Archive for the ‘Democrats’ Category

Austin’s Secret Amazon Land Grab

Tuesday, July 28th, 2026

The Austin City Council is supposed to serve the people of Austin, but recent actions suggest that they’re a lot more interested in doing the bidding of a Fortune 5 company than serving mere citizens.

The Austin City Council has approved a series of agenda items to facilitate a colossal new development just east of the city’s current limits. Amazon Robotics, a subsidiary of the online megaretailer, will anchor the proposed complex.

The council approved these items during a marathon meeting on Thursday.

At issue is a proposed municipal annexation followed by the creation of a so-called “tax increment reinvestment zone” that supporters say is necessary to coordinate the extension of basic infrastructure to the currently unincorporated area.

The proposed facility would be located on a spit of land known colloquially as “Dog’s Head” between US Highway 183 and the Colorado River.

Name checks out.

This is just east of Austin’s Montopolis neighborhood, near the city’s airport.

“This is double the size of downtown. This is ten times the size of the Domain,” one speaker stated during public testimony.

(The Domain, for those of you outside Austin, is one of those hoity-toity mixed use developments with high end retail, restaurants and yuppie apartment complexes (assuming anyone still uses the word “yuppie” anymore). The nearest Apple store is there. Some people blithely call it “a second downtown,” but they seem do a much better job keeping the gibbering street lunatics out. Parking is a pain.)

The controversial 2,600-acre proposal came to light this past May when area residents discovered a 37-page development agreement on an Austin City Council agenda. The residents, some of whose homes were directly in the path of the proposed new roadways, had just 57 hours’ notice before the May city council meeting.

All Austin City Council members are lefty Democrats these days, and nothing says “service to the downtrodden” like bulldozing some peon’s house to satisfy an international megacorporation.

In addition to the Amazon facility, proponents envisage an interconnected series of residential developments, commercial developments, and outdoor recreational facilities.

You don’t need secret annexation plans to do most of that, you just need to buy the land, fill out the proper filing permits and zoning requests, and pay the money to get it all built. It’s not easy, but Austin developers have been doing it for a long damn time.

The development in question does not currently have a public-facing website.

Funny about that.

Beyond the suddenness with which the project was sprung on local residents, its mechanism raises additional questions.

Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZ) are a legal vehicle for Tax Increment Financing (TIF), which typically diverts property tax revenue from the area into a special development fund instead of a municipality’s general budget. They are governed by Chapter 311 of the Texas Tax Code.

Proponents argue that TIF funding eases new development.

Opponents argue that tax carve-outs narrow the tax base, which inevitably begets higher tax rates for everyone else.

“The state law is very clear and it starts with the Constitution, which requires fair and uniform taxation,” local activist Bill Bunch stated during public testimony.

“This is nowhere close to being fair in uniform taxation.”

Snip.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation has described TIRZ/TIF funding as a form of “invisible government.”

“TIRZ is a speculative scam that always ends up raising other people’s taxes to subsidize the TIRZ projects,” former Austin City Councilmember Don Zimmerman told Texas Scorecard.

The Dog’s Head TIRZ controversy comes at a time of unprecedented fury at municipal fiscal priorities.

Earlier this month, the city manager released the latest in a string of record–setting budgets that included a record-setting tax increase.

Last month, the city clerk officially certified a ballot measure that could impose new fiscal transparency requirements.

If passed, the referendum would amend the city charter to require independent audits of municipal finances every five years.

Additionally, if the city council wants to pursue a future tax rate election, the proposed charter amendment would require the municipal government to complete such an audit before calling the election.

The referendum follows the landslide defeat of Proposition Q, a ballot measure that could have enshrined hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal spending, in November 2025.

The article doesn’t say whether eminent domain will be used to seize land if existing property owners refuse to sell, but I rather strongly suspect so. (Thanks, Kelo vs. New London.) I also wonder whether this super-secret fast track gets around Texas law requiring majority approval of any municipal annexation. If it doesn’t, and it still requires a majority vote for the annexation, and for Amazon and/or Austin to negotiate a fair market value purchase with the landowner, then fine and dandy. If it doesn’t…

As for the business itself, I’m sure it will be a successful, profitable venture that will create jobs in Austin while reducing jobs by replacing people with robots elsewhere.

If the Austin City Council is willing to drop everything to engineer secret annexation plans at the bidding of giant megacorps, one might well ask what the entire point of the mono-party, Democrat-run Council actually is…

Maine Mess: There’s Not A “Ha Ha” Big Enough

Sunday, July 26th, 2026

Remember how Democrats pushed rapey commie Nazi Senate candidate Graham Platner off the ballot not because he was a rapey commie Nazi, but because polls showed him losing to RINO Susan Collins in November?

Well, the “we don’t need no stinking voters” nominating committee has picked his replacement. Tiny problem: he may not be eligible to run.

Maine Democrats gathered in Bangor on Saturday to select a replacement for Graham Platner, whose Senate campaign collapsed under allegations of sexual assault – which he denied – that surfaced after his June primary win. Former Senate President Troy Jackson formally won the nomination. He will face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races, a race that Democrats have deemed critical if they hope to win the majority in the Senate.

However, one inconvenient detail threatens to complicate Jackson’s coronation: a Republican state lawmaker says Jackson may not be legally eligible to accept the nomination at all.

State Rep. James White (R-Guilford) sent a letter to Secretary of State Shenna Bellows asking her office to determine whether Jackson, or any candidate who lost a primary for a different federal, state or county office in June, qualifies as a replacement nominee under Maine law. White wanted the question settled before Bellows certifies whatever comes out of Saturday’s convention, but that didn’t happen, which could be a problem.

According to White, Jackson’s own ballot history might make him legally ineligible. Jackson ran for governor earlier this year, lost that Democratic primary in June, and became his party’s Senate nominee through a replacement process rather than a primary vote of his own.

Under Title 21-A, Section 331 of Maine election law, “a person may not file, whether by primary election or nomination petition, as a candidate for more than one federal, state or county office at any election.” He also points to Section 351, which imposes similar restrictions, and Section 363, which requires that a political committee filling a nomination vacancy “shall choose a qualified person to fill the vacancy.”

Whether Jackson still counts as a “qualified person” after losing a statewide primary is the crux of White’s argument. “The Department should resolve this question before accepting or certifying any replacement nomination,” he wrote.

White reaches back to 1974 for precedent, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Storer v. Brown, which described primary elections as “an integral part of the entire election process.” His argument is that treating June’s primary and November’s general election as two separate contests cuts against both the Court’s reasoning and the Legislature’s stated intent to keep candidates from seeking more than one office “at any election.” White’s letter frames this as standard sore loser logic. Laws of this type exist across the country to stop a candidate who loses one race from reaching the general election through a side door.

As the 2024 selection of Kamala Harris to replace tofu-brained-but-nominated Joe Biden at the top of the ticket showed, the shadowy cabal that actually runs the Democrat Party seem to feel they can dispense with primary nominees selected by actual voters when inconvenient. But Maine Democrats’ desire to correct their own screw-up by tossing the legally nominated Platner may have screwed themselves. “The filing deadline for replacement candidates is July 27, 2026, by 5:00 p.m.” So theoretically, after Monday it will be too late to pick someone else if Jackson is indeed ineligible. Of course, Democrats in the past have shown that actual election laws are no obstacles to their Will to Power, as when they substituted Frank Lautenberg for the disgraced Robert Torricelli in the 2002 senate race, even though it was way past the statutory deadline when Torricelli dropped out.

But if Democrats end up not being able to field a nominee after having tossed Platner off the ballot, there’s not a “Ha ha!” big enough to celebrate the schadenfreude with.

LinkSwarm For July 24, 2026

Friday, July 24th, 2026

RFK, Jr. presses the pause button for medicaid payments over Democrat fraud, we pound Iran some more, Ukraine sinks floating cranes and sets giant logistics hubs aflame, and a punk rock auction.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “HHS Pausing $1 Billion in Medicaid Payments to California, Minnesota Over Fraud.” “That includes more than $887 million for California and over $200 million for Minnesota.”

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have paused more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota due to fraud concerns.

    “That includes more than $887 million for California and over $200 million for Minnesota,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a press conference. “If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate.”

    “In Minnesota and California, our reviews are going back to just over the last few years, turned up the same recurring theme again and again every single quarter: Claims in these same high-risk categories that the states have not yet been able to document fully and acceptably to the federal government. Claims that are unresolved and claims that smell like fraud. And if it smells like fraud, we’re not paying for it anymore.”

  • More on that theme:

    RFK Jr. says HHS loses $100,000,000,000 a year to theft.

    He found some thieves would bribe poor people with flat screen TVs to get their patient numbers and enroll them in hospice.

    Then they would proceed to bill Medicaid “$6,000 a month FOREVER.”

    RFK JR: “We shut down 800 hospices. You know what a hospice is? Where you’re going to die. Typically, if you go to a hospice, you leave within 18 days because your dying is terminal.”

    “We started looking at these hospices in Los Angeles, and the people never died. Two or three years later they were there, and we’re paying $6,000 a month.”

    “We found a hotel room with 29 hospices in it. I mean a hotel, every room was a hospice, and none of them had any patients. They were just addresses.”

    “The guys who own them, they were Estonians and Armenians and people from Eastern Europe who were getting the patient numbers. They were stealing them from doctors’ offices.”

    “They were also going into poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles and they’d say to the people, ‘We’ll give you this $375 flat-screen TV. You give us your patient number and we’re going to enroll you in this hospice. You don’t ever have to go. We’re just going to enroll you,’ and then we’ll charge Medicaid $6,000 a month forever. And the guy never dies, of course, because he was never sick.”

    “We didn’t get a single call from a congressman or from a business owner saying, ‘Oh, you shut down my hospice and all these patients are on the street.’ None of them, because they were all crooked and they knew they were crooke

    (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • The Iran war continues.

    U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces successfully completed the 13th straight night of strikes against Iran, July 23, at 9 p.m. ET.

    CENTCOM targeted Iranian military command centers, drone storage facilities, communication networks, coastal surveillance sites, and maritime capabilities to further diminish the threat Iran poses to civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

    The international waterway remains open for transit despite recent attacks from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Commercial vessels continue to freely navigate the strait with U.S. military support.

    I’m noticing a couple of dogs that aren’t currently barking: Hezbollah and Hamas. It turns out that when your paymaster is broke, running out of missiles and getting the snot blown out of them, they don’t have a lot of time, money and attention to lavish on helping their two catspaws murder Jews…

  • “How China Made and Shipped Fake Driver’s Licenses to Tamper With the 2020 Election.”

    When President Donald Trump talked about some of the things China has done to literally steal our democracy by seeing to it that, in 2020, its Manchurian candidate was elected in the form of a semi-comatose Joe Biden, many of the things he mentioned had already been in the news, but they may not have been covered by the legacy media.

    Case in point: Trump mentioned in his July 16 address to the nation that China stole TikTok data to create fake U.S. driver’s licenses.

    If you follow conservative media, you may have known this. If you get your news from the legacy media, you most likely didn’t know it, and if you heard it now, you won’t believe it. That’s the group Trump was targeting in his address. His national address strategy was to speak past the legacy media and to begin the process of planting the seeds of the truth in the minds of those who rely on the CNNs, ABCs, and NBCs of the world.

    Strategically, Trump is now trying to break through the information barrier that the legacy media and the left have created to keep the majority of Americans in the dark on what’s really happened to corrupt our elections.

    A year ago, Brooke Singman published a lengthy piece on the Fox News website that detailed just how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) executed its TikTok data theft scheme. Her primary source for the story was the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

    The Senate Judiciary Committee launched its own investigation into this after the FBI had announced its own investigation in July 2025. As Singman reported, the CCP allegedly worked to get “fake driver’s licenses to Chinese sympathizers in the U.S. who would cast a vote for candidate Biden.”

    It is not clear how successful the CCP was in getting its ballots for Biden to count.

    In July 2025, a Grassley spokesperson told Fox News, “Chairman Grassley is in receipt of an FBI document (response) to a request he made based on legally protected whistleblower disclosures…. The document alleges serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated by the FBI.”

    As stated in that document, the intent of the alleged scheme was for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to produce and export fraudulent U.S. driver’s licenses to Chinese sympathizers in the U.S., so as to create “tens of thousands of fraudulent mail-in votes for US Presidential candidate Joe Biden, in late August 2020.”

    According to the document at the center of these investigations, by August 2020, “the Chinese government had produced a large amount of fraudulent United States driver’s licenses that were secretly exported to the United States,” Fox News reported.

    The fraudulent drivers licenses would allow tens of thousands of Chinese students and immigrants sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party to vote for US Presidential Candidate USPER Joe ((Biden)), despite not being eligible to vote in the United States… China had collected private US user data from millions of TikTok accounts, to include name, ID and address, which would allow the Chinese government to use real US persons’ information to create the fraudulent driver’s license, the document states.

    Reporting on the investigation indicates that the fake IDs included true ID numbers and the true addresses of U.S. citizens, which made the fraud difficult to detect.

    “China planned to use the fraudulent driver’s licenses to account for tens of thousands of mail-in votes,” according to the document.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “New Jersey Refuses to Cooperate with DOJ Investigation into Noncitizen Voting.” Gee, whatever could be the reason for that?

    New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill spurned the Department of Justice’s request for information on the nearly 6,600 noncitizens who were improperly added to the state’s voter rolls, raising the ire of Trump administration officials who are making election security a priority heading in the November midterms.

    The move follows Sherrill’s announcement on Tuesday that thousands of noncitizens had been added to New Jersey voter rolls, with 400 individuals casting ballots. Later that day, the DOJ requested the names, addresses, nationalities, and registration locations of the 6,600 non-citizens who were marked as voters, even though they identified themselves as noncitizens. Noncitizens convicted of voting in U.S. elections can face criminal penalties including deportation.

    “Ensuring that U.S. citizen’s votes are not illegally diluted by noncitizen’s votes is of paramount importance,” the letter from the DOJ stated.

    Sherrill voiced concerns that the information would be misused by the DOJ.

    “We are not in the practice of turning this kind of personally identifying data over to the federal government because we have seen them weaponize it,” Sherrill said at an event on Thursday.

    And by “weaponize” she means “Keeping our precious illegal aliens from voting for Democrats and/or deporting them.” You know, enforcing the law.

  • “Socialist activist says another quiet part out loud, details the plan to install politicians from the “Global South.”

    The Great Replacement: Congressional Edition!

    Here’s Melat Kiros, a “democratic” socialist activist, explaining the party’s plan to fundamentally change America by electing people from the “Global South”….

    That’s the explicit plan from the DSA.

    Mass immigration, elect immigrants to office Mamdani and Ilhan Omar-style, and have them fundamentally change what America is.

  • “Feds Flagged Daszak As ‘An Extremely High Person Of Interest’ – Then The FBI Told Them To Stand Down.”

    On February 2, 2021, a national targeting security specialist at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center circulated a referral to colleagues across the agency. The subject was Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, scheduled to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport three days later aboard Qatar Airways flight 701 from Doha, arriving 2:25 p.m. He was returning from the World Health Organization’s mission to Wuhan investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

    The referral asked that Daszak be considered for a Tactical Terrorism Response Team examination – a secondary inspection that can include questioning and a review of electronic devices. Which, now we know, never happened.

    Senator Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released the underlying records Monday. They show CBP flagged Daszak as “an extremely high person of interest,” built out a formal targeting event, and then stood down two days before his flight at the request of the FBI’s New York Field Office.

  • “The Democrats Have a Communist Problem.”

    It’s bad enough that Zohran Mamdani has become the leader of the new Democratic Party, having been anointed by none other than its King, Barack Obama. But now, their shining new star, Hasan Piker, is not even bothering to hide behind the words “Democratic Socialist.” He’s gone full-blown Commie.

    These pitiful cosplay revolutionaries are not a match for Donald Trump, who can flick them off his jacket like a piece of lint, but he only has a few more years left, and the Democrats are collapsing into an even more fanatical cult. They have no one to blame but themselves.

    Mamdani had made big promises to “arrest Benjamin Netanyahu” if he ever came to New York as a “war criminal.” But he had to backtrack on that because he doesn’t have the authority to do so because Trump smacked him down.

    He still calls on the Federal Government to make the arrest. To me, he looks like someone who believes he’s the alternative president in our virtual Civil War, like a would-be Jefferson Davis.

    Snip.

    Hasan Piker is now riding high on his newfound fame and glory. He proudly displays the front page of the New York Times with the Twin Towers ablaze after 9/11 and has said on streaming that the US “deserved” it, later clarifying that our foreign policy was bad enough that we should be attacked.

    Hasan Piker is dangerous because he is so stupid. He’s so stupid, he doesn’t even seem to know the horrific atrocities under Mao. He showed up at a recent Democratic event wearing a Mao costume.

    Hey, Mao only killed 65-78 million people.

    Hasan Piker, like Zohran Mamdani, like all of the Manson family girlies who fawn all over them, were raised in American schools amid Critical Race and Gender Theory, the so-called “real history” they indoctrinated our kids with. Now we are seeing the fruits of their labor.

    It’s Joseph McCarthy’s ultimate nightmare finally realized. Maybe it wasn’t true that the military was infested with Commies, but if it came back to today, he’d see evidence of infiltration everywhere, from culture to academia to politics.

    If the Democrats go Full Commie thanks to the stalking horse of Social Justice, then it really will be time to stock up on ammunition. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of commies, Communist scumbag dictator Daniel Ortega says he’s ending elections in Nicaragua.

    For those who know, rigged elections do happen in the Americas. They’ve been happening for years in Nicaragua, ever since the Sandinistas brought Daniel Ortega to power in the 1980s.

    Many young people will have forgotten that there was massive enthusiasm for the Sandinistas across the international left. Five years ago, Quillette ran a wonderful piece about the support for Sandinistas found across the American left. It’s amazing how many leftists of the 1980s who went for the Sandinistas have stayed with us: Bernie Sanders, Bill de Blasio.

    The poor in Nicaragua are in a wretched condition. Ortega effectively made himself president for life when he exceeded the country’s constitutional limits on his office. This week, he finally announced plans for the abolition of elections. He explained in a public rant that this was necessary to stop “the traitors.”

    The only thing missing was Ortega announcing that he had to end elections “to save our democracy.”

    I was writing about this commie scumbag back in college, and he’s long overdue to be dirtnapped. Maybe after we’ve finished with Venezuela, Iran and Cuba…

  • “Two Democratic Senate candidates have received backlash for accepting donations from a Democrat megadonor with former ties to Jeffrey Epstein. James Talarico and Sen. Jon Ossoff, D- Ga., who is running for re-election, have both received donations from Reid Hoffman, a billionaire who has admitted to spending time on Epstein’s Caribbean island.” It’s always OK when they do it…
  • “University of Houston Poised To Eliminate 40 Percent of Core Curriculum.” Which is a good thing, since the “core curriculum” items being eliminated are absolute social justice bullshit.

    As first reported by the Houston Chronicle, UH officials are currently finalizing a proposal to bring before University of Houston System regents at the August board meeting.

    The Chronicle reported that approximately 100 courses are on the chopping block. Examples include:

    • Black Liberation Theology
    • Black Liberation Studies
    • Intro to LGBT Studies
    • Intro to Women’s Studies
    • Latino Leadership, Activism, and Organizing
    • Mexican American Urban Communities
    • Sexuality and Society

    The Chronicle further reported that while UH will eliminate core eligibility for coursework explicitly grounded in grievance studies, government and history coursework discussing “histories for specific demographics” was not impacted.

    The review in question is required under Senate Bill 37, a measure state lawmakers passed in 2025. The new law also requires boards of regents to conduct a review of all general education curricula every five years.

    General education requirements are a set of courses all students must complete, regardless of major. Higher education authors Jason Brennan and Phil Magness have criticized these mandates as a subsidy for economically unsustainable programs that frequently protect woke curricula from accountability.

    Eliminate them all and lay off those teaching them.

  • “Drone Strike on Newly-Hit Refinery: Novospasskoye Oil Refinery Hit for First Time.”
  • “Ukraine Hits Two Black Sea Fleet Floating Cranes + 11 More Vessels in the Black Sea.”
  • “Ukraine Hits Another Floating Crane and Nine Other Vessels in the Black Sea.”
  • Turning Moscow into Mordor: “HUGE Smoke Cloud Over the City: Wildberries Facility Destroyed.”
  • More: HUGE Drone Strike on Logistical Hub in Elektrostal, Moscow.”
  • Three Logistics Hubs Near Moscow Hit By Drones! Wildberries at Podolsk–Russia’s Largest.”
  • Wildberries in St. Petersburg Destroyed by Drones! Third Biggest Hub.”
  • Two More Wildberries Warehouse Hit! One in Krasnodar, One in Stavropol. Huge Fires!”
  • More updates on last week’s strikes: “Wildberries Satellite Imagery: One Facility Completely Destroyed, One Damaged, One Missed.”
  • Russia loses its newest “stealthy” Su-57 fighter, possibly to friendly fire. 
  • Ukraine agrees on plan to acquire 16 Rafale jets.”

    Ukraine has agreed on a plan to acquire 16 Rafale fighter jets from France together with the accompanying weapon systems, French President Emmanuel Macron said at a press conference here late Monday following a meeting of the group of countries that have pledged support to Ukraine.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Macron agreed on a roadmap between their two countries that also includes the acquisition of a first batch of SAMP/T NG air-defense batteries, complementing systems and their missiles to be delivered in coming weeks, Macron said. France will also provide radar systems and additional missiles, the president said.

    The countries further approved licensing agreements for production in Ukraine of the AASM glide-bomb kit, the Aster 30 air-defense interceptor that arms the SAMP/T system as well as the SCALP/Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile, Macron said.

    Don’t get too excited, though. “The first Rafale jets are expected to fly in Ukrainian skies as early as 2028 or 2029.”

  • “DHS allows officers to review visa applicants’ use of welfare programs while considering permanent status qualification.” Good. No one should come to America to get on welfare.
  • 478 Individuals Charged In Border-Related Enforcements In Texas, Arizona.”
  • Concerning news: “U.S. Reaches 41 New World Screwworm Cases as Sterile Fly Production Continues Rollout.”
  • Primary news: “Trump-backed candidates, including ex-Giants, Jets kicker Jay Feely, easily win Arizona primaries — socialist House hopeful gets smoked.”

    A full slate of Republican candidates endorsed by President Trump, including former NFL kicker Jay Feely, emerged victorious Tuesday in Arizona’s primary elections while a Democratic socialist House hopeful suffered a crushing defeat.

    Feely, who played for six teams — including the Jets and Giants — during his 14 seasons as a pro, defeated former state lawmaker Joseph Chaplik in the Grand Canyon State’s 1st Congressional District, which covers northeastern Maricopa County and is the wealthiest in Arizona.

    The 1st District seat is being vacated by Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who opted to run for governor. Democrats have targeted the district as a key flip opportunity as they try to regain the House majority after four years out of power.

    Feely, a former CBS football analyst who was endorsed by Trump in January, touted his close ties to the president on the campaign trail.

    “Who can call [Trump] and who can get him to answer? That’s me,” he said during a primary debate last month. “He will take my call and he will listen. I have the ability to have the ear of the president.”

    In the Democratic primary, former state Rep. Amish Shah led onetime TV journalist Marlene Galán-Woods by 6.9 percentage points with 84% of the expected vote in, but the race had yet to be called as of Wednesday morning.

    In the open 5th District, Trump-backed former Pinal County sheriff Mark Lamb topped construction contractor Daniel Keenan by nearly 17 percentage points.

    Lamb, who rose to prominence for taking on Mexican cartels smuggling drugs across the border and into Arizona, will head to the midterms as the heavy favorite over Democratic nominee Elizabeth Lee in the solidly red district.

    Snip.

    Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who has represented the 5th District since 2017, opted not to seek another term and ran in the GOP gubernatorial primary instead.

    That decision paid off handsomely as Biggs, with the support of Trump, topped Schweikert Tuesday night by nearly 60 percentage points.

    Snip.

    In the 4th District, centered in the Phoenix suburbs of Tempe and Mesa, incumbent Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) swamped Democratic socialist primary challenger Kai Newkirk by 30 percentage points.

    Newkirk, who accused Stanton of being too supportive of Israel and corporations and slammed the congressman’s vote in favor of the Laken Riley Act mandating illegal immigrants who are arrested, charged or convicted of “burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting” be held by immigration authorities.

    Sanity among Democrat primary voters? What are the odds? (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • Food contamination news: “Nearly 1.6M eggs from Texas farms recalled for possible Salmonella contamination.”

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a statement on Wednesday detailing the voluntary recall of 1,589,577 dozen eggs from Midwest Poultry Services, L.P., which may be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis.

    Midwest Poultry Services said that as of Wednesday, it was not aware of any illnesses related to the eggs.

    The identifying codes printed on the left or right sides of the carton P-1950 or 0840962 with a Julian date between 157 and 184 are recalled, according to the FDA report. They were available to consumers at Kroger stores in Texas and Louisiana, as well as Brookshire Grocery locations across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi. The full list of products that have been recalled is provided in the FDA’s announcement.

  • Speaking of food contamination: First comes word that “FDA walks back Taylor Farms-Cyclospora test as “False positive.'” But now comes word that “FDA refutes Taylor Farms claim that lettuce recall was based on false positive.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • Judge puts temporary pause on Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.” “U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California issued a temporary restraining order barring Paramount from closing the transaction, a corporate tie-up that would unite two movie studios, two streaming platforms and two news organizations under the control of David Ellison, the son of billionaire technology tycoon Larry Ellison.” I know you’ll be shocked to learn that Martínez-Olguín was appointed by “Joe Biden.”
  • “Scottish runner sets world record for fastest mile, running at an average of 16 mph.” That would be Josh Kerr.
  • Missed this from a couple of months ago: “Every Single Horse Running In The 151st Kentucky Derby Is Related To Secretariat.”
  • “Astronomers announce the discovery of space sugar.

    Using the Yebes 40-m and IRAM 30-m radio telescopes, the astronomers scanned the molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027, a chemically rich region located roughly 8,200 parsecs (26,745 light-years) from Earth near the Milky Way’s center.

    They picked up 12 sets of radio emission lines that matched the predicted spectral fingerprint of erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar with the chemical formula C4H8O4.

    ‘Erythrulose, with 14 atoms in its structure, represents the largest non-cyclic molecular species identified so far in the interstellar medium, and the first detected molecule containing four oxygen atoms,’ they said.

  • “Search Engines That Find Things Google Deliberately Hides.” Given Google’s ongoing enshitification, a lot of these are pretty useful.
  • “LG monitors caught auto-installing Windows app that acts like adware, silently installing bloatware that triggers McAfee ad pop-ups.”

  • If you have a car with CVT, yes you need to change the transmission fluid, probably every 50,000 miles.
  • Potter and Potter have an auction for “Skaters, Punks & Rebels: A Countercultural Cross-Section” next month. Probably not bidding on anything, but man, a 1983 concert with Black Flag, Fear and Circle Jerks would have been something to behold…
  • BeardMeatsFood takes on a wheelbarrow full of tiramisu.
  • So here’s a video arguing that, since humans are primates, doing a deadhang improves a whole lot of muscle groups. It says most people struggle to do ten seconds at first. Since I don’t have a chinning bar, that’s not an exercise I can do at home, so I did two separate ten second hangs last Saturday on park equipment while I was out walking my dogs. Result: A few hour later my left wrist was in quite a bit of pain, but that faded over a day. This Saturday I think I’ll go for 12 seconds…but only once.
  • A meme via Sarah Hoyt.:

  • Ed Bolian goes racing with Cleetus McFarland. It works out pretty well…for most of the race
  • Watch some Texas paddleboarders save a waterlogged raccoon.
  • “New Jersey Blames ‘Slight Software Glitch’ For Enrolling Entire Country Of Bolivia As Voters.”
  • “Dejected Mamdani Admits He Lacks Legal Authority To Invade Poland.”
  • “OSHA Fines Construction Site For Failure To Blare Mariachi Music.”
  • With a little bit more thoughtful approach, this could actually work. “Netflix Announces New Animated Film ‘Bro-Country Demon Hunters.'”
  • He found the spot:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    Austin: Soros DA = 74% Higher Homicide Rate

    Thursday, July 23rd, 2026

    The difference between having a real DA who prosecutes criminals, and a Soros-backed DA who doesn’t is stark. While most of America was seeing a drop in murder rates, Austin under Soros-backed DA Jose Garza has seen murder rates rise by 74% since 2019.

    Amid a likely decrease in homicide rates across the nation, both Dallas and Austin have experienced an increase in homicides compared to last year, with Austin’s homicide rate for the first half of 2026 apparently 74 percent higher than in 2019, according to a new study released Thursday.

    Commissioned by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), the study examined patterns for 13 types of crime in 36 U.S. cities. It found that reported homicides appear to have dropped by 18 percent from the same period in 2025, and by 51 percent since the 2022 peak.

    “Murder and other crime rates are falling across the map, in cities with different political leadership, housing and economic conditions, policing and prosecution strategies, violence reduction models, and levels of federal enforcement activity,” said CCJ President and CEO Adam Gelb in a statement.

    Of the 30 cities reporting homicide rates, Arlington saw a decrease of 60 percent and Dallas saw an increase of 30 percent compared to the first half of 2025.

    What does Dallas have in common with Austin? A Soros-backed DA, in this case John Creuzot.

    CCJ also looked at longer trends and found that compared to 2019, there were 31 percent fewer reported homicides in the study cities in the first half of 2026, with some — such as Arlington — seeing drops of at least 50 percent or more, but Austin was among four cities that reported a higher rate.

    According to the study, four cities had homicide rates from January to June higher than in 2019: Austin at 74 percent; Norfolk, Virginia at 36 percent; Minneapolis, Minnesota at 26 percent; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 4 percent.

    In addition to reduced policing after the #BlackLivesMatter riots, Minneapolis has a Soros-backed DA in Mary Moriarty. Norfolk is another city with a Soros-backed DA, Ramin Fatehi.

    Although Dallas’ homicide rate is trending higher over last year, compared to 2019, that city’s rate has dropped by 22 percent. Of the other Texas cities analyzed, since 2019, San Antonio dropped by 8 percent, Fort Worth by 26 percent, and Arlington by 60 percent.

    Snip.

    Austin and Travis County have drawn controversy over the past few years due to Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza’s allegedly lenient approach to the prosecution of crime. First elected in 2020, Garza has been accused of dropping or reducing charges in hundreds of criminal cases, and last year, Garza’s office reportedly failed to bring timely indictments for crimes that included violent felonies, leading to the dismissals of hundreds of cases.

    Earlier this year, Gov. Greg Abbott cited Garza in his call for new legislation to create a statewide prosecutor and a mechanism for removing “rogue” local prosecutors. A ,a href=”https://rightoncrime.com/going-rogue-how-radical-reformist-prosecutors-are-endangering-public-safety/”>study from the Texas Public Policy Foundation published in July also listed concerns over practices in Travis County.

    It matters a great deal whether your county has a DA who’s actually dedicated to fighting crime, or a soft-on-crime, Soros-backed DA who loves putting criminals back on the streets. And American citizens are paying for that difference with their lives.

    Texas Q2 Fundraising Snapshot

    Monday, July 20th, 2026

    Hot off the digital press, here’s a quick look at Q2 fundraising numbers for top line Texas races.

    Statewide

    The Texas Ethics Commission reporting window covers the first half of the year from February 22 through June 30.

    On the statewide front, the races for Texas governor and lieutenant governor continue to have similarly sizable fundraising gaps, financially favoring the Republicans.

    Gov. Greg Abbott and his Democratic gubernatorial challenger, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin), had about a $19 million difference between the amounts their campaigns raised. His Texans for Greg Abbott specific-purpose political committee (SPAC) came in with $25.5 million raised per its Texas Ethics Commission report, with $67.4 million in cash on hand (COH). Hinojosa touted raising $6 million, and wrapped up the reporting window with almost exactly $3 million in COH.

    Abbott’s COH is down from its peak of $105.7 million at the beginning of the year, but the governor has made clear that he intends to spend his massive war chest on helping other Republicans further down the ballot. According to the latest campaign finance report, he spent a whopping $54.6 million between the pre-primary election report on February 23 and the July semiannual.

    Specifically, he is intent on turning Harris County “dark red after this election,” as he recently confirmed at the Republican Party of Texas’ 2026 state convention, through use of both his war chest and increased voter turnout. Abbott also upped the percentage of in-state donations he received during this fundraising window, going up from 90 percent to 93 percent.

    Democratic state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-Austin), who is challenging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, came in with nearly $400,000 to the incumbent’s reported $5 million in receipts — up from his $3.5 million in the January semiannual reports. Goodwin ended the period, which saw an overall similar fiscal turnout as she had reported in January, with over $318,000 in COH, while Patrick wrapped up with $35.3 million in the bank.

    In the Texas attorney general contest, the Republican nominee, state Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), raised about three times the amount as his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas). Middleton reported over $900,000 in receipts, while Johnson reported about $364,000. Middleton has $118,000 in COH, while Johnson is leading at $291,000.

    Worth noting is the fact that Johnson only spent about $163,000 during this reporting period, while Middleton’s expenditures were reckoned at $3.25 million. Middleton has also made personal loans of $5.2 million to his own campaign committee.

    In the Texas comptroller contest,, Republican candidate and former state Sen. Don Huffines once again came in with a strong haul. He reported a whopping $4.7 million raised, while his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin), posted receipts of $320,000. Huffines has about $1 million in COH, while Eckhardt sits at $240,000.

    The Republican candidate for railroad commissioner, former Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French, outraised his Democratic opponent, State Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D-Houston), by a factor of two to one. The latter reported $168,000 in receipts, while French raised $334,000. French also has $223,000 in COH, while Rosenthal has about $65,000.

    Federal

    The Federal Ethics Commission’s second quarter reporting window spanned from April 1 to June 30.

    Talarico handily outraised Paxton, with his team announcing about a week prior to the deadline that he had raised about $32 million during the quarter — touting it as the largest amount ever raised by a U.S. Senate candidate during the second quarter of an election year. He wrapped up with $21.5 million in COH.

    Paxton followed with about a third of Talarico’s haul, touting having raised $9.2 million, the “largest fundraising quarter for any non-incumbent GOP Senate candidate” and completing the quarter with $1.7 million in COH.

    This follows the pattern of Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred outraising Ted Cruz in 2018 and 2024. But Paxton is tracking behind Cruz’s 2024 totals, which is concerning. On the plus side, he does get to run against Talafreako

    The exit of Graham Platner, the former Democratic nominee challenging U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), from the U.S. Senate race in Maine could push even more Democratic dollars toward Talarico as the national party aims to flip seats long held by the GOP.

    Among the most high-profile races in South Texas and at the center of both parties’ fight for the Latino vote, U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-TX-15) is facing a Democratic challenger in Tejano singer Bobby Pulido. The two weren’t far apart in their fundraising hauls, and the incumbent did not come out in the lead.

    De La Cruz reported raising $1.2 million, but Pulido outraised her with $1.4 million in receipts. The former has a more solid COH at $2.5 million, while Pulido’s COH is about half at $1.2 million.

    The Cook Political Report shifted its rating of Congressional District (CD) 15 on Thursday among a handful of other states’ contests towards favoring the Democrats – shifting the race from “Likely R” to “Lean R.” The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index rates the district at R-55%, but with a Republican in the White House, the GOP is expected to face an uphill battle in the midterm elections.

    In early May, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Pulido to their “Red to Blue” program to direct additional resources to the race, signalling a focus on taking the seat.

    In three other South Texas seats, the Republican candidate was also outraised by the Democrat — in CDs 35, 34, and 28.

    The latter race, between U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28) and Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, was under particular focus this week as President Donald Trump lambasted Cuellar for running again as a Democrat and threw his support behind Tijerina. Trump argued that Cuellar was running for the very party that had “weaponized” the U.S. Justice Department against him — referencing the various criminal charges Cuellar faced before Trump issued him a presidential pardon in December.

    Tijerina came in with about $578,000 in receipts, while Cuellar took the lead with $611,000 raised. Cuellar also has $1.1 million in COH, while Tijerina sits at over $876,000.

    Trump-endorsed Carlos De La Cruz, the brother of U.S. Rep. De La Cruz, was outraised by his Democratic opponent, Johnny Garcia — with the latter reporting $684,000 in receipts, while De La Cruz raised $536,000. Garcia also leads in COH with $323,000, while De La Cruz follows at $272,000.

    They’re running in a district currently represented by U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX-35), but one that was heavily impacted by redistricting — going from a TPI rating of D-70% to R-55%. Because of said redistricting, Casar is now running for CD 37, currently held by the outgoing Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX-37). The Democratic candidate in CD 35, Johnny Garcia, is also a part of the “Red to Blue” program.

    Incumbent U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-34) led against his Republican challenger, Eric Flores, with $866,000 raised and $2.5 million in COH. Flores reported $716,000 raised and $683,000 in COH.

    No big surprises in there, though I do think Ken Paxton needs to step up the fundraising…

    Karmelo Anthony Conviction Aftermath: “Only Good Cracker Is A Dead Cracker.”

    Sunday, July 19th, 2026

    Shoe0nHead took a look at reactions to the sentencing of Karmelo Anthony for Austin Metcalf’s murder, and was shocked at what she found.

  • “During a Texas high school track meet, Karmelo Anthony, a 19-year-old student, and Austin Metcalf, 17-year-old student, got into a heated dispute after Karmelo entered Austin’s tent, which was like a rivalry school’s tent. An argument followed and then allegedly Karmelo said, “Touch me and see what happens.” And so Austin shoved him and Karmelo pulled a knife out. And yeah, Austin then passed away in his brother’s arms.”
  • “During the trial, jurors listened to witnesses accounts of the events, reviewed video evidence, and after a few days, the jury found Karmelo Anthony guilty and he was sentenced to 35 years in prison. And everyone accepted that outcome because they understand how the law works and they respect our justice system. Heh heh.”
  • Shouting black man on video: “Only good cracker is a dead cracker!”
  • “In this video, we are going to discuss the insane reactions to the Karmelo Anthony trial, read some tweets, watch some Tik Toks, as well as debunk a bunch of misinformation because I am just tired of seeing the same ridiculous regurgitated talking points, repeated ad nauseam by hundreds and thousands of people just believing it as gospel, hyping themselves up into a race war. No, I am not kidding. That is how bad it is getting.”
  • Random black tweeter: “White people are not victims of racism. You can’t be a victim of a system you created.”
  • Shoe0nHead: “Hey, 23-year-old white guy who can’t find a job and still lives with your parents. Did you know you created the entire system we’re in right now and therefore it’s totally acceptable to hate you and be racist towards you?”
  • Random black tweeter: “Only a black child can be minding their business, get ambushed, bullied, and pushed around and become the aggressor for protecting himself.”
  • Shoe0nHead: “He was quite literally not minding his own business. He was in a rivals team tent and was asked to leave like a dozen times. Witnesses say he started escalating it into a fight and then stab someone in the heart. That’s not minding your business.”
  • “His family raised like a million dollars on GoFundMe and then blew it all on a new house and fucking Cadillac. So then they had to get a public defender.”
  • “Do these people just live in a completely different reality? A guy gets put in prison for murder and they’re like, ‘Wow, what’s the point of even following the law anymore?'”
  • “It was the white son that was murdered. Why are they acting like the black son was murdered?”
  • “Literally, multiple witnesses, including black witnesses, including Karmelo’s own friends said that Karmelo was the aggressor in the situation. Also, just in general, murder is not the acceptable punishment for a shove, for a push. That’s not how that works.”
  • “Black people are held to a higher standard.” “In this case, the higher standard of do not stab people.”
  • “Where do these people live? Earth 2?”
  • “Every black defendant in every court everywhere is Carmelo* Anthony.” “Go do jury duty so you can go blindly support any black person regardless of what they did.”
  • “This was just straight up a black kid stabbed a white kid and they’re losing their minds because he’s going to prison over it. Fascinating.”
  • “Black people can’t be racist, stupid hoe.”
  • Perspective black jurors were excused because they admitted they would never vote to convict Anthony. Online leftwing blacks tell them to lie. “Get in there and lie to the court so you can free a person cuz he murdered a white guy. Incredible stuff.”
  • Responding to a BlueSky post: ” Oh my god, what has this country come to when a man can’t freely murder another man in cold blood and get away with it? Literally Jim Crow.”
  • BlueSky post with a pride flag thumbnail: “He saved himself from being lynched and now he has to spend decades in prison. Racist country.” “Huh? He was being lynched.” “Yes.” “Do these people live in the Netflix adaptation version of reality or something? What is going on? Stabby? Jail. No stabby? No jail.”
  • Rare normal poster: “Anyone defending Karmelo Anthony knows that they’re not defending him in good faith. Karmelo is obviously guilty of a murder that he intentionally instigated. Defending like this only hurts the black community. We need to hold ourselves accountable and hold ourselves to a higher standard.” “Oh my god! A normal person on BlueSky! Bro, what are you doing? Get out of there!”
  • Random black woman on video: “If we had segregation still, none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t have had no interactions with any white boy because we would have been in an all black school.” “We are going to reverse engineer segregation, aren’t we? But wokely. We don’t want those evil white people drinking out of the same water fountain as us. Am I right?”
  • Random sane black tweet: “I’m black. I haven’t stabbed anyone in the chest after being asked to leave a tent. I’m not in prison. I’m free. It’s not hard to not commit a crime.” Replies? ” You ain’t black.” “Because being black is supporting all black people everywhere, regardless of what they have done.”
  • Another random black Twitter loon: “Dig Austin Metcalf up and stab his ass again.”
  • “Apparently, a bunch of people on Tik Tok are doing the Austin bop where they dance to a song made about Austin Metcalf’s murder while reenacting the stabbing. They were also making AI photos of themselves pissing on Austin’s grave.”
  • “These people are freaks. Martin Luther King Jr. would be rolling in his grave looking at all this.”
  • More videos celebrating the death of Austin Metcalf and wishing death on his family. “This got so bad that people were actually going out and assaulting white people to get revenge. Obviously, I can’t show these videos, but there were multiple instances of this. These people live in a delusional alternate reality, and they’re becoming radicalized to take revenge for shit that isn’t even happening.”
  • “I got five boys. I don’t know what I ain’t got nothing to tell them no more.” “I don’t know. Not to kill people?…Nobody is hating Karmelo because he is black. They are hating Karmelo because he killed someone.”
  • “‘Remember when Shoe was a leftist?’ A yes, the famous leftist policy being pro-murder. I remember back when Shoe0nHead was pro murder. Silly me. How could I fall so far? Leftism isn’t about wealth inequality or workers rights. No, no. It’s about letting black people stab white people.” To be fair, this does seem to be the animating thought behind Soros-backed DAs, that no black person should ever be jailed for committing a crime, because racism. Or revolution.
  • “There were thousands and thousands of videos and tweets just like this. You probably get the point. These weren’t just like cherrypicked. The they were everywhere. But it wasn’t just Twitter nobodies and BlueSky nobodies. There was also sitting Congresspeople saying this insane shit.” Jasmine Crockett snippet sniped.
  • Shoe ends up pining for the 1990s. “I kind of feel like race relations were better back then cuz it was all like, ‘Oh, we don’t see color.’ And then they flipped it and they were like, ‘Actually, if you don’t see color, you’re racist. You have to acknowledge your white privilege and you’re a colonizer.'”
  • Yes, race relations in the 1990s were better, because that was before Obama brought in all his “racial healing.” A Democratic president could still have his “Sister Souljah” moment and stand up to the radical left wing of his own party and pursue policies that fought crime rather than encouraging it.

    Precious few Democrats can do that anymore, because the Sister Souljahs make up the ideological core of the party. It’s Sister Souljah all the way down, and just about any Democrat officeholder will have to offer obsequious bows for offending the Party’s Souljah soul brigade.

    White guilt has been weaponized by hard left social justice cadres, who are always on the lookout for their next George Floyd martyr to keep black people pulling the (D) lever every election. The entire ideological makeup of the Democrat Party is geared to cater to the “dead cracker” crowds and ensure that no Democrat running for nation office can ever have a Sister Souljah moment ever again…


    *”Karmelo” is the correct spelling for the convicted murderer, but where tweets etc. got it wrong I’ve left them as posted.

    Fuck You, Tim Walz

    Saturday, July 18th, 2026

    There are some naked lies so offensive that profanity is valid response.

    Such is the case with Minnesota Governor and failed Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz claiming that illegal alien pedophile rapist Tou Lue Vang shouldn’t have been deported because people shouldn’t be judged on their “worst day.”

    I’m pretty sure lots of people can remember their worst days: They got in a car wreck, they got fired, they found out their wife has cancer, their dog died.

    Raping a ten year old girl doesn’t qualify. “Honey, I got fired, wrecked the car, and, oh yeah, raped a ten year old girl on the way home. This day was the worst!”

    Also, it wasn’t one day. Vang repeatedly raped his victim over several years. And it doesn’t seem like Vang thought it was his worst day, or he wouldn’t have kept doing it. Cue the Norm Macdonald:

    Then there’s the sheer absurdity of the premise, as criminals are sentenced for a single heinous deed all the time. Should murderer Richard Speck be judged on his worst day, or do eight student nurses stabbed or strangled just count as a little “woopsie”? Charles Joseph Whitman’s Texas tower snipping spree? “Just a bad day, son, we’ll let it slide.” Julio Gonzalez killing 87 people by setting fire to the Happy Land Social Club? “Mistakes were made.”

    It’s a sign of how badly social justice has morally deformed Democrats that Walz is willing to go to the mat to defend a pedophile child rapist after his evil, illegal alien rapist ass has already been deported. Bill Clinton would have deported him, then given a high minded speech about it before going off to nail another intern. Jimmy Carter would have deported him. Hell, LBJ might have just had him secretly shot and his body tossed into a ditch. Even Obama would have had him deported as the wrong kind of illegal alien. Biden wouldn’t have deported him, because Biden didn’t make policy decisions, so it would probably depend on which Obama holdover aide controlled the Autopen that day.

    But all illegal aliens seem sacred to the modern, Marxist, social justice infected Democrats these days, because they’re convinced they provide a surefire path to the electoral promised land. And just as with communists in the Soviet Union, Democrats regard criminals as much more ideologically reliable allies than law-abiding citizens.

    But even among Democrats, few are so tone-deaf and politically maladroit as to draw their line in the sand at deporting illegal alien child rapists. This isn’t an 80-20 issue, this is a 95-5 issue that should be used to hammer Walz and anyone foolish enough to defend his position. Every Democrat candidate in the country should be asked whether they agree with Walz that illegal alien child rapists should be shielded from deportation. ICE should be scouring criminal ranks for illegal alien child rapists to deport (honestly, they should have been doing this already). The likes of Kamala Harris and James Talarico should be asked again and again where they stand on deporting illegal alien child rapists. ICE should go to the California state capital, announce they’re deporting an illegal alien child rapist just to dare Gavin Newsom to pardon him the way Walz did with Vang.

    Of all those “national conversation on [___]” Democrats claim they want to have, I’m pretty sure “Should we deport illegal alien child rapists” is the conversation they want to have least…

    LinkSwarm For July 17, 2026

    Friday, July 17th, 2026

    Two important speeches (from President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio) on leftwing threats to America, more welfare state fraud uncovered by Nick Shirley, Ukraine continues to hit Russian ships at will, multiple marine drone attacks, TSMC has a good week (and pledges to invest more money in America), Apple sues OpenAI, and Bruce Sterling compares AI to jazz.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • President Trump dropped a prime-time address about cheating in the 2020 election, but not necessarily the cheating we already knew about.

    Trump announced a massive declassification of documents showing how exposed our election system is to hacking and foreign interference. Top White House aides and intelligence agency chiefs have all reviewed and authenticated the documents.

    The documents highlight major areas of concern. Starting in 2020, Beijing carried out the largest-ever compromise of election data. Some 220 million American voters’ files were meddled with by Chinese intelligence services. China signed a data exploitation unit for this project.

    Members of the Deep State within the IC worked to suppress and downplay the scope and impact of China’s election interference. U.S. spy agencies discovered that the voter data breach in 18 states was bought, stolen, or hacked by China. That breach was kept hidden; Trump, who was still president at the time, was not informed, nor was Congress. The line was that the 2020 election was the most secure in history.

    CIA reported in mid-2018 that the Chinese Communist Party’s strategy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements opposed to Trump. In mid-2019, China’s approach was to undermine domestic confidence during the first Trump presidency. The Chinese government aimed to identify anti-Trump reporters and pay them large sums of money to produce stories that cast Trump in a negative light.

    The FBI obtained raw intelligence indicating that China’s activities included efforts to produce illegal ballots for Joe Biden. These were kept out of the presidential briefing. One analyst admitted to intentionally downplaying Chinese election activities. Another official stated she was running a shadow government to keep intelligence on China’s election interference away from the media and the White House. Numerous burn bags have been found.

    Americans were lied to about the security of our election systems, including voting machines. They’re highly susceptible to attack. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and non-state actors have the ability to compromise our election infrastructure.

    Michigan police raided a Democrat GOTV organization and were so concerned they contacted the FBI in Detroit. The documents state that canvassers signed voter registration forms in other people’s names, registered nonexistent individuals, and got paid based on the number of applications they produced. The FBI believed crimes were committed, but the Biden DOJ slow-walked and suppressed the case.

    Of course they did.

  • The war with Iran is very much on again.

    Today at 9:40 p.m. ET, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) completed its latest major wave of strikes against Iran.

    U.S. forces, including fighter jets, aerial drones, and warships, launched precision munitions that hit dozens of Iranian military targets such as coastal surveillance and air defense sites, military logistics infrastructure, and maritime capabilities. This was the sixth consecutive night of U.S. strikes against Iran.

    At the Commander in Chief’s direction, CENTCOM is further degrading Iranian military capabilities and holding Iran accountable for recent attacks on commercial shipping.

    More than 50,000 U.S. service members are operating across the Middle East and remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.

  • Also, the full blockade of Iranian ports is back on.

    “U.S. forces resumed the naval blockade against vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports and coastal areas today [July 14] at 4 p.m. ET,” the command posted to social media on Tuesday.

    “There are currently more than 20 U.S. Navy warships and hundreds of military aircraft operating across the Middle East. American forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready,” the statement continued.

  • “Rubio Convenes 60-Nation Summit To Confront Transnational Far-Left Terrorism.”

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio has requested that senior officials from more than 60 countries convene in Washington next Thursday to discuss the alarming rise of transnational far-left terrorism, according to a Washington Post report.

    Snip.

    The initiative is intended to expand intelligence sharing, law-enforcement cooperation and potential terrorist designations targeting militant groups with alleged ties to Antifa.

    Administration officials have discussed whether foreign-terrorism links could unlock broader investigative and surveillance powers against US-based far-left revolutionaries that are a part of subversion networks.

    The problem is that countries have been addressing far-left revolutionaries as a domestic threat, but in fact it’s transnational.

    State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the upcoming event is in response to the rise of the radical left. He said far-left terrorism is “an old threat re-emerging with strong transnational links and new convergences.”

    “Because this threat has not been adequately addressed in the past, each engagement, designation, or security assistance program creates a compounding effect supporting countermeasures at home and abroad,” Pigott said in a statement.

    In November, the State Department designated four European far-left groups as foreign terrorist organizations and directed agencies to investigate networks accused of fomenting political violence. One of the militant groups in Germany is called Antifa Ost. Two more were in Greece and one in Italy.

    During the Antifa roundtable at the White House last October, Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, briefed the president and his cabinet on a complex network of dark-money NGOs and activist groups fueling unrest nationwide via the permanent protest-industrial complex.

    “We have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc investors,” Bruner told Trump.

  • More on the left-wing terrorist threat from Rubio himself.

    Jihadists attacks and plots in the United States are down by two-thirds since ISIS’s peak. The number of people killed by jihadist terrorism in Europe dropped by roughly 97 percent from the year 2015 to the year 2024. In other words, to a very great extent, our counterterrorism strategy has worked. The threat has not disappeared, of course. It will continue to exist, particularly so long as we tolerate immigration systems that imports these threats directly into our respective homelands. But this threat has been severely diminished. The world looks very different today because of it.

    For far too long, however, our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot – a blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left. Even today, the very idea that far-left terrorism could be a serious threat is treated as a right-wing fever dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy. It’s treated this way by many in the press, by many in academia and our universities, and by many of our legacy institutions. You will no doubt see the dogma rear its head in the coverage of this very conference. In spite of the clear and the undeniable reality, in spite of the objective numbers and statistics, in spite of the fact that in this room today there are representatives from across the political spectrum, we will hear this organized – that this kind of organized violence and terror will be dismissed. It will be dismissed as a partisan fiction.

    A whole industry grew up in our countries around the study of extremism. We have think tanks and fellowships and journals and consultancies, with the unspoken understanding among them that the only kind of political violence that was a true threat to our system – I’m sorry – that only one kind of political violence was a true threat to the system. A bomb planted by a neo-Nazi group was a nefarious and murderous act of evil. It is. But a bomb planted by a Marxist revolutionary – well, that’s just merely a tragic excess of idealism. Perhaps its means were misplaced or overzealous, but its ends were virtuous and just. That’s the implication of how they treat it.

    For years, this extraordinary ideological prejudice was embedded in the way we talked about political violence and extremism. It was repeated again and again, until it was accepted as the neutral and objective baseline, so entrenched – so entrenched in the mainstream conventional wisdom that it came to be regarded as an apolitical fact. It is the reason why, here in my country, so many people in positions of power have repeatedly dismissed acts of violence and even terrorism as legitimate forms of political expression so long as they served a left-wing cause.

    It is why during those George Floyd – so-called George Floyd – riots in the summer of 2020, as criminals and extremists burned and looted their way through American great – America’s great cities and nearly brought the country to its knees, city governments all across the country simply refused to prosecute the people conducting these acts of violence and terror. It is the reason for the now infamous image – and you all recall this – of a news anchor from a very prominent agency – a news anchor standing in a neighborhood consumed in flames; meanwhile the chyron on the bottom read that the protests were mostly peaceful. This was something worse than a double standard. Left-wing violence was not just excused; it was treated as sacrosanct, a protected class unto itself. That era has to end.

  • “Move over, Somali Learing Centers! Nick Shirley and Dr. Oz just visited Asian “adult daycares” and found a whole bunch of fraud.” “We uncovered over $190,000,000 in fraud as these fraudsters use the elderly and needy to commit fraud through adult and personal home care scams in NYC. Your tax dollars are paying for elderly Koreans and Chinese to play ping pong and do tai chi, while the fraudsters give $ kickbacks to those who enroll.”
  • “I Watched the DSA Go Crazy. The Democrats May Be Next. The anti-democratic far Left is using the same strategy that helped them capture the Democratic Socialists of America.”

    How worried should Democrats be about the Democratic Socialists of America? In the wake of a series of DSA victories in New York City, Jonathan Chait raised the alarm in The Atlantic, writing that as the group has risen in power, it has also grown “more hostile to the [Democratic] party, more illiberal, and more dogmatic.” Long-time DSA members, including former staff member and thought leader David Duhalde and socialist magazine publisher Nathan J. Robinson, pushed back, dismissing Chait as someone who doesn’t know or understand the DSA.

    Well, I know the DSA, and as someone who was a member and served in local leadership, I can say that Chait has it right: today’s DSA is not a harmless organization. It includes disciplined, radicalized networks that have methodically expanded their power over the last decade in pursuit of extremist goals.

    As the Democratic Party grapples with the DSA’s growing influence and extremism, it would do well to recognize that the same dynamic underway now—first accommodation, then capture, then surrender to insurgent radicals—already played out on a smaller scale within the DSA itself. The only defense is to out-organize it.

    For decades, the DSA was mostly composed of a cohort of aging Boomers left over from its founding in 1982. It prioritized open debate and political tolerance. Following in the tradition of founder Michael Harrington, members viewed the DSA not as a revolutionary vanguard but as a reformist bridge to mainstream labor-liberalism, and they prioritized parliamentary process and pluralism.

    But in the mid-2010s, the character of the organization began to change. I was in Boston at the time and witnessed the last days of the “old” DSA. New, younger members began to enter the organization, while Senator Bernie Sanders and the socialist magazine Jacobin grew their followings.

    As the DSA’s cultural power expanded and it began to amass electoral victories, more leftists of varying extremist commitments were drawn in. This was an explicit strategy called “the big tent,” advanced by the then-DSA Jacobin Left. In August 2025, DSA delegates voted to remove a constitutional provision barring Leninists from entry. The provision was already a dead letter.

    The old DSA’s high-mindedness became its fatal weakness. Veteran members assumed the younger generation played by the same rules of persuasion, but the newcomers’ goal was not to win arguments—it was to transform the institution and its politics.

    As the organization grew, it began to profess more extreme ideas—and demand that its members do the same. First there were the purity tests of Black Lives Matter and BDS, then apologia for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and support for Hamas and its atrocities.

    The new DSA—with the help of hype-man Hasan Piker—advanced these agendas with what American labor leader Walter Reuther called “the Communists’ highly developed technique of name-calling and character assassination.” The Harringtonites fought back, but their efforts came far too late, and many prominent members of the older generation eventually left.

    In a sense Jake Altman is wrong. The Democrat Party has largely already been captured by allied forces under the guise of “social justice” at the same time the commies were taking over the DSA, and were able to do it for much the same reasons: “no enemies on the left”, along with a heaping bowlful of white guilt.

  • “Explosive report finds $225M in alleged K-12 education fraud amid Trump’s crackdown.”

    A coalition of state financial officers said it uncovered roughly $225 million in alleged fraud across America’s schools over the past six years, identifying nearly 90 cases involving embezzlement, fake invoices, inflated enrollment, bid-rigging and kickbacks.

    In a new report obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) and Open the Books analyzed every Education Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) Semiannual Report to Congress issued between Oct. 1, 2019, and March 31, 2026, revealing alleged fraud across 24 states and Puerto Rico.

    Some other examples snipped.

    In Texas, former Houston Independent School District Chief Operating Officer Brian Busby and contractor Anthony Hutchison allegedly orchestrated a fraud scheme of more than $6 million, involving school construction and grounds maintenance contracts in exchange for cash bribes and hundreds of thousands of dollars in home renovations.

    A federal jury found Busby and Hutchison guilty of conspiracy, bribery, filing false tax returns, and witness tampering, with Hutchison also convicted on seven wire fraud counts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

    “Bureaucratic bloat, insider dealing, and poor oversight prompted Governor Abbott and the Texas Education Agency to intervene in HISD and appoint new leadership,” HISD Superintendent Mike Miles told Fox News Digital. “School funding was being squandered, the quality of schools had deteriorated, and the majority of students’ education was being neglected. That is no longer the case. Since June 2023, we have made it a priority to eliminate waste and most importantly, now every decision we make is focused on closing student achievement gaps, preparing students for the future, and supporting teachers.”

    (Previously.) (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • More proof that Democrats in office are scumbags all the way down. “Swalwell pal Sen. Ruben Gallego had sexual relationships with two House staffers, sources reveal to The Post.”

    Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, engaged in sexual relationships with at least two House staffers and his “very flirtatious” habits with others may come back to haunt him, The Post has learned.

    The 46-year-old lawmaker admitted to the two relationships — both with aides to Texas Democrats — to one source while a second person said they had recently learned of the romantic entanglements.

    A third source confirmed one of the dalliances, both of which are said to have been consensual and occurred during Gallego’s decade representing Phoenix in the House.

    So he’s just an adulterer, not a rapist (as far as we know). Does this put him in the top half of senate Democrats for morality? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Marine Drones Hit Two Russian Tankers: Magyar Hit 11 More Ships.” I’ve arranged these from most recent to least recent, which is all of five days ago.
  • 20 Russian Ships Hit in the Black Sea: Tankers, LNG Tankers & a Tug.”
  • “Sea of Azov Massacre Continues: 15 More Ships Hit.”
  • Ukraine Hits 14 More Russian Ships, Including FOUR Important Ferries. 90 in A Week.”
  • 28 Russian Ships Hit in One Night! Tankers and Tug.” 76 different vessels hit in the Sea of Azoth.
  • Syzran Oil Refinery Turns into Mordor: Hit Hard By Ukrainian Drones.”
  • “Ukraine Attacks Engels Air Base: Russia’s Main Bomber Base.”
  • “In the last 5 days Ukraine has placed its ‘Drone Strategic Bombing Imperial Focus’ like a laser on Russian riverine/littoral/brown water logistics from Rostov-on-Don to the Sea. This is burning down both Russian military logistics & 1/5th the economy.”
  • “Insane operation: Ukraine wipes out 230 artilleries in 48 hours.”
  • “You must be this tall to fire the YakB-12.7 anti-drone gatling gun!” He wasn’t.
  • “Ukraine Sinks Rubin-Class Patrol Boat Izumrud with Marine Drone at Gelendzhik Port.”
  • “American Marine Drone Hits Iranian Submarine Repair Facility & Submarine at Bandar Abbas.” The drone used to attack the facility was the Corsair, manufactured by Austin company Saronic. Speaking of which:
  • “Sea Drone Company Saronic Announces $3.2 Billion Texas Shipyard. The company says the project is aimed at strengthening U.S. shipbuilding as autonomous vessels play an increasingly prominent role in modern warfare.”

    Austin-based defense technology company Saronic, known for building autonomous watercraft, announced plans to invest more than $3.2 billion in a new shipyard at the Port of Brownsville that is expected to create 10,000 jobs.

    Gov. Greg Abbott joined Saronic CEO Dino Mavrookas Thursday at the company’s Austin headquarters to announce the project, known as Port Alpha.

    The shipyard’s initial phase will occupy more than 800 acres, with the potential to expand to more than 4,000 acres. Saronic plans to break ground this year and begin producing ships in 2028.

    “The initial phase of Port Alpha will more than double America’s shipbuilding capacity today and will make it the largest shipyard in the country,” said Mavrookas.

    Port Alpha will be designed for advanced manufacturing, software-based production, and autonomous vessels.

    Mavrookas framed the project as a response to the decline of American shipbuilding and the increasing maritime capabilities of China.

    “Today, China is now outbuilding the United States in shipbuilding capacity 230 to one,” he said.

    “A nation that cannot build ships cannot project power, cannot protect its supply chains, and cannot defend its interests,” Mavrookas added. “We are at that moment right now. Port Alpha is our answer.”

    Saronic designs and manufactures autonomous vessels for the U.S. military, including the Corsair, Mirage, and Marauder.

    This is good news for American drone manufacturing (and shipbuilding). However, on a personal level, I note that Saronic has had the same technical writing position open for most of this year. Indeed, I’ve applied for it multiple times when listed, but gotten no contacts save form replies. Maybe with all their new activity they’ll finally be hiring…

  • It’s been an extraordinarily wet week for mid-July in Texas, with flash flood throughout the Hill County and at least one death.
  • Ye shall be known by thine enemies. “Iranian TV, Democrats, and witches celebrate Lindsey Graham’s death.”
  • Minnesota and the Obama Administration are just the gifts that keep on giving.

    Former Obama staffer accused of stealing from colleagues to fund drug habit.

    Adam Fetcher, 42, was let go from his role as Chief Communications Officer for the City of Minneapolis last week amid a police probe, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

    According to the outlet, Fetcher, who earned $186,495 a year in his role, is accused of stealing cash and credit cards from three of his colleagues and racking up fraudulent charges in smoke shops.

    Fetcher’s drug of choice was Kratom, “a substance which is used to manage opioid withdrawal.”

  • Rep. Chip Roy Seeks To Tighten Legal Immigration After SCOTUS Ruling.”

    U.S. Rep. Chip Roy wants the Trump administration to crack down on legal immigration after last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision thwarting a presidential executive order to address birthright citizenship.

    In a letter to the Trump administration, Roy (R–Austin) said that while the administration works to secure the nation from illegal immigration, the current level of legal immigration should be reassessed to ensure that the “economic opportunities, cultural and social cohesion, or security” of American citizens is not negatively impacted.

    Expressing concern about increasing pressure on housing, schools, and healthcare services, Roy wrote that the “American people deserve transparency so we can ensure our immigration system puts American workers, taxpayers, and communities first.”

    According to the congressman, the U.S. takes in approximately one million legal immigrants each year because of the Immigration Act of 1990. This accounts for roughly 34 million immigrants over the last 35 years. He also explained that more than 10 million nonimmigrant visas are issued to visitors such as guest workers, foreign students, and tourists.

    Roy went on to cite an analysis of last year’s Current Population Survey (CPS) by the Center for Immigration Studies, which highlighted legal and illegal immigrant totals of “53.3 million and 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population in January 2025.”

  • “America Is Harboring a War Criminal Who Executed Seven Professors – And Let Him Become a Vice President of One of America’s Largest Muslim Organizations, ICNA.”

    Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a former top official of the Islamic Circle of North America in Queens, New York, personally slaughtered seven university professors as the chief executioner of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Al Badr death squads during the 1971 Bangladesh massacre. Despite being convicted in absentia of war crimes, he helped build one of America’s largest Muslim organizations and continues to live freely in the United States.

    You may previously remember Jamaat-e-Islami from them stabbing a science fiction writer in the head back in 2018. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Here’s a weird Texas crime story: “Lavaca County Justice of the Peace Commits Suicide Following Arrest for Compelling Prostitution, Sexual Assault. Travis Hill had been a fugitive since Monday, when he failed to appear for a pre-trial appointment.” Lavaca County is in south central Texas between Houston and Seguin on highway 90.

    A Lavaca County justice of the peace who was arrested earlier this month on felony charges committed suicide on Thursday as law enforcement agents attempted to arrest him a second time.

    Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Travis Mitchell Hill was arrested July 11 on first- degree felony charges of compelling prostitution, second-degree sexual assault, and solicitation of prostitution, but reportedly had been released on bond.

    Usually, compelling prostitution is upgraded to a first-degree felony when the victim is a minor.

    The Lavaca County Sheriff’s Office was made aware of allegations against Hill six weeks ago, but since Hill was an elected official and a practicing criminal defense attorney, Lavaca County Attorney James Reeves recused himself and referred the case to the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG). The Texas Rangers were leading the investigation.

    Hill did not appear for a pre-trial appointment Monday, when he was supposed to receive an ankle monitor. The U.S. Marshal’s Office was assisting local law enforcement with locating him on Thursday.

    According to a statement issued by Reeves, Hill was located Thursday evening “at a remote location in Gonzales County, Texas. During law enforcement’s encounter with Mr. Hill, he committed suicide.” No other details were provided.

    “Hill was appointed as justice of the peace in 2011 by the Lavaca County Commissioners Court. He had reportedly previously run as a Democrat for Lavaca County district clerk in the March 2011 primary, but switched to the Republican Party sometime later.” There are no more details about the charges against him online that I can find.

  • Follow-up: Remember the killing of Tory-turned-reform MP Ann Widdecombe in last week’s LinkSwarm? Turns out the suspect arrested is probably a commie. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.
  • “Houston Man Killed by ICE, Hailed as Father Chasing ‘American Dream,’ Had Meth in His Car.” That would be illegal alien Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who tried to run over an ice agent in his truck.
  • Unexpected headlines: “A tech company is repurposing its sexbots into AI teachers’ aides and they’re already being used in at least one New York state school.”
  • U.S. Rep. Keith Self (TX-3) is suspicious of Flock cameras.

    As Flock cameras are installed across the nation, citizens are growing more concerned about the potential privacy violations posed by automatic license plate readers.

    On Friday, U.S. Rep. Keith Self wrote on X that “[i]f transparency is now considered a threat, we’ve already drifted too far from the principles of a free Republic,” responding to an article about Flock’s CEO, who said that it is “terroristic” for the public to want to know where the company’s automatic license plate readers are being installed.

    Flock cameras do not act like traditional license plate readers. Powered by AI, they capture details such as the make and model of a passing vehicle, as well as any unique or identifying features such as dents, scratches, stickers, and aftermarket parts.

    The ALPRs also capture data on vehicles, regardless of whether they have been implicated in a crime. Police departments do not need a search warrant to access Flock data, heightening concerns about Fourth Amendment violations.

  • TSMC posts record revenue in second quarter on AI demand.” “Revenue in the April-June period of this year came in ​at T$1.27 trillion ($39.62 billion), according to Reuters calculations, slightly above a T$1.264 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 20 analysts.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • TSMC also says it’s going to invest $100 billion more in Arizona.
  • Apple sues OpenAI, two former employees for trade secrets theft.” For all the hype and near-trillion valuation, OpenAI seems to have an awful lot of smoke and mirrors.
  • Bruce Sterling compares AI to jazz.

    We’re living in an Age of AI. Why was there a “Jazz Age”? Why did jazz create an “Age”? Why was there this period between the Great War and the Great Depression, where a new form of music was very important, and people around the world cared about it?

    You can theorize about jazz. You can say that there were social reasons: that jazz was fun and new and sexy, and women wanted to wear short skirts and dance the Charleston.

    Or you could say that jazz was infrastructural — that music from the town of New Orleans could be recorded, and exported, and transmitted on the radio. There were new forms of mass media, so it was easier to spread a viral fad, around the world. So, that somehow explains jazz.

    Or you could say that jazz was political — that there was an oppressed class of black people living under apartheid, and jazz musicians and composers were making their voices heard.

    Or you could say that the Great War had just ended, and it was followed by a plague of flu that killed even more people than the worst war in history. You might say that jazz was a method for musicians to rescue mankind by changing the subject. Jazz was strange and extreme, because it was denying and avoiding the trauma of a lost generation. With more trauma — depression and war — well on the way.

    It’s pretty clear to me that the generation of AI — and it’s been going on for ten years, it’s a generation — has a lot of that unspoken Jazz Age anguish. It’s a vivid displacement activity for a lost and troubled era.

    I’m a novelist, so I notice the peculiar emotional expressions here. I notice things like AI burnout, AI psychosis, unhealthy relations with imaginary boyfriends and girlfriends, AI fakes, stock market bubbles, and the fear of missing out. That stark fear. So much fear. The fear of missing that golden chance. Also, the fear that AI is real this time, and is really happening. The apocalyptic terror that AI will lead to the destruction of the world.

    This is not the cyberpunk dystopian dark side of AI. This is the propulsive force of AI. It’s the restless and itchy drive that forces you to leave your apartment and rush downtown to the jazz club.

    Why do you go? The jazz club is not a place for the angels. You might drink bootleg liquor there and become an alcoholic. Or you might get in a fight, or catch a venereal disease. There’s cocaine and marijuana there. Someone might mug you and take your purse or wallet. But also, in New York, Duke Ellington is playing! In Paris, Django Reinhart is playing! It may be a wild scene, but you’re crazy not to go!

    This is the high summer of AI. The scene is red hot. I’ve been aware of AI for my entire, extensive lifetime, and it’s never been this technically intense and this deeply felt. Rational people, with education and money and power and experience, are cracking up in public. They’re losing their heads over it. Billionaires, captains of industry, politicians, military, spies. Worldwide. Old and young, men and women.

    It’s a craze.

    I’m very interested in it. I follow its every little up and down. It is so far out and science fictional that it might have been built just to entertain elderly cyberpunk writers. I do not invest in it. I’m not selling any of it to you. I don’t use it much personally. It isn’t changing my life — not much as yet. I’m not afraid of it. I don’t even think it will last. It’s defining an era, an era which is ten years old and counting, but something else will show up. AI is not a fraud, or pretense, or a fake. It’s a real and powerful technology and we’re never going back to the way things were. I recognize all that, but also, I take consolation in continuity.

  • Can you make money selling coal to Newcastle? “US burrito giant Chipotle opening first outlet in Mexico.” This will be in Nuevo León (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Another reason to disable Copilot: “A malicious website could push commands to the AI through Microsoft Edge without the user noticing.”
  • Marvel Comics leaves New York City for LA. Plus a lot of other changes.
  • Rick Beato interviews Billy Joel.
  • “The Lost Civilizations We Keep Finding Evidence Of.” Many of which conducted brutal human sacrifices…
  • He actually did the meme: “Maryland Man Tries To Rob Bank With Stolen Kitten.”

  • “Party Of Tolerance Holds Nationwide Parade Celebrating Death Of Political Enemy.”
  • “Study Shows Mysterious Link Between Trying To Run Over ICE Agent And Bullets Striking Windshield.”
  • “Scholars Agree Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak Signals Outpouring Of God’s Wrath On Vegetarians.”
  • “Explosive Diarrhea Epidemic Traced To Gain-Of-Function Lab At Taco Bell Institute.”
  • Cool: You have a dog and a motorcycle. Very cool: The dog rides with you on the motorcycle. UltraCool: The dog has his own motorcycle.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    Biden’s Illegal Alien Wave = Higher Home Prices

    Wednesday, July 15th, 2026

    As I’ve stated before, Biden importing several million illegal aliens across the southern border raised housing prices, because increasing demand without increasing supply raises prices.

    But now we have a federal reserve paper that lays out the case in more detail.

    A working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas concluded that the large influx of illegal aliens during the Biden administration drove up housing prices and rents.​

    According to the paper, roughly 7 million people illegally came to the United States between 2021 and 2024.

    This spike of illegal immigration “raised local house prices and rents without expanding housing supply,” acting as a “demand shock to local housing markets.”

    Using court records and border enforcement information alongside housing market data, the economists estimated that illegal immigration “can explain about 30% of the total growth in house prices and 20% of total growth in rents over the boom period for the average local market.”

    “We’ve actually been saying this for a number of months now,” U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R–Irving) told CBS News. “I don’t think people sometimes understand the ramifications of having so many folks enter your country illegally in such a short period of time and the financial disaster that it causes.”

    Although housing costs have begun to ease, prospective homeowners continue to face affordability challenges. The National Association of Home Builders calculated that in Texas, a $1,000 median price increase would price out roughly 15,000 households.

    John Bonura and Selene Rodriguez from the Texas Public Policy Foundation are urging lawmakers to “ensure that scarce housing opportunities first serve the people to whom this country ultimately owes its highest obligation.”

    You mean citizens rather than illegal aliens? Seems like the Democrats have those priorities reversed.

    The paper can be found here, in which we find this breathtaking chart showing the effects of the Biden Administration’s deliberate attempt to leave the southern border unsecured:

    Republicans need to drop direct mailers to everyone under the age of 30 this year, explaining that Biden’s illegal alien wave drove up housing prices, and that excessive regulation in blue cities and states restrict demand. Who knows, this little nugget of truth may even give some of them a clue as to why socialism doesn’t work…

    LinkSwarm Leftovers For July 11, 2026

    Saturday, July 11th, 2026

    There were two pieces I meant to include in Friday’s LinkSwarm, but they somehow slipped through the cracks.

  • Graham Platner and the death of ‘The Resistance.'”

    I, for one, am shocked that the dude with the Nazi tattoo turned out to be a bad person. Normally blokes who go around with an SS-style cross-and-bones inked on their chests are such lovely people. Not Graham Platner. The Democratic candidate for the Maine Senate, famed sporter of a Nazi-like Totenkopf, appears to be a rotter. There are now allegations that he sexually assaulted an old girlfriend. Who could have seen that coming?

    Forgive the sarcasm. The answer is that everyone could have seen it coming. Everyone, that is, whose moral sensibilities have not been turned to mush by their slavish devotion to the flagging cause of the Democrats. To understand the depth of the moral rot at the top of Democrats, to see what a thin, gutless pantomime their ‘Resistance’ always was, look no further than the Platner storm. For it indicts more than one dodgy bloke – it indicts an entire political machine.

    Platner is the Dems’ much-troubled candidate for Maine in the November midterms. His troubles increased tenfold this week when Politico published a report in which a woman he once dated claims he forced her to have sex with him despite her ‘repeated objections’. She recalls thinking, ‘I am in a situation where there’s no consent here’. Platner says any accusation of ‘non-consensual behaviour’ is ‘categorically untrue’.

    The Politico piece has lit a fire under the Democratic establishment. Bigwig backers of Platner are getting cold feet. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have called on him to ‘immediately withdraw’ from the Maine race. Dem old-timer Elizabeth Warren, a loud backer of Platner, says he should pull out because ‘there can be no tolerance for sexual assault’. So these Dem powerhouses stood by Platner during the Nazi tattoo scandal, and following the discovery of his old Reddit bigotry, and after his claim to be a small-town working-class guy was trashed by intrepid hacks, yet now they decide he’s an iffy candidate after all? Please don’t mistake this for a belated discovery of moral principle – it’s pure arse-covering.

    Platner’s campaign has been radioactive since Day 1. His Nazi tat was just the start. It was equal parts hilarious and terrifying that a Democrat with a literal Totenkopf was being gushed over by the kind of Ivy League brats who’ll call you a Nazi if you say men should stay out of women’s bathrooms. The coastal classes who scream ‘Fascist!’ at working-class Trump voters were swooning over a man with an SS insignia on his literal body. Platner said he didn’t know it was a Nazi symbol, though an old acquaintance claimed to have heard him lovingly refer to it as ‘my Totenkopf’. Yikes!

    Then came the treasure trove of his crazy Reddit posts. Sexual-assault victims should have taken ‘some responsibility for themselves’ and avoided booze ‘for fuck’s sake’, he said. ‘Why don’t black people tip?’, he asked. White Americans ‘actually are’ stupid and racist, he said. ‘Fuck off and die’, he liked to bark at people who disagreed with him. Again, none of this seemed to bother pussy-hat Dems who spent the past 10 years having sleepless nights over Trump’s 21-year-old off-the-record remark that you should ‘grab ’em by the pussy’.

    Even the thing that top Dems and silver-spoon leftists loved about Platner – that here, finally, was a working-class man – turned out to be a little sketchy. He promoted himself as a Joe Average ‘oyster farmer’. Yet he only made around $5,000 from farming oysters, and a restaurant owned by his mother was his sole customer. Furthermore, his oyster farm was on a plush private island owned by his business partner’s family, and he once received a $200,000 loan from his father to buy a house. It’s hardly Grapes of Wrath, is it?

    It was the Democrats’ frenzied longing to reconnect with ‘the working class’ that led them to turn a blind eye to Platner’s legion red flags. After all, he has a beard, and he wears sweatshirts, and he was a farming boy ‘living on the sea’. They couldn’t believe their luck. At last, the party that used to represent the working class – before becoming the moral plaything of rich kids from Yale and billionaires who hate themselves – was getting back to its roots. That Platner was a caricature of a working-class man, his closet positively bulging with skeletons, didn’t matter. The Dems were craving ‘authenticity’ and this oyster grower from Maine seemed to provide it – SS tattoo be damned!

    It’s the hypocrisy of ‘The Resistance’ that is most glaring…

    This faux-progressive vanguard carved lucrative careers from posing as the protectors of women, the smashers of fascism, and the unyielding defenders of moral virtue. ‘Punch a Nazi’, they said. ‘Fuck the patriarchy’, they cried. Imagine telling them that one day they’d be manning the barricades for a man with an SS tattoo who once said drunk bitches should avoid getting into ‘compromising situations’. Yet here we are. Clearly none of the rules of their tyrannical fake virtue apply to them. It takes arrogance to dizzying new heights that these priggish activists are more than happy to commit all the sins they would destroy a lesser mortal for committing.

    That’s the real Platner story – the Democrats dreamt this man would inject their party with some American grit, but he ended up exposing how wholly removed from ordinary Americans the Dems now are. Their virtuous preening turned out to be as fake as Platner’s own salt-of-the-earth origin story.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Remember the illegal alien child rapist Tim Walz pardoned? The Trump Administration deported him anyway.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. deported Tue Lue Vang, a Laos native, despite receiving a pardon from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Fox News reported.

    Rubio said:

    Just weeks ago, a convicted sex offender and a foreign national was shielded from deportation by the governor of Minnesota.

    Laotian national Tu Li Vang was convicted of repeatedly sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in the state of Minnesota. He even tried to pay his victim for her silence, and he called his heinous crimes a minor thing.

    Just days before this foreign sex offender was scheduled to be deported, Tim Walz, the governor, issued him a pardon, setting him free to once again endanger the children of America.

    Well, this week I revoked his legal status in the United States, and as a result, federal agents took him into custody. And as of today, he has been removed from the United States because of our action.

    This foreign criminal will never pose a threat to any American ever again. Americans must never be forced by their elected leaders to live alongside foreign sex criminals who have no right to begin with to reside in our country.

    This administration will always stand with the American people and defend them from violent criminals.

    Walz may have failed in preventing his deportation, but he succeeded in reminding American voters how much Democrats love illegal alien child rapists…

  • Because three entries seem like the minimum to make an acceptable LinkSwarm, here’s a bonus meme from Sarah Hoyt.