Posts Tagged ‘Hispanics’

Texas Election Results Roundup for 2022

Saturday, November 12th, 2022

National results were a deep disappointment to Republicans expecting a red wave. What about the results in Texas? Better:

  • Republicans retained all statewide races.
  • Incumbent governor Greg Abbott walloped Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke by about a point less than he walloped Lupe Valdez in 2018, the year O’Rourke got within three points of Ted Cruz in the Texas senate race. 2018’s Betomania seems to have slightly raised the floor for Democrats in various down-ballot races, but not enough for them to be competitive statewide. This is O’Rourke’s third high-profile flameout in five years, and one wonders whether out-of-state contributors are getting wise to the game.
  • Vote totals seem down a bit from 2018, with the governor’s race drawing about 266,000 fewer voters.
  • Incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick increased the margin by which he beat Mike Collier (also his opponent in 2018) from about five points to about ten points.
  • For all the talk of Ken Paxton being the most vulnerable statewide incumbent, he also won his race over Rochelle Garza by about 10 points, as opposed to a three and half point victory over Justin Nelson (a man so obscure he has no Wikipedia entry) in 2018. (Thought experiment: Could Beto have beaten Paxton this year? My gut says his money would have made it a lot closer than his race with Abbott, but I think he still would have lost by about the same margin he lost to Ted Cruz in 2018. But his lack of a law degree would have worked against him, and I doubt his ego would ever consider running in a down-ballot race like AG…)
  • In the Comptroller, Land Commissioner and Agriculture Commissioner races, Republicans were up a bit around 56%, and Democrats were down a bit more. (And Dawn Buckingham replacing George P. Bush should be a big improvement.)
  • Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian had the biggest spread between him and Democratic opponent Luke Warford, 15 points (55% to 40%).
  • Three Republican statewide judicial race winners (Rebeca Huddle in Supreme Court Place 5, Scott Walker in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, and Jesse F. McClure in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 6) were the only statewide candidates to garner 4.5 million or more votes (possibly due to the absence of Libertarian candidates).
  • Of three closely watched Texas majority Hispanic house seats, only Monica De La Cruz in TX15 won, while Myra Flores (TX34) and Cassy Garcia (TX28) lost.
  • Though Republicans came up short in those two U.S. congressional seats, statewide they “narrowly expanded their legislative majorities in both the House and Senate.”

    In the House, the GOP grew its ranks by one — giving them an 86-to-64 advantage in the 150-member chamber for the 2023 legislative session. The Senate has 31 members, and Republicans previously outnumbered Democrats 18 to 13. The GOP will hold at least 19 seats next session. Democrats will hold at least 11, though they are leading in one Senate race that is still too close to call.

    The Republicans’ victories were felt prominently in South Texas, where the GOP won key races after targeting the historically Democratic region of Texas after Democratic President Joe Biden underperformed there in 2020.

    In House District 37, now anchored in Harlingen, Republican Janie Lopez beat Democrat Luis Villareal Jr. The seat is currently held by Democratic state Rep. Alex Dominguez, who unsuccessfully ran for state Senate rather than seek reelection. The district was redrawn to cut out many of the Democratic voters in Brownsville from the district to the benefit Republicans. Biden carried District 37 by 17.1 points in 2020 under the old boundaries, but would have won by only 2.2 points under the new map.

    Lopez would be the first Latina Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley in the House.

    In another major South Texas victory, Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, who defected from the Democratic Party and ran this cycle as a Republican, won reelection handily.

    In another crucial battle in southern Bexar County, which has traditionally been dominated by Democrats, Republican incumbent John Lujan prevailed over Democrat Frank Ramirez, a former San Antonio City Council member.

  • Who did well? Incumbent Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw. Remember this ad from 2020? In addition to Crenshaw winning reelection by some 73,000 votes, August Pfluger and Beth Van Duyne won reelection to their districts, and Wesley Hunt, who ran a close-but-no-cigar race for TX7 in 2020, managed to win the race for newly created TX38 this year. (My guess is that, just like Rep. Byron Donalds (FL19) and Rep. Burgess Owens (UT4), Hunt will be blocked from joining the Congressional Black Caucus.)
  • Is there any sign of black support for Democrats eroding? A bit. In 2018, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (one of the very dimmest bulbs in congress) received 75.3% of the vote from her black and Hispanic majority district. In 2020, she received 73.3%. In 2022 (post redistricting), she received 70.7%. Slow progress, but progress none the less.
  • Unfortunately, corrupt Harris County Democratic head Lina Hidalgo managed to edge her Republican opponent by a mere 15,000 votes.
  • Leftwing fossil Lloyd Doggett was elected to his fifteenth term in congress, crushing his Republican opponent for the newly created 37th congressional district, while communist twerp Greg Casar (formerly of the Austin City Council) was elected to the 35th, formerly Doggett’s prior to redistricting.
  • Tarrant County had been trending more purple recently, going for O’Rourke over Cruz there by about 4,000 votes in 2018, and going for Biden over Trump by a mere 2,000 votes (less than .3%). But Abbott beat O’Rourke there by some 25,000 votes.
  • Jefferson County (Beaumont) is another county that’s flipped back. It went for O’Rourke over Cruz by about 500 votes,and flipped back to Trump over by around 500, but Abbott walloped O’Rouke by over 8,000 votes this year.
  • The runoff in the Austin Mayoral race will be on December 13 between hard lefty Celia Israel, and soft lefty retread Kirk Watson. If Watson picks up a clear majority of third place finisher Jennifer Virden’s voters (which seems likely), he should win.
  • As I mentioned in the Liveblog, the social justice warrior slate beat the conservative slate in Round Rock ISD.
  • This is a side effect of Williamson County, formerly a reliable Republican bulwark, becoming decidedly more liberal as Austin has become a hotbed of radical leftism. Abbott still edged O’Rourke by some 2,000 votes here, but Biden beat Trump by about 4,000 votes in 2020.
  • If 1978 is the year this election reminds me of nationally, then 1984 is the template year for Texas politics. In 1982, Phil Gramm resigned after Democrats threw him off the House Budget Committee (because why would you want a professional economist on a budget committee?), switched parties, and ran for his own vacancy in a special election as a Republican, winning handily.

    Gramm’s switch showed that the time for conservatives to remain welcome in the Democratic Party was drawing to a close, and the way he resigned to run again rather than just switching made him a folk hero among Texas republicans. In 1984, Gramm ran for the senate, walloping Ron Paul, Robert Mosbacher, Jr. (a sharp guy who eventually did better in business than politics) and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Hank Grover in the Republican primary before decisively beating Lloyd Doggett (yep, the same one that’s still in congress) in the general by some 900,000 votes.

    Gramm’s victory showed that the political careers of conservative Democrats who switched to the Republican Party could not only survive, but thrive. Between 1986 and the late 1990s, a series of high profile conservative Texas Democrats (including Kent Hance and Rick Perry) would switch from an increasingly radical Democratic Party to the GOP.

    So too, this year showed that Hispanic Democrats could leave a party increasingly out of tune with people they represented (largely hard-working, law-abiding, entrepreneurial, conservative, and Catholic) for the Republican Party and win. Republicans may not have flipped terribly many seats in south Texas, but except for recent special election-winner Myra Flores, they held their gains.

    The combination of Trump’s distinct appeal to working class Hispanics, deep opposition to disasterous Democratic open borders policies, and Gov. Abbott’s long term dedication to building out Republican infrastructure there have all primed Hispanics to shift to the GOP. Just as it took years for all Texas conservatives and most moderates to abandon the Democratic Party (Republicans wouldn’t sweep statewide offices until 1998), it will take years for the majority of Hispanics to switch.

    But if Democrats continue to push open borders, social justice, radical transgenderism, soft on crime policies, high taxes and socialism, expect Hispanics to make that switch sooner rather than later.

    That’s my Texas race roundup. If you have any notable highlights you think I should have covered, feel free to share them in the comments below.

    LinkSwarm for July 15, 2022

    Friday, July 15th, 2022

    The Biden Recession continues to wreck the pocketbooks of Americans, EU economies are sucking even worse than ours, more Bidens Behaving Badly, and unlimited abortion is not nearly as popular among the American public as it is among New York Times staffers.

  • Another month, another 40 year inflation high.
  • More Biden economic magic: “New Job Openings Drop In 47 States, Nationally Down 17%.”
  • The Euro has now reached parity with the dollar for the first time in 20 years.
  • Cold comfort from Peter Zeihan: The economy and food security is going to get much worse, but Europe is going to suffer much worse than America.
  • Support for unlimited abortion is deeply unpopular:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Widespread criticism of Jill Biden’s failed hispander proves that Democrats are no longer interested in excusing Joe Biden’s many manifest failures.

    Democrats are just tired of Joe Biden and of having to explain away his poor performance. Since Biden was elected, the only thing that has gone right is that the Covid-19 pandemic effectively ended and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation is out of control, gas prices are at record highs, grocery bills are skyrocketing, the stock market is getting battered and people’s 401(k)s are shrinking, crime remains high, mass shootings keep bedeviling America’s public spaces, Russia’s invading Ukraine, there’s a global food and commodity crisis, and the Taliban is running Afghanistan and oppressing women again. Democrats are apoplectic that the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a New York State gun law, and the EPA’s right to regulate carbon emissions without explicit approval from Congress. Parents are up in arms, the teachers’ unions look like callous fools who kept schools closed and harmed a generation of schoolchildren, and “abolish the police” looks like a suicidal public policy. Republicans notice that waves of illegal immigrants headed north shortly after Biden’s inauguration and haven’t stopped coming since.

    You didn’t even mention the Social Justice insanity and all the transexual madness.

    That New York Times poll found that 64 percent of Democrats want a different presidential nominee in 2024. Nobody’s willing to cover for this guy anymore; no one is inclined to avert their eyes when Biden or his wife blurts out something tone-deaf now.

    There are some of us who would argue that Joe Biden has always been an insecure, abrasive, presumptuous, disingenuous, demagogic, insufferable blowhard who was largely protected by a cozy, all-too-friendly relationship with a press inclined to airbrush his glaring character faults, presenting him as a wacky neighbor or a kindly, ice-cream loving grandpa.

    What we see now is what happens when much of the national media, the Democratic Party establishment, and liberal interest groups stop playing along with the narrative that Biden is a wiser, sharper, kinder, more energetic and sensitive man than he is. And the truth isn’t pretty.

  • Speaking of unwanted Bidens: “Hunter Biden could face prostitution charges for transporting hookers across state lines and disguising checks to them as payments for ‘medical services.'” I’ll believe Hunter Biden prosecution when I see it. Also, I’ve been treating the 4Chan “Hunter Biden iPhone leak” with a certain amount of skepticism. Certainly the Hunter laptop revelations were real, and Hunter is a big enough scumbag to do the the things alleged iPhone leak materials depict. But I try to be cautious about anything that fits too neatly into my preconceptions. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • “Left-Wing Nonprofit Scores $171.7 Million-$1 Billion Government Contract To Help Illegal Immigrants Avoid Authorities.”

    A liberal non-profit group has been given a taxpayer-funded government contract worth at least $171.7 million — which could potentially reach just under $1 billion — for assisting illegal immigrant minors in avoiding capture or incarceration by U.S. Border Patrol and state officials.

    The Department of the Interior was the awarding agency and “The Vera Institute of Justice,” based out of New York — which supports the “defund the police” movement and has lax views on immigration enforcement — was the beneficiary.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Is paper gold being manipulated?
  • China bubble update: Alibaba just just laid off one-third of its strategic investment team.
  • A look at the sniping war in Ukraine. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Houston demonstrates the case against zoning.

    Thanks in part to a lack of zoning, Houston builds housing at nearly three times the per capita rate of cities like New York City and San Jose. It isn’t all just sprawl either: In 2019, Houston built roughly the same number of apartments as Los Angeles, despite the latter being nearly twice as large. This ongoing supernova of housing construction has helped to keep Houston one of the most affordable big cities in the U.S., offering new arrivals modest rents and accessible home prices even amid seemingly endless demand.

    Houston is by no means a model for planning. Like every other Sun Belt city, it struggles with segregation and sprawl. Yet its continued success as one of America’s most affordable and prosperous cities reveals the workability—indeed, the desirability—of non-zoning. Houston is a profoundly weird place, resistant to seductive oversimplifications. But it provides insight into what comes after the arbitrary lines that have misshapen our cities—and how we might get there.

    So why didn’t Houston adopt zoning like every other U.S. city? The answer comes down partly to process. Unique among major cities, Houston subjected zoning to a citywide vote. While most city councils had, historically, quietly adopted zoning after a few perfunctory public hearings, the Bayou City invited voters to decide on zoning in 1946, 1962, and 1993. Voters rejected it each time—a reality that calls into question the often-postulated popularity of zoning.

    Zoning critics rightly dispensed with the comforting myths surrounding zoning—that its purpose was to merely rationalize land use—and zeroed in on its tendency to restrict new housing construction, limit access to opportunity, institutionalize segregation, and force growth outward. Far from being duped, Houston’s working-class residents exhibited a subtler understanding of the purposes of zoning than many contemporary planners and rejected it accordingly.

    But the answer to why Houston remains unzoned also comes down to politics. Zoning proponents didn’t merely lose the referendums—they were also tactfully bought off by being allowed to have something resembling zoning in their immediate vicinity. Indeed, the dark little secret of non-zoning in Houston is that it depends on a system of land-use regulations known as deed restrictions, which empower certain communities—principally middle- and upper-class homeowners—to effectively “opt out” of non-zoning, writing their own land-use rules for their own neighborhoods. In exchange, Houston is able to protect the vast majority of the city from the types of arbitrary-use distinctions, density limits, and raucous public hearings that cause so much harm in every other U.S. city. That is to say, in exchange for respecting pockets of private land-use regulation, Houston is able to grow, adapt, and evolve like no other city.

    Deed restrictions are private, voluntary agreements among property owners—typically the homeowners of a particular subdivision or neighborhood—regulating how they can and cannot use their land. These rules are literally tied to the deed, meaning that a property owner must agree to them as a condition of the sale. Since the failed 1962 zoning referendum, the city has enforced these agreements on behalf of the relevant parties, refusing to issue permits that run afoul of their provisions and bringing legal action against violators.

    Is this system of publicly enforced deed restrictions “basically zoning,” as some might argue? On the one hand, deed restrictions—like zoning—demarcate specified areas subject to a distinct set of stricter land-use rules. Both zoning and deed restrictions in Houston are enforced by the government, principally with the aim of propping up home values and maintaining a certain quality of life. Many deed restrictions even have rules banning apartments and enforcing a strict two-and-a-half-story height limit.

    Yet, the similarities end there, and Houston’s system of deed restrictions is a significant improvement over zoning. For starters, deed restrictions only cover an estimated quarter of the city, largely in areas with low-rise, detached, single-family housing. Industrial areas, commercial corridors, mixed-use and multifamily neighborhoods, urban vacant lots, and yet-to-be-developed greenfields are virtually never subject to their provisions. This means that roughly three-quarters of Houston—including its more dynamic sections—are largely free to grow without anything even resembling zoning holding them back.

    Another key difference is that deed restrictions must be voluntarily opted in to. This serves to discipline deed restrictions in a way that is rarely true of zoning: If the rules are stricter than what prospective homebuyers might prefer, or not strict enough, or simply focus on the wrong concerns, this may translate into lower home values. This in turn nudges homeowners to think through the optimal form of land-use regulation to a degree that rarely happens with zoning.

  • Speaking of Houston, a new poll shows Harris County judge Lina Hidalgo in a dead heat with Republican challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer. November will be a good time to determine if the Hispanic realignment in Texas extends to America’s fourth largest city.
  • After deciding to let drug-abusing transients use their restrooms, Starbucks is now closing 16 stores because of rising violence, and the fact that transients are shooting up in their restrooms. Golly, who could have possibly seen that coming?
  • “White progressives do not have the moral authority to excommunicate a black man from his race because they disagree with him.”
  • Best gun oil? Project Farm does some testing, and Clenzoil and BreakFreeCLP come out on top.
  • Beto O’Rourke Lags in the Polls.” Try to contain your shock. And I bet the polls overstate his popularity…
  • Score another one for the good guys.

    Another Texas school superintendent has stepped down amid criticism from parents concerned about liberal indoctrination in their children’s classrooms.

    At a special meeting Monday afternoon, Clear Creek Independent School District’s board of trustees accepted the retirement of Superintendent Eric Williams, effective in January 2023.

    Conservative parents in the Houston-area district had complained that Williams, who started in early 2021, was subjecting their students to liberal ideologies he brought from his former job as superintendent of

  • Justice for Jim Thorpe.
  • Somebody didn’t listen to Jack Handy. (Hat Tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • “San Francisco DA Announces Innovative New Plan To Arrest People For Breaking The Law.”
  • Been super hot in Austin this week, but there are ways to keep cool:

  • SIR! You have CROSSED THE LINE!

    Thursday, July 14th, 2022

    Kevin Downey, Jr. does some good work on PJmedia, and I’ve linked to him in many a LinkSwarm, but this time he has crossed the line!

    Not a picture of Kevin Downey, Jr.

    In an otherwise righteous roasting of Jill Biden’s “Latinex” pandering speech comparing Hispanics to breakfast tacos, Downey says that Jill Biden referred to Latinos “as a grotesque breakfast that most Latinos would never eat.”

    WRONG!

    Not only is this a vile calumny against The National Breakfast Food of Texas, saying that “most Latinos would never eat” them is factually incorrect. Downey states that he’s engaged to a Puerto Rican and “calls New York City home,” and this is no doubt what has led him astray. Only in New York and New Jersey is a Puerto Rican the default Latino. In 47 other states (Cubans in Florida being the other exception), Mexican-Americans make up the biggest Hispanic ethnicity, and as a rule, Mexican Americans love breakfast tacos.

    Every TexMex joint in central Texas that serves breakfast serves breakfast tacos. They’re the dominant breakfast food on food trucks serving construction sites. They’re found all across the state, as far east as El Paso, as far north as Texhoma, as far east as Texarkana, and as far south as Brownsville.

    It’s entirely possible that all the breakfast tacos in New York City suck, just like the BBQ. But he owes the vast majority of breakfast-taco loving Hispanic Americans an apology.

    LinkSwarm for March 11, 2022

    Friday, March 11th, 2022

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on, justice for Juicy, Italy’s truck drivers go Galt, giant spiders invade, and musicians are being screwed yet again. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a colossal failure.

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine had two goals. The first was to take control of Ukraine, intending to complete the task begun in Belarus – the task of rebuilding Russia’s strategic buffers and securing Russia from attack. The second goal was to demonstrate the capabilities and professionalism of the Russian military and to further deter hypothetical acts and increase Russia’s regional influence. The two goals were interlocked.

    The occupation of Ukraine has not been achieved, but it is not a lost cause. Perceptions of the strength of Russia’s military, however, have been badly damaged. There is no question but that Russian planners did not want to fight the war Russia has been fighting. Rather than a rapid and decisive defeat of Ukraine, Russia is engaged in a slow, grinding war unlikely to impress the world with its return to the first ranks of military power. At this point, even a final victory in its first objective will not redeem the second. It is important to start identifying the Russian weaknesses.

    The first problem was a loss of surprise. Carl von Clausewitz placed surprise at the top of warfare. Surprise contracts the time an enemy has to prepare for war. It also imposes a psychological shock that takes time to overcome, making it more difficult to implement existing plans. And it increases the perceived power of the enemy. In Ukraine, however, extended diplomacy gave Kyiv time to adjust psychologically to the possibility of war.

    Moscow failed to understand its enemy. Russia clearly expected Ukrainian resistance to collapse rapidly in the face of the massive armored force it had gathered. It did not expect the Ukrainian populace to fight back to an extent that would at least delay completion of the war.

    Snip.

    Russian war plans centered on three armored groups based in the east, south and north…The three Russian armored battle groups were widely separated. They did not support each other. Instead of a single coordinated war, the Kremlin opted for at least three separate wars, making a single decisive stroke impossible. A single integrated command, essential for warfighting, seemed to be lacking.

    The use of armor vastly increased the pressure on Russian logistics. Instead of focusing supplies on a single thrust, it had to focus on three, plus other operations. Logistics for the major armored forces seemed to have broken down, making war termination impossible and further extending the war.

    In recent days, Russia has adapted and turned toward taking cities. This is generating an effective counterforce among fighters who understand the streets and alleys and use them to delay Russia’s progress. Fighting in cities is among the costliest and most time-consuming actions in war. Capturing cities takes resources and is not the key to victory. Cities take on importance only after the enemy force has been defeated and demoralizing the nation is essential. The city is the prize of war, not the military goal. Russia turned the conflict from a counter-military to a counter-population war, which increased resistance by sowing desperation in the cities.

    The foolish ease with which Russia expected to win this war reminds me of the Southern dandies at the beginning of Gone With The Wind proclaiming how the Civil War would be over in weeks since the Yankees would “turn and run, every time.” Didn’t turn out that way. (Hat tip: Al Fin Next Level.)

  • Speaking of which, this seems like poor tactics and situational awareness:

  • Could Biden’s weakness encourage Putin to attack a NATO country?

    The Biden administration’s bumbling on the matter of sending MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine is the result of both nations’ fears that the action would drag them directly into the war in Ukraine. Poland wanted to send the jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and Washington shied away from the prospect of having fighter jets fly out of a U.S. base in a NATO country into the war zone in Ukraine. The thinking was that this would look too much like the United States and NATO carrying out a military operation against Russian forces in Ukraine.

    In practical terms, the U.S. (and U.K.) prohibition of Russian oil imports probably will not have much of an economic effect — certainly not in comparison to the other measures that have been taken — but even largely symbolic gestures can have a powerful effect, and the Kremlin seems to be very much agitated by the boycott.

    The Biden administration’s bumbling on the matter of sending MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine is the result of both nations’ fears that the action would drag them directly into the war in Ukraine. Poland wanted to send the jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and Washington shied away from the prospect of having fighter jets fly out of a U.S. base in a NATO country into the war zone in Ukraine. The thinking was that this would look too much like the United States and NATO carrying out a military operation against Russian forces in Ukraine.

    In truth, the United States is a belligerent if Vladimir Putin says the United States is a belligerent. He is perfectly capable of making up a pretext, however absurd, to justify whatever action he wants to take — that is why Russians are in Ukraine in the first place. His subjects in Russia are largely pliant and inclined to accept the propaganda they are fed, and those who aren’t can be jailed, terrorized into silence, or murdered. Putin can do what he chooses — it is not like he is worried about an upcoming election.

    The MiG fiasco underlined the Biden administration’s predictable fecklessness and disorganization — America needed a Keystone pipeline but we got the Keystone Cops — and if there is any serious thinking going on in the White House about what Putin’s response to our “declaration of economic war” is likely to be, there isn’t any obvious evidence of it. The posture of the Biden administration by all appearances is one of wishful thinking: that while the United States and the world have rightly taken a side in this conflict, the fighting is going to stay in Ukraine.

    What if it doesn’t?

    A direct military attack by Russian forces on the United States is, of course, unlikely. But a Russian attack on Moldova is far from unthinkable. It is entirely possible that Putin will attack a NATO member such as Lithuania, Latvia, or even Poland, whose people have gone to such extraordinary lengths to assist the Ukrainians. There are already Americans fighting in Ukraine, as private volunteers rather than as part of our armed forces. If Putin is looking for a pretext, he will have no trouble finding one.

    The United States is keenly interested in keeping the fighting in Ukraine. But the fighting will stay in Ukraine for only as long as Putin believes it is in his interest to keep it there. That may not be much longer. Putin already has failed to achieve his main political objective in Ukraine and will not achieve it no matter how long the conflict drags on; what was intended as a show of awesome military might has instead been a display of weakness and incompetence. A wider war — a glorious crusade — might soon suit Putin’s purposes better than does a quagmire in Ukraine, where the Russian army has been reduced to trying to substitute atrocities for victories.

    President Joe Biden has said that U.S. forces will defend “every inch” of NATO territory. But Biden was there when the Obama administration offered a lot of big talk about “red lines” in Syria and then did nothing. Biden’s people right now are engaging in counterproductive (to say the least) negotiations with Tehran that serve no obvious U.S. interest, and going through Moscow to do so. Vladimir Putin calculates and, as he has just demonstrated, he sometimes miscalculates. Putin might be inclined to take an inch and put Biden to the test.

    This seems unlikely, but the actual invasion of Ukraine seemed unlikely until it happened.

  • “Putin flirts with economic suicide.” “When a government declares that it will confiscate the assets of foreign companies and foreign investors and that it won’t pay its debts, severe and lasting economic calamity follows.”
  • Biological weapons lab in Ukraine? Obama reportedly had a hand in funding it. I would be skeptical of such claims, but the speed with which The Usual Suspects proclaim that there aren’t any make me suspicious. If so, it would be a clear violation of Article II of the Biological Weapons Convention.
  • Chuck DeVore on Cold War 2.0.
    

  • “Special Counsel Finds Mark Zuckerberg’s Election Money Violated Wisconsin Bribery Laws.” “Nearly $9 million in Zuckerberg grant funds directed solely to five Democratic strongholds in Wisconsin violated the state’s election code’s prohibition on bribery. That conclusion represents but one of the many troubling findings detailed in the report submitted today by a state-appointed special counsel to the Wisconsin Assembly.”
  • Along those same lines: “Illinois Illegally Denied Elections Group Access To Voter Records, Federal Court Rules.”
  • “Manhattan merchant banker, 61, is charged with being a spy in the US: Dual US-Russia citizen ‘ran a propaganda center in NYC and communicated directly with Vladimir Putin…Elena Branson, or Chernykh, has been charged with six counts of failing to register as a foreign agent, among other crimes.” Also helped Russians obtain visas under false pretenses. (Hat tip: ColorMeRed.)
  • Scandal: “The federal government paid hundreds of media companies to advertise the COVID-19 vaccines while those same outlets provided positive coverage of the vaccines.”
  • Hillary says she’s not running in 2024.
  • Italy’s truck drivers are about to shrug, saying they’re going to stop all deliveries Monday because gas prices make business impossible.
  • A thread on why there’s a big difference between an oil and gas lease and a producing oil and gas lease.
  • Record voters turn out in Rio Grande Valley Republican Primary.

    As voting for the Texas primaries has wrapped up, the eyes of the nation at large are on the Rio Grande Valley. Many observers expect 2022 to be a big year for Republicans and the GOP, predicting to see the party build on its 2020 inroads with Hispanic voters and believing it will have success in what has previously been Democrat stronghold. To that end, the GOP fielded a wide slate of candidates, and the party has data that suggests it may be successful.

    The numbers suggest two trends that portend well for the GOP: enthusiasm and historic numbers among Republican voters, and depressed turnout for Democrats. Compared to the 2018 and 2020 primary elections, Republicans had significantly higher turnout. That trend is present across all four counties in the RGV, but especially in Starr County. In 2018, a total of 15 people voted in the Republican primary; in 2020, that number increased to 46. This year, a whopping 1,773 people in Starr County voted in the Republican primary.

    Conversely, Democrats had generally lower turnout in the RGV Democrat primaries compared to 2018, and about a 7.83 percent lower turnout compared to 2020.

  • All minorities favor voter ID laws. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Gov. Ron DeSantis Proves Conservatives Can Beat LGBT-Obsessed Left.”

    The Florida state Senate on Tuesday passed a parents rights bill, a media-maligned piece of legislation that will prohibit primary school teachers from talking about sexual orientation with children in pre-K through third grade.

    Senate passage of the Parental Rights in Education bill by a vote of 21-17 marks a milestone in parents’ efforts across the nation to fight back against the radical left in the classroom. The legislation also represents a model for other states to use as they push back the woke tides.

    The Florida House of Representatives passed the legislation last month, 69-47. It now goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature.

    Opposition to the Parental Rights in Education bill has been fierce, with many on the left attempting to reframe the law as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The left has attempted for years to indoctrinate children with LGBT ideology in public schools, and now activists are furious at attempts by conservatives to push back.

    To be clear, the Florida legislation is not an “anti-gay” bill. It is instead a bill aimed at protecting children—and preventing educators with an agenda from infecting young kids with radical ideology.

    By all means, make Democrats defend lecturing kindergartners on transsexualism and anal sex in November. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Pro-tip: If you’re going to run for a U.S. House seat as a Democrat in South Dakota, it’s best not to openly fantasize about killing your opponent and admit you masturbated to a picture of Republican governor Kristi Noem. Man, that (D) label really brings out the freaks and perverts, doesn’t it?
  • It’s a giant spider invasion!

    No, not that one

  • Justice for Juicy: “Jussie Smollett sentenced to 150 days in jail for hate hoax.” (Previously.)
  • Google is dying. Netcraft confirms it. (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.)
  • Every book I bought in 2021. There are lots…
  • Crawfish festival lacks one important ingredient. Guess. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Rapper Tom MacDonald complains about “The Biggest Music Industry Screw Job Ever!” No, given it’s the music industry, not even close. There are hundreds of artists who have been screwed worse. But the lengths to which Billboard and their data recording company go to in order to avoid certifying the sales of independent musicians is certainly eye-opening.
  • “Our gas prices are now higher than in zombie apocalypse films.” That would be the Will Smith I Am Legend (the classic Richard Matheson novel it was based on featured vampires, not zombies).
  • Sex Offenders, Pedophiles, And Democrats Hardest Hit By Florida’s New Parental Rights Bill.”
  • Doggie:

  • LinkSwarm for February 11, 2021

    Friday, February 11th, 2022

    That Biden Inflation is up to another 40 year high, a BLM founder heads to the big house, Democrats wake the normies, more corrupt insiders playing footsie with China, and only white liberals are upset at Joe Rogan. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Welcome back Carter inflation is in full swing. “The consumer price index went up by 7.5 percent over the last year, the highest annual increase since February 1982.”
  • Remember the mention in last week’s LinkSwarm about how cooking oil prices drove an Austin restaurant out of business? Well it’s a global problem that’s leading to record-high food prices.
  • “Activist who founded Black Lives Matter Memphis is sentenced to six years in prison for illegally voting when she was still on probation for felonies including stalking….Pamela Moses, 44, voted illegally six times since she pleaded guilty to evidence tampering, forgery, perjury, stalking and theft under $500, seven years ago.”
  • “PINKO ALERT: Kindergarten Kids in Masks Forced Into BLM School Parade, and That’s Just the Beginning.”
    

  • The Democratic education establishment done screwed up by waking up normie parents.

    Many public schools kicked off 2022 by switching back to remote learning — or canceling classes altogether — leaving frustrated parents across the country frantically searching for more consistent schooling options.

    These past two school years of remote and hybrid learning, forced masking, and an intensified culture of unpredictability has pushed teachers, administrators, students, and parents to very edge. What began as a temporary interruption to student learning has become a vicious cycle of confusion, inconsistency and lost educational time.

    Thanks to the unreliability of distance learning, children are retaining less of what they’ve learned, reading at lower grade levels and suffering from a lack of social interaction. There is little to no support for children who rely on school to provide a safe haven from difficult home lives, and students in free or reduced meal plans have a harder time receiving them.

    As school policies continue to isolate students from friends and peers, such as forcing students to eat their lunch outside on buckets, or facing the same direction without talking, the tragic numbers of adolescent depression, anxiety, and suicide continue to rise.

    Millions of exasperated parents, many in deep-blue cities and states, are desperately pursuing educational alternatives that better suit their families’ needs and values. Parents are enrolling their children in private and charter schools in droves, while those without the financial means to do so remain stuck in a system captive to the whims of teachers’ unions and indifferent school boards.

    Many teachers are going above and beyond in the name of what is best for kids, but their ability to truly innovate and explore new ways of teaching and inspire learning is being blocked by the unnecessarily restrictive demands of union leadership.

    These unions tend to operate at state and national levels in ways that do not represent most of their members. Rather than sticking up for these vulnerable children, unions — as recently exemplified by the Chicago Teachers Union — are prioritizing strikes, walkouts and funding political campaigns, halting true progress as students remain stranded at home.

    Fed-up teachers across the country have resigned their union membership, tired of their dues dollars funding an agenda they don’t support.

  • “Doctor Says She Was Pressured to Make Omicron Sound More Dangerous.”

    Dr. Angelique Coetzee is the South African responsible for alerting health officials about the omicron variant of COVID-19 back in November. At the time of the discovery, she observed that it presented “unusual but mild” symptoms.

    This was undeniably good news. Despite being more transmissible, the omicron variant was less severe, and many believed that it meant that the pandemic was nearing its end. But Dr. Coetzee says that she was subjected to “a lot of pressure from European scientists and politicians” to revise her original diagnosis that omicron presented mostly mild symptoms so that the public would perceive omicron to be just as dangerous as the delta variant.

    She was subsequently attacked for her refusal to push the preferred narrative.

    “Because of all of COVID’s mutations, all of these scientists and politicians who aren’t from South Africa were contacting me telling me I was wrong when I spoke out, that it was a serious disease … they were telling me I had no idea what I was talking about, they kept attacking me,” she told the Daily Telegraph. “In South Africa it is a lighter disease, but in Europe it has been a serious, serious illness, which is what the politicians want me to say … there has been a lot of pressure from European scientists and politicians who have said ‘Please don’t say it is a mild illness.’”

    There’s nothing our leftwing ruling elites won’t corrupt. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Nepo, meet Tism: “GM hires [Missy Owens], Biden niece, former Obama aide to head environment, sustainability and governance policy.” It’s a very exclusive club, and none of us are in it.
  • Speaking of nepotism by our elites: “Liz Cheney’s Hunter Biden problem: Husband’s firm reps China companies, dictatorial regimes.”

    Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) called on the U.S. to stand up to the “generational threat” posed by China while unveiling a major report on Beijing’s “malign behavior” at the same time her husband’s law firm was working on behalf of companies linked to China’s military, intelligence, and security services.

    As Cheney stood at the podium, her husband Philip Perry’s law firm was cashing in on legal and lobbying work that his employer — Latham & Watkins (LW), one of the largest law firms in the world — was doing for a host of Chinese companies, some of which were involved in the kind of activity that Cheney was warning had to be stopped.

  • More fallout from the midterm variant: Suddenly dire emotional appeals about Republican governors dropping mandates become strangely clinical when it’s Democrats doing the same thing.

  • “The GOP is gaining among Texas Hispanics. Women are leading the charge.”

    Democrats were caught off guard by Donald Trump’s numbers in South Texas in 2020. The Hispanic Republican women who live there were not.

    Many of them have played a leading role in urging their neighbors in majority-Hispanic South Texas to question their traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party.

    Hispanic women now serve as party chairs in the state’s four southernmost border counties, spanning a distance from Brownsville almost to Laredo — places where Trump made some of his biggest inroads with Latino voters.

    A half-dozen of them are running for Congress across the state’s four House districts that border Mexico, including Monica De La Cruz, the GOP front-runner in one of Texas’ most competitive seats in the Rio Grande Valley.

    It’s some of the clearest evidence that Trump’s 2020 performance there may not have been an anomaly, but rather a sign of significant Republican inroads among Texas Hispanics — perhaps not enough to threaten the Democratic advantage among those voters [Keep whistling past that graveyard. -LP], but enough to send ripples of fear through a party that is experiencing erosion among Hispanics across the country.

    “For so long, people here just never had Republicans knocking on their doors and calling them the way we did in 2020. The majority of us are women that did it then and are doing it now because we feel it’s our responsibility to keep the American Dream alive,” said Mayra Flores, a leading candidate for the GOP nomination in a South Texas-based congressional seat.

    For Flores, the road to becoming a Republican was similar to the path traveled by many Hispanic women in South Texas. She grew up seeing most of her immigrant family vote Democrat and felt that it was standard for Hispanics to only vote for Democrats. Then, she says, came an inflection point where she began to question her loyalty to the party.

    A family member asked if she knew what both parties stood for, and after looking into it, Flores felt that her religious, anti-abortion and pro-border security views were more conservative than she’d ever thought and more in line with the GOP. Five years ago, she got involved in her local GOP and now a majority of her family votes Republican, too.

    She wasn’t surprised at all to see Republicans gain ground in 2020 along the Texas-Mexico border, even as Democrats and Republicans outside the region expressed shock at results in places such as Zapata County — where Trump became the first GOP presidential nominee since 1920 to carry the county.

    Neighboring Starr County saw the most dramatic shift of any county in the state when thousands more Republicans turned out to vote than in prior elections. While President Joe Biden ultimately won the county with 52 percent of the vote to Trump’s 47 percent, that paled in comparison to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance, when she garnered 79 percent to Trump’s 19 percent.

    Can you hear them now, Democrats? (Hat tip: Push Junction.)

  • “Nationwide Battle Escalates Over Private Millions Bankrolling Public Elections.”

    Democrats want to continue allowing private money to fund public elections. Republicans want to limit the practice, which they say gave Joe Biden an unfair and perhaps decisive advantage over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential contest.

    So far, at least 10 Republican-controlled states have passed laws to prohibit or limit the use of private money in public elections. These include the swing states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. In another swing state, North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed such legislation, as did other Democratic governors.

    During 2020, nonprofits donated more than $400 million to state and local election boards to support their work and get out the vote. Most of the funding, about $350 million, came from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, distributed primarily through the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Chicago-based progressive-led group that includes former operatives of President Barack Obama.

    Democrats and others contend that such money is necessary to support the work of underfunded election boards facing the added challenges of the pandemic. Republicans assert that the private grants were disproportionately allocated to counties eventually won by Biden, a mismatch that hurt them in 2020 and, if continued, would damage their chances in future elections.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Texas is doing well. New York? Not so much.

  • Carjackadephia.

    District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-Philadelphia), one of the George Soros-funded stooges who took office in some of our major cities with the explicit promise to reduce prosecutions, tried to tell people that yes, crimes with firearms had increased, but other crimes were down. That, of course, was bovine feces.

    The real reason for the increase in carjackings? It’s because the perps simply aren’t very afraid of being caught, or, if they’re caught, being seriously punished, not with a ‘social justice’ District Attorney in charge of prosecutions.

    (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)

  • Another week, another hate crime hoax. “A 19-year-old black female college student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is now facing disorderly conduct charges over lying to police after she reported a hate crime incident in her dorm last month….black female college student Kaliyeha Clark-Mabins now faces three disorderly conduct charges for filing a false police report over the matter.”
  • “The Biden Administration is now sending crack pipes to drug addicts in the name of “racial equity.” Happy Black History Month!
  • “That’s my n*gg*r, Joe Rogan! Fuck the noise!”

  • Related:

  • Freedom!

  • For sale: 1978 Ford F-250 Lariat, 139 miles. No, that last number isn’t missing three digits.
  • “CDC Director Now Says To Just Do Whatever Texas Did 12 Months Ago.”
  • The dog makes an eloquent case.

  • LinkSwarm for January 7, 2022

    Friday, January 7th, 2022

    More Democrats behaving badly and Kazakhstan in flames. Enjoy the first LinkSwarm of 2022!

  • How Democrats running the New York City Department of Correction turned control over to the correctional officers union and they let the inmates run the jail.

    For years, mayors and correction commissioners have allowed jail managers to place the least experienced officers in charge of detainee dorms and cells, posts that are critical for keeping order but viewed by many as the least desirable assignments in the system. The managers, who base staffing decisions on seniority, department custom and office politics, have also filled the jobs with guards who have fallen out of favor with administrators, reinforcing the idea that they are punishment posts to be avoided.

    When those guards in the housing units have fallen ill, gotten injured or been barred from contact with incarcerated people for other reasons, other rules adopted by city leaders have made finding replacements unusually difficult.

    Every mayoral administration since John Lindsay’s in the 1970s has signed union contracts granting unlimited sick leave to guards and the city’s other uniformed workers. And records and interviews suggest that abusing it can carry few consequences: It can take more than a year for the department to bring discipline charges against an officer who is caught abusing sick leave.

    On a Thursday in October, one Rikers jail had 572 guards on its work schedule — more than enough to fill the 363 open posts.

    But 17 guards were serving suspensions or had stopped showing up for work.

    Another 117 guards were on vacation, long-term leave or off doing temporary duties.

    Then there were those marked “indefinitely sick” — 136 guards who had been out for 30 days or more but were still on the payroll thanks to generous union benefits.

    That tipped the balance, leaving just 302 guards to fill the 363 posts, and forcing double shifts across the jail.

    When they have been told that such policies could lead to dangerous breakdowns, city leaders have not acted on the warnings. As recently as February 2018, the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s top criminal justice adviser presented the first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, with a memo that stated that high rates of absenteeism among guards might be driving a rise in jail violence — and recommended steps to stabilize staffing and reduce violent incidents. The de Blasio administration took none of them, and the memo has not been made public.

    And when conditions have spiraled out of control on Rikers in recent years, jail managers have favored quick fixes over deeper policy changes. Under scrutiny in 2014 amid reports of brutality by guards, the managers concentrated members of the Bloods gang in some units, the Crips in others, and still other gangs in other areas, hoping the practice would cut down on fights among rival groups. It did not work. Not only did incidents where guards used force rise, but some gangs were positioned to take over housing areas when the pandemic swept through and caused staffing problems.

    The mismanagement over the years has left the people charged with running the jail system feeling powerless.

    Putting criminals in charge of things does seem like the Democratic Party’s go-to move in a lot of areas…

  • The Zoom Class gets Flu Manchu.

    For nearly two years, we’ve wondered how this will end. In retrospect, the clue is in how it began.

    The initial lockdowns had a strong class-based component. The working classes were assigned the job of delivering groceries, tending to the sick, driving the trucks filled with goods, keeping the lights on, and keeping the fuel running. The professional class, among whom were the people who pushed lockdowns in the name of disease avoidance/suppression, were assigned the job of staying home in their pajamas and staying safe.

    It all happened seemingly in an instant. We all had to figure out whether our job qualified and what we should do. More striking at the time was the very notion that government bureaucrats could slice and dice the population in that way, deciding what can open and what can’t, who must work and who must not, what we can and can’t do, all based on our station in life.

    It now seems obvious to me. This whole disaster would finally come to an end (or at least the end would begin) when it became obvious that the great strategy of class division and demarcation would fail to protect the Zoom class from infection.

    That day has finally arrived, with cases soaring in many parts of the country and hitting everyone of every class, whether they’re being “careful” and adhering to the “mitigation measures” or not. What’s even more striking is how even the vaccines, which were supposed to codify the wisdom of class segregation, haven’t protected against infection.

    All of this seems to have taken place over the course of December 2021, with the arrival of the seemingly mild Omicron variant. Still, the other variants circulate widely, causing various degrees of severity with or without hospitalization, much less death. In other words, millions from among all classes of people are finally getting sick. At this point, we seem to be seeing a big shift in attitudes.

    A lot of this comes from casual conversation. A person comes down with COVID, perhaps confirmed by the newly fashionable at-home tests. “Did you get vaccinated?” the person is invariably asked. The answer comes back: Yes, and boosted. That’s when the chill happens. It appears that nothing can ultimately protect people from this. In which case, it’s time we change our tune.

    Snip.

    The driving ambition here, though never explicitly stated, was to assign the burden of bearing the disease to the lessers among us. That’s a conventional model used in illiberal societies throughout history. The elites who had both granted and benefited from lockdowns took it as axiomatic that they deserved disease purity and health more than those who worked to keep society running. And that scheme seemed to work for a very long time. They stayed home and stayed safe and kept clean, while the virus circulated season after season.

    It’s hard to know what the end game here was. Did the Zoom class honestly believe that they could forever avoid exposure and infection and thus the development of natural immunity? Certainly they did for a time believe that the shots would spare them. Once that didn’t happen, there was a huge problem. There were no more tools remaining to perpetuate the disease castes that had been forged back in the day.

    Now that the people who tried to protect themselves are no longer able to do so, we are seeing a sudden rethinking of disease stigmatization, class disdain, and the treatment of others as sandbags to shield people based on class. Now it’s suddenly no longer a sin to be sick.

    Fascinating! What went wrong here? Everything. The notion that public health should thusly divide people—based on one pathogen—contradicts every democratic principle. That idea still survives with the vaccines, regardless of the known limitations. The people who invested in these personally and socially will continue to use them to divide and conquer.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “The Republican Party’s Multiethnic, Working-Class Coalition Is Taking Shape.”

    In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary, decades of dissonance between the party’s aggrieved grassroots and its blinkered elite spilled out into the open. For years, the chasm widened between the GOP’s heartland base, the river valley-dwelling “Somewheres” from David Goodhart’s 2017 book, The Road to Somewhere, and the party’s bicoastal “Anywhere” rulers. The foot-soldier Republican “Somewheres,” disproportionately church-attending and victimized by job outsourcing and the opioid crisis, felt betrayed by the more secular, ideologically inflexible Republican “Anywheres.”

    Donald Trump, lifelong conservative “outsider” and populist dissenter from bicoastal “Anywhere” orthodoxy on issues pertaining to trade, immigration and China, coasted to the GOP’s presidential nomination. He did so notwithstanding the all-hands-on-deck pushback from leading right-leaning “Anywhere” bastions, encapsulated by National Review magazine’s dedication of an entire issue to, “Against Trump.” Trump’s subsequent victory in the 2016 general election sent the conservative intellectual movement, as well as the Republican Party itself, into a deep state of introspection.

    Trump’s victory was primarily propelled by a white working-class revolt, but the emergence during his presidency of a deeply censorious and anti-American Left—epitomized by the Democrats’ outrageous conduct during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation battle and the destructive “1619 riots” last summer—opened the door for a broader working-class, pro-America political coalition. By Election Day 2020, that multiethnic, working-class conservative coalition had begun to take more definite shape. Trump lost a nail-biter of an election, but the GOP made massive inroads in crucial black and Hispanic communities, such as Florida’s Miami-Dade County and the heavily Mexican counties dotting Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

    Now over a year removed from the 2020 presidential election, as President Joe Biden’s poll numbers plummet and frantic Democrats gird themselves for a 2022 midterm election shellacking, data continues to trickle in supporting the emergence of a “Somewhere”-centric, multiethnic, working-class Republican coalition. In Texas, where former Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke lost to incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz by less than three points in 2018, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds Republican incumbent Governor Greg Abbott, up for reelection in 2022, leading challenger O’Rourke by a whopping 15 points. Abbott outright leads O’Rourke among Texas Hispanic voters, 44 to 41, and Texas Hispanics disapprove of Biden’s job performance by a massive 27-point margin.

    A new Wall Street Journal national poll evinces much the same trend. On a generic Republican versus Democrat ballot, the WSJ poll shows Hispanics evenly split 37 to 37. Nationally, Hispanics disapprove of Biden’s job performance by 12 points, and they support Biden over Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential rematch by a razor-thin 44 to 43 margin. Nor, of course, is the GOP’s good news with Hispanic voters limited to Texas; in Florida, the state’s growing conservative-leaning Cuban and Venezuelan populations make Republican incumbents Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Marco Rubio heavy favorites for reelection next fall.

  • Trump has has taken up permanent rent-free residence in their heads: “MSNBC’s ‘Deadline: White House’ mentions Trump more than twice as often as Biden.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • This is infuriating: Oregon Business Owner Ordered to Remove American Flag Mural on Private Property. He should tell them to get stuffed and sue them for everything they’ve got. (Hat tip: Victoria Taft.)
  • What it’s like to own a ranch near the Mexican border:

    “I find some kind of sign every single day that someone has been on my ranch,” says Schuster. “Every time I leave my house, there’s some kind of indication that someone has been on my ranch.”

    Law enforcement has been called to the Schuster property five times in the past year to respond to incidents where illegal border crossers have knocked on their door or approached their house.

    Operation Lone Star, a state effort that has seen additional Texas DPS officers sent to border counties, has been a blessing to the county, according to Schuster, and a relief to the local sheriff and his small crew of deputies. Schuster believes that the DPS patrols on the highways have been a deterrent to the illegal border crossers who use the highways and then bail out to run onto private property.

    However, Schuster says the problems will persist for as long as this open border policy continues.

    “I don’t know all the politics of it and how all that works, but we’re gonna have to do something, because my parents worked hard to buy this land. People have said, ‘Well, if you’re scared on your own land, you just move.’ It doesn’t work that way,” said Schuster. “This is our land. And they worked hard, and they bought it, and you can’t give up on that land. It’s your legacy. It’s your legacy for your children. And so, it’s not like you just have a house in town, and you could just sell it and move to another community. When you have a ranch, you can’t do that.”

    Schuster added, “In the last year, our life has been turned completely upside down. It is something that we just had never foreseen.”

    She said that beginning last January, “the number of illegals coming through has been unbelievable. The group sizes are big. You know, growing up on a ranch, around ranching, we’ve always had illegals coming through. Never saw women before, or children. Men come through, maybe two or three; if you saw [a] group of five, that was a big group. We’ve got groups of like 45 coming through.”

    The sizable groups are not the only issue with this increased traffic. “​​They’re very disruptive. We’ve never seen that before,” said Schuster. “The people that have come across primarily from Mexico for work, going from point A to point B looking for a job, did not intentionally tear up our water systems. The debris that they’re leaving behind is unbelievable. I’m picking up trash on my ranch daily, they’re leaving gates open, livestock is getting mixed up, or maybe water gaps between me and my neighbor.”

    An incident over the summer left Schuster shocked when some of the illegal border crossers intentionally broke a water line. “I lost about 10,000 gallons of water this summer,” said Schuster. “It probably took me at least six weeks to gain that much water back.”

    According to Schuster, “they could’ve reached over—it wasn’t enclosed—and gotten a drink. But they just took a rock and beat this line until they broke it. That’s mean. That’s just malicious.”

    Security and safety have taken major precedence in the Schuster family’s life. Game cameras on the doors, rarely going out in the pre-dawn hours, working out of an enclosed truck instead of an open UTV on the ranch, and never leaving the house without a pistol have all become standard practice for the whole family.

  • “‘Jaw-Dropping’ Gains for GOP in Florida as COVID Refugees Register RED.”

    Twitter user TimDCpolitico took Florida’s voter rolls from March 31 of 2020 and compared them to the latest figures. The results, he says, are “jaw-dropping,” and I can’t think of a better way to describe them.

    Out of over 14 million registered voters, last year Democrats held the edge with 37.38% of registrations compared to the GOP’s 35.28%. (The remaining four million or so — around 26% — were independents or members of minor parties.)

    Democrats held a two-point advantage, but higher Republican turnout has made the state safely red in the last two presidential elections.

    Snip.

    66 out of Florida’s 67 counties shifted towards the red. Three hardcore Democrat counties — Broward (!!!), Jefferson, and Madison — might in some races be considered additional battlegrounds Dems will have to defend.

    A fourth, Calhoun, went from dark blue to light red.

    That’s impressive.

    What should have Democrats strapping on a pair of Extra Absorbent Depends (Endorsed by Presidentish Joe Biden!) is that they lost more than 50,000 registrations in the same time period — even as the state’s population has grown.

  • “GOP expands effort for South Texas dominance to local races.”

    Republicans have gone all in on South Texas, but they’re not content for domination of state and congressional seats. They want local government, too.

    One GOP group, Project Red Texas, spent the weeks before the December filing deadline to run in the March primary election traveling the region and recruiting candidates to run for county offices, offering to pay their filing fees. The group ended up helping get 125 candidates on the ballot across 25 counties, according to its leader, veteran party operative Wayne Hamilton. He said the group paid for “well over” half the filing fees.

    The first step on the road to winning is actually showing up.

  • Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, they’re having something somewhere between civil unrest and full-blown revolution over fuel prices.
  • China is “univestable.”

    Investors may want to think twice about putting their money to work in China, contends DoubleLine founder Jeffrey Gundlach.

    “China is uninvestible, in my opinion, at this point,” the bond king told Yahoo Finance in an interview at his California estate. “I’ve never invested in China long or short. Why is that? I don’t trust the data. I don’t trust the relationship between the United States and China anymore. I think that investments in China could be confiscated. I think there’s a risk of that.”

    Snip.

    The ongoing crackdown on the operations of big Chinese internet companies such as Didi by the government has rocked investors in the space. The clamping down on the country’s biggest tech names has now led to a tightening of listing requirements by the Chinese government.

    To that end, Didi plans to delist from the New York Stock Exchange later this year not too long after a disastrous IPO (in large part because of Chinese authorities).

    Meanwhile, the long reach of China’s government also hammered after-school tutoring companies such as TAL Education Group — shares of the name plunged about 95% in 2021.

    All of this is in addition to China’s ongoing fight against the rise of cryptocurrencies.

    The investing headwinds in the country show up in how the country’s key indexes performed in 2021.

    For instance, the Golden Dragon Index — which tracks the performance of mid- and large-cap Chinese stocks — plunged about 49% in 2021. The Wall Street Journal points out the total value of China’s onshore stocks rose 20% in 2021, underperforming the S&P 500’s advance.

    And none of that touches the insanely overleveraged real estate market there…

  • EU finally admits that nuclear and natural gas are “green” energy sources.
  • Democrat township commissioner charged with rape of 15-year-old boy in Philadelphia Darby Township Commissioner Marvin E. Smith has been charged with rape, sexual assault, luring, and related offenses.”
  • Another day, another high-profile Kamala Harris staffer leaving. “Vincent Evans, the veep’s deputy director of public engagement and intergovernmental affairs, has quit to take on a role on Capitol Hill.”
  • Austinites (and anyone who uses metered parking) beware:

  • Tim Pool swatted during live broadcast. (Hat tip: Jack Posobiec on GETTR.)
  • Jury finds Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes guilty on four federal wire fraud related charges.
  • Don’t forget how Joe Biden praised Holmes before she was busted.
  • Related:

  • Ian Miles Cheong banned from PayPal:

  • On the convergence of Genesis and the Sex Pistols.

    Seeing Collins contorted in a wheeled chair, like Grandfather Smallweed in Bleak House, while his two bandmates swayed on either side of him, painlessly upright in elegant, soft grey fashions like Farrow and Ball in human form, bordered on the grotesque. It resembled a satire on the ineradicable nature of privilege and class, rather than evidence of the dynamic tension every band needs to achieve creative synthesis. It was everything the NME said punk disdained. But I can’t imagine John Lydon taking any pleasure in this at all.

    To say that Lydon has mellowed would be a huge over-simplification, not only of who he is now but of who he was then, both of which were media distortions if not inventions. And, frankly, I’m not qualified to offer much insight into either. But I suspect that he is at least more willing to let us see his human side now. His wife of over 40 years, Nora Forster, has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for the last three and he has committed himself to her full-time care. In 2010, Forster’s daughter Ariane—better known as Ari Up, lead singer of female post-punk outfit The Slits—died of breast cancer aged just 48. Lydon knows something about human frailty, mortality, and loss.

    I have the sense that after many years, not on the field of combat but behind the bare timber of the cheapest proscenium arch, the paint is wearing off both these Punch dolls. Both were iconic and pugnacious in their day, but human, all too human, too. Today, it is not prog, let alone Genesis, that attracts Lydon’s ire, but what he perceives to be the betrayal of his ex-bandmates, who have sold out the Pistols’ musical legacy to a TV show—people that do indeed, as he sneered in PiL, see it as nothing more than product.

    Lydon was years ahead of his time, on everything from the Savile row to the shark-infested waters in which he was swimming, but I doubt he will take much pleasure in seeing a fellow grafter—and émigré—working through pain to give his fans a chance to say one last farewell, to him and to each other. He might even feel a twinge of grudging kinship. They may not have reached the churchyard quite yet, but their paths are beginning to converge, as all must in the end. And, meanwhile, as the years wear on, who can be sure Her Majesty—God Save Her—won’t bury the bloody lot of them?

  • “‘Psycho’ squirrel’s 48-hour Christmas rampage terrorizes town, injures 18.”
  • Live in Austin and thinking of adopting a dog? Now is a good time.
  • Ted Cruz has had a weird week. After the braindead boner of calling January 6 riot participants “domestic terrorists,” he had to issue a huge Mea Culpa on Tucker Carlson. Oh, and he also issued this:

  • Buy something from the Don Rickles estate, you hockey puck!
  • Ooops!

  • LinkSwarm for December 17, 2021

    Friday, December 17th, 2021

    Another mandate injunction, Democrats continue their popularity freefall, China seals more dirty deals, and Turkey melts down. It’s another Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Federal judge halts healthcare employee vaccine mandate in Texas.

    A federal judge in Texas has issued a preliminary injunction, stopping a new rule from the Biden administration requiring healthcare workers to receive the COVID vaccine as the case moves through the courts.

    The injunction came from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Amarillo. The case was filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton on behalf of the State of Texas against Xavier Becerra, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary.

    The injunction was sought against a federal rule that would have required employers that receive Medicaid and Medicare funds—namely hospitals and other healthcare providers—to require their employees to receive a COVID vaccine as a condition of employment.

    Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered that the federal government provide notice to all Medicaid and Medicare providers in Texas that the mandate “will not be implemented or enforced.”

    “Healthcare facilities covered by the [Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services] Mandate have a tremendous reliance interest in Medicare and Medicaid funds. Therefore, Defendants unconstitutionally use Congress’s spending powers to ‘commandeer a State’s . . . administrative apparatus for federal purposes’ by conditioning Medicare and Medicaid funds on state surveyor compliance with the mandate,” wrote Kacsmaryk. “As a result, not only would the CMS Mandate prohibit Plaintiffs from enforcing its duly enacted COVID-19 vaccination regulations, but it would likely force Plaintiffs to administer a federal mandate that has a dubious statutory basis.”

    “It is a ‘gun to the head’ and an unconstitutional use of Congress’s spending powers to compel Plaintiffs through ‘financial inducement’ to forgo exercising their police powers to enforce a federal statute.”

  • Crime, inflation, wokeness and that old Biden magic continue to work their charm on the American electorate.

    Democrat support from independent voters has fallen near the crucial 40% line, while almost half of all independent voters tell Gallup that they’re leaning Republican.

    “If you’re a Democrat and you’re not terrified,” says The Dispatch’s Avi Woolf, “you should be.”

    Well, I’m neither a Democrat nor terrified, but I am conservative and — at least for now — quite giddy.

    Gallup recently updated its long-term party affiliation poll, which asks American voters one or two simple questions:

    In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?
    (If they ID as independents) As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?

    Currently, 31% say they’re Republicans, up slightly from the usual mid-20s to 30%. 41% told Gallup that they’re independent voters, in line with the average swing. Only 27% self-ID as Democrats, which is down from the more typical 29-32%.

    As recently as May, Democrats were at 32% and the GOP at a dismal 25%.

    But that’s before Presidentish Joe Biden had had a chance to do much other than send out FREE! MONEY! (handouts that helped cause our present inflation) and smile for the glowing press coverage. Since then, important parts of his agenda have taken hold and the malign incompetence of his cabinet has been fully revealed.

    Apparently, Americans don’t think much of either.

    But it’s the second question that should have Washington Democrats changing their shorts.

    Indies, asked whether they lean towards the Democrats or the GOP, broke for the GOP 47% to 41%.

    At this time in Barack Obama’s first term, the breakdown was a much more Dem-friendly 25R/41I/32D. And the Indy swing was exactly reversed, 41R/47D.

    Yet the Democrats still lost a whopping 63 seats in the House and seven more in the Senate in the following midterm election.

    Obama enjoyed immensely more personal popularity than Biden does — I know, I don’t get it, either — but couldn’t stop a GOP tsunami when his agenda proved unpopular.

    Biden has both an unpopular agenda and a high unfavorable rating draped around his neck like a lead life preserver. And now voters are leaving his party in droves.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Democratic problems apply down-ballot as well: “If the elections for Congress were held today, 48% of likely U.S. voters would vote for the Republican candidate, while 39% would vote for the Democrat.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • The woke are coming for all that sweet, sweet Medicare money.

    Buried in the Department of Health and Human Services’s fiscal planning for next year is a proposal to establish bonuses for physicians who “create and implement an anti-racism plan.”

    “The plan should include a clinic-wide review of existing tools and policies, such as value statements or clinical practice guidelines, to ensure that they include and are aligned with a commitment to anti-racism and an understanding of race as a political and social construct, not a physiological one,” the HHS writes . “The plan should also identify ways in which issues and gaps identified in the review can be addressed and should include target goals and milestones for addressing prioritized issues and gaps. This may also include an assessment and drafting of an organization’s plan to prevent and address racism and/or improve language access and accessibility to ensure services are accessible and understandable for those seeking care.”

    I’m sure this will go over great with Medicare patients. “Mam, I can’t check on your osteoporosis until you check your privilege!” (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.)

  • Speaking of Biden screwing up health care: “Biden’s big bill cuts hospital funds for poor in red states, shifts money to Obamacare.”
  • After Democrats abandoned trying to pass Biden’s giant leftwing “Build Back Better” porkfest this year, is the bill actually dead forever? South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham thinks so.

    The South Carolina Republican said that the Congressional Budget Office score, which found the $1.75 trillion bill would add $3 trillion to the deficit, is what led to its demise.

    ‘I think Build Back Better is dead forever and let me tell you why: Because Joe Manchin has said he’s not going to vote for a bill that will add to the deficit,’ he said on Fox News’ Hannity Wednesday night.

    ‘Well, if you do away with the budget gimmicks, Build Back Better, according to the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] adds $3 trillion to the deficit.’

  • Speaking of Manchin, he finally snapped at a Democratic Media Complex flunkie trying to badger him into supporting it.

    ‘This is b******t. You’re b******t,’ the West Virginia senator yelled at Arthur Delaney, a reporter for HuffPost Politics, who asked him about reports that the child tax credit has become a major sticking point in his talks with the White House.

    ‘I’m done, I’m done,’ Manchin fumed as the questions continued.

    ‘Guys, I’m not negotiating with any of you all. You can ask all the questions you want. Guys, let me go,’ he told the press as he walked through the basement of the Capitol, muttering ‘God almighty’ as he walked away.

  • Democrats are wailing about the “end of Democracy” because they’re about to lose power:

    What is behind recent pessimistic appraisals of democracy’s future, from Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Brian Williams, and other elite intellectuals, media personalities, and politicians on the left? Some are warning about its possible erosion in 2024. Others predict democracy’s downturn as early 2022, with scary scenarios of “autocracy” and former President Donald Trump “coups.”

    To answer that question, understand first what is not behind these shrill forecasts.

    They are not worried about 2 million foreign nationals crashing the border in a single year, without vaccinations during a pandemic. Yet it seems insurrectionary for a government simply to nullify its own immigration laws.

    They are not worried that some 800,000 foreign nationals, some residing illegally, will now vote in New York City elections.

    They are not worried that there are formal efforts underway to dismantle the U.S. Constitution by junking the 233-year-old Electoral College or the preeminence of the states in establishing ballot laws in national elections.

    They are not worried that we are witnessing an unprecedented left-wing effort to scrap the 180-year-old filibuster, the 150-year-old nine-person Supreme Court, and the 60-year tradition of 50 states, for naked political advantage.

    They are not worried that the Senate this year put on trial an impeached ex-president and private citizen, without the chief justice in attendance, without a special prosecutor or witnesses, and without a formal commission report of presidential high crimes and misdemeanors.

    They are not worried that the FBI, Justice Department, CIA, Hillary Clinton, and members of the Obama Administration systematically sought to use U.S. government agencies to sabotage a presidential campaign, transition, and presidency, via the use of a foreign national and ex-spy Christopher Steele and his coterie of discredited Russian sources.

    They are not worried that the Pentagon suddenly has lost the majority support of the American people. Top current and retired officers have flagrantly violated the chain-of-command, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and without data or evidence have announced a hunt in the ranks for anyone suspected of “white rage” or “white supremacy.”

    They are not worried that in 2020, a record 64% of the electorate did not cast their ballots on Election Day.

    Nor are they worried that the usual rejection rate in most states of non-Election Day ballots plunged—even as an unprecedented 101 million ballots were cast by mail or early voting.

    And they are certainly not worried that partisan billionaires of Silicon Valley poured well over $400 million into selected precincts in swing states to “help” public agencies conduct the election.

    What then is behind this new left-wing hysteria about the supposed looming end of democracy?

    It is quite simple. The left expects to lose power over the next two years—both because of the way it gained and used it, and because of its radical, top-down agendas that never had any public support.

    After gaining control of both houses of Congress and the presidency – with an obsequious media and the support of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, higher education, popular culture, entertainment and professional sports – the left has managed in just 11 months to alienate a majority of voters.

    The nation has been wracked by unprecedented crime and nonenforcement of the borders. Leftist district attorneys either won’t indict criminals; they let them out of jails or both.

    Illegal immigration and inflation are soaring. Deliberate cuts in gas and oil production helped spike fuel prices.

    All this bad news is on top of the Afghanistan disaster, worsening racial relations, and an enfeebled president.

    Democrats are running 10 points behind the Republicans in generic polls, with the midterms less than a year away.

    President Joe Biden’s negatives run between 50% and 57%—in Trump’s own former underwater territory.

    Less than a third of the country wants Biden to run for reelection. In many head-to-head polls, Trump now defeats Biden.

    In other words, leftist elites are terrified that democracy will work too robustly.

    After the Russian collusion hoax, two impeachments, the Hunter Biden laptop stories, the staged melodramas of the Kavanaugh hearings, the Jussie Smollett con, the Covington kids smear, and the Rittenhouse trial race frenzy, the people are not just worn out by leftist hysterias, but they also weary of how the left gains power and administers it.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Hey, remember all the way back to two weeks ago when I said that Turkey’s collapsing currency was something we should keep an eye on? Well, guess what? “Turkey Halts All Stock Trading As Currency Disintegrates, Central Bank Powerless To Halt Collapse.” ZeroHedge suggests that the collapse is engineered to disguise how much graft Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his cronies have stolen from the country.
  • Registered Republicans now outnumber registered Democrats in Florida for the first time ever. Take a bow, Scott Presler, who has worked tirelessly to register Republicans to vote:

    He’s not the driver here, but he certainly helped.

  • Nothing to look at here, just a sex and drugs scandal involving FBI employees.
  • Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be. “Documents link Huawei to China’s surveillance programs.”

    The Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies has long brushed off questions about its role in China’s state surveillance, saying it just sells general-purpose networking gear.

    A review by The Washington Post of more than 100 Huawei PowerPoint presentations, many marked “confidential,” suggests that the company has had a broader role in tracking China’s populace than it has acknowledged.

    These marketing presentations, posted to a public-facing Huawei website before the company removed them late last year, show Huawei pitching how its technologies can help government authorities identify individuals by voice, monitor political individuals of interest, manage ideological reeducation and labor schedules for prisoners, and help retailers track shoppers using facial recognition.

    Insert shocked face here.

  • Apple climbs further into bed with Communist China.

    Citing both interviews and direct access to internal Apple documents about repeated visits by Cook to China in the mid-2010s, the report describes a $275 billion deal whereby Apple committed to investing heavily in technology infrastructure and training in the country.

    The non-binding five-year deal was signed by Cook during a 2016 visit, and it was made partially to mitigate or prevent regulatory action by the Chinese government that would have had significant negative effects on Apple’s operations and business in the country.

    The Information details the nature of the Chinese government priorities included in the 1,250-word deal:

    They included a pledge to help Chinese manufacturers develop “the most advanced manufacturing technologies” and “support the training of high-quality Chinese talents.”

    In addition, Apple promised to use more components from Chinese suppliers in its devices, sign deals with Chinese software firms, collaborate on technology with Chinese universities and directly invest in Chinese tech companies… Apple promised to invest “many billions of dollars more” than what the company was already spending annually in China. Some of that money would go toward building new retail stores, research and development centers and renewable energy projects, the agreement said.

  • Disgrace: Biden abandoned over 60,000 Afghan interpreters, support personnel — along with 14,000 Americans.”
  • “Trump’s Social Media Platform Gets $1 Billion Investment Boost, Dems Get Nervous.” It will be interesting to see how quickly TRUTH Social can get off the ground.
  • Are Texas National Guardsmen getting screwed out of their pay?
  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. “Texas man sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison for attacking US Marshal during Portland Antifa riot.”
  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes Philadelphia pizza joint edition.
  • In yesterday’s post, I forgot to link to these Log4J memes. Enjoy!
  • Why New York City lags the rest of the nation in unemployment. Thank lockdowns, shutdowns, and insane government. “The economy is not a light switch. The supply chain is not a light switch.” The money quote “New York City is just not that amazing!”
  • Popular Mexican singer Vincente Fernandez died, and the woke couldn’t wait to crap on his grave:

  • In a blow to election integrity, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals says that the Attorney General lacks authority to prosecute election fraud cases.
  • Democrats: Don’t you dare call us communists! Also Democrats: “Sen. Richard Blumenthal Helps Conn. Communist Party Celebrate 102nd Anniversary of CPUSA.”
  • Things that make you go “Hmmmm”:

  • True, dat.

  • Life imitates an episode of Justified:

  • Did you know that an Israeli airstrike hit a Syrian port last week? Did you see anything about that in the news? Seems like the sort of thing the media would cover before they decided that a bunch of lunatics shouting at J.K. Rowling is more important.
  • Texas House Speaker Dade Phalen attends fundraiser for quorum-busting Democrats in the Rio Grande Valley (including State Reps. Terry Canales, Sergio Munoz Jr., Oscar Longoria, Armando Martinez, and Bobby Guerra, and State Sen. Chuy Hinojosa) while skipping a Republican event a mile away. Remind me again why Phalen is speaker?
  • “Pasadena Mechanic Sues City Over Parking Space Regulation Prohibiting His Business from Operating.”
  • There’s nothing this Austin City Council can’t seem to ruin, including the Trail of Lights.
  • Man these allergies are killing me,” December edition. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • I think they should use this scene in Super Troopers III: “Two Massachusetts State Police troopers have been suspended without pay for turning a hallway at the state police academy into a makeshift ‘Slip ‘N Slide’ game.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Speaking of science experiments: What happens when you hit a gong with a baseball traveling at Mach 1.5? And you know there’s super-slow motion involved…
  • Whoa:

  • Terry Gilliam fired from directing West End production of Into The Woods for daring to recommend Dave Chapelle’s new comedy special on his own Facebook page.
  • Sex and the City writer Candace Bushnell, 60, admits she regrets choosing a career over having children as she is now ‘truly alone.'”
  • “Biden Warns Russia That If They Invade Ukraine, America Will Evacuate Haphazardly And Leave $86 Billion In Weapons Behind.”
  • “Hillary Clinton Reportedly Considering Losing Again In 2024.”
  • Bob Dole Switches To Democrat Party.”
  • Skillz:

  • LinkSwarm for December 10, 2021

    Friday, December 10th, 2021

    If it looks like I’ve been absent from Twitter, it’s because I received a seven day timeout merely for posting one of Twitter’s pre-loaded gifs, probably this one:

    (If it’s not animated, it says “Die in a fire” at the end.)

    Now on to the LinkSwarm!

  • Inflation hits 39 year high. Unexpectedly!
  • The Biden Administration is functionally pro-China.

    Josh Rogin delivers an unnerving scoop in the Washington Post:

    Administration sources confirmed that in an October call between Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the other co-sponsor, Sherman made it clear that the administration prefers a more targeted and deliberative approach to determining which [Chinese] goods are the products of forced labor. She also told Merkley that getting allied buy-in was critical and more effective than unilateral action.

    “To be clear, the Department of State is not opposing this amendment,” a State Department spokesman told me. “We share the Congress’ concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang.”

    In other words, while the administration supports the legislation in public, they are asking Democrats to essentially water it down in private. Sherman’s specific criticism relates to a part of the bill that would require a presumption that all products coming from Xinjiang are tainted by forced labor unless the importer can prove otherwise. This happens to be the exact provision corporations are also objecting to. Maybe it’s a coincidence.

    “It isn’t partisan or in any way controversial for the U.S. to be unequivocally, resoundingly opposed to genocide and slave labor,” Merkley told me. “The Senate passed this legislation in July, and it’s time to get it over the finish line.”

    Watering down congressional efforts to punish China for the Uyghur genocide is not what Joe Biden promised when he was running for office, or when he took office.

    Snip.

    Month by month, the Biden administration is proving more and more reticent to confront the Chinese government in substantive and consequential ways. The investigation into the origins of COVID-19 is effectively dropped, and Biden didn’t mention China’s refusal to cooperate with the WHO’s separate investigation in his teleconference summit with Xi Jinping.

    Biden did not mention China, the Uyghurs, Hong Kong, or the origins of COVID-19 in his address to the United Nations.

    Snip.

    Elsewhere, Biden nominated Reta Jo Lewis to run the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Senator Marco Rubio contends that, “Reta Jo Lewis is currently a strategic advisor for the U.S.-China Heartland Association, which is a conduit for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work Department (UFWD), which aims to influence key Americans at the subnational level and ultimately undermine America’s national interests.”

    As I noted yesterday, even the proposed diplomatic boycott of the Olympics is moot, because the Chinese government announced that U.S. politicians were not invited before Biden could even officially announce the decision.

    Why, it’s almost like his son is on China’s payroll

  • Another day, another Washington Post hitpiece against Kamala Harris.

    The rumors started circulating in July: Vice President Harris’s staff was wilting in a dysfunctional and frustrated office, burned out just a few months after her historic swearing-in and pondering exit strategies. A few days later, Harris hosted an all-staff party at her official residence, where most of her office bit into hamburgers and posted pictures of smiling, congenial co-workers on Twitter, pixelated counterpoints to the narrative of an office in shambles.

    “Let me tell you about these burgers at the VP’s residence!!” chief Harris spokesperson Symone Sanders gushed in a tweet. “The food was good and the people were amazing.” Her official defense against reports of staff unrest was more searing. She called people who lobbed criticism behind nameless quotes “cowards” and stressed that working for a groundbreaking vice president was a difficult job, but not a dehumanizing one. “We are not making rainbows and bunnies all day,” she told one outlet. “What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I’m like ‘welcome to the club.’ ”

    Five months later, Sanders is leaving the vice president’s office, the highest-profile member of an end-of-year exodus that includes communications chief Ashley Etienne and two other staffers who help shape the vice president’s public image. Sanders told The Washington Post her departure is not due to any unhappiness or dysfunction, but rather because she is ready for a break after three years of the relentless pressure that came with speaking for and advising Biden and Harris while navigating a global pandemic.

    But the quartet of soon-to-be-empty desks reignited questions about why Harris churns through top-level Democratic staff, an issue that has colored her nearly 18 years in public service, including her historic but uneven first year as vice president. Now, those questions about her management extend to whether it will hamper her ability to seek and manage the presidency.

    “Historic” because she checks social justice warrior diversity boxes, “uneven” because the Post will never be allowed to call it “horrible” for the same reason.

    Critics scattered over two decades point to an inconsistent and at times degrading principal who burns through seasoned staff members who have succeeded in other demanding, high-profile positions. People used to putting aside missteps, sacrificing sleep and enduring the occasional tirade from an irate boss say doing so under Harris can be particularly difficult, as she has struggled to make progress on her vice-presidential portfolio or measure up to the potential that has many pegging her as the future of the Democratic Party.

    “One of the things we’ve said in our little text groups among each other is what is the common denominator through all this and it’s her,” said Gil Duran, a former Democratic strategist and aide to Harris who quit after five months working for her in 2013. In a recent column, he said she’s repeating “the same old destructive patterns.”

    “Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have (them) pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons,” he told The Post.

    The Washington Post spoke with 18 people connected to Harris for this story, including former and current staffers, West Wing officials and other supporters and critics. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more candid about a sensitive topic. The vice president’s office declined to address questions about Harris’s leadership style.

    Her defenders say the criticism against her is often steeped in the same racism and sexism that have followed a woman who has been a first in every job she’s done over the past two decades.

    “Shut up, because social justice!”

    Her selection as President Biden’s vice president, they say, makes her a bigger target because many see her as the heir apparent to the oldest president in the nation’s history.

    “Shut up, because social justice!”

    They also say Harris faces the brunt of a double standard for women who are ambitious, powerful or simply unafraid to appear strong in public.

    “Shut up, because social justice!”

    Some pro-forma Harris defense snipped.

    Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared.

    “It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” one former staffer said. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”

    For both critics and supporters, the question is not simply where Harris falls on the line between demanding and demeaning. Many worry that her inability to keep and retain staff will hobble her future ambitions.

    Why should we remotely worry about her future ambitions when she’s obviously not even up to her current job?

  • Biden’s plans to relieve port crowding at LA/Long Beach haven’t worked.

    Looking all the way back to Nov. 2, five weeks ago, the total number of excess dwell containers in Long Beach was down 22% as of Wednesday (the decrease is even higher, at 32%, when comparing to Oct. 28). Yet the numbers in Long Beach have plateaued more recently. Furthermore, the number of total import containers at Long Beach terminals has not decreased — it has actually slightly increased. There were 57,042 import containers at Long Beach terminals on Nov. 1 and 57,970 on Tuesday.

  • Another redpilled liberal abandons the Democratic Party.

    I embraced my people, and my people embraced me. They gave me everything I had always imagined I wanted: a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university; a professorship at NYU, complete with a roomy office overlooking Washington Square Park; book deals; columns in smart little publications; invitations to the sort of soirees where you could find yourself seated next to Salman Rushdie or Susan Sontag or any number of the men and women you grew up reading and admiring. The list goes on. Life was good. I was grateful.

    And then came The Turn. If you’ve lived through it yourself, you know that The Turn doesn’t happen overnight, that it isn’t easily distilled into one dramatic breakdown moment, that it happens hazily and over time—first a twitch, then a few more, stretching into a gnawing discomfort and then, eventually, a sense of panic.

    You may be among the increasing numbers of people going through The Turn right now. Having lived through the turmoil of the last half decade—through the years of MAGA and antifa and rampant identity politics and, most dramatically, the global turmoil caused by COVID-19—more and more of us feel absolutely and irreparably politically homeless. Instinctively, we looked to the Democratic Party, the only home we and our parents and their parents before them had ever known or seriously considered. But what we saw there—and in the newspapers we used to read, and in the schools whose admission letters once made us so proud—was terrifying. However we tried to explain what was happening on “the left,” it was hard to convince ourselves that it was right, or that it was something we still truly believed in. That is what The Turn is about.

    You might be living through The Turn if you ever found yourself feeling like free speech should stay free even if it offended some group or individual but now can’t admit it at dinner with friends because you are afraid of being thought a bigot. You are living through The Turn if you have questions about public health policies—including the effects of lockdowns and school closures on the poor and most vulnerable in our society—but can’t ask them out loud because you know you’ll be labeled an anti-vaxxer. You are living through The Turn if you think that burning down towns and looting stores isn’t the best way to promote social justice, but feel you can’t say so because you know you’ll be called a white supremacist. You are living through The Turn if you seethed watching a terrorist organization attack the world’s only Jewish state, but seethed silently because your colleagues were all on Twitter and Facebook sharing celebrity memes about ending Israeli apartheid while having little interest in American kids dying on the streets because of failed policies. If you’ve felt yourself unable to speak your mind, if you have a queasy feeling that your friends might disown you if you shared your most intimately held concerns, if you are feeling a bit breathless and a bit hopeless and entirely unsure what on earth is going on, I am sorry to inform you that The Turn is upon you.

    Snip.

    You don’t get to be “against the rich” if the richest people in the country fund your party in order to preserve their government-sponsored monopolies. You are not “a supporter of free speech” if you oppose free speech for people who disagree with you. You are not “for the people” if you pit most of them against each other based on the color of their skin, or force them out of their jobs because of personal choices related to their bodies. You are not “serious about economic inequality” when you happily order from Amazon without caring much for the devastating impact your purchases have on the small businesses that increasingly are either subjugated by Jeff Bezos’ behemoth or crushed by it altogether. You are not “for science” if you refuse to consider hypotheses that don’t conform to your political convictions and then try to ban critical thought and inquiry from the internet. You are not an “anti-racist” if you label—and sort!—people by race. You are not “against conformism” when you scare people out of voicing dissenting opinions.

    When “the left” becomes the party of wealthy elites and state security agencies who preach racial division, state censorship, contempt for ordinary citizens and for the U.S. Constitution, and telling people what to do and think at every turn, then that’s the side you are on, if you are “on the left”—those are the policies and beliefs you stand for and have to defend. It doesn’t matter what good people “on the left” believed and did 60 or 70 years ago. Those people are dead now, mostly. They don’t define “the left” anymore than Abraham Lincoln defines the modern-day Republican Party or Jimi Hendrix defines Nickelback.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Chinese real estate giant Evergrande has officially defaulted.

    “The defaults of Evergrande and Kaisa move us to the second step of this China Property downturn, with systemic risk being gradually replaced by idiosyncratic risk,” said Robin Usson, credit analyst at Federated Hermes. He is of course referring to the much bigger risk that is the downturn in China’s residential – and in general property – sector, which as Goldman recently showed is the world’s largest asset and arguably the most important pillar propping up China’s entire economy. Should China’s housing market crash, all bets are off.

    Smoke and mirrors all the way down…

  • Study: “It is almost certain that in Wisconsin’s 2020 election the number of votes that did not comply with existing legal requirements exceeded Joe Biden’s margin of victory.” (Hat tip: TPPF.)
  • Liberal elites can deride “replacement theory” all the want, but it sure seems to be a major concern in European nations.

    The rising star on the right is Eric Zemmour, who, writes The New York Times, “became one of France’s best-selling authors in the past decade by writing books on the nation’s decline — fueled, he said, by the loss of traditional French and Christian values, the immigration of Muslim Africans bent on a reverse colonization of France, the rise of feminism and the loss of virility, and a ‘great replacement’ of white people.”

    Zemmour is being called “the Donald Trump of France.” And he and Le Pen are now running third and second behind Macron in the polling to become the next president of France, which suggests the power of the issue on which they agree: uninvited and unwelcome Third-World migration.

    “You feel like a foreigner in your own country,” said Zemmour in his announcement speech Tuesday, declaiming, “We will not be replaced.”

    Neighboring Spain is gripped by the same concern. Refugees and migrants from the global south use Morocco as a base from which to breach the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the African coast.

    Spain has taken to pushing the intruders back into Morocco.

    Madrid has accused Rabat of using the migrants as a diplomatic weapon to extort changes in Spanish policy.

    Italy, whose native-born ethnic population has been in a steady decline, patrols the Mediterranean Sea to prevent migrants from Libya from reaching its shores.

    Drowning deaths are not uncommon. The Channel and the Mediterranean Sea are more formidable and unforgiving waters to cross than the Rio Grande.

    Greece is attempting to keep Turkey from moving refugees and migrants from Middle East wars onto the Greek islands off Turkey’s coast.

    Half a decade ago, Turkey was bought off with billions of euros to prevent the millions of Arab and Muslim refugees within its borders from crossing over into the EU.

    In the recent clash between Poland and Belarus, the weapon of choice for Alexander Lukashenko was — migrants.

    Brought into Belarus from the Mideast, they were moved to the Polish border, forcing Warsaw to deploy troops to keep thousands out of Poland. Lukashenko was exploiting the migrants to punish Poland and the EU for supporting sanctions on his regime.

    After Europe united against him, Lukashenko moved the migrants away from the border and sent many back to Syria and countries whence they came.

    In the hierarchy of European fears, the perceived threat to national identities that comes with mass migrations from the failed and failing states of the Third World appears to rank as a greater concern than the prospect of a Russian army driving toward the Rhine.

  • Speaking of refugees: Is “Kurdistan” in trouble? Lots of the refugees showing up on the Polish/Belarus border are Kurdish. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Don’t look now, but Twitter just suspended the account tracking the Ghislaine Maxwell trial.
  • “Tesla Officially Moves Headquarters From California to Texas.”
  • LA crime has gotten so bad that even Hollywood liberals are getting strapped. “‘Even hardcore leftist Democrats who said to me in the past, ‘I’ll never own a gun’ are calling me asking about firearms,’ said Joel Glucksman, a private security executive. “I’d say there has been an increase of 80 percent in the number of requests I’m getting this year.'” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Actual Hispanics hate the social justice neologism “Latinx.”

    Only 2 percent of those polled refer to themselves as Latinx, while 68 percent call themselves “Hispanic” and 21 percent favored “Latino” or “Latina” to describe their ethnic background, according to the survey from Bendixen & Amandi International, a top Democratic firm specializing in Latino outreach.

    More problematic for Democrats: 40 percent said Latinx bothers or offends them to some degree and 30 percent said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses the term.

  • Promoting FedStock, life imitates The Matrix.
  • Judge blocks de Blasio’s private employer mandate for New York City and Louis Rossmann goes on an epic rant, including how it would disproportionately fall on minorities. “You are coming up with a policy because de Blasio is such a stupid cuntrag that it actually turns the clock back 40 or 50 years.” Also: “I don’t know who the fuck would sign up to do this job. I’d expect to disappear if I were doing this job…I would expect to end up on the bottom of the East River.”
  • “Jussie Smollett Found Guilty of Staging Hoax Hate Crime.” Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end for the lucrative Hate Crime Hoax industry. (Previously.)
  • Heh:

  • Facebook admits that it’s “fact checks” are merely opinion.
  • If you parcel out your business It needs to multiple companies, but all of them rely on AWS (which had an outage Tuesday), you haven’t necessarily reduced your risk.
  • More on that AWS outage.

    The outage at Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud-computing arm left thousands of people in the U.S. without working fridges, roombas and doorbells, highlighting just how reliant people have become on the company as the Internet of Things proliferates across homes.

    The disruption, which began at about 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday, upended package deliveries, took down major streaming services, and prevented people from getting into Walt Disney Co.’s parks.

    Affected Amazon services included the voice assistant Alexa and Ring smart-doorbell unit. Irate device users tweeted their frustrations to Ring’s official account, with many complaining that they spent time rebooting or reinstalling their apps and devices before finding out on Twitter that there was a general Amazon Web Services outage. Multiple Ring users even said they weren’t able to get into their homes without access to the phone app, which was down.

    Others said they weren’t able to turn on their Christmas lights.

    This is why I don’t run “smart anything” or IoT devices in my house. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Let’s Go Brandon boat wins boat parade, until award is cancelled due to liberal tears.
  • Boom:

  • Boom 2:

  • “Unemployment Rate Among Cuomo Brothers Rises To 100%.”
  • Those are some epic zoomies.

  • Just Who Is Bankrolling The Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation?

    Wednesday, December 8th, 2021

    A few weeks ago there was Texas gubernatorial poll showing Beto O’Rourke running neck and neck with Greg Abbott. I took a deeper look to see how skewed the crosstabs were, but they don’t appear to have an actual numerical breakdown of Republican vs. Democratic voters. (The MSM loves oversampling Democrats for polls.)

    But then I got interested in just who was behind the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation.

    The news isn’t encouraging.

    Start at the top: The chairman is former Republican State Rep. Jason Villalba, who for a long time was a strong contender for “Least Conservative Republican in the House.” You may remember him from such hits as I Hate Photographers and Lawful Gun Owners and Lisa Luby Ryan Retired My Ass.

    Next up: Former Democratic State Senator Leticia Van De Putte, who you may remember getting slaughtered as Wendy Davis’ running mate.

    Regina Montoya was chairman of the board of the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF), a hard left Social justice group waging lawfare.

    None of these people fill me with confidence. Some of those involved (former Rick Perry-appointed Secretary of State Hope Andrade, and Greg Abbott-appointed Secretary of State Carlos Cascos) appear to be more ostensibly Republican, but their personal political views are unclear.

    Then there’s Dr. Mark Jones, Ph.D., the Rice academic who doesn’t appear to be Hispanic, but does appear to study “Latino electoral participation and representation in Texas.”

    But a bigger question: Who is underwriting the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation?

    But look here: They received $399,970 from none other than The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who are famous for supporting a grab-bag of leftwing globalist ideas:

    Gates believes that climate change is a major threat to humanity, and has focused major Foundation attention and money to the issue. He wrote a book which is set for publication in 2021 about climate change. He supports Common Core education standards and opposed the Trump administration’s Mexico City Policy, which prohibits federal funds from supporting organizations that advocate for abortions.

    Snip.

    Gates also criticized the Trump administration’s withdrawal of money from the World Health Organization after the international organization used misleading Chinese government data about the COVID-19 pandemic. He and Melinda wrote in 2018 that they support same-sex relationships and self-described gender definitions. Gates has held meetings with President Donald Trump, including one in 2018 to urge the president to support greater U.S. foreign aid. He also discussed vaccines, innovation, education, and other issues with Trump in another meeting.

    Gates is also supportive of the idea that Earth is overpopulated. He and Melinda responded in 2018 to the idea that by saving children’s lives in poor nations they are contributing to overpopulation. Gates’ father led a chapter of Planned Parenthood, and he has spoken well of the abortion group in addition to providing contraceptive and abortifacient funds to abortion groups internationally.

    In February 2021, during an interview on “60 Minutes,” Gates told Anderson Cooper that the world should reduce its carbon emissions to zero, saying it would be “the most amazing thing mankind has ever done.” Just a month earlier, Gates joined a bidding war to buy the world’s largest private jet company, despite private jets being some of the world’s greatest carbon emitters.

    More recently, Gates has been an outspoken Flu Manchu vaccine advocate. And, what do you know, two of THPF’s most recent press releases deal with vaccine policy polling.

    They also received a grant from the Meadows Foundation. Just what policies do they support?

  • Sustainable and efficient energy programs
  • Restoration and protection of plant and wildlife habitats
  • Public support for protecting environmental resources
  • Engagement of underrepresented populations in experiencing and protecting natural resources
  • Clean water and sound management strategies
  • Current and future climate change mitigation
  • In other words: Global warming, environmentalism and social justice. If I had to guess, the entire point of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation is using polling metrics to find better ways to sell Texas Hispanics on the sort of anti-conservative priorities favored by the Gates and Meadows foundations.

    While the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation claims to be “nonpartisan,” the funding behind it, and the people involved, don’t inspire a lot of confidence along those lines…

    Pumping The Brakes On That “Natural Democratic Majority”

    Monday, November 22nd, 2021

    We touched on this last month: For a long time, Democrats have boasted that immigration (legal and otherwise) would make them the “natural majority party” in short order. Well, looking at the results from the 2020 and 2021 elections, there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary.

  • Why immigrants might not support left-wing causes.

    For years, progressives have prophesied that a more culturally diverse America would be a more Democratic America, with a grand coalition of African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans teaming up with liberal whites to put the Republican Party on a path to extinction. If anyone could have summoned this coalition into being, through opposition, it was Donald Trump, the president who made hardline stances on issues like immigration a cornerstone of his politics. Yet Trump actually increased his share of the minority vote in 2020. One exit poll suggested that he had received the highest share of the black vote of any Republican over the past 20 years. The GOP expanded its support among Hispanics, too, to its highest level since 2004.

    Digging deep into neighborhood-level results, the New York Times unearthed some surprises. “Across the United States, many areas with large populations of Latinos and residents of Asian descent, including ones with the highest numbers of immigrants, had something in common this election: a surge in turnout and a shift to the right,” the paper noted. Much of this movement toward Trump occurred in heavily Hispanic communities in South Texas, many bordering Mexico. The liberal Democratic theory that a less-white America will be bluer politically appears less and less plausible. In fact, Joe Biden may owe his 2020 victory to shifts in the white vote.

    This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for the Republican Party and conservatives more broadly. The 2020 election results suggest that they can find support among some immigrant communities, but the GOP is also home to America’s immigration skeptics, who worry that progressives have judged the situation correctly—that as America grows more diverse, it will also become more socially and culturally liberal. But if the progressive narrative about immigrants and their political allegiance is flawed, then so, too, is the electoral basis for conservative skepticism about immigration.

    In 1996, California had one of the most contentious ballot-initiative fights in its history. Proposition 209 gave voters the choice to end the state’s system of racial preferences, used in the university system and elsewhere to extend opportunities to members of certain minority groups. The battle lines were clear: liberals overwhelmingly opposed Prop 209; conservatives supported it.

    Voters went on to approve Prop. 209, and a Los Angeles Times exit poll conducted that year showed that white votes made the difference. Majorities of every other ethnic group opposed the referendum.

    Last year, liberals organized to overturn Prop. 209 with Proposition 16, which would once again authorize the state explicitly to consider race in college admissions and public hiring. It’s easy to see why organizers were optimistic about their chances. For one, California was much more Democratic in 2020 than it was in 1996: Joe Biden won the state with 63 percent of the vote, compared with Bill Clinton’s 51 percent. The progressive narrative about demographic destiny provided even more reason for optimism. California was a majority-white state in 1996; by 2020, whites had become a minority, and Latinos a plurality, of residents.

    Prop. 16’s endorsers included virtually every top Democratic official in the state, including now-vice president Kamala Harris, as well as major corporations like Uber, Twitter, and Facebook. This was also the year of America’s great racial reckoning, when liberals everywhere were openly encouraging institutions to transfer opportunities—even for cartoon voice actors— from whites to nonwhites.

    Yet when the votes were counted, Prop. 16 had failed—and by a slightly larger margin than Prop. 209 succeeded in 1996 (57 percent in 2020 vs. just under 55 percent in 1996). California’s increased diversity had done nothing to improve the proposition’s chances. Even worse, polling conducted a few weeks before the vote suggested that just 37 percent of Latinos supported Prop. 16, only 3 percentage points higher than whites.

    Though Prop. 16 supporters raised small sums of money compared with other referendum fights, they outraised the measure’s opponents by more than 16 to 1. The opposition to Prop. 16 was made up of a ragtag group of grassroots activists. Many were immigrants who came to America because of its promise that hard work and ingenuity would determine their success, not the color of their skin. Take Ronald Fong, a California-based doctor who emigrated with his parents to the United States from Hong Kong in the 1960s. “The public school system actually was pretty decent,” he said of the United States. “And there was a great deal of trust [among] my parents that the school system would educate us. And for the most part they did fine. It really was that sort of, you know, ethics of hard work, and keeping your nose to the grindstone, good things would happen,” he explained.

    Over time, Asian-American immigrants like Fong came to believe that elite college admissions processes were designed to discriminate against them. They have sued institutions like Harvard, alleging that such schools are penalizing Asian applicants to balance student demographics. The campaign against Prop. 16 offered a chance to strike a blow against such a system.

    Though Fong didn’t have much political experience, he reached out to others who felt similarly, both inside and outside immigrant communities. They set out to mobilize opposition to Prop. 16. “We did YouTube videos, we did a lot of . . . literal and figurative door-knocking,” he explained. “We had home-made signs, we tried to do car rallies as much as we could. It was . . . a bake sale and car wash mentality and tenacity in terms of getting our message out.”

    Snip.

    In 2018, Gallup released a set of global surveys asking people whether they wanted to relocate permanently to another country. Of the more than 750 million people whom Gallup estimated would like to move, about one in five (21 percent) preferred the United States as a destination. The second-most popular country, Canada, was the chosen destination for 6 percent of respondents.

    This number may surprise Americans who get their views of global attitudes from cable news and social media, which often serve as the propaganda arms of the country’s oikophobic elite. But America’s immigrants take a different view. A 2019 Cato Institute study found that three out of four naturalized U.S. citizens said they were “very proud” to be American—higher than the 69 percent of native-born Americans who said the same. A higher percentage of immigrants also believed that “the world would be better if people in other countries were more like Americans” (39 percent of immigrants shared this view versus 29 percent of natives). Almost 70 percent of native-born Americans said they were “ashamed” of some aspects of America; only 39 percent of immigrants agreed. These differences also show within minority communities. Seventy-three percent of immigrant Muslims, for instance, told Pew they agreed that the “American people are friendly to Muslims,” compared with 30 percent of native-born Muslims who say the same.

    We can only speculate about why these differences exist, but it’s important to recognize that immigrants have something most native-born people don’t: a basis for comparison.

    My own parents came to this country from Pakistan in the 1970s. They described America to me as a country with some of the kindest, most welcoming people in the world. As a child, I had a hard time believing them. But the more I traveled abroad myself and studied global problems, the more I came to the same conclusion.

    Immigrants don’t come to the United States just because they like the people. They largely come here to work, and many are a living testament to the American Dream. As a group of academics showed in one 2019 working paper, “children of immigrants have higher rates of upward mobility than their U.S.-born peers.”

    There is, of course, a world of difference between assimilated, upwardly mobile legal immigrants and a permanent underclass of unassimilated illegal alien Mexican laborers, but it seems like Democrats fully expect the former to vote like the latter. And people who came to America for economic opportunity are really pissed off when you lock them out of earning a living for months on end.

  • Democrats desperately need to amnesty illegal aliens, because American Hispanics are getting tired of their bullshit.

    The Democratic Party has historically taken Latinos for granted, something that we just witnessed play out in several elections across the country. Driven by two main issues–education and public safety–Latinos are emerging as a significant voting bloc capable of flipping blue seats red and realigning either party in regard to platform and policy.

    In Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Clintonista Democrat Terry McAuliffe for governor. Youngkin ran on school choice, an issue dear to Latinos who understand that education is the key to prosperity and the middle class. A survey by AP VoteCast showed that black voters supported McAuliffe by nearly 8-to-1. Latino voters, on the other hand, appear to have favored Youngkin, who received 55 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared to only 43 percent supporting McAuliffe. If Latinos had voted in the same pattern as other minority voters, it would have guaranteed a Democratic victory. They didn’t, which does not portend well for the future of the Democratic Party, since President Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 percentage points a year earlier.

    So did Latinos leave the Democratic party, or did the Democratic party leave them?

    The Democrats have lurched left towards socialism, embracing values that vilify private property and individual rights. During Barack Obama’s 2008, 2012, and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaigns, Latinos were solidly Democratic voters, second only to African Americans in their loyalty. However, the Barack Obama that ran in 2008 and captured the hearts of Americans would be considered a right wing Republican by today’s standards.

    The Democratic Party and Latinos have changed over the past decade and now seem irreconcilable. This is especially worrisome to Democrats since Latinos are the largest of the fast-growing demographic groups in the nation, growing by 23 percent from 2010 to 2020. Latinos now account for 62.1 million or 18.7 percent of the U.S. population.

    Last year, the Biden-Harris ticket won a comfortable majority of Latinos across the country, but the administration’s poor handling of the border crisis directly impacts Latinos, and it is a serious mistake for anyone to believe that Latinos favor open borders. In fact, polls routinely demonstrate that helping illegal immigrants achieve legal status is of low concern to most American Latinos, who list jobs, education, housing, crime, and other such matters as of higher importance.

    In South Texas, which has long been seen as the gateway to the rest of the region, there have been signs that the Republican Party is making headway with Latinos. In the runoff for the 118th Texas House district, which includes San Antonino–a majority 73% Hispanic city–Republican John Lujan eked out an upset win against Democrat Frank Ramirez by 300 votes. Lujan is a veteran firefighter and former Bexar County sheriff’s deputy, and ran on a platform promising to fight efforts to “defund the police.” Democratic also-ran Robert “Beto” O’Rourke campaigned heavily for Ramirez, claiming that the nation is “watching and paying attention about what happens here, because national Republicans are saying this is a stepping stone to … South Texas.” He’s probably eating his words now.

    It should be noted that O’Rourke—a white man of Irish descent who was given the nickname “Beto” as a child initially to distinguish him from his namesake grandfather—is not Latino.

    And speaking of Beto and Texas…

  • Maybe Texas Democrats shouldn’t make such a show of proclaiming how they’re the party that represents Hispanic citizens if they’re unwilling to run and elect any of them statewide.

    For decades, Texas Democrats have banked on the growth of voters of color*, particularly Black and Latino voters, as the key to their eventual success in a state long dominated by Republicans.

    But with less than a month left for candidates to file for statewide office in the 2022 elections, some in the party worry Democrats could see their appeal with those constituencies threatened by a Republican Party that is rapidly diversifying its own candidate pool.

    The GOP slate for statewide office includes two high-profile Latinos: Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who are both running for attorney general.

    I bet it really sticks in the craw of Texas Democrats that a Bush is Hispanic and Beto isn’t.

    It also includes two Black candidates who have previously held state or federal office: former Florida congressman Allen West and state Rep. James White, who are running for governor and agriculture commissioner, respectively.

    By contrast, the Democrats’ most formidable candidates are white — Beto O’Rourke, who is running for governor, and Mike Collier, Matthew Dowd and Michelle Beckley, who are running for lieutenant governor.

    They then list some Democratic Party minority candidates. If I every do a roundup on the Attorney General’s race we’ll cover them, but none of the people they mention look like they have a chance.

    In MSM pieces on Democrats, it always seem to be the “messaging” that’s the problem, not the fact that their ideas are unpopular:

    [Political scientist Sharon] Navarro said Democrats will have to perfect their messaging on this point to be successful, not simply rely on voters of color to side with them. Earlier this month, Republicans in Virginia flipped the major statewide offices by making the election about wedge issues like so-called critical race theory and forcing Democrats on the defensive. Texas Republicans could do the same on issues like border and election security.

    “So-called” Critical Race Theory. As always, the Democratic Media Complex idea that they can warp the fabric of reality by insisting that only SJW-approved words can be used to frame the debate is another reason why they lose.

    “Republicans have a better understanding of how to create the message and how to flip it for the audience,” Navarro said.

    Jean Card, a Republican political analyst, said that strategy paid off in Virginia, where the GOP elected Winsome Sears, a Jamaican-born Black woman, as lieutenant governor and Jason Miyares, the son of a Cuban immigrant, as the state’s first Latino attorney general.

    “What we saw here was policy over personality,” Card said. “That’s why they were so effective as candidates.”

    (Hat tip: TPPF’s Cannon.)

    Also, Republicans can actually address issues without worrying that telling the truth will offend some intersectional Democratic Party faction.

    And truth is always a powerful weapon.


    *”Voters of color” and “people of color” are both politically correct catchphrases intended to paper over the vast difference between different groups. These phrases essentially mean “minorities that should be voting for Democrats” and, as such, their use should be avoided. And it seems that an awful lot of Democrats recently decided that Asians are secretly white people…