Archive for the ‘Democrats’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Library Additions: Caro, Rand, Yamane Firsts (Two Signed)

Sunday, January 4th, 2026

Two of these were picked up at Half Price Books locations in DFW and the greater Houston area, the other was a gift.

  • Caro, Robert. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. Knopf, 2002. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket folded just slightly off-center, with a tiny bit of pull to top of flaps and a trace of edgewear, signed by Caro. The third in Caro’s monumental LBJ series. According to Caro, Johnson is the first Majority Leader to ever actually make the senate work. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Replaces an unsigned copy. Bought for $29.49 at the Half Price Books in Humble. I now have three of the four published volumes signed by Caro (the first two signed on his book tour for Working, which obviously I also have signed). (Previously.)

  • Rand, Ayn (edited by Michael S. Berliner). Letters of Ayn Rand. Dutton, 1995 First edition hardback (“First Printing, June, 1995/1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2”), a Fine- copy with a trace of bend at head in a Fine- dust jacket with small crease to rear top flap tip and a trace of haze rubbing. 682 page collection of Rand letters. Bought for $9.99 from a Half Price Books in Garland.

  • Yamane, David. Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside American’s Gun Culture. Exposit, 2024. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy, inscribed by the author: “To Lawrence-/Always/be/curious!” Given to me as a gift by Dwight.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Guns | 2 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for January 2, 2026

    Friday, January 2nd, 2026

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

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

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

  • The summary:

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

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

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

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

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

  • Fallout.

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

    Snip.

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

    * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • And it’s not just Minnesota!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

    More Minnesota reporting:

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

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

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

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

    What proud Arakis might look like

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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

    Railroaded APD Officer’s Conviction Overturned

    Wednesday, December 31st, 2025

    Remember Christopher Taylor, the APD officer who Soros-backed Travis County DA Jose Garza literally campaigned on indicting over his shooting of a drug-addicted career criminal? Well, Taylor’s conviction in another Garza-prosecuted shooting was just overturned, and he was acquitted of all charges.

    Former Austin police officer Christopher Taylor has been acquitted of all charges after his conviction was overturned by an appeals court.

    A jury convicted Taylor of deadly conduct in Oct. 2024 after three days of deliberations. He was charged in connection with the officer-involved shooting of Dr. Mauris DeSilva in 2019.

    Taylor was sentenced to two years in prison and was originally not determined eligible for probation.

    Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock released a statement about the acquittal, saying:

    “The Austin Police Association was notified this evening that Texas’ 7th Court of Appeals has REVERSED and ACQUITTED the wrongful conviction against Austin Police Department Detective Christopher Taylor. This once again shows that District Attorney Jose Garza manipulated the criminal justice system by repeatedly trying cases against Detective Taylor, until the jury pool was so tainted, that an impartial decision could not be made. Thankfully, the 7th Court of Appeals saw through this and did their part by reversing and acquitting Detective Taylor. They showed that Travis County and District Attorney Garza cannot create their own version of justice deviating from and manipulating state law, while also ignoring standard police practices.

    Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and the Texas Legislature have done their part by remedying state law so that no peace officer can be charged under the Deadly Conduct statute that was used against Detective Taylor and the nearly 30 other officers that District Attorney Garza has gone after since taking office.

    We call upon District Attorney Garza to immediately drop all remaining charges against Austin Police Officers, related to his political attacks. The men and women of the Austin Police Department must be allowed do the job they signed up for, protecting the citizens of Austin and the State of Texas, without fear of these countless political prosecutions. The Austin Police Association will always stand alongside Detective Taylor and every officer who wears the uniform of the Austin Police Department. With this ruling, the madness must end, and common sense must prevail.”

    Snip.

    The misguided nature of this case is apparent in the District Attorney’s Office dismissal of charges against co-defendant Officer Karl Krycia. This action underscores that the prosecution was not about seeking justice but rather DA Garza exploiting tragic events for political gain at the direction of the Wren Collective. Before even taking office, Garza publicly vowed to target Detective Taylor.

    The Wren Collective is a radical leftwing social justice organization that never met a minority criminal it didn’t love, nor a cop it didn’t hate.

    On July 31, 2019, Austin Police received several 911 calls around 5 p.m. from the Spring Condominiums in downtown Austin about a man having a mental health crisis holding a knife to his own throat.

    Neighbors reported a man banging loudly on emergency doors who sounded like he was having a mental breakdown.

    One officer arrived and was told by staff that the man was a resident and had been holding a knife to his throat while walking around. The officer went inside, got on the elevator and went to the fifth floor gym.

    Austin police at the time of the incident said they were told he was waving his knife at the camera, which sped up their need to respond. Four officers and a security guard got on the elevator and when they arrived at the fifth floor, the officers’ body cameras caught the rest of the incident.

    APD says the officers began giving the man commands and he turned around. The man is seen on body camera footage pulling the knife down towards his side and walking towards the officers. As he took a step or two toward them, two of the officers fired their guns and one fired a Taser.

    Naturally, Garza is going to appeal, because he hates APD officers far more than the criminals he seems determined to keep out on the streets.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 2 Comments »

    Musk Backs Wilco GOP Chair In Tranny Bathroom Wars

    Tuesday, December 30th, 2025

    Via Holly Hansen in The Texan News comes a culture war skirmish that checks off a lot of this blog’s interest boxes: Williamson County GOP Chair Michelle Evans had her phone seized documenting a man using the women’s restroom, and now she has a powerful ally in the war against transsexual madness.

    Social media giant X announced it will provide legal backing to a Texas Republican activist who faces felony prosecution for posting a photo of an alleged biological male in the women’s restroom at the Texas Capitol.

    In the midst of a 2023 debate at the Capitol over legislation prohibiting gender modification procedures for minor children, Williamson County Republican Party Chair Michelle Evans posted the photo of a clothed person at a public bathroom sink on X in May 2023 and wrote that she had to tell the “man to stop using the women’s restroom at the Capitol.”

    Hours later, police detained Evans and confiscated her phone, and Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza launched a criminal investigation into whether Evans had violated a state law prohibiting taking photographs or videos of individuals in bathrooms or changing rooms.

    Although Garza has not indicted Evans, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office (TCDAO) still has possession of her phone.

    “I just want my phone back,” Evans told The Texan. “I’m not worried about anything in particular, but I’m not going to give up anytime soon. Garza can continue to investigate me, charge me. But what I can do is make sure that it’s on the record that this was a safety issue for the women that were in that bathroom.”

    Remember that Texas finally passed the The Texas Women’s Privacy Act, barring men from women’s bathrooms this year, and the law took effect December 4th. If Evans were to take such a picture today, she would be documenting evidence of a crime.

    Garza, of course, is Travis County’s Soros-backed lefty DA, who seems far more interested in defending men in women’s bathrooms than protecting Austinites from criminals.

    Evans has maintained that the person in the photograph is a biological male who was in the Capitol to testify on Senate Bill (SB) 14, and she told The Texan that said person had publicly announced as a candidate for Texas House District 64.

    Several weeks after the confiscation of her phone, Evans filed a federal lawsuit accusing Garza of violating her free speech rights, but a lower court rejected Evans’ request for an injunction. Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a split opinion on Evans’ appeal of the case with two justices affirming the lower court’s decision.

    The majority noted that Garza had not yet filed charges against Evans and thus the lower court had appropriately applied a legal doctrine that limits federal intervention in state matters, but in his dissent, Justice Andrew Oldham argued that the court had created a “Catch-22” for Evans that would prevent her from seeking an injunction at all, and that the mere threat of criminal charges had already created an injury and inhibited her First Amendment right to free speech.

    “Evans has undoubtedly suffered an irreparable injury,” wrote Oldham. “While Garza decides whether to charge Evans, her First Amendment rights hang in ‘limbo.’ She must ‘self-censor’ from further publishing the purportedly illegal photograph.”

    In support of Evans’ right to injunctive relief, Oldham asserted that “the loss of First Amendment freedoms from Day 1 is an irreparable injury.”

    He also noted that the Texas law prohibited collection of images with the “intent to invade the privacy of a person,” but that Evans’ posted photograph was of a fully clothed person at a sink, not in an “intimate” setting.

    “Insofar as we have to guess, it should be obvious that DA Garza will not be able to prove that Evans had the ‘intent to invade the privacy of the other person,’” wrote Oldham.

    Evans is now asking for an en banc consideration of her case that would allow all 17 justices of the 5th Circuit Court to weigh in.

    She will have additional legal representation provided by X itself.

    X owner Elon Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist,” purchased the social media platform in 2022, citing many users’ complaints of censored content as one of his motivations.

    True, but an even more basic reason for Musk’s intervention is social justice sorts turning his son Xavier trans. This was probably the key moment in which Musk started his journey from vaguely libertarian leftist to a Trump ally.

    Evans said she has not communicated with Musk himself but that members of X’s legal team contacted her earlier this month.

    X’s Global Government Affairs released a statement Monday morning in support of Evans.

    Evans has a strong case on First Amendment ground, but an even stronger case in the court of public opinion, where insisting men can use a women’s restroom just because they’ve declared they’re women remains deeply unpopular. Tranny bathroom mandates were an early sign of just how far Democrats were willing to go to impose radical social justice on the nation under Obama, and have proven widely loathed everywhere they’ve been imposed. When put to a vote in Houston (hardly a deep red city), tranny bathrooms went down in flames.

    Bill by bill, lawsuit by lawsuit, the transsexual madness social justice-infected Democrats tried to inflict on America is being rolled back, and women across the across the country can breathe a sign of relief.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm For December 26, 2025

    Friday, December 26th, 2025

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

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Welcome to Lawrence, Massachusetts…

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Here’s the exchange Sprinkle initiated on the app:

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

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

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





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

    LinkSwarm For December 12, 2025

    Friday, December 12th, 2025

    ObamaCare bites the dust, Eurocensors try grind Twitter under its bootheel, a lot of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes, Keir Starmer’s fingerprints are all over lots of censorship efforts, some homegrown Austin fraud, and the history of human occupation of north America just got a radical update.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Ding dong, ObamaCare is dead.

    On Thursday afternoon, the Senate rejected extending Obamacare subsidies, refusing to let taxpayers mask the skyrocketing costs of health insurance premiums caused by Barack Obama’s 2010 signature legislation.

    “Senators rejected a Democratic bill to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative that would have created new health savings accounts — an unceremonious end to a monthslong effort by Democrats to prevent the COVID-19-era subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1,” the Associated Press reported. “Ahead of the votes, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans that if they did not vote to extend the tax credits, ‘there won’t be another chance to act,’ before premiums rise for many people who buy insurance off the ACA marketplaces.”

    Just a reminder that Schumer and the Democrats got absolutely nothing from their shutdown stunt. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • The EU censors try to fine X AKA Twitter $140 million for refusing to bend the knee.

    Europe is ramping up its war on free speech by targeting X with fines for not submitting itself to censorship regulations demanded by the European Union.

    The EU levied a fine of $140 million against X, the first-ever penalty under Europe’s Digital Services Act. Europe decided that the website’s blue checkmark symbol is misleading, that it won’t give Europe access to data that will help it investigate free speech on the platform, and that it does not have a proper catalog of the ads available on the platform for Europe to examine.

    This has been part of a two-year pressure campaign against X, as Europe does not believe in free speech, and X CEO Elon Musk has reduced the level of censorship on the platform. Europeans can claim that this isn’t about free speech but “transparency” all they want, but the 2023 investigation opened into X was focused on “disinformation” and “illegal content.” Now, Europe wants access to a list of X’s advertisers, wants its “researchers” to have access to the website’s algorithm to scrutinize “algorithmic bias” and “hate speech,” and to alter how the website runs with respect to its blue checkmark system.

    So far Musk is still telling them to get stuffed…

  • Ukraine hit an oil and gas platform in the Caspian Sea, shutting down production on some 20 platforms.
  • Ukraine carried out a big drone strike on a chemical plant in Veliky Novgorod, some 700km from Ukraine.
  • Ukraine hit an Iskander missile component factory in Cheboksary.
  • They hit the Yaroslavl oil refinery with drones.
  • Ukraine drone-stuck the Engels Kristall oil depot, which stores aviation fuel.
  • Ukraine hit a wide variety of interesting targets with FP1 drones, including an Su-24 bomber, an Orion UAV and multiple radars.
  • Doug Ross of Director Blue maps the Democratic Messaging Complex.

    “Note the Soros connection. As Mike Benz has repeatedly highlighted, the co-mingling of Soros and the Blob is real.”

  • Revelations that aren’t even shocking anymore: “Black Lives Matter Director Spent Millions in Donations on Homes, Shopping, Vacations, Indictment Alleges.”

    Oklahoma City Black Lives Matter Executive Director Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson has been charged with 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering after allegedly spending millions in donations on personal indulgences.

    Dickerson took over as the director of Black Lives Matter OKC (BLMOCK) in 2016 and since 2020 has raised more than $5.6 million for what donors believed was a national bail fund. The bail fund was also supplemented by grants through the Community Justice Exchange, Massachusetts Bail Fund, and Minnesota Freedom Fund.

    The indictment alleges that from June 2020 to October 2025, Dickerson used at least $3.15 million in bail fund donations and grant money to supplement her lifestyle. Dickerson allegedly embezzled the funds to pay for personal shopping sprees, $50,000 in food and grocery delivery, trips to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, as well as a personal vehicle and six Oklahoma City properties registered in her name.

    The indictment explains that Dickerson allegedly used interstate wire communications to send false reports to Alliance for Global Justice, a fiscal sponsor to BLMOCK, which only permitted the group to use its funds in ways compliant with its 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Dickerson, however, did not disclose how she was allegedly using the funds for personal gain.

    If convicted, Dickerson faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine per count of wire fraud. For each count of money laundering, she faces ten years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the amount of criminally derived property.

    So was there any #BlackLivesMatter director who wasn’t using donated money as their personal piggy bank?

  • “Scientific Journal Retracts Climate Change Study, Cites ‘Substantial’ Issues.”

    The scientific journal Nature has retracted a paper published in April 2024 that overestimated the economic effects of climate change and influenced central banks worldwide to create risk management scenarios.

    The article predicted a 62% drop in worldwide economic output by 2100 if carbon emissions were to continue without reduction.

    On Wednesday, the three scientists who worked on the study retracted it, citing “substantial” issues with the paper.

    The climate study’s findings were undermined by an article published by a separate team of economists earlier this year in Nature, calling into question problems with the data for Uzbekistan that skewed the climate study’s conclusions.

    According to the New York Post, if the numbers for the Central Asian nation were excluded from the data set, the projected economic decline of 62% would actually be a far less catastrophic 23%.

    The problem is that the faulty numbers, which was nearly 3 times typical estimates, had generated headlines and excitement among policymakers around the world including the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank.

    The study was also used last year, to model the expected impact of climate change by the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).

    The NGFS is a worldwide network of central banks and financial supervisors with more than 150 members across nearly 90 countries.

    Members of the NGFS include the People’s Bank of China, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England – and, until earlier this year, the Federal Reserve.

    The climate study’s authors, Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann and Leonie Wenz of the Potsdam Institute in Germany, reviewed and amended their paper over the summer in light of the discrepancy and the retracted the study after acknowledging that their errors were “too substantial for a correction.”

    “Oopsie! Sorry to make you destroy your economy over nothing!”

  • “Clandestine Campaign To Defund ZeroHedge, The Federalist & Breitbart Traced To Kier Starmer Operation.”

    Very early into the COVID-19 pandemic, ZeroHedge suggested that a little-known Chinese lab in Wuhan might know something about the novel coronavirus sweeping the globe. As a result, and as you know, we were subject to an intense demonetization / deplatforming campaign that included getting kicked off of Twitter, PayPal, Facebook and other platforms, dropped by our advertisers, and targeted by MSM hit pieces which colluded with foreign ‘watchdogs’ to inflict maximum damage.

    These same groups also targeted outlets including The Federalist and Breitbart over various reporting, which suffered similar fates.

    Now, thanks to a new book by investigative journalist Paul Holden that builds on reporting by Matt Taibbi, Paul Thacker and others, we learn that the origin of these campaigns, launched years before the pandemic, was none other than UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s political machine, which began targeting left-wing outlets speaking critically of Starmer such as The Canary, and then went after conservative outlets in America – just in time for the 2020 US election.

    Documents and internal accounts, many drawn from newly disclosed materials, reveal a coordinated project that operated behind a veil of anonymity, misdirection, and unreported political financing.

    This murky operation known as the Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN) was launched and resourced through a think tank, Labour Together, that would later be fined for failing to declare ÂŁ739,000 in donations between 2018 and 2020. Said funds helped underpin this clandestine anti-media strategy which affected news outlets from the UK to the United States.

    At the center of the effort was Morgan McSweeney, a political strategist who has since become Starmer’s chief of staff and, according to public commentary by prominent journalists, one of the most powerful unelected figures in the modern Labour Party.

    You may remember Morgan from his attempts to kill Twitter after Musk took over.

    The newly disclosed materials reveal that SFFN was not in fact some grassroots, anonymous activist collective it claimed to be, but a political weapon forged by senior Labour figures and funded by millionaire donors, including individuals active in pro-Israel political advocacy.

    The goal: destabilize independent media ecosystems aligned with Labour’s left under Jeremy Corbyn, elevate Starmer’s leadership bid, and delegitimize outlets – domestic and foreign – that threatened the faction’s consolidation of power.

    Publicly, SFFN claimed to be run by anonymous activists. Privately, it was shaped by McSweeney and operated from the same small office suite in South London that housed Labour Together.

    SFFN ultimately migrated under the umbrella of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an organization that grew out of a corporate shell once controlled solely by McSweeney.
    British political operative and CCDH head Imran Ahmed

    CCDH would later present SFFN as one of its signature initiatives.
    Three Fronts of a Political Offensive

    The documents reported by Holden reveal a three-part strategy that reshaped the British political landscape – and reverberated into U.S. media and politics. In a nutshell, this is how the sausage was made:

    1. Destabilizing Jeremy Corbyn’s Leadership

      SFFN’s narrative interventions were designed to amplify an “antisemitism crisis” that dogged Corbyn, boosting controversies and legitimizing a media ecosystem hostile to Labour’s left. This influence work aligned directly with the political interests of the centrist faction preparing for a post-Corbyn future.

    2. Engineering Starmer’s Rise

      Labour Together later claimed credit for helping deliver Starmer’s 2020 leadership victory, with McSweeney acting as his campaign chief. After Starmer won the July 2024 general election, McSweeney formally became chief of staff, solidifying the faction’s institutional dominance.

    3. Silencing Dissenting Media

      SFFN’s most aggressive project was an astroturf campaign against media outlets perceived as ideological threats. Targets spanned both the left (such as The Canary and Evolve Politics) and the right, as noted above.

      In each case, the tactic was the same: identify advertisers appearing on targeted sites, publicly shame them through social media threads, and provide tools – including downloadable blocklists – to automatically exclude those outlets from programmatic advertising networks. The effort succeeded in devastating the business model of some targets; others survived but saw sustained pressure.

    Corbyn is a dirty commie fossil who would have been a disaster as PM, but it looks like Starmer is a far nastier piece of work.

  • More UK rape gang coverup: “A former Metropolitan Police officer was accused of being involved in a London paedophile ring while serving with the force, but the case was ‘brushed under the carpet’ and ‘covered up,’ an LBC investigation has discovered.”

    The Met launched a criminal investigation at the time into the allegations made by one of the complainants. She said the officer had abused her multiple times as a child and shared her with other “important men” at a hotel in Park Lane in central London. LBC understands the other men included an MP and a judge.

    The victim also claimed that the officer targeted other “pretty girls” who were in the care system over several years.

    LBC can reveal the officer was allowed to retire as a Custody Sergeant while under investigation. In 2012, officers under criminal investigation could only retire with permission from a senior officer.

    LBC used to be London Broadcasting Company. (Hat tip: Instapundit.”)

  • “U.S. Captures Oil Tanker Off Venezuela Coast.”

    The U.S. seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as it traveled to Cuba.

    “As you probably know, we’ve just seized a tanker on the coasts of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually, and other things are happening, so you’ll be seeing that later, and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people,” President Donald Trump said at the White House.

    President Trump: “As you probably know, we just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large.” pic.twitter.com/I51NenxoIP

    — CSPAN (@cspan) December 10, 2025

    One reporter asked Trump what would happen to all the oil.

    “We keep it, I guess,” responded Trump.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi said the FBI, DHS, and the Coast Guard, with help from the Defense Department, executed the search warrant:

    Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations. This seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely—and our investigation alongside the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil continues.

    Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x

    — Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025

    The U.S. placed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil company years ago.

  • More blue city fraud: “Austin Energy employee allegedly paid $980K to ‘fictitious vendors,’ city auditor says.”

    The Austin City Auditor’s Office released a report Tuesday accusing a local couple, both of whom previously worked for the city, of defrauding the city for approximately $980,000 by sending payments to allegedly fictitious businesses.

    The report focuses on the alleged actions of Mark Ybarra, who worked as a facility service specialist for Austin Energy. He was issued a city credit card by his superiors for the procurement of necessary tools and materials, the audit said.

    According to the report, he used the card to “pay fictitious vendors approximately $980,000 and fraudulently reported these transactions in City records.”

    “The falsified invoices he submitted were ultimately discovered by his management in Austin Energy. Some of the fictitious vendors used contact information like addresses that connected them to relatives of Mark Ybarra, or Mark himself,” reads an email to KXAN from the auditor’s office.

    According to the city auditor’s report, Ybarra allegedly made payments to 22 fictitious businesses using the card. He resigned from his job in October 2023.

    A grand jury indicted Ybarra on Aug. 23. He now faces a felony charge of theft greater than $300,000.

    His wife, former Austin Watershed Protection employee Ambrosia Ybarra, “refused to answer questions” from city auditors. She was indicted on Sept. 15 and charged with felony theft between $150,000 and $300,000. She resigned from her job in November, the report states.

  • “Dozens of Lake Austin properties move to disannex; city to lose nearly $300M value.” Funny how things like that happen when you can’t provide services…
  • Paramount looks at the proposed Netflix-Warner Brothers merger and says “not so fast.”

    Paramount Skydance has made another offer to buy Warner Bros Discovery as it seeks to trump a rival plan from Netflix to buy the company’s studio and streaming networks.

    Paramount, which is backed by the billionaire Ellison family, said it was making a direct offer to shareholders of $30 (ÂŁ22.50) per share to scoop up the whole of Warner Bros, including its traditional television networks.

    It said its proposal was a “superior alternative” to Netflix’s, delivering more cash upfront to shareholders and greater prospect of approval by regulators.

    I don’t think either of them have the best interests of movie viewers at heart…

  • Speaking of Netflix, remember Carl Rinsch, the director hired to produce a science fiction TV show who instead took the money and plowed it into cryptocurrency? Guilty on all counts.
  • Oregon archeological dig pushes back date of earliest human arrival in North America, possibly to 20,000 years ago.
  • Pyroclastic flow is scary.
  • “Hundreds of Porsches in Russia were rendered immobile last week, raising speculation of a hack, but the German carmaker tells The Register that its vehicles are secure. According to reports, local dealership chain Rolf traced the problem to a loss of satellite connectivity to their Vehicle Tracking Systems (VTS). This meant the systems thought a theft attempt was in progress, triggering the vehicle’s engine immobilizer. Porsche HQ was unable to help or diagnose the nature of the problem.”

  • Draw Mohammed winner Bosch Fawstin write to say that Patreon has frozen his account and gives different answers as to why. If anyone has a good contact there you might drop him a line. He also put up a PayPal link for donations.
  • Scottish comedian and actor Stanley Baxter, who also served the British Army in Burma during World War II, has died at age 99. (Previously.)
  • Fatboy Slim teams up with the Rolling Stones.
  • “US Military Persuades Entire Venezuelan Army To Surrender By Offering Them Some Food.”
  • “Junior Cartel Member Excited To Already Be Getting To Drive Boat.”
  • “Nigerian Prince Scammed By Somali Immigrant.”
  • “Fans Worry Sale Of WB To Netflix Could Turn Comic Book Movies Into Soulless Cash Grabs.”

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





    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Media Watch, Military, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Uncategorized, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »

    Don’t Expect Jasmine Crockett To Waltz To The Texas Senate Nomination

    Wednesday, December 10th, 2025

    The Democratic side of the 2026 Texas Senate got a shake-up just five hours before the filing deadline, when U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett filed for the race right after Colin Allred dropped out.

    Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX-30) has made official her long-awaited run for U.S. Senate — entering the mix with several other high-profile Republican and Democratic challengers to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), about five hours before the filing deadline.

    Her filing on Monday afternoon followed several campaign shifts as the filing deadline on Monday night approached, including former Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX-32), who dropped his bid for U.S. Senate despite having been last year’s nominee for the same position the morning prior to Crockett’s campaign launch.

    You may remember Allred from such hits as “I lost to Ted Cruz by over 900,000 votes“; which, being only 8.5% of the vote, was actually quite respectable by post-Betomania standards.

    Crockett is a regular in national news headlines, often highlighted for sparring with other similarly-robust GOP members and for her unfiltered rhetoric typically targeted at the Republican Party’s leadership.

    She flirted with a potential run for the U.S. Senate as various candidates jumped into the race, including Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38), and Democratic candidates Allred and state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin). Crockett indicated on numerous occasions that she’d only consider jumping into the ring for U.S. Senate if she was shown general election polling that proved she has a path to victory, and teased the possibility on various media hits leading up to Monday night.

    I suspect that people outside of the state haven’t heard of Talarico, who fills the Beto O’Rourke mold as a white guy with a vaguely Hispanic name. But he’s clearly the anointed choice of Texas Democratic Party insiders, to the point that he has been out-fundraising Allred (the man who raised over $94 million in his futile attempt to oust Ted Cruz last year) by more than $1 million, which was probably a contributing factor in Allred dropping out.

    Among the polls in the field measuring Crockett’s potential success in the race was one released in early October, conducted by both the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. It found that in a four-way primary matchup between Crockett, Talarico, O’Rourke, and the now-null Allred, Crockett led the Democratic field with 31 percent, with Talarico and O’Rourke tied behind her.

    It also showed her as a viable general election candidate when placed against Republicans Cornyn, Paxton, and Hunt — ranging from a six-point deficit to as low as a two-point deficit when placed in a hypothetical November 2026 general election against each of the three. Her best shot at winning the general appeared to be against Paxton, who held only a two-percent lead against her. Hunt led against her at five percent, while Cornyn proved to be the most difficult at six percent.

    Usual poll caveats this far out apply.

    Per reporting from CNN over the weekend, Allred, Talarico, Beto O’Rourke, and Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX-20) conducted a meeting to plan a statewide slate of Democratic candidates — to which Crockett was not invited — but it yielded no concrete plan and concluded with no set U.S. Senate candidate.

    Does rather suggest that Crockett is on the outside looking in, doesn’t it?

    The reactions to Crockett filing were interesting.

    The reaction from inside the Democratic tent was twofold. First came cheers about her stardom and visions of her being the one to flip the seat. Second came frustration about her high negatives and potential to crash and burn on the general election ballot in an R-58% state, per The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index.

    Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, reactions to her candidacy only took one form: elation.

    Republicans now have their foil in Texas, serving much the same purpose as Zohran Mamdani does nationwide going into next year. The National Republican Congressional Committee instantly put out messaging hitting border Congressman Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-34) as Crockett’s “best friend.”

    The Crockett-Talarico winner will face either U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Attorney General Ken Paxton, or Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38), who are currently bloodying each other up over in the GOP primary.

    Republicans in Texas — who are staring down the barrel of a very difficult midterm cycle — would be overjoyed for Crockett to be the Democratic name at the top of the ticket in November.

    Indeed.

    Someone who believes that 80% of crime comes from white supremacists suggests a candidate way out of touch with the Texas electorate, and a hothouse flower more suited to the confines of her overwelmingly Democratic black majority south Dallas district than someone suited to run statewide.

    The Texas Democrat political establishment fears a wipeout of down-ballot candidates if they nominate a “terminally online” lefty candidate like Crockett at the top of the ticket. Long before she jumped into the race, they had already picked Talarico as their designated candidate. A Texas state rep who’s checklist positions aren’t a world away from Crockett’s, he still presents quite a different cultural profile as a “Presbyterian seminarian.” The “Christian nationalists” he rails against may be as thin on the ground as Crockett’s white supremacists, but someone who actually speaks the language of Christian belief is quite a different profile than the social justice warriors the national party has been lionizing.

    Can he win in November? Barring a Great Depression-level economic crisis, no. Neither can Crockett. It’s simply a matter of protecting down ballot races, as Crockett is so far to the left of the Texas electorate that she might face a Wendy Davis style wipeout against whichever Republican captures the nomination.

    Crockett’s has also jumped into the race very, very late. When O’Rourke ran against Ted Cruz, he jumped into the race April of the year before, not December. It will be very hard to build out a statewide campaign organization in a mere three and half months. It will also be hard to hire the best staffers, as the vast majority will already have signed on with other candidates in other races. And it’s likely most of the big in-state Democrat money was already betting on Talarico, and that seems unlikely to change.

    She may be able to tap out-of-state lefty donors. But, then again, they may be tired of sending their money to Texas to die without noticeable effect. Also, unlike O’Rourke, there’s not enough time to write a million fawning magazine profiles of her, assuming half the magazines that fluffed O’Rourke are even still publishing.

    Also, say what you want about O’Rourke, he did the work, “campaigning hard all across the state with a grueling personal appearance schedule that rivaled similar hard work put in by Cruz in his winning 2012 race. He also built out a competent campaign infrastructure and a national fund-raising apparatus to channel in the huge sums of cash national Democrats were throwing into the race.” I have my doubts that Crockett will prove overly capable in either of these areas.

    I’ve long assumed that Talarico was the state Democratic Party’s favored` candidate based on the highly unscientific but usually accurate metric that a few yard signs had popped up in my neighborhood for him and no one else. Thus far, I see no reason Crockett’s entry into the race should change that assumption.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Obama DEA Official Supervising Anti-Cartel Money Laundering Operations Indicted For Cartel Money Laundering

    Saturday, December 6th, 2025

    The Obama wasn’t exactly staffed geniuses, as shown by appointing this fox to run the money-laundering hen house.

    A former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official appointed as deputy chief of the Office of Financial Operations during the Obama administration – and who still holds a security clearance – was indicted on Friday on charges of agreeing to launder $12 million for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) – which was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization in February of this year.

    At this point, every Obama or Biden alum that still has any sort of security clearance needs to be reviewed. Hell, maybe the Trump Administration just needs to yank them all and only restore them on a case-by-case basis.

    Paul Campo, who oversaw the FBI’s money laundering operations and resigned in January 2016 ahead of Trump’s inauguration, laundered around $750,000 for the cartel by converting cash into cryptocurrency, and agreed to launder far more – totaling over $12 million, according to the indictment.

    “I refuse to work for Trump! But I will work for a Mexican drug cartel!”

    Campo’s home was raided by federal agents on Thursday.

    Campo also provided a payment for around 220 kilos of cocaine on the understanding that the drugs had been imported into the USA, the indictment further states.

    He was able to do this after spending 25 years at the DEA, rising to a high-level position which he used to sell himself to CJNG as someone who could;

  • give inside information on DEA operations
  • help them move drug money
  • help them avoid detection
  • and even advise on narcotics logistics

    • 25 years in the trade and the first narco he approaches turns out to be a narc? That’s some mighty fine work, Lou.

    Then again, maybe not. Maybe he was already working for other cartels. Or had merely approached them only to have them think he was too dim to trust.

    Hank Schrader had more situational awareness than this guy.

    In late 2024, Campo, along with a friend Robert Sensi, began conspiring with an undercover government source they believed was with the cartel. They allegedly discussed using drones packed with C-4 explosives for CJNG operation. When the undercover agent asked what they could do with the drones, Campo allegedly said “We put explosives and we just send it over there,” adding that six kilos of C-4 would be enough to blow up “the whole fucking…” [sentence trails off]

    I’m starting to get a serious whiff of Walter Mitty here.

    Campo also allegedly told the undercover source that, because of his past work inside DEA’s intelligence and financial units, he still had “connections” within the agency and could advise CJNG on how to evade detection. According to the indictment, he portrayed himself as someone who understood DEA investigative patterns, internal targeting systems, and the vulnerabilities of U.S. financial controls.

    Both Campo and Sensi allegedly assured the undercover officer that they could convert cartel cash into cryptocurrency in a way that would appear legitimate, billing themselves as specialists capable of “getting money back” for clients whose assets had been seized by law enforcement.

    A series of staged transactions followed

    Beginning in early 2025, the DEA source delivered multiple bulk-cash installments to the defendants under the guise of CJNG proceeds—first $200,000 in Charlotte, North Carolina, then additional transfers totaling more than $187,000 over the following days. Campo and Sensi allegedly converted the funds into cryptocurrency and reassured the source that they would charge an 8% commission for future laundering.

    According to prosecutors, the two men also repeatedly affirmed that they were prepared to launder significantly larger sums. During one meeting, Campo allegedly said he and Sensi could easily move “millions” for the cartel through real-estate transactions, prepaid cards, and crypto channels that would not be flagged by U.S. financial institutions.

    By July 2025, the indictment states, the undercover source delivered an additional $276,000 that the defendants believed to be CJNG drug proceeds. A second cash drop occurred in September. Each time, prosecutors say, Campo pitched the source on expanding their partnership into a long-term laundering pipeline.

    The most damning allegation involves narcotics trafficking.

    In October 2025, the DEA source told Campo and Sensi that a shipment of more than 220 kilograms of cocaine had already entered the United States and required payment. Campo and Sensi allegedly agreed to help facilitate the transaction, with Campo telling the source that once the funds were converted and returned, CJNG would “release the shipment” and continue to work with them.

    The indictment asserts that Campo, Sensi, and their co-conspirators were to receive 30% of the proceeds – roughly $1.5 million – for their role in the cocaine deal, and an additional fee for converting the remainder into cryptocurrency. Campo then allegedly urged the undercover source to “move the product now,” signaling they were ready to operationalize the narcotics pipeline.

    A guy who specializes in money laundering should be able to get a job at any of thousands of banks. Yet his need for money was evidently so great that he tried to sell himself to the cartels.

    Obama wasn’t exactly staffing his agencies with the best and brightest…

    Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Democrats | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for December 5, 2025

    Friday, December 5th, 2025

    Following hot on the heels of Thanksgiving travel and the final push to put out a new Lame Excuse Books catalog next week, this is going to be a somewhat briefer LinkSwarm.

    This week: The Supreme Court greenlights the Texas redistricting map, a whole lot of support behind Trump Accounts, more Tim Walz corruption in Minnesota, the January 6 pipeline bomber turns out to be a black anti-Trump radical, more Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on Russian infrastructure, another pedo teacher exposed, Netflix buys Warner Brothers, and a tsunami of horrifying sequels barrels towards movie screens. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Texas’ Redistricting Map Left Intact by U.S. Supreme Court, Permanently Halting Lower Court Ruling.”

    Texas’ newly redistricted congressional map will remain in effect for the 2026 primary after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday approved a stay of a lower court panel’s ruling against the new lines.

    The State of Texas had applied for a stay of that ruling by the El Paso-based federal judicial panel that came down last month, which declared that legislators illegally considered racial factors in the redraw. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) then appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing many of the fiery arguments made by the panel’s lone dissenter, Judge Jerry Smith.

    Before Thanksgiving, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay of the ruling, pending further consideration by the full court.

    Now that stay has been made permanent, pending a full appeal later on, in a 6 to 3 ruling by the court along ideological lines. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch penned a concurring opinion.

    “First, the dissent does not dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” the trio wrote.

    “Thus, when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. Id., at 34; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 234, 258 (2001). Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.”

    They concluded, “Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.”

    Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

    On to 2026.

  • “Billions Spent By One-Party-Rule Maryland Democrats With Little Oversight.”

    The one-party rule of ‘Democratic Kings’ in Maryland continues to reveal an optically displeasing truth about these leftist activists masquerading as competent politicians, who are anything but, and their epic mismanagement of state finances has only occurred because of limited oversight into their radical agendas.

    Fox Baltimore reports that a state legislative audit uncovered major concerns about the oversight of billions of dollars spent by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and his rudderless leftist allies in Annapolis, who champion everything from failed climate-crisis policies to wokeism to gender identity agendas to social justice and criminal justice reforms, as well as protecting illegal aliens (new voter base) – this is anything but ‘Maryland First’…

    “Most recently, a state audit revealed 42 state offices spent a total of $8.5 billion last year with minimal oversight. That audit came on the heels of a State Highway Administration audit detailing $360 million in unauthorized spending for federal projects, and a separate Social Services Administration audit revealing a lack of protections for foster care children in Maryland,” Fox Baltimore wrote in a report.

    Taxpayers Protection Alliance president David Williams told Fox Baltimore journalist Jeff Abell, “It’s a problem that almost $9 billion is going to these entities and we just don’t know where the money is going.”

    Williams expressed serious concerns over the findings, pointing out, “This is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. We know the checks have gone out but there are no balances to be sure the money is being spent wisely.”

    He called for increased oversight, saying, “If you’re receiving taxpayer money, there has to be full accountability, and this is billions of dollars we’re talking about.”

    The lack of oversight in Maryland comes as no surprise, given that the state suffers from a disastrous one-party rule of far-left Democrats who care more about upholding the globalist framework of climate-crisis and illegal alien policies.

    Moore’s photo next to dark-money-funded NGO emperor Alex Soros makes it all the more clear why he and Maryland Democrats operate with a globalist framework in the first place.

    The result of one-party rule has been a ballooning deficit, soaring taxes, a credit rating downgrade, and a continued large-scale exodus of residents fleeing to red states as Maryland quickly loses its charm and is on track to transform into the next “Illinois 2.0.” On top of the financial failures, power grid mismanagement has collided with surging data center demand, sending power bills through the roof.

    It’s not a mystery where it went. It disappeared into the pockets of radical leftwing activists and NGOs.

  • Ted Cruz and Cory Booker want to help create Trump Accounts.

    An unlikely bipartisan Senate duo is spearheading a push for employers to donate to the new “Trump accounts” created under the GOP’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation package last summer.

    Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., teamed up on a letter sent to Fortune 1000 CEOs on Monday encouraging their companies to contribute to the new investment accounts created for young children. Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged a $6.25 billion donation to the accounts Tuesday that earned them a White House appearance with President Donald Trump.

    The savings accounts, which are funded with after-tax contributions, were dubbed “Trump accounts” under the budget reconciliation law. The government will contribute $1,000 to the accounts for babies born this year through the end of Trump’s term.

    The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the provision would cost $15 billion over 10 years. The Dell donation would expand the program to reach children who wouldn’t qualify for the federal contribution.

    “These tax-advantaged accounts ensure that every American child is an immediate shareholder in America’s largest companies and will experience the miracle of compound growth through their lifetime,” Cruz and Booker wrote in their letter seeking corporate contributions.

  • Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick “Backs Trump’s Baby Investment Plan, Wants To Double It in Texas. Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth.”

    Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Texas should create its own version of President Donald Trump’s new child investment accounts, announcing that the state should provide every Texas newborn with an additional $1,000 in publicly funded, long-term savings beginning in 2027.

    The initiative mirrors and expands upon the federal Trump Accounts program created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which seeds every American newborn’s account with $1,000 that cannot be accessed until adulthood and grows through investment in a broad U.S. stock-market index. The accounts are intended to accumulate wealth from birth and teach families and children long-term financial planning.

    In a post on X, Patrick said he “loves” Trump’s idea to invest $1,000 at birth that “cannot be spent until age 18 and must be used for education or other qualifying expenses,” and he applauded Texans Michael and Susan Dell for contributing $6.25 billion to help launch the federal program.

    “If I see a great idea from the President that helps Texans, my first question is always, ‘why not do it in Texas, too?’” wrote Patrick.

    He noted that about 400,000 babies are born each year in Texas and said that one of his top priorities for the 2027 legislative session will be passing what he calls the “New Little Texan Savings Fund.” Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth, invested in the S&P 500 in alignment with the federal program. Combined with Trump Accounts, Patrick says Texas children would receive a total of $2,000 in initial investment capital, not including voluntary family contributions.

  • “Sec. of Transportation Warns Gov. Walz To Revoke Illegal Driver’s Licenses or Lose Funding.”

    U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he’ll withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota, after a review found nearly one-third of driver’s licenses in the state were issued illegally.

    In a letter on Monday, Duffy warned Minnesota officials that more than $30 million in federal highway funds may be withheld unless the state revokes any commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) that should not have been issued and addresses deficiencies in the state’s commercial driver’s license program.

    According to KTSP TV, Secretary Duffy alleged that one-third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) were issued illegally.

    Minnesota will have 30 days to revoke the illegally-issued licenses or face the loss of funding.

    Secretary Duffy noted that, “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens — endangering American families on the road. That abuse stops now under the Trump Administration.”

    “The Department will withhold funding if Minnesota continues this reckless behavior that puts non-citizens gaming the system ahead of the safety of Americans,” Duffy added.

  • “Minnesota DHS Employees Accuse Governor Tim Walz of Ignoring Fraud Warnings.”

    Over 400 employees of the Minnesota Department of Human Services are accusing Governor Tim Walz (D) of failing to act on warnings of widespread fraud and of retaliating against whistleblowers.

    The accusations come as federal probes are examining the theft of more than a billion dollars from programs like child nutrition, Medicaid, and housing aid and as federal prosecutors announced charges against a 78th defendant in the theft of $250 million from Feeding Our Future child nutrition program.

    In a post on X, the Minnesota DHS group called out Walz for ignoring what the group called “a pattern of ignored warnings, threats to whistleblowers, and unqualified appointees prioritizing image over fixes.”

    In their post, the Minnesota DHS group explains that, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t a political group but have been continually disappointed in the lack of response they’ve received as well as the governor’s response to those who have pointed out the fraud.

    “We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the group wrote.

    In addition to retaliating against whistleblowers, the group claims, “Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.”

    Snip.

    In their post on X, the group states that Walz is “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota” and calls for taking the next step of bringing in “external auditors and new leadership.”

  • January 6 pipe bomber suspect identified as Brian J. Cole Jr., 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia.” Spoiler: He’s not a right-wing white guy:

    To quote Instapundit: “WEIRD THAT THE FBI COULDN’T FIND THIS GUY WHOSE EXISTENCE WAS A FATAL BLOW TO THE NARRATIVE.”

  • President Trump just struck down Obama-era CAFE rules to make trucks great again.
  • Ukraine drone struck FSB headquarters in Chechnya and Livny oil depot in Oryol. The simmering resentment of Russia in Chechnya never went away, so killing a whole bunch of FSB goons isn’t going to help Russia keep a lid on the place.
  • Ukrainian missiles hit the Temryuk gas terminal in Krasnodar, just the other side of the Kerch Strait Bridge.
  • Ukraine also used marine drones to set two tankers ablaze on the Black Sea.
  • But Russia may have staged an attack on another on their own black sea tanker in order to gaslight Turkey into sanctioning Ukraine.
  • A Russian tanker is evidently listing near Senegal.
  • “Russia’s central bank forced to sell gold reserves to cover budget, support ruble.”
  • “Reports say that four military-type quadcopter drones buzzed the flightpath of President Zelensky’s aircraft as it arrived at Dublin Airport on Monday and then went to buzz an Irish Navy ship. This is likely Russian drones and suggests an intelligence leak.” They also buzzed an Irish naval ship, which did jack squat about them because “the ship didn’t have air radar capabilities,” which suggests that either the ship was really small, or the Irish Navy is absolutely useless in a real shooting war. (They also say that the ship was only armed with machine guns, when they’re also supposed to carry 20mm Rheinmetall autocannons.)
  • “Caleb Elliott was initially arrested on October 3 and is currently in custody on charges of recording and photographing students nude in the locker room at Moore Middle School. The victim count is currently around 40 students. There have been allegations that Elliott was transferred to Moore Middle School following inappropriate behavior at a previous school, had a relationship with a student, and placed cameras inside of the locker room.”

  • “2025: The Year Late-Night TV Collapsed.”

    As Hollywood continues to contract on several fronts, late-night shows are not as sustainable as in the past.

    Colbert found that out the hard way in July. CBS announced Colbert’s “Late Show” gig will end in May of 2026. Even more dramatic? No one is slated to replace him. “The Late Show” will end as Colbert signs off.

    The shocking part? Reports said the show was costing CBS roughly $40 million a year. Why would any business take that kind of a fiscal drubbing in the first place?

    That came on the heels of “The Tonight Show” shrinking from five nights a week to four, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” losing his house band and several late-nighters losing their gigs.

    Period.

    Think Samantha Bee, Desus & Mero, Trevor Noah, James Corden and Amber Ruffin.

    That, plus news that late-night TV revenues have plunged in recent years (along with their audiences), suggested Jimmy Kimmel’s prediction might come true faster than he anticipated.

    Late-night TV has much less than 10 years left. This year proved it.

    Kimmel nearly took his own show down. The far-Left host suggested Charlie Kirk’s killer was part of the MAGA movement without evidence or a shred of logic.

    ABC/Disney sent him the bench for a week before he returned sans apology. He cried, again, but not for misleading viewers.

    The Hollywood Left and the media rallied on Kimmel’s behalf, and he returned to the show to spread more misinformation.

    Meanwhile, Fox News’ “Gutfeld” continued to out perform the competition on a smaller budget (and, admittedly, an earlier time schedule). That proves there’s a market for a right-leaning audiences ignored, or insulted, by the current late-night landscape.

    The future doesn’t look bright for the late-night survivors. Kimmel’s contract ends in May, but he’ll likely sign a new deal before then. ABC proved it couldn’t force Kimmel to apologize for spewing misinformation, and Hollywood would rise up, en masse, anew if ABC/Disney let Kimmel walk.

    Does it matter if “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” might be losing money a la Colbert? It’s clear money isn’t the deciding factor anymore given what CBS endured for far too long.

    It doesn’t ultimately matter. The late-night talkers showed their cards in 2025. They’re all parts of the DNC at this point, sometimes literally.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Netflix is buying Warner Brothers for $87 billion. To quote the press release:

    This acquisition brings together two pioneering entertainment businesses, combining Netflix’s innovation, global reach and best-in-class streaming service with Warner Bros.’ century-long legacy of world-class storytelling. Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wizard of Oz and the DC Universe will join Netflix’s extensive portfolio including Wednesday, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Adolescence and Extraction, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide.

    “Our mission has always been to entertain the world,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “By combining Warner Bros.’ incredible library of shows and movies—from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends—with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.”

    I’m sure the Bugs Bunney-KPop Demon Hunters crossover will be lit…

  • President Trump signed bill increasing “the special Medal of Honor pension from $1,406.73 per month to $8,333.33 per month.”
  • Ontario Premier Doug Ford loaned Algoma Steel $100M right before they laid off 1,000 workers.
  • Someone alert Louis Rossmann: “Automatic License Plate Reader Company Flock Operating in Texas with Expired License. The private company’s Texas license expired in September.”

    A company that provides a controversial surveillance technology to both private and public entities throughout Texas was found to have been operating under an expired state license, amid state and federal lawmakers calling for greater scrutiny of the company over privacy and security concerns.

    Flock Safety, Inc. installs automatic license plate readers (ALPR) that capture the license plate number and location of each vehicle that passes by. Police can then compare the data in relation to stolen vehicles, missing persons, or other crimes, and law enforcement has successfully used the technology to solve cases.

    Flock’s high-resolution cameras create a detailed file that includes other markers on each vehicle, including bumper stickers. The company’s cloud-based system also connects with ALPR data from jurisdictions across the nation in real time, allowing users to map vehicle movement.

    After receiving complaints last year that Flock had been installing and operating ALPR cameras on private properties without a license since 2021, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) sent the company a cease and desist order in September 2024. Despite documented violations, DPS granted Flock a license for private operations, but that license expired on September 30, 2025.

    (Previously.)

  • More AI vulnerabilities to worry about. “Researchers at Icaro Lab, a collaboration between Sapienza University in Rome and the DexAI think tank, have discovered that AI models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic can leak illicit content across various subjects when instructions are given in poetic form. The illegal content ranges from making nuclear weapons, creating child exploitation material, and developing malware.”

    Shall I compare thee to a Teller-Ulam Implosion Core?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate

  • “President Donald Trump pardons Moody Center developer accused of rigging contract bidding process. Former Oak View Group CEO Timothy Leiweke was pardoned several months after he was indicted by the U.S. Justice Department.” (Previously.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Dark, dark historical look at how the Japanese Imperial Navy ruthlessly executed Christian missionaries and nuns and dumped their bodies at sea, including many from their allies the Germans.
  • Give in to the dark side…and buy one of James Earl Jones’s guns.
  • Critical Drinker tours Estonia. Consider this your periodic reminder that communism sucks and that just about everything they build looks soul-crushingly ugly.
  • Speaking of the Drinker, he also covers the production hell that was Cats.
  • Science, not settled. A whole lot of cracks in what was thought to be settled cosmology have recently appeared, and the uncertainty may result in a revolution in our understanding of the universe, but no one knows what it is yet.
  • Volcano Tornado.
  • Architect Frank Gehry dead at 96. Never cared for his work, so this is just an excuse to haul out this classic Onion bit from back when they were funny: “Frank Gehry No Longer Allowed To Make Sandwiches For Grandkids.”

  • Adam Savage geeks out over Paramount archive storage, including a ton of weird dead media formats.
  • Consumer news you can use: “How Much it REALLY Costs to Own a Bugatti.”
  • The Honest Trailer for Kill Bill Parts 1 and 2.
  • Red Letter Media has a terrifying look at all the sequels, prequels and expanded universe movies coming down the pike. The frightening thing is that some are fake, but I’m not sure any are actually off the table for Hollywood. Honestly, I think I could write Bag of Sugar: The Movie. See, first we change the name to Too Sweet. An evil corporate executive wants to destroy the magic bag of sugar that’s been in the family-owned sugar business for generations…
  • Beard Meats Food samples the fare at Jeremy Clarkson’s The Farmer’s Dog pub.
  • A Kickstarter for a phone case that’s intentionally heavy and annoying.
  • “Black Hawk Down Remake To Be Filmed In Minneapolis.”
  • “Catholics And Orthodox Finally Unite To Denounce Wham’s ‘Last Christmas.'”
  • Life with big dogs:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • If you want to receive a copy of my latest book catalog, drop me a line.

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





    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »