Posts Tagged ‘San Francisco’

LinkSwarm For March 8, 2024

Friday, March 8th, 2024

Because the ground invasion wasn’t enough, the Biden Administration has been flying illegal aliens into American cities, wages for Americans are down, San Francisco continues inching toward sanity, some crime news, and Fisker looks farked. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Bombshell Report Reveals Biden Has Secretly Flown 320,000 Illegals INTO The United States.”

    A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has revealed that the Biden administration has flown at least 320,000 migrants into the United States in an effort to reduce the number of crossings at the southern border, according to Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies.

    “The program at the center of the FOIA litigation is perhaps the most enigmatic and least-known of the Biden administration’s uses of the CBP One cellphone scheduling app, even though it is responsible for almost invisibly importing by air 320,000 aliens with no legal right to enter the United States since it got underway in late 2022,” wrote Bensman.

    Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had initially refused to disclose information about the flights, which use a cell phone app, CBP One, to arrange.

    “Under these legally dubious parole programs, aliens who cannot legally enter the country use the CBP One app to apply for travel authorization and temporary humanitarian release from those airports. The parole program allows for two-year periods of legal status during which adults are eligible for work authorization,” Bensman continues.

    The flights resulted in illegal immigrants being placed in at least 43 American cities from January through December 2023.

    Under the terms of their release, migrants are able to remain in the US for two years without obtaining legal status, and are meanwhile eligible for work authorization.

    How many Americans realized they were voting for this invasion when they voted for Biden?

  • Add suborning perjury to the Fani Willis accusations.

    A new witness could testify Fani Willis warned lover Nathan Wade’s former business partner to stay quiet about their affair, an explosive new court filing claims.

    “They are coming after us. You don’t need to talk to them about anything about us,” Willis is alleged to have warned Terrence Bradley in a September 2023 phone call.

    The call was overheard by Cobb County, Georgia, prosecutor Cindi Lee Yeager, according to court papers filed Monday by Trump co-defendant David Schafer.

    They more they dig, the crookeder she seems.

  • Arizona’s Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema won’t run for reelection.
  • U.S. salaries are falling. Thanks, Joe Biden! (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The tide continues to turn in San Francisco. “‘Progressivism Is Out’: San Franciscans Pass Ballot Measures Requiring Drug Testing for Welfare, Expanding Police Surveillance.”

    San Francisco voters who’ve grown tired of the crime, homelessness, and drug use plaguing their left-wing city overwhelmingly approved a pair of ballot measures on Tuesday that will expand police powers and require welfare recipients to be screened for drugs.

    Proposition E, which authorizes police to use surveillance equipment — cameras, drones, and even facial-recognition technology — without prior permission from an oversight body, passed with 59,818 votes, or 59.9 percent. The proposition will also loosen restrictions on police chases and require that officers spend less time on paperwork and administrative duties.

    Proposition F, which mandates that anyone receiving public-assistance benefits be screened for a substance-abuse disorder, passed with 63,295 votes, or 63 percent.

    As part of the proposition, public-assistance recipients found to be drug-dependent could be offered treatment. If it is made “available at no cost, the recipient will be required to participate to continue receiving” public benefits, according to the proposition.

    “Progressivism is out—for now,” the San Francisco Chronicles’ website read in bold letters on Wednesday morning, “Voters make it clear: S.F. can no longer be called a progressive city.”

    The approval of both propositions was a big win for San Francisco’s embattled mayor, London Breed, who placed both measures on the primary ballot in an effort to tamp down on crime and to take aim at drug addiction and overdose deaths in the city. She told reporters on Tuesday that passage of the two measure will allow her administration to “continue the work we’re doing” to improve public safety, according to the Chronicle.

    With San Francisco turning slightly sane, Austin may vie with Seattle, New York and Chicago for the title of America’s Most Insane Radical Leftwing City.

  • “9 Ways The Feds Are Using ‘Bidenbucks’ To Rig The 2024 Election.”

    3. Department of Health and Human Services

    In June 2023, The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas reported that the Indian Health Service (IHS), which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, is collaborating with the ACLU, Demos, and several other left-wing organizations to register new voters. In order to expand the reach of these efforts, the Biden administration designated an Arizona-based Indian Health Service (IHS) facility as an official voter registration hub in October.

    According to Arizona Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Native Health of Phoenix, which caters to “urban Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and all other individuals,” will “assist individuals in the voter registration process.” The administration confirmed that the IHS facility would be one of five designated as voter registration sites by the end of 2023.

    Much like young voters, Native Americans heavily favor Democrats.

    4. Department of Agriculture

    The USDA is another federal agency directing its efforts at potential Democrat voters. Earlier this month, emails obtained by The Daily Signal show the agency was colluding with Demos as early as August 2021 to work on turning out voters.

    As The Federalist’s M.D. Kittle reported, the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service “encourages all state agencies administering the child nutrition programs to provide local program operators with promotional materials, including voter registration and non-partisan, non-campaign election information, to disseminate among voting-age program participants and their families.”

    One of the “ideas” recommended by the agency is for “[s]chool food authorities administering the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in high schools, and adult day care centers and emergency shelters participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) to promote voter registration and election information among voting-age participants and use congregate feeding areas, such as cafeterias, or food distribution sites, as sites for the dissemination of information.”

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Sweden officially joins NATO.

    Sweden officially became part of the NATO alliance Thursday, two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused the nation to overhaul its non-alignment policy.

    Snip.

    “It’s official – #Sweden is now the 32nd member of #NATO, taking its rightful place at our table. Sweden’s accession makes NATO stronger, Sweden safer, and the whole Alliance more secure. I look forward to raising their flag at NATO HQ on Monday,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on X Thursday. Hungary ratified Sweden’s ascension into the alliance last week, becoming the final NATO country to do so.

    The nordic country applied for NATO membership in May 2022, about three months after Russia began its war in Ukraine. The admission of Finland and Sweden expands NATO to 32 members.

    As Peter Zeihan noted, “in the Swedish military, every day you wake up, you prepare for one thing: the war with the Russians.” Good job, Putin!

  • “Journalist Appears in Federal Court in Leg and Belly Chains to Face Jan. 6 Misdemeanors.”

    Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker was arrested by the FBI and brought to a Texas federal courtroom in handcuffs, a belly chain and foot shackles to face four nonviolent misdemeanor charges for being at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021…

    “There’s nothing in there about my behavior,” Mr. Baker told The Epoch Times. “It’s all about my words. Everything. It’s all about stuff I said before, stuff I said after, and that’s it. No more complicated than that.”

    Mr. Geyer said his client’s arrest shows an “unprecedented shift in Department of Justice policy [after it] had spent decades adhering to special protections for journalists.”

    At least non-leftwing journalists…

  • “California Moves To Expand Zero-Down, Interest-Free Home Loan Program To Illegal Immigrants.” Hell, American citizens shouldn’t be getting government subsidies like that. Handing taxpayer subsidies to illegal aliens is insane and should be illegal.
  • Speaking of people who shouldn’t be getting taxpayers subsidies, Harvard “We Hate Jews” University wants $2 billion in taxpayer-backed bonds.

  • Recall effort against Dallas’ Democrat-turned-Republican mayor Eric Johnson fails. Number of signatures to have a recall election: 103,595. Number of signatures submitted: Zero.
  • MSNBC hosts think that illegal aliens flooding the country is a big laugh for Virginians.
  • Self defense shooting in north Austin.
  • “After emotional closing arguments from the defense and prosecution, jurors found two former Williamson County Sheriff’s deputies not guilty for the in-custody death of Javier Ambler.” They tasered him after a 20 minute car chase and he croaked. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Vermont citizens decide no, you’re not shoplifting here. (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)
  • Russia finally bags a HIMARS.
  • Two idiot bonks for the price of one.

  • The Fisker Ocean electric car features a whole host of irritations.
  • That may be one reason why Fisker just issued a warning that they might go bankrupt this year.
  • Gavin Newsom announces a new state Stasi hotline to report your neighbors for WrongThink.
  • J. K. Rowling still refuses to bend the knee.
  • Rooster Teeth studio in Austin shutting down. Machinima is one of those concepts that never quite turned into a profitable industry.
  • NASA’s plans to evacuate astronauts from a Space Shuttle pad emergency? Would you believe ziplines and M113 armored personal carriers?
  • “In Major Blow To Democracy, Supreme Court Rules Voters Can Vote For Favorite Candidate.”
  • One of these things is not like the others:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    LinkSwarm For November 17, 2023

    Friday, November 17th, 2023

    Progressives kick Jews out of the club, San Francisco cleans up for a communist dictator (but not mere citizens), FBI busts a brothel catering to politicians…then refuses to divulge their clients, and The Marvels crashes and burns on opening weekend. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Jews Get Kicked Out of the Progressive Club.”

    To sustain the alliance between leftists and Islamists, something had to give. And that something was Jews.

    After a while, it became a parody worthy of classic comedy skits: the Biden administration’s reflexive need to launch into a condemnation of “Islamophobia” every time the discomfiting topic of antisemitism came up — which, you may have noticed, it does quite a bit these days.

    Progressives hate antisemitism. Not, unfortunately, the concept . . . the word. It holds a mirror up to their internal contradictions.

    Jews have been among the most consequential, cutting-edge progressives in history. A few months back, I reviewed Democratic Justice, Brad Snyder’s biography of Felix Frankfurter, who may have been as responsible for forging the dominance of American progressivism as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president he zealously served. Alas, Frankfurter would not be welcome today in what’s become of his movement — not least because of another project on which he collaborated with his mentor and fellow Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis: Zionism. That project is anathema to today’s progressives. It honors the old order and the uniqueness of a people reified in their ancestral homeland, one in which they dwelled for millennia — before Islam existed and, 14 centuries later, the notion of “Palestinians” was conceived.

    Moreover, to highlight antisemitism is intolerably inconvenient to the collaboration of highest priority for modern progressives: Their partnership with sharia supremacists — so-called Islamists, adherents to “political Islam.”

    Snip.

    Ostensibly, it’s an unlikely partnership: Sharia supremacists despise many signal progressive causes — e.g., abortion, equality for women, civil rights for homosexuals, and “gender fluidity.” (How long do you figure the “activists” waving their “Queers for Palestine” placards would actually last in Gaza?) And it seems odd for progressives, infamously intolerant of religious liberty, to make common cause with unabashed theocrats who would impose on society a systematically discriminatory legal code enforced by barbaric punishments — of the terrorizing kind that, not coincidentally, the Brotherhood’s Hamas jihadists inflicted on Israeli men, women, and children on October 7.

    But let’s dig deeper. The ne plus ultra for sharia supremacists and leftists is the extirpation of the established order. Yes, they have very different ideas about what should replace that order; but that’s an argument for later (at which point progressives would find themselves in the unenviable position of the appeaser after the crocodile is done devouring everyone else). For now, it is a marriage of convenience, a joint war of conquest against Western civilization.
    Marriages of convenience are not big on commitment and loyalty. Hence, Jews — predominantly on the left, with legions of stalwart progressives who would as reflexively rebuke Islamophobia as any good Democrat — have become a casualty of that war.

    The sharia-supremacist hatred of Jews is doctrinal. As the Hamas Charter relates, Islamic eschatology is consumed by an end-of-times war in which even trees and stones will help Muslims kill their mortal enemies, the Jews. The Islamic claim on the land “from the River to the Sea” also stems from scripture: Mohammed’s night ride from Mecca to Jerusalem and on to heaven. And Muslim scripture further holds that Islam’s prophet died upon being poisoned to death by a Jewish woman.

    This is all very uncomfy for progressives. They really don’t do doctrine, let alone submit — or at least allow themselves to appear to be submitting — to religious doctrine. Thus must they engage in euphemistic games to sidestep reality.

  • “Democrat Media Arm Scrambles As It Becomes Clear They Knew About Hamas Invasion Of Israel Before It Happened. “Reports have been bubbling up that the various tentacles of the Democrat hacktivist media actually had pro-Hamas activists ‘journalists’ embedded with Hamas before and on October 7th.”
  • Democrats wouldn’t clean up San Francisco for mere citizens, but they did it for a communist dictator.

    Apparently, the city of San Francisco can indeed clear out the tent cities of homeless, remove the human feces and hypodermic needles from the sidewalks, and make the downtown look sparking clean and shiny in just a matter of days. All it takes is sufficient motivation — like hosting a visit from Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.

    Even the New York Times can’t deny the irony that the arrival of Xi and a plethora of overseas leaders is spurring efforts that, presumably, could have been started and carried out at any point with enough motivation:

    On Market Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, maintenance workers resurfaced uneven sidewalks and installed plywood over empty tree wells.

    Nearby, a crew gave a long-derelict plaza a makeover by turning it into a skateboard park and outdoor cafe with ping-pong tables, chess boards and scores of potted plants. Elsewhere, workers painted decorative crosswalks and new murals, wiped away graffiti, picked up piles of trash and removed scaffolding to show off a refurbished clock tower at the Ferry Building. . . .

    Perhaps the most obvious change has been seen at the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building at the corner of Seventh and Mission Streets, less than a mile from the conference center.

    Before we go any further, can I just point out how infuriating it is that we live in a country with so many genuinely heroic, inspiring, and under-recognized figures, and yet we name things after politicians whose greatest achievements were bringing back a lot of federal funds to their constituents? I realize in the state of West Virginia, that statement is blasphemy.

    In a perfect irony, in August, “Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advised hundreds of employees in San Francisco to work remotely for the foreseeable future due to public safety concerns outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street.” As Iowa GOP senator Joni Ernst noticed, to protect the building named after the House speaker who said that border walls are “immoral,” federal officials put up a high chain-link fence.

    In other words, the official assessment of the federal government is that the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building is not a safe place for anyone, which strikes me as a heavy-handed metaphor.

    Anyway, back to the Xi-driven cleanup:

    For two years, a stubborn fentanyl market at the corner and a sprawling homeless encampment across the street became neighborhood fixtures. People regularly used drugs in an adjacent alley.

    Most have seemingly disappeared in a poof…

    It’s almost like the city government of San Francisco perceives Xi Jinping as the boss it needs to impress, instead of the voters whose exorbitant taxes (including an 8.625 percent sales tax!) pay city employees’ salaries. If the city is worth making safer, cleaner, and more attractive for a visit by Xi, President Biden, and a whole bunch of diplomats . . . why isn’t it worth making safer, cleaner, and more attractive for the full-time residents?

    Why indeed.

  • “Newsom Assures Homeless They Can Resume Pooping On Sidewalks Once His Boss Leaves.”
  • “Californians Set Up President Xi Dummy So Newsom Will Keep The Cities Clean All The Time.”
  • Thinks that make you go Hmmmm: “DOJ Protects D.C. Brothel Customers… As Congress Votes For New FBI Facility.”

    Two tightly connected things happened in Washington, D.C., on November 8: a “high-end” brothel serving “elected officials” was shut down by the FBI, and the U.S. House approved a controversial $300 million new headquarters building for the weaponized agency.

    In announcing the brothel’s bust, the Department of Justice explained that the sex-trafficking operation served “elected officials, high tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, attorneys, scientists and accountants, among others.”

    The press release named the brothel operators: Han “Hana” Lee, 41, of Cambridge, MA; James Lee, 68, of Torrance, CA; and Junmyung Lee, 30, of Dedham, MA.

    In lurid detail, the Department of Justice explained how the operators advertised their services—primarily young Asian women—for high-end customers. In order to utilize the prostitution services of the brothel, prospective clients allegedly completed “a form providing their full names, email address, phone number, employer and reference if they had one.”

    Not mentioned in the press release were the names of the customers.

    The announcement was made just ahead of a vote in the U.S. House, which would have defunded the $300 million new headquarters building proposed for the FBI. The facility, to be built in Maryland, will reportedly be larger than the Pentagon. The Pentagon has a total floor area of 6.5 million square feet and offices 23,000 military and civilian employees.

  • Dispatches from the Biden Recession: “Stellantis offers buyouts to roughly half of U.S. salaried workers.” Stellantis consumed the corpse of Chrysler several years back.
  • “Taibbi: According To Pundits, ‘Ignorance’ Makes Americans Give “Wrong” Answers To Economic Confidence…The Guardian editorial Krugman linked to explains: Americans continue to believe the economy sucks, even though they’ve been told over and over it doesn’t! Why won’t they listen?…I can’t remember an instance of newspapers polling Americans about their feelings, then telling them their answers are not only wrong, but ignorant!
  • “Pro-Palestinian” protestors are anti-American protestors:

    (Hat tip: The Daily Gator https://thedaleygator.net/?p=25316 )

  • Gaza kids say the darndest things…about killing Jews. “I want to stab them again and again.”
  • Speaking of which, what better accessory is there for a little girls room than a cache of rocket launchers?
  • Tim Scott is out. Like so many in this presidential campaign cycle, he made himself less, not more, electable by taking the wrong side in the culture war.
  • Texas Republican congressman Michael Burgess will not seek reelection.
  • This is a weird story: “Congressman Pat Fallon (R-TX-4), who had filed to run for Texas Senate District (SD) 30, has now backed out and will instead run for re-election to his currently held congressional seat.” Being a state senator is all well and good, but who steps down from a U.S. Congressional seat to a state senate seat?
  • Austin police officer Jorge Pastore was killed in the line of duty early Saturday morning.
  • “Texas: Islamic scholar praises Gazans for having ‘thrown horror’ in the hearts of the Israelis.” That would be Mohamad Baajour of the East Plano Islamic Center.
  • Another week, another liberal journalist charged with child pornography.

    A BuzzFeed feature story from 2018 about a journalist who told a group of schoolchildren that he was gay was taken down just a day after it was announced that he had been brought up on child pornography charges.

    Slade Sohmer, 44, the former editor-in-chief of the left-leaning video-driven news site The Recount, was freed on $100,000 bail on Monday after he was charged in Massachusetts court with possessing and disseminating “hundreds of child pornography images and videos.”

    He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of dissemination of child pornography.

    (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)

  • “Germany’s Rheinmetall to supply Ukraine with 25 Leopard-1 tanks.”
  • Asianometry takes a deep dive into Nvidia’s radical new computational lithography method for generating semiconductor masks. I know a whole lot of eyes just glazed over, but this stuff is important, and I don’t think any other bloggers are covering semiconductors. And speaking of eyes…
  • World’s first whole eyeball transplant performed. No vision yet, but doctors are hopeful.
  • Rosalynn Carter joins her husband in hospice care.
  • Texas A&M head football coach Jimbo Fisher just got paid $77 million to go away. Nice work if you can get it…
  • The Marvels officially has the worst opening weekend of any MCU film. Yes, worse than the Ed Norton Hulk.
  • Speaking of disasterous superhero films, Critical Drinker goes over the compounding errors of the never-to-be-released Batgirl movie. Surprisingly, the film itself was reportedly not that bad, it’s just a cascading series of studio decisions made the film nonviable.
  • Snoop Dogg says he’s giving up weed. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
  • A tale of two Halloween lights.
  • “Hamas Says All The AK-47s Found In Gaza Hospital Were Strictly For Medicinal Use.”
  • “Thousands Already Lined Up For Black Friday After Grocery Store Offers Prices From When Trump Was President.”
  • 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:





    Scenes From San Francisco’s Decline

    Sunday, October 1st, 2023

    Two videos documenting San Francisco’s decline today. First up: What happens when lawbreakers neither fear nor respect a police force that’s been made helpless by political leadership.

  • Bike gangs take over entire streets, or even the Golden Gate Bridge, and police are nowhere to be found.
  • “He went to SFPD’s Richmond station and officers told them there was nothing they could do, because if they chase them then it could get worse, and they’re trying to avoid the confrontation.” Imagine that: Police avoiding confronting criminal who are breaking the law.
  • “I don’t blame them. How many times do we see stories like this in DC where the police try to enforce a law, the criminal gets hurt, and then coppers like this face life in prison. So in a deep blue city like San Francisco, when it comes to safety, I think you’re pretty much on your own.”
  • Mobs take over a local mall.
  • Thieves break into vehicles in broad daylight, even when they’re occupied.
  • In a second video from CBN (age-restricted, so no embedding), leftwing attorney and former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Angela Alioto admits that everything she did back in office was wrong and has made things much, much worse. “We made bad decisions. We made bad policy. Undo it.”

    She supported being a sanctuary city and needle exchange program, but now believe both are wrong and corrupt.

    She’s come to realize the truth of the Homeless Industrial Complex: “His is a $14 billion budget. When I ran for mayor in 2018, it was $5 billion. $2 billion is going for homelessness and homelessness-related issues. How is that not corrupt? How is 60% of that money not going into someone’s pockets?” She doesn’t seem to realize that the programs were designed to line the pockets of leftwing activists and politicians.

    Last year, the city gave $1.4 billion to non-profits theoretically working to solve homelessness. What they got was more homeless. Alioto: “We have way too many nonprofits…I’ll go so far as to say that some of them are not trying to help. Some of them have perpetuated a homeless industry that is killing us.” I’d say most of them.

    Crime is another issue. Proposition 47, which decriminalized theft under $1,000, has made things much worse as well. “It’s ridiculous. It gives people a license to steal.”

    Just like Republicans said it would.

    What Angela Alioto doesn’t know or can’t say is that all this Homeless Industrial Complex graft is almost certainly sanction by the local, state, and national Democratic Party leadership, and I have a fairly strong suspicion that a lot of that graft gets directly recycled into campaign contributions to Democrats across the country.

    Alioto was appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors by Gavin Newsom in 2004. My suspicion is that Newsom not only knows about the graft, but is one of (if not the) primary controllers of it. Remember the recall effort against Newsom? Scott Adams called the Democratic Party’s fight against that effort as “the top process in the system.”

    But the entire Democratic Party is complicit in the decline of San Francisco to the crime-ridden hellhole it’s become, and they’re looking to roll out their graft-and-decline agenda nationwide.

    LinkSwarm for September 22, 2023

    Friday, September 22nd, 2023

    My Hunter Biden corruption evidence, a Democratic Senator catches federal corruption charges, more blue cities suffering from Biden’s open border policies, California goes looking for cops in Texas, and a new Bill Burr movie looms. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Now we know at least one of the people bribing Joe Biden buying Hunter Biden’s “artwork.”

    The person who paid as much as six figures for “artwork” by an untrained painter also received a prestigious government appointment from the artist’s father, President Joe Biden.

    Now congressional investigators want to know if Biden’s decision to name Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad was in any way related to her purchase of artwork by Hunter Biden, a middle-aged man who paints as a hobby.

    House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is now asking Naftali and White House Counsel Stuart Delery to answer questions as to whether the Biden family is using Hunter’s “art” as a means of selling White House access.

    The White House has previously claimed the identity of Hunter Biden art purchasers would be concealed to prevent any undue influence, but nothing prevents the purchaser from identifying themselves to Joe Biden when seeking an appointment, and now at least one purchaser has been identified as someone who sought White House access.

  • Democratic Senator Robert Menendez and his wife indicted on federal corruption charges.

    Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was indicted on corruption charges by federal prosecutors on Friday morning in a Manhattan court in an influence-peddling scheme involving Egypt.

    The unsealed indictment revealed that Menendez’s wife, Nadine, New Jersey real estate mogul Fred Daibes, and two other business associates are being charged along side the lawmaker.

    Led by Southern District of New York attorney Damian Williams, in June 2022, investigators conducted a search of Menendez’s residence in New Jersey and found $100,000 worth of gold bars, nearly half a million dollars in cash, “much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,” and a brand new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible.

    “Menedez and Nadine Menedez agreed to and did accept hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menedez’s power and influence as a Senator to seek to protect and enrich” his allies “and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt,” the indictment reads. “Among other actions, Menendez provided sensitive U.S. government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt,” the filing notes.

  • More money for illegal aliens means less money for other New York City functions.

    New York City will cut overtime pay for its police officers and three other agencies to help reduce costs driven by the city’s unprecedented migrant crisis, City Hall announced Monday.

    Jacques Jiha, the budget director for Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, told the city’s police, fire, corrections, and sanitations departments in a Saturday memo to each submit an overtime pay reduction plan “to reduce year-to-year OT spending.”

    He also wrote the four departments must submit monthly reports “to track overtime spending and their progress in meeting the reduction target” once Adams issues the order.

    Jiha also noted the current assistance provided by President Joe Biden and New York governor Kathy Hochul is not enough, prompting City Hall’s decision to cut overtime pay among other financial measures.

    “The amount of aid we have received from the federal government and the state has been grossly inadequate and there has been no progress on a statewide or national decompression strategy,” Jhia wrote in the memo, first reported by Politico. “The city can no longer continue to shoulder these skyrocketing costs and balance the budget without making very difficult choices.”

    Crime has risen in New York in recent months as more than 100,000 illegal immigrants have poured into the city.

    The leader of a police union said the overtime pay cuts will lead to fewer cops patrolling the streets, resulting in more staffing shortages.

    “It is going to be impossible for the NYPD to significantly reduce overtime unless it fixes its staffing crisis,” Patrick Hendry, head of the Police Benevolent Association, told the New York Post. “We are still thousands of cops short, and we’re struggling to drive crime back to pre-2020 levels without adequate personnel.”

    “If City Hall wants to save money without jeopardizing public safety, it needs to invest in keeping experienced cops on the job,” he said.

  • The Homeless Illegal Alien Industrial Complex pays very, very well in Chicago:

  • Ukraine destroys Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters.
  • “The Biden admin cut the razor wire Gov. Greg Abbott put along the Rio Grande, so Abbott immediately sent the Texas National Guard to put up even more.”
  • Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson switches to the Republican Party. “While Dallas has thrived, elsewhere Democratic policies have exacerbated crime and homelessness.”

    “I have been mayor of Dallas for more than four years. During that time, my priority has been to make the city safer, stronger and more vibrant,” Johnson wrote in his article.

    “That meant saying no to those who wanted to defund the police. It meant fighting for lower taxes and a friendlier business climate. And it meant investing in family friendly infrastructure such as better parks and trails.”

    Johnson said he does not plan to alter his “approach” to being mayor but is switching his party affiliation.

    “When my career in elected office ends in 2027 on the inauguration of my successor as mayor, I will leave office as a Republican,” Johnson said.

    The mayor was a leading opponent of calls to decrease funding for the Dallas Police Department after the 2020 demonstrations against police violence. Johnson proposed cutting salaries at city hall instead.

    In his announcement, he also touted Dallas’ decreasing crime rate and the Dallas City Council’s reduction of the property tax rate.

    While city mayors are nonpartisan officeholders in Texas, Johnson was a Democrat during his nearly five terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

    This is both unexpected and big news. Lots of Hispanic politicians in Texas have switched to the GOP, but this is the first case I can remember of a high profile black Texas Democratic politician switching to the GOP.

  • Exercise helps prevent Alzheimer’s thanks to a hormone called irisin.
  • Antifa rioter sentenced.

    A 35-year-old Renton man was sentenced on Sept. 13 in U.S. District Court to 40 months in prison for his role in a plot to burn the Seattle Police Officers Guild building in downtown Seattle during the September 2020 protests.

    The defendant, Justin Christopher Moore, pleaded guilty in September 2022.

    At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Lauren King said, “What you did showed a complete disregard for human life. Our ability to peacefully assemble is a fundamental right to our society. Your acts of violence can deter people from exercising that fundamental right.”

    According to records filed in the case, Moore made and carried a box of 12 Molotov cocktails in a protest march to the Seattle Police Officers Guild building on Sept. 7, 2020. Ultimately the marchers were moved away from the building in downtown Seattle. Police smelled gasoline and grew concerned about the intentions of protesters. The box containing the 12 gasoline devices was found in the parking lot next to the Seattle Police Officers Guild building.

    Using video from that day and from other protests, as well as information from the electronic devices of other co-conspirators, Moore was confirmed as the person seen carrying the box of destructive devices.

    In June 2021, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Moore’s residence. They seized clothing that is consistent with the images of what Moore was wearing when he carried the Molotov cocktails. From the basement storage area, they also recovered numerous items that are consistent with manufacturing explosive devices. Law enforcement recovered a notebook in which Moore had made entries related to the manufacturing of destructive devices and the ingredients necessary.

  • University of North Texas tries to cancel musicology professor. Professor wins in court. Again.

    The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down another defeat to the University of North Texas and a victory to Allen Harris in a lawsuit defending the First Amendment rights of Professor Timothy Jackson, after UNT shut down his journal, The Journal of Schenkerian Studies. The decision can be located here.

    In January of last year, Allen Harris had already prevailed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The District Court Judge Amos Mazzant rejected UNT’s motion to dismiss the complaint of Professor Timothy Jackson in a strong decision available here.

    Ordinarily, the case would then proceed to discovery and eventually to trial. But UNT invoked its right to a special appeal (called an interlocutory appeal) that is allowed only to the state under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. At first, Texas was expected to make an argument defending UNT’s right to do whatever it wanted with Timothy Jackson’s journal.

    The Journal of Schenkerian Studies is dedicated to a late 19th/early 20th-century Austrian-Jewish music theorist, Heinrich Schenker, and his systematic, graphic methods of music analysis. In July 2020, Timothy Jackson defended Schenker in the pages of the Journal from an attack by Hunter College Professor Philip Ewell. Professor Ewell labeled Schenker a “racist” and, indeed, the entire tradition of Western classical music as “systemically racist.” This dispute would have remained a typical academic tempest in a teapot, but the University of North Texas swiftly condemned Jackson’s defense of Schenker and classical music. At UNT, defending classical music and its theory against charges of “racism” is a “thought crime.”

    Graduate students quickly condemned Professor Jackson for “racist actions” and various other derelictions that they claimed hurt their feelings. Calls for Professor Jackson to be fired quickly escalated, and the vast majority of Jackson’s fellow faculty members jumped on the bandwagon. Sixteen of them signed a graduate student petition calling for his ouster and for censorship of the Journal. Discovery revealed that at least one did so without even reading or understanding what the petition said.

    The most important thing at the University of North Texas was to demonstrate pious commitment to “anti-Racism,” no matter how irrational or lacking in substance–or contrary to evidence. As the Dean of the College of Music admitted in open court, the Journal was “put on ice.”

    In July 2020, Professor Jackson stood alone against this tide. Had the case been allowed to proceed after Mazzant’s strong decision on the motion to dismiss, the Journal would likely be back in publication by now. Yet censorship is so important at the University of North Texas that the state exercised its right to a special appeal in order to halt discovery in its tracks.

    Some technical legal analysis omitted.

    The ruling is a clear warning to do-nothing boards of trustees and boards of regents that they have an affirmative duty to ensure that public universities uphold constitutional rights in education. From now on, they will also enjoy a no qualified immunity from personal suit, at least in the Fifth Circuit. UNT’s Board of Regents had direct governing authority over all UNT officials. They too can therefore be held accountable under the Ex Parte Young for sitting idly by while career university bureaucrats trampled Professor Jackson’s free speech.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Regulations (California and federal) are crushing the trucking industry.

    Unfortunately, the federal government continues its misguided attempts to control an industry regulators know little to nothing about. But today’s attempts tend to focus more on something they understand even less than trucking: technology.

    The electronic logging device (ELD) has been around since the late 1980s. The devices were first adopted by large nationwide fleets to simplify managing their plethora of drivers, and eventually became a way to lower insurance costs. Manufacturers and employers claimed the devices prevented drivers from driving longer than legally allowed, therefore reducing the number of tractor-trailer-related crashes. It was under the latter premise that the DOT mandated that all trucks be equipped with ELDs no later than the end of 2017. Unfortunately, fatal accidents involving tractor-trailers have seen a recent increase following a sharp decline. This correlation suggests that mandating ELDs has not had the promised or intended safety improvements.

    More recently, environmental regulations requiring manufacturers to reduce emissions gave us the diesel particulate filter (DPF), an exhaust treatment system that replaces a standard muffler. While there is no current federal mandate requiring a DPF, the filters are required by the 2008 California Statewide Truck and Bus Rule, which has incentivized many nationwide fleets to adopt them. The problem with DPFs is the filter system clogs. A lot.

    When DPFs go down, trucks roll to a stop. Truckers report having to have a DPF serviced as often as every 5,000 miles, which means lots of lost productivity and stranded cargo. I’ve had four breakdowns over the past two years, and three were due to my DPF. A tow truck driver I spoke to on one of those occasions told me half of his business comes from malfunctioning DPFs. Repairs are a specialized affair, and replacements can cost up to $2,000. When my truck isn’t moving, I’m not earning. And these regulators have required that my truck stand still far too often.

    Next up on the government’s list of ways to make truckers’ lives miserable are proposed speed limiters. Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, wants to limit all tractor-trailers to the same speed. Imagine being stuck behind a pair of tractor trailers side by side, who can’t speed up to pass each other. It’s relatively rare right now, but it will become the norm. Every single interstate nationwide will be populated by moving roadblocks, inspiring road rage and blocking critical services. What happens when the fire truck or ambulance is stuck behind these unbreakable pairs?

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Gavin Newsom throws in the towel, lifts ban on travel to states passing anti-transexual and antigroomer laws.
  • Also in the California “Hall of Ls,” after ruing its own police department through defunding, San Francisco is trying to hire cops in Texas.

    San Francisco slashed its police department’s budget by $120 million in 2020. Almost immediately, crime rose in the city. Crime has gotten so bad in San Francisco, that residents are reportedly leaving their car doors unlocked, so crooks won’t smash their windows.

    Mayor London Breed promised to reverse her “defund” policy by restoring and increasing the police budget. However, the city is struggling to recruit qualified officers. Recently, the San Francisco Deputy Sheriff’s Association accused the mayor of continuing to make cuts to the sheriff’s department.

    Despite this, the city went to four universities in Texas to recruit police officers. This appears to be the first time San Francisco looked for candidates outside of California.

    Those four universities are Texas Southern University, Sam Houston State University, Prairie View A&M University, and Texas A&M University.

  • Murder suspect who broke into a Georgia home find out that gun beats knife. “Once he is released from the hospital, he will be confronted with charges including burglary, home invasion, and theft by receiving in Georgia, as well as murder charges in Ohio.”
  • Cisco to Buy Splunk for $28 Billion.
  • Bill Burr has a new film called Old Dads coming to Netflix next month. Looks promising. “Just go on Twitter and share the story where you’re the hero.” Knowing Burr, there will be something here to offend everyone…
  • “Auto CEOs Struggling With Whether To Replace Striking Workers With Robots Or Mexicans.”
  • Now that’s a memorable wedding:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • More Tech Companies Cancelling San Francisco Conferences

    Sunday, September 17th, 2023

    As a hilly, historical, picturesque city on the coast, San Francisco used to be tourist hot-spot and convention destination. But with social justice turning San Francisco into a crime and feces ridden hellhole, even local tech giants have decided it’s time to hold their conferences elsewhere.

    First Red Hat and Meta (AKA Facebook) have cancelled San Francisco conventions.

    Two major tech companies decided to cancel their San Francisco Moscone Center conferences. Software company Red Hat and Bay Area’s Meta are no longer coming to the city in 2024.

    “It’s not something we are going to turn around quickly. There are certainly companies, organizations that are deciding not to hold their events in San Francisco. We will probably see more of that,” said Rufus Jeffris, Bay Area Council spokesperson.

    A financial hit that is no surprise for the San Francisco Travel Association. According to their projections:

    “2024 continues to be a particularly challenging year for conventions in San Francisco. Although 2023 is a robust convention year, 2024 is estimated to actualize about 60% of the average,” said Jeffris.

    Snip.

    We contacted Meta and Red Hat and have not gotten a response. Yet, the Bay Area Council says safety challenges don’t help San Francisco.

    “Some of the issues in San Francisco is working hard to address. Obviously some issues of safety or cleanliness in the streets. Social problems that we are seeing on the streets are frankly a result of not only the pandemic and the after effects of that but many decades of failed policies,” said Jeffris.

    You don’t say. Reminder: The last Republican mayor of San Francisco left office in 1964. Since then an unending stream of Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom have lead the city.

    Now Google has joined Red Hat and Meta in pulling their conference out of the city.

    Google is moving a technology conference out of San Francisco, as the city struggles with high crime and rampant drug use.

    The company will host its Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas next year, SFGATE reported. Google held the conference at the city’s Moscone Center last week, as it had from 2017-2019, for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It had planned to host the 2024 iteration of the conference in San Francisco as well, but it canceled the booking in July. Google declined to give SFGATE a specific reason for pulling the conference out of San Francisco.

    The $1.7 trillion company’s decision comes as dozens of other businesses have scaled back their operations in San Francisco as the city deals with widespread crime, homelessness, and drug use. Between 2020 and 2022, homicides increased 40 percent, and fentanyl deaths have also spiked, resulting in a number of companies pulling events, headquarters, and office space out of San Francisco.

    Salesforce may be next: “Last week, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said his company may pull its massive “Dreamforce” conference out of the city next year, citing public safety concerns. Benioff said this year’s conference will inject $57 million into the downtown economy.”

    Social Justice Warriors seem less concerned about injecting money into the city than into their own bank accounts, or about enabling the city’s growing population of mentally ill transients to continue injecting drugs into their veins. San Francisco will continue to wither and die as long as they’re in charge.

    LinkSwarm For September 8, 2023

    Friday, September 8th, 2023

    I haven’t been covering the Ken Paxton impeachment because I don’t think I have anything novel to say about it that hasn’t been covered better elsewhere. Enjoy the Friday LinkSwarm!

    

  • U.S. credit card debt tops $1 trillion. Thanks, Joe Biden.
  • Truth about our current economic situation:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Chinese nationals gate-crashed U.S. institutions more than 100 times in recent years.
    

  • How John Stewart created Tucker Carlson.

    The feature that really made The Daily Show famous was its masterful use of archival video clips to reveal the hypocrisy of the chattering classes. Stewart would set his target on some party shill or professional talking head being condescending, self-important, dishing out blame, kissing whatever ring he’d been paid to kiss. And then the show would play a clip of the same talking head’s appearance on a C-SPAN 3 four-in-the-morning call-in show from ten years ago, back when he’d been paid to kiss another ring, saying the exact opposite thing.

    There was a clip, there was always a clip. And our righteous host would send these hacks packing.

    Through all this, certain public figures would be transformed into storylines with narratives and characters, with inside jokes and recurring bits. The media’s storytellers became the subjects of a theater of the absurd. It got so that when certain figures would show up in a segment, you knew you were about to witness them receive their just comeuppance, a great spectacle of spilled archival blood. The audience would titter in excited anticipation.

    It was a delight to watch.

    Snip.

    What had created a culture of “just talking on TV without any accountability,” as one Daily Show writer put it, was not only the sheer volume and speed of the news. It was this true fact that will sound insane to anyone under the age of thirty: People on television reasonably assumed that no one would hear what they had said ever again.

    As essayist Chuck Klosterman records in The Nineties: A Book, the key characteristic of twentieth-century media was its ephemerality. You experienced it in real time and internalized what was important and what it felt like. Then you moved on. “It was a decade of seeing absolutely everything before never seeing it again.”

    People used to argue with their friends about the plot of a show or what the score had been in the ball game because, well, how were you going to check? Unless you had personally saved the newspaper or recorded it on your VCR, you would need to go to a literal archive and pull it up on microfilm.

    TV news was even shakier, as networks often recorded over old tapes. Some of this footage only exists today because of the obsessive efforts of one Philadelphia woman who recorded news broadcasts on 140,000 VHS tapes over forty years.

    And so, if you were a pundit or a commentator or a “spin doctor” PR flak, you could say whatever suited your needs at the moment, or even lie with impunity — as long as your lie did not become its own pseudo-event. Your lasting impact was whatever stuck in viewers’ heads and hearts. And if you changed your tune in the months or years afterwards, who would remember?

    The Daily Show would remember.

    The explosion of live broadcast and cable news had created a new, completely under-valued resource for whoever thought to harness it: catalog clips. Soon, new digital technology could preserve content in amber, allowing for its retrieval, repurposing, or referencing at any time.

    It’s a long essay, and I don’t necessarily agree with all the writer’s points, but it’s worth reading.

  • How Sweden got Flu Manchu right.

    There was no state of emergency, no curfews, no orders to stay at home or shelter in place. Young Swedes were encouraged to continue with their sports training and events. Schools remained open, and so did offices, factories, restaurants, libraries, shopping centers, gyms, and hairdressers. As a rule, borders were not closed to fellow Europeans and public transportation kept running.

    There were no mask mandates and not even a recommendation for the public to use masks—until January 2021, when they were recommended on public transportation during rush hours (7–9 a.m. and 4–6 p.m. on weekdays). While some other governments forced school children to wear face masks, Tegnell even warned against making children wear them, saying that “school is no optimal place for face masks.”6

    One can see how Sweden’s path diverged from that of its peers by consulting the latest Human Freedom Index, which has data through 2020. During this first year of the pandemic, Sweden’s freedom rating only fell by 0.19 on a 10‐​point scale, compared to 0.49 in Britain and 0.52 in the United States. The only rich country that saw a smaller decline in freedom than Sweden was Singapore, at 0.16.7

    Snip.

    Analysts from other countries—and even some Swedish scholars—predicted disaster. One influential Swedish model, inspired by the famous British Imperial College study, predicted that Sweden would have 20,000 COVID-19 patients needing intensive care by early May 2020 and a need for intensive care units around 40 times over capacity. By July 1, Sweden would have 82,000 COVID-19 deaths. The Imperial College model predicted between 66,000 and 90,000 deaths without mitigation efforts, and a peak demand of intensive care unit patients 70 times higher than capacity.

    Snip.

    When you look at excess deaths during the three pandemic years, 2020–2022, compared to the previous three years, you get a very different picture. According to this measure, Sweden’s excess death rate during the pandemic was 4.4 percent higher than previously. Compared to the data that other countries report to Eurostat, this is less than half of the average European level of 11.1 percent, and remarkably, it is the lowest excess mortality rate during the pandemic of all European countries, including Norway, Denmark, and Finland.

    (Hat tip: John Tierney at Instapundit.)

  • Sweden got immigration wrong.

    The latest violence has erupted in Malmo following a Quran burning by an ‘Anti-Islam activist’ according to the BBC.

    “A group of angry protesters tried to stop the burning, which resulted in a showdown between them and police,” the report states.

  • “Poland Aims To Create Largest Army In Europe Within Two Years.” Golly, who would need a large army with such historically peaceful neighbors as Germany and Russia?
  • Surprised I didn’t see this elsewhere: “Murder & Drug Chaos Forces Lockdown Of Entire Texas Prison System.”

    e Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) declared a statewide lockdown of all its correctional facilities on Wednesday morning, citing increased contraband-related incidents and drug-related inmate homicides.

    TDCJ said most inmate-on-inmate homicides “are tied back to illegal drugs … and over the last five years, the volume of illegal narcotics entering the system has substantially increased.”

    In response to the drug and murder epidemic in Texas jails, TDCJ is implementing the following strategies to restore order:

    • Systemwide Lockdown: Each facility will limit the movement of inmates and their contact with those outside the prison. Inmates and staff will undergo intensified searches to intercept and confiscate contraband.
    • Digital Mail: TDCJ is completing the rollout of the digital mail program. Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in paper soaked in K2 or methamphetamines coming into our facilities. The digital mail program will halt this contraband being sent through traditional mail. Effective September 6, 2023, all inmate mail should be addressed and sent to the Digital Mail Center. All mail received this week will be delivered to the digital mail processing center. More information about this program can be found here: TDCJ News – TDCJ Digital Mail Rollout.
    • Increased K9 Searches and Other Technology: To assist in contraband detection and outside funding related to contraband, TDCJ will be deploying additional resources. Specialized search teams and narcotic dogs will be deployed to units and staff will be subject to enhanced search procedures.
    • Comprehensive Searches: All persons entering our facilities at all locations will undergo comprehensive searches.

    “Due to the fact staff will be concentrating on these search efforts, visitation will be canceled until further notice. Inmates will still have access to the phone system and tablets,” TDCJ said.

    If drugs are getting into Texas prisons, there’s over a 90% chance correctional staff are getting them in there.

  • “Over 1,600 Scientists Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration.”

    “There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”

    A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.

    The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.

    “Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming,” the declaration said.

    Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    “Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models “exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases” and “ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”

    Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide.

    CLINTEL also dismissed the narrative of global warming being linked to increased natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and droughts, stressing that there is “no statistical evidence” to support these claims.

    “There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it said.

  • “California mom Jessica Konen won a $100,000 settlement from her daughter’s school district, Spreckels Union School District, after Buena Vista Middle School had socially transitioned her 11-year-old daughter, Alicia, without her knowledge or consent.”
  • “Hospital Employee Leaks DEI Training Materials That Say Three Year-Olds Can be Transgender.”
  • Remember how the UK was economically lagging other countries in Europe and Remainers blamed Brexit? Yeah, not so much.

    The Office for National Statistics (ONS) now says that the UK economy actually recovered from the pandemic recession back in 2021. It turns out that wholesalers and the healthcare sector, in particular, had produced much greater output than previously thought.

    These updated figures suggest that the UK economy is as much as two per cent larger than previously believed. This means that the UK can no longer be considered the worst-performing economy in the G7. In fact, post-Brexit, the UK recovered from the pandemic at a similar rate to France and at a faster pace than Germany, Europe’s largest economy.

    The ONS’s revision is extraordinary. As one leading economist put it: ‘The entire UK economic narrative – post-pandemic – has just been revised away.’ The very basis for the Remainer elites’ narrative of doom has now been shattered before our eyes.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • San Francisco: A dozen overdose deaths in one day.
  • Hollywood types are starting to get evicted due to the strike. Perhaps someone should let them know that you can find jobs outside the movie industry…
  • Dwight has a swell Medal of Honor story. In Vietnam, he flew four surrounded soldiers to safety hanging off his helicopter skids…
  • Why in God’s green earth is Amazon allowing people to sell AI generated mushroom foraging books on its site?
  • John Lennon wrote “I Am the Walrus” to troll English teachers and make fun of Allen Ginsberg.
  • Mark Felton visits Buckingham Palace, and is Not Amused. “The rooms open to the public are, of course, lavishly decorated. The amount of gold painted furniture, pianos and urns, similar to what I imagine Liberace’s house look like. The walls are hung with the usual assortment of well-fed Hanoverians.” Plus: No bathrooms for you, lowly peasant!
  • Can you spot the Transwoman?
  • “Vials Of Mysterious Substance At Wuhan Lab Labeled ‘Save For 2024 Election.'”
  • Boop!

    (Hat tip:

  • LinkSwarm for August 4, 2023

    Friday, August 4th, 2023

    More Biden Crime Family evidence surfaces, another mysterious Chinese bio-lab (this one much closer to home than Wuhan), more blue city real estate disaster, and Tim Scott screws up. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    

  • “Joe Biden Allegedly Interacted With Son’s Clients More Than 200 Times.”

    President Joe Biden vehemently denied ever talking business with his son, “or with anyone else” in the run-up to the 2020 election. In fact, Biden even fat-shamed an Iowa voter who approached the subject during the Democratic primaries. On the debate stage with Donald Trump, the former vice president peddled conspiracies of Russian interference when emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop revealed otherwise.

    On Sunday night, the New York Post reported on anticipated testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer. The 48-year-old who went golfing with the Bidens in 2014 is expected to tell the House Oversight Committee how Hunter Biden put his father in contact with foreign businessmen and potential investors at least 24 times. According to the Post, such meetings were either in person or by speakerphone, with Hunter Biden often dialing in Joe.

    Beyond those meetings, there are more than 180 other episodes where the president interacted with his son’s business partners, contrary to his campaign claims of “absolute” separation.

  • Multiple Banks Filed Over 170 ‘Suspicious Activity’ Reports On The Bidens.”

    As the evidence for at least an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden mounts, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and co-host Ben Ferguson discussed the latest bombshell – 170 suspicious activity reports (SARs) from six banks over the past few years – on their podcast with House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY).

    As Townhall reports, these SARs are submitted and sent to the Treasury Department when banks “have a strong suspicion” that a crime has been committed, so as to protect the bank.

    As Comer emphasized, these are submitted “very seldom.”

    If someone were to have two, the chairman explained, it would be hard for that person to open up a bank account.

    Submitting an SAR, Comer added, also is “inviting the regulators to come in and regulate,” which is the last thing banks want.

    The 170 reports are thus quite significant.

  • And still more Biden corruption news: “Devon Archer’s full testimony released.”

    The full transcript from Devon Archer’s sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee from Monday, July 31, has been released. During that testimony, Archer told Rep. Dan Goldman that Hunter Biden had been placed on the board of directors for Ukrainian energy company Burisma in order to “legally” intimidate people.

    During that question period, Goldman asked Archer “So based on everything you saw, heard, and observed, did you have any knowledge of Joe Biden having any involvement with Burisma?”

    Archer said that while he did not have “direct” knowledge, it was his view that Burisma would not last were in not for Joe Biden’s involvement. “My only thought is that I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it. That’s my, like, only honest opinion,” Archer said. He went on to say that the company was able to survive for as long as it did because Hunter was on the board.

    “Just because of the brand,” Archer said. The “brand” refers to the Biden name. Speaking with The Post Millennial, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said that the brand was not only Biden, but the vice presidency during Biden’s tenure.

    “How does that have an impact?” Goldman asked.

    “Well, the capabilities to navigate D.C.,” Archer said, “that they were able to, you know, basically be in the news cycle. And I think that preserved them from a, you know, from a longevity standpoint. That’s like my honest—that’s what I—tht’s like how I think holistically.”

    “But how would that work?” Goldman asked.

    “Because people would be intimidated to mess with them,” Archer replied.

    “In what way?” Goldman pressed.

    “Legally,” Archer said.

    Archer also spoke about the meetings during which Joe Biden would call in, or be called. “He put him on speakerphone, again, occasionally. Specifics, like, you know, dinner—you know, dinners occasionally.” Archer was asked to describe the dinners, and said “I remember a dinner in Paris with a French energy company that was—we were speaking to an advisor, and then—we were speaking to. And it was really a Rosemont Seneca Advisors type of—a Rosemont Seneca Advisors kind of a pitch, at the end of the day. And there was a talk, and he said that we’re at this—you know, we’re at this restaurant in Paris, and he put him on the speaker. So that did happen. There were other people there.”

    That dinner, specifically, was attended by “myself; Hunter; Eric Schwerin; and then the executives from the French energy company,” Archer said.

    Another was in “Beijing, at, you know, some restaurant,” Archer said, “—or Chengdu or something like I don’t remember the—I don’t remember specifics. This was just—it was not—t was like a, you know—especially with the time zone difference, there was—you know, there were meetings where his dad would call and he would be talking to him or put him on speaker. I’m not going to—you know, that’s—that happened.”

    Archer said that the conversation at that dinner, with Jonathan Li, was primarily niceties. But it was his contention that getting the vice president on the phone, showing off that kind of access, was what those calls were all about. Archer testified that Hunter Biden would say things like “Hey, guys, my dad’s on the phone.”

    Another call, which Archer revealed during questioning by Rep. Jim Jordan, took place in Dubai. During this impromptu meeting, Hunter Biden was contacted by Burisma’s CEO Zlochevsky, who said “We’re under pressure. We need to go—we want to talk to Hunter.” Hunter called DC, and Archer was “not in the earshot” of that call.

    It was only 5 days after that call that Joe Biden “has a trip to the Ukraine, and he makes a statement: ‘It’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption. The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.” That was in 2015, and Biden withheld $1 billion in loan guarantees from Ukraine until such time as the prosecutor Viktor Shokin was fired.

    The full transcript is here.

  • Know who else is squealing on the Biden Crime Family? Jill Biden’s ex-husband.

    Bill Stevenson, who was married to Jill Biden between 1970 and 1975, told Newsmax last week that the president’s brother, Frankie Biden, tried to intimidate him during his divorce with Jill, and claimed the family threatened him with repercussions.

    “Frankie Biden of the Biden crime family comes up to me and he goes, “Give her the house or you’re going to have serious problems,”” Stevenson said. “I looked at Frankie and I said, “Are you threatening me?” and needless to say, about two months later, my brother and I were indicted for that tax charge for $8,200.”

    When asked to clarify whether he thinks Joe Biden was behind the tax charge, Stevenson told host Greg Kelly: “I not only think it, but I know it,” adding that he “could not believe the power of Joe Biden and the Department of Justice. I couldn’t believe it.”

    Kelly also noted the parallels between Stevenson’s case and Hunter Biden’s ongoing tax troubles – noting that Hunter was hit with just two misdemeanor counts for $2.2 million in unpaid taxes, while Stevenson and his brother were slapped with two felonies for just over $8,000 in unpaid taxes.

  • This is a weird, disturbing story: Mysterious Chinese bio-lab discovered in Reedley, CA in the central San Joaquin Valley.

    Court documents detail the horrors and dangerous nature of an illegal lab found in Reedley, California, exposed several months ago by a city code enforcement officer. What was found inside prompted the fire chief to send a letter to city officials describing it as a “potential disaster for the city.”

    An investigation into the warehouse was prompted by a simple garden hose that was illegally attached and coming out of a wall in the back of the building.

    “Frankly, we knew that should not have been there and when she went to investigate, she found that there was activity or operation or something happening within that building,” said Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba.

    The city then obtained a search warrant to look inside what should have been an ordinary warehouse. Inside, they found thousands of vials, many of which contained bio-hazardous materials like human blood, and other unknown substances.

    “There was over 800 different chemicals on site in different bottles of different acids. Unfortunately, a lot of these are being categorized under ‘unknown chemicals,’” said Assistant Director of the Fresno County Department of Public Health Joe Prado. “A lot of these labels have been removed from bottles so there was only so much testing we could do [on] those chemicals.”

    Health officials also discovered nearly 1,000 lab mice, 200 of which were dead.

    Prado said the warehouse occupants claimed they were “doing some testing on laboratory mice that would help them support [and develop] the COVID test kits that they had on-site.”

    According to court documents, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested what they could and determined that at least 20 potentially infectious viral, bacterial, and parasitic agents were present, including E. coli, malaria, and the virus that causes COVID-19.

    What. The. Hell?

  • “Biden White House asked Facebook to tweak algorithm to push mainstream over conservative news.” Of course they did. That’s viewpoint discrimination.
  • “Scientists Call for Full Retraction of Nature’s Proximal Origin Paper, as Fraud Accusations Mount.” Their response was simplicity itself: They lied.

    A growing number of people, including prominent scientists, are calling for a full retraction of a high-profile study published in the journal Nature in March 2020 that explored the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

    The paper, whose authors included immunology and microbiology professor Kristian G. Andersen, declared that evidence clearly showed that SARS-CoV-2 did not originate from a laboratory.

    “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the authors wrote in February.

    Yet a trove of recently published documents reveal that Andersen and his co-authors believed that the lab leak scenario was not just possible, but likely.

    “[The] main thing still in my mind is that the lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario,” Andersen said to his colleagues, according to a report from Public, which published a series of Slack messages between the authors.

    Anderson was not the only author who privately expressed doubts that the virus had natural origins. Public cataloged dozens of statements from Andersen and his co-authors—Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert F. Garry—between the dates January 31 and February 28, 2020 suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 may have been engineered.

    ” …the fact that we are discussing this shows how plausible it is,” Garry said of the lab-leak hypothesis.

    “We unfortunately can’t refute the lab leak hypothesis,” Andersen said on Feb. 20, several days after the authors published their pre-print.

  • Ukrainian naval drone hits Russian Ropuha-class landing ship Olenegorski Gornjak. The ship may not have sank, but was seen listing heavily, so is likely out of action for a while.
  • “George Soros-tied fund, Fortress buy bankrupt Vice Media for $350M.” Evil money after bad…(Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Sadly, I think Kurt is right on the money here: “Tim Scott Is Too Soft to Be Our Nominee.”

    The rap on Tim Scott is that he is too nice to be a modern Republican, but that’s wrong – he’s too weak to be a modern Republican. The man consistently defaults to submission to the woke left, but the times call for a warrior and his brand is soft surrender. Yeah, it would be nice to live in an era where we have the luxury of a president who dodged the draft in the culture wars, but we do not live in that time. Tim Scott needs to stay right where he is, an affable but unaccomplished senator firmly within the tradition of the political puffballs that South Carolina’s GOP inexplicably turns out. Let him be nice somewhere where his alleged niceness won’t shaft us again.

    It could have been different, but that would require a different man than Tim Scott. There are moments that define a candidate, moments where they have a choice and the choice they make makes or breaks them. Kamala Harris decided to take what is essentially a footnote within the Florida history standards and contort it into some sort of lie about how Ron DeSantis loves slavery. It’s one of those issues where the claim is so facially ludicrous that you have to wonder if Kamala is stupid or cynical – and come to the conclusion that she is probably both. But she went with it and DeSantis pushed back and we were moving on when someone in the regime media asked Tim Scott about it.

    This was his decision point. It was an opportunity to show who he is. And Tim Scott whiffed.

    Taking the wrong side in the social justice war is disqualifying. Scott has gone from being maybe my third favorite candidate in the field and a strong Veepstakes possibility to being behind Doug Bergrum and Vivek Ramaswamy.

  • “Oakland NAACP blasts progressive city leaders demands more action on rising crime.”

    Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis…

    Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals. If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar.

    People are moving out of Oakland in droves. They are afraid to venture out of their homes to go to work, shop, or dine in Oakland and this is destroying economic activity. Businesses, small and large, struggle and close, tax revenues vanish, and we are creating the notorious doom-loop where life in our city continues to spiral downward. As economic pain increases, the conditions that help create crime and criminals are exacerbated by desperate people with no employment opportunities.

    We are in crisis and elected leaders must declare a state of emergency and bring resources together from the city, the county, and the state to end the crisis. We are 500 police officers short of the number that experts say Oakland needs. Our 911 system does not work. Residents now know that help will not come when danger confronts them. Worse, criminals know that too…

    There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime. No one should live in fear in our city.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Oakland residents can look across the bay to see what happens to cities Social Justice Warriors control. “Every store on Market Street is closed.”
  • San Francisco hardware store lost $700,000 to organized shoplifting. (Hat Tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of blue city retail apocalypses: “Field Office, a Trophy Complex Unable to Find Tenants, Defaults on $73.8 Million Loan. Goldman Sachs and Lincoln Property stopped making payments.”

    The owners of Field Office, a 290,375-square-foot office complex near the Willamette River, have defaulted on their $73.8 million loan after being unable to find enough tenants, becoming the latest office owners to throw in the towel on Portland’s struggling office market.

    Field Office is owned by New York investment bank Goldman Sachs and Lincoln Property Co., a Dallas-based real estate firm with operations in Portland. The pair bought Field Office from local developer Project^ and National Real Estate Advisors, an investment firm based in Washington, D.C., for $118 million in April 2019, according to public records.

    Funny how letting antifa/#BlackLivesMatter rioters and crime run rampant through your downtown destroys property values. #ThisIsYourCityOnSocialJustice

  • Black Florida State University professor who published numerous studies on “systemic racism” is fired for just making shit up. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • You’re a Texas republican congressman who’s also an ER doctor and you try to assist a teenage girl having a medical emergency? That’s a handcuffing.
  • Want speak at our webiner? Professor: Sure. OK, here’s your bill for €80,000.
  • Food giant sued over discriminating against white men.

    A former employee of a large food service corporation is suing the company in federal court after it fired her for refusing to participate in a program that discriminates against white male employees.

    Courtney Rogers worked for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Compass Group USA Inc. from her home office in San Diego, California.

    The company had more than 280,000 employees and $20.1 billion in revenue in 2019, according to its LinkedIn profile.

  • “Back in 2018, NBA megastar LeBron James opened his I Promise School in Akron, Ohio with the noble goal of transforming the lives of at-risk students and parents in his hometown. But it appears that the school has some major challenges five years into its existence. According to a report from the Akron Beacon Journal, the I Promise School’s fall class of eighth graders has has not seen a single student pass the state’s math test in five years – since the group was in the third grade.”
  • “University of North Texas Announces Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office is “Dissolved.'” Good. But the people who staffed it also need to be laid off.
  • Kickstarter cracks down on AI.
  • “Family Torn Between Placing Grandpa In Hospice And Having Him Run For Senate.”
  • We should all be so happy:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Why Homelessness in California is Worse Than In Other States

    Sunday, July 16th, 2023

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

    Some takeaways:

  • “According to the latest report, California alone has one third of the U.S homeless population today.”
  • “What we have is you can be arrested or cited did over and over and over and over again, and there’s no consequences. And it’s just getting worse and worse.”
  • The same transients sprawling unconscious on city streets in LA and San Francisco are now found in San Diego.
  • “If you look at the people and look in their eyes, you see a lost [soul], almost like a post-apocalyptic look. It’s not somebody who’s lost their job or lost their housing, it’s someone who is addicted to drugs. In large part have fried their brains. They’re suffering from mental illness.”
  • “Stanford recently looked at it last year, their school of economics looked at it, and they found were over the last 10 years, most of the United States homelessness dropped by roughly 9%. In the same period here in the state of California, it went up by 43%.”
  • He says that other blue states aren’t having the same problem California is, but that’s slightly misleading. There are blue cities that are starting to see some of the same problems (Seattle, Portland, Austin) that are starting to have the same problems because they follow the same playbook. But they do touch on Seattle at the end of the interview.
  • “The most notable, unique difference is our decriminalizing hardcore drug use, and decriminalizing large or low-level property crimes.”
  • You can’t trust crime statistics, because people have just stopped reporting things. Auto thefts are still reported for insurance purposes. “Vehicle thefts here in the state of California have gone up significantly, so much so that on a per capita basis we are double the State of Florida.”
  • One Target accurately reporting thefts for a month doubled San Francisco theft statistics.
  • “Employees that don’t want to come to work and be exposed to that, because of being told don’t contact anyone.”
  • “Shoppers stop coming to stores. You just had Nordstrom’s in San Francisco close after 35 years. They’re one of their hallmark stores. That is a huge store in San Francisco closed because theft.”
  • “Every year more people leaving than are coming to the state because of poor public policy decisions.”
  • “The single dividing line between us and everywhere else in that regard is the legalization of hardcore drug use, or the decriminalization of hardcore drug use.”
  • “Harm reduction centers” just prevent people from dying on that particular day, and do nothing to keep drug users from gradually killing themselves over months and years. Those non-profits are “simply enabling them to continue to that that addiction and to use those drugs, knowing it will kill them.”
  • Pierson: HUD, uh, in 2015, 2016 decided…”Hey, we’re a housing entity. Why are we spending 60%, 70% percent of our resources on rehab for people? And so let’s get out of that business and go and do this other one.” I think that happened at a time which was critical in for California, to where we were already going down this housing housing first, or type in harm reduction type philosophy.

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

    Pierson: Yeah, it’s absurd.

  • “We have based all of our policy on the slogan called ‘Housing First.’ What it says is, if you provide them housing and you provide this, provide some services to him, the person will stop using drugs.”
  • New York (which I personally would not point to as a model, it’s simply less of an obvious failure) has a ratio of one social worker to eight homeless people. California has a ratio of one to thirty-two.
  • “Compassion isn’t enough.”
  • “Compassion isn’t letting someone die in a ditch somewhere. Compassion isn’t letting someone lay on the street with a needle in their arm. That’s not compassion.”
  • “Enough is enough. You’ve tried this grand social experiment over the last eight or ten years. It didn’t work. We need a course correction, and we need to do something about it now.”
  • Seattle is an extreme example of what’s happening here in California. Everybody, the businesses are fleeing. The people who are living there that can leave are leaving. And it is very similar to what we’re doing, where open rampant hardcore drug use, little or no consequence for property crimes, and they also have a horrendous problem with law enforcement staffing. They simply can’t hire law enforcement officers because, frankly, the way they’ve treated them. It is a handful of really bad policy decisions that created this problem.

  • No one wants to work at Nordstrom’s because they know their car will be broken into while they work.
  • One flaw with the interview is that they did not discuss the role of the Homeless Industrial Complex in creating the situation. My working theory is that the appalling decisions we see being made on homelessness and crime are because the hard left is actively benefiting from the situation because it provides myriad ways to rake off graft and fraud. Ditto the lunacy of defunding the police.