Archive for the ‘Republicans’ Category

« Older Entries

Remembering Andrew Wimsatt: “The Coolest Dude Ever”

Sunday, September 13th, 2026

When I originally posted about the random senseless murder of my friend Andrew Wimsatt, I did so out of a sense of obligation. He was a close friend, and I’m a writer with a blog, so if I wasn’t going to write about him, who would?

But I’ve been stunned by how quickly the story blew up. Andrew’s murder has become national or even international news, from Fox News to the New York Post to even The Daily Mail in the UK.

Given that explosion of publicity, and Andrew’s family’s dismay over so many articles dwelling on the murder rather than the man, I felt the need to do another, longer post celebrating Andrew’s life and re-post some of the many tributes to him. He was a man of many parts, in the best possible sense.

The good thing, the heat-warming silver-lining in a very dark cloud thing, is the legions of people who knew Andrew coming from all walks of life, all different enthusiasms, to share what a great guy he was. Here’s one tribute:

I suspect being described as “the coolest dude ever” would have come as a great surprise to Andrew. As an engineer, Andrew was a geeky, goofy, affable, genial guy, and, with the sole exception of playing guitar, had none of the attributes the media use to label someone as “cool.” Our nickname for him (I think bestowed long before we met him) was “Goober,” or simply “The Goob.” And yet in a deeper, more meaningful way, he was a cool guy: A sturdy presence always looking to help out his friends, try new restaurants, listen to new bands. He was a quiet pillar of strength holding up part of the world, a vital cohort in numerous little platoons, each blithely unaware of how much he meant to others.

I knew Andrew for over 35 years, so long ago that my initial meeting with him is lost in the dim mists of time. For the last 30 of those years, he was a member of the Saturday Dining Conspiracy, a loose affiliation of myself, Dwight Brown, and a rotating cast of friends and family who go out to a different restaurant for dinner every week, everything from hot dog and taco places to high end steak joints. Andrew was one of our core members, and BBQ and sushi seemed among his particular favorites. So I’ve seen Andrew most Saturdays for three decades. We probably demolished 100 plates of nachos between us.

And it wasn’t just for food! A quarter century or so ago, we started watching movies every night after dinner, with Andrew usually joining us for that as well. We’ve watched everything from All That Jazz to Suspira to Zulu to any number of Godzilla films. (We have eclectic tastes.) After I bought my house in 2004, it became the de facto movie viewing venue, despite not then having a large TV. Andrew had a video protector he used for teaching classes, and for the first year or two, we projected movies up on a white sheet.

Andrew wasn’t just friends to us, he was a friend to my dogs as well. He would race my Great Pyrenees Buddy up and down the stairs (“Go up! Go up! Go up!”) to burn off some of his energy, and my Lab/Pit mix Avery frequently found her way under the upraised legrest of the battered brown Lay-Z-Boy Andrew always sat in.

One thing missing from all the praise flowing in over Andrew is the dark sense of humor he shared with most of our group. When it came time to divvy up the dining bill, Andrew would often joke “In the end, we will all pay.” He was a fan of The Simpsons back when it was good (which, I know, really narrows it down to “every single person in my generation”), and especially liked the 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode where Bill Clinton and Bob Dole are replaced by space aliens, often quoting the line “It doesn’t matter which one of us you vote for, either way your planet is doomed! DOOMED!”

And he loved a good Hitler joke. “You know who else loved to paint?” And after Dolly Parton died, he showed us an AI generated picture of famous singers (Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, Elvis, etc.) welcoming her into heaven, only some wag had swapped out Elvis for Hitler. We laughed.

We grew up in the 1980s. Dark humor is just how we roll.

Long before I knew him, Andrew was a big music fan, and had collaborated with Karl Rehn on various musical projects in high school and college. We shared interests in Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Yes, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass and Slowdive, among many others. But Andrew’s tastes ran far afield and quite eclectic, championing such odd or obscure bands as Mr. Bungle, Tilts, Tobacco, Torche, and probably dozens I never even knew about. He was a regular attendee of Psych Fest and Levitation, the latter (which Andrew had tickets to attend) being this weekend.

He got into world music before I did, especially artists on Gabriel’s Realworld label. He was such a fan that he flew to England to work as a volunteer on the WOMAD festival. He picked up Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, all 300+ pounds of him, at an airport in a compact car, which must have been a sight to see. He complained to festival management about some of the ways he thought the artists were being treated, and received a snide, condescending letter for his troubles saying that he was being “disingenuous” and had a “hidden agenda.”

That inspired Andrew and Karl to form the band Hidden Agenda (now variously known as Hidden Agenda (of Evil) or Hidden Agenda (TX), depending on the music service, due to multiple other bands with the same name), which I would later join for (some) lyrics and vocals. The whole point of the band was to annoy people. We did a song called “Kill Yourself for Satan” and put Christian back-masking in, just so we could piss off everyone. See the FAQ (and ignore the security warning) for more details of what tremendous smartasses we were in our 20s. More recently Andrew had been playing with transforming Hidden Agenda songs into even more mutated forms via AI tools like Suno.

Apart from his myriad interests, Andrew spent his working life as a civil engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation and associated institutes. He seemed particularly proud of the Mobile Load Simulator, a giant machine he worked on to help test pavement to destruction. He was also a certified bridge inspector, and used to joke about closing bridges, setting them on fire, and then reopening them to see cars race through the flames. Here’s a video of Andrew giving a lecture on pavement fatigue.

Since so many in our group read science fiction, and Andrew came from a literary academic family, it was natural that we got him reading SF as well, and he subscribed to Nova Express, the SF critical fanzine I used to edit. He became a big fan of Howard Waldrop, another close friend of mine. I sold Andrew several of Howard’s books (among others) over the years.

Karl got Andrew into guns and shooting. He would go out on our group’s occasional trips to the range, see our various guns, and go “Ooo, I want that!” He eventually acquired quite a collection. We all greatly admired his ridiculously powerful (and loud) Desert Eagle.

Andrew had been following Iowahawk on Twitter for a while, and we went to a meetup when he moved to Austin. Andrew joined his orbit as a car enthusiast, frequently attending the Hot Rod Meetups at Top Notch Hamburgers, and other classic car events. Here’s a tribute from Iowahawk:

I won’t belabor the terrible circumstances of his death, which have been discussed in depth online recently. I am as angry and upset about his murder as anyone, but my car ID threads are designed as a sanctuary from the woes of the contemporary world. I would rather spare that anger for a different forum and choose here to focus on Andrew Wimsatt, the human being. He was a relentlessly cheerful and positive soul, I hope you will respect his spirit in your replies.

I think our mutual friend @AnnaZ perfectly summed up Andrew as “everybody’s biggest fan.” His various fandoms include countless bands, visual artists, podcasters, @wethefifth, @reason, @uaustinorg, and @TheFIREorg. And I am humbled that one of his fandoms was Dave’s Car ID Service.

You may have noticed from reading the various tributes to him over the past few days his adjectives: kind, generous, warm, positive, never had an unkind word about anyone. All true. But he seldom spoke about himself, despite having a very distinguished career as a civil engineer in road materials research. He was far more interested in talking about you, with zero expectation of anything in return. He was the least transactional person in a hyper-transactional world.

If you were lucky enough to have Andrew as a fan he was generous with his time and support, and in my case, that support included loads of his old family photos with mystery cars.

I can’t fully repay my debt to him for that. But I’d like to dedicate this episode of Dave’s Car ID Service to him, and use those photos to illustrate the life a genuine mensch.

“Least transactional person” seems right. I know if I were friends with important media personalities, the urge to blurt out “Put me on! Put me on! I’m smart and funny and well-spoken and ever so cleeeever!” would be overwhelming.

Andrew was firmly on the conservative-to-libertarian spectrum. He was a fan of this blog (and my Twitter account, before the ancien regime suspended it (which I never managed to get lifted)). I hold small election night gatherings at my house every two years where we eat pizza and watch returns roll in, and Andrew was a regular attendee. He was here in 2020, where we called it a night just before 3 AM, convinced President Trump had been reelected only to wake up to those mysterious 4:30 AM ballot drops.

He was a big fan of Gutfeld! and The Five. Such a fan that he started working behind the scenes compiling music and clips for them. Greg Gutfeld offered up a tribute to him on The Five:

More:

He was also a big fan of the libertarian We the Fifth podcast, and Matt Walsh put up this tribute.

We come here to remember and celebrate and express gratitude toward our friend Andrew, whose name will be etched permanently on our under-construction sixth floor recording studio, probably within the area where Never Fly Coachers will be invited to watch us podcast live. Busty, after all, probably witnessed us recording more than any other fan—coming to all the live shows except one, raising his hand on every damned Second Sunday, pouring drinks around the (very!) Stupid Table for Special Dispatch #34, post-gaming an episode or three back when we recorded at the DIY Paloma Media studio.

Andrew first buzzed across my radar in December 2013 when, over the course of a few days, three things happened for the first time: 1) The Independents television show, starring MTV’s Kennedy, Kmele, and myself, debuted on the Fox Business Network; 2) Wimsatt started following me on Twitter, and 3) he gave a four-figure donation to the Reason Foundation during our annual Webathon. It makes sense that these were related: Andrew l-o-v-e-d music, he adored the anarchic energy of Fox’s legendary late-nite show Red Eye (his pinned tweet for the past decade has been a celebration/compilation of Greg Gutfeld’s chosen outro music on The Five), and he was long attracted to the no-nonsense, structural-engineering ethos of Reason Foundation transportation-policy stalwart Bob Poole, whose annual highway report Andrew suggested improvements for.

We hung out for the first time in Austin back in September 2018, after which he started doing what Andrew Wimsatt does, which is send us (or just tweet out) clips of all us + others in the extended Fifth Column/Red Eye multiverse whenever we’d appear on other media. He was famously much quicker on the draw publicizing a new Fifth Column episode than any of the drunk co-hosts, and at some early point we just gave him the keys to our Facebook page. And oh yeah, did I know he actually saved most of the entire run of The Independents? (You can watch a few over at the Paloma Media YouTube page, which was chiefly the fruit of his labors.) When we started doing Patreon in November 2019, and created what we thought was an absurd, no-one-will-ever-go-there level of $50-a-month subscriptions, Andrew became one of the first few to Never Fly Coach. He would come to New York several times a year, including the last couple during our annual sojourns to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown. I took calling him “Busty,” for the very stupid reason that a funny British friend of mine back in the ‘90s would always refer to Kate Winslet as “Busty Winslet,” and this very accomplished transportation engineer not only took it in stride, he kind of beamed a bit when the nickname caught on in the community.

So that’s where the “Busty” nickname came, which I swear I never heard before he died.

Here’s one from Nancy Rommelmann, who Andrew brought as a guest to an SDC many moons ago.

Do you know those friends who seem to always have been around and you don’t recall when you first met? Andrew was like that, though the not-remembering could be because Andrew was so unprepossessing, mild and kind and never wanting to intrude, while in fact being both whip-smart and the person so many, many, many of us relied on to spread the word about our work. The Fifth Column, of which there was no bigger fan, had just about zero visibility, in terms of clips, until Andrew started to create them, quietly tugging the pod onto a bigger and bigger stage. Matt wrote yesterday about some of Andrew’s quiet, steady work on behalf of others.

Since Andrew’s absolutely senseless murder, we have learned that he did not just signal boost the Fifth, as he had for more than a decade for Red Eye and Greg Gutfield and anything involving Kat Timpf, all of whom have posted their shock and remembrance, but for others, some I have never heard of.

It is exactly like Andrew not to shine any spotlight on himself. He saw people whose work he liked, probably chortled to himself (he had a good deep chortle) that they could use a little help archiving that work, then did it and them the clips. I literally have a score of these clips from him, as well as twice as many SOSs.

Snip.

I can almost guarantee you that Matt and I would have been texting Andrew that Thursday morning about the frozen computer, and that no matter where he was or what he was doing, Andrew would have responded immediately to tell us how to fix it or that he’d be on it as soon as he was by his laptop.

Snip.

He was also – and I learning this more and more as the days go by and we touch base with people Andrew knew – a Zelig of sorts, appearing wherever you were gathered, at a Fifth live show in LA, at a Cuckoo’s Nest remembrance in Tulsa, at a meet-up in Chicago. As his friend Karl Rehn told me last week, “You’d say to Andrew, ‘I’m going to such and such music show in New Jersey,’ or Las Vegas, and he’d say, ‘Great, I’ll meet you there.’” Andrew always showed up.

More tributes:

Andrew Wimsatt spent his life figuring out how to make things last longer.

Roads, bridges, tunnels, pavement, friendships.

He held three civil engineering degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, spent 18 years at TxDOT, ten of them as Fort Worth District Pavement Engineer, and in 2006 joined the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, where he eventually ran the Materials and Pavements Division and its $9 million annual research program. He worked on ground-penetrating radar, nondestructive testing, asset management.

Describing the work once, he said the real challenge wasn’t building new things; it was making what we already have last longer.

Andrew made what we already have last longer.

He was an obsessive live-music fan who would fly across the country to see a band. He loved Slowdive. In 2023 he was recommending “Souvlaki” and “everything is alive” to anyone who’d listen, singled out their cover of Syd Barrett’s “Golden Hair,” and admitted that when he heard them play it at FYF in 2014, he teared up. In 2016, when bad weather killed Levitation and Slowdive threw together a surprise show at the Scoot Inn, Andrew happened to be sitting at his computer and grabbed two $7.50 tickets in the roughly two minutes before it sold out. Then he recorded the entire set on his iPhone for a friend.

I was the one who used the other ticket. And Andrew got to know at least two members of Slowdive (and possible all of them), one of whom, Simon Scott, helped engineer an album with him.

He made music too. He’d been in bands with Karl Rehn since high school, engineered their home cassette recordings in the early 1980s, and in 1990 released “Reflections” under the name the Andrew Wimsatt Ensemble, cut at Sixth Street Studio. He and Rehn made music videos that ran for years on Austin’s ACTV, and contributed to the score of a 1994 documentary about Barton Springs.

And more tributes:

I could have posted dozens if not hundreds more tributes. It seems both overwhelming and strangely inadequate.

I didn’t anticipate how big the story of Andrew’s murder would be, though I probably should have. The parallels with Iryna Zarutska’s murder are painfully obvious. My initial post may or may not have been the first pebble that started that avalanche, but when your friend’s murder in Texas is news in England and India, many including the tuxedo photo I took of Andrew at A.T. and Carol Campbell’s wedding that accompanied my initial blog post, it tends to give you pause.

And now politicians, including some I support, are coming out of the woodwork to talk about his murder.

I’m pretty sure Dustin Burrows couldn’t have picked Andrew out of a lineup with a gun to his head.

It’s weird to see someone you knew transformed from a man into a martyr for a cause less than a week after his death. Even if it’s a cause you believe in. Even if it’s done by your side. Unsettling. And maybe a little unseemly.

Politics has been played as a blood sport for a long, long time, and I’ve delivered my fair share of rhetorical blows. But the flood of stories had me going “Wait, that detail is not quite right,” and made me wonder how many errors I’ve unwittingly spread here reposting “hot takes” on different stories.

It’s the modern condition. Or the post-modern condition. For a long time, Americans naively believed we had a news media that at least tried to report objectively, but the rise of the alternate news sources on the Internet proved that wasn’t so. But it’s particularly hard watching the sausage being made when it’s someone you know being fed into the machine. (Probably the wrong metaphor to use here.)

As the pitted olive on top of this shit sandwich, Nancy Rommelmann sent me a note pointing out that some scumbag scammer is raising money in Andrew’s name. Losing someone is bad enough without the human cockroaches shuffling out of the shadows to feed. Here’s a form to complain to. Update: In a tiny bit of good news, the scam fundraiser for Andrew has been “unpublished.”

I’m in touch with Andrew’s family, and once they get together any sort of fundraiser (and an obituary and memorial website, etc.), I’ll let you know here.

It still feels a bit overwhelming. This post is pretty long already, but I fear I haven’t adequately captured the smart, goofy friend I knew. But it will have to do.

Feel free to share memories of Andrew in the comments below.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Austin, Crime, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

LinkSwarm For September 11, 2026

Friday, September 11th, 2026

The 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, GOP midterm convention, Iran and Yemen both get spicy again, AfD shocks Germany, Ukraine’s longest drone strike yet, more welfare state fraud, more money for Paxton,

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

More information about the murder of my friend Andrew Wimsatt has come out, and some of my original post needs to be corrected. I’m going to put that in a Saturday post, and there will be another for remembering Andrew on Sunday.

  • Your obligatory 9/11 remembrance post.

    On a perfectly clear morning 25 years ago, America changed forever.

    At 8:46 a.m. on that day, a team of Islamic terrorists crashed American Airlines Flight 11, carrying 76 passengers and eleven crew members, into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was followed 17 minutes later by United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 51 passengers and nine crew members, which terrorists steered into the South Tower. Less than 90 minutes later, both of those towers had collapsed into a massive pile of rubble.

    Meanwhile, as Americans’ televisions were tuned to live footage of the burning buildings, American Airlines Flight 77, carrying 53 passengers and six crew members, was slammed into the Pentagon. And shortly after, United Airlines Flight 93, with 33 passengers and seven crew members, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

    Today, we remember the 2,977 innocent victims who were the first casualties in what would become known as the War on Terror. We also remember the extraordinary heroism displayed that day, without which the horrific losses would have been far worse.

    One of the most miraculous facts about that day was that at the World Trade Center, which may have had an occupancy of 19,000 people between the two buildings at the time, 99 percent of those who were below the point of impact of the planes survived. This achievement is owed to the extraordinary evacuation efforts of first responders, who ran into burning buildings, no doubt knowing that there was a good chance they wouldn’t make it out. In the end, 441 firefighters, police officers, and paramedics did not.

    Then there was the civilian heroism displayed by the passengers on Flight 93, who had heard about what happened at the World Trade Center, overtook the plane, and ensured that it crashed in an empty field rather than into the U.S. Capitol or White House, one of which was believed to be the potential target. Passenger Todd Beamer’s remark to his fellow passengers, “Let’s roll,” overheard from a phone call, became a rallying cry as the nation fought back.

    I have no dramatic, notable 9/11 stories to tell. I was driving to my job at Applied Materials when NPR (yes, I sometimes listened to them in the morning, back in the day) broke into regular coverage to report the first tower impact. I heard a rumor that the layoff that came next week (as the depths of the Dotcom Bust were just being felt) was actually scheduled for that day, but they decided to hold off due to the attacks. Ironically, one of the people in one of the planes was an Israeli Applied employee, who survived a country beset by terrorism only to be killed on an American flight.

    See also my review of United 93.

  • The Republican Party held their first ever Midterm Convention in Dallas.

    President Donald Trump delivered the convention’s closing remarks following a keynote address from Vice President J.D. Vance.Before they took the stage, though, Texas Republicans used their appearances to focus on the November elections, public safety, immigration, and the direction of the Democrat Party.

    Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick invoked Texas history and the Alamo before turning to the November election, portraying the contest as a broader fight over the country’s values.

    “This election coming up is not about politics,” said Patrick. “It’s about darkness, and it’s about light.”

    He accused Democrats of embracing socialism and communism and argued that Texas’ economic growth has been driven by conservative policies including low taxes and no state income tax.

    He also singled out Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico, saying Republicans would put “the Democratic Party and James Talarico and his ilk on the dust heap of history.”

    Patrick closed his remarks by urging Republicans to view the election as a fight for their families and the country. “You started a fight, and the Republicans are going to finish it in November.”

    Eric Flores and Tano Tijerina, two Republican candidates challenging Democrats in South Texas, also addressed the convention. Their appearances highlighted Republicans’ continued focus on South Texas, where the president made significant gains in 2024.

    U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz used his speech to warn about what he described as an emerging red-green alliance between communists and Islamists. He received one of the strongest reactions from the crowd when he declared that Sharia law is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.

    “Sharia law has no place in America,” said Cruz. “Sharia law is fundamentally inconsistent with the Constitution, and we need to stand together and stop it now.”

    Gov. Greg Abbott focused much of his speech on Texas Democrats running statewide in November, contrasting their legislative records with policies he has signed into law.

    Abbott pointed to the GOP’s success on a variety of issues including border security, policing, property taxes, oil and gas, election laws, parental rights, and school choice.

    “All the Democrats running statewide in the state of Texas, they had a chance to vote on those policies, and they voted against those policies,” said Abbott. “They voted against common sense.”

    Abbott highlighted legislation he signed prohibiting cities that reduce police funding from receiving certain state tax revenue, restricting some purchases of Texas property by citizens and entities tied to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and prohibiting gender mutilation procedures for minors.

    Snip.

    Vice President J.D. Vance delivered the night’s keynote address, reflecting on the administration’s first 19 months back in office and making the case for Republicans in November.

    Vance also paid tribute to Charlie Kirk on the anniversary of his assassination, recalling that Kirk had been in the front row when Vance addressed the Republican National Convention as the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2024.

    Turning to Texas politics, Vance took aim at Democrat U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico over his previous comments on gender and Christianity.

    “This Talarico guy—he will not shut up about how there are six genders. He will not shut up about how, ‘God is non-binary,’” said Vance.

    “I gotta say, a guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children-I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser.”

  • On the AfD’s shocking election win in Germany.

    Last night Germany’s much-maligned AfD party won a crushing and historic victory. The victory is already being downplayed by many, owing to the fact that Saxony-Anhalt is technically one of Germany’s smallest and least consequential states. But there is far more to it than sheer numbers, as the win defines a turning point not only in German but European politics, and cements the gradual downfall of the globalist ruling class that has tried desperately for decades to keep populist movements from gaining power, in particular utilizing the “Brandmauer” or “firewall” to suppress the so-called far-right.

    The destruction of this firewall is an historic occasion, even if it should come by way of such a seemingly inconsequential state.

    Of course, there are other criticisms as well. AfD is seen by many as a kind of Trojan horse, a German “MAGA” party led by a lesbian woman in Alice Weidel. Even so, it represents a striking loss of power for the elites and a turning point which breaks a kind of psychological barrier that will only energize other anti-establishment, “far-right”, or populist parties throughout Europe.

    Another secondary effect of the victory is that it has caused the ruling German establishment to go back to the drawing board and review its most unpopular policies, like on immigration, in order to bend with the clearly changing winds.

    Merz expressed his “deep shock” at the election result, foreseeing it having major repercussions on Germany as a whole:

    The AfD, however, fell just three seats short of an ‘absolute majority’ which would have allowed it to govern the state alone. Some commentators have pointed out some major ‘anomalies’ in regard to mail-in versus in-person votes. Just like in the highly irregular American 2020 election, every party but AfD was allegedly boosted by disproportionate numbers of mail-in votes:

    More analysis at the link. Just think if Germany’s elites hadn’t decided to import millions of unassimilated Muslims into their country, they wouldn’t have empowered the AfD. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Iran: The Islamic regime has been targeting U.S. bases, with a few hits on aircraft, we’ve launched retaliatory strikes on Iranian forces, and we’ve disabled three Iranian tankers in retaliation for unsuccessful strikes against U.S. ships. So: Same old, same old.
  • Yemen has also been getting spicy, with the Iranian-backed Houthis driving for the coast, successfully attacking a Saudi pipeline, and the official anti-Houthi government of Yemen making gains in the interior. More from Preston Stewart. If this week hadn’t been so insane, I might have done a separate post on this…
  • Maybe this is why I’m still unemployed. “Women Filled 98 Percent of Jobs Created in August.”

    Women accounted for 158,000, or 98 percent, of the 162,000 nonfarm payroll jobs created in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ establishment data. Compared to this time last year, there are 870,000 more women employed in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 1.5 million fewer employed men.

    So there were only 4,000 men hired in August.

    Accounting for the new data, the gap between male and female employment reached its highest level since 1990, when men were overrepresented in the workforce.

    Dramatic month-to-month swings in employment gains between the sexes are relatively common, and labor economists warn that sharp shifts don’t necessarily indicate lasting changes in the market. However, the August jobs report is in keeping with existing trends that have obtained for decades, namely a substantial increase in employment among women and a linear decline in employment among men.

    There has been a “multi-decade decline in male labor force participation” and a “multi-decade increase in female labor force participation,” Kirk Doran, a professor specializing in labor economics at Notre Dame University, told National Review.

    Part of this shift can be explained by the evolution of American industries. The sectors that grew at the highest rate in August — health care and public education — are female-dominated. Meanwhile, the industries that shrank — computing, data processing, and finance — are male-heavy.

    Sound like illegal discrimination by sex to me…

  • Ace of Spades HQ makes the case for Trump47 being a tremendous success already.

    We have every reason to be excited to go to the polls to ensure an ongoing Congressional Republican majority, and to keep the DSA-influenced Democrats away from any levers of power.

    The 20 months since President Trump’s inauguration in early 2025 have had the most significant conservative victories of my lifetime, far exceeding President Reagan’s accomplishments. Here are just a few of the things President Trump and his team have done:

    • Closed the border to illegal invaders.
    • Deported hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, and caused millions more to self-deport.
    • Slashed the federal workforce.
    • Eliminated DEI and wokeness from the military and federal agencies.
    • Eliminated EV mandates and green energy subsidies.
    • Effectively terminated corporate average fuel economy requirements for auto manufacturers.
    • Engaged the military to eliminate narco-terrorists.
    • Engaged the DOJ to target corporations engaged in illegal racial discrimination in hiring.

    There are so many more milestone accomplishments beyond those.

    For decades the conservative base has clamored for the above victories. President Trump finally delivered. Amidst all this, there are many “conservative” influencers who are promoting doom. For many of them, that is their job – being paid to blackpill conservative voters to stay home, so as to elect a Democrat Congress. The resumption of Democrat lawfare against the Trump administration is their goal.

    Despite razor-thin congressional majorities, Trump47 has delivered numerous policy wins, and conservatives (and anyone else who wants to stop the insane, jihad-friendly, socialism- and social justice-infected Democrats from reclaiming power) should head to the polls in November to ensure Republican control through 2028.

  • “Ukraine’s Longest Range Drone Strike Yet! Nearly 3,000km! Plus Strikes on Sochi and Dagestan.” “Ukrainian drones carried out their longest range drone strike to date, hitting Russia’s Novy Urengoy and Purovsky gas processing plants in Yamalo-Nenets.” Yamalo-Nenets is an “autonomous okrug” on the Arctic Circle just east of the Urals.
  • “Ukraine Attacks Novorossiysk Fuel & Grain Terminal.” Again.
  • “Ozon Warehouse in Saratov Attacked and Burning Heavily! Plus Saratov Oil Refinery.”
  • “Frigate Admiral Essen & Buyan-M Corvette Confirmed Badly Damaged by Neptune and Drone Strike!”
  • “Two Russian Su-35S Fighters Collide in Kursk.”
  • Seems like a trend: “Nine Russian Aircraft Destroyed in One Week: X2 Su-35 Crash, x5 Helicopers, Su-24 and Su-33.”
  • More: “Satellite Imagery Confirms THREE Russian Helicopters Destroyed, x2 S-300 and a Pantsir at Sochi!”
  • “Su-33 Confirmed Destroyed at Anapa Air Base.”
  • “Ukraine Bombards Russian Cargo Ship in Mediterranean Sea With Bomber Drone.”
  • “Russian Ice Breaker Admital Makarov Sets Itself On Fire at Kronstadt, St. Petersburg.”
  • Autism fraud ring in Maine?

    Quality Care Access, LLC was chartered in July 2020 by Jovin Bayingana, and the Portland-based company rapidly became one of the most lucrative new MaineCare businesses in New England.

    According to Medicaid payment records obtained via a Freedom of Access Act request, the company billed the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for $1.2 million in 2021, $5.3 million in 2022, $7.4 million in 2023, $6.7 million in 2024, and $7.2 million in 2025 — for a lifetime cost of $27.8 million.

    The more detailed federal Medicaid dataset shows that throughout this time frame QCA had fewer than 16 patients in most years.

  • Finally: “Republican Reinforcements Arrive for Paxton in Senate Race. The Senate Leadership Fund is pouring millions into Texas after questions over whether the Cornyn-aligned group would back Paxton.”

    Republican reinforcements are finally arriving for Attorney General Ken Paxton in his U.S. Senate race, months after the party’s biggest Senate-focused outside group backed his primary opponent.

    The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has purchased $32 million in television advertisements across Texas and is reportedly preparing to spend more than $50 million to support Paxton against Democrat James Talarico.

    The group announced Friday it created a new Texas PAC dedicated to the race, with ads promoting Paxton and contrasting his record with Talarico expected to run continuously through Election Day.

    The investment ends months of uncertainty over whether the Senate Leadership Fund would support Paxton after backing Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary.

    It also comes as other major Republican groups have already begun pouring money into the race.

    MAGA Inc., the super PAC aligned with President Donald Trump, recently announced $10 million in advertising supporting Paxton. America PAC, the political group backed by Elon Musk, is also supporting Paxton and has begun door-knocking operations to register and get out the vote.

    This is good, if overdue news, but media ad spends are the fools gold of politics. The same group spending zillions for Cornyn didn’t move the needle, so the efficacy of their political efforts seems debatable. But maybe they’re better at convincing squishy moderates than Republican primary voters…

  • “South Texas Democrat House Candidate Sponsored March With Socialists. The Rio Grande Valley DSA has celebrated Zohran Mamdani, depicted a Border Patrol vehicle in flames, and promoted LGBT causes.

    Democrat Texas House candidate Oziel Ochoa’s campaign sponsored a May Day event co-hosted by the Rio Grande Valley chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

    Ochoa is challenging Republican State Rep. Janie Lopez for House District 37, a South Texas district covering Willacy County and portions of Cameron County.

    Campaign finance records show Ochoa’s campaign made three $259 payments to La Union del Pueblo Entero, or LUPE, on May 4. The expenditures, totaling $777, were listed as advertising expenses for the first annual May Day Marcha del Pueblo (March of the People).

    May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, is an annual labor observance that has long been embraced by socialist and communist movements around the world.

    The event took place two days earlier, on May 2, in Edinburg.

    Organizers included LUPE, Texas Rising, the Rio Grande Valley American Federation of Teachers, the Rio Grande Valley Central Labor Council, South Texans for Reproductive Justice, Poder Latinx, and the Rio Grande Valley Democratic Socialists of America.

    Ochoa was publicly recognized for his financial support, while RGV DSA was listed among the event’s organizers.

  • “Muslim police chief of Detroit suburb told his subordinates that wife-beating isn’t a “formal” criminal offense.”

    The former police chief of Hamtramck, Michigan, is in hot water after investigators have dug into allegations against the Muslim chief for how he ran his department.

    Court records show that Hamtramck Police Chief Jamiel Altaheri personally engaged in a “pattern” of domestic violence in his own household, and told officers that wife-beating isn’t a “formal” crime.

    The primary effects of Democrats importing unassimilated Muslims for political advantage seems to be more wife-beating and more rape.

  • “Criminal Illegal Alien Arrested in Texas, Ordered Deported 26 Years Ago. A Cuban national who evaded deportation for 26 years is now behind bars.” “According to ICE, Cuban national Emiliano Martinez Perez entered the United States around 1998 and was convicted of cocaine possession shortly afterward. He was ordered to leave the U.S. in early 2000, but remained in the country and was later convicted of drug trafficking in 2007.”
  • Speaking of immigration fraud: “Houston Immigration Attorney Arrested for Fraud. Nowowiejski allegedly committed mail fraud and made false statements related to immigration cases.”

    A Houston immigration attorney was arrested Wednesday after a federal grand jury indicted her on charges of mail fraud and making false statements related to her work on behalf of immigrants seeking work-related legal status in the United States.

    Alla Nowowiejski is a naturalized citizen from Russia and has practiced law in Texas since 2009 and specialized in business immigration assistance, but she allegedly never submitted, or only partially submitted, paperwork for clients seeking to obtain work status or work visas.

    The indictment also alleges that Nowowiejski provided clients with false documents or reference numbers tied to active immigration cases unrelated to her own clients to make them believe their applications were being processed.

    In 2023, Audubon Engineering Operations sued Nowowiejski for gross negligence and legal malpractice in Harris County. The company alleged that although she had charged them more than $109,000 for immigration work on behalf of five employees, she never filed paperwork with federal immigration agencies.

  • When your entire life amounts to a bad meme: “Gays for Gaza’ activist killed by Muslim immigrant in Arizona.”
  • Gavin Newsom brags about giving welfare to illegal aliens.
  • “Chaos ensues in Democratic Party after Arab reporter calls black congressman ‘AIPAC monkey.'” Arab reporter is Rula Jebreal (who, I guess, is most famous for dating Roger Waters) and the black congressman is Hakeem Jeffries. Hakeem Jeffries should never be called a monkey, only “TEMU Obama.”
  • “South Korea is eyeing Texas for a new $22.6 billion investment in a natural gas-burning power plant.”

    The deal would mark the first chunk of change the nation will provide to the U.S. under South Korea’s new $350 billion commitment.

    Last year, tariff talks between the U.S. and South Korea led to a 10 percent decrease in tariffs imposed on South Korea — a drop from 25 to 15 percent — provided the country invests $350 billion in the U.S. in exchange.

    The power project would be set in Encinal, Texas, a small city in La Salle County.

    According to The Korea Herald, talks initially began with South Korea proposing $19.8 billion for the project, and the U.S. countering with $25 billion. Negotiations will now proceed in the $22.6 billion range, although the exact amount will not be determined until the project is finalized.

    The proposed gas combined-cycle project plant would total 6.3 gigawatts (GW) of power, built in stages. The first stage will consist of a 1.4-GW gas turbine power facility. Once the first stage passes inspection, the second stage, a 4.9-GW combined-cycle facility, will be built.

    Though unconfirmed, the plant is expected to help meet the state’s booming demands for artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity, data center development, and semiconductor development.

    Sort of an odd location, but maybe it has to do with this proposed data center near Laredo.

  • “Microsoft Plugs Nearly 1,000 Security Holes.

    Microsoft Corp. today issued updates to plug at least 974 security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software, by far its biggest single patch batch ever. Microsoft says artificial intelligence is helping to speed the discovery of vulnerabilities, but security experts warn that many organizations already are struggling to prioritize the more human-intensive endeavor of testing and deploying so many fixes each month.

    This month’s patch bundle obliterates the software giant’s previous record set in July, when it released updates for at least 570 security vulnerabilities. September’s Patch Tuesday brings this year’s total to more than 2,600, more than twice Microsoft’s previous record-setting patch year in 2020 (1,245) and with three more months to go.

    There are two “zero-day” flaws fixed this month that are being actively exploited: both CVE-2026-81963 and CVE-2026-85880 allow an attacker to elevate their privileges on Windows system.

    Fully 113 of the bugs addressed today earned Microsoft’s “critical” rating, meaning they could be abused by malware or miscreants to seize control over a vulnerable Windows machine with little or no help from the user.

    Among the more serious critical flaws this month is CVE-2026-69730, a DNS weakness present in Windows Server 2012 onward and on Windows 10. Microsoft warns that an unauthenticated attacker could leverage this weakness simply by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected system, and that it is likely to be exploited.

    Also scary is CVE-2026-69829, a critical, remote code execution flaw in the Windows Shell. This vulnerability has a CVSS base score of 9.8 (10 is the most severe), and can be exploited with low attack complexity, no privileges, and no user interaction.

    Whatever else AI is or isn’t good at, it seems to be great at finding security flaws in Microsoft products…

  • Mac vs. PC, 2026 edition.
  • Rick Beato on why you need to own physical media.

    It’s incredibly important to own physical media, because you do not know what people are going to do that work for these massive tech companies. Once they get a hold of the data and they put it into those AI [slop] machines, because that’s what they are, they can change anything. Half the stuff that people, when they Google things or whatever, that just comes out with some AI thing that’s based on something that somebody wrote on Reddit six years ago that’s probably not even true. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Who actually knows whether it’s true? It’s kind of like if you listen to a record on Spotify that says remastered in 2018, remastered in 2022, remastered in 2012, that’s not the original version. What they’ve done is they’ve either taken the original version, the mastered version, and just remastered it and made it sound worse, or you don’t know what they’ve actually done to it.

  • Another weird blog tidbit that may only be of interest to myself: Starting October 6, 2025 and running through February 9th, 2026, the Internet Archive took multiple daily snapshots of my blog after a long period of snapshotting it on a somewhat random basis, sometimes several time a week, and sometimes only a few times a month. I would say the optimal periodicity would be once a day, but I have no idea how the process works.
  • “Mamdani: Women Attending 9/11 Memorial Will Be Required To Wear Hijab.”
  • “Nation’s Murderers Excited To Learn Killing Legal If You Say You Were Sad.”
  • “Women Honor Gloria Steinem By Leaving Kids At Daycare And Working 9 Hours At Jobs They Hate.”
  • “Hollywood Colorist Fired After Accidentally Leaving Color In Film.”
  • “Breakthrough As Scientists At University Of Michigan Develop Ability To Travel Back In Time One Second.”
  • “Moses Threatens Pharaoh With Plague Of Unskippable YouTube Ads.”
  • “‘Oh, Your Intelligent Creations Are Trying To Kill You? That’s Interesting,’ Says Jesus.”
  • Dog + balloon = happiness.

    (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 Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Technology, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

    Fed Up With Flock

    Thursday, September 3rd, 2026

    2026 is turning out to be a pretty strange year politically.

    If you’d asked me last year to guess what issues might be concerning the body politic in a midterm year, I might have answered “inflation, jobs growth, social justice madness, housing costs, and the Iran war.” Not on my bingo card: Women cheering on a mother who confessed to killing her three children and the public uniting against Flock cameras, yet here we are.

    Texans overwhelmingly oppose Flock cameras and remain wary of data center construction, according to a new poll that also found an essentially tied U.S. Senate race.

    Conducted August 24-26 by Overton Insights/Texas Public Policy Foundation, the poll of 1,167 likely voters shows overwhelming concern about license plate reader cameras, especially those offered by Flock Safety.

    Opposition to Flock cameras totaled more than 63 percent, with 51 percent strongly opposing the technology. Only 28 percent of Texans expressed support.

    There has been increasing public opposition to the technology over the past few months. Many Texans are raising concerns about Fourth Amendment violations and data privacy because Flock cameras allow law enforcement and private entities to track and retain the movements of drivers not suspected of crimes without a warrant.

    David Dunmoyer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation has warned that “Texans do not own their own personal information. Texas has never granted its citizens title to their own data.” Texas lawmakers are expected to evaluate potential safeguards during the upcoming legislative session in January.

    Louis Rossmann was ahead of the curve for this one.

    I initially didn’t feel strongly about Flock cameras one way or another, since public roads are not a place anyone should have “a reasonable expectation of privacy.” However, the fact that Flock and other AI camera companies have employed underhanded methods to get taxpayer approval for funding them (given the mysterious fervor several public officials have shown toward buying and installing them despite voter resistance, I can only assume that bribery is involved) has changed my mind. Plus Flock’s data sharing and retention policies do bring up Fourth Amendment concerns, and do seem like a sneaky attempt to set up a surveillance system over American citizens, using private companies to carry out activities that would be unconstitutional for the federal government to implement directly.

    Not to mention the persistent problem of AI generating false positives.

    It seems a lot of people are starting to agree. Texas Governor Greg Abbott suspended state funding of Flock.

    Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies to pause funding for Flock cameras.

    The pause, reportedly issued last Thursday, comes after a Texas agency allegedly spent an estimated $30 million on grants used for the technology.

    “To the extent that cities get any funding for those cameras, most of it comes from the federal government,” said Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris on Friday. “To the extent any funding comes from Texas agencies, those agencies are clarifying that those funds cannot be used for Flock cameras.”

    Flock contracts have been cancelled or rejected across the nation amid concerns surrounding Fourth Amendment violations, with several Texas localities joining the movement.

    Snip.

    Flock’s database is free for law enforcement officers to access anytime without a warrant, raising concerns over the potential violations of citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights.

    Numerous Texas towns and cities have canceled their Flock contracts.

    Wylie City Council unanimously voted to not renew its contract with Flock Safety cameras this week.

    The 7-0 vote places the city of Wylie in a small group of local governments in Texas opting out of a contract with the automated license plate reader (ALPR) company.

    Snip.

    Following Pflugerville City Council’s unanimous decision to deactivate the city’s Flock cameras this week, Pflugerville ISD followed suit, notifying parents Wednesday morning of the decision to suspend use of the cameras on district property.

    “We understand this technology has raised questions and concerns within our community, and we have listened,” said a Pflugerville ISD spokesperson.

    Hood County recently decommissioned its three Flock cameras following significant backlash to concerns of mass surveillance and potential Fourth Amendment violations.

    DeFlock Wylie praised the council’s decision, calling it “exactly what residents asked for.” The site quoted Wylie Mayor Matthew Porter as saying, “The protections are just not there and are not required in the terms of the existing contract.”

    “This started in January 2026 with one resident reading a contract, and grew into a nonpartisan campaign of neighbors,” wrote DeFlock Wylie.

    “By the night of the vote, more than 700 residents had signed the petition, people packed the chamber, and the case was made in Flock’s own words. No lawyers. No budget. No outside money. Just Wylie residents who decided their privacy was worth showing up for.”

    They join Burnet County

    And it’s not just in Texas, as Florida is fed up with Flock as well.

    The Florida Department of Transportation on Monday revoked all existing permits for automated license plate readers installed by local law enforcement in state highway rights-of-way and said it will stop approving any new installations, citing an “exponential increase” in deployments, reports of misuse, data privacy concerns and “surveillance schemes.”

    The Engineering and Operations Memorandum, signed by Will Watts, P.E., FDOT’s chief operating officer and assistant secretary, directs local agencies to remove the devices within 30 days. If they do not, the department said it will take them down. FDOT reserved the right to immediately remove any unit that poses a safety hazard.

    As far as I can tell, Republicans are taking the lead in opposing Flock cameras, but this is the rare issue that Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on.

    The cameras (at least the ones taxpayer-funded) should come down.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans, Texas | 9 Comments »

    Talarico’s “Paxton Is Crooked” Attack Debunked

    Monday, August 31st, 2026

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton entered the U.S. senate race, there were basically two reputational dings on him. The first was that weird “securities fraud” indictment that always seemed to have been ginned up by political opponents (especially the Joe Straus cabal after Paxton trounced their choice Dan Branch in the 2014 Republican Attorney General primary), and for which the underlying federal indictment for the case had been thrown out years before the state charges were dropped. The second was his wife Angela Paxton filing divorce on “Biblical grounds.” I have no way to determine the truth of a “he said, she said” divorce, and neither of these dings has obscured the fact that Paxton has been an extremely effective, and active, Attorney General who constantly advances conservative causes.

    Now Paxton’s Democrat opponent James Talarico has accused him of “getting rich” off his office. There’s only one problem with this theory: math.

    James Talarico has a theory that fits on a bumper sticker. Ken Paxton got richer in office; therefore, Ken Paxton is corrupt. The charge is easy to chant and hard to defend. It fails as math, and it does not land on Ken Paxton alone. Angela Paxton’s name sits on the same estate. She taught school, counseled students, and served in the Texas Senate. Before Texans send anyone to Washington, they ought to ask whether a candidate who cannot read a balance sheet is qualified to write a budget.

    Net worth can rise for any number of lawful reasons. Compound returns will do it. So will leveraged real estate, a long-held business stake, or a pension earned over decades. Corruption is one possible cause among those, and it is the cause that has to be shown. Growth by itself does not show it. In the Paxtons’ case, the record points the other way.

    Ken Paxton did not appear in 2015 as a blank slate on a government paycheck. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991, spent four years at Strasburger & Price in Dallas, then seven years as in-house counsel at JCPenney. He ran his own McKinney practice for about thirteen years and owned a multiple-branch title company besides, while serving in a legislature that pays $7,200 a year because it expects members to keep real jobs. His Texas ethics filing for 2014, the year before he became attorney general, lists an active law firm, a title company, publicly traded stock, roughly two dozen mutual funds, real estate, and a long roster of private partnership interests. A personal financial statement supplied to a bank in 2015 put the couple’s net worth at about $5.4 million, with roughly 40 percent already in a blind trust. That is the starting line. An attack that starts the clock at zero is not an audit.

    The best current estimate of the couple’s joint net worth, drawn from Forbes’s asset-by-asset work and the federal disclosure, is about $13 million after roughly $4.7 million in mortgage debt. Growing from $5.4 million in 2015 to $13 million in 2026 is a compound annual rate of 8.3 percent. Over the same years, the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested returned about 13.4 percent a year, a cumulative gain of roughly 299 percent. Five point four million left in an index fund in 2015 would be more than $21 million now. The Paxtons hold $13 million. Call that corruption if you like. It is corruption that lagged a Vanguard 401K account by $8 million.

    And Nancy Pelosi’s stock gains by considerably more.

    The holdings look like what those returns imply. The one large score is a roughly $300,000 investment made around 2004 in a McKinney firm that became WatchGuard Video, the police dash-camera maker. Motorola bought the company in 2019, and the stake produced a reported $2.2 million gain. The position appears in Paxton’s state filings a decade before the sale and moved into the blind trust in 2015. Around it sit leveraged real estate in several states, about $10 million in gross revenue against $4.7 million in mortgages, cell-tower leases that throw off modest rent, a large book of mutual funds, and a state pension from more than two decades of service. Forbes, no house organ of the right, called the fortune a leveraged real estate business, a diversified fund portfolio, and a pension. There is no mystery cash in that inventory.

    Then there is the accuser. James Talarico is 37. Public records do not show a company he founded, a payroll he met, or a portfolio he steered through a losing year. His personal financial disclosure lists one checking account, held jointly with his mother, a fact his campaign has declined to explain.

    He’s the perfect candidate for today’s Democrats.

    As the headline for this piece puts it, “If the Paxtons Are Corrupt, They Are Remarkably Bad at It.”

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

    Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm For August 28, 2026

    Friday, August 28th, 2026

    Huge Supreme Court win, Ukraine switches from Wildberries to Ozon warehouses, yes, DSA are damn dirty commies, more Second Amendment progress, Ted Cruz’s book on Clarence Thomas is out, Aussie gets 15 years for shooting a carnival air gun, remembering Dolly, and the NFL finally takes the Pro-Bowl to a farm in the country.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • The Supreme Court hands President Trump a huge win on voter integrity.

    The Supreme Court just handed President Trump a massive victory in the fight to secure America’s elections. The justices cleared the way for his executive order restricting mail-in voting to move forward, and after months of Democrat officials trying to bury the policy in court, the administration finally has room to breathe.

    This is a big deal.

    The SAVE America Act is still stalled in the Senate, blocked by Democrats who aren’t even hiding the fact they have zero interest in verifying that voters are who they say they are. Trump’s executive order just got a green light from the nation’s highest court anyway. Election integrity doesn’t have to die in the legislative graveyard to make progress.

    Trump signed the executive order, called “Ensuring Citizenship Verification And Integrity In Federal Elections,” in March 2026. It directs his administration to build lists of eligible voters and orders the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists. The Postal Service laid out its implementation plan last week, but the clock is ticking. Some states start sending mail ballots in just a few weeks, leaving the administration little time to get this right before the midterms. More court challenges remain possible.

    The victory is real, but it’s not the finish line.

    Mail balloting has been a target of Trump’s for years, and for good reason. The Heritage Foundation has long argued that mail-in ballots are more susceptible to fraud, coercion, and chain-of-custody problems than in-person voting. Anyone who lived through the 2020 presidential election, one of the most disputed elections in history, watched that vulnerability play out in real time.

    Democrats need to cheat to win. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • California passes the Don’t Investigate Democrat Fraud Act. “Gavin Newsom signs ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ into California law.”

    It’s official: California just criminalized publicly exposing fraud.

    our tax dollars are paying for fraud, and if someone like Nick Shirley exposes this fraud he, not the fraudster, could get in trouble.

    More from Nick:

    These politicians need the fraud to continue and they sadly use immigrants to do so often. They fund nonprofits and NGOs with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year for immigration services, including free healthcare, and have now made ‘immigration support service providers’ essentially a protected class in California.

    For example, if I film a hospice or a ‘learning center’ with no patients receiving millions through Medicaid and the owner gives me a paper saying I cannot publish the video, I cannot publish it. If I publish it to expose them and they claim it caused them ‘fear’ or a third party threatens them, I face a minimum $4,000 civil fine plus the legal fees of the individual or group suing me.

    This bill was created by the Attorney General’s wife and co-sponsored by CHIRLA, a nonprofit that has received over $80,000,000 in taxpayer dollars for ‘immigrant support services.’ Do you understand how this works yet? When the fraud is exposed, they create new laws to protect the fraudsters and penalize those who expose it.

    By signing this bill, the Governor and California politicians expose themselves as the corrupt politicians they are. This is not the end; the fight has just begun. More to come soon; this is far from over.

    An unconstitutional prior restraint First Amendment violation that will be struck down instantly the first time California tries to enforce it.

    If it weren’t for voter fraud, welfare state fraud, crazy trannies, violent criminals and pandering to radical Islamic anti-Semites, the Democrat Party wouldn’t have any business model at all…

  • We’ve covered some of this before, but just a reminder that “Democratic Socialists of America” are full-bore commies.

    “Our goal is Communism,” David Jenkins, a member of DSA’s National Political Committee, said in 2023.

    DSA member Cea Weaver is New York City’s tenant tsarina. She posted via X in December 2017, “Elect more communists.” The next year, she demanded: “Seize private property.”

    Weaver’s boss is Mayor Zohran Mamdani. In his Jan. 1 inaugural address, he stated: “I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist.” He told a DSA Zoom call in 2021: The “end goal” should be “seizing the means of production.” Mamdani also said, “The abolition of private property … is preferable to what is going on right now.” These comments loudly echo Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ cornerstone collectivist text “The Communist Manifesto.”

    The magnificently named Darializa Avila Chevalier rode Mamdani’s endorsement all the way to the Democrat nomination for New York’s 13th Congressional District.

    “I’m a democratic socialist,” she boasted June 29 on MS Now. She also wants to “seize the means of production,” as she advised in a not-quite-deleted September 2019 X post. She confessed that December: “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag.” In April 2020, she wrote: “Most of the theory I have read is communism but the pyromania associated with anarchism is very intriguing to me.” The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine preserved 3,657 such messages that Chevalier thought she had erased.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Italian Extremist Group Provided dismantling Iran’s supposed trump card.

    For months, the assumption that the Strait of Hormuz was Tehran’s ultimate card dominated commentary on the war.

    As a narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and a substantial share of liquefied natural gas had historically passed, it appeared to be a chokepoint Iran could close or severely disrupt at will. It did not need to destroy every tanker. Hitting a small percentage with drones, cruise missiles, speedboats, or mines would spike insurance rates, deter crews and companies, and effectively shut the strait without continuous physical control.

    This idea was not new for 2026. It had long been a feature of the Iranian strategic posture, treated as both a military instrument and a political myth-proof that even under pressure Tehran retained a decisive lever over the global energy system. Parts of the Western media and independent analysts amplified the same narrative.

    Relying on incomplete open-source shipping data, especially once vessels began sailing dark, many concluded that the United States had been caught unprepared and lacked a realistic path to reopen the waterway. Hormuz, they argued, was effectively closed or closable at Iran’s discretion. That framing was powerful, but also incomplete.

    The assumption that Iran’s detection and targeting system could not be dismantled without dramatic escalation proved wrong. Under the U.S. Central Command, also known as CENTCOM, and with significant involvement from the Fifth Fleet and Air Force components, the United States ran a sustained effort to degrade the sensors Iran needed to find and hit ships.

    Iran relied on mobile truck-mounted radars, drones, cruise missiles, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) speedboats, and naval mines. Inside the narrow strait, ships move in relatively predictable lanes. Iran combined active radars with passive electro-optical and infrared cameras on elevated terrain and islands such as Qeshm, Larak, and Abu Musa.

    Mobile radars would radiate briefly to locate shipping, then shut down and move before anti-radiation missiles could arrive. Once a ship’s approximate position was known, strike systems could be sent to search.

    The vulnerability was that every radar emission could be detected. American aircraft responded systematically with anti-radiation missiles while visual and intelligence efforts located the passive sensors. This was the core of what some involved called “draining the swamp.”

    Iran had redundancy, but the number of sensors was finite. Hundreds of precision strikes gradually reduced Iran’s ability to see traffic in the strait. As the detection layer thinned, the effectiveness of the strike systems declined with it.

    Parallel efforts neutralized mines with unmanned vessels and declared the southern lane near Oman largely clear. Convoys moved under escort, often at night with the automated information system (AIS) off. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with Aegis radars and standard missile (SM)-family interceptors formed the backbone; drones and Apache helicopters armed with laser-guided rockets provided additional cover. American ships also engaged IRGC speedboats that closed on the convoys.

    On the commercial side, the United States addressed insurance barriers. In early March, President Donald Trump directed the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide political risk insurance and guarantees for maritime trade.

    The DFC, working with the Treasury and CENTCOM, established a revolving reinsurance facility of roughly $20 billion-later expanded with private partners including Chubb-focused on hull, machinery, and cargo cover. Early uptake was limited. As Iranian success rates fell, more vessels joined.

    Results have been significant. CENTCOM has reported assisting well over a thousand commercial vessels and moving hundreds of millions of barrels since the spring. Independent trackers often showed lower numbers because much of the traffic sailed dark. Pre-war throughput was 20 million to 21 million barrels per day.

    Flows through Hormuz remain below that, but combined with the Abu Dhabi-Fujairah pipeline and Saudi Arabia’s pipeline to Yanbu in the Red Sea, volumes recovered enough to keep oil prices in the $85 to $95 range-elevated, but far from the predicted catastrophe.

  • “Ukraine Attacks Yeysk Port (Likely Oil Storage).” That’s in Krasnodar Krai on the Sea of Azov.
  • “Ozon Distribution Hub Destroyed in Samara! First Strike On Ozon!”
  • “Wildberries Hit Again! Kotovsk Wildberries in Tambov Detroyed!”
  • “Orenburg Ozon Warehouse Attacked & St. Petersburg Warehouse on Fire!”
  • “Two Ozon Warehouses Destroyed & One Damaged in One Night! Dagestan, Krasnodar & Enem.”
  • Followup: “Satellite Imagery of Multiple Ozon Warehouses Destroyed by Ukraine.”
  • “Big Blast as Drone Storage is Hit By Drone & Project 05060 Patrol Boat Destroyed in Crimea.”
  • “Ukraine Destroys Rare Su-33 (First Destroyed), MiG-29 and Orion Attack Drone At Anapa Airport.” This was just the other side of the Kerch Straight Bridge. The Su-33 is normally a carrier based aircraft, but since Russia’s only aircraft carrier has been out of service since 2017, they’re doing much desk landing these days.
  • “Huge Missile Strike in Donetsk! Possibly Flamingo or Storm Shadow. Four Impacts.” Unclear what was hit.
  • Russia is now importing gasoline from India. Plus long gas lines in Moscow.
  • CIA chief John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow to warn Putin against fucking with NATO.

    The surprise visit by the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to Moscow this week was to deliver a warning to Russia not to attack NATO countries, according to people briefed on the visit.

    The trip was spy-agency chief John Ratcliffe’s first publicly known visit to the Russian capital. It followed new U.S. intelligence assessments, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to test the resolve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years.

    U.S. officials are concerned that Putin, squeezed in Ukraine and under pressure at home, could launch an assault ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion, likely on a Baltic nation, the Journal reported.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Two more Second Amendment wins this month that may have slipped under the radar.

    Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice conceded that Americans are allowed to carry in Postal Service buildings.

    Snip.

    On August 18, a federal judge ruled against Biden’s “ghost gun” ban, saying it violates multiple parts of the Constitution….Judge Reed O’Connor ruled Biden’s “Ghost Gun” rule violates the 2nd and 5th Amendments,

    Decision by decision, the Second Amendment is being upheld and gun rights expanded.

  • More progress: “CDC restores info showing how many good guys with guns stop bad guys after Biden removed it.”
  • Concerning: “Maryland felony cases against Zizian trans death cult members abruptly suspended. After 18 months of prosecution, Maryland abruptly put its cases against three Zizian trans cult members on indefinite hold. Officials have not publicly explained why.”

    The cases against cult leader Jack “Ziz” LaSota and subordinates Michelle “Jamie” “Alex” Zajko and Daniel “Hastur” Blank were made inactive on Aug. 14; All scheduled future trial dates were canceled.

    LaSota, Zajko and Blank were arrested together following a national manhunt on Feb. 16, 2025 in rural western Maryland. They were found with a cache of weapons in their two box trucks. They had spent years moving around the country as members of the Zizians, a radical transgender cult who has been linked to at least eight violent deaths.

    The three initially faced only misdemeanor trespassing, firearms and obstruction charges after an elderly Frostburg-area property owner reported that they had arrived in box trucks and asked to camp on his property.

    Authorities later added charges involving the alleged illegal possession and carrying of concealed and loaded firearms.

    LaSota, a biological male who identifies as a woman and uses the name “Ziz,” is the founder and ideological leader of the Zizians. The group is made up of transgender vegan extremists, several of whom have elite educational backgrounds in science and mathematics. Members embraced an esoteric ideology combining leftist transgender politics, anarchism, rationalism and veganism.

    Snip.

    Though the state charges have been suspended, LaSota is being held on a federal detainer request on a federal indictment of being a fugitive from justice in possession of firearms and ammunition. On Tuesday, he was transferred into federal custody at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.

    Zajko, meanwhile, is awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania. She was charged in June with murdering her adoptive parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, on New Year’s Eve 2022. The case had gone cold for years before the surprise announcement by prosecutors in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

    Authorities allege Zajko traveled from Vermont to her childhood home in Chester Heights on the night of her 30th birthday and participated in the execution-style killings.

    (Previously.) (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Bad news for justice in Colorado: “Former Colorado Bureau of Investigation DNA analyst Yvonne Missy Woods pleaded guilty to four felonies — cybercrime, perjury, attempting to influence a public official, and forgery, after facing 102 felony charges tied to misconduct in 58 cases dating back to 2008. Woods worked at CBI for 29 years, from January 1994 to November 2023, and was qualified as an expert witness more than 500 times. A routine audit in late 2023 uncovered anomalies in her work; an internal investigation found she purposefully deleted DNA data to skip required testing steps. Retesting of roughly 3,000 affected cases cost the state an estimated $11 million. Among the high-profile cases she handled was the 2003 Kobe Bryant sexual assault investigation. ”
  • “ICE Arrests 1,328 Illegal Aliens in DC, Virginia, Maryland in 14 Days. Of those arrested, almost 400 illegal immigrants had criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, including a Salvadoran national wanted in Richmond, Virginia, on a murder warrant.”

    “Other crimes included rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, DUI, robbery and attempted murder.” Also: “They also arrested members of MS-13, 18th Street Gang, and Tren de Aragua gangs.” MS-13 and Tren de Aragua we’ve covered here before. According to Wikipedia, “The 18th Street Gang, also known as Eighteen St, Barrio 18, Mara 18, or simply 18 in North America, is a multi-ethnic (largely Mexican and Central American), street gang from Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest street gangs in Los Angeles, with 30,000–50,000 members between the United States, Mexico, and Central America.” Evidently they’re enemies with MS-13.

  • “Lottery Boss Appears in Court over $95 Million Scandal. Former Texas Lottery Executive Director Gary Grief faces a first-degree felony charge of abuse of official capacity tied to the controversial 2023 jackpot.”

    Former Texas Lottery Executive Director Gary Grief appeared in a Travis County courtroom Friday morning as the criminal case stemming from the controversial 2023 Lotto Texas jackpot moves forward.

    Grief appeared alongside his attorney before District Judge Dayna Blazey in the 167th District Court. Prosecutors and attorneys representing the entity formerly known as the Texas Lottery Commission were also present.

    Court records show Grief waived formal magistration Friday. Another hearing concerning his personal-recognizance bond was set for October 16.

    Shortly after Friday’s proceedings, Travis County District Attorney José Garza formally announced that a grand jury had indicted both Grief and the now-defunct Texas Lottery Commission for abuse of official capacity.

    The indictments were handed down April 21.

    According to Garza’s office, the charges stem from the April 22, 2023, Lotto Texas drawing and allege that the commission, along with high-level management officials Ed Rogers and Clay Kidd, intentionally and knowingly misused government resources.

    The DA’s office alleges the conduct was authorized by Grief, who was serving as the commission’s executive director at the time.

    The indictment concerns the drawing in which a New Jersey-based lottery purchasing operation acquired nearly every possible number combination and won a $95 million jackpot.

    Grief faces a first-degree felony charge of abuse of official capacity involving $300,000 or more.

    The whole affair stinks to high heaven, and I have to think at least some Lotto Commission employees were in on it.

  • SpaceX to build giant Starbase complex in Louisiana.
  • “X has now confirmed a Chinese bot farm of 200K fake accounts intentionally trying to manipulate public opinion against data centers.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • “Judges Recommend Regulators Reject Proposed 765-kV Line. The Public Utility Commission must now decide whether to accept the judges’ recommendation to reject the proposed multibillion-dollar transmission line projects.” “The judges concluded the utilities [Oncor and the Lower Colorado River Authority Transmission Services Corporation] did not establish that the projects are necessary and failed to comply with notice requirements designed to give affected landowners a chance to participate before the application was filed.”
  • “More people have died from heat in France this summer than all US mass shootings in history.”
  • “Trump-Backed Darline Graham Wins South Carolina GOP Senate Primary Runoff.” I’m always suspicious of dynastic nepotism, but I haven’t studied the race enough to offer an opinion on her as a senate candidate.
  • “Louisiana sheriff’s deputy fired after using Flock camera 3,200 times (!!) to stalk his ex-fiancée.”
  • The jokes write themselves: “Canadian cannabis factory burns down near High River.”
  • Ted Cruz’s profile of Clarence Thomas, Going Further, was released this week.
  • The change in gun and ammo prices between 1986 and today.
  • The plot thickens. “Iowa Attorney General Says She’s Taking California to the Supreme Court Over Paramount-Warner Bros.”

    Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird wrote in an op-ed for The Daily Wire that she is suing California for leading the charge in the lawsuit against the Paramount–Warner Bros. merger.

    “California is once again trying to be the country’s regulator. And once again California is defying common sense to raise costs around the country,” Bird wrote. “That makes this a dispute between states, and the Constitution says those can only be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court.”

  • “Australian man faces 15 years in prison for using toy gun to win carnival prize for daughter.” He was an ex-felony prohibited from using guns, but getting busted for a carnival air rifle seems way, way excessive.
  • The universe seems just a little too fine-tuned to give rise to life to be completely random, doesn’t it? 
  • Dolly Parton, RIP.
  • More on Parton from Rick Beato.
  • The NFL finally kills the Pro-Bowl.

  • How Simon Whistler runs his YouTube channels. He outsources everything except direction and presentation, expands his winners and ruthlessly culls his losers. It’s smart business, but largely antithetical to what I watch YouTube for. (Previously.)
  • Weirdly enough, the animated film Lesbian Space Princess seems to be hated by everyone. See, a film with that title could be highly profitable in porn…
  • “Girl Scouts To Award Muslim Badge To Any Girl Who Gets Married Before Age 8.”
  • “New Data Center Built To Handle Influx Of Online Rants Against Data Centers.”
  • “Dating App Adds Feature Allowing Men To Filter Out Women Who Support Lindsay Clancy.”
  • 140-pound klutz:

    (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 Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 8 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For July 24, 2026

    Friday, July 24th, 2026

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

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

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

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

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

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

  • More on that theme:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • The Iran war continues.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The Great Replacement: Congressional Edition!

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

    That’s the explicit plan from the DSA.

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

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

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

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

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

  • “The Democrats Have a Communist Problem.”

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

    Hey, Mao only killed 65-78 million people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Eliminate them all and lay off those teaching them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Technology, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »

    Texas Q2 Fundraising Snapshot

    Monday, July 20th, 2026

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

    Statewide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Federal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Scrappy RINO-ish Lindsey Graham Dead

    Sunday, July 12th, 2026

    South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has died unexpectedly at age 71.

    Senator Lindsey Graham, who was first elected to represent his home state of South Carolina in the Senate in 2002 and played an influential role in shaping the foreign policy of Republican administrations over the last two decades, has died. He was 71.

    Graham died Saturday night of a “brief and sudden illness,” his office said.

    “Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,” the statement said. Emergency medical technicians responded to a call for cardiac arrest at Graham’s home Saturday night, according to police scanner audio obtained by NBC News.

    There were no indications Graham was ill and he was scheduled to appear on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning.

    President Trump hailed Graham as “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known” in a Sunday morning Truth Social post.

    No, and no. For most of his career, Graham wasn’t just a RINO, he was the RINO (especially after John McCain lost to Obama), wandering off the reservation in deeply irritating ways on a variety of issues, from illegal alien amnesty (remember “Lindsey Grahamnesty”?) to pork barrel spending to bombing Syria. Powerline dubbed him “The Arlene Specter of the South,” but that wasn’t quite right. Specter was a colorless Machiavellian always looking out for his own interest above any other consideration, but Graham was anything but colorless.

    He was a peculiar senator from a peculiar state whose Byzantine politics inspired House of Cards‘s Frank Underwood. Graham was simply different. In many ways, he was The Last of the Southern Dandys, with that light voice that made everyone think he was gay. He was popular in his home state, and Democrats spent over $100 million trying unsuccessfully trying to oust him in 2020.

    Based solely on his positions, Graham was much more RINO-ish than, say, John Cornyn, and I have little doubt that if I lived in South Carolina rather than Texas, I’d find him much more irritating.

    Yet Graham had qualities that elevated him beyond ordinary RINO-dom.

    First of all, he had charm. He was a throwback that loved being an old-style glad-handing politician, no matter how out of fashion that stereotype was. Some politicians put on and take off their personas like a suit, but with Graham you suspected he was like that all the way down.

    Second, he was a scrapper. No matter how much he irritated you, when he was on your side, he relished laying into the other with gusto. Graham loved the thrust and parry of political debate, and could cut-down and insult Democrats with the best of them. McCain seemed to crave good publicity from the leftwing MSM, but Graham seemed to love any publicity, good or bad, so he didn’t shy away from high-profile dustups. He was a key figure (and a key vote) in many important legislative fights. And he was a stout supporter of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression.

    Third, and perhaps most importantly, Graham really seemed to come into his own in the Trump years. Despite widely divergent personalities (though with a shared love for the limelight), President Trump and Graham forged a strong working relationship. Under Trump, he seemed to wander off the reservation less and fight more for Republican priorities. He fought hard for Trump’s judicial nominees, and his fierce defense of Brett Kavanaugh and laying into Democrats for their ginned-up, obviously bogus rape allegations, was probably his finest hour.

    Love him or hate him (and whichever it was varied from issue to issue), you certainly didn’t forget him. Graham’s seat was already up for election this year, and barring a 2018-sized wave for Democrats this year, Republicans should hold the seat, and likely with someone more reliably conservative than Graham. But the senate just got considerably less colorful.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Foreign Policy, Republicans | 5 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For July 10, 2026

    Friday, July 10th, 2026

    Chinese commie money is helping fund American commie wins, Rapey McNazi drops out, Ukrainian drones feast on Russian ships and hit Russia’s largest oil refinery (among others), Labour wants to install Big Brother into YouTube, and a victory for right to repair. Plus: Trebuchet!

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Non-link summary of the state of Iran war: Bombing currently paused, but the ceasefire is over and, oh yeah, supposedly Iran is plotting to assassinate
    President Trump.

  • How tech and commie money-fueled anti-Israel PAC is funding the rise of socialism.

    One of the most consequential groups behind the surge of radical leftist candidates in New York’s and Colorado’s congressional primaries was a super PAC formed earlier this year, calling itself American Priorities. After filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in February of this year, the group pledged to spend more than $10 million during the 2026 midterms and declared that its goal, according to founder Hannah Fertig, was “to make sure that someone’s there to protect candidates who question these [pro-Israel] policies,” countering the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

    The group invested about $2 million in supporting Adam Hamawy, an Egyptian-born physician who has testified on behalf of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheikh convicted of seditious conspiracy for his part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Thanks in part to the group’s generous contributions, Hamawy handily won the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th District.

    American Priorities then spent an additional $2 million across the river in New York, contributing to the successful campaigns of Brad Lander, who unseated the incumbent, Congressman Dan Goldman, in a campaign focused largely on vilifying Israel, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who unseated Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th District while doubling down on a host of controversial statements, from using the American flag as a napkin to supporting Hamas in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023. The super PAC also spent $150,000 on TV ads to help democratic socialist Melat Kiros win Colorado’s 1st District primary.

    Who, then, is behind American Priorities?

    Public reports reveal that the group’s two largest donors, by far, are Omer Hasan and Mohammad Waqas Javed, who were described in the press as former Silicon Valley executives who recently became involved in politics and about whom “little is publicly known.”

    But Hasan and Javed, as a simple web search reveals, are both alums of the same company, the mobile advertising and data company AppLovin, founded in 2012.

    The company’s path to becoming one of the world’s most highly valued ad tech companies is highly unorthodox. According to The Economist, for example, the company’s share price has climbed more than 30-fold between 2022 and 2025, an astonishing feat for any company but particularly for one that, for years, wallowed in obscurity in the murky waters of app-monetization solutions.

    In 2018, six years after it was launched, the company introduced a mobile-gaming publishing arm. “The result,” explained ad tech analyst Rio Longacre, “was a self-reinforcing flywheel: more games meant more first-party data, which fueled better optimization, which in turn strengthened both the AdTech stack and the company’s foothold in the gaming ecosystem.” Which, naturally, also raised considerable concerns: AppLovin was now both running the advertising platform and selling inventory, which inspired many critics to strongly doubt the validity of the numbers it was reporting.

    But the company’s growth—and the vehemence of its critics—grew far more exponentially in 2022, when it pivoted away from being primarily a gaming company to “an AdTech company powered by AI-driven performance optimization,” a giant de facto machine learning operation. The company’s many detractors, Longacre noted, now charged it with “money flowing between entities the public can’t fully scrutinize, creating the illusion of third-party demand when some of it may simply be internal recycling. They also highlight the quality of traffic inside the system, pointing to patterns that resemble click-farm-adjacent behavior—bursts of installs from low-value regions, strange retention curves, and activity that seems optimized more for algorithmic signaling than real user engagement.”

    To assess the validity of these claims, it helps to know who AppLovin partners with. In 2016, the company agreed to be bought by Orient Hontai Capital, a state-backed Chinese private equity firm. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency government body dedicated to monitoring the national security implications of large-scale business transactions, objected, and the deal was subsequently amended.

    The Chinese connection, however, was far from over: One of the company’s largest investors is one Hao Tang, who, according to regulatory filings in 2025, owned 3.2% of AppLovin, valued at roughly $4.6 billion. Other reports claim that Tang controls, through shell companies, at least 9.8% of Class A shares, making him the company’s largest individual shareholder beside AppLovin’s CEO, Adam Foroughi, who told Fox News in April, when AppLovin was trying to acquire TikTok’s non-Chinese assets, that he remains the largest shareholder.

    Snip.

    At the moment, $2 million of American Priorities’ war chest comes from Hasan and Javed (an additional $500,000 came from another former AppLovin team member, Tariq Afaq Ahmed, according to FEC filings). As attention on both the left and the right continues to focus on AIPAC and its alleged impact on American politics, it’s worth noticing that the most prominent PAC on the scene right now is funded primarily by two veterans of a shady tech colossus with strong links to China and repeated allegations of ties to the Communist Party in Beijing.

  • “Graham Platner Formally Withdraws from Maine Senate Race Following Sexual Assault Allegation.” “Democrats will now have until 5 p.m. July 27 to name their replacement candidate.”
  • Democrats didn’t care that Platner was a nasty Nazi communist rapist, they only cared that he looked like he was going to lose. (Hat tip: Charlie Martin at Instapundit.)
  • New Report on ‘Rogue’ District Attorneys in Texas Calls for Reforms at State Level.”

    A new analysis from a Texas think tank found a correlation between district attorneys’ non-prosecution policies and increases in crime, but with few state options for addressing so-called “rogue” prosecutors, the group suggests that Texas lawmakers should consider reforms next year.

    Ross Jackson, a senior policy analyst for Right on Crime at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said he has been researching the issue since last fall.

    “There are correlations that are particularly evident in Austin and Minneapolis and some other cities around the country and it’s more evident in cities and counties where there hasn’t historically been a huge crime rate like in Austin,” Jackson told The Texan.

    According to Jackson’s report, Austin experienced one of the most dramatic surges in violent and property crimes in recent years, which saw the city’s homicide rate climb by over 60 percent between 2016 and 2024.

    Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza, who was first elected in 2020, has been accused of dropping or reducing charges in hundreds of criminal cases, including one in which an appeals court had called for a new trial. Last year, Garza’s office reportedly failed to bring timely indictments for crimes that included violent felonies, leading to the dismissals of hundreds of cases.

    Attempts to remove Garza through House Bill (HB) 17, a state law enacted in 2023, have failed, and he has ignored calls for his resignation over mishandled cases. Jackson noted that HB 17 is limited to removing district attorneys who officially adopt non-prosecution policies in conflict with state law, and does not apply to those who adopt informal policies or internal guidance.

    Jackson noted that some proposed legislative remedies face high hurdles.

    The policy solutions examined by Jackson include mechanisms to discipline or remove district attorneys, as well as avenues for prosecuting serious crimes when the local district attorney or a county prosecuting attorney fails to do so.

    One possibility suggested by Jackson is creation of a new state commission to provide oversight and administer discipline. The model he suggested is based on the state’s former Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council that operated between 1977 and 1983. While state lawmakers could create such a council through statute, Jackson noted that an amendment to the Texas Constitution would be needed to allow the council to remove district attorneys.

    Constitutional amendments require the support of two thirds of both chambers of the Legislature, which usually requires bipartisan support, as well as approval by voters in a statewide election.

    Jackson also noted that state lawmakers could give authority to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to discipline rogue prosecutors, but giving it a removal mechanism would also likely require a constitutional amendment.

    One possibility for prosecuting cases dropped by prosecutors would be to give that power to the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG). Under a 2021 Texas Criminal Court of Appeals opinion, the OAG may only prosecute cases referred by a local district attorney or county attorney.

    “Unless the Court reverses their decision, giving the OAG that authority would definitely require a constitutional amendment,” said Jackson. “I think that would be the most difficult option legislatively, just given the partisan nature of that position. I don’t see many crossover voters on something like that.”

    Other options include creating a state prosecutor or creating five new regional district attorneys, each anchored in one of Texas’ urban areas.

    Jackson says that lawmakers appear to have the authority to create a state prosecutor or regional district attorneys through statute, but the regional approach may also require a constitutional amendment and may necessitate the creation of new courts — a more costly option for taxpayers.

    Earlier this year, Gov. Greg Abbott cited Garza’s history as Travis County’s district attorney in his call for new legislation to create a statewide prosecutor and a mechanism for removing rogue prosecutors. Texas Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), now the GOP nominee for state attorney general, has also voiced support for a statewide prosecutor.

    In addition to Garza, Jackson’s report identified concerns over district attorney policies in both Bexar and Dallas counties. In Bexar County, District Attorney Joe Gonzales gave local law enforcement officers the option to issue tickets for certain “drug, theft, and traffic misdemeanors in lieu of jail time,” and Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot announced that he would no longer pursue charges against “low-level, first-time drug offenders.” Cruezot rescinded a previous policy in 2022 of declining to prosecute low-level theft.

  • “113 Active Spies From Foreign Countries Arrested.”

    The FBI has arrested 113 active spies from foreign nations, agency director Kash Patel said on Wednesday.

    The arrests of foreign spies “means our tech stays home and our defense secrets stay locked down,” a video shared by Patel on X said. “But the FBI didn’t stop there. They forced 62 removals of Chinese spies in 2026 alone.”

    The video added that this has shattered the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) deep cover operations against the United States.

    The House Committee on Homeland Security released a report in February 2025 detailing multiple cases of espionage conducted by the CCP in the United States since 2021.

    The cases, spread across 20 U.S. states, involved the transmission of sensitive military information to Beijing, stealing trade secrets to benefit the regime, transnational repression schemes targeting Chinese dissidents, and obstruction of justice. Every 12 hours, the FBI opened new cases to counter Beijing’s intelligence operations, according to the report.

    The report noted that the CCP’s theft of U.S. intellectual property amounts to roughly $4,000 to $6,000 annually per American family of four after paying taxes.

    In one prominent case, a senior adviser to the State Department was arrested in October 2025, accused of taking thousands of top-secret documents and meeting with Chinese officials. The individual allegedly downloaded and saved documents related to U.S. fighter jets and weapons capabilities.

    On Jan. 12 this year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a former U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced to 200 months in prison for spying for Beijing.

    The person had access to sensitive national defense information about the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Essex, such as its weapons, propulsion, and desalination systems. These ships are a “cornerstone of the U.S. Navy’s amphibious readiness and expeditionary strike capabilities,” according to the DOJ statement. The sailor sold critical information to a Chinese intelligence officer for $12,000.

    More recently, on June 4, the DOJ announced that a U.S. citizen pleaded guilty to acting as an agent for China. The man, who lived in China, would travel to the United States to meet with individuals who could provide him, and ultimately the Chinese Ministry of State Security, with important information.

  • Finally: “Vance announces investigation into alleged H-1B visa fraud.”

    Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration has opened an investigation into allegations of fraud within the H-1B visa program, which allows foreign workers to legally work in the United States on a temporary basis.

    The visas allow U.S. companies to hire high-skilled foreign workers to serve in occupations such as healthcare, technology and education, while critics argued big businesses use the program to import cheap labor to replace Americans.

    “Big corporations and fraudsters overseas are using this program to undercut the wages of American workers,” Vance said in a speech in Milwaukee. “If you are trying to take advantage of that visa program, you are not allowed into the United States.”

    President Donald Trump tapped Vance as his “fraud czar” in early April. Since his appointment, he has overseen major fraud busts across the nation, including against allegedly fraudulent hospices in Los Angeles and other operations in Minneapolis and Maine.

    Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito said the administration is also investigating alleged fraud in the Permanent Labor Certification visa process, and that investigators have already begun to issue dozens of subpoenas in relation to the probe.

    “This is another example where fraud is fueling violent crime,” D’Esposito told Fox Business. “Much of the visa and the human trafficking that we see when it comes to this foreign labor is tied to cartels, is tied to transnational gangs, and this is the work that we should be doing, not only to make America safe again, but to make America more affordable again.”

    I hope they take a close look at Microsoft. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Big Drone Strike On St. Petersburg Oil Terminal: Multiple Impacts.”
  • “Ukrainian Drones Hit Omsk Refinery! Russia’s Largest! Su-57’s Deployed in Defence!” As I’ve said before, if they can hit Omsk, they should target the Transiberian railway bridge over the Irtysh river.
  • “Ukraine Hits TWO Oil Refineries: Nizhnekamsk Oil Refinery and Saratov Oil Refinery.”
  • “Big HIMARS Strike on Belgorod: Fuel at Airport, Powerplant and Gas Pipeline All Hit.”
  • Ukraine hits ten power substations in Crimea.
  • And 13 more! “This makes 48 ships hit in four days.” (More. Still more.)
  • “Ukraine Shoots Down Su-35 With Top Russian Pilot: Possibly Air-To-Air
  • “Russian MiG-29 Hit by Drone At Belbek Air Base in Crimea.”
  • Moscow oil refinery on fire again. Not clear it’s actually a Ukrainian attack.
  • Last Russian infiltrators cleared from Kharkiv.
  • Heh: “If you have a VPN, you can edit in real time the status of gas stations in Russia.”
  • “Cuba’s Entire Power Grid Collapses As Castro’s Grandson Seeks Talks With Trump.”

    Hours after USA Today published an interview between one of its journalists and Cuban President Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the communist-run island experienced an island-wide power grid collapse.

    The electrical workers’ union said the entire power grid went offline and that officials were investigating the cause. Cuba’s energy ministry confirmed the blackout and said crews were working to restore service.

    “A total disconnection of the National Electric Power System is occurring. The causes are being investigated,” the electrical workers’ union wrote on X.

    And that was the first blackout. It just blacked out again today…

  • Spencer Pratt on how how commies erase history and memories.
  • “Soros Continues To Pump Money Into Efforts To Turn Texas Blue. George Soros funds the Texas Majority PAC, which is supporting a left-wing slate for the 2026 election cycle.”

    According to Transparency USA, Soros has already funneled over $1 million into the Texas Majority PAC. The federal American Bridge PAC, long aligned with Soros, has contributed $7.57 million to the Texas Majority PAC.

    The Soros family has poured a staggering $103 million nationwide into the 2026 election cycle so far.

    The Texas Majority PAC exists to turn Texas into a blue state by electing Democrats to statewide offices.

    Snip.

    Texas Gun Rights is warning that Texas Majority PAC-backed candidates, including James Talarico, Gina Hinojosa, Vikki Goodwin, Nathan Johnson, Sarah Eckhardt, Jon Rosenthal, and Clayton Tucker, support radical anti-gun policies such as red flag laws, raising the age to purchase guns, gun-registration schemes, and the outright banning and seizure of common semi-automatic firearms.

    “Soros and his allies are not investing millions in Texas because they think this is a lost cause. They are doing it because they believe Texas can be flipped,” warned Texas Gun Rights President Chris McNutt.

  • “Abbott Appoints Comptroller Candidate Don Huffines to Fill Outgoing Hancock’s Unexpired Term.” Huffines ran against Abbott for the 2022 Republican gubernatorial nomination.
  • “Texas Ban on In-State Tuition for Illegals Upheld by Federal Court.”

    A federal appellate court has upheld an agreement between Texas and the Trump administration ending in-state tuition for illegal aliens in compliance with federal law.

    The Texas Dream Act, enacted in 2001, formerly allowed qualifying illegal alien students to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities.

    In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the State of Texas, arguing that federal law preempted the Texas Dream Act.

    According to the suit, federal law preempts any state rules that grant illegal aliens benefits not afforded to all U.S. citizens. The Texas Dream Act did this because U.S. citizens from outside the state were forced to pay higher rates than the qualifying aliens.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ultimately agreed with the DOJ, settling the case.

  • “Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar Faces Removal Bid Amid Federal Fraud Case. The lawsuit seeks Martin Cuellar’s removal following his federal indictment on fraud and money laundering charges tied to an alleged COVID-era disinfecting scheme.”

    Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar, the brother of Democrat U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, faces a state court hearing Thursday as proceedings move forward in an effort to remove him from office while he awaits trial on federal fraud and money laundering charges.

    A docket control conference is set for 9 a.m. in the 49th District Court in the case seeking Cuellar’s removal under Chapter 87 of the Texas Local Government Code.

    The removal petition was filed in May by former Laredo City Councilman Alfonso “Poncho” Casso, who alleges Cuellar committed official misconduct based on the conduct underlying a federal criminal indictment returned last year.

    According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Cuellar conspired with former Webb County Sheriff’s Office Assistant Chief Ricardo Rodriguez and others to operate a private disinfecting business during the COVID-19 pandemic using sheriff’s office employees, equipment, and other county resources.

    Federal prosecutors allege the business, Disinfect Pro Master, secured a $500,000 contract to disinfect schools in the United Independent School District while relying almost entirely on sheriff’s office personnel and supplies to perform the work.

    Coverage of the federal charges here.

  • The Republican heads of the Texas Senate and House are teaming up to support ibogaine research.

    Texas lawmakers are continuing to push for advancements in state-led ibogaine research, following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

    Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows sent a letter this week to the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston (UTHealth Houston), University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), and Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC).

    The letter refers to Senate Bill (SB) 2308, passed in the 89th Legislature, which created a state-sponsored consortium for the purpose of conducting research and clinical trials into ibogaine, a naturally occurring psychoactive compound. The drug is being studied for its potential benefit for those suffering from traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, and other mental health conditions.

    However, as the letter affirms, no proposals set forth by pharmaceutical companies met the standards required for the state to move forward with clinical trials.

    Patrick and Burrows commented on the lack of readiness to proceed: “This should not preclude the State of Texas from independently proceeding with this vital work through our university research partners as spelled out in the March 31 press release from both the House and Senate.”

    The press release in reference announced Texas’ allocation of $50 million toward research into the drug.

  • YouTube warns that the Labour government wants censor creators by algorithm.

    American video-sharing platform YouTube told users in Britain that, under pressure from the left-wing Labour Party government, independent creators will likely see their content suppressed.

    The British government has been accused of attempting to silence political opposition, with YouTube telling UK creators that proposed new rules would include a “prominence regime” that would force sites like YouTube to give a “privileged position” to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and other legacy media.

    The notice said that artificially propping up establishment media would naturally result in independent media being downranked and obscured from view, as “pushing this group forward means pushing everyone else downward. Mandatory prioritisation of broadcasters would affect how your content reaches your audience, regardless of what your audience actually wants to see.”

    “Mandating prominence for established media networks would push the UK’s diverse mix of independent journalists, educators, and digital-first businesses down the line,” YouTube added.

    Snip.

    The government is said to have told the site that legacy broadcasters had the “trust” of the state to provide accurate reporting, which YouTube noted implies that “digital-first voices are less credible, damaging the foundational trust that sustains the creator economy.”

    Translation: Labour to suppress coverage of Muslim rape gangs and anything else that makes it look bad.

    This comes despite the BBC recently facing significant scandals involving the accuracy of its reporting, including last year when it was forced to apologise to U.S. President Trump after a documentary produced by the public broadcaster deceptively spliced together different sections of his speech on January 6th 2021, to falsely give the impression that he had encouraged supporters to riot, when he did the exact opposite.

    Just last month, the BBC was also forced to issue an apology to Brexit leader Nigel Farage after one of its presenters fabricated fictitious quotes from the Reform UK leader in the wake of the killing of handcuffed teen Henry Nowak.

    Commenting on the notice from YouTube, Mr Farage said: “Look at this appalling state censorship. Labour now want to seize control of YouTube’s algorithm. They want YouTube to artificially boost the BBC and Channel 4’s content, and suffocate independent journalists and producers.

    “The BBC has been biased to pro-mass migration, open borders, and Net Zero views these past few decades. It’s part of the reason we’re in a mess. The BBC’s own internal reports admit and document some of this bias.

    “People have moved to X and YouTube in part as a response to it. And now, Labour want to control what they see there? Reform will scrap this heavy handed lunacy.”

    Insert your own 1984 reference here.

  • UK Health Secretary flips on tranny madness.

    Listen to this extraordinary exchange between [GB News Broadcaster] Camilla Tominey and Labour’s Health Secretary James Murray. It is genuinely jaw-dropping.

    Camilla: “You’re quite pro-trans, aren’t you? Do you think a woman can have a penis? Because you did previously?”

    Murray: “No, I don’t.”

    Camilla: “So you’ve changed your mind?”

    Murray: “Yes.”

    Camilla: “Why?”

    Murray stumbles. He says he’s been thinking about the issue over recent years and would not now say trans women are women.

    The Labour Party is in many ways more loony than the Democrats. If tranny madness has broken there, maybe it’s finally receding globally.

  • “Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s Reform UK party, said Tuesday he is resigning as the member of Parliament for Clacton to trigger a by-election in the Essex constituency, which he intends to contest as the party’s candidate.”
  • Speaking of the UK, former Tory and current Reform MP Ann Widdecombe was murdered in her home. Police have a 26 year old man in custody.
  • “ICE Agent Fatally Shot Man During Houston Operation in Self-Defense. Federal officials say a Mexican national used his truck as a weapon during a Magnolia Park enforcement operation before an ICE agent shot him.” Magnolia Park is an old Houston neighborhood southeast of downtown along Buffalo Bayou.

    The man has been identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

    According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE agents attempted to stop Salgado Araujo’s vehicle around 6:50 a.m. in the 6800 block of Canal Street. DHS said Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle, ignored multiple verbal commands and used his vehicle in an attempt to run over an agent, who then fired his weapon in self-defense. Three other people were detained during the stop.

    Salgado Araujo suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen, according to the Houston Fire Department, and was taken to Ben Taub Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

    Two separate federal investigations are now underway. The FBI’s Houston field office is investigating a possible assault on a federal officer, while the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General is reviewing the shooting itself.

    Houston police said they have no role in the case and referred questions to federal authorities.

  • “Texas Stock Exchange Has Officially Begun Trading. TXSE officially opened its doors to begin trading on Monday.​”

    Based in Dallas, TXSE began its phased rollout in July. The firm’s launch comes as major financial institutions, including BlackRock and Citadel Securities, have invested over $120 million in the new exchange since 2024. The exchange gained federal approval last year and attracted investment from several other firms, bringing total investment to more than $275 million.

    TXSE opened its doors at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning to approved brokers, banks, and trading firms. For now, brokers are trading only test stocks. Thousands of symbols, such as TSLA (Tesla), will come online in July, with an announcement to precede it. That rollout will officially allow the public to trade stocks on the exchange.

    TXSE officials also hope to have exchange-traded products, or ETPs, trading by the end of the third quarter. ETPs allow investors to gain exposure to a wide variety of investment products, such as oil or the S&P 500.

    While all trading is primarily done through electronic mediums, exchange locations still matter because brokers predominantly invest in local businesses. TXSE has the ingredients for success, including a large number of Fortune 500 companies that have recently relocated to Texas and a rapidly growing financial district in Dallas.

    Stockbrokers tend to make a fair bit of money, and Dallas will enjoy some second order economic benefits from having the exchange there.

  • The enemy within.

    At just 16 years old, Calla Walsh was celebrated by the New York Times as part of an “influential new force in Democratic politics” for her work on the campaigns of Senator Ed Markey (D., Mass) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.)

    But six years on, Walsh is making headlines again for a much different reason: She recently appeared in an Iranian state-media interview calling the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the “greatest anti-imperialist leader” of her lifetime.

    Walsh, now a 22-year-old full-time resident of Lebanon, has descended from a progressive wunderkind to a radical who has been placed on a suspicious persons watch list by the U.S. government for her “expansive dealings with the governments of Cuba and Iran … as well as a spiderweb of U.S.-designated terrorist groups,” according to the Free Press.

    “He was a leader to all people of the world who struggle against imperialism, arrogance, against Zionism, against genocide,” Walsh said of Khamenei while speaking with Iran’s PressTV about her attendance at his funeral Saturday.

    Snip.

    At just 14, she knocked on doors in Cambridge to encourage residents to support a bill that would prohibit “gender-identity-based discrimination” in public places. One year later, she helped coordinate thousands of young protesters for an international “climate strike” at Boston’s City Hall. At 17, she served as one of the youngest delegates at the Democratic Socialist of America’s National Convention. That same year, the Boston Globe called her a “force in the world of climate activism.”

    She volunteered for Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign and also helped Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s campaign.

    She received significant notoriety for her efforts in the “Markeyverse” in 2020, an online Gen Z–led movement credited with helping the incumbent senator secure a 2020 primary win over then–Representative Joe Kennedy III. “The Markeyverse carried out a devastating political maneuver, firmly fixing the idea of Senator Markey as a left-wing icon,” the Times reported.

    She went on to hold several other roles in Democratic politics: She served as communications director for Massachusetts state house candidate Jordan Meehan, and she did digital-media work for Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia’s reelection campaign in 2021. She also worked as a regional organizer and strategist for Act on Mass, a progressive nonprofit.

    But the candidates she was working to elect were falling short of her increasingly radical politics. Just two months after she helped to secure Markey’s reelection, she was already protesting outside his office, according to the Free Press. She partnered with CodePink and The People’s Forum to protest the senator’s support for a bill to increase U.S. defense spending in East Asia.

    The makings of her radicalization were beginning to fall in place as early as 2021, when she was invited to Cuba at just 17 years old. She then visited the country four times between 2022 and 2024.

    By the end of 2021, Walsh announced her exit from the Democratic Party and electoral politics. She explained that she’d been disappointed by Markey in the aftermath of his reelection win and that she’d learned that no party or candidate could spur the revolutionary change she wanted — it might be achieved only by “direct action, protest, and internationalist solidarity.”

    Soon after, she posted a Me Too account of an inappropriate relationship she had with a 27-year-old campaign field director in Massachusetts when she was just 16. She and the older man had sexually explicit conversations during a yearlong relationship that included in-person meetings but did not involve sex.

    “Most of the interactions I have with men and adults I work with in politics are tainted by my trauma and fears of being sexually exploited again,” she wrote.

    Funny how you meet so many scumbags in Democrat politics.

    In addition to her trips to Cuba, Walsh also notably appeared in Chinese state-media propaganda videos in 2022 to criticize then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for leading a congressional delegation to Taiwan. Walsh was involved, at least for a time, with CodePink and The People’s Forum which are led by Neville Roy Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans, who are both under investigation for their suspected ties to Chinese intelligence services.

    Her trips to Cuba ultimately led to her introduction to Fergie Chambers, a Marxist organizer and millionaire heir to the Cox Communications empire. Walsh met Chambers, who is 20 years her senior, at a 2022 conference in Cuba. That meeting seemed to supercharge her extremism.

    Democrat, liberal, progressive, social justice warrior, radical, extremist, socialist, communist, terrorist. It’s funny how, say, 40 years ago, these were distinct categories, but now it’s an ever tightening Venn diagram of extremism. What’s the line between a “progressive” and an “extremist”? The first time they assault a Jew?

    We previously covered Walsh’s pro-Ayatollah policies here.

  • Important safety note for Windows users: Microsoft’s GDID can track you even if you use a VPN.
  • A victory for right to repair: “FTC chairman announces settlement with John Deere to let farmers fix their own equipment again.”

    The Federal Trade Commission, along with five states, secured an important settlement in an antitrust lawsuit against farm equipment manufacturer Deere & Company that will ensure farmers can enjoy the right to repair their own John Deere tractors and farm equipment.

    For the next decade, Deere will be required to give farmers and independent repair shops “the same equipment repair resources, including applicable software capabilities” as its stealerships – err, dealerships.

    ‘Today’s settlement enables farmers to do what they’ve done for generations — fix their own tractors and other farm equipment — without having to pay an authorized John Deere dealer to do it for them,’ said FTC Bureau of Competition Director Daniel Guarnera. ‘The settlement with Deere will help lower costs for American farmers. The FTC will continue fighting against anticompetitive restrictions on American consumers’ right to repair.’

  • “Maryland man’s truck was stolen while he was busy burglarizing a Verizon store.”
  • Tim Scott helps fire a trebuchet.

  • “Dems Wishing There Had Been Some Sort Of Sign That Platner Was A Bad Person.”
  • “Democrats Quietly Add ‘Have You Raped Anyone?’ To Questionnaire For Aspiring Candidates.”
  • “Embattled Platner Flees To Argentina.”
  • Run free, happy dog:

    (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 Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Jihad, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 8 Comments »

    House Investigates Austin’s Own Soros-Backed DA Jose Garza

    Wednesday, June 24th, 2026

    It turns out if you repeatedly flout Uncle Sam’s immigration laws, sooner or later Uncle Sam is going to notice.

    Congressional Republicans have launched an investigation into Travis County District Attorney José Garza’s handling of immigration-related cases, accusing his office of adopting policies that shield illegal aliens from immigration enforcement and undermine public safety.

    In a letter obtained by Texas Scorecard, U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R–Ohio), Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R–California), and Constitution and Limited Government Subcommittee Chairman Chip Roy (R–Texas) demanded records from Garza’s office related to its interactions with federal immigration authorities and treatment of noncitizen defendants.

    “The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of state and local jurisdictions that endanger American communities through their refusal to cooperate with federal immigration officials and their prioritization of illegal and criminal aliens over American citizens,” the lawmakers wrote.

    The letter points to campaign promises made by Garza regarding immigrant communities and his office’s consideration of immigration consequences in criminal prosecutions.

    According to the lawmakers, Garza previously pledged to “protect immigrant communities” and create policies that consider the immigration consequences of criminal charges and convictions. The committee also highlighted Garza’s support for diversion programs that could allow noncitizen defendants to avoid criminal convictions carrying immigration consequences.

    “Under your office’s pro-crime, pro-illegal immigration policies, illegal alien criminals are allowed to freely operate, terrorize local communities, and reoffend without consequences,” the lawmakers wrote.

    Just like the offices of other Soros-backed DAs. See also: Larry Krasner and George Gascon (among others).

    The committee is seeking a broad range of records dating back to January 2021, including communications with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, policies related to the prosecution of non-U.S. citizens, training materials concerning immigration consequences, and communications with local law enforcement agencies regarding immigration enforcement.

    Lawmakers also requested records involving cases in which prosecutors considered immigration consequences, including instances in which defendants were allowed to replead charges or had convictions reduced or vacated.

    Roy said the inquiry builds on concerns he has previously raised about Garza’s office.

    “Under District Attorney José Garza, Austin has been failed by pro-criminal policies that weaken accountability and prioritize lawbreakers over public safety,” Roy told Texas Scorecard. “This dereliction of duty has raised serious questions about whether repeat offenders, including criminal aliens, are being adequately prosecuted and whether the safety of law-abiding Austin residents is being put first.”

    Of course American Citizens aren’t being put first. Garza and Soros prioritize putting criminal back out on the streets in the name of socials justice, not to mention the needs of keeping illegal aliens around as welfare state clients and to vote for Democrats.

    Congressional hearings are one thing, but Roy et al need to refer Garza to the Department of Justice for prosecution (and all other Soros-backed DAs) for ignoring the law in favor of putting hardened criminal and illegal alien felons back on the street.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »

    « Older Entries