Posts Tagged ‘Baltimore’

LinkSwarm For November 10, 2023

Friday, November 10th, 2023

Republicans subpoena Biden Crime Family members, Israel is handily kicking Hamas’ ass in Gaza, Jezebel goes down in flames, and The Marvels looks to be doing as badly as everyone expected. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • House GOP subpoenas Hunter Biden alongside suite of Biden family members.”

    Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden have been subpoenaed Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, which took the remarkable step of seeking depositions from family members of President Biden amid its impeachment inquiry.

    As part of the request, the committee asked for James Biden’s wife, Sarah Biden, as well as Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen, to sit for transcribed interviews. The panel also asks for interviews with Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden, and her sister Elizabeth Secundy.

    The subpoenas come weeks after the Oversight Committee demanded both Hunter and James Biden’s personal bank records, and also include a subpoena for Hunter Biden’s former business partner Rob Walker.

    The panel is also requesting to speak with Tony Bobulinski, whom Hunter Biden’s attorney have accused of lying to the FBI.

    The release from House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he “plans to send additional subpoenas and transcribed interview requests later this week.”

    If James Biden is a potential felony suspect (which he is), I doubt the House can compel his wife to testify.

  • “Hunter Biden Wants To Sic Daddy’s DOJ On Whisteblower Biz Partner.” Of course he does.
    

  • Despite the expert opinions of all those expert commentators, Israel appears to be handily kicking Hamas’ ass.

    The IDF’s tactical success so far in its nearly two-week-old ground incursion into Gaza – cutting the north from the south and entering Gaza City with limited troop casualties – has surprised some observers. There have been 32 Israeli troops killed during the incursion, according to The Times of Israel, which is far fewer than anticipated. The IDF said it is killing fighters and destroying scores of tunnel shafts and other Hamas infrastructure during its advance that has reached the Mediterranean Sea coast. Still, the mounting casualty toll and displacement of civilians remains a grave cause for concern as outrage grows and calls for a ceasefire increase.

    Snip.

    While good analysis of any major news story should not accept on face value any claims by the participants, it most certainly must not accept the claims of a source known to lie. And yet, the mainstream press and the experts it has relied on have accepted and continue to accept what Hamas tells them, with no skepticism, to the point that several media sources (Reuters, CNN, AP, and the New York Times) allowed themselves to be used by Hamas as propaganda outlets. Their blind passion to get the story combined with their willingness to repeatedly accept the words of an organization not only known to repeatedly lie but to rape, torture, and slaughter women, children, and babies caused them to misread the situation badly.

    Others might not be so kind, and will instead say this poor analysis was because many of these news organizations and the experts they relied on have taken sides. They see Hamas as the good guy and victim, and Israel as the bad guy and oppressor. Thus, their analysis is warped because they assume Israel is lying and Hamas is telling them the truth.

    This conclusion is certainly possible with some news organizations and some experts, but it is a mistake to rely on it entirely. For example, many of the military experts quoted in the articles above were from Israel itself. Yet they too were fooled, and thought Hamas was stronger than it is.

    Muslim fanaticism and Jew-hatred are poor substitutes for planning, training, doctrine and logistics.

  • West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin will not run for reelection. That’s pretty much a lock for Republicans to flip next year in a state that went for Trump over Biden by 49 points in 2020.
  • If the 2024 Presidential election were held today, Trump would win over 300 electoral votes. “Five out of six swing states that Joe Biden won in 2020 show Trump winning well outside the margin of error.” Usual poll caveats apply.
  • UNRWA Staffers, Teachers Celebrated Hamas Massacre of Israeli Civilians.” Of course they did.
  • Five Nordic nations agree to share flights deporting illegal aliens. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “Pennsylvania voting machines shut down after displaying flipped votes for judges in Northampton County.” This looks more like a bug than a felony, as votes between candidates were swapped, not simply switched from a Democrat to a Republican.
  • Former Soros-backed Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby convicted on purjury charges.
  • Green Charter Township, Michigan board: “Here, have a Chinese battery company.” Voters: “Here, have a pink slip.” All of them were voted out.

  • Leftwing rage monkey Cenk Uygur thinks he’s running for President, despite being constitutionally ineligible.
  • WeWork files for bankruptcy. I thought there might have been a pre-Flu Manchu use case for making a profitable business of co-working spaces, but even that wasn’t possible for WeWork, since they lease rather than own all their space. This means they’re just a middleman in an economy that increasingly eliminates middlemen, and there’s nothing special about their model that actual landlords can’t do better.
  • Feminist blog Jezebel shutting down after failing to find buyer.”

    There aren’t enough Nelsons in the world… (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of Nelson-worthy news: Fake meat company Beyond Meat is laying off workers. Seems like Vegetarianism is a luxury good people will are willing to go without in the Biden Recession. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Right now, The Marvels is tracking to have one of the lowest openings in the entire MCU, with just around $60 million. To put that into perspective, Captain Marvel opened with $153.4 million in 2019.”
  • Oh, and as you might imagine, Critical Drinker is not impressed. “People aren’t even angry anymore, they just don’t care. The original Captain Marvel was a divisive movie that inspired debate and controversy, but this one falls victim to a far more Insidious problem: absolute apathy. This really is how the MCU dies, not with a bang, but with a whimper.”
  • Speaking of the Drinker, he referenced this extensive Variety piece on MCU troubles. There’s a lot to chew on here, including how the Blade reboot “morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons.” (I’m guessing the Variety stylebook forbids using the word “woke.”) But the most interesting bit was the disasterous incompetence surrounding the She-Hulk TV series:

    But some internal sources suggest [Victoria] Alonso was a scapegoat and point to the “She-Hulk” VFX issues as a symptom of a deeper rot — namely a lack of oversight on script development. In the original arc of “She-Hulk,” a flashback of star Tatiana Maslany’s transformation into her Hulk character didn’t take place until Episode 8, the penultimate episode. But after Marvel’s brain trust watched footage, it realized the scene needed to happen in the pilot episode so that audiences could see more of the character’s backstory early. That meant that the VFX team was tasked with fixing the mess in postproduction.

    “The so-called bad VFX we see was because of half-baked scripts,” says one person involved with “She-Hulk.” “That is not Victoria. That is Kevin. And even above Kevin. Those issues should be addressed in preproduction. The timeline is not allowing the Marvel executives to sit with the material.”

    All the while, Marvel was bleeding money, with a single episode of “She-Hulk” costing some $25 million, dwarfing the budget of a final-season episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones, ” but without a similar Zeitgeist bang. The August 2022 series premiere at the El Capitan Theatre foreshadowed what was to come six months later at the “Quantumania” bow: the “She-Hulk” special effects were out of focus in multiple scenes.

  • Important safety tip: If you’re choosing a victim to rob at knife-point, try not to pick an Ex-MMA fighter.
  • Tentative agreement reached in actor’s strike.
  • Here Lies Love, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s disco musical about Imelda Marcos will be closing on Broadway. The first sign the production was in trouble: It was a disco musical about Imelda Marcos. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Researchers Discover Miracle Cure For Gender Dysphoria Called ‘Deleting TikTok.'”
  • I don’t mean to cause no fuss/But can I ride your doggy bus?

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For November 3, 2023

    Friday, November 3rd, 2023

    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 Weaponization Panel Gets IRS To End ‘Abusive’ Surprise Visits.”

    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?

    Why indeed.

  • How George Soros destroyed law and order in the United States without changing a single law.

    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.
  • This week in Democratic Party corruption. “The FBI is investigating whether New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations.” New Yorkers could have had Curtis Sliwa, but noooooooo….
  • And speaking of campaign finance fraud: “FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty on All Counts.”

    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.

  • More of that Democratic Party voter fraud the MSM swears doesn’t exist: “A Bridgeport, Connecticut judge ruled on Wednesday to overturn the city’s Democratic primary election after video emerged of a woman who appears to be the city’s vice chair of the Democratic Town Committee, Wanda Geter-Pataky, committing ballot fraud.”
  • “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.
  • “Boston Children’s Hospital given $1.4 million in taxpayer money for child sex changes.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Mike Pence stops pretending he’s running for President.
  • Biden gets a primary challenger in the form of U.S. Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips. We’ll see if the DNS tries to screw him less than Bernie Sanders…
  • 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.
  • “America’s Top Law Firms Issue Warning to Colleges to Address Antisemitism.”

    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.

  • Darryl Schriver was fired from his position as CEO of Tri-County Electric Cooperative [north and west of Fort Worth] after his alleged use of company expenses to purchase Star Wars collector pens, Apple products, Oakley sunglasses, Texas Christian University (TCU) football tickets, airfare for his wife, and more.” A company credit card is just about the stupidest way in the world to attempt to embezzle funds. Also: “The filing then details Schriver’s rejection of a $50,000 bonus and subsequent demand for a bonus worth up to $75,000 so that the take-home amount after taxes was $50,000.” Smooth move, Ex-Lax…
  • 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…
  • Adam Ford leaves the Bee.
  • “Hamas Leader Appointed Senior Fellow At Harvard University.”
  • “‘I Wouldn’t Have Gone Along With The Nazis In 1939,’ Says College Student At ‘Kill The Jews‘ Rally.”
  • A young go-getter:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • LinkSwarm for July 14, 2023

    Friday, 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.)

  • LinkSwarm for June 16, 2023

    Friday, June 16th, 2023

    More Biden corruption comes to light, California gets even more crazy, and two former European Prime Ministers step out of the spotlight in different ways.

  • “House Oversight Chairman Says There Is Evidence Of $20-$30 Million Of Illegal Payments To Bidens.”

    House Oversight Chairman James Comer revealed Thursday that he expects there is evidence of at least $20-$30 million being made in illegal payments by foreign nationals to the Biden family.

    Appearing on Fox Business, Comer stated “We have more bank records coming in but we’re gonna exceed $10 million this week but I think we’ll get up to $20-$30 million.”

    He further noted that it is becoming clear that the Bidens potentially engaged in bribery, influence peddling, and money laundering.

    “This is going to be hard for Biden to explain, this is not going to go away, and I think eventually the mainstream media is going to start asking the real questions,” Comer added.

    “They know there’s something wrong here. They know all the allegations have merit, because of where Joe Biden was, because of what we’ve seen on tape before, where Joe Biden bragged about firing that prosecutor,” he added,

    “They know that this family created these shell companies. They know this family was money-laundering, they were profiting off Joe Biden’s influence,” Comer asserted, adding “The media knows that – they’re just not covering it.”

    “I can assure you: there is more money that we’re going to be able to identify, that was transferred between foreign nationals in other countries and the Biden family,” Comer further emphasized, adding “I think, eventually, the mainstream media will turn on Joe Biden and start asking the real questions: ‘What did your family do to receive all this money?’”

  • Speaking of Biden family corruption: “House Oversight Panel Subpoenas Former Hunter Biden Associate Devon Archer…[The committee] is particularly interested in Archer’s involvement in the family’s international business deals, which included countries like China, Russia, and Ukraine.” Archer was in Global Seneca Partners with Hunter Biden and John Kerry’s stepson.
  • Meanwhile, Robert Hur, the special council charged with investigating Biden, seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
  • Biden recession update: Average real weekly earnings have dropped for the 26th consecutive month. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • California advances bill to help shoplifters steal.
  • “Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison stepped down this week as the progressive-run city struggles with homicides, a drug crisis, and a troubling rise in violence involving teenagers.” Time to pull this out again:

  • Illegal aliens try to hijack merchant ship with knives. Italian commandos demonstrate that’s a bad idea.
  • Jihadis kill nine in Congo.
  • The Netherlands are closing the largest natural gas field in Europe.
  • Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s longest-serving prime minister, dead at 86. Berlusconi revived Italy’s economy, but then couldn’t keep it out of the PIIGS. But for a whilehe kept the wolves at bay.
  • Also stepping out of the spotlight this week: Former UK Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned from Parliment. Other than getting Brexit accomplished, Johnson’s tenure seemed all sizzle and no steak.
  • California’s unrealistic environmental policies are creating a trucking nightmare.

    In April 2023, an unelected Board in California voted to force trucking companies to buy zero-emission trucks. This technology is at early-stage adoption in limited segments, and infrastructure buildout is lagging behind what is required to support electrification in our industry. The Board unanimously advanced the Advanced Clean Fleet rule to accompany California’s equally tough electric vehicle sales mandate regulation, the Advanced Clean Truck rule, that would require truck manufacturers to sell zero-emission vehicles. These two regulations together are designed to create an artificial electric vehicle market sooner rather than later.

    This new rule was made at the behest of the environmental lobby, which pushed for unrealistic targets and unachievable timelines that will undoubtedly lead to higher prices for goods delivered to the state and fewer options for consumers. ATA has strongly opposed this rule from the outset and testified at a hearing in Sacramento to express the trucking industry’s concerns directly to the Board.

    Snip.

    Today’s clean diesel trucks can spend 15 minutes fueling anywhere in the country and then travel about 1,200 miles before fueling again. In contrast, today’s zero-emission trucks:

    • Have significantly less range of about 150-330 miles between charging or refueling;
    • Need to be charged or refueled more often and for longer periods of time leading to unproductive downtime;
    • Cost two to three times more than a comparable clean-diesel truck; and
    • Weigh thousands of pounds more, reducing payload capacity and requiring more trucks and drivers to move the same amount of freight.

    Also: “The California Energy Commission estimates that 157,000 chargers will need to be installed by 2030 to support California’s heavy-duty vehicle electrification goals.” Assuming there’s enough Lithium in the world for the batteries… (Hat tip: TPPF.)

  • Hope for San Francisco? Residents replace drug-addicted transients on their local sidewalks with large planters.
  • Two Russian oil tanks collide for exactly the reasons you would expect.
  • “DNC Generously Offers To Host Rally For Robert F. Kennedy Jr. By Grassy Knoll.”
  • “Satan Asks LGBTQ Community To Please Tone It Down A Bit.”
  • LinkSwarm for June 2, 2023

    Friday, June 2nd, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Hey, that sounds sort of familiar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • IMDB has chosen to actively suppress negative ratings of the Little Mermaid remake.
  • Given that, it might be time to take a look at Worth It or Woke for honest movie reviews.
  • Dwight has a good look at the Battleship Texas, and (for Memorial Day) seaman Christen Christensen, who was killed in combat during the bombardment of a German shore battery off Cherbourg.
  • Don’t let JinJin eat poop off San Francisco’s street, or they may end up tripping balls.
  • “America Votes To Add ‘Can You Walk And Speak In Sentences’ To Presidential Job Application.”
  • LinkSwarm for April 14, 2023

    Friday, April 14th, 2023

    If you’re stressing over your taxes, you might be slightly relieved to know that they’re not due until April 18. Thus week: More Blue City violence and decline, lots of Social Justice Warrior backlash, Facebook shows snowflakes the door, and Budweiser commits brand suicide.
    

  • “Ex-ABC Senior Producer Who Rolling Stone Covered For Indicted On Child Porn Charges. Former ABC senior producer James Gordon Meek has been indicted on three counts of child pornography nearly one year after the FBI raided his Arlington, Virginia home.”
    

  • “A Silicon Valley Vs. Homeless Industrial-Complex Power-Struggle Emerges In San Francisco.”

    Something about the apparently random street murder of Silicon Valley tech executive Bob Lee seems to have overturned a crawly rock in San Francisco’s political scene, suggesting a brewing power struggle on the horizon.

    On the one hand, we have a very vocally angry Silicon Valley tech community speaking out about the out-of-control crime situation in the city, with the valued and talented Lee’s untimely death from some night creature who crawled out from some sewer or encampment and stabbed him to death, quite possibly in a drug-addled haze. That’s expected if you live in a place full of bums and criminals, but Lee didn’t live in a place full of bums and criminals. He had actually fled the city for Florida based on its engulfing crime and come back only for a brief business trip.

    On the other hand, we have a soggy, entrenched political establishment seeking to assure that there’s really no crime problem at all. This is evident enough in the “crime is down” coverage seen in the political establishment’s house organ, the San Francisco Chronicle, and in the surreal statements of the city hall power establishment, which is rooted in special interests, particularly the most powerful one, the homeless industrial complex. I wrote about that here. San Francisco currently spends about as much on homeless “services” as it does on police, and by some studies such as the one cited below, actually more.

    Not surprisingly, as per Thomas Sowell’s observation, you can have all the poverty you want to pay for, and San Francisco pays a lot.

    The Hoover Institution’s Lee Ohanian has noted:

    Spending $1.1 billion on homelessness is just the latest installment in San Francisco’s constant failure to sensibly and humanely deal with an issue that it chronically misdiagnoses and mismanages about as much as is humanly possible. Since fiscal year 2016–17, San Francisco has spent over $2.8 billion on homelessness, and the city’s politicians remain seemingly baffled, year after year, as the number of homeless in the city skyrocket, as opioid overdoses kill more than COVID-19, and as the city has become nearly the most dangerous in the country. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-most-crime-rid….

    Since 2016, the number of homeless in San Francisco has increased from 12,249 to 19,086, which comes out to about $57,000 in spending per homeless person per year. With a total population of about 860,000, roughly 2.2 percent of San Francisco residents are homeless, which is over 12 times the national average. There is little doubt that as San Francisco spends more, homelessness and its impact on the city worsens.

    Do the homeless get that $57,000 being spent on them? Of course not. The princelings of the NGO establishments got that money — for themselves. That’s what’s made them politically powerful, enough to call the shots at city hall.

    Democrats and Social Justice Warriors view homelessness as a huge profit center, and seek to increase the ranks of the homeless at every opportunity.

  • Speaking of Bob Lee’s murder, the former San Francisco fire commissioner was attacked with crowbar the day after Lee was stabbed to death.
  • Also, an arrest was made in the Lee case and it was a fellow tech guy who knew him. “A tech executive named Nima Momeni was arrested by San Francisco police Thursday morning in the April 4 killing of Cash App founder Bob Lee…Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.” So not a random gibbering drug-addicted transient.
  • Speaking of San Francisco street crime, a Whole Food closes one year after opening due to violence and theft.
  • Speaking of store closings in blue cities, Walmart is closing half their Chicago stores.
  • Is it it riot and murder season in Baltimore already? Ha! Trick question! It’s always riot and murder season in Baltimore.

  • “Embattled Soros-Backed St. Louis Prosecutor Sanctioned By Judge Amid New Complaints.”

    A St. Louis judge sanctioned St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office last week for allegedly withholding evidence in a double-murder case, while allowing the suspect out on bond, amid rising criticism about left-wing prosecutors allowing crime to flourish in major U.S. cities.

    Alex Heflin, 23, was held without bond since January after he was initially charged with two counts of second-degree murder and armed criminal action, local media reported. But those charges were recently reduced to involuntary and voluntary manslaughter before he was released, while his April 17 trial has been postponed until June 12.

    Judge Theresa Counts Burke ruled in favor of Heflin’s lawyers after they filed a motion accusing a prosecutor under Gardner of violating discovery rules. They alleged that her office did not turn over evidence, including a 911 call recording and DNA evidence.

    “The court finds that there have been repeated delays by the state in obtaining discovery and providing it to the defense,” Burke wrote, according to local reports.

    “There has been a lack of diligence on the part of the state in following up and providing discovery to the defendant in a timely fashion. As a result of the state’s actions and lack of diligence, the court grants defendant’s second motion for sanctions.”

    Under Burke’s order, Heflin will have to remain on GPS monitoring. She also ordered the circuit attorney’s office to hand over their list of witnesses within 24 hours, provide DNA test results within 24 hours, or ask a crime lab for the DNA results.

  • Remember when Reagan was criticized for taking the deficit above $100 billion? Now it’s over a trillion. Every six months. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • 2024 update: Tim Scott getting in.
  • Mike Pompeo getting out.
  • Fort Worth ISD to make DEI die.
  • Molotov balloons are a ball filled with sulfuric acid, but white strips are a type of paper treated with potassium chlorate and a sugar mix. When the balloon breaks, the acid reacts with the potassium chlorate and sugar, which causes ignition.”
  • Another girlboss indicted: “Penn grad Charlie Javice, founder of Frank, charged with fraud over $175M JPMorgan deal.” Seems the heart of the indictment is fake users.

    Prosecutors and the SEC allege that Javice orchestrated a scheme to deceive JPMorgan into believing that Frank had access to valuable data on 4.25 million students who used the company’s service when in reality the number was less than 300,000.

    Prosecutors said when JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) sought to verify the number of Frank users and the amount of data collected about them, Javice fabricated a data set. She is alleged to have an unnamed co-conspirator who first asked Frank’s director of engineering to create an artificially generated data set. Prosecutors said the director of engineering declined the request after expressing concerns about its legality.

    Javice, according to prosecutors, then approached an outside data scientist and hired him to create the synthetic data set — which was then provided to an agreed-upon third-party vendor in an effort to confirm to JPMorgan that the data set had over 4.25 million rows.

    Based on that alleged fraudulent data, prosecutors said JPMorgan agreed to buy Frank for $175 million. As part of the deal, the nation’s largest bank hired Javice and other Frank employees. Prosecutors said Javice received over $21 million for selling her equity stake in Frank and, per the terms of the deal, was to be paid another $20 million as a retention bonus.

    Prosecutors said as the fabricated data set was being created, Javice and her co-conspirator sought to purchase real data for over 4.25 million college students to cover up their misrepresentations.

    Treading the fine line between “fake it until you make it” and “interstate wire fraud.”

  • Bud light tranny pander wrecks brand. “I’ve never seen such little sales [as] in this past few days.”
  • In fact, they’ve lost six billion dollars in market cap.
  • “People With Taste Buds Continue Decades-Long Boycott Of Bud Light.”
  • The history of Barrett firearms. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Facebook to lay off 10,000 employees, including some of the people bragging that they had no work to do.
  • We’re having a party, a bankruptcy party. (Maybe.)
  • Tragic non-steak roasting befalls 18,000 cows.
  • Possible sequel to Cocaine Bear hits unexpected obstacle. Or vice-versa.
  • “BLM Leaders Call For Renewed Protests This Summer After Finding A Fantastic Beach House For Sale On Zillow.”
  • “Pentagon Leaker Kicking Himself For Not Just Leaving Classified Documents Strewn Around His Garage.”
  • “Disaster On Mandalorian Set As Lizzo Eats Baby Yoda.”
  • LinkSwarm For March 17, 2023

    Friday, March 17th, 2023

    Another packed week with no time for a big LinkSwarm!

  • “Biden Family Members Paid by Chinese Firm with Ties to CCP.”

    A Chinese company based out of Hong Kong which paid at least $3 million to several members of the Biden family has since been revealed to have ties with the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    According to the Daily Caller, State Energy HK Limited sent $3 million via wire transfer to Robinson Walker LLC, a company run by an associate of the Biden family named John Robinson Walker. The wire transfer took place in March of 2017, shortly after Joe Biden’s term as Vice President came to an end, according to a report released on Thursday by the House Oversight Committee.

    One of the direct subsidiaries of State Energy HK is State Energy Group International Assets Holdings Limited (SEIAH). At the time of the wire transfer, SEIAH’s chairman was Ren Qingxin, who previously worked for the CCP as a representative at a business organization.

    Shortly after the $3 million transfer, Ren was succeeded in his leadership position by Lei Donghui, who had been a member of the CCP since 2002, where he served as Secretary General of the International Engineering Business Bureau of China State Construction (CSC). CSC has since been designated by the Department of Defense as a “Communist China military company.”

    Subsequently, the $3 million sent to Robinson Walker was then transferred to four different members of the Biden family: Joe Biden’s son Hunter, brother James, daughter-in-law Hallie, and a fourth unidentified family member, the Oversight Committee reports. The transfers were sent in several transactions, both to the family members directly and to several of their companies, including Owasco PC, JBBSR Inc, and RSTP II, LLC.

    The previously-unknown involvement of Hallie – the widow of Biden’s elder son Beau, who later became Hunter’s girlfriend after Beau’s death – has proven to be one of the biggest bombshells yet in the GOP’s investigations into Biden family corruption.

  • Arrest Warrant Issued For President Putin By Hague-Based ICC.” Maybe ICC can hire Dog the Bounty Hunter…
  • Truth:

    (Hat tip: Not The Bee.)

  • DeSantis administration revokes Hyatt Regency Miami alcohol license after it hosted “A Drag Queen Christmas” in front of children.
  • Dutch Farmer’s Party poised to win 16 or 17 seats in parliament thanks to opposing that country’s mad global warming anti-meat mandates. “The Boer-Burger Beweging (BBB), or Farmer-Citizen Movement, is set to become the largest party in the country’s senate, winning more seats than Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s ruling conservative VVD party.”
  • Baltimore Democrats want to decriminalize murder for anyone under age 25. Evidently they’re jealous that New Orleans took their crown as murder capital…

  • Red Guards come to Maine. “Kristen Day said students affiliated with one of RSU 14’s Civil Rights Teams harassed her daughter. When her daughter refused to speak about her sexuality, two students affiliated with the club began to bully her and call her homophobic.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Oklahoma State Rep. Regina Goodwin: “‘DEI’ as in ‘deity.’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is god!”
  • Roy McGrath, the ex-Chief of Staff for former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, is evidently still on the run after an indictment on wire fraud charges. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Eric Weinstein on Joe Rogan about what really happened with Kayne West. He suggests that West’s Hitler comments were simply him trying to channel Thomas à Kempis.
  • Tiger Woods’ girlfriend is told to pack for a short vacation…at which point he locks her out of his mansion and said she’s not allowed to return. Cold. Also effective.

    Cue up the Bill Burr rant about “gold digging whores.”

  • The first rule of cemetery machete fight club is you don’t talk about cemetery machete fight club. The second rule is you don’t drive over the headstones.
  • Man lives in a tiny house in a dumpster in London. Sadly, his name’s not Oscar.
  • Cockatootle doo.
  • The Nightmare Before St. Patrick’s Day.
  • LinkSwarm for March 3, 2023

    Friday, March 3rd, 2023

    In addition to getting over a cold, I spent most of the non-work day trying to assemble a pressure washer so I could attach a water-jetting attachment so I can clean out a blocked exterior line so I can run my dishwasher without it overflowing my sink.

    The result of all this labor is that I still need to call a plumber. So enjoy yet another abbreviated LinkSwarm.

  • Hmmmmmm! “Hunter Biden Business Partner Flips, Now ‘Cooperating’ With GOP Investigators.”

    Eric Schwerin, a close business associate of Hunter Biden who also dealt with Joe Biden’s business and tax affairs, is now working with House GOP investigators looking into Biden family dealings – particularly in Ukraine and China, where the family collected millions of dollars, Just the News reports.

    Eric Schwerin, a close business associate of Hunter Biden who also dealt with Joe Biden’s business and tax affairs, is now working with House GOP investigators looking into Biden family dealings – particularly in Ukraine and China, where the family collected millions of dollars, Just the News reports.

    “He is cooperating with us,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told the outlet.

    “His attorneys and my counsel are communicating on a regular basis. Now, I feel confident that he’s going to work with us, and provide us with the information that we have requested,” Comer continued. “I think that Schwerwin is going to be a very valuable witness for us in this investigation.”

    Of note, Schwerin, the former president of Hunter Biden’s now-dissolved investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, visited the White House at least 19 times from 2009 to 2015, according to White House visitor log records reviewed by The Epoch Times and first reported by the New York Post.

  • Chicago’s massively incompetent Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot defeated for reelection.
  • “Lori Lightfoot Blames Election Loss On ‘Tricksy Hobbitses.’
  • The Democratic Party’s war on natural gas continues apace. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Patrick L. Wojahn, the Democratic mayor of College Park, MD, resigns over child porn charges. Name that party: His political affiliation only shows up in the 19th paragraph of the piece. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Russia’s Latest Advance on Vuhledar Fails After 12 Seconds.”
  • Fruit and vegetable shortage hits the UK.
  • Illnesses to Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman mean that Democrats have temporarily lost their senate majority. That will teach you to rely to Octagenerians and visibly impaired stroke victims to carry your water. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Pakistan swears it won’t default on it’s debt.

  • SUV struck by lasers. And by lasers, I mean a minigun. Watch the video.
  • Cuba facing shortages of just about everything. Communism will do that for you. (Hat Tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Fully automated, 100 ton, container-moving robots.
  • Baltimore police chase ends in building collapse.
  • “Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta submits $5.5 billion bid for NFL’s Commanders.” He should move them to Austin and change the name back to the Redskins, just to spite them.
  • Breakfast Bitch convicted of interstate wire fraud.
  • Did MacKay get Tulipmania wrong? It turns out he was also an enthusiast for the far more destructive “Railway Bubbles” that struck England in the 19th century.
  • Man, the pollen in Texas is just brutal this time of year. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.
  • God Confirms Heaven Will Have A Buc-ee’s.
  • LinkSwarm For January 27, 2023

    Friday, January 27th, 2023

    Democrats enabling sexual predators (yet again), more tanks for Ukraine information, and the unexpected return of Storm Drain Woman. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Democrat-run California loves releasing pedophiles from prison early.

    Published in November of 2022, the story indicated “thousands of child molesters are being let out after just a few months, despite sentencing guidelines.”

    The story reported that more than 7,000 inmates convicted of “lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age” were released from prison the same year they were incarcerated.

    The Daily Mail’s analysis was conducted using a database—created in 1994 after the federal Megan’s Law was passed—requiring law enforcement to make public information regarding registered sex offenders. The news organization examined data in California through July of 2019.

    “Everyone should be really upset and frightened by this,” Dordulian said.

    According to Dordulian, child molesters are the least likely of criminals to be rehabilitated and are four times more likely to commit the same crime again.

    “Once they’re out,” he said, “they are going to re-offend and there’s going to be another child that is victimized by these people.”

  • California’s repeal of an anti-loitering law has enabled pimps and human traffickers.

    Senate Bill 357. Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in July, the measure decriminalized loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution. The bill did not officially take effect until January 1 of this year; but, from the moment it became law back in July, these women say, the on-the-ground reality changed. “The minute the governor signed it, you started seeing an uptick on the streets,” Powell said. “And on social media, the pimps were saying: ‘You better get out there and work because the streets are ours.’”

    The pimps were right: police stopped making arrests for crimes that would no longer be charged. The anti-loitering statute had provided the grounds for officers to question women and children whom they suspected might be trapped in a prostitution ring. “As a police officer, you need probable cause to stop and investigate,” Powell explained. “So if I have a law that says you can’t loiter in this area, with pasties and a G-string, flagging down cars, I could stop you for that because you’re loitering. But if I just say I’m stopping you because you look kind of young, that’s a little weak. So, it takes away a tool.” Without the statute, police hands were suddenly tied. Henceforth, questioning the girls—and potentially provoking a violent confrontation with pimps—came to seem a Pyrrhic gamble, one that California’s police officers would now avoid.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Gavin Newsom’s wife’s films shown in school promote both the radical transexual agenda and Democrats.

    The films, which include “Miss Representation,” “The Mask You Live In,” “The Great American Lie” and “Fair Play,” are licensed to taxpayer-funded schools across every state and sometimes contain sexually explicit imagery and push students to feel “shame and sorrow” about American society split by privilege and oppression. They are paired with curricula that include discussion on Gov. Newsom’s comments within the films, urging them to gather their friends and vote for aligned politicians that support a “care economy” that “embraces universal human values.”

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Former Beaverton, Oregon Democratic mayor Dennis ‘Denny’ Doyle sentenced to six months for possessing child pornography. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Closer to home: “Prosper ISD [Dallas County Metroplex] School Board President Arrested for Indecency with a Child.”
  • George Soros’ right-hand political man is working hand-in-glove with the Biden White House. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Suchomimus has a video breakdown of which tanks from where are going to Ukraine.
  • Not mentioned: Morocco is sending upgraded T-72s.
  • Union membership hits record lows.
  • Scott Adams admits Flu Manchu vaccine critics were right.
  • When real life imitates The Babylon Bee: Illinois Democratic Governor “Pritzker Demands Black Queer History in AP African-American Studies.”
  • “Former Arlington teachers union president charged with embezzlement. A former president of the Arlington teachers union, who was ousted last spring, has been charged with embezzling more than $400,000 from the organization. Ingrid Gant, 54, of Woodbridge, was arrested yesterday (Monday) in Prince William County on four counts of embezzlement.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • “Thirty years ago, Guan County, Shandong Province launched the ‘Hundred Childless Days‘ campaign under the aegis of national family planning, known in the West as the ‘one-child policy.’ The birthplace of the “Boxers” was deemed to have too high a birth rate by the provincial government. County officials sought to correct this by ensuring that not a single baby was born between May 1 and August 10, 1991.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • EU: Eat the bugs, peasants.
  • The Five > All of CNN.
  • “Austin hair salon could shut down due to neighboring homeless camp.”

    North says they do not feel safe anymore, and she believes it all ties back to the large homeless encampment located only feet away from the salon.

    “Our safety started to become a big issue. We suffered from multiple break-ins. We’ve had our cars broken into. We clean up feces and needles on a weekly basis. It increased from that to, you know, people approaching us and threatening us with weapons, threatening rape, murder, all of those things,” said North.

    The salon has been up and running just off Ben White Blvd. for four years now. North says she has seen an uptick in crime for a while now, but the dangerous behavior from people living in this encampment picked up recently.

    “In the past year, it’s gotten increasingly worse and, in the past couple of weeks, it’s gotten to the point where I actually finally felt like this might shut my business down,” said North.

    Erin Mutschler, another co-owner of the salon, says they have called the police every time they have dealt with a situation like the one caught on video, but she says police often take 45 minutes to an hour for anyone to show up.

    The mayorship of Steve Adler is the gift that just keeps giving, even with him out of office… (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • “Former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s entire legal team has asked a federal judge to withdraw from representing the city’s top prosecutor.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Stop! Hammertime!
  • Insurance companies are refusing to insure Hyundais and Kias because they’re too easy to steal.
  • How easy? This easy. All you need is a screwdriver and a USB cable…
  • Intel reports quarterly loss.
  • Follow-up: Democratic State Rep. Harold Dutton: “Don’t Blame Abbott, Houston ISD Takeover Plan Was My Idea.” (Previously.)
  • A Florida woman was pulled from a storm drain for the third time in two years. Maybe she was looking for David Icke’s lizard people. Also, she sounds like a real winner: “Police said her license had been suspended 17 times from 2007 to 2020.” (Previously.) (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Jay Leno broke his collarbone, several ribs and both kneecaps in a motorcycle accident. But it sounds like a freak accident: “So I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it…I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just clothesline me and, boom, knocked me off the bike.” (There’s no evidence the line was strung there by Conan O’Brien.) “But I’m OK!…I’m working this weekend.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Hillary Clinton Boasts Of Having No Classified Documents From Her Time As President.”
  • LinkSwarm for October 28, 2022

    Friday, October 28th, 2022

    Blue cities bleed, more Democrats violating election laws, another Democratic congressional staffer exposed for carrying water for Red China, Elon Musk takes over and immediately starts cleaning house at Twitter, and more transexual lunacy. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    
    

  • Confirmation of what we already know: Homicide rates surging in major cities run by Soros-backed DAs.

    As polling continues to show crime is a top issue for voters, the number of homicides has skyrocketed nationwide.

    In fact, homicide rates rose by an average of nearly 10% in 50 of the most populated U.S. cities between the third quarter of last year and the third quarter of this year — and are still rising — according to a new study.

    WalletHub compared 50 of America’s largest cities based on per capita homicides for the third quarter (July through September) of each year since 2020, using locally published crime data to compile its findings.

    According to WalletHub, these were the ten cities with the highest homicide cases per 100,000 residents from July through September:

    1. St. Louis, Mo. (19.69)
    2. Kansas City, Mo. (14.86)
    3. Detroit, Mich. (13.24)
    4. Baltimore, Md. (12.45)
    5. New Orleans, La. (10.99)
    6. Milwaukee, Wisc. (10.46)
    7. Memphis, Tenn. (9.99)
    8. Philadelphia, Pa. (9.36)
    9. Norfolk, Va. (7.78)
    10. Chicago, Ill. (7.71)

    The top prosecutors in most of these cities are backed by progressive megadonor George Soros, a billionaire who’s spent the last several years injecting tens of millions of dollars into local district attorney races nationwide, backing candidates who support policies such as abolishing bail, defunding the police, and decriminalizing or deprioritizing certain offenses.

    In St. Louis, for example, Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner is one of the first prosecutors bankrolled by Soros’ financial network of organizations and affiliates, heavily funded by these sources in 2016 and again in 2020.

    Amid high homicide figures, Gardner has declined more cases and issued fewer arrest warrants than her predecessor, charging fewer felonies and prosecuting thousands of fewer cases as a result. She has also deferred prison sentences for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies as part of her reform initiatives.

    Gardner has said this is part of her “platform to reduce the number of cases unnecessarily charged in order to focus on the more difficult cases for trial.”

    Last year, Gardner came under fire after three murder cases under her purview were dismissed in one week due to prosecutors in her office not showing up for hearings or being unprepared.

    Her campaign website boasts that she’s “made jail and prison a last resort, reserved for those who pose a true public safety risk,” while limiting “the arrest and detention of people accused of misdemeanors and low-level felonies.”

    Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner is another Soros-funded prosecutor.

    Soros spent almost $1.7 million through the Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC to help Krasner in 2017, pouring more than five times as much money into the race as Krasner himself. Four years later, Krasner received a combined $1.259 million from Soros-funded groups for his reelection.

    During his tenure, Krasner has cut the future years of incarceration by half and slashed the length of parole in probation supervision by nearly two-thirds compared to the previous DA. He has also made a priority of not prosecuting people who are illegally in possession of guns unless they hurt or kill people.

    The top prosecutors in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Norfolk, and Chicago have also been backed by Soros-linked money. Many of the others are self-described progressive prosecutors.

    According to some experts, progressive prosecutors pursuing soft-on-crime policies have contributed to the spike in homicides and other violent crime.

    “Prosecutors in most major cities have failed the people they serve by refusing to prosecute criminals, including those charged with violent crimes,” Tristin Kilgallon, associate professor of pre-law and history at the University of Findlay, told WalletHub. “Countless violent crimes have been committed by those who have been released back into the streets due to recent ‘bail reform’ initiatives or by prosecutors who declined to pursue charges.”

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of violent crime and Democrats, Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul was violently assaulted in his home.
    

  • “Texas Secretary of State Finds ‘Serious Breaches’ in Harris County 2020 Election Audit. Auditors found multiple chain of custody issues and violations of state and federal law requiring maintenance of records in the state’s largest county.”

    Issues found by auditors relate primarily to the county’s extralegal “drive-thru” voting initiated by then-interim County Clerk Chris Hollins.

    Auditors found that for at least 14 polling locations the county does not show chain of custody for the Mobile Ballot Boxes (MBB) and that there were multiple MBBs created for some voting locations. Auditors say the MBBs from the polling locations “were not the MBBs ultimately tabulated.” They also note that they have been able to locate some missing MBBs, but have not been given an explanation as to why the originals were not tabulated. Each MBB can hold 9,999 ballots.

    Another issue found by auditors is that poll book and provisional voting data provided by the county do not match the number of cast vote records on some of the devices.

    Ennis also noted that after upgrading voting systems the county does not appear to have retained “any equipment or computers that provide relevant reports or alternatively, can read the MBBs” from 2020 or recover the cast vote records stored in them as required by both state and federal election codes.

    Why, it’s almost like the Democrats running Harris County wanted to commit election fraud…

  • Speaking of election fraud, Facebook has been fined $25 million for breaking Washington State election law.

    According to court documents, King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North found Meta to be in violation of Washington’s political disclosure law 822 separate times between 2019 and 2021 and issued the maximum possible fine for each instance, which totaled up to $30,000 per violation.

    Meta was also ordered to “come into full compliance” with the state’s election transparency laws within the next 30 days as well as pay the attorney’s fees for the case, which Ferguson has requested be tripled for a total of $10.5 million. The final total will be decided by North at a later date.

    According to The Seattle Times, the state’s election transparency laws, which have been in place since 1972, require ad sellers to “disclose the names and addresses of political buys, the targets of such ads and, the total number of viewers of each ad.” The judge found that Meta had intentionally violated the standards.

    Washington Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson said “that he had “one word for Facebook’s conduct in this case – arrogance.”

    He told the Times, “It intentionally disregarded Washington’s election transparency laws,” Ferguson said. “But that wasn’t enough. Facebook argued in court that those laws should be declared unconstitutional. That’s breathtaking.”

  • The Oz-Fetterman debate was a disaster for Fetterman.

    When Pennsylvania Democrats insist that a candidate who suffered a life-threatening stroke in May is recovering well and “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office,” that candidate must look and sound fine to prove they’re telling the truth. Last night, in the lone debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race, John Fetterman looked and sounded very, very far from fine. But you can judge for yourself by watching the whole debate here.

    I expected Fetterman’s debate performance to be a Rorschach test, with Democrats insisting that he was fine and hand-waving away any problems, and Republicans pointing to every verbal misstep, pause, or oddly worded answer. But by the end of the hour, there was little debate, no pun intended. John Fetterman’s ability to hear, understand, process information, and speak appears to still be severely impacted by his stroke. Perhaps the worst moment of the night came when one of the moderators asked him about a statement he made in 2018 opposing fracking, and how he could square that past stance with his current claim that he always supported fracking. After a long pause, presumably from reading the moderator’s question from the monitor, Fetterman said, “I, I, I do support fracking and . . .” and then for a moment, Fetterman’s head shook, and his mouth moved, but no words came out. Then he picked up again: “I don’t . . . I don’t. I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.” With everyone watching likely mortified and embarrassed to watch Fetterman struggle to finish the sentence, the moderator mercifully moved on to the next question.

  • Judge for yourself:

  • Biden signs on to the transexual groomer agenda for kids.
  • New Zealand adopts the Netherlands agenda for destroying their own agricultural base.
  • Speaking of green delusions: “Cancel-Out Two Decades Of Emissions Reductions.”
  • “Less Than 1 In 100 Million Chance That COVID-19 Has Natural Origin.”
  • Elon Musk takes over Twitter and immediately starts cleaning house.

    Elon Musk took over Twitter late Thursday and fired company CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, senior legal representative Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett.

    Musk, the world’s richest man, acquired the social media giant through a $44 billion purchase. He reportedly had until Friday to complete the deal.

    In a video tweet that went viral, Musk appeared at Twitter’s corporate offices Wednesday carrying a sink, implying that employees would need to accept that he was now in charge.

    This is a good start, but all the people on the Safety and Trust Council need to be fired, and all accounts suspended or banned need to be restored.

  • Rishi Sunak is the new UK Prime Minister, and Nigel Farage is not impressed:

    (Hat tip: The Conservative Treehouse.)

  • Complain about how your children are being taught to a school board? Watch them try to get you fired.
  • The Russian economy will ‘die by winter’ because of Putin’s war on Ukraine, according to Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev.
  • Another week, another Democratic congressional aide with ties to China discovered.

    A House Democratic staffer was fired after her outreach to other congressional aides allegedly on behalf of the Chinese embassy was revealed this week, National Review has learned. After an investigation found that the staffer had acted improperly, her boss, Representative Don Beyer, swiftly removed her.

    “Congressman Beyer was totally unaware of these activities prior to being contacted by the House Sergeant At Arms,” Aaron Fritschner, his deputy chief of staff, told National Review in a statement this morning. “As soon as he learned of them, he followed every directive he was given by security officials. The staffer in question is no longer employed by the office of Congressman Beyer.”

    Fritschner added that Beyer, who has a hawkish record on China, was “deeply upset” upon learning about the activities of the now-former staffer, Barbara Hamlett.

    The LinkedIn page for Barbara Jenell Hamlett shows she worked in the U.S. House from 1978 to 2008, and that she also worked as a volunteer for Terry McAuliffe.

  • Did White House staffer Ron Klain violate the Hatch Act? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Hmmm: “San Diego ER seeing up to 37 marijuana cases a day — mostly psychosis.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • “Ohio Supreme Court Suspends Democrat Judge.”

    Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr, a Democrat, was found to exhibit such misconduct that comprise more than 100 incidents over a period of about two years.

    The misconduct “encompassed repeated acts of dishonesty; the blatant and systematic disregard of due process, the law, court orders, and local rules; the disrespectful treatment of court staff and litigants; and the abuse of capias warrants and the court’s contempt power,” stated the court’s per curium opinion. “That misconduct warrants an indefinite suspension from the practice of law.”

  • The new “Pride” flag, or a really high level of Tempest?
  • Bahaus Costume Party.
  • The Bosnian Ape Society is back with the Mikoyan and Gurevich Design Bureau tackling the Cup Noodle.