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LinkSwarm For February 20, 2026

Friday, February 20th, 2026

Everyone favors Voter ID except Democrats trying to cling to power, America’s big stick gets bigger, Trump’s tariffs hit a setback at the Supreme Court, another insane tranny shooter, Ukraine recaptures more land from Russia, another Pulitzer Prize winning leftist pedo, more Paxton lawsuits, and a new party rises on the right in the UK.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

On the personal front, I may need to buy a new dryer. We’ll see what the repairman says Monday…

  • “Vast Majority Of Americans Want Voter ID And Democrats Don’t Care.”

    Are voter ID requirements considered a controversial idea in the eyes of US citizens? If you watch the establishment media or follow leaders in the Democratic Party then you might think bills like the SAVE Act are the end of freedom as we know it. However, outside the echo chambers of DNC propaganda, the vast majority of Americans have no problem whatsoever with people proving their US citizenship before they vote in local and federal elections.

    The widespread support for voter ID is undeniable. Surveys from the past year including those from Pew and Gallup show that, regardless of party or ethnicity, Americans citizens want elections to be protected from manipulation through mass illegal immigration.

    A Pew Research Center survey from August 2025 found that 83% of Americans favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo ID to vote. This includes:

    95% of Republicans

    71% of Democrats

    Only 16% of people oppose it.

    A Gallup poll from 2024 shows 84% support for requiring photo ID to vote, with 98% of Republicans, 84% of independents and 67% of Democrats in approval.

    A recent CNN segment featuring number cruncher Harry Enten confirms that the backing for the SAVE Act is also dominant regardless of ethnicity: 85% of white voter, 82% of Latino voters and 76% of black voters all want voter ID. It’s difficult to find many issues which the American public universally supports at this level.

    Democrat leaders, however, don’t care that the majority of their own base wants voter ID laws. Party officials and the left-wing media have engaged in a shameless propaganda campaign designed to frighten the public into opposing the SAVE Act, despite their previous platforms defending majority rule.

    That’s because they view voter integrity laws as an existential threat to their power. If they can’t cheat, they can’t win…

  • The big stick gets bigger. “Ford Carrier Group Enters Mediterranean To Join Biggest US Build-Up Since 2003 Iraq War.”

    Open source monitors as well as US and Middle East media have confirmed that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, has entered the Mediterranean Sea, having sailed passed the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday.

    This is the second carrier strike group expected to soon operate directly in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, amid the massive military build-up and pressure campaign against Iran. It was sent from the Caribbean earlier this month, extending its planned deployment.

    The USS Mahan Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which is accompanying the USS Gerald R. Ford, is also now crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, maritime tracking analysis shows.

    The aircraft carrier will likely take several more days to reach the Middle East and be poised to operate against Iran – so it looks to be in place by start of next week.

    According to Bloomberg and other outlets, the US has now amassed the biggest force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There is administration talk of “limited strikes” – but clearly Washington is getting ready for all escalation scenarios.

  • The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs.

    The Supreme Court (6-3 in a majority opinion written by CJ Roberts) has ruled that Trump’s tariffs exceeded his authority.

    We decide whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes the President to impose tariffs.

    ***

    The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it. IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate . . . importation” falls short. IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties. The Government points to no statute in which Congress used the word “regulate” to authorize taxation. And until now no President has read IEEPA to confer such power. We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.

  • Trump says he has alternative means to impose tariffs. “Effective immediately, all national security tariffs under Section 232 and existing Section 301 tariffs remain in place… Today, I will sign an order to impose a 10% global tariff under Section 122 over and above our normal tariffs already being charged.”
  • A sign that Trump’s border control policies are having an effect: the percentage of foreign born workers in the American economy is dropping.

    In the past 12 months (January 2025 to January 2026) there are fewer foreign-born workers employed and more native-born workers in jobs. The time period roughly corresponds to the first year of Pres. Trump’s second term.

    The tale of the tape:

    • Foreign-born population (age 16+) -707,000
    • Foreign-born in jobs: -97,000
    • American-born population (age 16+) +3,004,000
    • American-born in jobs: +840,000

    That’s the first drop in half a century.

  • Another week, another insane tranny shooter.

    The murder-suicide at a Rhode Island hockey rink on Monday is just the latest in a recent string of murders allegedly carried out by self-identifying transgender perpetrators or by those seemingly inspired by transgender ideology.

    Robert Dorgan — who police say shot and killed his ex-wife and one of their sons during a high school hockey game this week — had previously insisted he believed he was actually a transgender woman despite being a man. A local TV station said that “An unnamed woman, who identified herself as Dorgan’s daughter, has since come forward, telling WCVB that her father ‘has mental health issues.'”

    “He shot my family and he’s dead now,” she reportedly said. Dorgan, who killed himself after the murders on Monday, had also expressed pro-Nazi sentiments, and according to The New York Post, was adorned with “vile neo-Nazi tattoos.”

    He is only the most recent example of high-profile attacks linked to transgender perpetrators or transgender ideology, including mass shootings at Christian schools, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

  • Progress: “Major Manhattan Hospital, Massachusetts Health Care System End ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors.”
  • Setback: “Judge Orders California Hospital to Resume Gender Transition Procedures for Minors.” Democrats seem to love mutilating children too much to give it up.
  • “Kansas’ governor vetoed a bill that banned men from the women’s room. The legislature overrode her.” “Even in an uber-red state, Democrat governors are still going to toe the party line.”
  • Ukraine carried out a big drone strike on the Velikiye Luki military oil depot, nearly 500 miles from the border.
  • Ukraine captured islands in the Dnipro river near Kherson City.
  • They also destroyed a BK-16 fast patrol boat with a drone, Russia’s first naval loss of 2026.
  • Scott Pinkser thinks Trump’s deal with India spells doom for the Russian economy, because they won’t allow those shadow fleet tankers to continue on to China. Quoting Peter Zeihan:

    If the Russians have lost their single largest source of income, that will manifest on the battlefield. The Chinese may be supplying the Russians with all the gear that they can pay for, but the key thing there is: pay for.

    And if the Russians can’t [pay], then a drone war where the Russians can’t get enough drones is one where the Russians start losing territory.

    Just like they’ve lost territory the last two weeks. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • Satellite photos show an additional 24 Russian fighter jets decommissioned since 2023 due to lack of spares.
  • Russian tanker crashes into loading crane at Ust-Luga. Comrade Vodakovitch takes the wheel again…
  • Price of cucumbers double in Russia. I’m mildly fascinated by those per-country yearly cucumber consumption numbers. 12 kilograms about 26 pounds a year, which doesn’t seem high if you’re including pickles, as that’s only one small jar of pickles every other week. But China’s 55 kilograms a year works out to two pounds a year per person. That’s a lot of damn cucumbers…
  • Democracy dies in protecting sex offenders that check the right boxes:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Paxton Sues Dallas Officials for Defying Voters’ Police Funding Mandate.”

    Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Dallas officials, accusing them of defying a voter‑approved mandate to boost police funding under Proposition U.

    Proposition U, approved by Dallas voters in November 2024, amended the city charter to require at least 50 percent of “excess” annual revenue be directed to public safety. The charter language earmarks those dollars first for the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, then for increasing officer pay and growing the force to at least 4,000 sworn officers.

    Paxton’s lawsuit, filed in a Dallas County district court, targets the City of Dallas, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, and Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland Jr. for allegedly underfunding public safety in violation of the charter.

    The attorney general argues that city officials “acted beyond their legal authority” by using an improper calculation of excess revenue that drastically reduced the amount legally owed to police priorities.

    For the 2025–26 fiscal year, the city’s own projections reportedly show about $220 million in excess revenue above the prior year. But Ireland told the Dallas City Council that excess revenue totaled only $61 million—roughly a quarter of that amount—after excluding large categories of city income from the calculation.

    Paxton’s filing notes that the city did not cite any state or federal law restricting the use of the excluded revenue, which would be required to legally omit those funds from the Proposition U formula.

    Because of this narrower calculation, the proposed city budget allocates far less money to police pensions, officer pay, and hiring than voters required, Paxton says. The lawsuit contends that Dallas’ current hiring plan leaves the department hundreds of officers short of the 4,000‑officer minimum mandated in the charter amendment.

    Paxton’s lawsuit also points to another provision of Proposition U that city officials allegedly ignored altogether. The charter requires Dallas to hire an independent third‑party firm each year to conduct a police compensation survey comparing Dallas officer pay and benefits to those of other major North Texas departments.

    According to information obtained by the state, no such survey was conducted, despite the charter’s mandatory language. That failure, Paxton argues, makes it impossible for city leadership to honestly claim they are meeting the voter‑approved requirement to make Dallas police pay competitive in the region.

    Blue city functionaries hate funding the police because the hard left can’t get any of their sticky fingers into that pile of money…

  • “Authorities Allege Nearly 200 Fraudulent Transactions at Harris County Tax Office.

    Two former Harris County Tax Office employees and two local business owners are facing first-degree felony charges in connection with what authorities say was a coordinated vehicle registration fraud operation.

    Court filings allege the group worked together to process registrations and title transfers that bypassed required state safeguards, collecting bribes in exchange for pushing transactions through the system.

    Adriana De La Rosa, 43, owner of Bella’s Multiservices in South Houston, has been arrested. Oswaldo “Oz” Perez, 51, who is affiliated with the same business, remains wanted.

    Former tax office employees Sarah Ambria Anderson, 31, and Renisha Touche Wilkins, 35, were also charged. Both were dismissed from their positions in April 2024.

    Investigators allege the activity centered on the Scarsdale branch of the Harris County Tax Office, where nearly 200 questionable transactions were processed. According to reporting from KPRC 2, the employees allegedly accepted cash and gifts in exchange for overriding verification requirements tied to insurance coverage, emissions inspections, and residency. Some vehicles were allegedly coded as tax-exempt, allowing customers to avoid paying required fees.

    Authorities further allege that Anderson charged approximately $300 per transaction and transported paperwork in a personal binder to avoid detection.

    The case reportedly began after employees in another Texas county noticed Bella’s Multiservices promoting vehicle registration stickers on TikTok and Facebook. Social media posts advertised expedited service and claimed inspections were not necessary. That tip prompted an internal review, which eventually led to a criminal investigation.

    This is not known as “keeping a low profile.” One wonders if they might also be charged as accessories for Grand Theft Auto.

  • Rupert Lowe has created a new political party, Restore Britain, that looks to outflank Reform on the right.

    The first priority is to control who comes to our country, and more importantly, who stays in our country. Restore Britain will not just stop mass immigration; we will reverse it.

    Every single illegal migrant will be securely detained, and then deported. The message will be unrelenting: If you are in this country without permission, you will be removed. For the foreseeable future, far more people must leave Britain than arrive.

    If a foreign national is unable to speak English, lives in social housing, claims benefits, refuses to work, fails to integrate, commits crime, or even actively hates our way of life and wishes to do us harm, then they must leave, or be made to leave…

    Restore Britain will make our communities safe again for women and children. That I promise you. If that means millions go, then millions go.

    We’re constantly told that the economy needs vast swaths of low-skilled migrants. We know that’s simply not true. What we need is to get millions of healthy Brits back into work – a radical overhaul of how welfare is delivered. Protecting those in genuine need, but not funding healthy shirkers to live off the back of hard working men and women. If you can work, you must work. It really is that simple.

    There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for Restore Britain, given their willingness to tackle the illegal alien invasion head on. The irony is the reform leader Nigel Farage looks poised to go from a fringe figure on the right to being ,i>outflanked on the right without ever being elected Prime Minister…

  • The face of evil: “This Karen called CPS on students’ parents because they chartered a TPUSA chapter at school…A liberal woman in Maryland, Nancy Krause, is facing mass calls to be charged after she weaponized CPS against Calvert County high school students for starting a TPUSA chapter at their school.”

    I hope they sure her for every penny she has, and then some.

  • Stephen Colbert and James Talarico are lying about Trump blocking an interview. CBS merely told Colbert there were equal time considerations for such an interview, and that he might have to interview other Texasw Democratic senate candidates like Jasmine Crockett.
  • “Congressman Tony Gonzales Denies Staffer Affair Amid Husband’s Allegations, Released Text Messages.”

    After text messages obtained by news media appeared to corroborate prior reports alleging that U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) engaged in a relationship with his now-deceased regional director, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles — which would violate U.S. House rules — her husband has now come forward in a tell-all interview affirming the claims.

    Gonzales, however, continues to deny the allegations and now says he is being “blackmailed” following a settlement request from the husband’s attorney.

    Santos-Aviles died months after her husband discovered the affair and confronted Gonzales in what authorities ruled a suicide by self-immolation.

    The story has set off a bombshell of controversy, with the most recent evidence being released at the beginning of early voting for the March primary election, where Gonzales faces three challengers in the GOP primary.

    Santos-Aviles served as Gonzales’ regional director based in Uvalde, overseeing constituent affairs across 11 of the congressional district’s 23 counties near Texas’ southern border.

    Emergency responders found her in the backyard of her home on the night of September 13. A gasoline can was nearby where she laid severely burned. She was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead the next day.

    News of the affair was first reported by Current Revolt, which was met with silence by Gonzales until an interview with the Texas Tribune wherein he claimed the reports were not true.

    Fast forward, and the San Antonio Express News obtained text messages between Santos-Aviles and another former staffer that purportedly show her writing,“I had an affair with our boss.”

    This prompted Gonzales’ main opponent in the GOP primary, Brandon Herrera, to call for his resignation, saying an affair would have violated House rules.

    “Tony Gonzales must resign. He not only broke House ethics rules by having an adulterous affair with a member of his congressional staff and by using taxpayer money to fund the affair, but he also broke trust with the public by insisting that the initial reporting of the affair was false,” Herrera wrote in a press statement.

  • Speaking of Texas politicians behaving badly, here’s a story that doesn’t cover anyone in glory.

    After personal details about U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt were posted online by a senior John Cornyn advisor, the Houston Republican has filed a police report documenting what some are describing as a possible crime under federal or state law.

    Cornyn advisor Matt Mackowiak posted images of documents late last week that purportedly listed Hunt’s address, Texas driver’s license number, and the last four digits of his Social Security number. What Mackowiak seems to have designed as a last-minute attack on Hunt has turned a spotlight on Cornyn’s struggle to remain relevant with Texas voters ahead of the March 3 Primary Election.

    Mackowiak, who runs Save Austin Now and was head of the Travis County GOP, is someone I know casually. We followed each other on Twitter before my suspension there, and we’ve bumped into each other at various events. As a political consultant/head of Potomac Strategies Group, Mackowiak has worked for some pretty squishy, swampy Republicans.

    Cornyn is being challenged by Attorney General Ken Paxton and Hunt for the GOP nomination. Most public polling has consistently shown Paxton leading the field, followed by Cornyn and Hunt. Recent polls have shown Hunt closing that gap. The “doxxing” of Hunt by a senior Cornyn advisor has led some to suggest that perhaps the incumbent’s polling is even worse.

    “The only reason you direct fire at someone behind you in the polls is you thinking their momentum will overtake you,” explained a political consultant not working the race. “Whether Cornyn is worried or not, Mackowiak’s actions make their campaign look desperate.”

    Yeah, that was pretty stupid of Mackowiak. His post was evidently designed to ding Hunt over some provisional ballot he wasn’t entitled to file in 2016, and frankly my care meter isn’t even twitching. A three-term incumbent attacking a third place candidate does indeed reek of desperation. That said, in my (admittedly limited) understanding of federal laws on personally identifiable information is that none of that stuff quite qualifies as actual PID, so the Hunt campaign is probably going to see that criminal complaint dismissed.

  • Speaking of Texas politicians, President Trump issued a lot of Texas U.S. congressional race endorsements.

    In one of his more unanticipated endorsements, Trump threw his support behind Republican candidate Alex Mealer in her bid for Congressional District (CD) 9, against state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) and seven other GOP primary candidates.

    The district, currently held by U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX-9), was heavily impacted by the GOP-favored redistricting map that passed the Texas Legislature during the summer of 2025 — legislation initiated at the White House’s request and voted for by Cain in the Texas House. CD 9 is one of the five congressional districts expected to flip from blue to red in 2026, with a majority of the current CD 9 folded into the new boundaries of the Democratic stronghold of CD 18, where Green is now running instead.

    Trump stated in his endorsement of Mealer, “A West Point Graduate, and Combat Decorated Army Bomb Squad Officer, Alex knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Defend our Country, Support our Military/Veterans, and Ensure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”

    Cain was supported by Trump for re-election to the Texas House in a mass endorsement issued by the president for House Republicans who voted to pass education savings accounts legislation. The endorsement did not include any members’ pursuit of an alternative office.

    According to a recent survey, Mealer leads the Republican primary for CD 9 with 34 percent of the vote, followed by Cain at 26 percent. When the poll was taken there were 10 candidates in the race, but one, Dwayne Stovall, ended his campaign on Tuesday and endorsed Dan Mims.

    Among the other endorsements announced by Trump via Truth Social posts on Monday night was for Jon Bonck in his bid for CD 38, left open by U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt’s (R-TX-38) run for U.S. Senate against incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary.

    Bonck is up against nine other Republican candidates, including businesswoman Shelly deZevallos, businessman Larry Rubin, and Tomball Independent School District President Michael Pratt. The district’s partisan makeup did not alter after redistricting, remaining at R-65%, per The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index (TPI).

    “Jon Bonck is an incredible Candidate,” Trump said in his endorsement.

    “He is supported by many MAGA Patriots, including Senator Ted Cruz [(R-TX)], Congressmen ‘Doc’ Ronny Jackson [(R-TX-13)], Brandon Gill [(R-TX-26)], Jim Jordan [(R-OH-4)], and Tim Burchett [(R-TN-2)], among others.”

    “A successful Business Executive, Jon knows the America First Policies required to Create GREAT Jobs, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, and Champion our Nation’s Golden Age,” Trump added.

    Trump also endorsed Carlos De La Cruz, brother of Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz (R-TX-15), in his bid for CD 35. The district is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX-35), but went from a TPI rating of D-70% to R-55% due to redistricting — drawing in a number of Republican candidates eyeing the new GOP-favored seat.

    “A Brave, 20 Year Air Force Veteran, and now, as a successful Businessman, Carlos has a Proven Record of Success — He is a WINNER!” Trump posted.

    “In Congress, Carlos will work tirelessly to Grow the Economy, Promote our Amazing Farmers and Ranchers, Cut Taxes and Regulations,” he continued, with similar language used in his several other endorsements that night.

    He also endorsed in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX-8), throwing his support behind attorney Jessica Hart Steinmann, who served as the director for the Office of Victims of Crime in the U.S. Department of Justice during Trump’s first presidential term.

    Steinmann, now with an edge up, is running in a field with five other Republican candidates, including U.S. Army veteran Nick Tran, Deddrick Wilmer, Jay Fondren, and Stephen Long. Businessman Brett Jensen suspended his campaign following Trump’s endorsement.

    Trump said of Steinmann, “As a former appointee in my First Term, and now, as a Highly Respected Attorney, Jessica continues to prove that she has the Wisdom and Courage necessary to uphold our Constitution, and ensure LAW AND ORDER.”

  • Good news: “The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that the VA will no longer report veterans to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) solely because they have been assigned a fiduciary to assist them with their finances. Further, the VA is working with the FBI to remove all the names of veterans who have been unjustly reported to NICS under this guise.
  • Former Democratic Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson died. Oddly enough, President Trump had good things to say about him.

    Well, I didn’t know Jackson, so I’ll always consider him a race-hustling poverty pimp who ran a shakedown operation. He’s probably among the five people most responsible for strained race relations in modern America, behind Obama, George Soros, Al Sharpton and Ibram X. Kendi.

  • In like of Jackson’s death, Tablet magazine revisits Hymietown.

    Less frequently recalled is the distress Jackson’s rise caused within the American Jewish community during the 1980s. For many identifiable Jews, and especially for Orthodox Jews, his candidacy was not merely another political development but a moment of rupture. His reference to Jews as “Hymie” and to New York City as “Hymietown” was not dismissed as a careless aside. It was recognized as an anti-Jewish slur, and it left a lasting mark, even becoming the subject of an Eddie Murphy Saturday Night Live skit that captured the moment with uncomfortable precision, as comedy often can.

    The episode revealed how quickly old language could reemerge, even from figures celebrated as moral leaders within liberal politics. Jackson’s campaigns compelled Jewish institutions to confront questions about alliance, dignity, and communal security that they had long preferred to manage discreetly. They did more than provoke private discomfort; they produced public argument. On the pages of Jewish newspapers, the debate unfolded in real time, week by week, as each issue went to print, and it was not confined to the usual institutional voices. Orthodox writers, in particular, entered the conversation with a directness that many establishment Jewish leaders found unwelcome but that the moment required.

    Three figures responded with unusual clarity. Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, writing in The Jewish Week; Dr. Marvin Schick, writing in The Jewish World; and Rabbi Meir Kahane, writing both in The Jewish Press and in the periodical Kahane: The Magazine of the Authentic Jewish Idea all confronted the Jackson candidacy directly. Each treated Jackson’s candidacy not as an isolated controversy but as a diagnostic moment, asking what it revealed about Black-Jewish relations, the credibility of coalition politics, and the judgment of Jewish leadership itself. They disagreed about almost everything, but they shared one conclusion: The assumptions that had governed Jewish political alliance since the 1960s were beginning to fray.

    The desire of western liberal elites to import unassimilated Muslims into the country would pretty much break those assumptions apart.

  • Dallas officials aren’t the only ones Paxton sued this week: “Texas Sues Temu for Deceptive Marketing and CCP‑Linked Data Harvesting.”

    Attorney General Ken Paxton is escalating his campaign against China‑linked tech companies, filing a new lawsuit targeting one of the most downloaded shopping apps in the United States, Temu.

    Paxton’s suit names PDD Holdings, Inc. and WhaleCo Inc., the companies behind Temu, alleging they deceptively market the platform as a simple discount marketplace while secretly using it as a vehicle for aggressive data harvesting.

    Though PDD moved its principal executive offices from Shanghai to Dublin, Ireland, it still maintains significant operations in China, and Temu has rapidly grown to more than 80 million active users in the United States as of late 2023.

    According to the lawsuit, the Temu app is not just a shopping tool—it runs “dangerous software functions” that are “completely inappropriate” for a normal e‑commerce platform.

    Paxton characterizes Temu as a digital “trojan horse” capable of bypassing security protocols and creating backdoor access into a user’s private data, all while presenting itself as a harmless way to buy “affordable great products.”

    The attorney general alleges that when Texans use Temu, they are unknowingly exposing themselves to a serious digital security threat.

    The Temu security threat has been known for a while. Security-aware shoppers will have to forgo such great products as this:

  • Kurt Schlichter has a word of warning to dog-hating Muslims thinking of moving to the west:

    “This is not open to debate. We’re going to keep our dogs as we always have. If you come to our civilization, you’re going to respect our pets, or there’s going to be trouble. John Wick is the moderate position on this issue.”

    Damn straight. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Not even Da Bears want to stay in the blue hellhole that is Chicago, having started taking steps to move to a site in Indiana.
  • A fungus among us: “Dangerous superbug spreads in US hospitals…Candida auris infections reported in more than half of US states as healthcare facilities struggle with containment.”
  • “Western Digital is completely sold out of hard drive production capacity through 2026 due to massive demand from—” (You know exactly what’s coming next, don’t you?) “—AI data centers.”
  • Facebook makes Dead Internet Theory real by filing a patent to make dead users into AI chatbots.
  • Forgotten Weapons tests AI thumbnail. Result? More people clicked on it…but everybody hated it.
  • Grandpa Rick is really tired of these motherfucking AIs in his motherfucking streaming services.
  • Lock-picking lawyer + turner tool + new tool and raking technique = just about every padlock open in 5 seconds or less.
  • The Dallas lawyer with a 39,000 book library. Bryan A. Garner sounds like a man after my own heart.
  • Cisco is trying to weasel out of right-to-repair laws in Colorado by claiming all their products are “critical infrastructure” that can’t be repaired.
  • “New Yorkers Report Warmth Of Collectivism Feels Strangely Like Crushing Tax Hike.”
  • “Prince Andrew Joins UK Muslim Rape Gang So He Can Keep Abusing Young Girls.”
  • Humanity’s worse inventions, including QR code menus, Zoom meetings, and Ohio.
  • News you can use: “Amazing New Study Suggests You Can Just Think Thoughts Without Posting Them Online.”
  • Dogs that never heard “Bros Before Hos”:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    LinkSwarm For February 13, 2026

    Friday, February 13th, 2026

    Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! Good job numbers drop, a court win for Trump on deportations, more California fraud, more Chinese researchers stealing secrets, and the cure for global warming is global warming.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Naturally, a week after I blog about the “no hire, no fire” economy, it comes out that the economy added 130,000 in January, the most since December 2024. “However, the report shows the U.S. only added 181,000 jobs in 2025.” And the numbers for previous months keep getting revised downwards.

    As I’ve said before, I’ll believe we’re out of the Biden Recession when I have a job again…

  • “Appeals Court Upholds No-Bond Detention Of Illegal Aliens In Huge Win For Trump.”

    Petitions for Habeas Corpus to release illegal aliens from detention, or at least grant them bond hearings, have overwhelmed the federal courts, with most district court judges who have ruled on the subject siding with the detained aliens. It was the practice of prior administration from both parties to grant bond hearings. But is it a legal requirement?

    A ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers critical border state Texas, has rejected the argument that a bond hearing and release is required by law. To the contrary, it held that the applicable legislation passed by congress does not require such bond hearings or release. That prior administrations did not exercise their full powers of detention under the law did not mean the present Trump administration could not do so, the court ruled.

    Another win for secure borders and the rule of law in the face of massive leftwing judicial resistance.

  • “House passes GOP’s SAVE America Act.”

    The House of Representatives on Wednesday night passed the new Republican-led Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which requires individuals to present proof of citizenship to register to vote and requires Americans to show ID when voting.

    The House passed the legislation, which combined two bills, in a 218-213 vote. The bill saw little support from House Democrats, with Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar being the sole Democrat to join Republicans in passing the legislation.

    “It’s just common sense,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters of the legislation. “Americans need an ID to drive, to open a bank account, to buy cold medicine, to file government assistance. So why would voting be any different than that?”

    Senate Democrats, of course, with the exception of John Fetterman, will do anything to prevent it from being passed. If they can’t cheat, they can’t win…

  • Stephen Green: California raked off $370M in taxpayer money to bankroll leftwing activism.

    1. Californians voted to fund youth drug prevention through the Cannabis Tax. Instead, $370M in revenue is bankrolling leftwing activism.
    2. The money flows through a single unelected nonprofit – The Center at Sierra Health Foundation’s Elevate Youth program.
    3. The Center has gotten rich off this arrangement – growing from $11.8M in 2018 to $197M in 2024. The CEO makes over $600K.
    4. The Center runs Prop 64 dollars through to a web of NGOs, including the Jakara Movement, Young Invincibles, and Asian Refugees United – for activism, organizing, and voter registration.
    5. This is not drug prevention – it’s a taxpayer funded pipeline from the governor’s office to leftwing political organizing.

    Snip.

    “The state does not pick who gets the grants,” CAL DOGE said. “The intermediary does, bypassing the rigorous procurement processes mandated for direct government contracts under the Department of General Services and State Controller oversight.”

    That’s a multimillion-dollar slush fund, in other words, in which tax dollars pass through to the well-connected for the purpose of maintaining Democrat control of the state. And, one presumes, lining pockets along the way —allegedly including Newsom’s:

    According to the California Fair Political Practices Commission’s Behested Payment Transparency Report (pg.19-20), in 2020 alone, Sierra Health Foundation was the third-largest payor of behested payments statewide at $14,747,724 and the single largest payee of behested payments statewide at $30,869,901 — payments Newsom solicited from private companies.

    “Newsom himself was the top behesting official in the state that year at $226.8 million total,” the report continued, “and Sierra Health Foundation ranked among his top three financial partners in the system.

    Scams all the way down…

  • “LA Taxpayers Spent $418 Million On Homeless Programs In 2025.”

    Los Angeles spent about $418 million on homelessness programs in 2025, yet only a small share went toward helping people leave the streets for good, according to the New York Post. A recent City Hall report suggests most of the money supports short-term services that manage homelessness rather than resolve it.

    The review, released as the city prepares major budget cuts, shows that hundreds of millions were directed to hygiene facilities, outreach teams, temporary housing, and vehicle-living programs with limited long-term success. These efforts often keep people in transitional situations instead of moving them into permanent homes.

    The Post noted that councilwoman Monica Rodriguez condemned the system, saying, “We’re hemorrhaging money on a homelessness system that was never designed to succeed — and no one is being held accountable for the failure.”

    She also argued that ineffective programs are protected instead of evaluated: “If we really wanted to do something about this crisis, we would be advancing real oversight, demanding results, and shutting down programs that don’t work — not protecting a system that keeps spending more while delivering less.”

    It’s not designed to end homelessness, its designed to line the pockets of the Homeless Industrial Complex and leftwing activists.

  • Indeed, California’s entire NGO funding structure is designed to avoid scrutiny.

    The money moves smoothly, the explanations pile up, and the ability to see end-to-end quietly disappears. The deeper the look went, the more consistent the pattern became. California doesn’t struggle to explain where the money goes. It has arranged things so the explanation never quite arrives.

    Snip.

    When the information is pulled in its entirety and organized outside the state’s presentation layer, the scope becomes impossible to miss. More than 1,100 vendors associated with humanitarian-related contracts. Roughly $8.8 billion flowing through them. Not scattered grants. Not pilot programs. An economy of vendors, operating continuously, funded at scale. The dashboard never highlights that universe. It doesn’t need to. It only needs to make seeing it difficult enough that most people never try.

    At the same time, at the federal level, the Small Business Administration acknowledged what everyone working in procurement already understands. Billions of dollars under review. Tens of thousands of entities flagged for potential fraud exposure. Large systems, large sums, limited verification, delayed audits. The numbers don’t have to match perfectly to rhyme. They already do. When separate data streams begin pointing toward the same structural vulnerabilities, the story stops being about isolated actors and starts being about architecture.

    Requests for clarity meet resistance long before they reach conclusions. Public records requests stall. Narrow questions expand into bureaucratic negotiations. Specific funding totals become “unavailable.” Amy Reihart’s experience in San Diego fits neatly into this rhythm. The data is said to be public, but pulling it cleanly proves elusive. The formal channels exist, but they lead nowhere quickly. What’s left is a familiar posture from the state: the information is technically available, practically unreachable, and always just one more step away.

    The same rhythm shows up in how California moves money on the ground. Childcare subsidies offer a clean example. In many states, the government pays providers directly. The path is short. Attendance aligns with eligibility. Eligibility aligns with reimbursement rates. Payments can be checked against records without heroic effort. In California, that line bends. Funds are routed through intermediary NGOs charged with administering the program. The state pays the intermediary. The intermediary interfaces with providers. Documentation flows inward. Payments flow outward.

    Following that path takes work. First, identify which NGO controls which geography. Then locate its audit filings, assuming they are current and complete. Then reconcile those filings with procurement records that are already difficult to interrogate. Only after that does the provider level come into view. Each step adds distance. Each handoff adds discretion. Sources describe monthly subsidy flows exceeding $1,400 per child with minimal verification. Whether every dollar is misused is unknowable from the outside. What is visible is how easily the structure absorbs misuse without producing alarms.

    That same opacity shows up beyond childcare. Walk through downtown Los Angeles and the conversations repeat. Not policy debates. Observations. Barbers, bartenders, people who work late and walk home early. The homeless system comes up unprompted. Everyone knows how much money moves through it. Everyone knows how little seems to change. Deliveries arrive at storefronts with no customers. Benefits circulate with minimal identification. Stories circulate about organized applications and quiet laundering through approved channels. None of this appears on a dashboard. It doesn’t need to. It lives in the gap between official narratives and daily experience.

    The system doesn’t rely on secrecy. It relies on diffusion. Money enters labeled as humanitarian assistance, housing support, community partnership. It passes through nonprofit layers that soften scrutiny and multiply explanations. By the time it reaches the ground, responsibility is spread thin enough that no single ledger tells the whole story. Each participant can point upward or downward and remain technically correct. Oversight exists everywhere in theory and nowhere in practice.

    Organizations operating at the intersection of activism and public funding sit comfortably inside this environment. The Solidarity Research Center in Los Angeles, connected to broader political networks, is one example drawing attention. Not because of slogans or mission statements, but because proximity to power and insulation from scrutiny tend to travel together. When funding, politics, and moral language overlap, questions are framed as attacks and audits become optional. The structure does the work long before anyone has to defend it.

    The contrast between damage and response is hard to ignore. Drive through the Palisades fire zone and the destruction remains visible. Burned properties. Long stretches untouched. The rebuild lags. The NGO signage does not. Clean placards promise recovery, resilience, and renewal, often paired with donation links. The messaging arrives faster than the materials. The branding arrives faster than the permits. Money is already being organized, even as the outcomes remain distant. It’s a familiar sight in California: urgency in fundraising, patience in results.

    None of this happens by accident. The systems are too consistent. The barriers appear in the same places. Presentation layers substitute for access. Intermediaries substitute for accountability. Requests for detail meet friction rather than answers. The result is a machine that keeps moving regardless of whether anyone outside it can explain how. For the people inside, it works. For the public, it produces impressions instead of records.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • “Top 5 Takeaways From Georgia’s Suspect 2020 Election.”

    The report’s overview notes the beaming confidence of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on the morning after the election. Appearing on the Today Show, Raffensperger said a record 4.7 million Georgia voters cast a ballot in the election. More importantly, the secretary of state said only 2 percent of the ballots remained to be counted. Trump, at that time, led Biden by nearly 104,000 votes, seemingly more than enough for a Georgia win. Raffensperger, at the time, said about 94,000 ballots had yet to be counted.

    “We can see where the candidates are right now in both presidential, congressional, senatorial. When you look at how many votes are out there, even if one of the candidates got 100 percent it probably wouldn’t be enough to move it on way or another,” the elections official told the Today Show crew. He should know, the report notes. The secretary could see the numbers in real time through the state elections database.

    Raffensperger added that his office would wait until everything was done.

    When the dust settled, the confident secretary turned out to be very wrong. The final vote count — at least then — was an incredible 5.023 million. Between the time Fulton County’s polls closed on Election Day and the final ballot was tallied, the number of absentee ballots soared from 74,000 to more than 148,000, according to the report.

    Trump went from the verge of winning a key battleground state to losing it. Just like that.

    “At the time of this writing, no known explanation has been provided to justify” the surge in ballots, the report states.

    Snip.

    The number of absentee ballots counted doesn’t match the number of credited voters, the report notes. It draws from Fulton County and state records that show 148,318 ballots were counted in the 2020 election, although only 125,784 voters were recorded as casting an absentee ballot. That’s a difference of 22,534 votes between the absentee ballots tallied and the number of individuals given credit for voting.

    “Remember: the margin between President Trump and Joe Biden was 11,779 votes…and that was the THIRD certified number and didn’t match either of the first two counts….the counties could not get their numbers to match from the first count to the second to the third…..

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Ukraine hit the Redkinsky Research Chemical Plant north of Moscow.
  • Ukraine hit the Volgograd oil refinery with drones.
  • Ukraine also hit Russia’s Ukhta refinery over 1,700 kilometers away from Ukraine.
  • Ukraine also hit a GRAU arsenal in Volgograd with multiple missiles. GRAU is the umbrella organization for Russian logistics.
  • While Russia has continued to eek out ever smaller territorial gains at high cost, Ukraine just liberated 100 square kilometers of territory in Huliaipole, Zaporizhzhia oblast. “Ukrainian forces have liberated the towns of Dobropillia, Pryluky, Olenokostiantynivka and part of Varvarivka in an assault south on the Zaporizhzhia Frontline.”
  • 6,000 Russian FPV drones destroyed in Rostov-On-Don, although the image supplied is a bit confusing.
  • “U.S. murder rate hits lowest level since 1900.” “The national murder rate is likely to land near 4.0 per 100,000 people once the FBI releases finalized 2025 data later this year.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Japan: “Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attained a supermajority in the snap election,” quite possibly due to taking a hard line against immigration.
  • “Morgan McSweeney quits as Starmer’s chief of staff following Mandelson scandal.” (Previously.) McSweeney was also Starmer’s hatchet man in trying to silence anyone who disagreed with Keir Starmer, be it Jeremy Corbyn, Elon Musk or Donald Trump.
  • Global warming is fixing global warming.

    Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have discovered that climate change is causing nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance, to break down in the atmosphere more quickly than previously thought, introducing significant uncertainty into climate projections for the rest of the 21st century.

  • Single neighborhood in Indianapolis has 250 trucking companies.
  • “Chinese scientists embraced by U.S. colleges worked with Chinese military-linked firms.”

    A recent watchdog report revealed that several top-ranked American universities have brought in Chinese academics who have links to Chinese military-linked technology firms like tech behemoth Huawei and other Chinese firms linked to the CCP’s state security endeavors.

    A conservative non-profit watchdog group, the American Accountability Foundation, reported that it found nearly two dozen Chinese academics working at elite U.S. schools and labs “who, because of the dual-use threat of their research, close ties to the military research sector in China, and/or clear ties to the Chinese Communist Party” and as such “should be expelled from the United States or never be re-admitted.”

    The new AAF report pointed out that multiple Chinese students working at American universities had previously collaborated on projects with researchers at Huawei, including working with researchers at the Internal Cybersecurity Lab at Huawei.

    Just the News also found that at least one of the Chinese academics had also worked at iFlytek — a similarly blacklisted Chinese company which often collaborates with Huawei. The U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence stated in 2021 that “national champion” firms such as Huawei and iFlytek help “lead development of AI technologies at home” and “advance state-directed priorities that feed military and security programs.”

    Snip.

    The AAF report argued that Guangyao Chen “poses a high national-security and dual-use risk due to his expertise in adversarial machine learning” and that “this risk is amplified by his training at Peking University, PRC government funding, and collaborations with PRC universities and Huawei, placing his work squarely within China’s military-civil fusion ecosystem.”

    Chen currently appears to be affiliated with Cornell. The ResearchGate page for Chen says that his “top co-authors” include Lin Du, a researcher at Huawei. Chen appears to have conducted multiple research projects with the Huawei researcher. The Huawei scientist’s ResearchGate profile lists Du’s skills and expertise as being “computer vision,” “object recognition,” and “machine learning.”

    Snip.

    Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s CFO and the daughter of the company’s founder, was arrested by Canadian authorities in December 2018 at the request of the U.S., indicted in the Eastern District of New York in January 2019, and charged with bank fraud and wire fraud as well as conspiracy to commit both, but was allowed to walk free by the Biden Administration in 2021 in a deferred prosecution agreement wherein she admitted violating U.S. law.

    Snip.

    Fengqui You, a Cornell professor, leads the Fengqui You Research Group at Cornell, which is “pushing the boundaries of systems engineering, artificial intelligence, and data science.”

    Chen is listed as a member and Fengqui You is listed as the principal investigator for the lab. You attended Tsinghua University, which the House Select Committee on the CCP has warned about. You did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Snip.

    The report by AAF said that Cen Zhang’s “prior work with Chinese entities and his influential role at Georgia Tech is highly concerning given the nature of computer science’s impact on U.S. national security.”

    Zhang co-authored a 2021 paper on “Practical Binary Fuzzing Framework for Programs of IoT and Mobile Devices” — related to security vulnerabilities for mobile phones and other smart devices — with co-authors Xiaoxing Luo and Miaohua Li from the Internal Cyber Security Lab at Huawei Technologies.

    Zhang has also conducted research with Hongxu Chen, who now lists himself as a lead engineer at Huawei, and who also went to Nanyang Technological University.

    Zhang’s personal curriculum vitae also says he was previously an algorithm and engine development engineer for iFlytek. Zhang says on his GitHub page that he won the “Best New Employee Award of Year” at iFlytek in 2017.

    The firm has long received state support and recognition from China’s government. The company was named a national “AI champion” by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology in 2018.

    The Commerce Department said in October 2019 that iFlytek was among more than two dozen Chinese entities added to a U.S. blacklist, saying they were “implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.” Liu Qingfeng, iFlytek’s founder and CEO, is also a deputy to the National People’s Congress, the CCP’s rubber-stamp national legislature.

    There are problems with how this piece is organized, but I wanted to capture the names (some of which are are already familiar) to keep track of them. At this point, any organization that hires a Chinese national for scientific research should assume they’re stealing data.

  • “Semiconductor industry on track to hit $1 trillion in sales in 2026.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Senators Ted Cruz and Katie Britt (Alabama) introduce the Community Bank Relief Act.

    The legislation raises the current $10 billion asset threshold that caps debit card fees for banks and index annually to inflation.

    Sen. Cruz said, “The Durbin Amendment was not designed for the current economic and regulatory reality and subjects community banks to fee limits that the original language intended for much larger institutions. My legislation modernizes the interchange fee cap to reflect inflation, helping small banks support local economies while lowering banking costs for Americans.”

    Sen. Britt said, “As we’ve seen in so many instances, countless regulations in the Dodd-Frank Act were not only onerous but set fixed thresholds that have become outdated over time, and the Durbin Amendment is no exception. The largest burden is on our smallest financial institutions who provide vital sources of credit to Main Streets that drive our local economies. This commonsense legislation would simply index, to both inflation and COLA, the outdated threshold in this provision of Dodd-Frank, ultimately providing relief for our community banks who were never intended to be burdened by this regulation.”

    Companion legislation was introduced in the House by Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY-6).

    Rep. Barr said, “The Durbin Amendment was sold as a win for consumers in the Dodd-Frank Act by Democrats. Instead, it’s hurt Kentucky’s community banks and credit unions that do so much for underserved communities by limiting their ability to grow and compete with larger financial institutions. I’m working with Senator Cruz to fix this — because Washington shouldn’t be picking winners and losers at the expense of our local banks and the families they serve.”

    This bill is supported by Americans for Tax Reform, Independent Bankers Association of Texas, and the Texas Bankers Association.

    Noted, not necessarily endorsed.

  • “New Organization Takes Aim at Texans for Lawsuit Reform.”

    A new political organization has launched with the stated goal of countering one of Austin’s most powerful and long-standing special interest groups.

    Republicans Against Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a 501(c)(4) organization, announced its formation this week. It is positioning itself directly against Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), the influential tort reform group that has played a major role in Texas politics for decades.

    On its website, Republicans Against Texans for Lawsuit Reform (RATLR) accuses TLR of abandoning its original mission and becoming what it describes as a major player in the “Austin swamp.” The group argues that TLR, which began in the mid-1990s advocating civil tort reform, now prioritizes the interests of “big business, big pharma, and big insurance” over conservative policy outcomes and Texas citizens.

    RATLR also points to millions of dollars in political donations—including contributions to Democrats and Republican incumbents it labels as “RINOs”—as evidence that TLR wields outsized influence at the Texas Capitol.

    “Protecting big business, big pharma, and big insurance should never override protecting you, Texas’ citizens,” the group states.

    RATLR says it plans to focus on grassroots education and outreach, including speaking engagements with conservative groups across the state. The executive director is James Wesolek, the former communications director for the Republican Party of Texas.

  • So here’s a longish essay by Hugh Hendry on gold, Bitcoin and fiat money. I don’t necessarily agree with everything, but he has a provocative argument that creation of fiat money was justified to keep the entire economic system from breaking down.

    he defining monetary lesson of the twentieth century was not ideological. it was traumatic. it emerged not from debates about socialism versus capitalism, or keynes versus hayek, but from the lived experience of what happens when economic systems impose rigidity on societies already under extreme stress.

    after the first world war, germany was not a failed society. it was bruised, diminished, politically unstable, and deeply resentful, but it remained functional. industry existed. labour existed. institutions existed. the system was strained, not yet broken. the collapse came later, and it was not inevitable.

    versailles changed that.

    the treaty was not merely punitive. it was vindictive and economically illiterate. reparations were demanded in hard terms, payable in gold, at precisely the moment germany’s productive capacity was being constrained. forgiveness was absent. flexibility was absent. economic reality was ignored.

    when germany struggled to meet those obligations, the response was not renegotiation but enforcement. in 1923, french and belgian forces occupied the ruhr valley, seizing control of germany’s industrial heartland, its coal, its steel, its metal production, while still demanding gold payments to the allied victors. output was taken. gold was still required. rigidity was imposed from both ends.

    this was the breaking point.

    what followed was not ideological radicalisation in the abstract, but economic paralysis in practice. unemployment surged. production collapsed. a growing share of the adult population became economically useless. not inefficient. not underpaid. useless. idle. watching. waiting. that condition does not produce reflection or moderation. it produces rage. and hyper-inflation.

    hard money did not cause the collapse of weimar germany. but it failed catastrophically to absorb the trauma. and when institutions fracture under mass unemployment, money fractures with them. hyperinflation wasn’t softness. it was panic. it was the monetary expression of legitimacy evaporating in real time.

    that sequence mattered. and it was remembered.

    a decade later, the world faced another shock that threatened to replay the same pattern at a far larger scale. the crash of 1929 produced mass unemployment, collapsing demand, and the genuine possibility that the american system would follow germany down the same path. the ingredients were familiar: idle men, shuttered factories, political stress, and a rigid monetary framework that transmitted pressure rather than absorbing it.

    this time, the response changed.

    gold was abandoned as the governing constraint, not because it was immoral or discredited, but because it was brittle. too rigid to cope with systemic trauma. under gold, pressure concentrates until something snaps. under fiat, pressure disperses. elasticity replaced purity. monetary doctrine abandoned to keep the system intact.

    the response was ugly. it was unfair. it produced deserved anger. but it worked.

    the united states survived intact. unemployment was brutal, but the political centre held. extremism remained marginal. fiat didn’t heal the trauma, but it prevented it from metastasising. that became the lesson: in moments of economic shock, hardness accelerates entropy, while monetary elasticity buys time. and time, in stressed societies, is the difference between repair and collapse.

    this was not an argument against scarcity. it was an argument against rigidity in the wrong place, at the wrong time. fiat emerged not as an ideological triumph, but as an adaptive response to the catastrophic failure of hard constraints under conditions of mass unemployment.

    that distinction matters, because bitcoin did not arrive to overturn this lesson. it arrived long after, in its aftermath.
    fiat’s ugly success.

    over the subsequent century, that logic has been tested repeatedly, and each time it has been reaffirmed under pressure.

    the global financial crisis of 2008 was not a scare or a stress test. it was a system-wide cardiac arrest. the banking system was insolvent in any meaningful sense. the only open question was whether circulation could be restarted before institutional damage became permanent. the response was not elegant. rules were bent. balance sheets were expanded. losses were socialised. hard constraints were suspended to keep the system alive. it was ugly, unfair, and morally nauseating to me and many others. it also worked.

    the same pattern repeated during the pandemic. supply chains froze. borders closed. hospitals filled. the phrase “human extinction” escaped the laboratory and entered the bloodstream of culture. belief alone was enough to threaten collapse. once again, fiat leaned in. too much some say. money expanded. credit expanded. time was frozen. people were paid to stay home while the system was held upright. once again, rigidity was rejected in favour of elasticity. once again, the worst tail events were avoided.

    this is what fiat does well.

    it absorbs shocks that hard systems transmit. it disperses pressure instead of concentrating it. it allows societies to survive periods of mass dislocation without forcing immediate liquidation of people, institutions, or legitimacy. in a world repeatedly exposed to financial crises, pandemics, and geopolitical shocks, this has proven to be a feature, not a bug.

    elasticity, however, is not free.

    the cost shows up as inflation. not as a temporary inconvenience, but as a ratchet. prices spike, settle, and then remain elevated. grocery bills do not return to their old levels. this is the mechanical consequence of pushing risk forward in time. fiat smooths the present by borrowing from the future.

    this matters most for those without assets. for the disenfranchised, inflation is not a macroeconomic abstraction or a debate about models. it is a daily budgetary pressure. rent before wages. food before leisure. energy before dignity. when prices ratchet higher, there is no portfolio adjustment, no rebalancing, no clever hedge. there is only less room to breathe.

    modern financial systems are exceptionally effective at protecting those who already participate in them. the franchise holders. equities rise with nominal growth. property absorbs inflation and then some. credit, leverage, index-linked instruments, real assets, productive ownership. the menu is broad, liquid, and proven. elasticity doesn’t destroy capital for insiders. it often enriches them. asset prices inflate faster than wages precisely because the system is designed to keep capital mobile and solvent.

    the burden falls elsewhere.

    what inflation punishes is not thrift in some moral sense, but exclusion. money left idle because it must be. capital that cannot move because it does not exist. patience without agency. this is not a judgment about behaviour. it is a structural outcome. fiat rewards participation and mobility, not fairness. and over long periods of sustained monetary elasticity, that distinction compounds into something corrosive. something unfair.

  • The most amazing nature videos on the Internet.
  • Miss North Florida has her titled revoked after she won for refusing to proclaim that a man is a woman.
  • Tyler Hoover of Hoovie’s garage goes into deep detail on his car buying and business models. “I’m not that bright.”
  • “Democrats Counter With STEAL Act To Ban Voter ID.”
  • “Democrats Push For Death Certificates To Be Accepted As Voter ID.”
  • “Journalists Shocked To Be Laid Off From Obsolete Media Outlet That Loses $100 Million Annually.”
  • “Alarming Study Shows Average Somali High School Senior In Minnesota Committing Fraud At Just A 5th Grade Level.”
  • “Pharmaceutical Companies Wondering If They Should Develop Anti-Depressant Whose First Listed Side Effect Isn’t ‘SEVERE THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE.'”
  • “Researchers Confirm That During Childbirth, Women Feel Almost The Same Amount Of Pain A Man Feels When He’s Stuck Walking Behind A Slow Person.”
  • Verdict: Guilty but adorable.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Media Watch, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Technology, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    Jeffrey Epstein Revelations Update For February 12, 2025

    Thursday, February 12th, 2026

    Revelations continue to surface from the giant Epstein files data dump, so let’s do a roundup of some of the more interesting bits.

  • By far the most frustrating revelation for TDS-obsessed Democrats is learning that Donald Trump’s main tie to Epstein was being one of the first people to report him to the police. “Unsealed court docs reviewed by the Miami Herald show DONALD TRUMP called Palm Beach police about Jeffrey Epstein in 2006.”

    Mar-A-Lago is a mixture of everyone. DONALD TRUMP told [blacked out] that he threw EPSTEIN out of his club. TRUMP called the PBPD to tell him “thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this”. TRUMP told him people in New York knew EPSTEIN was disgusting. TRUMP said [GHISLAINE] MAXWELL was EPSTEIN’s operative, “she is evil and to focus on her”. TRUMP told [blacked out] that he was around EPSTEIN once when teenagers were present and TRUMP “got the hell out of there”. TRUMP was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating EPSTEIN.

    Snip.

    Trump’s comment came in direct response to reporters asking if he had any knowledge that Epstein had molested girls. He was denying awareness of Epstein’s crimes or the allegations of molestation/sex trafficking that surfaced prominently around Epstein’s 2019 arrest.

    Nowhere in this FBI interview does it indicate he had specific knowledge of the criminal molestation, sexual abuse, or trafficking details that later emerged in the full Epstein investigation or his 2008 plea deal. It’s Trump saying he had heard from others about “disgusting” behavior and how he was so creeped out that he had to remove Epstein from his club.

    Countless people in Palm Beach social circles noticed Epstein had a pattern of questionable behavior with young women, without having direct evidence or knowledge of the felony-level crimes. Good try, media.

    “Nothing within the FBI report even alludes to Trump knowing about Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes. Sometimes your gut tells you something is off about people.”

    You know Democrats and their MSM familiars must be gnashing their teeth as their Great White Whale swims away again…

  • But you know who did pal around with Epstein? Noam Chomsky.

    Valeria Chomsky, the wife of Noam Chomsky, issued a statement about their longtime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Noam Chomsky, 97, suffered a massive stroke in 2023 and is unable to speak.

    Noam and I have felt a profound weight regarding the unresolved questions surrounding our past interactions with Epstein. We do not wish to leave this chapter shrouded in ambiguity.

    Throughout his life, Noam has insisted that intellectuals have a responsibility to speak the truth and expose lies — especially when those truths are uncomfortable to themselves.

    As is widely known, one of Noam’s characteristics is to believe in the good faith of people. Noam’s overly trusted nature, in this specific case, led to severe poor judgment on both our parts.

    Ah. Another brilliant and successful expert in human behavior who hung around Epstein at length and just never noticed anything unusual or suspicious about him. It’s amazing how often those keen, long-honed skills at reading people just disappeared once Epstein entered a room. Valeria Chomsky continues:

    Noam and I were introduced to Epstein at the same time, during one of Noam’s professional events in 2015, when Epstein’s 2008 conviction in the State of Florida was known by very few people, while most of the public – including Noam and I – was unaware of it. That only changed after the November 2018 report by Miami Herald.

    A reminder: That conviction was for “felony solicitation of prostitution and, pursuant to the NPA, to a criminal information charging him with procurement of minors to engage in prostitution.” It was public record and covered in the Palm Beach newspapers.

    We had lunch, at Epstein’s ranch, once, in connection with a professional event; we attended dinners at his townhouse in Manhattan and stayed a few times in an apartment he offered when we visited New York City. We also visited Epstein’s Paris apartment one afternoon for the occasion of a work trip. In all cases, these visits were related to Noam’s professional commitments. We never went to his island or knew about anything that happened there.

    We attended social meetings, lunches, and dinners where Epstein was present and academic matters were discussed. We never witnessed any inappropriate, criminal, or reproachable behavior from Epstein or others. At no time did we see children or underage individuals present.

    Here’s the biggest and most prominent problem with Valeria Chomsky’s “we just had no idea” excuse. Several months after the Miami Herald published the series, on February 23, 2019, Epstein emailed Chomsky looking for advice on how to handle his bad press.

    In a response purportedly from Chomsky, the famed linguistics professor advised Epstein “the best way to proceed is to ignore it” and “not to react unless directly questioned.”

    Chomsky drew parallels to his own experience with “hysterical accusations of all sorts,” writing, “I pay no attention, unless I’m approached for a comment on a specific matter.”

    “What the vultures dearly want is a public response, which then provides a public opening for an onslaught of venomous attacks, many from just publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts,” the email said. “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”

    Does that sound like a man who’s deeply concerned about what Epstein may have done?

    But Valeria Chomsky insists that message is being taken out of context.

    Noam’s email to Epstein, in which Epstein sought advice about the press, should be read in context. Epstein had claimed to Noam that he [Epstein] was being unfairly persecuted, and Noam spoke from his own experience in political controversies with the media. Epstein created a manipulative narrative about his case, which Noam, in good faith, believed in. It is now clear that it was all orchestrated, having as, at least, one of Epstein’s intentions to try to have someone like Noam repairing Epstein’s reputation by association.

    Noam’s criticism was never directed at the women’s movement; on the contrary, he has always supported gender equity and women’s rights.

    Oh, shut up. You don’t get to send a message to Epstein reassuring him that “hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder” and then turn around and tout yourself as a feminist.

    But there’s more. Back in 2023, Noam Chomsky confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that he received a March 2018 transfer of roughly $270,000 from an Epstein-linked account. That too was just an innocent favor, Valeria Chomsky insists.

    Regarding the reported transfer of approximately $270,000, I must clarify that these were entirely Noam’s own funds. At the time, Noam had identified inconsistencies in his retirement resources that threatened his economic independence and caused him great distress. Epstein offered technical assistance to resolve this specific situation. On this matter, Epstein acted accordingly, recovering the funds for Noam, in a display of help and very likely as part of a machination to gain greater access to Noam. Epstein acted solely as a financial advisor for this specific matter. To the best of my knowledge, Epstein never had access to our bank or investment accounts.

    Now, keep in mind, for just about all his intellectual career, Noam Chomsky has been a furious critic of American capitalism (“a grotesque catastrophe”), the wealthy elites of the U.S., and corporate influence over politics. He has written, “in this world there happen to be huge concentrations of private power that are as close to tyranny and as close to totalitarian as anything humans have devised… The corporations are just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism.”

    Recall that Epstein ran a financial management firm that catered to billionaire clients.

    Let yea who has never had a convicted pedophile wire $270,000 into their account cast the first stone.

  • But Chomsky isn’t the only left-wing grandee that shows up as a buddy of Epstein. So does Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman.

    Top donors to Wis­con­sin politi­cians are men­tioned in the latest release of files related to invest­ig­a­tions into pedo­phile Jef­frey Epstein, includ­ing top Demo­cratic donor Reid Hoff­man, who appears in the doc­u­ments more than 2,500 times.

    Hoff­man, a ven­ture cap­it­al­ist and co-founder of LinkedIn, has donated $15 mil­lion to the state Demo­cratic Party since 2019, con­tri­bu­tions that include a recent pair of dona­tions total­ing $275,000, state cam­paign records show.

    Hoff­man was among those who vis­ited Epstein’s private Carib­bean island called Little St. James in 2014, six years after the Amer­ican fin­an­cier pleaded guilty to soli­cit­ing pros­ti­tu­tion of a minor and registered as a sex offender, accord­ing to report­ing by the Wall Street Journal.

    The Mil­wau­kee Journal Sen­tinel first repor­ted the Demo­cratic donor’s ties in 2023. Hoff­man has not lived in Wis­con­sin, but the Sil­icon Val­ley bil­lion­aire has ded­ic­ated his spend­ing in part because of Wis­con­sin’s battle­ground polit­ical dynamic.

    The new batch of doc­u­ments show sched­uled meet­ings between Hoff­man and Epstein between 2013 and 2018.

    At one point in 2015, Epstein invited Hoff­man to visit him to “play.” In 2014, Hoff­man told Epstein he had sent gifts to his New York home that included ice cream for Epstein to try or “for the girls.”

    What girls might these be, one wonders…

  • Ann Coulter (remember her?) has extracted a couple of additional notable names from the files.

    I don’t have a team of researchers like The New York Times to review the Epstein files, but I have flipped through them and found a couple things that you won’t read in the Times — and you definitely won’t see on MS-NOW.

    Criminal defense lawyer David Schoen sent an informative email to Epstein, saying no one would ever take the Russia investigation seriously because special counsel Robert Mueller had selected a legal team that was a “murderer’s row of the worst.”

    Schoen’s case-in-chief was Andrew Weissmann, frequent Times opinion writer (Title of actual column: “A Former Prosecutor on the ‘Incredibly Strong Case’ Against Trump”). He appears so frequently on MS-NOW, he has a cot and toothbrush under Lawrence O’Donnell’s desk.

    Weissmann, Schoen said, was known in the U.S. attorney’s office as “The Pathological liar,” because he “literally would withhold exculpatory evidence throughout the case.” When defense counsel complained, Weissman waited until the guy “went to the bathroom or lunch, stick the documents under other [papers] on his table, and tell the judge the lawyer had it all along.” He did this even in murder cases, which Schoen knew because, “his rats have come to me to admit their role in it.”

    If true, this is a Brady violation, about as bad as it gets.

    The Times has frequently discussed the rule, saying it ought to be “obvious,” to “prosecutors with any sense of fairness” that they have to “inform a defendant’s lawyer of evidence that could be favorable to the defendant’s case.” The paper complains about the “near complete lack of punishment for prosecutors who flout the rule.”

    Democrats are demanding that ICE agents be stripped of their qualified immunity? Federal prosecutors like Weissmann have absolute, blanket immunity for their actions.

    Schoen noted that Weissmann’s unsavory tactics “ruined” some of the biggest criminal cases ever tried. For example, he led the federal prosecution of Arthur Andersen LLP, a major player in the Enron scandal. But because of his extreme overreach on jury instructions (agreed to by the pliant judge) the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the conviction.

    In terms of Weissmann’s appearance of fairness, Schoen said Weissmann is a “Trump hater and Clinton sycophant.”

    Saying he could “go on and on,” Schoen singled out only two other Trump/Russia investigators with personal and political baggage: Jeannie Rhee, who “was actually Clinton’s lawyer in the email investigation,” and Greg Andres, “100% in the pro-Clinton, anti-Trump camp.”

    Snip.

    The media may want to ignore Barry Krischer, but the Epstein files don’t.

    Palm Beach’s Democratic district attorney, Krischer spent years going after Rush Limbaugh for pain pills — raiding drugstores, seizing records, and leaking to the press — before finally dropping all charges. But when the Palm Beach police handed him a child sex ring implicating Epstein, a major Democratic donor, Krischer intentionally tanked the case.

    There was no excusing it: The police’s meticulous investigation gave us pretty much everything we know today about Epstein’s crimes. The media have raged against U.S. attorney Alex Acosta for his sweetheart plea deal with Epstein a few years later, solely because he was Trump’s first Secretary of Labor. Krischer makes Acosta look like Elliot Ness.

    Instead of locking up Epstein and putting an end to his sexual predations on young girls back in 2006, Krischer’s office treated the girls as if they were the ones on trial. Prosecutor Lanna Belohlavek accused the teens of prostitution, asking them, “You’re aware that you committed a crime?” She also grilled them about their drug and alcohol use, body piercings and posts on MySpace.

    After a presentation like that, the grand jury ended up charging Epstein with only one count of soliciting prostitution. Krischer released him on bond. No prison sentence, no fine — and no ankle monitor to get in the way of massages.

    One of Epstein’s semi-literate emails gives us some insight into Krischer’s thinking. Reporting a conversation between the Democratic prosecutor and the Democratic former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, Epstein says Krisher believed that “what i did was barely crimianl but basically inapporritate,,, “ [spelling in original].

    Perhaps this was merely Epstein’s self-flattering version of the conversation. Except we know what Krischer did. Back pain pills: Bigger than the Manson murders! Raping 14 year-olds: Basically “inapporritate”

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • A few days ago we talked about the appearance of the word “jerky” in Epstein communications. Well, the Podcast of the Lotus Eaters (Sargon of Akkad, Firas Modad and “Nate” AKA MrHReviews) delve into the Epstein files and notice a lot more weird food references that appear to be codeword for…something else. Including:
    • Shrimp
    • Tuna
    • Pizza
    • Grape soda

    And they watch the Asmongold jerky clip as well.

    “There’s not enough evidence to say that this is a satanist network or that this is a child eating network.”
    “That’s very restrained of you.”
    “Yes. And I’m willing to accept that they might be all of these things.”

    “Epstein is messaging [I assume Peter] Mandelson saying, quote, I love the torture video. It’s [hard] to think of a good context for that.”

    They also note how a journalist who dismissed “Pizzagate” as a “right wing conspiracy” later went to prison for child rape.

    • I don’t know what to make of this, but the possibilities range from dark to very, very, very dark…

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For February 6, 2026

    Friday, February 6th, 2026

    More fraud in California, Homan declares victory in Minnesota, Virginia declares war on lawful gun owners, a lefty drops the N-Word on a black ICE agent, Musk shuts off bootleg Starlink to the Russian army, NOPD hires an illegal alien, and Illinois declares that no Democrat can express #WrongThink about trannies.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    I did get that second check from my closing 401K, so I have a few months worth of food and utilities in the bank.

  • “California’s Hospice Fraud Explosion: Billions Drained From Taxpayers.”

    The massive hospice fraud racket thriving under California’s lax oversight is finally getting the spotlight it deserves, as the Trump administration’s CMS chief Dr. Mehmet Oz hits the streets of Los Angeles to call out the billions in stolen taxpayer dollars.

    With organized crime rings, including Russian-Armenian mafia elements, infiltrating the system through ghost patients and fake companies, the scam highlights how globalist policies have opened the door to foreign exploitation of U.S. resources. As fraudsters traffic beneficiaries like commodities, real Americans suffer denied care while the deep state looks the other way.

    Los Angeles County alone accounts for 18% of the entire country’s home health care billing, a staggering figure that screams foul play.

    One California physician billed the government $120 million in a single year, claiming to oversee 1,900 patients—a workload that defies logic and reeks of corruption.

    The county boasts almost 2,000 hospice agencies, more than 36 states combined and 30 times the number in Florida or New York.

    Dr. Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was forthright during his on-the-ground tour: “Hospice is crazy here… You’ve got hospice that’s grown seven-fold in the last five years. They represent about three and a half billion dollars of fraud, we believe, just in LA County.”

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta has admitted the problem’s scale, calling it “an epidemic in California, specifically in the greater Los Angeles area.”

    The fraud operates through recruiters who lure seniors with freebies like walkers or cash, harvest their Medicare numbers, and sell them to providers for $1,000 to $3,000 each. Providers then bill the feds $260 per day per patient, often for nonexistent services, while shuffling enrollees between sham outfits to evade detection.

    In LA’s San Fernando Valley, particularly Van Nuys, the density is absurd: 210 agencies crammed into one square mile, with one building listing 112 hospices showing no actual operations.

  • “Vance To Lead Sweeping Anti-Fraud Task Force Investigating California.”

    Vice President JD Vance is poised to chair a new White House task force aimed at rooting out potential fraud and abuse in government programs in California, according to CBS News.

    Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, is expected to serve as the task force’s vice chairman and handle day-to-day operations, CBS News reports. President Donald Trump is anticipated to issue an executive order in the coming days to formally establish the group, the news outlet said.

    The White House task force would operate separately from a related Justice Department effort led by Colin McDonald, a Trump nominee for a new fraud-investigation role at the department. McDonald is expected to also probe fraud in Minnesota uncovered by YouTuber Nick Shirley and other independent journalists.

    California has long grappled with documented issues of waste, fraud, and weak oversight in state and federally funded programs. State auditors have for more than a decade flagged problems including persistent cost overruns, inadequate internal controls, and unimplemented reform recommendations across various initiatives, CBS News reported last month.

    California’s Employment Development Department faced acute criticism during the pandemic, when unemployment-insurance fraud resulted in an estimated $20 billion or more in improper payments, while many eligible claimants endured lengthy delays in receiving benefits, according to NPR News.

    Separately, federal officials have recently scrutinized fraud risks in hospice and home-health services, particularly in Los Angeles County. Last week, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz visited the area to draw attention to the issue, citing the rapid proliferation of hospice providers and potential billions in improper billings.

    See above. Given the vast scale of graft Democrats rake in from various fraud schemes, I can only imagine they’re experience quiet panic at the prospect…

  • Tom Homan declares victory, says city and state officials in Minnesota will now cooperate with ICE and turn over illegal aliens. Just think of the deaths that could have been avoided if they had only done this in the first place.
  • California Democrats go all in on voter fraud.

    California Democrats are taking a victory lap, celebrating the fact that their election system has no way of verifying that the people who are casting votes are legitimate, registered voters.

    The Supreme Court of California effectively struck down Huntington Beach’s voter ID law, refusing to review a lower court decision that blocked the law. The city argued that it could impose a voter ID requirement for citywide elections, but California Democrats passed a law in 2024 banning localities from requiring voter ID in elections. California law not only does not require you to prove you are who you say you are when you vote, but it actively prevents cities and localities from having that requirement in place at all.

  • “Trump Takes a Sledgehammer to Deportation Process and Sets Up a Court Fight With Another Activist Judge.”

    The Trump administration will publish a notice in the Federal Register on Friday that will demolish the slow-moving process of deporting illegals. The proposed rule aims to streamline the current process and reduce the backlog of cases that has nearly brought the system to a screeching halt. That said, we know it faces an uphill fight as federal judges, acting without jurisdiction, will certainly declare the changes improper at some point.

    The Federal Register notice titled RIN 1125-AB37, Appellate Procedures for the Board of Immigration Appeals, extensively overhauls the current process that could lead an immigration case to the Supreme Court.

    The first part of the system seems to remain intact. An apprehended illegal is brought before an Article 2 Immigration Judge and given a hearing. The judge either lets them stay or tells them to go home. If ordered deported, a removal order is entered. As we’re seeing from the cases popping in the news, it is not uncommon for an illegal apprehended today in Minneapolis, perhaps a contractor working for the Quality Learing Center, to have a removal order dating back two decades.

    Breaking the logjam at the Board of Immigration Appeals is the target.

    The filing lays out how Trump 1.0 tried to fix the problem.

    Among other changes, the Appellate Procedures NPRM proposed: (1) simultaneous briefing schedules for both detained and non-detained appeals before the Board; (2) shortening the reply brief deadline; (3) limiting briefing extensions; (4) harmonizing the 90- and 180-day Board adjudication timelines to both start from when the record is complete; (5) limiting the Chief Appellate Immigration Judge’s ability to hold a group of cases while awaiting certain outside actions; and (6) removing the process for Immigration Judge review of proceeding transcripts.

    Snip.

    The new regulation will “change the deadline for filing an appeal with the Board from 30 to 10 days, except for cases involving certain asylum applications.” This is not as trivial as it could appear. The current filing fee for the BIA is $1,030. There are provisions for filing “in forma pauperis.” This requires jumping through more hoops to prove you are indigent. The illegal now has 10 days to find representation and prepare an appeal, as well as pony up money. Historically, claiming you are broke is a good way to get the next flight back home.

    Once you appeal, there is no requirement that the BIA will hear the case. Rather, “the default will be summary dismissal unless a majority of current Board members vote to consider the appeal on the merits.” There is an expedited hearing process that will “require simultaneous briefing within 20 days of the Board setting the schedule in all cases not summarily dismissed, with no reply briefs and limited extensions.”

    Plus, there are deadlines for the BIA: “the Board shall dispose of all cases assigned to a single Board member within 90 days of completion of the record, or within 180 days of completion of the record for all cases assigned to a three-member panel.”

    So an appeal is no longer a way to buy time before a final decision is rendered. The 10-day window makes it difficult prepare, and the BIA will focus on “selecting decisions for review that present novel issues warranting the Board’s attention.” If you are lucky enough for your case to be heard by the BIA, it has no more than 180 days to render a judgment. There is still an appeal to a federal appeals court; however, this requires representation and a $600 filing fee.

    Faster, please.

  • Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton “Launches Investigation Into Alleged H-1B Visa Abuse by Texas Businesses.”

    Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced a wide-sweeping investigation into alleged abuse of the federal H-1B visa program by Texas businesses, issuing civil investigative demands to three North Texas companies suspected of operating sham enterprises to fraudulently sponsor foreign workers.

    Paxton said his office has issued the demands—known as Civil Investigative Demands, or CIDs—seeking documents identifying company employees, records detailing the products or services provided, financial statements, and communications related to business operations.

    Standing outside a single-family home listed as the office address for one of the companies highlighted in recent reporting, Paxton credited BlazeTV and Texas Scorecard personality Sara Gonzales with prompting the investigation.

    “Thanks to you, we’re here today,” Paxton said during an interview with Gonzales. “We’ve started an investigation of three different companies that we think might be scamming people with these H-1B visas.”

    Paxton did not publicly identify the three companies that received CIDs. However, his office said the investigation includes “entities identified in videos that were widely circulated online.”

    A portion of Paxton’s interview with Gonzales was filmed outside a residential home listed as the office address for 3Bees Technologies Inc., a location that Gonzales reported appeared vacant, despite the company’s sponsorship of multiple H-1B visa holders.

    According to Paxton’s office, reports indicate that businesses under investigation may have created sham companies featuring websites advertising nonexistent products or services while listing residential homes or unfinished buildings as offices. Despite those irregularities, the companies allegedly sponsored numerous H-1B visas in recent years.

    “Any criminal who attempts to scam the H-1B visa program and use ‘ghost offices’ or other fraudulent ploys should be prepared to face the full force of the law,” Paxton stated. “Abuse and fraud within these programs strip jobs and opportunities away from Texans.”

    (Previously.)

  • Paxton also sued Bexar County for funding legal defense for illegal aliens facing deportation.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking a court to shut down Bexar County’s taxpayer-funded deportation-defense program for illegal aliens, arguing it violates state law and the Texas Constitution.

    The Bexar County Commissioners Court voted on December 16, 2025, to allocate $566,181 in county funds to provide legal services to individuals unlawfully present in the United States through the county’s Immigration Legal Services fund.

    Paxton’s office noted that, with additional commitments, total spending on the program could ultimately exceed $1 million.

    The money is earmarked to pay lawyers to represent illegal aliens in federal deportation proceedings—a role typically handled either by private counsel or nonprofit organizations, not county governments. Paxton’s lawsuit names Bexar County, the Commissioners Court, and multiple county officials as defendants.

    Paxton’s petition argues that subsidizing deportation-defense work for people in the country unlawfully “confers no public benefit,” serves “predominantly private radical interests,” and falls outside any lawful power granted to counties under Texas law.

    He framed the program as an attempt by local officials to interfere with federal immigration enforcement while using statewide taxpayers as the funding source.

    “Leftists in Bexar County have no authority to use taxpayer dollars to fund their radical, criminal-loving agenda,” Paxton said in a statement, adding that “state funds cannot underwrite deportation-defense services for individuals unlawfully present in the country.”

  • Virginia’s radical Democrats declare war on the Second Amendment, ban high (i.e. normal) capacity magazines, making even possessing them a crime. I can’t imagine the courts are going to let that stand… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The New Orleans police department hired an illegal alien with an active deportation notice and no work authorization to be a cop. ICE took care of him…
  • Remember all those decades when lefties assured us that The N-Word was The Worst Word In The World? Evidently that doesn’t apply when a tranny protestor is cussing out a black ICE agent. (Hat tip: Ed Dricoll at Instapundit.)
  • Not just Minnesota: “HS Reports More Than 180 Vehicle Attacks On Law Enforcement.”

    Immigration officers have faced 182 vehicular attacks since President Donald Trump took office last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a Feb. 3 statement.

    Out of the 182 attacks between Jan. 21, 2025, and Jan. 24, 2026, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers faced 114, up by 124 percent from the 51 attacks during the same time period the previous year. The remaining 68 attacks were faced by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Attacks on ICE are up by 3,300 percent from two assaults previously, according to the DHS.

  • Supreme Court rules that gerrymander the hell out of their state, previous law be damned.
  • So part of the huge Epstein data dump includes a conversation with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak from 2014, discussing bringing Russians (I assume Russian Jews) to Israel. Weirdly, I think it makes it less likely Epstein was Mossad (or at least current Mossad). In 2014, Barak’s left wing (Labor/One Israel/etc.) had been out of power for a while and Benjamin Netanyahu was in the midst of a long run as Prime Minister, despite Obama’s best efforts. It just seems unlikely that a Mossad asset would just be shooting the shit with a former PM of an out-of-power party. (Of course, maybe he was team Barak/Barack.) And the message “Goyim were born to only serve us,” that’s so outlandish it could have come from The Protocols of Elders of Zion. Like the LARP Nazis chanting “Blood and Soil!” at Charlottesville, it reeks of someone trying too hard to fit in with a culture they’re largely ignorant of.
  • The Epstein revelations might indeed topple one world leader: Keir Starmer.

    Already-struggling UK Leader Keir Starmer is facing mounting pressure to step down over the latest scandal involving his former ambassador to America’s shocking close links to Jeffrey Epstein.

    The prime minister, whose popularity was already at a near-record low since his 2024 election, faced revolt even from his own party over the fresh revelations about former diplomat Peter Mandelson, who was even seen in his underwear with an unknown woman in photos in the latest Epstein files.

    Starmer went into a desperate damage-control mode Thursday, accusing his one-time close ally of “deceit” — even though Mandelson’s friendship with the now-deceased pedophile was well known when Starmer gave him the cushy role as the UK’s ambassador to Washington in December 2024.

    Starmer is indeed a nasty piece of work, but the sad truth is that any replacement Labour PM is likely to be every bit as committed to importing unassimilated illegal alien Islamic rapists as Starmer is.

  • “Panama Supreme Court Boots China From Canal Control.

    It took almost a year, but the White House finally chalked up its first objective in implementing the newly revitalized Monroe Doctrine. Or, as we call it, the Donroe Doctrine.

    Its very first manifestation came almost immediately after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Panama president Jose Raul Mulino and told Mulino in no uncertain terms that the US would not allow China to control ports on the Panama Canal any longer. On February 3, 2025, Muloino repudiated Panama’s Belt and Road Initiative agreements with China and would force the sale of control of those ports. China began a two-front strategy to reverse that decision, with parallel diplomatic and legal tracks. Diplomacy gave way to trade negotiations, which ultimately proved fruitless.

    Late yesterday, so did the legal challenge. Panama’s top court annulled the country’s contracts with China’s CK Hutchinson to operate both ports, effectively severing China from control of the Panama Canal.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Perhaps transsexual madness has peaked now that it’s costing people money.

    A woman who received a double mastectomy at the age of 16 under the guise of transgender-related healthcare was just awarded $2 million in the first successful medical-malpractice lawsuit brought by a detransitioner.

    Fox Varian sued her New York-based psychologist and plastic surgeon for facilitating her gender-transition double mastectomy in 2019, independent reporter Benjamin Ryan who attended Varian’s recent trial, said. Although a host of detransitioners have sued doctors who rush to “affirm” gender confusion with life-altering surgeries, Varian’s is the first known successful lawsuit.

    Claire Deacon, Varian’s mother, was led by her daughter’s psychologist to believe that breast removal was the only way to heal Varian’s gender dysphoria, she told the jury. At first Deacon told Varian’s psychologist Kenneth Einhorn that top surgery was “never gonna happen” if she could help it.

    “This man was just so emphatic, and pushing and pushing, that I felt like there was no good decision,” she said, according to an Epoch Times report. “I think it was a scare tactic: I don’t believe it was malice, I think he believed what he was saying … but he was very, very wrong.”

    Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.

  • Oppose transsexual madness? You’re not allowed to register as a Democrat in Illinois.

    Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender opposes the Democratic Party’s general elevation of gender identity over sex in public policy, especially subjecting gender-confused people to the lifelong consequences of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical interventions so they more closely resemble the opposite sex.

    The nonprofit’s leaders could allegedly be fined or go to prison in Illinois if they register as “Democrats” without the state party’s permission.

    The Land of Lincoln’s bespoke “party name provision” in its 40-year-old General Not for Profit Corporation Act, which Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias repeatedly invoked to deny DIAG’s applications to solicit charitable contributions in the state, is the target of a First Amendment lawsuit on DIAG’s behalf by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

    “Not only would they likely face an uphill battle in getting approval from the Illinois Democratic Party, they refuse on principle to seek permission from the very party they plan to criticize,” a flagrantly unconstitutional condition on protected speech, said FIRE, which also filed a motion for preliminary injunction.

    While the state party officially supports so-called gender affirming care as “health care,” without age or other restrictions, DIAG opposes throwing “gay, lesbian, and gender non-conforming/gender-distressed children and vulnerable adults under the wheels of a regressive ideological bus” through “predatory medical harm.”

    It portrays the standard Democratic position on medicalized gender transitions as pseudoscientific and harmful to both physical and mental health.

    The Illinois Democratic Party told Capitol News Illinois it hadn’t received a request from DIAG, but “the fact that they’re proudly anti-transgender does not align with the Democratic Party of Illinois’s values” of “progress and inclusivity.”

    Evidently men who believe they’re women have replaced black people in the Democrat Party’s Victimhood Hierarchy.

  • Minnesota Club Cancels Comedian’s Sold Out Show Over Good Joke.”

    Canadian comedian with a solid international fanbase just watched six sold-out shows vanish in Minnesota. Ben Bankas lost his gigs at Laugh Camp Comedy Club in St. Paul after clips of his routine on Renee Good’s death blew up online – the routine hit raw nerves in a city still reeling from the January 7 shooting.

    Club owner Bill Collins cited threats, media frenzy, and street chaos as the reasons for the cancellation.

    Snip.

    Bankas opened his bit by calling for a moment of silence for Good, then pivoting to say he hoped “that dog’s okay…and her pet,” a reference to Good’s dog, who was in the car with her, and her wife, Becca, who had been in the vehicle but left shortly before she told Renee to drive off while the agent was in front of her car.

    “That’s what you don’t want when you’re dealing with the police — your lesbian wife saying ‘drive, baby, drive,’” he told the crowd. “Her last name was Good; that’s what I said after they shot her in the face,” he continued. He then backed off slightly, saying, “I’m not a liberal, so I don’t celebrate the death of people that I… I didn’t hate her, I didn’t know her, but now that I know her, I hate her”.

  • Old and busted: Leftists demanding police bodycams to prove they’re killing innocent black people. The new hotness: Leftists demand we stop using bodycams because they’re showing police shootings are justified.
  • Democrat backs gang leaders over ICE. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Abbott Adds Chinese Tech Firms to Texas’ Prohibited Technology List Over Cybersecurity Concerns.” The brands are TP-Link, Hisense, and TCL.
  • “Couple Sentenced After Fake ID Bust by Dallas ICE. According to ICE, the manufacturing of fake identification documents by the couple took place from August 2020 until their arrest in February 2025.
”

    A Mexican couple living in Oklahoma has been sentenced for manufacturing fake identification documents for illegal aliens, a scheme uncovered by ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas.

    Karina Garcia-Salazar, 47, was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release for Conspiracy to Transfer Identification Documents and Conspiracy to Possess with Intent to Use or Transfer Five or More Documents.

    Her partner Jorge Augusto Prieto-Gamboa, 41, was sentenced in December to 15 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release following conviction for Conspiracy to Possess Five or More Documents with Intent to Transfer.

    The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma reported that Garcia holds a Lawful Permanent Resident card, while Gamboa has been living illegally in the U.S. since 2002.

    Sounds like authorities have reason to strip Garcia of their green card and deport them.

  • Winning: “Texas A&M Ends Women’s & Gender Studies Programming. The university cited low enrollment as the reason for the decision.”
  • A HIMARS strike knocks a Belgorod power plant offline.
  • A fuel trained derailed and exploded in Tambov, Russia. It may or may not be Ukraine-related.
  • “Ukraine says Starlink terminals used by Russia deactivated.

    Ukraine said last week it was working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to block the use of Starlink terminals used on Russian attack drones and was trying to compile a “white list” of all Ukraine’s terminals so the Russian ones could be turned off.

    “Starlinks included in the ‘white list’ are working — Russian terminals have already been blocked,” Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who took office last month, wrote on Telegram, adding that the list was still being updated.

    SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk said on Sunday that moves by SpaceX to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia seemed to have worked.

    Russia used to be home to space-faring superpower capable of launching its own communication satellites. Now its dependent on western COTS technology that can be turned off by Elon Musk.

  • Russian GRU military intelligence General Vladimir Alexeyev shot in assassination attempt in Moscow. No word if Ukraine or internal enemies attempted the hit. Alexeyev is a nasty piece of work with several planned assassinations and war atrocities laid at his feet, so he’s exactly the sort of person Putin would assassinate if he feared internal dissent.
  • Washington Post to layoff over 300 employees. John Nolte has thoughts:

  • Follow-up: Louis Rossmann’s war against Austin paying for AI cameras in its parks has paid off in the form of a new proposal. “If you go down to item 61, approve a resolution directing the city manager to return to council with an ordinance regulating the city’s use of surveillance technology. Mayor Pro Tem Jose Cheto Vela, Council Member Mike Siegel, Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, Council Member Krista Laine, Council Member Jose Velasquez are involved and sponsors of this.”
  • YouTuber makes horror film for $3 million, kicks Hollywood’s butt.  
  • Even Critical Drinker likes it.
  • Heh. “William Shatner’s fiber commercial is on pace to get more views than the woke new Star Trek show.”
  • Adobe screws animators by cancelling a program they depend on, then immediately walks it back. Sort of.
  • It’s not just employers who are flaky: “The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed.”

    John” accepted the offer and started last week!

    Except … it’s not the John my husband remembers. My husband was confused and said the following things were odd:

    – John has different hair and now wears glasses.

    – John is talking extensively about working in a garage because his three children and wife are home. In the interview, he made references to being single and was visibly in an indoor desk area.

    – John can’t answer a number of questions that they previously discussed in the interview, things pretty pivotal to the position.

    – Husband describes John as being aloof and pretty timid whereas John was confident and articulate when they interviewed him.

    He is convinced this is not the person they hired.

    Snip.

    They heard back from legal … who are less than thrilled about the situation! They approved HR to have a conversation with John regarding what has been reported (more in the vein of “there’s been some concerns about performance and you overselling abilities” and less of the We Think You Are a Liar route).

    Snip.

    As soon as HR got on the call with him, before they could get through their first question, John said the words “I quit” and hung up the calls. He has since been unreachable!!

  • YouTuber WhistlinDiesel was once again daring to register a vehicle he bought in Tennessee in another state. Sounds like Special Agent Curtis Richie has a vindictive vendetta against him. “Don’t buy cars in Tennessee anymore. I cannot recommend enough just moving to another state.”
  • When various WWII tanks were finally retired…and a couple of types are still in service.
  • Speaking of ancient military equipment: “Hospital evacuated after 8-inch WWI artillery shell discovered in patient’s butt.”
  • “Damning Photos Surface Of Clippy On Epstein Island.”
  • “Roomful Of Pedophiles Protests ICE Deporting Pedophiles.”
  • “Tim Walz Emerges From Den To Declare 6 More Weeks Of Rioting And Fraud.”
  • “If They Can Arrest Don Lemon For Something As Simple As Breaking The Law, Imagine What They Can Do To You.”
  • “Experts Warn Arresting Journalists Could Be Slippery Slope To Arresting Politicians And Other People Who Deserve It.”
  • “Suspicious: Voter ID Bill Defeated In Senate By Vote Of 7 Million To 53.”

    • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Technology, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For January 23, 2026

    Friday, January 23rd, 2026

    T-1 until Winter Storm Fern hits Austin. Make sure you’re prepared. The National Weather Service forecast still seems grim:

    The Apple Weather app is finally catching up with the National Weather Service and, holy crap, things are not looking good:

    Austin Weather forecast 1/23/26

    Yeah, it’s going to get above freezing, so the city will run again, but I’ve got to keep my plants inside for a week or more. Any any potential power loss is really gonna suck. Here’s that Austin energy outage map again.

    My own 401K travails and money woes continue. I did receive the money I tried to transfer to my checking account in December. But I had only split it up to get half of it into 2025 for tax purposes. I was also going to have to transfer more more into my bank account this month to cover my property taxes. They assured me would only take a day to transfer funds after my IRA got set up. Surprise! It might be a day for most people, but because my phone doesn’t receive text messages, I had to request they send me a check, which is going to take 15 days. (Funny how they seem to be able to transfer money in instantaneously, but you have to jump through hoops to get your own money in 2+ weeks.) Yesterday, I had to sell some silver rounds to cover the last bit of property taxes and living expenses for two weeks (including a vet appointment for my two dogs). Fortunately, silver is at at an all-time high. I sold mine when it was just under $100 an ounce, and now it’s over $103.

    Oh, yeah, some other stuff happened this week: More Minnesota fraud, more California fraud, Don Lemon joins the KKK (as a subject of federal scrutiny), more commie ties for left wing agitators, more of Russia’s shadow fleet comes a cropper, and William Shatner eats cereal.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Just like we already knew: “California: Newsom’s ‘National Model’ for Homeless Wracked by Fraud.”

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has made reducing the homelessness crisis in California a top priority, saying the scale of the state’s efforts is “unprecedented” and calling for the continued expansion of his signature effort – Project Homekey – that has already cost $3.75 billion.

    But in a state with more than 181,000 homeless individuals, or about one-third of the U.S. total, Homekey has been marred by failures and scandals, including a lack of government oversight and accountability as well as a federal investigation into allegations of fraud in Los Angeles.

    Lack of government oversight isn’t a bug for Governor Hairgel, it’s a feature.

    Newsom, who appears to be preparing for a presidential bid in 2028, could make Homekey, which he calls a “national model,” a talking point in his campaign. The state claims the program has created almost 16,000 permanent housing units that will serve over 175,000 people. But since the state doesn’t track outcomes – whether people placed in housing saw their lives improve or if they returned to the streets – the program’s effectiveness is unclear, according to a critical 2024 state auditor’s report.

    “[Our budget] is bloated with homeless spending, a bottomless pit and taxpayer boondoggle that doubles down on failure year after year,” the Republican-turned-Democrat Los Angeles Councilwoman Traci Park said at a meeting in May. “Hundreds of millions of dollars on bridge homes and Homekeys and interim housing sites, and no one can even tell us which ones are operational.”

    What is clear is that homelessness in California has skyrocketed in the five years Homekey has been in place, growing by more than 20%, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s an increase of some 36,000 people between 2019 and 2024.

    Homekey has been touted by officials as a more cost-effective way to house the homeless. By hiring developers to convert excess motel and hotel rooms and other existing structures into permanent housing, the costs are two to three times lower than building new units, according to the auditor’s report.

    But with huge contracts available to developers and very little oversight of their activities, some of that cost savings was lost to fraud, according to federal prosecutors. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California launched a fraud and corruption task force to find out where the money went, and in October filed criminal charges involving two developers who allegedly defrauded the system.

    My guess is that not a single leftwing activist in California will be indicted by the state government for their own role in the fraud…

  • “Minnesota Democrats Are Creating A Nullification Crisis Over Immigration.”

    The videos coming out of Minneapolis, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers apprehending illegal immigrants in the streets while having to fight off aggressive and sometimes violent anti-ICE activists, are the predictable result of a Democrat strategy that amounts to nullification.

    I mean nullification in the historical sense, like the Nullification Crisis of 1832 when South Carolina declared federal tariffs to be null and void within the boundaries of the state, and President Andrew Jackson threatened to send in the U.S. Army to enforce federal law.

    What the Democrats of South Carolina did back then is essentially what the Democrats of Minneapolis are doing today, fomenting a 21st century nullification crisis by making it nearly impossible to enforce federal immigration law in the territory under their jurisdiction. Trump, who has ordered 1,500 active duty troops stationed in Alaska to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, is well within his rights (and within historical precedent) to respond in the same vein as Jackson did to what amounts to a nullification crisis.

    Indeed, the whole point of so-called sanctuary laws is to make it difficult or impossible to enforce federal immigration laws — to nullify them. Sanctuary policies like the ones operative in Minneapolis (and many other Democrat-controlled cities) prohibit state and local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities.

    Under normal circumstances, when an illegal immigrant commits a crime the local authorities notify federal immigration officials before the offender is released, so that ICE can take custody and begin the process of deportation. The handover occurs between law enforcement agencies in a controlled, orderly, safe manner.

    But in places where Democrat lawmakers have created sanctuary jurisdictions, local law enforcement is barred from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement in this way. Instead of handing over illegal immigrants to ICE, the police simply release them. That means ICE agents have to go out into the community, into neighborhoods and businesses, to track down and arrest illegal immigrant criminals wherever they might be.

    This is obviously a much more volatile and dangerous way to enforce federal immigration law. And in Minneapolis, it’s even more volatile and dangerous thanks to anti-ICE activists and vigilante mobs attempting to disrupt, impede, and in some cases attack ICE agents. Indeed, it’s a recipe for violent clashes between ICE and anti-ICE mobs. A cynic might say that’s the entire point, to make federal immigration enforcement as chaotic and tense as possible in hopes of exactly the kind of confrontations that led to the death of Renee Good, the woman who was fatally shot earlier this month when she tried to ram an ICE agent with her vehicle.

    The goal of fomenting such mayhem is straightforward: to thwart the enforcement of federal immigration law. Keep in mind, ICE is not doing anything beyond the scope of federal law in Minneapolis. It is not exercising any new or novel powers not authorized under federal statute. As Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander in charge in Minneapolis said at a press conference this week, the operations and tactics of Border Patrol and ICE agents in the city are “born out of necessity” but are nevertheless “legal, ethical, and moral.”

    “Our operations are lawful. They’re targeted. They’re focused on individuals who pose a serious threat to this community. They are not random and they are not political,” he said. The “necessity” Bovino refers to is that which has arisen as a direct result of Democrat sanctuary policies. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t see the very public, visible ICE operations now underway in Minneapolis and other sanctuary cities simply because criminal illegal aliens would be transferred to federal custody by local law enforcement.

    But that’s not happening because Democrats don’t like federal immigration laws. Since they don’t have the political power to change them, they have decided, like Democrats in South Carolina in the 1830s, simply to declare them null and void in their territory.

    I would suggest Minnesota Democrats should reconsider before Trump decides to do to Minneapolis what Sherman did to Savannah in 1864, but knowing Minneapolis, all he probably needs to do is hand out gasoline and matches to the #BlackLivesMatter/Somali set and let them burn it down themselves…

  • The usual villains are bankrolling the Minnesota anarchy.

    A collection of far-left activist groups — including the Democratic Socialists of America, major labor unions, explicitly Communist groups, and a CCP-linked protest network — have all organized a strike scheduled for Friday which aims to “shut down” schools and businesses statewide in Minnesota in an effort to push ICE out.

    The planned shutdown was announced early last week — “ICE Out of MN: Day of Truth and Freedom” — include plans for a large-scale march in Minneapolis and a day of “no work, no school, no shopping.”

    The radical Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the left-wing BreakThrough News media outlet, and the Manhattan-based Marxist revolutionary People’s Forum are all involved in either promoting or organizing the Minnesota shutdown effort. Just the News previously reported on how these and other radical activist groups have leadership links or financial ties to a funding network backed by wealthy businessman and self-avowed communist Neville Singham.

    The GOP-led House Oversight Committee voted this month to subpoena Singham for information about this sprawling activist network. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Revolutionary Communists of America, and the Twin Cities chapter of the Communist Party USA — all avowedly Marxist groups — are also listed as co-sponsors of the Friday protest.

    The DSA — which helped propel Zohran Mamdani to Gracie Mansion in NYC — including the national organization and the local Minnesota chapter — are listed as backing the anti-ICE effort scheduled for Friday.

    Major labor unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are listed as co-hosts of the shutdown effort, while the United Auto Workers (UAW) also endorsed the strike.

  • “Don Lemon Faces KKK Act Charges On MLK Holiday.”

    Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that former CNN host Don Lemon has been put “on notice” by the Justice Department and could face charges under federal civil-rights laws, including the Ku Klux Klan Act, for his role in storming a church service in Minnesota. Lemon allegedly joined a far-left mob that was on the hunt for a pro-ICE pastor at a St. Paul church.

    “The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes. Its a law that makes it illegal to terrorize and violate the civil rights of citizens. Whenever people conspire to do this, the Klan Act can be used,” Dhillon told Johnson.

    Dhillon continued, “Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long time.”

    “There is zero tolerance for this kind of illegal behavior and we will not stand for it,” she emphasized.

    Johnson wrote on X, “DOJ confirms Don Lemon has zero ‘journalism’ protections against FACE Act violations. Lemon was fully aware of the violations and may face KKK Act conspiracy charges.”

    Unfortunately a Minnesota judge is currently blocking the charges.

  • But others got indicted. “FBI Arrests Left-Wing Activist Who Led Mob of Protesters into Minnesota Church.”

    Federal authorities have arrested the woman who led an anti-ICE mob into a Minnesota church last week.

    Nekima Levy Armstrong is facing charges related to violating the FACE Act, which prohibits interfering with the exercise of religion at a place of worship.

    Minutes ago at my direction, HSI and FBI agents executed an arrest in Minnesota. So far, we have arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong, who allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a post on X.

    “We will share more updates as they become available. Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” she added.

    Armstrong led a group into the Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday, believing that one of the church’s pastors works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Dozens of demonstrators interrupted the service shouting, “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.”

    Armstrong is a civil rights lawyer and “scholar-activist,” according to her website. She previously played a key role in organizing boycotts against Target over its decision to walk back its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, according to Fox News.

  • “Noem announces 10K illegal immigrant arrests in Minnesota.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Krisit Noem announced on Monday that immigration officers have arrested more than 10,000 illegal immigrants in Minnesota.

    “PEACE AND PUBLIC SAFETY IN MINNEAPOLIS!” Noem exclaimed in a post to X. “We have arrested over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and reigning terror in Minneapolis because Tim Walz and Jacob Frey refuse to protect their own people and instead protect criminals.”

    The figure includes about 3,000 “criminal illegal aliens” arrested by federal authorities in just the last six weeks, the secretary said.

    Snip.

    “There is MASSIVE Fraud in Minneapolis, at least $19 billion and that’s just the tip of iceberg,” Noem asserted in the same post. “Our Homeland Security Investigators are on the ground in Minneapolis conducting wide scale investigations to get justice for the American people who have been robbed blind.”

    Indeed.

  • “Abbott Offers State Assistance to HUD for Fraud Identification Program. HUD Secretary Turner identified $5 billion in potentially erroneous payments.”

    Gov. Greg Abbott has volunteered Texas assistance to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in identifying fraud in federal housing programs after the agency identified at least $5 billion in potentially erroneous payments last year.

    According to a letter sent to HUD Secretary Scott Turner on Monday, Abbott offered state participation in a pilot fraud identification program through the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA).

    “We will gladly work with you to develop fraud-prevention measures that ensure federal taxpayer funds, like those in the rental-based assistance programs, are not taken advantage of by bad actors,” wrote Abbott.

    Turner, a former Texas state representative who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head HUD last year, published a financial analysis of the agency that warned of fraud and a lack of internal controls.

    Using AI, HUD reported finding more than 30,000 deceased persons either actively enrolled in a rental assistance program or who had received assistance after they died.

    Turner’s financial report also warned that his staff had identified examples of non-compliance with standards of internal controls under the Biden administration.

    “The reviews determined that under the prior Administration, HUD experienced a deterioration in financial controls and governance and identified a material weakness affecting internal controls and financial governance across multiple program offices.”

    Multiple federal agencies launched or extended investigations in Minnesota after new revelations of widespread fraud in the state last month. Last week, Abbott directed the Texas Workforce Commission and the Health and Human Services Commission to investigate potential childcare fraud in Texas.

  • “Latin Kings gang member accused of vandalizing FBI vehicle, stealing government property in Minneapolis.”

    A member of the violent Latin Kings gang was arrested after allegedly stealing government property from an FBI vehicle vandalized during unrest in Minneapolis Wednesday night, federal authorities said.

    Fox News confirmed that Raul Gutierrez, 33, was arrested Thursday in a joint operation involving the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

    The FBI said multiple government vehicles were vandalized and broken into Wednesday night in Minneapolis while agents were responding to a reported assault on a federal officer, adding that federal property was stolen from inside the vehicles.

    “One individual who allegedly stole federal government property out of an FBI vehicle in Minneapolis last night has been arrested,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X, adding that the suspect was a member of the Latin Kings gang with a violent criminal history. “FBI personnel are continuing to pursue other subjects involved. There will be more arrests.”

    Is their any doubt the left will treat this gang banger scumbag as a hero?

  • “Feds: California Owes $1B for Covering Illegal Aliens With Medicaid Dollars.”

    A few weeks ago, I noted that California was losing over $160 million due to improper management of its commercial driver’s license program.

    And well, Governor Gavin Newsom asserted his current budget would only have a $2 billion deficit, the state’s shortfall is actually estimated to be over $17 billion according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

    The budget reports a $2.9 billion deficit, described as a “modest shortfall” by Department of Finance staff. This estimate differs markedly from the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) projection of a $17.6 billion deficit—a gap of $14.7 billion. According to department staff, the governor’s proposal incorporates $31.5 billion in additional revenues not included in the LAO forecast and excludes the risk of a stock market downturn that the LAO elected to factor into its analysis. Overall, the state budget totals $348.9 billion, including $248.3 billion in General Fund expenditures and $23 billion in total reserves.

    Now, the gap may even widen.

    California is facing federal demands to repay more than $1 billion in Medicaid funds that Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), says were improperly used for health care for illegal aliens.

    The Trump administration is planning to claw back over $1 billion in federal Medicaid dollars it says are being spent by blue states on healthcare for illegal immigrants, including some with violent criminal records for murder and rape.

    A preliminary audit by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that, over the last few years, mostly during 2024 and 2025, California; Washington, D.C.; Illinois; Washington; Colorado; and Oregon improperly spent a combined $1,351,204,127 in federal Medicaid funds to help pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants.

    While federal Medicaid dollars are supposed to be prohibited broadly from being used to cover healthcare for illegal immigrants, they can be used by states for emergency treatment regardless of a patient’s citizenship or immigration status.

    While 5 other states were also investigated for illegal alien-oriented Medicaid abuses, California was by far the most egregious.

  • Virginia’s newly-seated Democrats have wasted no time in immediately throwing off the disguise of moderation to follow California and Minnesota’s blueprint for radical voting fraud, lining their pockets with graft and encouraging illegal aliens.

    Virginians asked for it, and if the flurry of bills introduced in the 72 hours since Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s inauguration pass — and with a Democratic supermajority, they likely will — residents of the Old Dominion are going to get it “good and hard.” If enacted, these proposals would raise taxes substantially, shorten sentences for violent criminals, and erode election integrity statewide.

    Virginia voters delivered Spanberger a landslide victory in November over her Republican opponent, then–Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears. Despite presenting herself as a moderate during the campaign, Spanberger’s congressional voting record — nearly 100% aligned with the Democrats’ progressive agenda — suggested her governance would be anything but.

    Let’s start with the tax increases: HB979 would create two new tax brackets. Currently, Virginians are taxed at 5.75% for all income over $17,000. If this bill passes, residents earning between $600,000 and $1 million will be taxed at 8%, and those earning over $1 million will pay 10%.

    Before anyone argues that these taxpayers can well afford it, remember that this group includes farmers, small businesses, and sole proprietors — many of whom are about to be “crushed” by the impact.

    The advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform sounded the alarm on the proposed new taxes in a piece titled Democrats Pounce On Virginia Taxpayers. ATF noted, “Under unified Democrat control, Virginia is poised to become a tax-hiking outlier in a region full of states that are phasing out their income taxes.”

    The article highlights some of the most shocking tax proposals now being advanced by state Democrats.

    • HB 378 – Imposes a 3.8% net investment income tax on individuals, trusts, and estates beginning in taxable year 2027. If enacted, HB 378 would raise VA’s top marginal income tax rate on portfolio and passive income to 9.55%.
    • HB 900 – Authorizes sales tax hikes in various transportation districts, imposes a new tax on each and every retail delivery in Northern Virginia (Amazon, Uber Eats, FedEx, UPS, etc.), similar to the one imposed in Minnesota by Gov. Tim Walz (D).
    • HB 919 – Imposes a firearm and ammunition tax equal to 11% percent of the gross receipts from the retail sale of any firearm or ammunition by a dealer in firearms, firearms manufacturer, or ammunition vendor, as such terms are defined in the bill.
    • HB 978 – Extends the retail sales and use tax to dry cleaning, landscaping, and other previously exempt services.

    Democrats now control the legislature and Governor’s office in Virginia.

    Here are just a few of the bills they’ve introduced

    – New 4.3% sales tax on Uber Eats, Amazon, etc deliveries.
    – New sales tax on admissions to a wide variety of businesses.
    – Create two new higher tax…

    — Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 19, 2026

    NEW retail and sales taxes coming to Virginia introduced by Virginia Democrats in a single bill:

    “Levies the retail sales and use tax on the following services: admissions; charges for recreation, fitness, or sports facilities; nonmedical personal services or counseling; dry… pic.twitter.com/ki96Ngpj6T

    — NOVA Campaigns (@NoVA_Campaigns) January 19, 2026

    This legislative blitz has something for everyone — including convicted criminals in the state.

    HB863 would “eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter, assaulting a law enforcement officer, possession and distribution of child pornography, and all repeat violent felonies.”

    Funny how Democrats are now objectively and reflexively pro-rape…

  • How Trump Won Davos.

    Here at Davos, I’ve heard numerous versions of this sentiment: “We Europeans/Canadians stood up to Trump and forced him to retreat. This is a major victory for the rules-based international order.”

    This is a very wrong take. The reality is that Trump won Davos, hands down. And not only did he win it; he owned it. I have never before seen a single individual so completely dominate this vast bazaar of the powerful, the wealthy, the famous, and the self-important.

    Snip.

    Davos Man—I should say Davos Person—worries a lot more about such things than he—they—used to. The latest edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, which is based on surveys of business executives and academics, ranks “geoeconomic confrontation” and “state-based armed conflict” as the No. 1 and No. 2 risks most “likely to present a material crisis on a global scale in 2026.” On a two-year time horizon, geoeconomic confrontation remains top of the list. Asked to characterize “the global political environment for cooperation on risks in the next decade,” 68 percent of respondents picked a “multipolar or fragmented order in which middle and great powers contest, set, and enforce regional rules and norms.”

    All of this is just a series of Davosy euphemisms for the one big risk that Davos Person fears above all others: Donald Trump. This is funny when you consider last year’s mood, which—in the wake of Trump’s reelection—was very bullish about the United States under Trump 2.0. “Almost everyone at Davos is long U.S., short EU,” I wrote in these pages this time last year. “The new Davos consensus is that Europe cannot get its economic act together and never will, whereas America is rocking and rolling, and if you don’t own the big U.S. tech stocks, then the FOMO may kill you.”

    My long-standing contrarian rule is that the Davos consensus is always wrong. In last year’s case, I added, Davos Person should be very careful what they wished for. Sure enough, in 2025 European stocks outperformed U.S. stocks. And, of course, Trump 2.0 has turned out to be every good European’s worst nightmare.

    In the run-up to Davos 2026, Trump did his utmost to wind up Europe’s elite, not to mention Canada’s. On social media and in interviews, he insisted that he was determined to get Greenland for the United States. “Greenland has to be acquired,” he wrote on the eve of his arrival in Switzerland. “Denmark and its European allies have to DO THE RIGHT THING.” He did not rule out military action. He threatened to impose new 10 percent tariffs on all countries that resisted. And he posted memes of maps of Denmark (and Canada) cloaked in the Stars and Stripes and an AI-generated image of himself planting an American flag on “Greenland—U.S. Territory Est. 2026.”

    To stoke up the crowd ahead of the president’s arrival, Trump’s cabinet members chimed in. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s anti-European trash-talking so enraged the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, that she stormed out of a Davos dinner. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent drolly wondered if European leaders might unleash their “most forceful weapon,” the “dreaded European working group.”

    Snip.

    This was vintage Trump, part real-estate pitch, part reality TV. “All we’re asking for is to get Greenland,” he riffed, “including right, title, and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it. You can’t defend it on a lease. Legally, it’s not defensible that way, totally. And number two, psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement or a lease[?]”

    As for the haters, “Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump declared. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.” And: “Here’s the story, Emmanuel. The answer is you’re going to do it. You’re going to do it fast. And if you don’t, I’m putting a 25 percent tariff on everything that you sell into the United States. And a 100 percent tariff on your wines and champagnes.”

    Except that, almost as an aside, Trump then called the whole Greenland thing off. “We never ask for anything [from NATO],” he rambled, “and we never got anything. We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that. Okay? Now everyone’s saying, ‘Oh good.’ That’s probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

    Later that evening, following a “very productive meeting” with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, Trump announced on Truth Social that he would not impose the additional tariffs on European countries he had threatened. He and Rutte had “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.”

    Snip.

    The problem with all of this is the premise that Trump ever seriously meant to annex Greenland or to impose new tariffs on the Europeans. Why would he when a) the United States already enjoys (under a 1951 treaty with Denmark and a 2004 agreement with Greenland) all the military access to the frigid island it could every possibly need, while the Danes pay for the heavily subsidized inhabitants of the island; and b) Trump means what he says on Truth Social only about half the time, according to The Wall Street Journal’s recent analysis of 2,700 substantive Truth posts. I’ll say it again: Half the time he’s bluffing. And it was the same when he was on Twitter in series one.

    Snip.

    Ten years ago, Europeans made the mistake of taking Trump neither seriously nor literally. Now they make the opposite mistake of treating him both seriously and literally. But, as Saleno Zito explained nearly 10 years ago, the correct approach is to take him seriously but not literally. The fact that Trump carries out only around half the threats he makes on social media is a feature, not a bug—and it’s certainly not a sign of weakness. It is a deliberate tactic designed to leave counterparties uncertain. On this occasion, Trump was bluffing, and the administration never had the remotest intention of imposing new tariffs on Europe, much less taking military action to annex Greenland.

    So Trump asked for the moon, threatened to disastrous sanctions on his negotiating counterparts, and then settled for what he actually wanted all along.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Cue the tiny violins: “Eric Swalwell Could Be Ineligible for Governor or Face Jail Time.”

    Eric Swalwell’s political ambitions just hit a major snag. Swalwell, most famous for public flatulence and bedding a Chinese spy, wants to be the next governor of California, but he is now the target of a court challenge that could blow his entire gubernatorial campaign out of the water before it even gets started.

    The accusation? He doesn’t actually live in the state he wants to govern.

    Conservative activist and filmmaker Joel Gilbert dropped a legal bomb on January 8, filing a petition in Sacramento Superior Court arguing that Swalwell is constitutionally barred from seeking the governor’s office.

    Gilbert has a strong case.

    California’s constitution requires gubernatorial candidates to live in the state for five years before the election. Gilbert says Swalwell has been living in Washington, D.C., not California, which makes him legally ineligible to run for office.

    “Swalwell is ineligible to run for governor of California because the California constitution requires that a candidate live in the state for five years before an election,” Gilbert told PJ Media. “Swalwall has no home address in California; that’s why he committed perjury on his candidate statement form 501 by providing his attorney’s office for his home address. Swalwell has a sworn Deed of Trust on his Washington, D.C. home where he declared that location as his primary residence.”

    The complaint gets more interesting from there.

    Public records searches allegedly show that Swalwell has no ownership or lease of any California property — his congressional financial disclosures from 2011 through 2024 back this up, listing zero California real estate holdings. When Swalwell filed his campaign paperwork on December 4, he listed an address on Capitol Mall in Sacramento. The problem is that the address isn’t a residence; it’s the office of his Sacramento lawyer, Greenberg Traurig, located in a high-rise.

    Swalwell owns a $1.2 million, six-bedroom home in northeast Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife, Brittany Watts, and their three kids. Mortgage documents from April 2022 list that D.C. property as his “principal residence.”

    There are really only two possibilities here, according to Gilbert: Swalwell either committed mortgage fraud — a serious crime that could result in prison time — or he’s ineligible to run for governor.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Teachers Unions Funneling Millions To Soros-Linked Groups, Far-Left Agendas.” Because of course they are.

    New Labor Department filings reveal the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, has been channeling millions in taxpayer dollars to far-left political outfits, including Soros-backed networks and shadowy activist groups.

    Instead of bolstering education, these funds are propping up anti-American causes, from anti-Israel protests to rigging electoral maps.

    The bombshell underscores the deep rot in union leadership, where public money meant for schools is weaponized against conservative values and national security.

    The filings, obtained by Fox News Digital, paint a damning picture of misdirected priorities. “The NEA’s last fiscal year report showed it sent $300,000 to the 1630 Fund, the liberal dark money group Fox News has been reporting on extensively, and in most cases exclusively — Tens of thousands of dollars to the (George Soros’) Tides Foundation Network,” according to the report.

    These aren’t voluntary donations from union members’ pockets—these are taxpayer dollars funneled through the system. The Tides Foundation has ties to anti-Israel activism, while the Sixteen Thirty Fund operates as a hub for progressive dark money, influencing elections without transparency.

    The NEA didn’t stop there, the report notes, adding it “was also involved in several state issues. It backed a campaign to end standardized testing in Massachusetts and fight gerrymandering in Ohio, to the tune of half a million dollars for each of those and it sent hundreds of thousands of additional money to groups committed to racial and education justice movements.”

    One of the biggest payouts was a whopping $3.5 million to Education International, a global teachers’ federation where NEA President Becky Pringle serves as vice president. Critics call it a cozy self-dealing arrangement, with American tax dollars flowing offshore to international agendas.

  • “The FBI just served a whole bunch of grand jury subpoenas to Minnesota politicians.”

    The subpoenas went to the offices of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, according the outlets, including Reuters, the New York Times and Fox News, which cited anonymous sources.

    The subpoenas come days after the Department of Justice announced it was launching an investigation into Walz and Frey in connection with a suspected conspiracy to impede federal immigration enforcement in the state.

    I am hoping there are also subpoenas in the works for several years of their bank records, to see how much they participated in the Somali fraud…

  • “And Suddenly, About 100 Minneapolis Cops Disappeared.”

    Over the past several days, it appears that Minneapolis police officers have quietly kind of quit in another way.

    From Alpha News:

    Around 100 Minneapolis police officers could soon be off duty for weeks to months from an already critically understaffed police department, and just as the city faces a serious public safety crisis with protesters inciting confrontations with the surge of federal agents working in the city.

    Multiple sources confided to both Alpha News senior reporter Liz Collin and to Crime Watch Minneapolis that 60 to 100 officers from the Minneapolis Police Department have applied or plan to apply for the state’s new paid leave program. The Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program was signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz during the 2023 DFL trifecta and went into effect on the first of this year.

    Now there’s a shortage of police.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Ukrainian Drones Hit Taman Port: FOUR Oil Tanks Reported Burning.”
  • They also hit an oil depot in Penza, some 600+ km from the Ukraine border.
  • “Russian Ammo Depot Destroyed in Debaltseve, Donetsk: HUGE Cookoff.”

  • “France Boards Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker “Grinch‘!”
  • Italy also boarded a Russian shadow fleet tanker carrying 30 tones of ferrous metal.
  • Another Russian shadow fleet tanker, the Progress, appears to be adrift in the Mediterranean, possibly a victim of Ukrainian drones.
  • This won’t end well: “Japanese Yields Soar To All Time High After PM Takaichi Calls Snap Election Seeking More Spending, Less Taxes.” Doubling down, yet again, on Abenomics, won’t solve Japan’s continuing problems.
  • “New York Ends Crusade to Make Catholic Nuns Pay for Abortions.”

    New York has finally ended its nearly decade-long campaign to force Catholic nuns and other religious ministries to fund abortions.

    The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced on Tuesday that New York agreed to enter into a settlement with their clients after a lengthy court battle over a state abortion mandate that went to the Supreme Court twice. Plaintiffs in the case, Roman Catholic Diocese v. Harris, included a group of Catholic and Anglican nuns, Catholic dioceses, Christian churches, and faith-based social ministries.

    “For nearly a decade, New York bureaucrats tried to strong-arm nuns into paying for abortions because they serve all those in need,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the religious groups. “At long last, the state has given up its disgraceful campaign. This victory confirms that the government cannot punish religious ministries for living out their faith by serving everyone.”

  • “NY Attorney General Criminalizes Opposing Islamic Terrorism. Attorney General Letita James shuts down Jewish group for fighting back.”

    In a press release, AG James, who had previously worked to shut down the NRA because she disagreed with its politics, announced that she had closed down Betar, a pro-Israel group , for appearing at synagogues to defend them from Muslim mobs, for claiming that “that all devout Muslims ‘hate America’, and for making derogatory remarks about Islam and Gaza.

    Did Howard University not cover the unconstitutionality of viewpoint discrimination back when James was obtaining her law degree there? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Nick Shirley sat down with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, and caught Callaghan deceptively editing the interview just like the MSM does.
  • Fastest Koenigsegg vs. Fastest Bugatti.
  • Microslop 365. “Microsoft has invested tens to hundreds of billions of dollars into AI, okay? And so AI is not allowed to be the problem. And so it has to be you.”
  • William Shatner eats a bowl of cereal.
  • “Dems Warn ICE Crackdowns Will Make Illegal Immigrants Afraid To Vote.”
  • “Exhausted White Liberal Women Clock In For Another Long Day Protecting Migrant Sex Offenders.”
  • “Don Lemon Immediately Bursts Into Flames Upon Entering Church.”
  • “Minnesota Arrests Churchgoers For Interrupting Protest.”
  • “Trump To Convert Entire City Of Minneapolis Into Insane Asylum.”
  • “Denmark Protects Greenland By Securing It In Giant Cookie Tin.”
  • Redemption song:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

    “President Trump Has Joined The Revolution”

    Tuesday, January 13th, 2026

    Tousi TV says that President Trump is fully on the side of the Iranian Revolution against the Mullahs:

  • “President Donald J. Trump has officially joined the revolution against the Islamic occupation in Iran!”
  • Reza Pahlavi and his mother, the last Empress of Iran, have also issued statements continuing to support the ousting of the Islamist regime.
  • The Iranian people are still out on the street.
  • President Trump has issued a statement stating the U.S. has broken off negotiation with the Islamist regime. “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – Take OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.” MIGA stands for Make Iran Great Again.
  • President Trump said he would meet with the Islamist regime, but his preconditions were they had to stop killing protesters and release all political prisoners. Obviously that didn’t happen.
  • Tousi thinks symbolic airstrikes are off the table and now only regime change will suffice.
  • “On the ground, the situation is escalating very quickly.”
  • Internet and lighting blackouts remains in place.
  • The top of the regime is dug in and continues to kill the people. “This is war-level gunfire.”
  • “The BBC is the propaganda arm of the Iranian regime.”
  • Khamenei’s inner circle is “falling apart.”
  • Reza Pahlavi: Efforts to reestablish communications are underway.
  • “Massive reactions from the international community. Countries are jumping on the wagon, left, right and center, except for one country, that’s the United Kingdom, which is doubling down on support for the Islamic Republic.” More proof that Keir Starmer is a complete asshole.
  • “Australia are saying the current Islamic regime in Iran does not have legitimacy.”
  • Apart from Israel and the United States, the country most supporting the Iranian people has been Germany. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz: “I believe we are witnessing the final days of the regime. It has no legitimacy among the population.” It sounds like that vaunted “international community” Democrats are always nattering on about are ready for the mullahs to go.
  • American military assets are coming into the Middle East from Europe.
  • Over 12,000 Iranians have been killed by Ali Khamenei’s regime. “There’s been a huge number of defections from those refusing to follow orders, realizing Khamenei is on the way out.”
  • Khamenei is supposedly in a bunker on the desert.

    • Tousi seems to be getting key details about the situation right before the MSM reports them.

    Possibly more later.

    Update: Blog was briefly down due to excessive hits from 45.134.225.250. Reverse DNS doesn’t resolve a domain name. Anyone know what that could be?

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, video | 29 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for January 2, 2026

    Friday, January 2nd, 2026

    Happy New Year! The Somali welfare fraud scandal just grows and grows, Ukraine hits more Russian oil refineries, Iran revolts against the Mullahs, and Austin steels itself for an .0825% budget cut.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Here’s the original Nick Shirley video exposing child care fraud in Minnesota:

  • The summary:

    A 42-minute bombshell video by journalist Nick Shirley and a local private investigator documents an on-the-ground investigation in Minneapolis that alleges massive, ongoing fraud in government-funded social services. The main focus is on Somali-owned businesses in child daycare, adult/autism care, home healthcare, and non-emergency medical transportation programs that draw from the taxpayer-funded Child Care Assistance Program.

    Shirley claims his team uncovered more than $110 million in questionable payments to Somali-owned businesses on just the first day of their investigation, as part of a broader welfare fraud scandal totaling upwards of $9 billion.

    Shirley and the investigator visited several childcare facilities that had no visible children, toys, or activities during peak hours. Staff could not answer basic questions about rates or licenses. Both were denied entry to the reception areas of these facilities:

    • Quality Learing Center: Licensed for 99 children; received $4 million over two years. Sign misspells “learning” as “learing”; no children visible, doors locked, no playground.
    • Future Leaders Early Learning Center: Licensed for 90 children; received $6.67 million over two years. Facility empty; staff evasive when asked about child numbers.
    • Mako Child Care and Mini Child Care Center (combined): Licensed for 120 children; received $1.3M (2020), $987K (2021), $714K (2022), $1.6M (2025). No children observed.
    • ABC Learning Center: Licensed for 40 children; nearly $3 million over three years. Blacked-out windows, no activity.
    • Sweet Angel Child Care: Licensed for 74 children; $1.26 million in 2025 alone.

    Millions of taxpayer dollars went to one daycare company that could not even spell “learning” correctly…

  • Fallout.

    Agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the primary investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are on the ground in Minneapolis Monday morning, conducting what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem described as a “massive investigation into childcare and other widespread fraud.”

    Snip.

    While allegations of Somali-linked welfare fraud in left-wing-controlled Minnesota have been known for years, the timing of Nick Shirley’s bombshell investigation suggests the federal government needed positive sentiment in the news cycle to begin the action phase on the ground. That’s usually how these types of operations work.

    * * *

    A viral video that has topped 76 million views on X within 48 hours has significantly heightened public scrutiny of multiple Minneapolis daycare centers linked to Somali operators that received millions in state and federal funding despite showing minimal operational activity. The apparent mismatch between allocated taxpayer funds and observable services strengthens a recent report by Christopher F. Rufo, which alleges that Somali-linked fraud in the left-wing-controlled state may involve front companies potentially diverting taxpayer funds to at least one overseas terrorist network.

    Update: And according to FBI Director Kash Patel, the agency will “continue to follow the money” in Minnesota, and their investigation is “ongoing.” (And why did it take Chris Rufo cracking the case before they took action?)

    “To date, the FBI dismantled a $250 million fraud scheme that stole federal food aid meant for vulnerable children during COVID. The investigation exposed sham vendors, shell companies, and large-scale money laundering tied to the Feeding Our Future network,” Patel said on Sunday.

    Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and its PR machine across left-wing corporate media outlets, including CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and the Associated Press, have largely remained silent on citizen journalist Nick Shirley’s investigation.

    And the “Quality Learing Center” has been shut down…

  • And Director Blue offers up a handy infographic covering the fraud.

  • Moreover, it’s obvious that the fraudulent child care facilities were always fraudulent, and yet the checks kept coming.

    Daycare centers with millions of dollars in government funding and no children inside, and neighbors who say they’ve never seen children going in or coming out. This is a slam dunk, and I couldn’t possibly love it any more.

    He names the daycare centers he visits, so you can start to find out how much the State of Minnesota knows about the scam without getting off the couch. Daycare centers are licensed and inspected: government inspectors regularly show up with a clipboard and look around. So go look at the record of inspections for Quality Learning Center of Minneapolis, the one in the video with the misspelled sign over the door. The whole thing instantly becomes darkly funny, because there’s no way anyone has ever believed that this is a functioning daycare center running at anything near its declared and funded capacity of 99 children.

    He then supplied a list of 29 code violations just from May of 2022. And there are lists of violations from 12 other visits.

    This inspection implies that there have been some children on site at some point, possibly family, but the inspector couldn’t identify anyone in the building: “The program did not have a file for each child,” and, “The program did not have a file for each staff person.” No training, no equipment, no records. This place has never been a functioning daycare center. No one has ever believed that it was. But the government checks kept coming, and government inspectors kept coming around and playing make-believe.

    Spending in Minnesota has risen 19% per person since 2019.

    As government does more and spends more, government does less. Explosive budget growth leads to declining effectiveness and quality. Low-tax red states pave the roads. High-tax blue states slop cash around to friends. Progressive elected officials view the task of governance as a series of costumed performances.

    They’re not trying to run anything. They intend to make faces for the camera and steer money to their friends, the end.

  • And it’s not just Minnesota!

    The “Nick Shirley Effect” has begun, with Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin on the ground in Columbus, Ohio, home to the second-largest Somali community in the U.S., investigating daycare centers. This development comes less than a day after Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke said federal investigators are examining allegations that elements within Ohio’s Somali community defrauded millions of dollars from the state’s Medicaid system.

    “The first Somali-affiliated daycare facility that we knocked on after landing in Columbus, Ohio, today did not answer,” Rubin wrote on X, alongside a video showing the daycare center, Great Minds Learning Academy.

    Rubin continued, “A neighbor across the street told us, ‘I’ve never seen anybody come out of the building or go into the building.'”

    On Sunday, Breitbart News published an interview with Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke, who alleges that members of the Somali community in Ohio have defrauded millions of dollars from the state’s Medicaid program. She said that authorities at the highest levels are investigating “what is happening in Ohio.”

    Since Ohio is a red state, at least there’s a chance that officials there will actually investigate the fraud…

  • “Could Democrat Tim Walz Face Criminal Charges Over Growing Somali Fraud Scandal in Minnesota?”

    The growing social services scandal in Minnesota — now reckoned to amount to billions of dollars — raises the possibility that the state’s two term Democratic governor, Tim Walz, could face criminal jeopardy.

    Congressman James Comer, who leads the House Oversight Committee, is widening his probe into the scandal, which is centered on Minnesota’s Somali community. This week he took to Fox News to declare that “The walls are caving in on Tim Walz,” who was Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice as a running mate in the 2024 election. They lost to President Trump.

    While regular citizens are not usually required to report crimes, public officials like Mr. Walz are usually held to a higher standard. They are generally seen to have a fiduciary duty to protect state assets. Actively concealing a felony could amount to the crime of “misprision of felony” or, alternatively to obstruction of justice. A failure to report could —theoretically — even lead to a charge of conspiracy, with the silent party accused of being an accessory to a crime.

    Mr. Walz has a national reputation due to his service as Ms. Harris’s running mate, and has become a lightning rod for criticism of how such staggering fraud could have gone unnoticed for years until two New York-based publications, the New York Post and City Journal, an outlet of the conservative Manhattan Institute, published investigations.

    Earlier this month, Mr. Walz sought to deflect negative attention from the Somali community, telling reporters that society “should be holding a lot of white men accountable for the crimes that they have committed,” rather than focusing on one ethnic group. Mr. Walz has also said he is accountable, as the fraud occurred “on my watch.” He added that “I am accountable for this, and more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.”

    Mr. Comer announced his intention to invite whistleblowers to testify under oath and subpoena banks that operate out of Minnesota. He added that “hopefully we’ll have some criminal referrals at the end of this investigation.” Once a criminal referral is issued by Congress, it is up to the Department of Justice — led by Attorney General Pam Bondi — to seek indictments, perhaps of the governor himself.

    Snip.

    Mr. Comer, in a statement last week, declared that “The House Oversight Committee is aggressively investigating widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs and the failures of Governor Walz’s administration that allowed taxpayer funds to be funneled to terrorist networks responsible for the deaths of Americans.” The reference is to allegations that stolen money made its way to the coffers of Al-Shabaab, a Somali terrorist group.

    Longtime critics of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party – what the state’s Democratic Party is known as — accuse Mr. Walz of looking the other way at misconduct in the Somali community since they wield significant political power as a voting bloc.

    Snip.

    Prosecutors claim that more than half of the $18 billion in taxpayer funding spent on 14 Medicaid programs in Minnesota since 2018 was stolen. More than 90 people have been charged, the vast majority of Somali ancestry. The lead federal prosecutor, John Thompson, said in a statement earlier this month that “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It is staggering industrial-scale fraud.”

    The question, of course, is whether Walz is merely grossly incompetent, or an active participant in the fraud and the cover-up.

  • And why do Somalis keep getting away with all this fraud? Because Social Justice infected Democrat judges let them.

    Meet three AWFL (Affluent, white, female, liberal) Minnesota judges who are making headlines for the most predictable reasons imaginable.

    These ladies have recently dismissed cases against Somali fraudsters in Minnesota, even overturning jury verdicts, allowing the immigrants stealing millions from Americans and Minnesotans to walk free.

    Each of these judges found small, technical prosecutorial errors, resulting in the cases being tossed.

    Snip.

    Here’s local reporting in Minnesota on the case where Judge Sarah West tossed the jury verdict:

    Jurors who were chosen for the case were shocked by West’s decision.
    ‘I am shocked,’ jury foreperson Ben Walfoort told KARE 11 News.
    ‘I’m shocked based off of all of the evidence that was presented to us and the obvious guilt that we saw based off of the said evidence.’

    When the one case was tossed, these other lady judges decided to toss the related cases.

    More Minnesota reporting:

    … Judge West’s decision stems from a strict review standard for cases that involve mostly circumstantial evidence. A jury is not asked to consider that standard, but appeals courts do, and Young said in this case, Judge West based her decision on it …
    Judges analyzing these cases look not just at proof beyond reasonable doubt but whether guilt is the ‘only reasonable hypothesis.’
    ‘In other words, if there is another reasonable explanation, that could be the reasonable doubt,’ Young said.

    So Somali fraudsters haven’t been convicted because Democrat judges don’t want the fraudsters convicted.

  • In Iran, the people have launched massive protests against the theocratic government in the wake of the currency collapsing. “Protests come as the country deals with economic instability and declining living standards. Not to mention, citizens might just want to be a regular country instead of being the world’s terrorist state.”

    In the videos, protesters chant anti-regime slogans and confront security forces in crowded streets.
    Footage included scenes of screaming and apparent gunfire, with demonstrators throwing objects and shouting, ‘Death to the Dictator’ and ‘Proud Arakis, support, support.’

    What proud Arakis might look like

    Additional footage shared by MEK shows crowds chanting, ‘Death to Khamenei!’ and ‘Shame on you, shame on you!’ as anger appears to spread across the country, with a particular focus on bazaar-led protests in Tehran.

    The four days of protest have left at least one Revolutionary Guard member dead and the country was at a “near standstill” for about a day due to the unrest. In the city of Fasa, protesters stormed the governor’s office, forcing the Revolutionary Guard to open fire on the insurrectionists. The military then flew helicopters over the city to intimidate the protesters.

  • Moreover, President Trump is threatening dire consequences if the regime starts killing protestors.

    President Donald Trump warned early Friday that the U.S. would intervene if Iran started killing protesters.

    Writing on Truth Social, the president said if Iran shoots and “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”

    “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump said.

    Trump’s warning comes as demonstrations triggered by Iran’s deteriorating economy expand beyond the capital and raise concerns about a potential heavy-handed crackdown by security forces. At least seven people — including protesters and members of Iran’s security services — have been reported killed during clashes, according to international reporting.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) It’s possible that hostile regimes in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba could all be swept aside before the end of 2026.

  • This week Ukraine hit the Syzran oil refinery some 800km from Ukraine.
  • Ukraine hit the Tuapse oil refinery in Krasnodar with drones.
  • They also hit the Ilsky oil refinery in Krasnodar, and a Kaluga oil depot.
  • They hit two oil refineries in Samara, Novokuybyshevsk and Kuibyshevsk.
  • They also hit a marine drone base in Crimea. So yes, Russia evidently has its own marine drones.
  • Ukraine hit a Shahed base at Donetsk Airport with at least 15 drones.
  • They also hit an ammo depot in Donetsk.
  • Moscow suburb blacks out after Ukrainian drone strike on power sub-station.
  • Australia donated a number of M1A1 tanks to Ukraine, and they’ve already arrived and entered key fights.
  • Massachusetts: “When we said ‘life without parole’ we didn’t mean it.”

    The Massachusetts Parole Board has granted parole to 39 individuals convicted of murder who were originally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, following a landmark state Supreme Judicial Court decision that upended sentencing practices for a specific group of offenders.

    Under the 2024 Commonwealth v. Mattis ruling, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that it is unconstitutional to impose life-without-parole sentences on people who were 18, 19 or 20 years old at the time of their offense. The court defined those in that age range as “emerging adults.”

    If you’re old enough to vote, you should be old enough to hold accountable for murder.

    As a result, individuals who previously had no opportunity for release were made eligible for parole hearings. In recent months, the Parole Board has processed dozens of cases under that framework, ultimately approving the release of 39 murder convicts while denying parole to a dozen others.

    Murderers seem to be one of the social justice Democrats most respected constituencies.

  • “Italy arrests 9 over alleged Hamas funding through charities.”

    Italian prosecutors ​said on Saturday they ‌had arrested nine people on suspicion of financing Hamas ‌through charities based in Italy, in an operation coordinated by anti-mafia and anti-terrorism units.

    The suspects are accused of “belonging to and having financed” the Palestinian group – classified as a terrorist group by Israel, its top ally the U.S. and ‍the European Union – prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Genoa said in a statement.

    Those arrested allegedly diverted to Hamas-linked entities around 7 million euros ($8.2 million) raised over the last two years for ostensibly humanitarian purposes, prosecutors said. Police ​seized assets worth more than 8 million euros.

    In ​another statement, police said officers had seized 1.08 million euros in cash found in the offices of a pro-Palestinian charity and in suspects’ homes, as well as material supportive of Hamas, Israel’s foe in the ‍two-year Gaza war.

    At this point it’s safer to just assume that every “Islamic charity” is funding terrorism.

  • Are you eating slave sushi? “Feds say Chinese brothers ran sushi slavery ring in Arizona that forced illegal aliens to work 7 days a week.” “Court documents allege Yung Lau, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from China, along with two managers, including his brother, kept dozens of undocumented immigrants in four “stash houses” and forced them to work at restaurants seven days a week with no days off. The restaurants involved were Sakura Sushi in Gilbert, Mesa, and Phoenix and Akita Sushi in Scottsdale.”
  • “Thieves drill into a German bank vault and steal tens of millions of euros’ worth of property.” In this age of sophisticated electronic theft, it’s pretty old school to break into a bank using a big honking drill…
  • Critical Drinker’s best and worst of 2025.
  • With the failure of odious Proposition Q, the City of Austin is actually having to cut their budget by a tiny amount.

    Austin’s municipal government is poised to cut its social services budget by approximately $5.3 million.

    According to a memo from City Manager T.C. Broadnax, the city plans to “reallocate” social services contracts from a series of city departments. Affected departments include economic development, homeless strategies and operations, Austin community court, and public health.

    The $5.277 million in proposed reductions represents a .0825 percent decrease from the record-setting $6.3 billion budget the city council passed in August.

    This curtailment follows the landslide defeat of Proposition Q last November. Had it passed, Proposition Q would have represented a record-setting tax increase.

    The council had previously approved $95 million in emergency budget cuts following Prop Q’s defeat.

    The reductions come as a coalition of citizen groups has launched a petition drive to amend the city charter, requiring an independent audit of municipal finances before any future tax increases. If successful, this petition drive would place the proposed charter amendment on the May 2026 ballot.

    A .0825% decrease isn’t enough. All the social justice items in Austin’s budget need to be removed with a chainsaw.

  • And speaking of Austin, groundbreaking on a planned downtown condo hes been delayed until market conditions improve.
  • Part 2 of the Professor of Rock’s interview with Rick Beato.
  • Matt of Diesel Creek once again exposes his junk to the camera. If you ever thought you’ve just got too many projects going on, here’s the ultimate “hold my beer.”
  • “Walz Announces $8 Billion Grant To Somali Company To Investigate Fraud.”
  • “The Babylon Bee Would Like To Inform Tim Walz We Are Now A Functioning Daycare In Minnesota.”
  • “Man Achieves American Dream Of Working Hard And Paying Taxes For 50 Years So He Can Fund Fraudulent Somali Daycares.”
  • Evergreen: “Perfect Day Ruined By People.”
  • Funniest pet videos of 2025.

    • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 7 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For December 26, 2025

    Friday, December 26th, 2025

    I hope everyone had a great Christmas! GDP says that some of the economy is already booming, Minnesota Somali fraud is even greater than we thought, Nigerian jihadis get dirtnapped, California drives yet more businesses out, another Democrat pedophile busted, Trump cleared in Epstein scandal by NYT, some cursed gun images, and some leftover Christmas cheer.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Is the Trump Boom here? “US Economy Grows By Big 4.3% In Third Quarter.” I can hardly wait for this booming economy to catch up with me…
  • “Minnesota Somalia Community Fraud Likely to Exceed $9 Billion.

    According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, 14 Medicaid services currently under audit and deemed “high risk” have cost the state $18 billion since 2018. “I don’t make these generalizations in a hasty way,” he said. “When I say significant amount, I’m talking on the order of half or more. But we’ll see. When I look at the claims data and the providers, I see more red flags than I see legitimate providers.”

    Thompson said during a press conference announcing new indictments that entire companies were created not to provide medical services but to pocket federal funds for international travel, luxury vehicles and lavish lifestyles. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”

    Thompson then outlined an industry of “fraud tourism” where some outsiders -specifically two from Philadelphia- even travelled to the state to participate in the financial windfalls. The scheme was “easy money,” he said.

    Why, it’s almost as if the Democrats running the state didn’t try to stop the fraud…

  • Ukraine continued to hit Russian oil infrastructure by hitting a fourth oil and gas platform in the Caspian Sea.
  • They also used Storm Shadow to hit a refinery at Novoshakhtinsk.
  • they also hit a variety of targets, including a Spetznaz headquarters in Donetsk.
  • President Trump ordered the bombing of multiple Islamic State terrorist camps in Nigeria, with the permission of the Nigerian government.

    Nigerian foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, has told broadcaster ChannelsTV that he was on the phone with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and that Nigeria “provided” the intelligence.

    “We spoke twice. We spoke for 19 minutes before the strike and then we spoke again for another five minutes before it went on,” Tuggar said.

    He added that they spoke “extensively” and that President Bola Tinubu gave “the go-ahead” to launch the strikes.

    Tuggar did not rule out further strikes, describing them as an “ongoing process” that would also involve other countries.

    In an interview with the BBC, Tuggar insisted the strikes had “nothing to do with a particular religion”. He said the operation did not have “anything to do with Christmas, it could be any other day – it is to do with attacking terrorists who have been killing Nigerians”.

    Of course, the Islamic State has everything to do with religion, but it’s smart to say “We’re not killing Muslims, we’re killing terrorists.”

  • The BBC has more information on the strikes, saying they hit not Boko Haram, but “a smaller group [known] locally as Lakurawa” that “sought to establish a base in north-western Sokoto state.” DoD images released suggest the use of Tomahawk cruise missiles, but I haven’t seen any confirmation of the weapons used in the strikes.
  • Harsh but fair: “Democrats are letting criminal illegal immigrants kill people.”

    Democrats are allowing people to be murdered by illegal immigrants so they can brag that they are not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    This is the reality of the most recent case in Fairfax County, Virginia. There, El Salvadoran national Marvin Morales Ortez had been jailed and charged with multiple crimes after “maliciously wounding” someone who was living in the same home with him. When the alleged victim did not show up to testify, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office dropped the charges, and a judge ordered Ortez to be released. He was then arrested after allegedly murdering the same person he had injured, not even a day after being released.

    ICE had put a detainer request on Ortez, given that he was an illegal immigrant, but Fairfax County refused to honor it and hand him over to be deported. Now, someone is dead. And this is not the first time there has been an issue with Ortez; Descano dropped murder charges against him from a 2019 killing where he had, according to Descano’s own office, confessed to participating in the murder. He has been charged with at least seven crimes in Fairfax County over the past five years, but Descano has dropped charges against him multiple times.

    And, sure enough, he is also an alleged member of MS-13.

    There are some questions to be asked here. For one, how can you be unable to prosecute an alleged MS-13 member after bringing charges against him multiple times? Descano’s office has constantly claimed noncooperation by the alleged victims, as if that is an insurmountable obstacle. But, more importantly, why not just hand him over to ICE, send him back to El Salvador, and never play this cat-and-mouse game where you arrest him for crimes and drop the charges the moment the case is more difficult than a slam dunk?

    This guy could have been deported at any time, and yet he was allowed to stay free in Fairfax County through dropped charges and ignored ICE detainers. The Democrats who run Fairfax County are so obsessed with supporting illegal immigration that they allowed an alleged murderer to stay in the country, constantly released him from jail, and watched him allegedly commit another murder in the process.

    This is the mindset of Democrats across the country in all sanctuary states, cities, and jurisdictions. They care more about protecting the concept of illegal immigration than they do about the lives of the people who are being victimized by illegal immigrants.

  • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has posted a woman’s privacy complaint form. So if any of you woman see a man pretending to be a woman using your restrooms, now you know where to report them.
  • Good news, everyone! California officials are not allowed to lie to parents about their children.

    California state officials received an emphatic legal rebuke over public school policies that required school officials to withhold from parents the gender identity or “social transition” expressions of minor students.

    U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled yesterday in a summary judgment decision that California’s parental exclusion policies are unconstitutional and issued a class-wide permanent injunction in the case of Mirabelli v. Olson.

    The injunction permanently blocks California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state’s Department of Education from forcing teachers to lie to parents about their children being socially transitioned with new names and pronouns.

    I hope every parent who had their child “transitioned” sues the asses off the groomers.

  • Speaking of crazy trannies: “Transgender felon who blinded Seattle woman was arrested and released 8 times this year.”
  • Because the People’s Republic of California wasn’t doing enough to destroy business in their state, they’re passing on more business-destroying taxes.

    We may never run out of signs that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is an utterly incompetent executive who belongs nowhere near power. The latest is that he has not repaid a federal pandemic unemployment loan, effectively creating a new California tax on jobs.

    During the 2020 pandemic, the Trump administration provided loans to states to help address unemployment as businesses were shut down. California received a loan of $20 billion and, more than five years later, has not paid it back. In fact, California is one of only two states that have not repaid their loans. And California failed to do this despite the Biden administration giving all states the ability to repay loans with federal stimulus money.

    This means the cost is now passed on to California employers. Every employer in California will be required to pay an additional $42 per employee in payroll taxes to help the state pay back the loan. That will increase by $21 every year until the loan is paid back (which is not projected to happen until the 2030s). It does not matter if the employee is part-time or full-time. It does not matter if the employer is a big business or a small, family-run store. Everyone will be taxed for each person they employ.

    That means, in effect, Newsom and California Democrats have allowed a new tax on employing people to take effect while having the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. California, with onerous regulations and taxes, already makes job growth difficult; in 2024, 96.5% of new jobs created were government jobs. This will only make it even more difficult, all because Newsom and California Democrats want to recklessly spend money without making sure everything is paid for.

  • Stephen Green wonders if Trump’s Venezuela move might topple Communist Cuba.

    ity poor Cuba — one of the wealthier nations in the Latin America before the Communists got hold of it, and now at risk of “collapse” due to President Donald Trump’s seizures of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers.

    If you liked the pressure Trump’s blockade put on the Maduro regime, you’re gonna love the second-order effects it could have on Cuba.

    The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that “Venezuelan oil exports are at risk thanks to a partial blockade targeting sanctioned tankers — the kind that carry about 70% of the country’s crude.” The story continued, “Were Venezuela’s oil shipments to stop, or sharply decline, the Cubans know it would be devastating.”

    Cuban exile and energy expert Jorge Piñón told the Journal, “It would be the collapse of the Cuban economy, no question about it.”

    Communist Cuba has relied on foreign benefactors to stay afloat, pretty much since Fidel Castro and his butcher boys like Che Guevara seized power more than 60 years ago. In recent years, the regime — ruled since 2018 by Communist party chief Miguel Díaz-Canel — relies on the largess of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro for cheap oil the country can’t afford to buy at market price.

    Yes, even at today’s low prices. I’d also pause here a moment longer and ask you to ponder that under the Communists, Cuba is so poor that Maduro’s Venezuela — where they already ate all the zoo animals — is its economic lifeline.

    Venezuela is in such dire straits that oil shipments to Cuba already declined by two-thirds, from 100,000 barrels a day to 30,000. That was before we started pulling over their tankers and checking for license and registration.

    My PJ Media colleague Sarah Anderson reported Saturday that U.S. forces just “seized another oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X, “This morning [the U.S. Coast Guard] in coordination with the [Department of War] executed a lightning strike operation to seize the Motor Tanker Centuries, which is suspected of carrying oil subject to U.S. sanctions. The iron fist of America’s joint military and federal law enforcement rules the waves.”

    With the Motor Tanker Centuries tanker went another small fraction of $150-$435 million or so in hard currency imports (estimates seriously vary!) the Maduro regime requires each week to do little things like pay the troops who keep it in power.

    And Díaz-Canel’s lifeline got that much shorter.

    It would be ironic of all that military buildup people think is for Venezuela actually liberated Cuba…

  • “Massachusetts mayor needs translator because he doesn’t speak English.”

    How does this happen in an American city with nearly 90,000 residents?

    Welcome to Lawrence, Massachusetts…

    Mayor [Brian] DaPena was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He came to the United States, according to his website, in the early ’80s.

    More than 40 years later, he still struggles with English, showing no interest in assimilating to American culture or language.

  • “REPORT: ‘Ghost jobs’ with no intent to hire make up 22% of online job postings.” I think that estimate is too low. I think it’s probably more like 40-50%.
  • Another Democrat arrested for child porn.

    If a Democrat ever tries to lecture you about decency and morality, just drop this name on them: Randy Sprinkle.

    Yes, that’s a real name. It’s actually the name of a Democrat operative who was just arrested by the FBI and charged with distributing child porn. Randon “Randy” Alexander Sprinkle, 30, it turns out, was recently the finance chairman of the Virginia Democrat Party; he once served as a leader in the Young Democrats of Virginia, and worked in 2025 as the campaign treasurer for Richmond City Council Vice President Katherine Jordan.

    And, now, Mr. Sprinkle is in big trouble with the law. It seems that he was an avid user of an app called “Jack’d,” which markets itself as “the premier social app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people” and boasts of having more than 15 million members. Whilst using Jack’d (under the name “Randy,” by the way), Sprinkle unknowingly made contact with an undercover FBI agent working out of the Manassas, Virginia, FBI field office; the agent is referred to as “OCE” in the 9-page affidavit against Sprinkle that was filed Friday.

    Here’s the exchange Sprinkle initiated on the app:

    Randy: “Hey how’s it going”
    OCE: “What’s up man”
    Randy: “Just horny af you, telegram”
    OCE: “Let’s go Randy, what’s your Tele”
    Randy: “hmudmv9, got a face pic btw”

    Once the conversation was brought over to Telegram, Sprinkle advised the agent of his twisted, perverted interests: “Mostly into Yng, rape, incest you.” Sprinkle later sent the agent a video of a young boy being sexually abused by a grown man.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • You know it must have physically pained them to admit this: “NY Times Finds ‘No Evidence’ Implicating Trump in Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.”

    To justify their efforts, reporters Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate drowned exonerating details in a sea of innuendo, for example: “Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.” (Italics added)

    Almost all of the specific allegations of bonding between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein date back to the 1990s before Trump’s marriage to Melania in 2005. The reporters pretend to be shocked that during this period Trump enjoyed the kind of lifestyle rich men have enjoyed since the beginning of recorded time.

  • Why buying a car sucks: Wildly different quotes from dealers for the same Ford F150 model.
  • Jack in the Box is closing up to 120 stores.

  • A Pennsylvania nursing home blew up.
  • Inside the debt settlement industry, which seems to use a whole lot of micro-targeted AI videos.
  • Project Farm reviews batteries.
  • Ian McCollum looks at cursed Chauchat images (the French World War I light machine gun)…and finds that some of the modifications might be useful.
  • And speaking of cursed gun images, Brandon Herrera does his usual lineup. Come for the wooden lower AR-15, but stay for the hand-lettered “U.S.MARSHAL” jacket.
  • The Critical Drinker is not impressed with the latest Avatar movie.
  • The Pitch Meeting for Die Hard.
  • William H. Macy talks about how he landed his role in Fargo.
  • The Professor of Rock interviews Rick Beato.
  • Best of the Internet 2025.
  • Statue of Liberty collapses…in Brazil.
  • Driver does donuts around Christmas tree in Kazakhstan…and it ends exactly how you would expect. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Rudolph Changes Name To Rolanda, Dominates Female Reindeer Games.”
  • “Disappointing: Thompson Submachine Gun-Shaped Box Turns Out To Be Socks.”
  • “Every Single Parking Spot To Be Either Handicapped Or Online Pickup By 2027.”
  • I think he likes his visits.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Uncategorized, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    Donald Trump: Censorship Fighter

    Wednesday, December 24th, 2025

    Lots of American Presidents have claimed they’re against censorship here and abroad, but both the Obama and Biden administrations carried out vindictive censorship campaigns against their ideological enemies. (Remember the rodeo clown? Remember the debanking campaign against conservative media?) However, President Trump and his entire administration are fighting Eurocratic censorship against American free speech with more than words.

    The Trump administration has slapped visa bans on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other ‘anti-disinformation’ activists, accusing them of coercing American social media companies to censor viewpoints they dislike.

    The move signals a zero-tolerance policy toward extraterritorial censorship, especially after the EU’s recent assaults on Elon Musk’s X.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid it out clearly: “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”

    Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Sarah B. Rogers stated “These sanctions are visa-related. We aren’t invoking severe Magnitsky-style financial measures, but our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.”

    The list includes Thierry Breton, who notoriously threatened Elon Musk over hosting a 2024 interview with Donald Trump on X. Others barred are Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), who worked with Democrats like Amy Klobuchar to “kiII Musk’s Twitter”; Joan Donovan, founder of The Critical Internet Studies Institute; Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public; and Jim Davey, co-founder of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

    Others mentioned as sanctioned in Rogers tweets include Clare Melford, leader of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, leaders anti-right censorship outfit HateAid.

    The EU’s infamous Digital Services Act would never pass constitutional muster in the United States, given act’s blatant viewpoint discrimination and prior restraint. The Euroelite seem desperate both to shove social justice down the throats of resistant voters, as well as to continue importing unassimilated Muslim illegal aliens, either for cheap labor or to ensure that left wing parties never lose elections. The DSA was designed as a weapon to stifle any opposing viewpoints.

    There’s not a whole lot the United States can do when Eurocrats censor their own people for #WrongThink, but the Trump47 team sure as hell aren’t taking illegal European attempts to censor the free speech of Americans lying down.

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    Posted in Media Watch, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors | 2 Comments »

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