The legal battle between Attorney General Ken Paxton and the non-governmental organization (NGO) Annunciation House, a nonprofit Catholic charity, has a new development after Paxton stated he has reviewed documents that show the group’s “operations are designed to facilitate illegal border crossings and to conceal illegally present aliens from law enforcement.”
Paxton has filed a temporary injunction in an effort “to halt its systemic criminal conduct in Texas.”
“Any NGO facilitating the unlawful entry of illegal aliens into Texas is undermining the rule of law and potentially jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of our citizens,” said Paxton in a press release. “All NGOs who are complicit in Joe Biden’s illegal immigration catastrophe and think they are above the law should consider themselves on notice.”
Included in the 585-page legal filing is recorded testimony from an employee with Annunciation House.
According to the filing, Annunciation House’s executive director “regularly admits aliens that it knows came into the country illegally; and chooses not to require any form of identification from its guests.”
Additionally, the director “admitted that Annunciation House refuses essentially any and all law enforcement requests to enter the premises in the absence of a warrant.”
In March, an El Paso judge blocked a previous lawsuit Paxton had filed against Annunciation House. The judge was critical of Paxton’s motivations, stating, “There is a real and credible concern that the attempt to prevent Annunciation House from conducting business in Texas was predetermined.”
“Both the Attorney General and Annunciation House are now obliged to litigate this matter within the guidelines set forth by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, created to ensure fair play between litigants,” the judge wrote.
Paxton filed the initial lawsuit after Annunciation House did not produce documents and records sought by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). The nonprofit said it was only given “one day to turn over a broad swath of records to the Attorney General without an explanation.”
Founded in 1978, Annunciation House is filed as a 501(c)3 organization, which allows it to be recognized as a nonprofit charitable, religious, or educational organization that receives tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service.
The organization says it has “hosted over 500,000 migrants, refugees, and immigrants from over 40 countries.”
The illegal alien invasion of America is being guided and funded by radical leftwing entities (NGOs and others) in cooperation with the Biden Administration. Ken Paxton and Texas have proven that the states don’t have to take this conspiracy to break the law lying down.
From California comes an amazing profile in pettiness. A school superintendent threatened action against members of a softball team and their parent over not clapping loudly enough for her own daughter.
Marian Phelps was superintendent of the Powey Unified School District north of San Diego.
“As you see, everyone clapped, but Phelps was upset because she said the claps weren’t loud enough.” Never be the first one to stop clapping for Stalin’s daughter, comrade…
“Phelps accused Doe and her friends on the softball team of not clapping loud enough when her daughter received the most valuable player award…the lawsuit says Phelps ordered school personnel to investigate the incident as a case of bullying.”
“One of the softball coaches said he was concerned about being fired. ‘The other coach who stood up to this has been fired. and so I’m in the same predicament.'”
“After meeting in a closed door session, school board members for the Poway Unified School District have voted to unanimously terminate superintendent Marian Phelps.” It seems like lying to the board finally did Phelps in.
There’s a line in the Christopher Durang play Beyond Therapy, where someone recounts going to see a production of Peter Pan, where Peter says “You didn’t clap loud enough! Tinkerbell’s dead!” It’s hard to imagine the level of pettiness it takes for a school district superintendent to kill their own career over people not clapping loudly enough. I suppose this is the inevitable consequence of entitlement thinking and obsessing over “microaggressions”…
More corruption from the Biden family (plus a Texas Democratic congressman), more bad news from the Biden Recession, more pedophile sex offenders, more college madness, and virtue signaling, Third Reich style. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
And remember: If you’re in a large Texas county, there’s a tax appraisal district election tomorrow, so be sure to get out and vote if you haven’t already voted early.
Another week, another corrupt Biden family scheme exposed. “Joe Biden’s Brother Embroiled In High-Ranking Qatari Scheme To ‘Provide Wealth Of Introductions’ Through ‘My Family.'”
Qatar has had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. While we knew about the EU’s ‘Qatargate,’ investments with the Kushner family, and of course Sen. Bob Menendez advancing Qatar’s interests, Politico reports that the Biden family’s ties to Qatar “would constitute some of the closest known financial links between a relative of President Joe Biden and a foreign government,” if courtroom testimony about Jim Biden’s foreign fundraising efforts is substantiated.
In June 2017, Qatar’s neighbors – led by Saudi Arabia, banded together and cut diplomatic ties with the country, citing its alleged support for terrorism. As a result, the country was thrown into a sustained crisis.
To dig themselves out, Qatari rulers began showering well-connected Westerners with gifts and financial benefits, according to Politico, “sometimes in the form of investment funding.”
Around this time, Jim Biden was trying to raise $30 million for embattled hospital chain Americore – teaming up with Florida businessman Amer Rustom, CEO of the Platinum Group, who boasted of his ties to officials in the Middle East, as well as fund manager Michael Lewitt. Together, the three sought investment funding from various Middle Eastern sources for Americore and other ventures – “which came to focus largely on Qatar,” according to a former Americore executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to public records obtained by the outlet, Jim Biden leveraged ties to his older brother and “sought workarounds to restrictions on international money movements,” including one discussion about trying to move money across a Middle Eastern border in the form of gold bars that may or may not have happened.
Let ye who has never smuggled gold across the border of an Arab country cast the first stone.
“My family could provide a wealth of introductions and business opportunities at the highest levels that I believe would be worthy of the interest of His Excellency,” Jim Biden and Rustom wrote in a draft letter to an official at the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. “On behalf of the Biden family, I welcome your interest here,” the draft continues.
Corrupt to the core.
More evidence from the Biden recession: “Job Openings Tumble, Quits Plunge, Hires Unexpectedly Crater To January 2018 Levels.”
After several months of relatively boring JOLTS prints, this morning Janet Yellen’s favorite labor market indicator once again got exciting, and not in a good way.
Starting at the top, according to the March JOLTS reported, job openings unexpectedly tumbled by 325K – the biggest drop since October 2023 – from an upward revised 8.813 million in February to just 8.488 million, far below the 8.690 million expected – and the lowest number since February 2021 when it last printed below 8 million.
The Department of Justice has arrested two Chinese nationals who allegedly plotted to export U.S. technology to advance the People’s Republic of China’s military operations.
Han Li, 44, and Lin Chen, 64, have been charged with several counts of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), in addition to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), for attempting to export a machine used to process silicon microchips….
“Specifically, the defendants sought to illegally obtain for CGTC a DTX-150 Automatic Diamond Scriber Breaker machine from Dynatex International, a Santa Rosa, California company.”
That’s a backend semiconductor machine for slicing finished individual computer chips off a processed wafer.
Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife were indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery, foreign influence, and money-laundering charges, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday afternoon.
The Texas Democrat and his wife are accused of accepting roughly $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities starting in December 2014 and continuing through 2021. The foreign entities are a Mexican bank and an oil and gas company linked to the government of Azerbaijan, according to the Justice Department.
In exchange for the bribes, Cuellar agreed to use his office for promoting favorable U.S. foreign policy towards Azarbaijan and pushing legislative and executive branch officials to adopt policy measures beneficial to the bank, authorities said.
In 2022, Cuellar’s home and office were searched during a federal investigation into Azerbaijan and American businessmen linked to the Middle Eastern nation. Cuellar formerly co-chaired the congressional Azerbaijan caucus.
Cuellar represents TX28. Republicans Jay Furman and Lazaro Garza Jr. are competing in the runoff to challenge Cuellar this fall.
Columbia shows some semblance of a spine, threatens to expel students occupying administrative buildings.
Related: “Columbia Student Who Said ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve To Live’ Reportedly ‘Thrown Out Of School.'”
Also: “Police Begin Detaining UCLA Protesters Occupying Campus.”
“Tucked away in the $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan is a $3.5 billion slush fund to open new processing centers for Muslim migrants, in what Sen. Eric Schmitt described as a bid to “supercharge mass migration from the Middle East.” Republicans in congress asleep at the switch again.
It’s not just China that the CCP’s crazy policies are ruining. There are over 500 abandoned, unfinished buildings in Cambodia. A crackdown on online gambling also hastened the demise of many real estate ventures there.
Tranny sex offender tries to snatch a child from an elementary playground in broad daylight. “Trans-identifying male Solomon Galligan [simply] walked on campus last Friday afternoon during recess at Black Forest Hills Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado, and straight-up tried to steal a kid.”
The suspect, who is identified as male in the arrest affidavit, shared news of his transition on Facebook back in 2011.
‘So im starting my hormone shots and i relly cant wait im on my hormone pills ive been on them for almost 4 months i wake up all depressed and crying but in the end its gonna be totally worth it you know what io mean im really excited my measurements are already changing and im super thrilled,’ he wrote.
Galligan was put on the sex offender registry and was convicted that same year of non-consent sexual contact, according to his latest arrest affidavit.
Ernest Herrera, 56, was arrested Monday after he admitted to sexual contact with a 13-year-old student, claiming they had “developed a relationship.”
Herrera taught social studies at Southside Independent School District’s Losoya Middle School in San Antonio.
He was charged with improper relationship between educator and student, a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison.
Herrera was booked into Bexar County Jail and held on a $75,000 bond.
The district superintendent stated that Herrera was fired “effective immediately.”
Andrew McCown, 27, was arrested Wednesday and charged with having an “improper relationship” with a 17-year-old female student.
McCown is a math teacher and football coach at Roosevelt High School in San Antonio’s North East ISD.
He was reportedly placed on leave in March and will be terminated.
McCown, who is related to former NFL quarterbacks Josh and Luke McCown, was arrested in 2022 for drunk driving while he was a teacher and coach at Robinson ISD.
According to a statement to MySA, the district “conducted a background check on April 25, 2023, and at that time, it was clear and McCown was hired.”
Another football coach, Perryton ISD athletic director Cole Underwood, was arrested Wednesday and charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony.
The alleged victim is a Perryton High School student, reportedly a 14-year-old girl.
Underwood was released from Ochiltree County Jail on Thursday after posting a $125,000 bond.
According to a statement from Perryton ISD, Underwood resigned.
Chinese officials are asking villagers to take out fake business licenses. Is that for their own business scams, or to artificially pump up Chinese economic statistics?
Profiles in Cowardice: “PEN America, a leading nonprofit dedicated to free expression, canceled its 2024 World Voices Festival late last week under pressure from pro-Palestinian activists. Many writers affiliated with the organization either threatened to boycott the event unless PEN acceded to certain demands, including labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘genocide,’ or distanced themselves from the free-speech group in response to online pressure from pro-Palestinian activists.”
The Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) issued a new Title IX rule that includes changes to how federal civil rights law protects “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
A key provision in the rule change now “Recognizes that preventing a person from participating in a recipient’s education program or activity consistent with their gender identity subjects that person to more than de minimis harm.”
The Human Rights Campaign said the new rule will “protect LGBTQ+ students” in addition to reversing “Trump-era changes to Title IX that limited federal funded educational institutions’ obligation to address sexual harassment and assault and clarifies protections for pregnant and parenting students.”
“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.”
Title IX is a federal program that instructs educational institutions that receive federal funds from the DOE to carry out their educational programs “in a nondiscriminatory manner free of discrimination based on sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity.” Included in the issue areas of Title IX are athletics, financial assistance programs, admissions, recruitment, and sex-based harassment investigations.
The actual text of Title IX as passed in 1972 said nothing about “sexual orientation or gender identity,” rather stating “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Not “orientation,” not “gender identity,” sex. As in the biological kind, where those with XX chromosomes are female and those with XY chromosomes are male.
Gov. Greg Abbott issued a letter Monday to President Biden, saying, “Texas will not adhere to the new rules.”
“I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore your illegal dictate.”
Following the Title IX rule changes, Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) penned a letter to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath.
“As Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, I am calling on you to promptly direct all superintendents in Texas to ignore the proposed changes to Title IX,” wrote Cain.
“Additionally, I am calling on all Texas superintendents to publicly commit to disregarding this directive from the Biden Administration.”
The Texas Freedom Caucus followed with its own letter to Morath expressing similar concerns, stating they “urge” him to “instruct all Texas superintendents to disregard these proposed alterations.”
Other state governors and education chiefs in Florida, Louisiana, Montana, and South Carolina have issued similar disregard directives.
Florida rejects Joe Biden’s attempts to rewrite Title IX. We will not comply. And we will fight back. We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities. We are not going to let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents. And we are not going to let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida…
Attorney General Ken Paxton has also sued the Biden administration and the DOE over the Title IX rule change.
“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” wrote Paxton in a press release.
“This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk.”
The complaint argues the DOE “has attempted to effect radical social change in our Nation’s schools” and that the new Title IX rule “walks back many of the constitutional safeguards issued by the Trump Administration to ensure that students accused of harassment have access to a fair hearing.”
Snip.
“This rule violates existing federal law, ignores the Constitution, and denies women the protections that Title IX was intended to afford them,” AFL stated in a press release. “The Biden Administration has exceeded its authority and radically distorted the meaning intended by Congress when the law was made.
The radical transexism the Biden Administration is trying to shove down America’s throats may be popular with the hard left social justice warriors who now man the levers of the Democratic Party’s political machinery, but it’s deeply unpopular with ordinary Americans of both sexes and all races, creeds, and colors. It’s an alien, anti-reality ideology being imposed from without with no basis in any law passed by congress, and resistance to its irrational dictates is both widely popular and a constitutional necessity.
The Biden Recession bites deeper, Soros’ hands are all over the pro-Hamas protests, California fast food wage hikes hurt workers (but help robotics companies), and some Harris County legal followups. Plus some Zack Snyder bashing. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
For the first time in our history, a 30-year-old man or woman isn’t doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That is the social compact breaking down.
People aged 30-34, 60% of them in 1990 had one child. Now it’s 27%. People are opting out of America, they’re not optimistic about it, they’re not having kids. Young people aren’t having sex. They’re not meeting, they’re not mating. The pool of emotionally and economically viable men shrinks every day. Which lessens household formation.
They (millennials and Gen Z) look up, they see wealth, exceptional wealth, across my generation and people in certain industries, and they are really struggling. Their purchasing power is really going down…
We get very concerned with housing and traffic once we own the housing. Housing permits are sequestered from young people, housing prices have gone from $290,000 to $420,000 in the last 4 years.
So a young person, a house, stocks that I don’t own, skyrocket in value, let’s have Covid relief and flush the markets and take assets way up because a million people dying would be bad, would be tragic if I got less wealthy, and we’re doing it on their credit card.
Bill Maher is, if anything, clever about his timing like most comedians. His rebellion against the woke mob has been carefully crafted in a way that has allowed him to avoid outright cancellation. It’s not as impressive a revolt as Gina Carano’s because the risk today is far less, but at least he’s willing to address the obvious hypocrisy within the social justice crowd and admit that maybe, just maybe, conservatives had it right all along.
His latest surprising monologue covers an issue everyone has known about for years but almost no one in the media has been willing to address seriously because it involves many of their friends in the entertainment industry. Hollywood was quick to jump on the feminist bandwagon at the helm of the “Me Too Movement”, but this only exposed a small part of Hollywood’s degeneracy. Actresses trading sex for favors from producers and executives is hardly that shocking a revelation. The thing they really don’t want to talk about is the industry’s penchant for pedophilia…
The money quote from that video that’s not in the ZeroHedge article: “The left will overlook child-fucking if a guy from the wrong party points it out.”
One of the deepest darkest secrets of film, television and music media is that the business has long been used as a vehicle for child abusers to target kids in an environment where parental supervision is limited (and lots of money can be gained). This reminds us of yet another environment where parental supervision is limited: Public schools. The political left has also targeted these institutions as ample ground for grooming. Why? As Bill Maher notes, the groomers are naturally gravitating to where the children are.
“Leave the kids alone” is a mantra that the woke movement simply refuses to understand or accept. The reason is relatively transparent – Leftists are less inclined to have children of their own, and so, in order to increase their numbers and power they are required to indoctrinate your kids instead. This is all done under the guise of “inclusion” and the “greater good” but the results of this kind of activism are becoming deeply disturbing. Even moderate liberals are noticing that woke behavior is destroying what remains of their image.
Newly unsealed documents in Donald Trump’s classified documents case reveal that the Biden White House colluded with the National Archives (NARA) and the FBI to concoct a case against the former president.
What’s more, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to conceal this – telling Judge Eileen Cannon in February that Trump’s counsel isn’t entitled to discovery on documents between the White House and NARA, that the court should toss requests for evidence of the alleged coordination, and that the court should deny Trump’s request for evidence related to secure facilities at his residences. Further, Trump’s request for unredacted discovery of materials should be denied.
Seems like a substantial due process rights violation, doesn’t it?
Immediately after Biden’s signature, the Pentagon announced $1 billion of military assistance to Ukraine from the Presidential Drawdown Authority.
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, ammunition for HIMARS rocket systems, 155mm artillery rounds, 60mm mortary rounds, and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, are among the U.S. capabilities being provided to Ukraine, the Pentagon said.
The foreign-aid legislation will send roughly $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, with $23 billion being used to replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles and $11 billion to fund U.S. military operations in the surrounding area.
Israel will receive $26 billion including $4.4 billion to fund its Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defenses. Over $9 billion of the Israel aid will go towards humanitarian relief.
While I support military aid to Ukraine, Republicans should not have dropped their demand that border security be addressed first, nor should we be raising the national debt to do it. And if we’re going to be paying for David’s Sling and Iron Dome, then we better damn well be getting the tech back to use in our own weapons.
At three colleges, the protests are being encouraged by paid radicals who are “fellows” of a Soros-funded group called the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).
USCPR provides up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based “fellows” in return for spending eight hours a week organizing “campaigns led by Palestinian organizations.”
They are trained to “rise up, to revolution.”
The radical group received at least $300,000 from Soros’ Open Society Foundations since 2017 and also took in $355,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund since 2019.
More on that theme:
TERROR: The occupation of college campuses across the US is a well organized and funded operation led by Soros-backed groups including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). The Soros-backed NGOs pay outside agitators $7800 and… pic.twitter.com/6wzpjBksBs
A lot of Jewish friends, especially those who are finally awake after 10/7, say things like "how is this America?" or "It's so scary that this Jew-hatred is happening everywhere." But it's very much NOT "America" and it absolutely is NOT happening "everywhere." In south Florida,…
A lot of Jewish friends, especially those who are finally awake after 10/7, say things like “how is this America?” or “It’s so scary that this Jew-hatred is happening everywhere.” But it’s very much NOT “America” and it absolutely is NOT happening “everywhere.” In south Florida, Jews wear the dinner plate Magen Davids and no one says one word. In rural Michigan, churches put “pray for Israel” on the signs outside. I’m not naive, obviously Jew-haters can and do live anywhere. But they’re only thriving, open, proud, in blue areas and I’m not going to let people ignore that. A lot of liberal Jews are trying to parse things right now. They imagine they are still of the left but just on this one tiny little thing, their right to exist, they disagree. No, my friends. It’s a house of cards and you’re pulling the one from the very bottom. The whole left ideology is corrupt and you’re going to have to face it. You can’t spread the blame around. The hatred, the rage, the violence, the dehumanization is all coming from one side: yours.
When Democrat judges go rogue. “Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
The state of California seems hellbent on making life a living hell for middle-class residents, as evidenced not just by their soft-on-crime policies but by the minimum wage increase that went into effect at the beginning of April.
Though the $20/hour wage was ostensibly designed to help minimum wage workers, it has had the opposite effect, with fast food restaurants in the Democrat-run state slashing jobs and hours, implementing hiring freezes, and/or bringing in self-serve kiosks to ease the financial burden.
Something else they’ve had to do is raise prices on the food they serve, with prices going up as much as eight percent at some locations.
While the fast-food industry was founded on utilizing technology to increase efficiency, the robot revolution seems to be speeding up.
Last year, Sweetgreen, a Los Angeles-based fast-casual salad chain, debuted its fully automated Infinite Kitchen at a restaurant in Illinois. Like Mezli, the Infinite Kitchen moves bowls down a conveyor belt where its system automatically portions out ingredients. The technology is “expected to cut labor costs in half while boosting throughput,” according to a trade magazine.
Similarly, the founder of Chipotle recently launched a new fast-casual chain, Kernel, that utilizes robots to heat and assemble vegetarian meals.
In December, a CaliExpress burger joint opened in Pasadena, complete with robot arms that cook burgers and fries, and AI-powered kiosks that allow customers to order and pay (and tip, of course), with their faces. Leaders at Miso Robotics, one of the companies behind CaliExpress, have said it is the first restaurant where all the ordering and cooking is fully automated.
The robots “don’t call in sick, they don’t get drunk the night before work and come in with a hangover,” one CaliExpress leader told a local TV station. “They’re a little bit more reliable.”
Other restaurants, including Cajun Crack’n in Concord, Calif., are experimenting with robots that can deliver food, bus tables, and may soon be taking orders. Robot bartenders and baristas are also in the works.
While restaurant sales are forecasted to increase this year and the restaurant workforce is expected to grow, owners are continuing to struggle with slim margins, in part due to food inflation and rising labor costs. According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry report, 98 percent of restaurant operators are struggling with higher labor costs, and 38 percent say they weren’t profitable last year.
Biden Recession + union-backed wage hikes = boom times for robots
El Paso Democratic judge: Eh, there’s not enough evidence to put these illegal aliens on trial for assaulting state troopers. Just let them go. Grand jury: Nope! We’re indicting 141 of them for that riot.
Another Harris County follow-up: DA Kim Ogg announced that the legal cases against Lina Hidalgo staffers will now be prosecuted by the Texas Attorney General’s office because Democratic DA nominee Sean Teare, who defeated Ogg in the March primary, “works for the Cogdell Law Firm, which is defending Hidalgo’s former Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis in the case, and that he had sought and received Hidalgo’s endorsement.”
The Biden Administration wants to waste taxpayer money pushing radical transgenderism in other countries. “The Biden administration wants to train at least 200 activists to advocate for transgender rights in India as part of a program ostensibly designed to advance America’s ‘national interests,’ according to a federal grant posting.”
More Biden Administration madness: “A popular US convenience store chain has been hit with a civil rights lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against minority job seekers because it requires applicants to have no criminal record.”
A dust storm of political madness is brewing in Phoenix as Grand Canyon University faces the continued threats of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
Christians have watched as the Biden administration attacks biblical views left and right, with a particularly vehement disregard for the sanctity of life and marriage. As such, it can’t be too surprising that Cardona, a part of this leftist administration, has vowed to shut down America’s largest Christian university.
In late October, Grand Canyon University was hit with “a $37.7 million fine brought by the federal government over allegations that it lied to students about the cost of its programs,” The Associated Press reported—an accusation that GCU President Brian Mueller described as “ridiculous.”
Around the same time, Liberty University, America’s second-largest Christian university, also was fined $37 million “over alleged underreporting of crimes.”
Grand Canyon University appealed its fine in November even though a hearing is not expected until January 2025. But the question Mueller has is one of integrity. Is this genuine consideration for the well-being of students, or is this a targeted attack against religious institutions?
“It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the two largest Christian universities in the country, this one and Liberty University, are both being fined almost the identical amount at almost the identical time?” GCU’s president speculated in a speech. “Now is there a cause and effect there? I don’t know. But it’s a fact.”
Trader Joe’s organic basil has an extra organic ingredient: salmonella.
Critical Drinker wasn’t impressed with Rebel Moon 2: “Comically inept…boring and tedious..derivative cliched and unoriginal. It takes a special kind of cinematic anti-genius to bring all these things together into one movie. You have to actively work to make a film this bad”
The Biden Recession hits boardgaming. This is not a field I have much experience with, as the last boardgame I bought was the Kickstarter for the Designer Edition of Ogre. But I have noticed a similar decline in what science fiction book collectors are spending. Still, the idea that boardgames manufacturers are close to $1 billion in debt is pretty staggering.
The Onion sold. “The Onion has a new owner: a company called ‘Global Tetrahedron,’ which is a real thing based on a fake entity invented by the satire site more than two decades ago….The Onion’s new owner is Jeff Lawson, co-founder and former CEO of Twilio, a customer-service software company, he announced Thursday on X (formerly Twitter).” When last we read about Jeff Lawson, he was dumping money on the Dem side in the 2020 Texas Senate race, to no effect. Now people are wondering whether they’ll shut down zombie SJW gaming site Kotaku…
Live in Florida? Ron DeSantis would like you to adopt this cute border dog:
Essentia is a lab/shepherd mix who was rescued from the southern border, where the border crisis affects everyone—even our canine friends. Please consider giving Essentia a great home by adopting her from Big Dog Ranch Rescue.https://t.co/2ATqP5DPQNpic.twitter.com/qMO8JD1zUw
If you follow news on conservative blogs, you’ve probably read about antisemitic riots roiling liberal campuses like Columbia, where Jewish students have been assaulted or threatened by Hamas supporters who loudly proclaim their desire to “destroy Zionists” throughout the world.
The usual gang of idiots tried that at the University of Texas and quickly found out that Texas isn’t New York.
More than 20 people have been arrested, including a FOX 7 Austin photographer, by law enforcement on the University of Texas at Austin campus Wednesday.
UT Police have issued a dispersal order directing everyone to leave the South Mall area immediately.
Hundreds of students walked out of class Wednesday to rally for Palestine and attempt to occupy the South Lawn on campus.
The students gathered on the South Lawn and set up tents while chanting “Free Free Palestine” and other slogans, including ones aimed at the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and even Austin police.
DPS said in a release on social media that it responded to the campus at the request of the University and at the direction of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott “in order to prevent any unlawful assembly and to support UT Police in maintaining the peace by arresting anyone engaging in any sort of criminal activity, including criminal trespass.”
UTPD is warning people to avoid the area in the 2200 block of Speedway for “police activity”. This area is between the South Lawn and the Gregory Gymnasium where the march began.
On Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Greg Abbott vowed that the arrests would continue until the crowd dispersed.
“These protesters belong in jail. Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period. Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled,” said Abbott.
State Sen. Brandon Creighton (R–Conroe), who chairs the Senate Education Committee, noted in light of the protests nationwide that the First Amendment does not protect violence or harassment.
“Let’s be real: if campuses witnessed protests with anti-LGBTQ+, anti-Asian, or anti-Hispanic slogans, the backlash would be fierce and immediate. Yet, when protests challenge Israel’s existence, they’re often waved off as acceptable political speech. It’s an unacceptable double standard, one that’s been fueled significantly by DEI programs,” he wrote in a post on X.
Creighton was the author of the state’s ban on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and departments on college campuses that went into effect earlier this year.
“And let’s not forget what Israel is fighting against —Hamas, a known terrorist organization, carried out the Oct. 7th attack—the worst attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust. This isn’t about politics; it’s about recognizing and condemning terrorism and violence,” Creighton added.
The first amendment affords these morons the right to protest for their incredibly stupid causes. However, the right to protest is not the right to break the law, and clearly leftwing campuses across America have been letting their radical darlings break laws at will. Eugene Volokh has additional information on what is and isn’t lawful protest and both public and private universities. “There is no First Amendment right to camp out in any university, public or private. Indeed, there is no First Amendment right to camp out even in public parks (see Clark v. CCNV (1984)), and the government’s power to limit the use of property used for a public university is even greater than its power as to parks (Widmar v. Vincent (1981)).” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Disruptive protests that break the law are not constitutionally protected. Pro-Hamas protestors may get away with that sort of thing in deep blue cities and states, but that sort of thing doesn’t fly in Texas.
In many states, Democrats can’t win unless they cheat, and that’s why they want easily-abused universal mail-in voting to become to the norm. To that end, Democrats sued Texas (yet again) over mail-in voting limitations, and once again their lawsuit against election security laws was denied by the Supreme Court.
An attempt to revive the Texas Democratic Party’s 2020 challenge to the state’s mail-in ballot restrictions was denied this week by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari from Joseph Cascino, Marie Sansing, and Brenda Li Garcia — residents of Texas who do not qualify for mail-in voting under current law. They filed their petition back in December.
In Texas anyone may vote early in person, but only those aged 65 or older, disabled, or out of their county of residence during the election may vote by mail.
The trio of petitioners argued that their right to vote is impinged by those limitations and that the 26th Amendment bars any such division of classification between voters.
The case was originally made in 2020 by the Texas Democratic Party, which secured a temporary victory in the trial court. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision and the Supreme Court denied an appeal of that reversal.
Represented by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Secretary of State Jane Nelson countered, “Some States endorse no-excuse absentee voting; others require in-person voting with narrow exceptions.”
“This diversity of approaches reflects a healthy federalism and accords with the uncontroversial notion that ‘government must play an active role in structuring elections.’”
The court did not issue any opinion or reasoning with the dismissal.
“Many states irresponsibly and unconstitutionally changed their voting policies prior to the 2020 election,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said of the dismissal. “Fortunately, we did things differently in Texas: we fought hard to uphold Texas law and defend the integrity of elections in this State.”
Texas did change its voting policy during the 2020 election — Gov. Greg Abbott used disaster powers to unilaterally extend early voting by a week — and while no ruling declared it unconstitutional, the extension was done without input from the Legislature, which was the very contention of Paxton’s 2020 election suit against other states who similarly changed voting laws through executive order.
Two state senators, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, then-Texas GOP Chair Allen West, and a bevy of then-current or former state representatives sued over the action. The Texas Supreme Court denied their motion for an emergency stay as Paxton was named as one of the attorneys for Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs.
Another argument that was denied back in 2020 was that the threat of contracting COVID-19 constituted a disability under the state Election Code; it was also ultimately rejected.
The practical onus for the original lawsuit was Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins’ unsolicited mailing of absentee ballot applications to all voters. That action was halted by the Texas Supreme Court in October 2020.
In Harris County, I’m sure that Lina Hidalgo is very disappointed that vote tabulation sites won’t be able to pull out boxes of miraculously overlooked mail-in ballots to alter tallies at 3 AM on November 5th…
A petition filed in the 455th Travis County District Court on Apr. 8. calling for the removal of Travis County District Attorney José Garza was granted Friday afternoon by Dib Waldrip, the 433rd District Judge in Comal County and Presiding Judge of the 3rd Administrative Judicial Region.
Waldrip, who was appointed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to serve as the Presiding Judge of the 3rd Administrative Judicial Region in 2022, was assigned the case on Apr. 10 before granting the application for the issuance of a citation with an order for Garza to answer and appear in Travis County District Court on May 16.
Additionally, Waldrip appointed the Office of the Bell County Attorney and the Honorable Jim Nichols to represent the State as “a qualified and appropriate prosecuting attorney from within the region.”
Nichols is a Republican.
According to the court records, Nichols was selected by Waldrip after considering available options in accordance with Texas’ statute stating “the county attorney of the jurisdiction serves as counsel for the State in actions to remove an officer, except when such an action seeks removal of a prosecuting attorney.”
KXAN reached out to Waldrip, Abbott and Nichols about the matter and will update this story once a response is received.
The petition argues “Incompetency and official misconduct” related to the policies enforced by Garza about the who and what criminal offenses his office prosecutes.
Specifically, the petition references three issues supporting these allegations:
Defendant singles out law enforcement officials by automatically, indiscriminately, presenting charges against them to grand juries;
Defendant maintains a “do not call to testify” list of law enforcement officials who he deems unfit to testify and disqualifies from serving as witnesses for the State of Texas and
Defendant refuses to prosecute a class or type of criminal offense under state law.
The 21-page petition goes on to detail policies and evidence that allegedly show violations of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure such as presenting cases to grand juries that are not supported by probable cause and discriminatory practices specific to law enforcement officers.
Israel’s Iran strike is shrouded in mystery, California is shockingly “permissive” on sex trafficking children, Warhammer goes woke, and a new Doom speed-running record. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Senior US military sources:The target of the Israeli strike was an Iranian military base in Isfahan near Natanz, not the nuclear facilities themselves. “The Israelis hit what they intended to strike,” The targets within this strike included Iranian air defense systems at the air base including those used to protect their nearby nuclear facilities. It was a message to the Iranians, “We can reach out and touch you.” The Russian made air defense systems were shown to be ineffective. There was one target but multiple strikes within that target. The Israelis used missiles and unmanned aircraft – in other words no manned aircraft (F35’s or others) were used as part of this strike
Both Israeli and Iranian sources are being cagey about what actually was hit. Right now it’s looking like it was a very limited strike, almost just a “See? We can hit them if we want to” strike to satisfy the Biden Administration’s endless calls for “restraint” while they continue to pound Hamas into a fine red paste. But it does offer a certain amount of support for the Kayfabe theory of Middle East politics…
The penalty for the equivalent of child trafficking in “progressive,” “forward-thinking,” “compassionate” California is a maximum penalty of a year in jail, and a minimum of two days in jail, plus a $10,000 fine which may or may not be paid depending on sentencing details.
Plenty has been said in recent years about soft-on-crime policies in states led by Democrats, and with good reason. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that political movements that believe the execution of preborn children is morally and legally permissible would also enforce such loose penalties for child endangerment and exploitation. But this seems, even for liberals, unconscionable.
Thankfully, it’s not that way everywhere. Other states with right-leaning leadership handle child predation, shall we say, “differently.”
But California especially loves setting sex offenders free if they’re illegal aliens.
It turns out that Katherine Maher is no ordinary ascendant progressive media executive. No, this woman’s social-media history reveals her to be the Kwisatz Haderach of white wokeness, presumably bred through generations of careful genetic selection to be the supernaturally perfect embodiment of Affluent White Female Liberalism. (As many have noted, she not only acts but looks like Titania McGrath.) It’s vaguely unreal: If there was a trendy progressive take floating around on Twitter and popular within media circles, then you can reliably bet she was there to voice it in the most preeningly insulting way possible.
(Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, who also offers lots of choice Chris Rufo commentary on tweets from Maher.)
“Texas Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne (R-TX-24) has taken out a full-page advertisement in the New York Post in an effort to recruit law enforcement from New York City, encouraging them to ‘escape New York and move to Texas. Sadly, the corrupt and crumbling Empire State is so purposefully anti-law and order, that you should no longer put your careers and lives in the hands of politicians who couldn’t care less about you or your families,’ the advertisement states.”
I’ll take “Headlines You Don’t Want To Read At Breakfast” for $400: “New York Suffers Record Rise in Potentially Deadly Disease Caused by Rat Urine. New York City has seen a record jump in the number of human leptospirosis, a disease caused by rat urine that can cause kidney damage, liver failure, and even death.”
“A far-left extremist that firebombed a pro-life office in Wisconsin in 2022 has been sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison, along with three years of supervised release and a $32,000 fine.”
Republicans aim to use ballot initiatives to overturn unpopular Democratic Party policies. “Republicans in Washington are moving to get three major ballot initiatives passed. These measures will repeal Democrat-passed policies that are becoming unpopular among locals. The three changes would repeal the state’s sanctuary status for illegal immigrants, end an attempt to ban natural gas, and a change to the laws to strip squatters of their rights.”
You’ll need to click Show More for this one:
i remember in feb and march of 2020 being astonished by this lockdown idea and loudly yowling "do you have any idea what shutting down the world for 2 weeks would do to global supply chains and economic function?"
Has Warhammer gone woke? “I can’t help thinking that you finally started to bow to pressure from ‘Modern Audiences,’ and you were almost certainly encouraged to do this by a sudden infusion of investment money from BlackRock.”
The moment you make any concession, no matter how tiny, you’ve already given the game away. You’ve made it known that you’re prepared to bow down to their demands if they put enough pressure on you. And so, inevitably, their demands are never going to end. They’ll literally never be happy because there’s always going to be some other thing, some other piece of problematic lore, some other rule or exclusionary detail that has to be altered to comply with their constantly evolving demands, and all in the name of inclusion and diversity.
Because these people don’t care about your hobby, they don’t care about integrating into a community of like-minded individuals. All they care about is that the community bends and reshapes itself to suit them, until eventually they bend it so much that it breaks. People like that are complete and utter poison for any hobby, any fandom, any franchise. All they ever manage to do is stir up conflict, resentment and division, driving people away and turning fans against the very company that tries to pander to them, because their very reason for existing is to undermine and destroy the thing they claim that they’re trying to save.
And if you’ve got any common sense whatsoever or any love for the fandom that you’re so passionate about, you’ll think very carefully before bending the knee to them.
Sunday I watched Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire at the local Alamo Drafthouse. All of the trailers shown before the movie were for sequels or reboots:
Furiosa
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
The Crow reboot
Bad Boys Ride or Die
Twisters
I understand there’s a certain amount of irony in complaining that all the trailers were a sequel or a reboot before a movie that was a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a reboot, but usually Alamo has more varied trailer fare.
But that lack of originality, along with wokeness, the red ink carnage of the streaming wars, and the lingering effects of the most recent strikes, has led to a deep recession in Hollywood, so much so that Deadline has a regular Hollywood Contraction feature.
How bad is it? “Employment in “motion picture and sound recording” has grown nationwide, but the share of workers in LA or New York went from just under half at the beginning of 2023 to just one-third earlier this year.”
All this activity peaked in 2022, when 600 original scripted shows were in production, according to the network FX. That gave lots of opportunities to everyone who makes a film shoot possible: Writers, crew members, caterers, and actors, like Haddad Tompkins. But it didn’t last.
“When the beginning of 2023 happened, it seemed like there was this chill on production and making things and buying things,” she said.
Per FX’s count, the number of scripted shows dropped to 516 last year. Studios pulled back for a few reasons, according to Patrick Adler, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong and head of the consulting firm Westwood Economics, which issued a recent report on the film industry workforce.
First, investors started feeling the effects of rising interest rates.
“Wall Street just got significantly less patient with the spending by the studios on streaming platforms as soon as money started to be more expensive,” Adler explained.
Second, he said, studios realized that consumers might not have as much capacity as they anticipated for lots of new streaming subscriptions.
Then, in May of last year, the Hollywood writers’ union went on strike, followed by the actors’ union…
The resulting work stoppages effectively shut the industry down for six months. But once both unions reached contract agreements with studios, many people in the industry expected production would pick back up. Maybe not to the level of the streaming bubble, but an uptick.
But in LA and New York, that hasn’t really happened. Actor Janie Haddad Tompkins said when studios were pumping out shows in the midst of the streaming bubble, she’d get one or two auditions per week.
“Now, it’s like I’ve had maybe one a month,” she said. “So it’s been bleak.”
The studio whose wokeness seems to have wrecked hardest is Disney. “Its last four high-profile releases bombed at the box office, losing over $1 billion between them. Once Hollywood’s most successful film studio, Disney was dethroned last year by Universal Pictures.” And Elemental was the worst performing film in Pixar history.
It’s so bad that even Hollywood regulars who tick all the proper intersectionality boxes are being laid off. Quel dommage! Here’s a Critical Drinker round-table on the subject.
“Every IP is dead. The snake has eaten its own tail. There’s no more tail left to eat.”
If Disney just could have avoiding injecting wokeness, it could have milked Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and its own IP for decades. Instead, its wokeness and poor quality has alienated its core demographics, possible for a decade or more. And the rest of Hollywood hasn’t been far behind.
