austin Police Department (APD) and the state was initiated to help APD respond to 911 calls and monitor traffic. APD has long struggled with staffing issues and saw 89 departures through the first three months of 2023, as city policy and posture toward the department were not appreciated by many rank-and-file officers.

    As of March, there were 281 vacancies on top of the 150 positions eliminated in the 2020 budget cut. Due to the staffing shortage, police response times ballooned to at or nearly 10 minutes and 911 call holding times grew even larger.

    At the time of the announcement, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said, “During my run for mayor, I promised we would make city government work better in providing basic services.”

    “This is an example of that. It’s a common-sense, practical response to a serious need and arose out of a positive working relationship between the Capital City and the Capitol of Texas.”

    A report on the partnership was released this month showing average response times in council districts dropping between 30 seconds and a minute and a half.

    But after a citizen complaint alleging DPS officers pointed firearms at a father and his child, the city’s Public Safety Commission recommended the council scrap the partnership.

    A citizen. One.

    On the first day of the partnership, DPS officers seized 70 pounds of methamphetamine and made 14 felony arrests.

    It was temporarily paused in May to shift the manpower to the border as Title 42 expired but was set to resume after the hiatus.

    “From the start of this partnership with DPS, I said I wanted Austinites to feel safe and be safe. Recent events demonstrate we need to suspend the partnership with DPS. The safety of our community is a primary function of City government, and we must keep trying to get it right,” Watson said.

    “This partnership was an innovative approach to address acute staffing shortages that were years in the making. However, any approach must be in sync with Austin values.”

    The city’s release says that the DPS support “has resulted in a decrease in violent and gun crime, fewer traffic fatalities, shorter response times to calls for assistance, and seizures of significant amounts of illicit drugs, including fentanyl and heroin.”

    Councilman Chito Vela said of the announcement, “This is the right decision, especially given the events of the last few days. Policing in Austin must be aligned with our community values. Unfortunately, the type of policing we have seen by DPS is not in line with Austin’s values.”

    Evidently “Austin values” are “We can’t put criminals in jail, because white supremacy.”

    A source within APD said to The Texan, “It’ll get worse before it gets worse and people want to leave.”

    “The activists who don’t have the residents’ or visitors’ best interest at heart are succeeding in tearing down public safety,” he added. “Until city leadership is brave enough to reject their radicalism, the dire situation will only get worse.”

    Sadly, “city leadership” is in on the scam. They want as many criminals and drug-addicted transients walking the streets as possible because they’re an excellent source of graft for the hard left.

    In a statement provided to The Texan, Austin Police Association President Thomas Villareal said, “The decision by the Interim City Manager and Mayor to suspend the APD/DPS partnership is absolutely unconscionable. Instead of asking DPS to look into the actions of a specific Trooper, the City allowed a one-sided, inflammatory, poorly researched news story, one purely intended to get clicks, to be treated as truth and fact.”

    According to Villareal, the department’s internal staffing numbers show APD is currently 500 officers short.

    Yeah, that happens when you defund the police and cancel cadet classes.

    Austin is following in the same crime-and-homeless infested footsteps of San Francisco even after San Franciscans have risen up to start kicking them out of office. Hopefully Austinites have just enough sense to avoid following them into that feces-strewn ditch.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 14 Comments »

    Turkey Flips, Boosts NATO Membership For Sweden…And Ukraine

    July 11th, 2023

    Remember how Turkey was blocking Sweden’s membership in NATO? Well, they’ve now flipped to backing Sweden’s membership.

    Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to support Sweden’s bid to join Nato, the military alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg says.

    He said the Turkish leader would forward Sweden’s bid to parliament in Ankara and “ensure ratification”.

    Meanwhile, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said: “I am very happy, it is a good day for Sweden.”

    Turkey had previously spent months blocking Sweden’s application, accusing it of hosting Kurdish militants.

    As one of Nato’s 31 members, Turkey has a veto over any new country joining the group.

    Reacting to the news, US President Joe Biden said he welcomed the commitment by President Erdogan to proceed with “swift ratification”.

    “I stand ready to work with President Erdogan and Turkey on enhancing defence and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Kristersson and Sweden as our 32nd Nato ally,” a White House statement said.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted: “At 32, we’re all safer together.” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Sweden joining would “make us all safer”.

    Mr Stoltenberg announced the agreement late on Monday following talks between the Turkish and Swedish leaders in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

    The Nato chief described it as a “historic step”, but stressed that a “clear date” could not be given for when Sweden would join the military alliance – as this relied on the Turkish parliament.

    Sweden and its eastern neighbour Finland, both long considered as militarily neutral, announced their intention to join Nato in May last year, several months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland formally joined in April.

    Why the sudden turnaround on Sweden’s membership?

    For one thing, they’re getting F-16s out of the deal. For another, Erdogan is pushing for EU membership again, and needs all the friends he can get if he wants to stop Turkey’s disasterous economic slide. Turkey is hemorrhaging foreign currency reserves thanks to Erdogan’s SuperGenius economic move of lowering interest rates to flight inflation, so maybe a promise of closer ties to Europe might staunch the bleeding a little.

    It could also be Turkey’s age-old enmity with Russia coming to the fore. Or maybe Russia’s poor performance has finally led Erdogan to conclude that Russia is the “weak horse.”

    But it’s not just Sweden: Erdogan also indicated approval for Ukraine joining NATO as well. “‘There is no doubt that Ukraine deserves membership of NATO,’ Erdogan told a joint press conference with the Ukrainian president in Istanbul early on Saturday, adding that the two sides should go back to peace talks.”

    Moreover, NATO seems receptive to letting Ukraine join…just not right now.

    NATO leaders said on Tuesday that Ukraine should be able to join the military alliance at some point in the future but they stopped short of offering Kyiv an immediate invitation, angering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

    The leaders were meeting at a summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as Ukrainian troops struggled to make significant gains in a counteroffensive against the Russian invasion forces occupying parts of the country.

    The leaders said in a declaration: “Ukraine’s future is in NATO”. But they offered no timeline for the process.

    “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met,” the declaration said, without specifying the conditions Ukraine needs to meet.

    I’m sure one of the conditions is “Not having Russia occupying large parts of your country.”

    Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression has made the alliance more united than any time since the end of the Cold War. Clearly it’s in every NATO member’s interest to let Russia dash 50 years worth of Russo-Soviet miltech against the rock of Ukraine, so expect members of the alliance to keep feeding Ukraine’s armed forces for the immediate future.

    But having a direct military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia isn’t on anyone member’s preference card, no matter how badly NATO armies would maul their Russian counterparts. So don’t expect NATO membership for Ukraine until the Russo-Ukrainian War concludes.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military | 6 Comments »

    Kentucky Ballistics + Slow Mo Guys + Big Guns = Cool Footage

    July 10th, 2023

    In a follow-up to both Saturday’s 4 Bore rifle video and high-speed footage of gun destruction, both Kentucky Ballistics and The Slow-Mo Guys are back with another video, this time shooting really big guns.

    How big? Up to a .577 Tyrannosaur.

    Points of interest:

  • The recoil shockwave of the .577 Tyrannosaur visibly travels through one of the Slow Mo Guys’ back muscles. It really emphasis the felt recoil of that monster.
  • At 82,000 frames a second, you can see a flash of light from bullet impact as it enters the ballistics gel. They talk about naming this “The Kentucky Effect.”
  • The bullet sucks the fireball from the initial shot in, then the collapsing cavitation of the gel reignites the gases.

    • Plus the usual exploding nacho cheese cans

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    Posted in Guns, video | 2 Comments »

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