Posts Tagged ‘Illegal Aliens’

NYC’s Illegal Alien Debit Card Scam

Sunday, March 10th, 2024

There’s a scam sweeping New York City. And by “New York City,” I mean “the New York City mayor’s office.” Instead of feeding the illegal aliens New York has lured there as a “sanctuary city,” Eric Adams has decided to just hand out preloaded debit cards.

These are theoretically to replace buying food for them. Theoretically.

Handing out free money to illegal aliens paid for with citizen taxpayer dollars is unconscionable enough.

But let me ask the obvious question that no one seems to be asking: How do we know these debit cards will actually be handed out to illegal aliens? How do we know it won’t just be handed out to friends of Eric Adams, leftwing activists, etc.? At least with real food there are receipts. I’m betting there is not a rigorous, auditable, traceable system where the illegal aliens are required to show ID and sign off on receiving the cards.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that no two-factor authentication is going on here. Being cash-equivalent debit cards, I’m also guessing there’s no way to keep them from being used in liquor stores.

Here Adams is declaring there he’s going to start handing the 21st century equivalent of “walking around money” and we just have to trust him when he says its going to the illegal aliens so they can buy food.

Yet another reason Democrats love illegal aliens is that, like the homeless, they have no support network to speak up for them when welfare state goodies get diverted into the pockets of leftwing activists.

Chinese Border Invasion In Progress?

Monday, February 19th, 2024

Back in December, Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned about an “invasion” of Chinese nationals at the border.

Gov. Greg Abbott is highlighting recent numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that show a record-breaking number of Chinese nationals encountered at the southwest border.

According to the latest numbers released, border patrol agents encountered 4,261 Chinese nationals in October—a massive increase from the 430 encounters in October 2022.

The increase in illegal aliens attempting to cross the southwest border has caused Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to take several measures to secure Texas’ southern border.

Abbott spoke to Fox News, explaining how the crisis at the southern border has become an “existential threat” to the United States.

It is extraordinarily dangerous because, first of all, as you point out, we have people from China coming here. We also have people on the known terrorist watch list who are coming across the border. And so there’s extraordinary dangers, calls to our country by Biden’s open border policies. And obviously, Biden is doing nothing about it. And that’s why Texas has to step up and apprehend as many of these people as possible to make sure that they’re not posing a threat to our country.

Abbott’s not the only one. On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Bret Weinstein talked about traveling to Panama to see illegal alien migration problem firsthand, and came away with some disturbing information.

  • “There is a migration of Chinese immigrants that looks different, feels different, and is being housed in a totally separate way in Darien for reasons that are not in any way obvious.”
  • “Now I don’t know exactly what to make of that. I have hypotheses there are no more than that. But the Chinese migration is not forthcoming about why it is migrating. It is composed mostly of young military-aged men. There are some women present, but it’s not 50/50 by far.”
  • “The international community has arranged separate encampments. The Chinese are in many cases traveling a separate way across the Darien Gap. They’re skipping some of the worst parts of it traveling by boat.”
  • “When asked where they’re from, where they’re going, why they’re going, they are uninterested in talking. There’s a hostility to it that I found shocking.”
  • “[If they] didn’t like the way things were in China, they feared their government, they thought that there was economic opportunity, they would be curious about Americans. These are soon to be their countrymen. They would tend to be interested in talking. And even if they, for some reason, because they had lived under a totalitarian regime, felt that they couldn’t talk, they wouldn’t be broadcasting hostility, they would be ambivalent or something.”
  • “That is not the impression that they leave when interacting with them, so I found that utterly alarming.”
  • “I wonder if the [larger migration] is a cloak for this other migration from China, which is nothing if not mysterious. Why are they letting it happen? Why do you think the government is allowing the border to be so porous, and why are they resisting when Texas tries to do something about it?”
  • “Before I went to to Panama, I thought there was a migration of people. Now I think there are two. One of them’s clearly a migration, and the other one could well be an invasion.”
  • “The belief amongst many who have been on the story of the migration for years now is that this is a ploy to create voters, Democratic voters, and I don’t think that’s impossible. I think that’s probably playing a role.”
  • He also brings up the possibility some of have floated to trade military service for citizenship as a way to lessen the army’s resistance to illegal orders. “If you wanted a force that was capable of acting on behalf of tyranny against Americans, then a force that doesn’t have a deep history with the rights of being an American, that doesn’t have a long-standing allegiance to people within the country, that force would be potentially more compliant.”
  • Pre-Flu Manchu, all this would have seemed like paranoid conspiracy theories. But after the lockdowns, the Antifa riots, and the continued government insistence that the warm yellow substance they were distributing on our pants was rain, I have to admit the idea is a lot more plausible than I would have previously considered. And until the social justice warriors ran amok at Evergreen College, Weinstein considered himself a Democrat.

    Someone is importing Chinese national illegal aliens into the United States, for some reason. The only question is who and why.

    Debunking The “700,000 Truckers To Texas” Story

    Monday, January 29th, 2024

    Sometimes a story comes along that’s so ludicrous that you rush to debunk it. Such as with the “700,000 truckers are descending on the Texas border to protest Biden’s refusal to halt the flood of illegal aliens” story.

    EAGLE PASS, Texas (TND) — A convoy seeks to line the southern border with more than 700,000 vehicles and hold several rallies next week to demand action from the Biden administration.

    The Take Our Border Back Southern Border Convoy will span from Virginia Beach, Va. to San Diego, Calif. and hold protests urging officials to enforce the Constitution’s amendments and halt human and drug trafficking across the border from Jan.29-Feb. 3.

    Fellow citizens and compatriots … I call on you in the name of liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character to come to our aid with all dispatch,” Pete Chambers, one of the coalition’s commanders, wrote. “If this call is neglected, we are determined to sustain ourselves as long as possible and act like soldiers who never forget what is due to our own honor and that of our country.”

    The convoy aims to “send a message” to local, state and federal officials and law enforcement that they need to close the border and deport all illegal immigrants in its plan to “shine a spotlight” on open borders. Chambers claims Americans are “besieged on all sides” by evil “dark forces.”

    “We have sustained continual bombardments of tyranny and have maintained our honor, prestige and esprit de corps,” Chambers asserted. “The enemy has demanded the surrender of Lady Liberty and her children. Tyrannical actors have tortured and oppressed without cause, without mercy and without reprieve.”

    This is a bad idea and a silly story. Before we get to the ideological reasons, let’s explicate a much more basic one: Math.

    Since there are three routes, let’s divide that 700,000 into three, which gives us 233,333 each going to Eagle Pass, Texas, Yuma, Arizona and one from California to Yuma (all details from their website).

    They say that not just 18-wheelers, but cars, campers, etc. are welcome. So let’s use the average car length of 14.7 feet (rather than an average 18-wheeler length of 70 feet) just to be on the conservative side. There are 5,280 feet to a mile. That yields 359 cars per mile.

    That’s 649 miles of cars per convoy.

    But wait! It gets worse! According to their route, they are taking 290 through Dripping Springs, Texas on their way to Eagle Pass. 290 is a four-lane state highway (two lanes each way). Dripping (as the locals call it) is a small town of just under 5,000 people that used to be way the hell out in the country and is now in the Austin exurbs.

    In April of last year, I went through Dripping on the way to and from a dog rescue event. They were having their Founder’s Day Festival, which they say draws “thousands,” and traffic on 290 slowed to a crawl.

    I think there are seven stoplights in Dripping proper, and much more between it and Austin, between Austin and Manor, Manor and Elgin, etc.

    There’s no way 649 miles of cars and trucks are passing Dripping in one day. It’s probably pushing it to expect one week.

    By contrast, the Canadian trucker protests (for reasons very immediately concerning the truckers themselves) may have had 2,000 trucks join. Even that many would tie up Dripping for several hours.

    This is evidently the guy behind it, who I’ve never heard of before:

    The Infowars watermark doesn’t give me much confidence.

    This is all before we ask why would truckers even go to the border in the first place. To make a wall that illegal aliens could just duck under between your tires? To be seen on TV? Neither are good reasons to massively inconvenience ordinary Texans who are already suffering the worst under Biden’s failure to secure the border.

    I’m not sure if this is a false flag or some puffed up idea of a local gadfly. The 700,000 is an impossibility, and I would expect the actual turnout to be a tiny handful. (They might expect the same, which is why the Dripping rallying point is an HEB parking lot.)

    If you wanted to do something equally stupid and counterproductive, but at least have the satisfaction of irritating the actual targets of your ire, a rolling roadblock of the Beltway and all the arteries into and out of D.C. for days on in, blowing your horns like they did in Canada, that would at least piss off the people responsible…

    The Illegal Alien Bus War

    Thursday, January 11th, 2024

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s strategy of bussing illegal aliens to sanctuary cities is having its desired effect, namely sharing the pain of the Biden Administration’s refusal to enforce border controls with the blue cities that encourage such behavior.

  • By declaring themselves a “sanctuary city,” New York brought this catastrophe on themselves. Here’s New York’s Democratic governor Kathy Hochul rhapsodizing about all those “benefits” illegal aliens would bring New York City:

    As you know, the Statue of Liberty is inscribed. It says “Give me your tired, you’re poor, your huddled young [sic] masses yearning to be [sic] free/The wretched refuse to [sic] a teeming shore.” That statement encapsulizes our values. We want people to come here, despite where they came from from, where despite the circumstances that drove them to this country, into this state, we see, say, you are welcome here. We are welcome with open arms, and we’ll work to keep you safe. We’ll not only house you, but we’ll protect you. And the richness of the culture and the diversity and the food and the restaurants that we know are going to be coming, uh, because of these efforts are, are are beyond measure. It’s just, it’s an extraordinary part of our story and it’s woven into the story of New York and it makes us more vibrant.

    That “vibrant” includes higher crime rates, soaring budgets and kicking Americans out of their schools and dwellings to make room for the illegal aliens Democrats are desperate to flood the country with. And since when did anyone, illegal alien or otherwise, have a right to free housing at the taxpayer’s expense?

  • So too says New York City Democratic mayor Eric Adams: “New York City is the welcoming mat for the entire globe.”
  • Nate the Lawyer: “So the city of New York wanted migrants? Texas and Arizona sent them migrants.”
  • Abbott: “It was just Texas and Arizona that bore the brunt of all of the chaos, and all the problems that come with it. Now the rest of America is understanding exactly what is going on.”
  • Nate the Lawyer: “So we’re all on the same page. New York: ‘We love migrants, we want migrants, we need migrants.’ Texas and Arizona: ‘We have millions of migrants, we’ll send them to you, then, since you want the migrants.’ And now all hell is broken loose in New York and they don’t want the migrants anymore.”
  • Adams has declared a state of emergency, saying the city is burning through $1 billion this fiscal year on illegal aliens, leaving no funding for other issues.”
  • Adams: “If these Trends continue we will be over 100,000 in the year.” Aw, you didn’t seem worried about millions flooding into Texas, but 100,000 arrive in the city you welcomed them into and it’s the end times.
  • Adams: “This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City.” Then shouldn’t you repeal the sanctuary city law?
  • Now Hochul is saying don’t come to New York City.
  • Nate the Lawyer: “New York City has decided to pass laws and regulations to close its own border to stop migrant buses from coming into the city and even going as far as to sue the bus companies to stop them from bringing migrants into the city.”
  • “Why is it good enough for New York to close their, border but not good enough for the country to close their border? It’s almost like they’re saying ‘We’re okay with the migrants coming into the country and being someone else’s problem but they can’t come to New York.” That’s exactly what they’re saying: “Illegal alien costs for thee, but not for me.”
  • Some weather discussion snipped.
  • They pushed illegal aliens into a school for shelter and sent the kids home. “That has a lot of parents fighting mad.”
  • Without schools as babysitters, parents have to stay home.
  • “Migrants are literally killing each other to stay in the shelters.”
  • “The immigration system is is destroyed it’s messed up, and I am extremely happy that the liberals in the Northeast are experiencing the fruits of their labor…They begged for migrants, they wanted migrants, and it was all great to have an open border policy when you didn’t have to pay for it. Now they have to pay for it.”
  • As previously reported, there are long dates for court waits for “asylum seekers.”
  • “I think that more and more and more migrants should go to New York, and then hopefully the Democrats will realize that, hey, just allowing millions of people to come across the border isn’t really a great idea, because we can’t take care of it.”
  • “And I also want to hammer home the point that it was all great when it was someone else’s problem, but it’s horror show, it’s a state of emergency, it’s immoral when it’s their problem.”
  • Indeed.

    LinkSwarm For January 5, 2024

    Friday, January 5th, 2024

    Happy New Year, everyone! The Biden Recession bites deeper, Israel dirtnaps a top terrorist, Harvard’s chief plagiarist finally steps down, and the crypto CEO who wasn’t there. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    

  • Once again, the new job numbers are horrible.

    The monthly nonfarm payrolls (from the Establishment Survey) may have been weak at 216K but the far more accurate Household Survey showed that the number of Employed workers actually collapsed by an unprecedented 683K, the biggest drop since the US economy was shutdown by covid!

    Even scarier, while the monthly grind higher in the payrolls number (pulled from the far less accurate Establishment Survey) means that US jobs hit a record high every month with bizarre consistency and in December this was certainly the case, the total nonfarm employment number rose to an all time high 157.232 million, the abovementioned collapse in US Employment (per Household survey) meant that there were only 161.183 million employed people in the US, the lowest since June, with the now traditional divergence between these two surveys glaringly obvious.

  • Israel takes out senior Hamas leader in Beirut.

    A senior Hamas leader was killed Tuesday in a drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon, during a meeting between Palestinian factions at a Hamas office.

    Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau and commander of the terror group’s military wing in the West Bank, and at least five others died from the explosion, which occurred near Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut, Lebanese state media reported. Several more were injured. Following the blast, Hamas blamed Israel for the “Zionist raid” amid its ongoing war with the Jewish state. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike.

    Many Israeli officials declined to comment. However, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich posted a statement on X shortly after the attack: “Surely your enemies will perish, O Israel.”

    In November, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated he ordered the nation’s Mossad spy agency to eliminate Hamas leaders around the world after the militant group’s coordinated October 7 attack. Netanyahu’s office also declined to comment about the explosion.

    Al-Arouri, whom Hamas described as “one of the architects” of the terror attack on Israel, had close ties with Yahwa Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza. Al-Arouri is the most senior Hamas leader to have been killed since the war began in early October.

  • Supreme Court to take up Trump’s Colorado ballot case.
  • A good chunk of the Epstein files have finally been released. Some revelations: Bill Clinton “likes them young” and Donald Trump didn’t have sex with at least one girl who was asked under oath about it.
  • Harvard President Claudine Gay finally does the right thing and resigns in wake of burgeoning plagiarism scandal.
  • A three act farce: Act 1: “Ohio governor Mike DeWine (R.) on Friday vetoed a bill that would have banned both transgender procedures for minors and trans student-athlete participation in school sports in the state.” Act 2: Turns out DeWine has taken taken over $40,000 in donations from pro-child-genital-mutilation hospitals. Act 3: “Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine issued an “emergency” executive order Friday banning child gender-transition surgeries after receiving intense backlash last week for vetoing a bill with a broader but similar mandate.” Ohio’s Republican legislature can and should override DeWine’s foolish veto.
  • “President of Illinois NAACP suspended after saying migrants are ‘savages who are ‘raping people, breaking into homes.'” Speaking the truth is now crime
  • Border Protection Officer Charged with Human Smuggling. Emanuel Celedon is also charged with bribery and drug trafficking.”
  • Robert F. Kennedy, jr. qualifies for the presidential ballot in Utah.

    Last month, American Values 2024, a super PAC supporting the third-party candidate, announced a plan to spend nearly $15 million to get Kennedy on the ballot in ten states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas. All are important to winning the 2024 race.

    I don’t see RFK Jr. doing even as well in Utah as Egg McMuffin did in 2016, and of the other states, only Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Nevada might have any effect on the election, all four of which went (however fraudulently) for Biden in 2020.

  • Harris County Criminal Court Judge Arrested for Domestic Violence on New Year’s Eve. Harris County Judge Frank Aguilar is alleged to have assaulted and impeded the breathing of a female victim.” Aguilar is, of course, a Democrat.
  • “Louisiana sporting goods employees fired for chasing shoplifter who stole gun.” Get bent, Academy. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Crypto hedge fund CEO may not have actually existed. That’s some mighty fine vetting there, investors…
  • Ricky Gervais has a great idea: He and Dave Chappelle should co-host the Oscars. That would indeed be a smash ratings success, and I would watch the Oscars for the first time this century.
  • New commie gaming regulations lop $80 billion off Chinese video game company values.
  • TGIFriday’s just closed 36 locations in 12 states, including four in Texas. Thanks, Joe Biden.
  • Plus for Sephora “Body Butter”: Smoother skin. Minus: Attracts Spiders.
  • Mythbuster‘s Adam Savage keeps buying replica torturer baby masks from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Also, he watched it once a day, every day, for six months while working at a movie theater. Which explains a lot.
  • “Texas Agrees To Two-State Solution With Austin.”

    This is the only way for us to live in peace,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbot. “The citizens of Austin have been at war with the people of Texas for many years now, and to end the bloodshed for future generations, we are willing to recognize Austin as its own separate and sovereign land.”

    The resolution brought much-needed relief to the war-torn area, where battle lines had been drawn along the border of Austin. “The weirdo hipsters of Austin can stand down now,” said Texas Senator Ted Cruz in a statement acknowledging the resolution. “The people of Austin can now stop patrolling the perimeter of the city in armored tanks and go back to driving electric vehicles, painting strange murals nobody understands, and hating everything the United States stands for.”

  • “Detroit Pistons relegated to the WNBA.”
  • Bluehost is dog slow today, so I should wrap this up.

    Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Italy’s Meloni Cuts The Baloney

    Sunday, December 17th, 2023

    When Giorgia Meloni of the conservative Brothers of Italy was elected head of Italy’s coalition government, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual Eurolefty sorts and their media cheering corner about how radical, populist, etc. etc. she was. Plus the usual accusations of fascism, due Brothers of Italy having a bit of that DNA from one of the party’s it joined with being the successor party to the successor party of Il Duce. (It’s Italy. You can’t really tell all the twists and turns of party lineage without a dense color-coded flow chart.)

    Wait, you can’t tell it with one, either.

    But Meloni has generally governed as a fairly stand-issue slightly rightist leader by European standards. But recently she’s been saying and doing things that show she has a bit more starch than the usual Euroweenie leader.

    First up: She announced that Italy’s pulling out of China’s debt-trap Belt-And-Road circus.

    Italy will pull out of China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the government has confirmed.

    Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration notified Beijing that it would cease participating in the BRI ahead of a deadline at the year’s end.

    Italy was the only major Western nation to sign up to the BRI, one of China’s most ambitious trade and infrastructure projects, in 2019.

    The move was heavily criticised by the US and others at the time.

    Launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI aims to invest an estimated $1tn (£794bn; €925bn) across Asia and Europe. Projects including new and upgraded railways and ports aim to connect China with Europe and other parts of Asia.

    Snip.

    Only a fraction of the up to €20bn worth of investment in Italy promised by Mr Xi in 2019 has materialised.

    Italian exports to China were worth €16.4bn last year, compared to €13bn in 2019.

    By contrast, Chinese exports to Italy rose to €57.5bn from €31.7bn over the same period.

    The bill benefited China a lot more than Italy. Indeed, Chinese investment in Italy actually dropped after signing the Belt and Road agreement, from $650 million in 2019 to just $33 million in 2021. (I suspect Flu Manchu had a lot to do with that, but, well, that was China’s fault too.)

    Now Meloni has come out and stated that Islam is incompatible with Italy’s values.

    Giorgia Meloni said, “In Europe there is a very Islamization process distant from the values ​​of our civilization!”

    Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni scoffed at Islamic culture and said that there is no place for it in Europe. “I believe that there is a problem of compatibility between Islamic culture and the values ​​and rights of our civilization,” she said.

    The premier added, “The Islamic cultural centers in Italy are financed by Saudi Arabia where Sharia is in force. In Europe there is a very Islamization process distant from the values ​​of our civilization!

    The comments come after the Italian prime minister hosted a political festival organised by her far-right party- the Brothers of Italy- in Rome which was attended by British prime minister Rishi Sunak. In his speech, Rishi Sunak said that he would push for global reforms to the asylum system while warning that the threat of growing number of refugees could “overwhelm” parts of Europe.

    A whole lot of people in Europe are thinking the same thing, but few have stated it as bluntly as Meloni, and virtually none among EU country Prime Ministers. (Though Hungary’s Viktor Orban has come closest.)

    Despite the Russo-Ukrainian War and the growing recession, unlimited Islamic immigration into traditionally Christian European countries is the hot-button topic European elites have been desperate to avoid talking about, and the one in which governing elite groupthink seems farthest away from the actual will of the people.

    Expect it to continue to be a hot topic as long as European leaders continue to ignore the consensus among citizens of EU nations that they don’t want Muslim illegal aliens coming to their country.

    LinkSwarm for December 1, 2023

    Friday, December 1st, 2023

    Congratulations! You’ve successfully made it to the last month of 2023! Give yourself a cookie!

    I’ve spent most of today getting my latest book catalog ready to send out, so I’m probably going to have to break this LinkSwarm into two parts. This part: More Biden corrupton evidence, Big Brother wants all your tweets, Jihadi gets stabby in Ireland, and a couple of fairly notable political deaths.

  • “Bank Investigator Flagged ‘Unusual’ Chinese Payments behind $40k Check to Biden, Raised Possibility of Influence Peddling.” Ya think?

    A bank money-laundering investigator expressed serious concerns about a transfer of funds from China that ultimately trickled down to President Biden in the form of a $40,000 check from his brother, James Biden, according to an email obtained by the House

    Biden received a $40,000 personal check from an account shared by his brother, James Biden, and sister-in-law, Sara Biden, in September 2017 — money that was marked as a “loan repayment.” The alleged repayment was sent after funds were filtered from Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with the Chinese energy firm CEFC, through several accounts related to Hunter Biden and eventually down to the personal account shared by James and Sara Biden.

    Northern International Capital sent $5 million to Hudson West III, a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong on August 8.

    On the same day, Hudson West III then sent $400,000 to Owasco, P.C., an entity owned and controlled by Hunter Biden. Six days later, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by James and Sara Biden. Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group on August 28 and then deposited the funds into her and her husband’s personal checking account later that day.

    On September 3, 2017, Sara Biden wrote a check to Joe Biden for $40,000.

    We all know that if Trump did something remotely close to this, he’d already be in prison.

  • Hamas Violates Cease-Fire, Israel Resumes Airstrikes in Gaza.” This is my shocked face.
  • Big Brother says that all your tweets are belong to us.

    Special Counsel Jack Smith demanded information on Twitter users who liked or retweeted former President Donald Trump’s tweets leading up to the January 6 riot, according to a heavily redacted search warrant and other documents released Monday.

    Smith’s comprehensive search warrant sought the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner’s search history, direct messages, and “content of all tweets created, drafted, favorited/liked, or retweeted” by his account from October 2020 to January 2021.

    The special counsel also demanded a list of all devices used to log into Trump’s then-Twitter, now X account, as well as information on users who interacted with the then-president in the months leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, the court filings show.

    Among the information Smith sought were lists of all Twitter users who “favorited or retweeted” Trump’s tweets, “as well as all tweets that include the username associated with the account” in “mentions” or “replies.”

    The special counsel also requested a list of every user Trump “followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” and a list of users who took any of the same actions with Trump’s account during the aforementioned timeframe.

    “There is no benign or reasonable justification for that demand,” wrote former FBI agent/whistleblower Steve Friend on X.

  • “Patrick Wojahn, a well-known LGBTQ activist and friend of key people in the Joe Biden administration, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday. Wojahn pleaded guilty to 140 charges related to child pornography as part of a deal struck with prosecutors.”
  • Henry Kissinger dead at 100.

    Henry Kissinger, the legendary diplomat who played a central role in advising Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford on foreign policy, died at his home in Connecticut late Wednesday at age 100.

    Kissinger was the only person to simultaneously be secretary of state and hold the position of White House national-security adviser. In 1973, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Le Duc Tho for their work in brokering the 1973 Paris Agreement ending America’s involvement in Vietnam.

    Kissinger was born in Germany in 1923. Three months before Kristallnacht, his family fled, bound for New York City. Kissinger served in the Army during World War II and was assigned to the 84 Infantry Division, voluntarily staying behind at the Battle of the Bulge to reportedly conduct “hazardous counter-intelligence duties” while also “making good use of his German.”

    Kissinger was a key Cold War figure as Secretary of State, and one who doesn’t deserve all of the extensive condemnation he receives (for different reasons) from left and right, nor the hosannas of praise he received from the mainstream media during is heyday. The instantly betrayed peace treaty with North Vietnam (the won he won the Nobel Peace Prize for) was shameful, but LBJ’s incompetence and Washington elite failure of nerve probably doomed South Vietnam before Kissinger even got to the negotiating table. The opening to China was a brilliant move to counter the Soviet Union at the time, and helped usher in a brief period of economic and political liberalization that has now been almost completely undone. SALT1 and the ABM treaties were violated by the Soviet Union before the ink was even dry.

    Kissinger was at his best down deep in the intricacies of face-to-face diplomacy, and played a key role in negotiating details after the Yom Kippur War. Indeed, Kissinger’s goal of stabilizing the Middle East (at least as far as preventing another major Arab-Israeli War) was met.

    Kissinger was ultimately wrong for favoring detente over rollback, but that preference was also emblematic of the Washington foreign policy establishment of the time, and it would take Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 to set America on the right course (and the Soviet Union to the dust-heap of history).

  • Sandra Day O’Connor dead at 93. Eh, she wasn’t the worst Republican appointee to the Supreme Court.
  • Irish riot over illegal alien stabbing spree against children. Rioting is bad, mmkay, but Irish citizens, like those across the rest of the EU, are tired of the enforced consensus for allowing unassimilable Islamic immigrants to cross the border and immediately apply for the welfare rolls.
  • History made as the Irish riot while sober.
  • “Ireland Declares Asking An Immigrant To Stop Stabbing You A Hate Crime.”
  • Not just Ireland. “‘We are here to stab white people’: Teen killed, 16 others wounded in French village after migrant gang reportedly descends on winter ball.”
  • High prices and “lot rot” are doing CarMax in. Not to mention the Biden recession…
  • More of that voting fraud that doesn’t exist. “Virginia Election Official ‘Altered Election Results’ in 2020.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • I just must not be paying attention, because I missed I missed the return of former UK PM David Cameron as foreign secretary a few weeks ago. Eh, you do get a lot of reruns this time of year…
  • “Disney got Microsoft to change its AI image generator because people were making too many savage Pixar-style posters.”
  • Examples, some of which are very not safe for work:

  • Speaking of AI, Sports Illustrated has evidently been caught using it rather than hiring competent sportswriters.
  • Critical Drinker is not too impressed with Napoleon.
  • “Biden Airdrops Humanitarian Resupply Of Hostages Into Gaza.”
  • Are Chicago Citizens Tired Of Ranking Lower On Democratic Party Priorities Than Illegal Aliens?

    Thursday, October 19th, 2023

    Have Chicago residents finally had enough of rankling lower on the totem pole than the illegal aliens that seem a top priority of the Democratic Party?

    “You want to take the little scraps of resources that we have and put us at the bottom of the bar? That’s not fair!”

  • “Illinois warns to prepare for up to 25 buses of migrants a day as state pleads for help from the federal government. And now the good people of the city of Chicago have had enough.”
  • “Now the good people of the city of Chicago have had enough and said this needs to stop, and these woke policies of open borders and ‘we want to be a sanctuary city’ needs to end.”
  • Illinois is one 11 states that have declared themselves a “sanctuary state,” i.e. they passed laws prohibiting some forms of cooperation with ICE and won’t hold the fact that they’re illegal aliens against them when doling out government welfare state goodies.
  • Under Lori Lightfoot, the city would actually interfere with ICE conducting raids.
  • Other Democrats, like Senator Dick Durbin, were all on-board with the pro-illegal alien agenda.
  • “Now, because of Chicago’s love of immigrants and welcoming nature, Texas was like ‘Well, hey, if the immigrants are coming here and you guys want the immigrants and we don’t want them, let’s just send them to you. You guys can obviously take care of the millions and millions of immigrants coming across the border.’ So they started bussing immigrants to Chicago.”
  • Naturally Lightfoot called Abbott’s bussing strategy “racist” and “Xenophobic.”
  • “Guess what’s going on in Chicago now? Well, it’s turned into a quote unquote migrant crisis, and now the governor is asking the federal government to step in and ‘Stop! We have too many! We have too many! It was okay when it was going on in Texas, but it’s going on in Illinois and we need money, resources, and the border to be closed!'”
  • “The governor directly asked President Biden to intervene in the border busing program that has brought thousands of migrants to Chicago. He went on to call the situation ‘untenable’ and again asked for expedited work authorizations. He said the state is struggling to find more housing for the migrants as tensions rise throughout the city.”
  • “In Chicago, you have poor black and brown people who are American citizens, and they needed help and weren’t getting the help from the city. But now the city all of a sudden can spend tens of millions of dollars on illegal immigrants coming to the city to shelter them, house them, feed them and clothe them. So the city residents are like ‘What the hell, bro? What about us? We’ve already been here! This is ridiculous!'”
  • “The Southside has been underresourced, underfunded for years for decades. We have schools that need to be reopened, we have buildings that are abandoned that need to be business operated.” Yet I’m willing to be that during those years and decades of underfunding, you and your friends kept pulling that “D” lever no matter what. And Democrats know you’re not going to stop voting for them, so why should they work to solve your problems when they know they’ll get your vote anyway?
  • “The true kicker here is because people who live in Chicago who are poor who don’t have those resources are wondering ‘Well, hell, when I’m homeless here in Chicago, they weren’t building new tent cities for me, they weren’t putting me in hotels.’ It was kind of like well, be damned good luck to you, but now you get somebody coming from Venezuela, now we’re opening up the pocketbook for them?”
  • “The people of Chicago seem to be finally waking up. But we’ll only see when there’s the next election because, are they going to vote for this mayor? Are they going to vote for this city council? Because those are the people who are screwing them.”
  • Of course those are the people who are screwing them. And of course they’re going to vote for them again. Their entire focus seems to be “Other people are getting goodies from the government, and I want those goodies!” Not: “How can I make safer communities for private enterprise to invest in and provide jobs?”

    Those people will never stop voting for Democrats. And Democrats know it. So they have no incentive to dispense crumbs from their graft machine when there are new victimhood identity politics groups to pander to.

    LinkSwarm for October 13, 2023

    Friday, October 13th, 2023

    Bad news: Still unemployed. Good news: Applied/submitted for lots of jobs.

    Good news: My dog’s operation was a success! Bad news: The lump was cancerous. Good news: The cancer was a Stage 1 soft tissue melanoma, which is the lowest level and has little chance of recurrence.

    Also: Today is Friday the 13th. Also, a Hamas leader has declared a “Day of Jihad.

    Good times, good times.

  • Hunter Biden is the gift that keeps giving. “Hunter Biden Raided Daughter’s College Fund For $20,000 To Buy Hookers And Drugs.”

    At the time, Maisy, now 22, was in her final year of high school. She and her two older sisters, along with Joe Biden and First Lady Jill, had tried to stage an intervention just weeks earlier at the President’s Delaware home to get Hunter to go back to rehab.

    He promised to go, but instead ended up smoking crack in a hotel, he confessed in his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things.

    Emails and messages from his laptop show money he took from Maisy’s educational savings account went in part to paying various suspected prostitutes who visited him at hotels in the following days, his Porsche 911 car loan, sex webcam subscription fees, and other personal expenses.

    Hunter’s assistant Katie Dodge plaintively emailed him on December 28 that year that he had University of Pennsylvania tuition bills of $27,945 due (likely for his eldest daughter, Naomi), a $1,700 payment for his Porsche, $4,244.70 for Maisy’s high school Sidwell Friends, her $3,000 paycheck and $1,000 for another employee.

    Hunter tersely told Dodge to pay for the Porsche and his health insurance, but that she would only be getting half her paycheck – and that he would ‘deal with tuitions when time comes.’

  • Israeli tanks enter Gaza.
  • Following reports of Syria launching missiles at northern Israel, Israel hit the country’s two main international airports, “in the capital of Damascus and Aleppo in the north. It happened while an Iranian plane was inbound.” Also, the number of Americans killed by Hamas is now up to 27.
  • “Israel Warns Palestinians to Evacuate Northern Gaza ahead of Possible Ground Invasion.” I would bet so.
  • A day late, a shekel short: “Israel Loosens Strict Gun Control Laws To Arm ‘As Many Citizens As Possible.'” Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire Israeli political establishment deserve a good measure of blame for not doing this much sooner.
  • Speaking of guns in Gaza evidently Hamas now have a lot of rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO thanks to the Biden Administration’s abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan.
  • Steve Scalise drops out of the House Speaker race. Does this mean Jim Jordan is back in the picture? Jordan was briefly the frontrunner before Scalise emerged as the candidate preferred by a majority of Republican House members, and Jordan was also endorsed by Donald Trump. Update: Yep, it’s Jordan.
  • Even House Democrats are slamming The Squad for their anti-Israel/pro-Hamas bias.
  • Parents finally start winning battles against school tranny groomers.

    A revolt against government policies that many say usurp parental authority is spreading across the nation—especially in blue states where lawmakers have promoted transgender ideology and “gender-affirming care”—according to parents, attorneys, and teachers.

    For more than a year, California parents have shown up in droves at legislative hearings and phoned in by the hundreds to protest policies that encourage schools to keep social gender transitions of children secret. Teachers also have begun to refuse to hide information about a child’s gender identity from parents.

    Meanwhile, Democratic members of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus have spearheaded legislation supporting so-called gender-affirming care, especially for children, touting it as a “first-in-the-nation” model.

    Parental rights groups such as Our Duty have pushed back against the model, while groups such as Planned Parenthood, Equality California, and others support it.

    California school districts claim that they’re required by law to keep gender transitions secret from parents unless a child wants to tell his or her parents. But recent court rulings tell a different story.

    A federal judge on Sept. 14 blocked California’s Escondido Union School District from punishing two teachers who refused to comply with guidance issued by the California Department of Education that encourages educators to keep gender transitions of students secret from their parents.

  • The People’s Republic of California is getting ready to declare war on classic cars. “California is looking seriously at instituting, or allowing local governments to institute, zero emission zones in the near future. In preparation for such a move, the California Air Resources Board (or CARB) is reportedly gathering information about classic cars.”
  • Guy walking around Costco finds a whole hell of a lot more than 7% inflation.
  • The Texas Senate passes universal school choice. Now it goes to the House where Dade Phelen will find some way to kill it.
  • “El Paso Woman Sentenced to Prison for Impersonating Federal Agent, Wire Fraud.”

    Federal prosecutors announced that an El Paso woman received a prison sentence of more than seven years after admitting to impersonating immigration agents to swindle money from “undocumented noncitizen victims and their family members.”

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that 53-year-old Ana Maria Hernandez pleaded guilty in April to 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of impersonation. Prosecutors say she pretended to be an official with Citizenship and Immigration Services and promised victims she could help them acquire American citizenship and collected fees.

  • Exxon is buying Pioneer Natural Resources for $59.5 billion in an all-stock deal that will make it the “undisputed US shale king.
  • Poor construction in illegal alien-populated Colony ridge is affecting Harris County water. “Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey (R-Pct. 3) warned his fellow commissioners on Tuesday that improper drainage construction in Colony Ridge was causing erosion and excessive silt to wash downstream into the county’s main source of drinking water.”
  • Follow-up: Josh Kruger, the recently-murdered gay left wing journalist who taunted conservatives, has been accused of grooming his accused killer from age 15. “The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the family of Kruger’s alleged killer, 19-year-old Robert Davis, says Kruger began a years-long relationship involving drugs that began when Davis was just 15-years-old. Davis remains at large.”
  • Every single donation sent by Christianity Today staffers went to Democrats.
  • Halt and catch fire.
  • Compilation of live action versions of video game ragdolls.
  • “White House Claims $6 Billion To Iran Absolutely Not Related To The Exactly $6 Billion Worth Of Rockets Being Fired Into Israel.”
  • “Emperor Hirohito Calls For Ceasefire After Bombing Of Pearl Harbor.”
  • I think he likes the apple.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Below is the tip jar, if you’re so inclined. Thanks to everyone who donated to the Non-Homeless Blogger Fund. I’m bad at thanking people individually the way I should, but let me know if you want public recognition in this space or not.





    LinkSwarm for October 6, 2023

    Friday, October 6th, 2023

    The job search continues, Buddy is healing nicely from his surgery, and we’ve finally gotten some decent cool weather. This week: More Biden border follies, social justice types getting stabbed by reality, and a double dose of doggy goodness. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • We touched on this earlier this week, but the Biden Administration has done a 180 and will allow Texas to construct a border wall.

    Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas waived 26 federal laws Wednesday, allowing border-wall construction in south Texas to resume under the Biden administration for the first time since former president Donald Trump left office.

    “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Mayorkas wrote in the notice.

    The new construction project will add an additional 20 miles to the border wall in Starr County, Texas, which has been reported as an area experiencing “high illegal entry.” Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, in which the county is located, has seen over 245,000 illegal migrants enter the U.S. through that area during fiscal year 2023.

    Among the 26 laws that the DHS waived included the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and Endangered Species Act, all notable environmental laws that limited further construction of the wall. The project will be funded by a congressional appropriations package from fiscal year 2019, the notice stated.

    The announcement marks a noticeable flip from President Joe Biden’s original stance on the matter. “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution,” Biden said in January 2021, ending the national emergency over the border crisis when he first became president.

    While running against Trump in 2020, Biden emphatically stated, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”

    Of course the same overflowing conditions have been plaguing the border throughout the entirety of Biden’s term, but Democratic mayors we’re screaming for relief from their own “sanctuary city” policies until recently. Chalk up another win for Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s illegal alien busing policies.

  • Or maybe not? “Mayorkas Furiously Backpedals After Claiming ‘Acute & Immediate Need’ For Border Wall.”
  • The Biden border invasion, by the numbers.

    3 million people, more or less, were “encountered” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol, illegally entering the U.S. in fiscal year 2023 (which ended Sept. 30). On Mayorkas’ watch, we have set the record for the highest number of yearly illegal alien encounters in U.S. history. If those caught in 2023 formed a new city, it would the third biggest in America, behind only New York and Los Angeles.

    304,000 illegal aliens were encountered this August alone (the last month for which we have official government numbers). That’s the population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

    75% of August’s inadmissible aliens were freely let in by President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security. Mayorkas has told the press and Congress many times that the border is not open. But if a door admits three of every four people who attempt to go through it, can we consider it closed? A philosophical question, perhaps. Maybe we can settle on “mostly open,” like the “mostly dead” Wesley in the movie “The Princess Bride” or the “mostly peaceful” riots of 2020.

    Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Satanic Pedophile Extortion Cult Uncovered By FBI After NY Arrest.”

    A November 2021 arrest in Queens, New York led to the discovery of a satanic cult of pedophile extortionists known as 764, which has been linked to significant criminal activity around the globe. The organization, which goes byseveral aliases, was uncovered by the FBI while investigating alarming posts on social media made by 23-year-old Angel Almeida of Astoria, Queens, The Guardian reports.

    Almeida was flagged to the FBI by an anonymous tipster who was concerned over his social media accounts, which contained images of violence against children and animals. In one post, he expressed support for Charleston mass-murderer Dylann Roof. Another post showed him talking around with a shotgun while wearing a “a skull mask and crossed bandoliers of rifle ammunition across his chest with a flag in the background featuring an Order of Nine Angles symbol.”

    Almeida served 18 months in prison for third degree burglary in 2018, and was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was detained in Brooklyn’s metropolitan detention center. In February 2023, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment on child pornography and exploitation charges related to his involvement in the cult, as well as hundreds of thousands of digital files recovered from his residence.

    In new charges, Almeida is accused of coercing a teenage girl into having sex with an older man, and convincing another girl to cut herself on camera and send it to him.

    In one post, Almeida posts “For the 2k pedophile haters,” showing his finger over the trigger guard of a Taurus handgun.

  • FBI creates “MAGA Extremist” category to target Trump supporters.
  • I haven’t kept up with internal issues in Commie dystopian Venezuela, but evidently they’re having trouble with criminal gangs.

    Early in the morning of September 20, 11,000 members of the Venezuelan security forces deployed around the notorious prison of Tocorón in Aragua state, the home base of the country’s most powerful criminal structure, the Tren de Aragua.

    “The Bolivarian Government informs that the Cacique Guaicaipuro Liberation Operation has been underway since the early hours of the morning. Its objective is to dismantle and put an end to organized crime gangs and other criminal networks operating from the Tocorón Penitentiary, to the detriment of the tranquility of the Venezuelan people,” read an official communiqué.

    Residents living near the prison were awakened by the sounds of armored vehicles speeding towards the prison, in what is one of the largest deployments ever of the Venezuelan security forces.

    The simple fact that the operation, named after a legendary native chief of the 16th Century, needed 11,000 soldiers and officials speaks to the power of the Tren de Aragua and its leader Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero,” in Tocorón.

    The prison, which is in the central state of Aragua and home to some 7,000 inmates, is one of the biggest in the country.

    This operation, the first against the Tren de Aragua, and the largest of its kind to date, is a clear show of force by the Venezuelan government.

    Tocorón has long been home to the Tren de Aragua and Niño Guerrero, who ran the prison like his personal fiefdom with the blessing of the prison ministry (Ministerio de Poder Popular para el Servicio Penitenciario). Niño Guerrero, imprisoned for murder, was the “pran” of Tocorón prison, essentially the criminal warden in a system set up by the first Prison Minister Iris Varela, now Vice President of the National Assembly. The pran system saw inmates take control of several prisons across the country in exchange for maintaining order, reducing homicides, and ending jail uprisings.

    This operation might signal the end of the pran system, something suggested in the official communique of the operation, which stated that the operation was to “restore and dignify the penitentiary system.”

    The question now is whether this operation will disrupt the leadership and running of the Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal structure with thousands of affiliates with a presence not only across Venezuela, but in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. The Tren de Aragua has projected power abroad, riding off the backs of the more than seven million Venezuelans who have fled the economic collapse and authoritarian regime presided over by President Nicolás Maduro.

    What has prompted Maduro to act after years of tolerating the criminal fiefdom of Tocorón? The Venezuelan president has long tolerated criminal structures operating in the country, both Venezuelan and Colombian, because he needed access to criminal rents to maintain the loyalty of key generals and political figures, as the state teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

    However, since 2020, the Venezuelan security forces have moved against several defiant criminal groups, like the megabanda of Carlos Luis Revete, alias “El Koki,” and dissident elements of the rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), which set up drug trafficking infrastructure in the Venezuelan department of Apure. The operation against the ex-FARC saw the deployment of significant military forces, which ended up humiliated by the Colombian rebels, who captured eight soldiers and forced a military withdrawal. This might explain the apparent overkill with the Tocorón operation: Maduro clearly did not want any further defeats or humiliations.

  • “Philadelphia Journalist Who Mocked Concern Over Violent Crime In Democrat Cities Shot Dead In Home.”

    A left-wing Philadelphia journalist who mocked concern over rising crime in Democrat-run cities was shot to death in his home.

    Josh Kruger was shot seven times after someone entered his home, shot him at the base of his stairs, and then fled. Kruger ran outside seeking help from his neighbors and collapsed, where police found them after responding to call just before 1:30 a.m. on the 2300 block of Watkins Street.

    Kruger, 39, was rushed to the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died just before 2:15 a.m.

    No arrests have been made, and there was no sign of forced entry into the home, according to Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

    “Either the door was open, or the offender knew how to get the door open,” he said. “We just don’t know yet.”

    Detectives believe his death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said. -Inquirer

    Snip.

    Kruger frequently mocked conservatives on X, ironically calling Dilbert creator Scott Adams “Nostradamus” on Saturday for predicting that people would be dead “within the year” of Biden’s election.

    Kruger also mocked conservatives concerned over the city’s shootings, which he said were “dropping to levels not seen in years.”

  • Speaking of social justice supporters being shot: “Social justice activist fatally stabbed in front of girlfriend in Brooklyn. The search is on for the man who fatally stabbed Ryan Carson, who dedicated his life to fighting for social justice.” And that’s how social justice says “thank you.” (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Shellyne Rodriguez, the crazy social justice warrior Manhattan College professor who threatened a reporter with a machete is getting off with no jail time, because of course she is. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar was carjacked at gunpoint in Washington D.C. on Monday night.
  • Paxton Endorses Primary Opponents of Incumbent Republicans Who Backed Impeachment. Paxton endorsed David Covey in his race against Speaker Dade Phelan and Wes Virdell in his race against Rep. Andrew Murr.”
  • Ruble hits penny parity again.
  • Starbucks is closing seven San Francisco stores. Gee, I wonder why. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ)
  • Turkish drone gets too close to U.S. troops in Syria. Turkish drone goes boom.
  • Dwight has a pretty nice post on the fallen at the Battle of Mogadishu, AKA Black Hawk Down.
  • It’s a ski jump competition, except for different types of tires. Oh, Japan, don’t ever change.
  • “Senator Feinstein Death Not Expected To Affect Re-election Campaign.”
  • Yo, dawg, we heard you like dogs, so we put your dog on your dog so your dog’s dog can dog while you dog, dawg.
  • The cutest rooster:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Here’s the tip jar, if you’re so inclined: