Given that, it’s no surprise that Cornyn was booed at last week’s Texas GOP convention.
Before he could get a word out, the boos descended upon Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) during his speech at the Texas GOP convention.
After getting up to the podium, about a minute and a half went by before Cornyn could even begin his speech. The crowd’s objections were a direct response to the role Cornyn is playing in the U.S. Senate in bartering a gun reform bill pushed in the wake of the Uvalde shooting.
Cornyn knew full well he was walking into the lion’s den, stating, “I will not approve any restrictions for law-abiding gun owners, and that’s my red line. And despite what some of you may have heard, that’s what our plan does.”
Citing conservative lodestar William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, Cornyn added, “Someone needs to stand athwart history, yelling stop.”
Each time he repeated this formula, the crowd returned fire, yelling “Stop!” at Cornyn.
The senior Texas senator did receive some applause when touting Trump-appointed judges and pro-life legislation, and when criticizing critical race theory and rising crime rates.
Right after Cornyn left the stage, Attorney General Ken Paxton took the stage and delivered a tacit shot at the senator — with whom he has sparred before.
“We have some Republicans who are trying to run from the fight (to preserve gun rights), and we need to remember their names next time they’re on the ballot,” Paxton warned. Earlier this month, Paxton said Texas “will be the first to sue” if the federal government passes a gun bill that “infringes on our Second Amendment Rights.”
Here’s some video to judge for yourself:
If it’s just a matter of “enforcing existing laws” as Cornyn states, why isn’t he holding hearings on why the Biden Administration refuses to enforce those laws? Why cooperate with the party that seeks complete civilian disarmament rather than actually stopping criminals?
Says Michael Quinn Sullivan: “The senator seemed stunned by the response, clearly not expecting grassroots activists to understand what he had been pushing in Washington with the Democrats.”
The longer Cornyn has been in office the squishier he’s gotten (a sadly familiar pattern), not only on gun control but also illegal alien amnesty. He’s gone from “pretty reliable conservative” to someone whose feet you have to hold to the fire to keep from drifting left on the latest burst of media hot air, and the latest chorus of boos shows that Republican activists know it.
The imperfect status quo in gun laws is vastly preferable to any “reform” the current congress is likely to cook up.
Republican inroads into Texas Democratic Hispanic strongholds continue apace.
According to unofficial results, Republican Mayra Flores has won the special election to represent Texas’ 34th Congressional District, anchored in Cameron County.
The 34th is a sprawling district that includes a lot of rural southern Texas between San Antonio and the Gulf Coast. Cameron County is where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and includes Brownsville, Harlingen and South Padre Island.
It’s an 85% Hispanic district that went for Obama by 61% in 2012, but for Biden by only 51% in 2020, an indication of the steady erosion of Democratic support among Texas Hispanics. And it’s also a district that suffers greatly under the Biden Administration’s continued refusal to deport illegal aliens.
It’s also where Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica is located. A small house Boca Chica is also Musk’s legal residence, and Musk announced on Twitter that he voted for Flores.
I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican.
Flores’ victory represents a major upset for the historically Democratic seat.
A Republican has not won the seat since the district was drawn in the last redistricting cycle 10 years ago. In fact, over the past forty years, a Republican has only won the seat once, in 2010.
Flores squeaked past the 50 percent mark just after 9 p.m. on Tuesday night. At the time, runner-up Dan Sanchez, a Democrat, had just over 43 percent of the vote.
Flores enjoyed a clear advantage over Sanchez in the election day vote count. Among early voters only, the gap between the two candidates was fewer than 300 votes. Election day voters preferred Flores to Sanchez by well over a thousand votes.
The special election pitted candidates from both parties in a four-way race on the same ballot. However, party leaders largely rallied behind Flores and Sanchez.
Flores, a respiratory care practitioner, had already won the Republican primary in March before the incumbent Filemon Vela (D-TX-34) announced his retirement. Flores enjoyed the endorsements of Governor Greg Abbott and Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-15), who currently represents a neighboring congressional district in South Texas, won the Democratic nomination on March 1. However, Vela’s abrupt resignation announcement meant that Gonzalez would have had to leave his current seat to run for the 34th district instead of waiting for a regular transition in November.
Gonzalez decided not to leave his current seat, endorsing Sanchez in his stead.
Sanchez also nabbed Vela’s endorsement among other prominent Democrats, such as attorney general candidate Rochelle Garza.
However, there’s a caveat:
Bolstered by ongoing political trends in South Texas, timing gave Republicans an advantage.
The voting population included in District 34 under the current map leans 54 percent Democratic based on data from the past two general elections. But the voting population of the newly adopted district map leans 63 percent Democratic.
In other words, if Vela had not retired and triggered a special election, his replacement would have been decided in November by a more Democratic voting population than what the district currently includes.
Flores may face a greater challenge in November when the regular election takes place under the new map with a more Democratic voting population.
Between the impact of the Biden Recession and the continued flight of Hispanics from the Democratic Party, if ever there were a year for Republicans to defend a marginal seat, 2022 is it. Expect Flores to get all the help she needs from the state and national party to hold the seat.
All the favorites won in yesterday’s statewide Republican primary runoff races:
Ken Paxton clobbered George P. Bush with more than two-thirds of the vote. Paxton won 67.90% to Bush’s 32.10%. Bush went from getting more votes than Greg Abbott in 2014 to garnering less than one-third of the vote in a runoff, and the only sizeable county he won was Travis. Back in 2014, a whole lot of political pundits talked about Bush as though he were some political golden boy destined for higher office. Those notices proved premature. Now everyone is talking about “the end of the Bush dynasty.” Maybe, but that talk may also be premature; that bush has a lot of branches…
Wayne Christian didn’t quite get 2/3rds of the vote against challenger Sarah Stogner, but didn’t fall short by much, winning 65.04% of the vote to Strogner’s 34.96%. So that $2 million that transexual West Texas ranching heir Ashley (formerly Andrew) Watt poured into the race may have bought Stogner an extra 2% of the vote.
In other races, Pete Flores beat Raul Reyes in Senate District 24 (as expected), and Ellen Troxclair beat Justin Berry with 56.48% of the vote in State House District 19.
Texas Scorecard notes that in open races, a lot of school choice advocates beat the candidates that Governor Greg Abbott endorsed…
Today is the Texas runoff election. Here is some brief coverage of the races and who I’ll be voting for.
Texas Attorney General: Incumbent Ken Paxton vs. current Land Commissioner George P. Bush. Paxton has campaigned on a solid conservative record and an endorsement of President Donald Trump, while Bush has dropped a bunch of direct mail flyers trying to label Paxton as corrupt. My pick here is strong favorite Paxton, who has constantly followed conservative principles in filing lawsuits against both federal overreach and neglect of enumerated constitutional duties. Moreover, the charges against Paxton have dragged out over seven years, long after the underlying federal charges were dismissed, making it seem more like a political witch hunt and possible Sixth Amendment rights violation than anything resembling justice. George P. Bush has hardly been impressive in his stint as Land Commissioner and doesn’t deserve a promotion.
Texas Land Commissioner: Former Texas Senator Dawn Buckingham vs. Dr. Tim Westley. Buckingham is the pick here, and she’s going to win this one running away, having been endorsed by Trump, Ted Cruz and the NRA, and holding a significant financial advantage over her underfunded challenger. Westley seems like a nice guy, but he has the profile of someone who should start out running in a local race.
Texas Senate District 24: Pete Flores vs. Raul Reyes: Flores is the heavy favorite here, having been endorsed by Trump, Cruz, Abbott, Perry and Patrick. Despite all that, I will be voting for Reyes, based on Flores seeming a bit squishy to me, and Reyes receiving the endorsements of Gun Owners of America and several Tea Party groups.
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! The Biden Administration has done everything it can to worsen inflation, The Ministry of Truth’s Scary Poppins dissolves into a puddle, a whole lot of school groomer news from all across the country, and the world’s longest D&D game.
The Biden administration’s first response to any problem is to pretend that it isn’t a problem. That’s how inflation went from a minor problem to a major one. Unwilling to take the necessary steps to rein in inflation early — pushing the Fed to raise interest rates and slowing down the torrent of money going out the Treasury’s doors — Biden and congressional Democrats at first insisted that inflation wasn’t a real problem: “Transitory,” they called it.
And then when inflation turned out not to be transitory, they thought they could just pin it on the Russians. Jen Psaki sniffed smugly at the “Putin price hike,” as though Americans were too stupid to understand that inflation at home had started long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That gambit fizzled, too.
When you don’t have any fresh ideas or real principles — and when your long-term goals are limited by the fact that the president, who was born during the Roosevelt administration, isn’t exactly buying any green bananas — then the easiest thing to do is to throw money at every problem.
Throwing money at things is how you make inflation worse.
Washington had already thrown a lot of money at the economy during the COVID-19 emergency, and, predictably, the emergency spending outlasted the emergency. By the time Biden was elected in 2020, Washington had thrown $2.6 trillion in budgetary resources at COVID and had authorized as much as $4 trillion in subsidized federal lending. That was new money amounting to about a third of GDP sloshing around the economy. Biden’s first priority was pushing out another $1 trillion in a phony infrastructure bill (that has little to do with actual infrastructure) and a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, even though the Consumer Price Index was already rising steeply, according to the Federal Reserve.
Stimulating an already overstimulated economy is how you make inflation worse.
Our inflation problem is only partly an issue of dovish monetary policy and reckless spending. There are problems in the real-world physical economy, too, those “supply-chain issues” we hear about. The Biden administration has done extraordinarily dumb things to make these worse, too, keeping in place the worst of the Trump administration’s anti-trade policies. That “Made in the USA” talk sounds good on the stump, but the truth is we need a lot that we don’t make at home and aren’t going to — including much of the steel and other vital inputs for the high-value manufacturing we actually do here.
The incredible fact is the Biden administration still had punitive tariffs on Ukrainian steel while it was seeking financial aid for the Ukrainians — it wasn’t until the Chamber of Commerce and conservative critics started making a stink that the administration changed its stance.
More Biden magic: “Dow Suffers Longest Losing Streak In 99 Years.”
“Hunter Biden Took In $11 Million Over 5 Years.” I would treat NBC’s number as a floor rather than a ceiling…
Scary Poppins resigns from the Ministry of Truth because all those vicious right-wing bullies were mean to her about her gross bias and constant lying.
I know you’ll be shocked, shocked to find Taylor Lorenz attempt to ride to her rescue:
Investigating and criticizing a Homeland Security official is now "harassment" and bullying, according to the WashPost and @TaylorLorenz.
Only ordinary citizens can be investigated — not high-level US Security State operatives. Them's the rules:https://t.co/rtHpupbeMw
In sum, a free press exists to unmask and punish private citizens with the wrong politics ("shoe-lace reporting"), not to investigate and scrutinize the beliefs, conduct and claims of powerful government officials ("harassment" and bullying).
Also seems odd that WPost allowed @TaylorLorenz (who, credit where due, broke the story of the DHS "pause") to write an entire article arguing Nina Jankowicz should be off-limits from criticism, without mentioning Jankowicz argued the same about Lorenz:https://t.co/Sh6mzcKRe0
Indeed, Jankowicz has a very long history of defending Lorenz and expressing solidarity for the trauma Lorenz suffers when her work is criticized. That's almost certainly where Lorenz got her version of events and seems like it should be disclosed when Lorenz defends Jankowicz. pic.twitter.com/R49NHCQ3RZ
I live in a manufacturing city with a very strong union voice speaking into the politics of our community. Yet a fascinating and unmistakable phenomenon has been occurring over the course of the last decade or two. Though the percentage of citizens in our area who post their “Proud Union Home” yard signs has likely increased, the percentage of them identifying as, or supporting, the Democratic Party has dropped precipitously during that same time frame.
For the first time in my city’s history, Republicans swept all municipal offices in the last election. So what is happening, and is it a microcosm of some larger trend?
I can’t offer any scientific study or analysis; I can only tell you what I have been told. Though former President Trump attempted overtures towards the “made in America” union mentality, that isn’t the most often cited rationale among Democrat dropouts. Instead, their disillusionment seems to stem from the prevailing belief that the party has been hijacked by single-issue ideologues that are willing to destroy party cohesion and solidarity if it means advancing their singular cause. More and more of these ex-party members now consider the Democrats the “Abortion First” party.
Again, that may be just the frustrated sentiments of disgruntled Dems in rural Indiana who feel as though the once big tent that embraced them has become far more rigid and dogmatic in who they welcome under the awning. Gone seem to be the days of the party’s Rust Belt/Union Grit identity, replaced today with a coalition that obsesses over white guilt, pronoun pandering, and legal feticide.
“Tucson high school counselor accused of sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old student…police officials in the Southern Arizona city said Zobella Brazil Vinik turned herself in to detectives on May 11.”
Bellingham School District board director is advertising a “queer youth open mic” for ages 0-18 taking place in her sex shop which she owns. @BhamSDpic.twitter.com/jIIdAV0YOu
Speaking of sexual predators after your children, this is pretty horrifying: “Texas Teen Goes to Bathroom at NBA Game, Is Found 10 Days Later Sold for Sex in Oklahoma Hotel.”
In another action-packed school board meeting in McKinney, the board president was served with a lawsuit for suppressing the free speech rights of citizens who disagree with her policies.
Civil rights attorney Paul Davis served Amy Dankel, president of McKinney Independent School District’s board of trustees, during the public comments portion of Tuesday night’s meeting.
“Your outrageous display of tyranny in how you trampled on the rights of the public at the last meeting was shocking,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In recent months, McKinney ISD’s school board meetings have featured a heavy police presence.
On several occasions, police officers have ejected citizens, at Dankel’s direction, for failing to observe her rules of decorum during public comments.
Davis said Tuesday that Dankel’s rules “placed an unconstitutional restraint on First Amendment rights by disallowing signs, clapping, and comments.”
He also says Dankel enforced her rules unequally.
She directed police to physically remove people who were wearing green—supporters of conservative trustee Chad Green, who Dankel is trying to oust from the board.
“Those same rules were not applied to people wearing blue,” Davis said, referring to Dankel supporters. “For that, we have filed a civil rights lawsuit against you.”
Kevin Whitt is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
During last month’s school board meeting, the pro-family activist spoke against the district’s failure to proactively identify and remove sexually explicit books found in students’ libraries—a contentious topic in McKinney and other districts across the state since last year.
Later in that meeting, Whitt was dragged out by City of McKinney police officers for uttering a single word—“disgusting”—after a local mom finished comments that included excerpts from one of the explicit books.
Speaking of Texas school boards getting sued parents, Round Rock ISD is being sued over violating parent’s rights.
The contentious saga in Round Rock ISD continues after two parents filed a federal lawsuit last week against five school board trustees, the district superintendent, and several district police officers.
Last year, the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office arrested Jeremy Story and Dustin Clark on charges of “hindering proceedings by disorderly conduct” following a September school board meeting. Both men were released the next day.
The lawsuit claims the defendants violated Story’s and Clark’s rights under the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment. Additionally, the suit accuses the defendants of violating 42 U.S. Code 1983, or misusing their power to deny their constitutional rights.
The two men attended last September’s school board meeting to protest Superintendent Dr. Hafedh Azaiez’s continued employment and a proposed tax increase.
Texas Scorecard chronicled multiple scandals involving Round Rock ISD in a special report and a podcast series, Exposed, which included investigations into the school district and Azaiez. Five of the district’s seven trustees, dubbed the “Bad Faith Five,” were also brought under scrutiny for allegedly covering up domestic violence allegations against Azaiez.
At the August 16 board meeting, Round Rock ISD officers removed Story after he referenced the investigation into Azaiez. Amy Weir, president of the school board, instructed district officers to escort Story from the building, claiming his concerns about Azaiez did not follow the meeting’s agenda.
At the same meeting, trustees Mary Bone and Danielle Weston walked out after accusing the district of intentionally limiting seating under the guise of following COVID-19 safety guidelines. Clark then demanded the board let more citizens in to witness the meeting, and Weir subsequently instructed district officers to escort him out.
Three days later, Williamson County officers arrested Story and Clark. Although Story’s charges pertained to the August 16 meeting, Clark’s charges dated back to a September meeting of the school board. Their lawsuit, filed May 11, accuses all defendants of suppressing Story’s and Clark’s constitutional rights and claims they were arrested illegally.
If successful, the lawsuit would void Azaiez’s contract and prevent Round Rock ISD from restricting attendance at school board meetings due to COVID-19.
Groomer teachers are even popping up in Ohio:
Elementary-high school students at @OlentangySD were allegedly given an invasive electronic survey on their pronouns, sexual orientation, and mental health. Parents were not notified and were not asked to consent. pic.twitter.com/opEPFNm6dC
Speaking of Michigan lawsuits over gross abuse of state power, a couple is suing Highland Park after the police seized their building and legal marijuana business, charged them with no crime, and then offered to give it back if they bought the police department two cars.
Speaking of crooked Democratic politicians, you would think that all that graft Bill De Blasio’s wife raked off would allow him to retire in style, but evidently that festering bucket of crooked failure just can’t stay out of the spotlight, and is now running for congress.
People magazine may cease its print version. Bonus: “Sources told The Post that under Wakeford, People had been selling more than 200,000 copies at the newsstand a week. Since then, newsstand sales have been uneven, with a May 2 Prince Harry cover dipping to about 160,000 copies sold, and a March 14 Lizzo cover cratering to between 125,000- 150,000 copies sold, which is said to be one of the worst selling issues in People’s half-century history.” Funny how no one gives a rat’s ass about woke royals and the morbidly obese…
Larry Correia gives a deserved royal fisking to an article by a leftwing feminist who wonders why her boyfriend reads that primitive “science fiction” stuff rather than modern literary fiction that checks all the required Victimhood Identity boxes.
If you wonder why conservative victories seem so few and far between sometimes, this story offers one explanation.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s former chief of staff Daniel Hodge is now a lobbyist for one of the biggest liberal organizations in the country.
After a long history with Abbott since serving on his campaign for attorney general in 2001, Hodge was promoted to chief of staff when Abbott first took office in 2015. The key position gave him an incredible amount of power as both an informal advisor to his boss and a liaison between the governor’s office and the state Legislature.
In 2017, it was announced that he was parting from the role. Shortly after, he became a registered lobbyist.
Since then, Hodge has quickly become one of the highest-paid lobbyists in the state of Texas, with lobby reports revealing he could be making up to $8,269,999 on his contracts.
One of his high-paying clients, however, raises questions about where the former Abbott staffer’s loyalties lie.
Reports reveal Hodge is receiving $200,000-$300,000 from the left-wing Tides Center, the sister organization that helps manage donations from the Tides Foundation.
First established in 1976 in San Francisco, the Tides Foundation says it is dedicated to “working to advance progressive causes and policy initiatives in areas such as the environment, health care, labor issues, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights and human rights.”
Look into pretty much any radical Social Justice Warrior issue destroying the quality of life for Americans (#BlackLivesMatter, defunding the police, CRT, radical transgenderism, Acorn, etc.) and you’ll generally find Tides Foundation somewhere in the background.
According to an analysis from Influence Watch, “Tides’ fiscally sponsored groups have been prominent in the anti-war movement, anti-free trade campaigns, gun control, abolition of the death penalty, abortion rights, and gay rights.”
The Tides Center is funded by major leftist foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
That brings up the question: What the hell was such a publicly conservative Governor as Greg Abbott doing with Hodge as his Chief of Staff?
I understand that lobbyists are hired guns, but this is like someone from the American Cancer Society leaving to work for R. J. Reynolds.
It’s impossible to imagine top aides to Ted Cruz or Dan Patrick going to work lobbying for George Soros. The fact that it happened to one of Abbott’s longest-serving aides (and the manager of his 2006 Attorney General reelection campaign) does not reflect well on his staffing judgment.
It shouldn’t need to be said, but it’s imperative that conservative Republican elected officials appoint conservative staffers to important positions. Progress towards conservative goals is all but impossible if you have foxes guarding the hen-house.
No, let’s jump straight to the political ramifications of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. I think the actual ramifications can be summed up as: So what?
There are three main beneficiaries to Roe being overturned:
Unborn babies who get to live
Prolife groups finally seeing the fruits of 40+ years of grassroots organizing.
Liberal Democratic fundraisers.
That’s pretty much it. With the economy in the toilet, do Democrats really believe this decision will be the number one issue at the polls? Democrats have boasted about retiring pro-life Republicans for decades, with no obvious results. Judging from Wendy “Abortion Barbie” Davis’ disastrous Texas gubernatorial run, when Greg Abbott beat her like a rented mule, “pro-abortion Republican women” may have made up 1% of the electorate. And that was eight years ago. Post-Trump, I’d guess that almost everyone who would leave the Republican Party over the issue has left already over any of a dozen other culture war issues or Trump Derangement Syndrome.
I’m also guessing that the hard left’s desire to groom children is going to be a far more pressing issue for parents than late-stage abortion (which won’t be outlawed in blue states anyway).
Conversely, culturally conservative Hispanics and blacks have already been drifting to the Republican Party. Abortion has never been as popular among them as white suburbanites, so it seems unlikely that the decision will play a significant part in driving them to the polls in November.
As far as motivating the Democratic Party base, they were already all-in on Trump hatred in 2020. Once you’ve dubbed your political opponents “insurrectionists” and “white supremacists,” how much more rhetorical headroom do you have? Are Republicans now going to be Extra Satan Hitler Slathered in Racist Hitler Sauce?
Go ahead, quintuple your Handmaid’s Tale cosplay. We’ll just keep registering voters instead.
Indeed, the decision might energize Republican voters complaining that the Republican Party is worthless. Without Republican presidents appointing originalist judges, we don’t get Heller and we don’t get Roe overturned.
Fallout continues from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ decision not only to push through an anti-groomer law for elementary school children despite Social Justice Warrior/Democratic Media Complex/Disney pushback, but also to push through and sign legislation to strip Disney of special tax breaks and privileges.
I covered some of the fallout in Friday’s LinkSwarm, but here’s some more.
See, it’s important that you not use undeniably accurate terms to describe our enemies because by doing so you may convey truthful information that hurts liberals and, according to our conservative cruise ship betters, that’s not who we are. Well, that’s certainly not who they are, because if there’s one thing they simply cannot accept it is victory. And that includes victory over perverts who what to chat up your young ‘uns in kindergarten.
Accordingly, we are not supposed to call groomers “groomers” anymore because people draw the right conclusions when we do, and that certainly will not do.
If there’s anything the failurecons, who constitute a concentric circle with the Never Trump sissies, hate is winning. And we are winning the world’s easiest argument by taking the position that molesters and those excusing and facilitating them are bad.
David French, who has famously made the conservative case for drag queen story hour, CRT submission, and everything else except conservative success, is very upset with us again for accurately conveying the truth of the Democrat campaign to make the classroom safe for creepy perverts to talk about sex with your kids. Now, normal people, as opposed to Pastor French – who is the very best Christian that David French knows, according to David French – don’t like weirdos trying to steer convos toward genitalia during the limited periods in which adult strangers get to interact with other people’s children, like in school. And only weirdos try to do so. There is literally never any good reason for any non-parent to have a talk with toddlers about sexual topics. None. Zero. Zip.
But the groomers have a bad reason. They want to use the access we grant to schools to indoctrinate your kids into their bizarre world view, and some of them want to molest your kids – wanna speculate on the motive of the mutant who was teaching first graders how Jeffrey Toobin makes a Zoom call?
Neither objective is acceptable, and we are going to say so no matter how fussy it makes the sorry likes of David French. Rarely has someone’s surname been so apt. In the current culture war, this surrender flunky is aiming to be the Vichy conservative Marshall Pétain.
Weird how these guys never got upset when the left was lying that we are racist, but are in a tizzy when we accurately observe that the left is pro-pedo.
They want, at best, to excuse perverts. We want perverts hunted for sport.
How much did it cost Disney to go woke? Try nearly $50 billion.
The Walt Disney Company has lost nearly $50 billion dollars in stock market value since the start of March, when executives shifted gears and became more actively involved in politically-charged ideological culture warfare against Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida leadership.
According to the Washington Examiner, the downfall of Disney has been $46.6 billion USD since March 1, which the outlet marks as shortly before the start of their ongoing conflict against the state of Florida.
The latest battle has Disney losing their special self-governing status. Tens of billions of dollars were wiped out of Disney’s stock value since Tuesday, alone. Coincidentally, that was the same day DeSantis announced that eliminating Disney’s “legacy special district” status was on the session agenda.
Some tweets:
The broad middle of this country does not want to see its children groomed by perverts or consumed by transexual madness.
Publix is a bigger employer in Florida than Disney is. Publix is certainly aware of Floridians’ reaction to Disney declaring war on parental rights—and losing $41 billion in shareholder value. I doubt Publix will make the same mistake Disney did pic.twitter.com/v175HjPLaA
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 24, 2022
Russia eyes Moldova, Ron DeSantis and Florida republicans strip Disney of it’s special privileges in record time, CNN+ dies quicker than Sean Bean, and Florida Man scores a trifecta! It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
A Russian General announced plans to occupy the Transnistria region of Moldova on Friday.
Speaking at a defense industry meeting, Brigadier General Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, stated that the Russian Armed Forces plan to “make passage” into the region – in Moldova’s East, bordering Ukraine and less than 30 miles from the port city of Odessa – to create a “land corridor to Crimea,” Russian media reported. Such a corridor would also purport to connect the Russian mainland to Transnistria.
Minnekayev stated that the measure was part of Russia’s second phase in its war in Ukraine, which involves establishing full control over the Donbas Region and Ukraine’s coast along the Black Sea. No timeline was provided for the maneuver to begin, however.
Rather seems like overweening hubris to think about invading another country when they haven’t managed to defeat Ukraine despite pouring huge resources into the attempt.
Speaking of Russia walking on rakes:
Giant fire engulfs Russia’s biggest chemical plant right after a fire broke out at “a sensitive Russian Defense Ministry research facility in the city of Tver.”
Huge plumes of smoke were seen enveloping the Dmitrievsky Chemical Plant late this afternoon. The cause of the fire remains unknown. Almost 150 plant workers were reportedly evacuated.
The facility in Kineshma, east of Moscow produces more industrial solvents than any other in Russia. It is less than 1,000km from the border with Ukraine.
“Less than 600 miles” does not strike me as super close, even for Russia.
Naturally, observers are starting to ask in connection to Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine: coincidence? sabotage operation?
Anti-Putin racecar driver Igor Sushko in tweeting the above video of the Dmitrievsky Chemical Plant going up in flames commented: “We are beginning to see a pattern develop.”
Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation Friday that strips Disney of its 50-year-old “independent special district” status in retaliation for lobbying against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law.
The law dissolves the Reedy Creek Improvement District, an autonomous area created in 1967 to accommodate the massive Disney World complex near Orlando. The independent status has shielded Disney from significant tax burden.
The governor fast-tracked the initiative to a special session Tuesday, after which the state Senate voted 23-16 on Wednesday to advance it.
The parental rights measure keeps gender identity and sexual orientation instruction out of K-3 elementary school classrooms and enjoys majority support among Floridians.
To quote The Wire: “You wanted to be in the game, right? Now you’re in the game.” For years, The Mouse was considered an unstoppable juggernaut that always got what it wanted. Then Disney decided to to throw it’s corporate weight behind the pro-grooming faction opposing a bill banning discussion of sex in elementary schools, and DeSantis knee-capped them in a week.
Though the losses from special tax breaks and privileges is going to hurt the bottom line, Disney has done far, far more damage to its brand for stepping into the cultural wars to embrace forcing radical transexism on a resisting American public. That’s going to be destroying shareholder value for years (if not decades) to come.
DeSantis Bonus: Christopher Rufo spoke at the signing ceremony:
At the end of my speech, I gave a direct warning to Disney CEO Bob Chapek: he must immediately terminate the company's critical race theory training program, "Reimagine Tomorrow," which is now illegal under Florida law. No more racism in corporate America.https://t.co/bIu0Rt0kRapic.twitter.com/S1dJAFe3XS
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 22, 2022
Am I and are others supposed to feel bad because the most opportune time to end Disney’s corporate welfare exploits the momentum that Disney created against themselves?
Because I don’t.
Disney vociferously and hatefully opposed parents who didn’t want ideological activist teachers lecturing their K-5th grade kids about how they bang their significant others after hours — Disney accused parents of opposing this as literally killing gay people because teachers with fantasy pronouns can’t talk about genitals when kids should be learning math.
The left hated corporations influencing issues because of Citizens United v. FEC until they realized they could push Disney to lobby for them and now they LOVE corporations again! Party! I’m confused — are corporations still evil? They can’t influence issues or push for candidates that aren’t Democrat and they have more rights to a child than the parents raising said child? We really need some consistency from the left here.
When corporations act as agents of the state all bets are off. When a corporation’s actual heir, the CEO, and executives say on camera and on their own social media accounts (as Disney’s did) that parental rights erase gay people (I know, what?) and people who support parental rights in the classroom are murderers, all bets are off.
Who is “gaslighting” whom, here? Where was the opposition to the heinous manner in which parents were smeared? Was that not Disney’s “revenge” for opposition?
Disney chose the boss fight against taxpaying parents and they lost.
Losing their corporate welfare isn’t revenge, it’s a reckoning.
Relevant tweets:
Why is Disney throwing its weight behind the FL "say gay" controversy?
Same reason Home Depot inserted itself in the GA voter bill last year… Proxy advisory firms. Specifically Glass Lewis & ISS pic.twitter.com/WaKWlbMoA1
DeSantis and Florida Republicans: Go woke… **blows viking battle horn** and we shall burn your entire village to the ground and sing a song of victory so that any potential enemies in our future shall learn from your folly.
I find it mesmerizing that, after the last few years of corporate America bending over backwards to appease every tenet of progressive philosophy, it’s now a national scandal when Republicans decide to “dissolve Walt Disney World’s private government”https://t.co/KI2eL9itcq
John Nolte: “Yes, Democrats Really Do Want to Groom Your Children.”
The debate we’re having right now…
THE LEFT: We don’t want to sexualize little kids behind the backs of parents. Stop saying that. It’s a lie!
FLORIDA: We’re going to outlaw sexualizing little kids behind the backs of parents.
THE LEFT: NOOOOooooooo!
What kind of country are we living in where we even have to pass a bill that outlaws sexualizing kids aged four to eight in the classroom?
What kind of country are we living in where Florida teachers are angry that they can’t discuss their personal lives with your little kids, much less discuss sex?
What kind of country are we living in where the Walt Disney Co., a company built on the idea of preserving the innocence of children and teaching them lessons about honesty, hard work, and true love, is now openly bragging about feeding the little kids sexual propaganda?
Of course, this is grooming.
What else would you call it?
What is the rationale for telling innocent little boys that they might be girls or gay or bisexual? What other rationale could there be for that other than to destroy their innocence, to turn them into sexual creatures, and warp their sexuality into something that can later be exploited?
Behind the backs of parents!
For the life of me, except for my second-grade teacher talking about the day John Kennedy was assassinated, I cannot remember a single teacher who ever discussed their personal life. A couple of times, I remember seeing a teacher outside of school, at the store or something, and how odd it was to realize they existed outside the classroom.
The thing to keep in mind here is that this is not a “gay” thing.
It’s not gay people looking to groom little kids.
Plenty of gay people are as disgusted by this as anyone. In fact, this sick movement is a terrible disservice to gays. What you have here is the LEFT working overtime to bring to life the very worst stereotypes about homosexuals looking to recruit among the innocent.
What you have here is Disney bringing to life these terrible stereotypes.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the left is desperate to groom your kids, to sexualize them behind your back.
Why?
Well, a whole lot of leftists want to have sex with your kids, and want to normalize sex between kids and adults. The evidence of that is everywhere. Democrats know opening the southern border will mean the import of child sex slaves. And yet, Democrats still open the border. Democrats continue to release child predators and suspected predators. We’re about to be saddled with a Supreme Court Justice who shrugs at child porn. More than one left-wing publication has asked us to better understand and sympathize with child molesters. The left embraced Jeffrey Epstein for decades. The left-wing Lincoln Project shielded a suspected predator.
The other reason for the grooming is political.
Democrats are losing key parts of their coalition: the working class, Hispanics, and chunks of the black population. One way they see of making up those numbers is to create a lot of damaged and broken young people obsessed with their sexuality. It’s just a fact that neurotic, unhappy lunatics and narcissists who define themselves by what they do with their sex organs vote Democrat. So… Democrats want to damage your kids to create a whole lot more of them.
“EIGHT news stories about teachers committing sex crimes upon children. ALL TODAY.”
From Powerline comes two tales of endemic corruption. The first was Yale University employee Jamie Petrone admitting to stealing over $40 million in computer equipment. “So for years, 90 percent of the equipment (sub-$10,000) that Yale’s emergency medicine department paid for–more than $40 million worth–never showed up. It didn’t exist. And no one noticed.”
That’s the smaller of the two scandals. The bigger:
A second instance of corruption is the Feeding Our Future scandal in Minnesota. The scandal actually involves entities in addition to FOF, and altogether $460 million or more has been funneled through these agencies by the federal free food programs Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). The whole thing turned out to be a criminal enterprise. Various crooks pretended to be feeding many thousands of non-existent Minnesota children. The fraud should have been obvious since, if you added up the numbers, a ridiculous percentage of all of the children in the state were supposedly getting free food through these newly-founded charities.
The corruption occurred primarily, although not entirely, within Minnesota’s Somali community. Apparently spread sheets have been circulating among fraudsters showing the names and addresses of many thousands of Somali immigrants who can be listed as phantom beneficiaries of government programs. Here, like the Yale criminal, those who were in on the fraud have lived lavishly, with federal taxpayer money administered by the State of Minnesota paying for luxury cars, expensive homes, exotic vacations, and so on. Scott wrote here about a young Somali bride who was given a tray of gold worth $100,000 as a wedding gift by persons involved in the Feeding Our Future fraud.
Such criminality is not subtle. Little care is taken to hide it. How can a handful of fly-by-night fraudsters steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. government and the State of Minnesota, and no one notices? As in Yale’s case, the answer is partly gross incompetence in Minnesota’s Tim Walz administration. But in the larger picture, government at all levels is rolling in so much dough that they don’t know what to do with it. A few hundred million is hardly worth checking up on.
This goes toward proving my “Working Thesis,” that all new welfare state programs are designed to channel money into the pockets of crooks and left wing activists (to the extent that it’s possible to distinguish the two).
But the government not only attempted to manufacture “terrorists” in the Whitmer kidnapping hoax—the same FBI operation also tried to coax a man in Virginia to participate in the same sort of plot against Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. That scheme didn’t fully materialize, but the FBI’s attempt to pull off a similar stunt in Virginia reveals just how far agents were willing to go to bolster FBI Director Christopher Wray’s false warning that domestic extremists planned to “kill and assassinate” public officials.
In summer 2020, Dan Chappel, the main informant in the Whitmer fednapping who was compensated at least $60,000 by the FBI for his services, targeted a man named Frank Butler, a disabled veteran in his late 60s and an alleged militia member. Taking instructions from Jayson Chambers, one of his FBI handling agents, Chappel used the same playbook in Virginia.
“Dan suggests to Frank that he engage in acts of domestic terror,” defense attorneys wrote in a joint motion filed last year in the Whitmer case. “Like the defendants in this case, Dan suggested to Frank that he attack the governor of Virginia.”
Screenshots submitted into evidence show a jaw dropping exchange between Chappel and Chambers in August 2020. “Goin [sic] to call frank butler today,” Chappel texted Chambers, asking for direction on what he should say to his target.
“Mission is to kill the governor specifically,” Chambers replied.
Just as in the Whitmer plot, Chappel lured Frank Butler into attempting to build an explosive device. Another text exchange in September 2020 shows Chappel and Chambers discussing a “recipe” for a bomb that Chappel can provide to Butler. After passing along the information to Butler, Chappel texted Chambers to tell him Frank planned on purchasing bomb-making supplies. “Awesome. Excellent work,” Chambers told Chappel.
Chappel also invited Butler to a field training exercise in Wisconsin during the last weekend in October, an excursion attended by some defendants in the Whitmer caper.
“This event, like all the others,” defense attorneys wrote, “was conceived, planned, and conducted by the federal investigative team of agents and undercover informants working together to provide a stage upon which to manipulate their targets into acting out ostensibly incriminating behavior the government hoped to elicit in its bid to develop and then ‘interrupt’ the operation of a ‘domestic terrorist organization.’”
Butler, who cannot drive due to disabilities, did not participate. And to date, he has not been charged with any crime.
“Seattle’s transit system struggles as riders refuse to pay. So few riders are paying, fares are currently covering just 5% of the system’s operating costs, a fraction of the 40% mark Sound Transit set as a requirement.” (Hat Tip: Dwight.)
While most reporting on Harris County’s problems revolve around Democrat County Judge Lina Hidalgo, this citizen’s research suggests ties exist between Democrat County Commissioner Rodney Ellis (a former state senator) and certain organizations receiving taxpayer monies.
Ellis’ influence, and the influence of at least one of these organizations, appears to reach all the way to Hidalgo’s office.
Snip.
To counteract shuttering the economy in 2020, Congress broke open a dam and flooded federal taxpayer monies nationwide. These monies flowed to state and then local governments for eventual distribution. Harris County’s cut from the 2020 CARES Act was $426 million.
One organization the county commissioners gave some of these funds to was the Coalition for the Homeless. Ties were verified between Commissioner Ellis and this organization.
Licia Green-Ellis, Ellis’ wife, is a partner of the Waterman Steele Real Estate Consulting Group. Another partner is Lance Gilliam, who is chairman of the Coalition for the Homeless. Gilliam donated to Ellis’ campaign in 2015, and he also donated to Hidalgo in 2018, 2019, and March and June of 2021.
Hidalgo’s chief of staff, Alexander Triantaphyllis, is also on the coalition’s board.
In April 2021, the coalition recommended commissioners allocate taxpayer monies toward “the rapid expansion of housing” for the homeless. This resulted in agreements between the county and multiple organizations, including a more than $1.2 million agreement with BakerRipley Community Developers. We’ll come back to them in a minute.
The following month, commissioners ballooned funding for the housing program to more than $7 million, of which more than $3.6 million went to BakerRipley for the county’s “Rapid Rehousing” program.
New York City: Now that the pandemics over, everyone’s going to come back to our high-tax hellhole, right? People who used to work in NYC: LOL. Get Rekt!
A high-tax, highly regulated city, New York has relied for the past 25 years on a growth formula of low crime, a stable social order, and an emphasis on high-value jobs at profitable companies for whom being in the city brought advantages that outweighed the costs. The result was a prosperous but hollow economy that featured well-paid jobs in finance, law, and technology alongside low-paid service-industry jobs necessary to support those workers, but lacked many of the middle-class jobs in manufacturing or financial back offices that the city once boasted.
The pandemic has changed that calculus. The work-from-home movement has hit New York City’s office market—the backbone of its economy—right in the pocketbook. More than two years after the initial lockdowns that brought much of the economy to a standstill, only 38 percent of office workers have returned to their city jobs, which is below average for major cities. Employers have tried to get workers back to their Manhattan offices, only to be thwarted by Covid surges and resistance from employees who don’t want to return to working in person five days a week. A rise in violent crime and disorder hasn’t helped. Both the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, and his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, as well as former governor Andrew Cuomo and successor Kathy Hochul, have at various times urged workers to return, but to little avail.
The more that workers and companies discover they can accomplish through remote work, the greater the danger—because New York is by far the most expensive place to locate a worker in the country. Its overall cost of occupancy, including labor, utilities, and taxes, is 50 percent higher than the next most expensive American city, San Francisco, and three times as high as Dallas, Chicago, and Seattle. The gap is even larger with many smaller metro areas that seem poised for growth. One big component of these costs is taxes: the city and state together out-tax other competitors, taking as much as 45 percent more taxable income than the average of U.S. big cities and their states. No surprise, then, that even in the pandemic’s early stages, experts rated New York one of the places that might struggle the most to recover its jobs and residents.
What are the Democrats who run New York (city and state) going to do to bring down high taxes? Jack and Squat.
In case you missed it, Pakistan’s Prime Minister was ousted two weeks ago. “Pakistan’s political opposition toppled Prime Minister Imran Khan in a no-confidence vote in Parliament early Sunday after several political allies and a key party in his ruling coalition deserted him.” He wasn’t the worst person to run Pakistan, but high inflation (even worse than ours) brought him down.
California’s corporate diversity law ruled unconstitutional. California’s law mandated that corporations stock their executive boards with members from various victimhood identity politics groups.
The trifecta! “Florida man arrested after cops find him in possession of drugs, guns and alligator.” Click through to see what a hard 31 looks like. (Hat Tip: Dwight.)
“Downtown Greek Restaurant Owner Escapes the Country, Leaving Workers and Rent Unpaid. That’s Simi Estiatorio, and the manager partner who fled the country is George Theodosiou. Read the link for the details. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Heh:
Reward Offered: any information that can lead to finding the person or persons responsible for putting this flag behind our council dais. #SpaceForce
Ps my DMs are open and as far as I can tell it has shown up in the last week or two. I want to know the story. pic.twitter.com/RmDcOtidi1
You would think that by now, even the more dandified blue bloods of Conservative Inc. would have learned something from the Trump uprising about the power of populist and culture war issues. But increasingly it seems like even some of those that didn’t develop full-blown Trump Derangement Syndrome objected not only to Trump’s style, but his actual substance. They seem more afraid of alienating liberal MSM and Hollywood friends over culture war issues than paying attention to outrage among actual voters.
That’s why this Twitter thread is fire.
There are different reasons why some conservatives gravitate to this way of thinking. Some are paid grifters. Some live deep inside the left-wing information sphere and inherit its prejudices, such as the notion cultural combat is toxic for conservatives but OK for lefties.
Some believe they can win ideological struggles without sullying themselves with filthy politics. If they just hold their principles high and visibly disdain effective political strategy, people will someday realize the Right has been right all along, and rally to its banner.
I’m not sure that’s the case. I think a number of them are worried that they’ll be blocked from obtaining cushy corporate-funded sinecures at colleges and think-tanks if they ruffle too many feathers. They want their bread to stay well-buttered, and are willing to keep quiet in order to stay on as some sort of pet opposition as long as the left is willing to throw them occasional “strange new respect” bones and rub their furry bellies.
For these timid elements of conservatism, the worst offense of the Right is questioning the motives of the Left. Nothing makes them spring into action against other conservatives faster than insinuations of bad faith or sinister motives against the Left.
This attitude holds among timid conservatives even as the Left wages all-out war and loudly asserts there are no honest, sincere, good-faith arguments against its agenda. Is there a political argument on the Left that doesn't begin with denying the good intentions of opponents?
They'll tell you it's paranoia and slander to talk about the destructive agenda of the Left even as hyperventilating lefties are busy laying out their agenda with hundreds of social media videos and vowing to destroy anyone who gets in their way.
You don't want to fight an ugly culture war? Well, guess what? EVERYTHING is culture. Everything either feeds into culture, or is shaped by it. The Left gets that, and deployed legions of paid shock troops to capture institutions and corporations while you kept your hands clean.
Now we've arrived at the final destination, the fatal terrain, the fabled Hill to Die On: political and sexual indoctrination of goddamn FIVE YEAR OLDS using public money and state institutions – and it's STILL not time to take the gloves off, huh? Still time for tone policing?
It's as if some conservatives fear the Left's true agenda is so hideous – as carefully laid out by lefties themselves – that if we expose it and speak honestly about it, the public will turn against US for putting such ugliness into their Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.
What that grassroots army of parents needs right now is REPRESENTATION. They're looking for candidates to support at every level. And they need intellectual firepower, ideological support, a movement that understands their concerns and offers a philosophy to illuminate them.
That's where you're supposed to come in, conservatives – from activists to professional pundits. Or do we get another Tea Party debacle where the grassroots gets trashed by the establishment and left to the mercy of grifters because they threatened to rock the boat too hard? /end
The Social Justice Warrior-infected Democratic Party has moved so far, so fast, to such radical extremes, that it’s even woken up the normies. When a school board revolt breaks out in San Francisco, you would think that even the dullest blades in the Conservative Inc. silverware closet would sense the once-in-a-generation realignment opportunities, but no. They seem to be off daydreaming of their next Ahoy cruise or a Jeb! restoration rather than detecting the smell of blood.
The Biden Administration is all-in on slicing off your daughter’s breasts and cutting off your son’s dick. pic.twitter.com/lWrgwSUQeJ
The “moderate” Biden Administration is declaring that it may mutilate your children in the name of transgenderism without telling you. And that’s not a hill to die on? Is there any hill they’ll die on that doesn’t involve marginal tax rates?
These is a giant red wave building to sweep left-wing crazies from power almost everywhere that cuts across all previous demographic, geographic and class lines. Conservative Inc. can ride that wave, or be drowned by it.
