Happy New Year, everyone! The Biden Recession bites deeper, Israel dirtnaps a top terrorist, Harvard’s chief plagiarist finally steps down, and the crypto CEO who wasn’t there. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The monthly nonfarm payrolls (from the Establishment Survey) may have been weak at 216K but the far more accurate Household Survey showed that the number of Employed workers actually collapsed by an unprecedented 683K, the biggest drop since the US economy was shutdown by covid!
Even scarier, while the monthly grind higher in the payrolls number (pulled from the far less accurate Establishment Survey) means that US jobs hit a record high every month with bizarre consistency and in December this was certainly the case, the total nonfarm employment number rose to an all time high 157.232 million, the abovementioned collapse in US Employment (per Household survey) meant that there were only 161.183 million employed people in the US, the lowest since June, with the now traditional divergence between these two surveys glaringly obvious.
A senior Hamas leader was killed Tuesday in a drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon, during a meeting between Palestinian factions at a Hamas office.
Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau and commander of the terror group’s military wing in the West Bank, and at least five others died from the explosion, which occurred near Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut, Lebanese state media reported. Several more were injured. Following the blast, Hamas blamed Israel for the “Zionist raid” amid its ongoing war with the Jewish state. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike.
Many Israeli officials declined to comment. However, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich posted a statement on X shortly after the attack: “Surely your enemies will perish, O Israel.”
In November, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated he ordered the nation’s Mossad spy agency to eliminate Hamas leaders around the world after the militant group’s coordinated October 7 attack. Netanyahu’s office also declined to comment about the explosion.
Al-Arouri, whom Hamas described as “one of the architects” of the terror attack on Israel, had close ties with Yahwa Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza. Al-Arouri is the most senior Hamas leader to have been killed since the war began in early October.
A good chunk of the Epstein files have finally been released. Some revelations: Bill Clinton “likes them young” and Donald Trump didn’t have sex with at least one girl who was asked under oath about it.
Harvard President Claudine Gay finally does the right thing and resigns in wake of burgeoning plagiarism scandal.
A three act farce: Act 1: “Ohio governor Mike DeWine (R.) on Friday vetoed a bill that would have banned both transgender procedures for minors and trans student-athlete participation in school sports in the state.” Act 2: Turns out DeWine has taken taken over $40,000 in donations from pro-child-genital-mutilation hospitals. Act 3: “Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine issued an “emergency” executive order Friday banning child gender-transition surgeries after receiving intense backlash last week for vetoing a bill with a broader but similar mandate.” Ohio’s Republican legislature can and should override DeWine’s foolish veto.
Robert F. Kennedy, jr. qualifies for the presidential ballot in Utah.
Last month, American Values 2024, a super PAC supporting the third-party candidate, announced a plan to spend nearly $15 million to get Kennedy on the ballot in ten states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas. All are important to winning the 2024 race.
I don’t see RFK Jr. doing even as well in Utah as Egg McMuffin did in 2016, and of the other states, only Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Nevada might have any effect on the election, all four of which went (however fraudulently) for Biden in 2020.
Ricky Gervais has a great idea: He and Dave Chappelle should co-host the Oscars. That would indeed be a smash ratings success, and I would watch the Oscars for the first time this century.
This is the only way for us to live in peace,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbot. “The citizens of Austin have been at war with the people of Texas for many years now, and to end the bloodshed for future generations, we are willing to recognize Austin as its own separate and sovereign land.”
The resolution brought much-needed relief to the war-torn area, where battle lines had been drawn along the border of Austin. “The weirdo hipsters of Austin can stand down now,” said Texas Senator Ted Cruz in a statement acknowledging the resolution. “The people of Austin can now stop patrolling the perimeter of the city in armored tanks and go back to driving electric vehicles, painting strange murals nobody understands, and hating everything the United States stands for.”
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of 2023! Iranian proxies get pounded, NGO’s help destroy the border, Democrats keep trying to remove Trump from the ballot, and thieves get a taste of their own medicine. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Not only is the Obama/Biden administration undermining American sovereignty and the rule of law by allowing a massive influx of illegal aliens, but a wide variety of NGOs, some “none political,” are also involved.
A network of NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, seems to be playing a powerful role in coordinating the large-scale invasion of illegals at the US southern border.
The new website Muckraker revealed a treasure trove of “mass migration blueprints,” handed out by NGOs across South and Central America to illegals with details about their route to the US.
“The collapse of the US southern border is the result of a carefully planned and deliberately executed industrial mass migration program,” Muckraker said.
MAP #1 – Distributed by Doctors Without Borders (Médicos Sin Fronteras in Spanish).
They seem to be taking that “Without Borders” part way too literally.
What’s becoming increasingly evident is that a network of NGOs funded partly by the US taxpayer but by other countries and corporations are covertly facilitating the invasion of illegals at the US southern border, as well as distributing them across the US into progressive metro areas.
According to an August report by progressive left-leaning media watchdog organization Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security allocated $363 million to NGOs to assist illegal aliens once in the US.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a press release one year ago detailing how “NGOs may be engaged in unlawfully orchestrating other border crossings through activities on both sides of the border, including in sectors other than El Paso.”
Once across the border, NGOs are also helping migrants with transportation across the US, such as providing seats on commercial airlines.
Also “Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona Inc.”
And speaking of Flu Manchu, here’s another fraud case. “A Georgia attorney and former City of Atlanta police officer has been convicted of fraudulently obtaining over $7 million in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, 62-year-old Shelitha Robertson from Atlanta conspired to submit PPP loan applications on behalf of four businesses she owned.”
The Real Story: “Philadelphia trans activist charged with rape of not one, but two minors.” The Newsweek Story: “Trans Activist Kendall Stephens’ Arrest Sparks MAGA Uproar.” Evidently the left feels that only MAGA Republicans should be upset at the rape of minors…
According to the Department of Emergency Management, San Francisco’s 911 call dispatchers answered just 72 percent of calls within 15 seconds in October, the latest month available. That’s the lowest share of any month in the last six years, and well short of the department’s goal to answer 95 percent of calls in 15 seconds or fewer.
Staffing is not up to the levels required, which is causing people to burn out, due to mandatory overtime. The bureaucratic hiring practice moves at a glacial pace, and so they can’t hire people to cover retirement and people just quitting due to burn out. They did raise pay some, but there is no indication if that is enough. I guess only time will tell.
The second problem that San Francisco has, in relation to 911 calls, is getting officers to the scene of a “Priority A” incident.
The slowdown in responses has contributed to broader delays San Franciscans face when trying to get help during emergency situations. The city’s typical response time to “Priority A” incidents — defined as the most urgent and serious events, like assaults-in-progress — is slower than it’s been at any point in the last eight years, increasing from about 6.5 minutes in January 2016 to nearly nine minutes this November.
Now this is the media, so there is no mention of any “defund the police” initiatives in San Francisco over the past few years.
“Since President Trump’s win in 2016, black support for him has more than tripled, now exceeding 20 percent in some surveys.” Including Mark Fisher, co-founder of a Black Lives Matter group in Rhode Island
“Two large Pizza Hut operators in California are laying off all their delivery drivers ahead of a new state law that raises the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour, Business Insider reports.” Good work, Democrats!
Grocery store manager Gatzke told Bild that the thieves who steal huge bags full of items are usually migrants, with around a third of them being Tunisian.
During one incident at the Edeka supermarket in Regensburg, a man stole €140 euros worth of goods, while the manager has also tried to stop thieves stealing groceries worth €300 euros.
“In the bag were spirits: vodka and liqueurs again. They are Muslims — did they want to resell the alcohol?” asked Gatzke.
“What do you need 10 sea bream and so many shrimp for? Nobody steals that because they’re hungry,” he added.
Gatzke noted that the culprits even steal shopping bags worth up to €2.50 euros.
However, he was denounced as a “racist” for complaining about the mass looting and subsequently criticized by Ferat Koçak, a member of the Berlin House of Representatives for The Left party.
Siding with the criminals, Koçak suggested that the migrants were “entitled” to steal because the government wasn’t giving them enough free money in welfare payments.
Some interesting artillery usage data, via reader Kirk”
Russian tremendous artillery advantage at beginning of war (65k shells/day) down to about 1/10 of that, while Ukraine advantage in platforms & counter battery has grown significantly. Then,… pic.twitter.com/Ak6o0hJmpv
Nothing says “Republican” quite like having Democrats do fundraising for you. “Dade Phelan Fundraiser Hosted by Liberals. Former House Speaker Joe Straus and former Democrat nominee for lieutenant governor Leticia Van de Putte are among those raising cash for Phelan.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a $700 million settlement with Google over anticompetitive practices.
According to the settlement, Google must pay $630 million in restitution—minus costs and fees—to consumers who made purchases on the Google Play Store between August 2016 and September 2023 and were harmed by Google’s anticompetitive practices.
Paxton secured the settlement alongside attorneys general from all 49 other states as well as the District of Columbia, and the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
would like to share the happiest Christmas memory of my childhood with you, an experience that shaped the young adult and the man I would become as much as any book or teacher ever would. I was accidentally given an inestimable gift – one which unwittingly dared me to grow intellectually and culturally so that I could be properly worthy of it, and which has since comforted me through endless long subsequent years of disappointment, heartache, personal growth, and triumph. And there’s no better time to write about it than during a season of joy. So if you will graciously permit me, on this Christmas Eve 2023 I’d like to take you back to the “not-too-distant future.”
On Christmas Eve 1991, my father suggested we should watch a cassette of an obscure TV show his friend at work had taped off a then-obscure cable channel called Comedy Central a few days before. “A guy and some robots make fun of bad movies” was how he described the premise. Since my dad and I had been talking back to films from the safety of our family-room couch for years already while watching B-movie schlock like USA Up All Night, it was at least something to do. (11-year-olds do not otherwise have a long list of entertainment options.)
Although my dad couldn’t possibly have intended it, what happened next altered the course of my life, and profoundly for the better: I was exposed to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K for short) for the first time. And “exposed” is the right word; the experience was as instantly catalyzing a moment for me as a rapid chemical reaction. It was the Christmas episode from a few days earlier, and the show was mocking something called Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
“I’ll never forget how comforted MST3K made me feel from that exact moment onward, comforted that there were people out there who had my sense of humor – only they were vastly more funny than me.”
God bless us, each and every one…
“North Carolina has a law that allows people to do practically whatever they want to the official state marsupial.” Which would be the possum. And it only applies five days a year. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Israel has begun the process of flooding the network of tunnels beneath Gaza in an effort to flush out the impacted Hamas assets lodged there, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The Israeli military operation has so far involved the installation of seven massive pumps and testing the process of flooding the Hamas holes with water from the Mediterranean Sea, and now the great enema has begun in earnest.
“Israeli officials say that Hamas’s underground system has been key to its operations on the battlefield,” explains WSJ. “The tunnel system, they say, is used by Hamas to maneuver fighters across the battlefield and store the group’s rockets and munitions, and enables the group’s leaders to command and control their forces. Israel also believes some hostages are being held inside tunnels.”
The tunnel system has been dug throughout much of Gaza and is also active at the Egyptian border, the crossing at which Hamas militants smuggle many of their weapons into Gaza. It is a critical infrastructure for the terrorists’ ability to continue to wage their bloody war against the only democracy in the region. Remove the network of tunnels from the table, and you severely cripple that ability.
Thanks to Home Alone and Irish we know that a particular cart of groceries went from $19.83 in 1990 to $77.28 today.
389.7% inflation over 33 years.
Annualized, that’s just 4.208% inflation, since the goal is 3%, that doesn’t seem so bad.
The problem is that cart of goods was $44.40 last year. That’s an annual inflation of 2.4755% from 1990 to 2022. Below the Fed’s desired rate, good for us, bad for the national debt.
That means we had 174% inflation in one fucking year.
A common problem, one that well pre-dates the invasion of Ukraine, is that we have shockingly well credentialed people of influence from both parties who have an inability to understand that Russians are not Westerners. They don’t think like Westerners, though they may look like them.
The Russians have a distinct culture, history, and view of themselves and their place in history. The underperforming political, military, and diplomatic elite in the West – with few exceptions outside the former Warsaw Pact nations now in NATO – expect Russians to react in the same way and to the same degree to the incentives and disincentives that move needles and preferences in DC and Brussels.
Time is always on the side of Russia, which is one of the reasons the slow rolling of weapons to Ukraine has been an exercise of malpractice of the highest degree. You are either in or out.
Two years on, “we” still are not sending a clear signal. It is amazing, really; in military might, GDP, demographics and a whole host of other reasons, Russia should not be as resilient as they are … which is why DC & Brussels are being played so hard. They still do not understand Russia.
Even after 1,000 years of experience, we have Western leaders who refuse to believe that the Russians are fundamentally different than the West is in the 21st Century. You can’t put the cultural ability to absorb damage and brutal patience you cannot see in some metric that can go on a PPT slide.
What the Russians lack in so many other places, they make up for here. As such, this critical part of understanding Russian motivation keeps being missed. Yes to their economy and apocalyptic demographics. Yes to all that.
For all the reasons Russia continues to fight, so too do their Ukrainian brothers – demonstrating greater resilience and endurance that Western expectations.
The time for leaving Ukraine to its fate is long past. Yes, the West has a short attention span and is suffering under the dead hand of entrenched leaders with a defeatist mindset – but none of this is written.
Ukraine can still win – or at least something that can be called a win. It would help if the Russians had some internal issues that required more attention that Ukraine, but even then – all is not worth shrugging over.
Yes, I’ve seen the math – the metrics – but war is informed by math, but not defined within it.
At a relatively modest cost in our treasure and almost none of our blood, we are wearing down Russia’s ability to project power for a generation, perhaps two. Perhaps many more generations should demographic instability mate with political instability. The Ukrainians – facing the same economic and demographic challenges as the Russians – are up for the fight. There is no reason for more comfortable nations who have supported them so far to go wobbly at half-time.
“FBI Official Who Helped Launch Trump-Russia Probe Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for Work with Russian Oligarch…In August, Charles McGonigal, a 22-year veteran of the bureau’s field office in New York, was found guilty of a count of conspiracy for working with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.”
Jagged Little Pill is now 28 years old. I don’t think I’ve listened to it for the last 27.
Texas Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) has won a resounding victory over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18) in a runoff election for mayor of Houston, carrying the race by 64 percentage points according to election results.
“Voters have spoken and I am humbly grateful to the people of Houston for electing me as their next mayor,” said Whitmire in a statement.
The election results largely mirrored the latest polling in the race where Whitmire maintained a lead over Jackson Lee, especially in runoff scenarios where negative perceptions of the congresswoman indicated many voters who had supported one of the other 18 candidates in the first round would likely move strongly towards Whitmire. Polls also indicated crime and public safety were among the top concerns for Houstonians — an issue on which Whitmire, as the longtime chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, held a distinct advantage over Jackson Lee.
I didn’t follow that race closely because it’s been obvious for a long time that Lee simply isn’t very bright, something even the lefty sorts at the Daily Beast noticed.
In the Democratic-leaning Houston, Republican-backed candidates have slightly increased their presence on the 16-member city council with the help of the local party, outreach efforts into minority communities, and campaign efforts from conservative organizations.
According to unofficial election results, candidates Julian Ramirez, Willie Davis, and Twila Carter all won runoff elections for At-Large Positions 1, 2, and 3, and incumbent Mary Nan Huffman handily fended off a challenge from attorney Tony Buzbee for District G. The victors will join incumbent Amy Peck, who ran unopposed for District A, and Fred Flickinger, who won the District E seat on Election Day last month.
Each of the five contested candidates have enjoyed the support of the Harris County Republican Party (HCRP), the Republican Party of Texas, and groups like the Kingwood Tea Party.
Pundits frequently forget that not so long ago, Houston was a Republican stronghold. Ted Cruz won Harris County (albeit it narrowly) in 2012, and Greg Abbott carried it in 2014.
“Elon Musk took another shot at Disney CEO Bob Iger Thursday, after the state of New Mexico sued Meta for allegedly enabling child sexual abuse and trafficking – yet Disney and other woke advertisers, who paused advertising on X in a kneejerk reaction to claims of antisemitism – apparently have no problem when it comes to the sexual exploitation of minors.”
A black scholar Harvard President Claudine Gay plagerized is plenty pissed off.
One of the academics who was plagiarized, former professor Carol Swain, is pissed after Harvard gave Gay a pass on what would have resulted in severe punishment and/or expulsion for anyone else, as Townhall’s Christopher Rufo reports.
“I rarely get angry, but I am angry,” Swain wrote on X. “[R]ight now about the racial double standards that are TEMPORARILY giving #ClaudineGay an opportunity to resign. White progressives created her and white progressives are protecting her. The rest of us have had to work our rear ends off to achieve success. Some get it handed to them.”
Rufo interviewed Swain, who said that the plagiarism went far beyond a few paragraphs – and that Gay’s “whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work.”
“She became president of Harvard and got recognition as being its first black president. I don’t believe her record warranted tenure, and I believe that I had to meet a much higher standard than she did,” she told Rufo, adding “Something changed in the mid-1990s, [when] we were having a big affirmative action debate.”
Rufo asked Swain what she thought would happen to a white person under these circumstances, to which she replied “A white male would probably already be gone.”
Harvard announced that Gay would keep her job after a week of calls for her ouster, first, regarding her refusal to condemn calls for violence against Jews on campus, and then, after the plagiarism accusations broke. Despite a donor revolt spearheaded by billionaire Bill Ackman, a petition signed by 700 faculty members on Gay’s behalf won in the end.
Happy Black Friday, everyone! (Here’s my prepping/gift guide, if you haven’t seen it already.) I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Some interesting international election results, unreasonable gun control legislation gets struck down in two different states, more legal trouble for Houston Democrats, and a weed company goes bankrupt. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The average price American families will have to pay to celebrate Thanksgiving with a traditional dinner will be the most expensive in history after years of sky-high inflation that experts attribute partially to President Joe Biden’s policies, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The price of all goods has risen dramatically under Biden following a period of sustained high inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in March 2022 and has since remained elevated, measuring at 3.2% in October, while the index for food rose 3.3% year-over-year for the month. The total increase in costs for a Thanksgiving dinner is about 26% since the beginning of Biden’s term, culminating in the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner in history.
Don’t buy the cookies. “Girl Scouts To Host Training Sessions On ‘Internalized Racism,’ ‘White Supremacy Culture.'” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
In a surprising turn of events, Argentina has elected the libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its new president. The hotly contested presidential run-off saw Milei defeating left-wing candidate Sergio Massa — a consequential shift in the country’s political landscape. Massa brusquely conceded on Sunday night, stating, “Milei is the president elected for the next four years.”
The victory of Milei, a self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist,” introduces an unconventional leader with what are considered to be radical economic views relative to Argentina’s neighbors. His campaign, characterized by anti-establishment rhetoric and metaphorical gestures such as wielding a chainsaw to show his fervor for cutting taxes, resonated with voters frustrated by Argentina’s economic decrepitude, including triple-digit inflation. One of Milei’s key proposals is the adoption of the U.S. dollar as Argentina’s national currency, an unprecedented move for a country of its size (Argentina is home to some 45.8 million people).
Massa — a lifelong politician and representative of Argentina’s left-wing political establishment — emphasized his government’s actions to address inflation during his tenure.
But Milei’s appeal, particularly among the younger generation, suggests a desire for change to break free from the cycle of economic crises.
Milei’s victory has produced excitement and concern alike. While some see him as the catalyst for much-needed economic reforms, others fear the potential austerity measures tied to his plans, such as shutting the central bank and slashing spending. Despite the uncertainty, Milei’s supporters view him as the only viable option to break the political status quo and address Argentina’s persistent and extreme economic challenges.
The election is not just a political shift but also a generational one, with Milei’s popularity among the youth reflecting a desire for a new direction. The effect of Milei’s win extends beyond Argentina’s borders, potentially influencing trade relationships, especially with his criticism of China and Brazil and his preference for stronger ties with the United States. As for the U.S., the hour is late, and we’ll take all the friends we can get, and Argentina is doubly welcome because the Millennium must be nigh if a libertarian won an election outside of New Hampshire.
Note: Linking to MSN rather than NRO because the latter has now raised it’s war against ad-blockers to obnoxious levels. Year-by-year, the TDS-infected NR has become ever-more sad and useless.
Geert Wilders, the Dutch populist whose anti-Islam comments have led to death threats, could become the next leader of the Netherlands following an election upset for his Freedom Party (PVV) on Wednesday.
After 25 years in Dutch politics without holding office, Wilders was set to lead coalition government talks and has a good chance of becoming prime minister.
An exit poll on Wednesday evening showed the PVV in a clear lead, 10 seats ahead of its closest rival, Frans Timmermans’ Labour/Green Left combination.
“We will have to find ways to live up to the hopes of our voters, to put the Dutch back as number one”, Wilders said in his first response, adding that “the Netherlands will be returned to the Dutch, the asylum tsunami and migration will be curbed.”
Maryland is one of 14 states that require background checks for all firearm purchases, whether or not the seller is a federally licensed dealer. Since 2013, Maryland has imposed an additional requirement on handgun buyers: They must first obtain a “handgun qualification license,” which entails completing at least four hours of firearm training and undergoing a seemingly redundant “investigation” aimed at screening out people who are legally disqualified from owning guns. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, that process, which can take up to 30 days, violates the Second Amendment.
In a decision published on Tuesday, a divided 4th Circuit panel concluded that Maryland’s handgun ownership licensing system is not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Writing for the majority in Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore, 4th Circuit Judge Julius Richardson notes that Bruen “effected a sea change in Second Amendment law,” making a variety of gun control laws newly vulnerable to constitutional challenges. Maryland’s handgun licensing law is the latest example.
Speaking of unconstitutional gun laws being struck down: “It turns out that bullets are an essential part of a gun, and limiting the number of rounds in a gun violates the Oregon constitution. A county judge in Oregon made that decision on Tuesday overturning Measure 114, a citizen-passed measure that outlawed what gun grabbers call ‘high capacity magazines’ and required that Oregon serfs get a permit to be allowed to purchase a gun.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Funny how no Arab nation wants to take in Palestinians. They know the simple truth: They suck.
The Palestinians tried to take over Jordan in the 1970s, leading to the late King Hussein declaring war on them and driving them out. They were booted from Kuwait after collaborating with Saddam Hussein’s forces before the Gulf War. They set off a powder keg in Lebanon, a nation that has yet to recover from its brutal civil war that lasted 15 years. No Arab country wants these people because they bring instability and trouble.
Outgoing Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner gets to enjoy a new host of scandals on his way out.
As term-limited Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner finishes his final days at the helm of the state’s most populous city, a new set of scandals have emerged over city contracts and a dispute over who will pay for a book touting the mayor’s legacy.
In the most recent dustup, an investigation by Houston’s KPRC 2 discovered that city contracts for much-needed water repairs were awarded to two relatives of Houston Public Works (HPW) employee Patrece Lee, including one for $4.5 million to Lee’s brother, who had only created his company six months before the city council approved the “emergency contracts.”
When KPRC reporter Amy Davis attempted to question Turner about the issue at a public event last week, Turner became irate and told his communications director to escort Davis from the room.
“You are not going to get away with this,” said Turner to Davis. “You are rude.”
Late Friday, HPW Director Carol Haddock announced that the employee had been placed on leave while the city’s Office of the Inspector General investigated the allegations.
In another contract scandal, Houston Landing media reported last week that the Midtown Redevelopment Authority had referred information to law enforcement on a since-fired manager who allegedly steered more than $4 million in taxpayer-funded landscaping contracts to himself and another contractor.
The latest developments came hard on the heels of Turner’s squabble with Houston First Corporation, the city’s marketing organization. During the “State of the City” luncheon last September, hosted by Houston First, attendees were given copies of Turner’s book “A Winning Legacy,” which celebrates the mayor’s accomplishments during his eight years in office.
As first reported by Bill King, Turner told President and CEO Michael Heckman that Houston First must pay a $123,979 invoice for the 600 copies, but Heckman refused, saying it was not in the corporation’s budget and not an appropriate expense. Houston First Chairman David Mincberg later told FOX 26 that the corporation would develop a strategy to raise private funds to pay for the books.
Controversy has also surrounded Turner’s management of city finances. Last year, Controller Chris Brown warned that the city was using $160 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to plug budget holes and even to cover ongoing expenses.
Speaking of governments in trouble for spending Flu Manchu funds on other priorities, Germany is also in trouble for pulling the same trick after their high court told them to stop. As Europeans, spending within their means is unacceptable, so they’re now plotting to suspend debt limits…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorses Donald Trump for President. This is interesting in that Abbott is a careful, cautious Republican, who might be more ideologically inclined to endorse Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. That Abbott has endorsed Trump indicates he thinks Trump is a lock for the 2024 nomination. He may be right.
“Stacey Abrams’ Brother-In-Law Arrested, Accused Of Human Trafficking, Choking Underage Girl…Jimmie Gardner, a well-known Georgia-based youth motivational speaker, is accused of human trafficking, lewd or lascivious touching, and battery…According to the Tampa Police Department, Gardner invited a 16-year-old girl to his hotel room in the early hours of Friday, offering to pay her for sexual acts.” Sounds like the wrong sort of youth motivation…
London mayor Sadiq Khan’s much-hated, rent-seeking “Ultra-Low Emission Zone” scheme uses cameras and vans to catch and fine people using gas-powered cars a hefty £12.50-per-day in order to make clear to ordinary Londoners of limited means just how much he holds them in contempt “fight climate change.”
But a group of Londoners has found an innovative and amusing way to nullify the snooping cameras:
It turns out those dinosaur costumes are just the right height to block the snoop cameras.
A herd or pack of T-Rexes is evidently called “a terror.”
The ULEZ has recently been extended even to outer boroughs like Bexley. “There are lots of people in this sort of borough that are low income. So the reality of this is that if you have a vehicle that isn’t compliant, you may not be in a position where you can afford to: A.) Pay the charge, or B.) Buy a vehicle that’s compliant.”
“I’m shocked it’s come to this.”
“In central London you’ve got tubes, you’ve got trains. We simply don’t have that out here.”
“The people that this affects most of all [are] people at the bottom end of the social ladder.”
“I’m 75 and I’m coming out to to help the people that can’t afford to pay the £12.50. This is why we’re doing this.”
Turns out Hamas was always doing what Israel and opponents of jihad terror accused them of doing: Operating out of hospitals to avoid being bombed (in violation of international law). I was already going to write about this when I saw that Jim Geraghty had already done the heavy lifting.
What would you like Israel to do about the Hamas operations under the Al-Shifa hospital complex and other hospitals in the Gaza Strip?
A lot of those currently demanding a cease-fire would likely answer, “Leave those operations alone.” That’s a good way to ensure that the threat of Hamas continues. This is the same dynamic as the proposal to deploy U.S. Naval hospital ships off the coast of the Gaza Strip to treat Palestinian children discussed yesterday. Anytime you declare, “Israel will not strike in this spot,” Hamas will move its forces and its equipment to that spot.
The decision before Israel is to either attack the Hamas targets underneath hospitals while attempting to avoid civilian casualties, or to leave the Hamas operations intact. Attack, and you run the risk of higher Palestinian civilian casualties, even greater outrage on the world stage, and even more propaganda victories for Hamas, painting the Israelis as cruel monsters. Hold back, and Hamas gets to keep more of its men and arms safely in place to fight another day and plot more massacres.
For those who wonder if Hamas really does operate underneath the Al-Shifa hospital, here’s an account from Taghreed El-Khodary and Ethan Bronner of the New York Times, back in 2008:
At Shifa Hospital on Monday, armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roved the halls. Asked their function, they said they were providing security. But there was internal bloodletting under way.
In the fourth-floor orthopedic section, a woman in her late twenties asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Hajoj was carried out of his room by young men pretending to transfer him to another hospital section. As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head. A bit of brain emerged on the other side of his skull.
Hajoj, like five others who were killed at the hospital in this way in the previous 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges, and when Israel destroyed the prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital. But their trials were short-circuited.
Another account from El-Khodary in 2009 described a young Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighter demanding he be treated first, ahead of civilians, even if their injuries were more severe:
A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.
“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.
He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.
“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”
A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.
“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.
“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”
Like everything else in the Gaza Strip, it appears that the hospital’s operations were intertwined with Hamas — a deliberate strategic choice to make the line between military operations and innocent civilians as blurry as possible.
So the left has known that Hamas was committing war crimes for decades, but was willing to ignore it in service of the holy cause of slaughtering Jews.
Here’s an Israeli soldier narrating what they found in a Gaza hospital, namely weapons and a prepared area for hostages.
Speaking of Al-Shifa hospital, there’s quite a lot of military activity happening there right now:
There should be no cease in Israeli operations until they’ve finished the tasking of killing or capturing every Hamas terrorist they can lay their hands on.
Israel rolls on in Gaza, Democrats get indicted on election fraud, Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty, censorship schemes get busted, and George Soros’ evil fingers are everywhere. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Israel’s ground offensive has surrounded Gaza City, where it seems to think most of Hamas infrastructure is located.
The blue circles indicate Israel military activity, which does rather suggest they’re pounding the snot out of Hamas.
House Republicans on the GOP’s “weaponization” subcommittee said in a Friday report that the IRS has agreed to end its “abusive” policy of surprise visits to taxpayers’ homes following pressure from the panel.
The Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s oversight revealed, and led to the swift end of, the IRS’s weaponization of unannounced field visits to harass, intimidate, and target taxpayers,” reads the report. “Taxpayers can now rest assured the IRS will not come knocking without providing prior notice—something that should have been the IRS’s practice all along.”
The IRS announced in July that it would end most unannounced agent visits to the homes of Americans, citing security concerns.
But it also came after the agency engaged in what appeared to be witness intimidation, after visiting the New Jersey home of journalist Matt Taibbi on the same day he appeared before Congress to testify on government abuse.
Following the incident, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded answers from the IRS, writing “In light of the hostile reaction to Mr. Taibbi’s reporting among left-wing activists, and the IRS’s history as a tool of government abuse, the IRS’s action could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate a witness before Congress.”
Taibbi thanked Jordan on Saturday, writing in response to the report:
One of the cases outlined is my own. My home was visited by the IRS while I was testifying before Jordan’s Committee about the Twitter Files on March 9th. Sincere thanks are due to Chairman Jordan, whose staff not only demanded and got answers in my case, but achieved a concrete policy change, as IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel announced in July new procedures that would “end most” home visits.
Anticipating criticism for expressing public thanks to a Republican congressman, I’d like to ask Democratic Party partisans: to which elected Democrat should I have appealed for help in this matter? The one who called me a “so-called journalist” on the House floor? The one who told me to take off my “tinfoil hat” and put greater trust in intelligence services? The ones in leadership who threatened me with jail time? I gave votes to the party for thirty years. Which elected Democrat would have performed basic constituent services in my case? Feel free to raise a hand.
If silence is the answer, why should I ever vote for a Democrat again?
In the conversation with [Joe] Rogan, Musk then explains George Soros’ massive bet (now overseen by his son, Alexander Soros) on funding city and state district attorney elections nationwide. He said, “The value for money in local races is much higher than in national races – the lowest value for money is a presidential race.”
“Soros realized you don’t actually need to change the laws – you just need to change how they’re enforced – if nobody chooses to enforce the law – or the laws differentially enforced – it’s like changing the laws,” Musk said.
This leaves with a new interview from one Maryland sheriff, just outside of crime-ridden Baltimore City, in Wicomico County, who drops a truth bomb about radical progressive lawmakers in the state, some of whom have likely been funded by Soros, who purposely fail to enforce law and order and only embolden criminal.
“I’m in my 40th year of law enforcement, and I have never ever seen it this bad,” Sheriff Mike Lewis said.
Lewis continued: “I’ve never seen a government so ingrained – and quite frankly complicit – in the criminal activity taking place in our nation.”
Speaking of Soros: “Soros has funneled over $15M to pro-Hamas organizations through Open Society Foundations.” Of course he has.
A jury has found Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, guilty on all seven criminal fraud counts for his role in the crypto exchange’s downfall.
Those counts include wire fraud on customers of FTX, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers of FTX, wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research, conspiracy to commit securities fraud on investors in FTX, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud on customers of FTX, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
He faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for March 28 at 9:30 a.m.
During a month-long trial in a Manhattan federal court, prosecutors claimed Bankman-Fried misled investors and mishandled billions in funds. He was accused of misusing customer funds deposited with FTX to boost his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.
Nicolas Roos, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Bankman-Fried committed crimes of “epic proportions.” He alleged during closing arguments that Bankman-Fried built his company on a “foundation of lies and false promises.”
Snip.
Bankman-Fried was a Democrat megadonor, giving nearly $39 million to Democrat-aligned causes during the 2022 election cycle.
Prosecutors said he “misappropriated and embezzled FTX customer deposits, and used billions of dollars in stolen funds for a variety of purposes, including … to help fund over a hundred million dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation,” according to an August indictment.
Both Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend and the former head of Alameda, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, testified against Bankman-Fried during the trial. Ellison and Wang both pleaded guilty in December to multiple charges.
“The Department of Health and Human Services has sent over $800,000 to a group in Texas where they distribute crack pipes, according to the Dallas Express…The funds were sent to the El Paso Alliance, a non-profit that helps people recover from alcoholism and drug addictions, according to its website.” Knowing what I know about leftwing activists, I’m guessing that $80,000 went to crack pipe distribution, and the rest disappeared into various leftwing pockets.
California is still having trouble managing this newfangled electricity thing. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
China’s least awful communist official, former Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, just died of a heart attack at age 68, and the CCP is banning memorial wishes for him.
Despite the Texas law against teaching Critical Race Theory, Katy ISD students are being told to reflect on their white privilege.
More than two dozen top U.S. law firms have issued a stern warning that law schools move with “urgency” to address the rising antisemitism on campus, or else it could affect recruitment, National Review has learned.
“Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the State of Israel. Such anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of our firms,” the statement published on Wednesday reads.
“As educators at institutions of higher learning, it is imperative that you provide your students with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged issues, in a manner that affirms the values we all hold dear and rejects unreservedly that which is antithetical to those values,” the letter continued. “There is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our communities.”
Snip.
Signatories included: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, McDermott Will & Emery LLP, Milbank LLP, O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Paul Hastings LLP, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Proskauer Rose LLP, Ropes & Gray LLP, Shearman & Sterling, Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Watchtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Norton Rose Fulbright, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.
Jewish homes in Paris marked with Stars of David. It’s good that sort of thing has never led to any negative outcomes in Europe…
Good: Disney is making it’s live-action Snow White remake a more traditional film, including actual dwarfs rather than random guys. Bad: The CGI dwarfs look absolutely horrible. It’s as though Disney wants to punish movie-goers for rejecting their woke vision…
A full scale ground war may or may not be developing in Gaza, the Biden recession claims bank branches, California declares itself a “child molesters across from schools” friendly zone, and lots of criminals making very poor decisions. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
There was also a screening today for reporters of footage of the atrocities carried out by the organization so many college lefties are cheering for.
I joined about 20 other journalists in a 14th-floor Manhattan conference room to watch the horrific video, which includes footage and images from a range of sources — such as cameras that Hamas attackers wore, dash cams, traffic cameras, and the phones of terrorists, their victims, and first responders — providing evidence of the crimes that Hamas carried out in Israel this month. The footage shows gagged and bound civilians burnt to an unidentifiable crisp; the casual and summary execution of people, including children, cowering under desks in the dark as they hide from terrorists wearing headlamps; the grisly decapitation of a Thai worker already bleeding from the stomach by a terrorist using a garden hoe; and other horrors.
In Gaza, by contrast, there are no visible military facilities, while Hamas fighters can shed their fashionable black outfits and dress like civilians. This will not, however, frustrate the Israeli offensive, which still has fixed, immovable targets. These are the deep tunnels — too deep for aerial bombing — that Hamas has been excavating and lining in concrete for more than 10 years, using construction equipment and vast quantities of cement donated by different governments and international organisations “to house refugees”. As a result, Gaza’s refugee “camps” do not contain a single tent. Instead, they are home to a forest of high-rise apartments, which is undoubtedly a good thing, except for the fact that both machines and cement were also diverted for tunnelling on the largest scale.
These tunnels house relatively sophisticated rocket-assembly lines, motor-assembly works, sheet metal and explosives’ stores, and warhead-fabrication workshops. More tunnels house Hamas command posts and its ordnance stores of small arms, mortars and rockets. Even deeper tunnels house its leaders’ lodgings and headquarters. Finally, there are the exfiltration tunnels, though there is no sign that they were used in the October 7 attacks, perhaps because their exits had been detected and blocked long before.
When Israel’s forces enter Gaza, they will engage any enemies who resist them, but they will not go looking for them. Their task is to escort combat engineers to their job sites — the camouflaged places from which tunnels can be accessed. How do they know where these entry points are? While Israel’s aerostats with cameras, satellite photography and the pictures generated by radar returns cannot reveal tunnels, they have been used to monitor where cement-mixer trucks have stopped over the years. They cannot pinpoint tunnel entrances by doing so, but they can at least identify places worth exploring with low-frequency, earth-penetrating radars or simple probes.
The obvious danger here is that, even before the escorting troops and combat engineers descend underground to fight off Hamas’s guards and place their demolition charges, they will keep losing casualties to snipers and mortar bombs on their way to the sites.
To minimise the danger, however, the Israeli army can rely on the most heavily protected armoured vehicle ever developed: the Namer infantry combat vehicle. As well as having significantly more armour than any other combat vehicle anywhere in the world, it uses an active defence weapon to intercept incoming anti-tank missiles and rockets, and also has machine guns to fight off infantry attackers. In urban combat, tank crews firing machine guns from the top of their turrets are desperately vulnerable, but the Namer’s crew remains “buttoned up” inside the vehicle, relying on TV screens to see the outside world and operate their weapons remotely. In 2014, the last time Israeli troops fought in Gaza, most were riding thinly armoured M.113s, which were easily penetrated by RPG anti-tank rockets, with some 60 soldiers killed and hundreds wounded. Not this time.
After they reach the suspected tunnel sites, the Namers will line up to form a perimeter — an improvised fortress — to protect the combat engineers as they go about their task. It is very likely that there will still be skirmishing before, during and after each de-tunnelling operation, with Hamas mortar teams in action, as well as snipers hidden in ruins. Fortunately, the Israelis will have their 70-ton Namers, as well as their post-2014 street-fighting training, to protect them.
And they will need that protection, as dismantling Hamas’s tunnel network will take time: the one certainty in all this is that the planting of demolition charges cannot be done quickly without suffering many fatalities. This means there will be at least two weeks of war in the Gaza strip — and even this optimistically assumes that the entire tunnel system in the evacuated northern part can be cleared in a week, allowing the Israelis to do the same in the southern sector, after evacuating the southerners and sending home the northerners. The Government’s vow to persist until the destruction of Hamas will be tested every day.
During the first week of October alone, U.S. banks closed a whopping 54 local branches…
Major US banks are continuing to close branches across the US, leaving an increasing number of Americans without access to basic financial services.
Bank of America axed 21 branches in the first week of October, according to a bulletin published by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on Friday.
Wells Fargo shuttered 15, while US Bank and Chase reported closing nine and three respectively.
In total, some 54 locations had either closed or were scheduled to close between October 1 and October 7.
That is just one week!
Of course bank branches have been closing at a frightening pace for quite some time now.
Last year, U.S. banks shut down about 2,000 more branches than they opened.
I do wonder how many of those closed-branches are in crime-happy Soros-backed-DA zones…
Scenes from the decline of law and order in California: “Dude is a sex offender with a loophole that allows him to be near a school and he can set up the ‘free fentanyl’ sign because he doesn’t actually have the drugs on him.” Social Justice Warriors seem to love pedophiles almost as much as radical Muslim terrorists…
“NewsGuard, a company which claims to rate media outlets’ level of ‘trustworthiness’ and therefore has a meaningful influence over ad revenue, has been sued along with the Biden administration by Consortium News, which also named the Pentagon’s Cyber Command for “contracting with NewsGuard to identify, report and abridge the speech of American media organizations that dissent from U.S. official positions on foreign policy.”
Sometimes you start working on a story, only to find out there are too many unknowns to fairly approach it from a blogging angle, or because you run the risk of looking like a complete jackass. Such is the case with this story of APD Chief Data Officer Jonathan Kringen being charged with domestic violence. Kringen is married to Anne Kringen, who seems to have been brought into APD to wage social justice against it in the wake of the “rimagining Austin police” lunacy. “I think it’s fundamentally important to involve the community voice into policing in all spheres, including the academy, and I’ll work to foster a culture of inclusivity that reflects the needs of a city as diverse and exciting as Austin.” “Provide insight into institutionalized racism and explores the underlying causes of inequality as well as tools to address these causes.” No one should be the victim of domestic abuse, but it appears that neither Kringen should be employed by APD.
Trump’s gag order is so extreme that even the ACLU agrees his free speech rights are being infringed.
The truth about Postcolonialism: “We started with Frantz Fanon calling for violent revolution, and ended with Gayatari Spivak trying to use postmodern philosophy to attack western ideas of knowledge…Decolonization for Fanon was replacing all the colonizers with colonized people, using violence (or threats of violence) in order to free colonized people from the shackles of western influence…Decolonization is the systematic destruction of any and all western influence anywhere and everywhere by any means necessary.”
“On Thursday, 32-year-old veteran NYPD Officer Grace Rose Baez was arrested along with 42-year-old Casar Martinez and charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics and the distribution of narcotics after they allegedly tried to sell large quantities of drugs to a federal informant between Oct. 9 and 29.” Even NYPD frowns on such shenanigans as setting up your own fentanyl distribution network while on duty…
And they say retail workers aren’t ambitious these days: “California Home Depot Employee Arrested For Allegedly Embezzling $1.2 Million.” “She was basically just manipulating the books on how much she was depositing” and would walk away with spare cash. I know theft in California is bad, but I’m pretty sure Home Depot has all those sales computerized, and is going to catch on when you keep coming up short…
Robber: “Stop! Hammertime!” Gun store owner: “Nope!” BLAM!
Among the most horrifying Hamas atrocities to come to light following their terrorist attack on Israel is the report that they beheaded babies.
Hamas terrorists slaughtered at least 40 babies and young children — decapitating some of them — at a kibbutz near the Gaza border, shaken Israeli officials and reporters at the scene said Tuesday.
“It’s hard to even explain exactly just the mass casualties that happened right here,” visibly distraught i24 News correspondent Nicole Zedek said during a broadcast from Kibbutz Kfar Aza near Sderot about a quarter-mile from the Gaza Strip.
“Babies with their heads cut off, that’s what [the soldiers] said. Gunned down. Families gunned down, completely gunned down in their beds,” Zedek said of the “sheer horror.
“This is nothing that anyone would have even imagined,” she said.
Top CNN reporter Nic Robertson, dressed in a military helmet and flak jacket, said, “There were so many murdered members of this Kibbutz.
French journalist Margot Haddat added in a translated tweet, “It’s so macabre that no one wanted to reveal it until they had 100 percent confirmation.
“It is a horror, a massacre. For those asking for the source. They are multiple: Israeli army, internal intelligence service and atrocious images which reached me and which I was able to cross-check,” she said. “But the best source remains this: courageous journalists from the foreign press who were able to see / agreed to see with their own eyes the bodies in Kfar Aza.”
Here’s a tweet embedding that i24 report:
i24NEWS Correspondent @Nicole_Zedek reports from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a quarter-mile from the Gaza border, and recounts the atrocities that were committed in the small community which remains an active scene as soldiers clear booby traps and recover the bodies of dozens of victims pic.twitter.com/J4ZfWZQYHp
I think that a journalist interviewing a soldier who witnessed the aftermath of the slaughter counts as confirmation.
I wanted to verify this story not because I doubted the bloodthirsty murderers of Hamas were capable of such atrocities, but because it was just a little too on-the-nose. One should always question any narrative that fits a little too neatly into your preconceptions. And indeed, the story has undergone a subtle telephone game shift in the retelling, with it described as “Hamas beheaded 40 babies” instead of the still horrific “Hamas killed 40 young children and babies, some of whom were beheaded.”
Israel is fighting an enemy who believes it is righteous to decapitate babies as long as they’re Jewish babies, because all slaughter of Jews, any Jews, is permitted because they believe them quite literally to be “apes and pigs.”
Well, I’ve had better weeks. In addition to my job ending, my dog had to get $1,700 worth of veterinary work done (removing and testing a lump on his chest, and while he was getting that I got his teeth cleaned). So feel free to hit the donation jar at the bottom of the post.
A prosecutor overseeing the Hunter Biden tax probe likely intervened to protect President Biden from Department of Justice scrutiny, Eileen O’Connor, former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, testified at the first House Oversight impeachment hearing Thursday.
The impeachment inquiry, which was formally opened earlier this month without a full House vote, builds on the committee’s months-long probe into Biden’s alleged foreign influence peddling.
U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss led the investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes, which began in 2018, and was assisted by assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf.
IRS whistleblowers who worked on the probe, and have since provided a trove of information to the committee, identified many deviations from standard procedure, which they claim were driven by Weiss and his staff as well as officials at main Justice in an attempt to slow walk or otherwise obstruct the probe.
The whistleblowers highlighted the fact that attorneys from the DOJ’s tax division suggested the removal of Hunter’s name from documents, including subpoenas, and pointed out that prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware prohibited IRS and FBI investigators from asking about or referring to “the big guy” or “dad” in witness interviews.
Wolf also ordered investigators not to escalate the tax probe into a campaign-finance probe, according to a document the GOP committee obtained from the whistleblowers. Specifically, she told them not to pursue the possibility that a hefty sum Hunter received from a major Democratic donor to pay his back taxes may have constituted an illegal campaign-finance contribution.
Why, it’s almost as if there’s a different rule for powerful Democrats than for other Americans…
“Adam Schiff Funneled Millions To Defense Contractors After Taking Donations.” Of course he did. “This financial maneuvering coincided with Schiff receiving $8,500 in contributions from PMA Group PAC and two family members of Paul Magliocchetti, founder and owner of the lobbying firm retained by both defense companies. In 2011, Paul Magliocchetti was sentenced to 27 months in prison for making illegal campaign contributions.”
Target closes nine stores in Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle and New York City, citing losses from crime.
States are fighting back against ESG companies trying to destroy their oil and gas industries.
“Oklahoma is a natural gas and oil industry state,” [Oklahoma State Auditor Cindy Byrd] said. “These things are very important to us, and we’ve seen that shut down over the last few years, which is really hurting Oklahoma.”
Increasingly, the environmental social and governance (ESG) industry is coordinating efforts among banks, insurance companies, and asset managers to cut America’s production of fossil fuels. It coordinates these efforts through a coalition of net-zero associations under the umbrella of the U.N.-affiliated Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ).
The net-zero clubs that are part of GFANZ encompass virtually all elements of global finance, including the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), the Net Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAMi), the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance (NZAOA) and the Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance (NZFSPA). Members of these alliances pledge to work together to achieve UN goals of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 or sooner.
We thought about investments, getting good returns, trying to make money with your money, and that was the prominent thought when I first got in office,” said Kentucky State Treasurer Allison Ball. “I remember when I first started coming to events, I began to hear about an initiative called ESG, and I thought at the time that this was academic; I didn’t really take it very seriously.
“In the course of the last couple of years, it began to become very aggressively pushed,” she told The Epoch Times. “There’s been an effort to really make it the only game in town, to really shift that mentality from investing to make money, making sure you’re getting good returns, to using investments as leverage to push certain mostly political ideas.
“Coal and oil and gas industries, those are signature industries in Kentucky,” Ms. Ball said. “And they’ve been targeted very strongly by the E part of ESG, so I began to see real impacts on the economy of Kentucky, my home area.”
The felony convictions of four former Navy officers in one of the worst bribery cases in the maritime branch’s history were vacated Wednesday due to questions about prosecutorial misconduct, the latest setback to the government’s years-long efforts in going after dozens of military officials tied to Leonard Francis, a defense contractor nicknamed “Fat Leonard.”
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino called the misconduct “outrageous” and agreed to allow the four men to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $100 fine each.
California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein dead at 90.
“A group of five Harris County residents filed a petition in state district court on Friday seeking to remove Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo from office, arguing that she has abandoned her duties and responsibilities as the elected chief executive of the state’s most populous county….petitioning to remove Hidalgo under Texas Local Government code allowing for removal of an unfit or incompetent elected official.” She’s been on “mental health leave” since July.
“Prosper ISD Taxpayers Debate Priciest High School Stadium in Texas.” As in $94.8 million pricey. And that’s after they already built one for $53 million, the fifth priciest in the state, that opened in 2019. And they’ve already built two high schools that cost $200 million each, presumably with gold-plated microscopes and Tito Puente as the music teacher…
