Archive for the ‘Social Justice Warriors’ Category
Tuesday, April 18th, 2023
Another lunatic leftwing California ecowarrior directive bites the dust.
A federal appeals court on Monday overturned a California city’s first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas hookups in new buildings, saying it violates federal law.
The three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal sided with a coalition of California restaurants, who argued that the City of Berkeley’s ordinance essentially bans gas appliances in violation of a 1975 directive that gives Congress control over restrictions on appliances. The unanimous ruling is a major blow to California Democrats’ green energy push, and could clear the way for legal challenges to similar bans around the country.
Democrats have increasingly moved to ban gas stoves while attempting to downplay their efforts. New York is poised to become the first state to ban gas stoves, and California is working towards a statewide ban of its own. The White House has denied that President Joe Biden supports banning gas stoves while the Energy Department works to restrict their sale. Blue state attorneys general and environmental groups lined up to support the ban in court, in a sign of the case’s national implications.
The California Restaurant Association claimed Berkeley’s ban violated the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act , which gives the federal government final say over restrictions on energy appliances.
Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote that even though Berkeley lawmakers didn’t specifically ban the use of natural gas appliances, they reached the same result “circuitously” by changing their building code to ban gas piping—a policy that renders “the gas appliances useless,” he said.
This preemption would apply to state policies as well, he added.
“States and localities can’t skirt [federal preemption] by doing indirectly what Congress says they can’t do directly,” he wrote.
There’s simply no end to the things ordinary people enjoy that radical environmentalists are willing to ban. Fortunately, there’s still some semblance of the rule of law to at least temporarily keep them in check…
Tags:9th Circuit Court, California, Democrats, environmentalism, natural gas, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors
Posted in Democrats, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors | 4 Comments »
Friday, April 14th, 2023
If you’re stressing over your taxes, you might be slightly relieved to know that they’re not due until April 18. Thus week: More Blue City violence and decline, lots of Social Justice Warrior backlash, Facebook shows snowflakes the door, and Budweiser commits brand suicide.
“Ex-ABC Senior Producer Who Rolling Stone Covered For Indicted On Child Porn Charges. Former ABC senior producer James Gordon Meek has been indicted on three counts of child pornography nearly one year after the FBI raided his Arlington, Virginia home.”
“A Silicon Valley Vs. Homeless Industrial-Complex Power-Struggle Emerges In San Francisco.”
Something about the apparently random street murder of Silicon Valley tech executive Bob Lee seems to have overturned a crawly rock in San Francisco’s political scene, suggesting a brewing power struggle on the horizon.
On the one hand, we have a very vocally angry Silicon Valley tech community speaking out about the out-of-control crime situation in the city, with the valued and talented Lee’s untimely death from some night creature who crawled out from some sewer or encampment and stabbed him to death, quite possibly in a drug-addled haze. That’s expected if you live in a place full of bums and criminals, but Lee didn’t live in a place full of bums and criminals. He had actually fled the city for Florida based on its engulfing crime and come back only for a brief business trip.
On the other hand, we have a soggy, entrenched political establishment seeking to assure that there’s really no crime problem at all. This is evident enough in the “crime is down” coverage seen in the political establishment’s house organ, the San Francisco Chronicle, and in the surreal statements of the city hall power establishment, which is rooted in special interests, particularly the most powerful one, the homeless industrial complex. I wrote about that here. San Francisco currently spends about as much on homeless “services” as it does on police, and by some studies such as the one cited below, actually more.
Not surprisingly, as per Thomas Sowell’s observation, you can have all the poverty you want to pay for, and San Francisco pays a lot.
The Hoover Institution’s Lee Ohanian has noted:
Spending $1.1 billion on homelessness is just the latest installment in San Francisco’s constant failure to sensibly and humanely deal with an issue that it chronically misdiagnoses and mismanages about as much as is humanly possible. Since fiscal year 2016–17, San Francisco has spent over $2.8 billion on homelessness, and the city’s politicians remain seemingly baffled, year after year, as the number of homeless in the city skyrocket, as opioid overdoses kill more than COVID-19, and as the city has become nearly the most dangerous in the country. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-most-crime-rid….
Since 2016, the number of homeless in San Francisco has increased from 12,249 to 19,086, which comes out to about $57,000 in spending per homeless person per year. With a total population of about 860,000, roughly 2.2 percent of San Francisco residents are homeless, which is over 12 times the national average. There is little doubt that as San Francisco spends more, homelessness and its impact on the city worsens.
Do the homeless get that $57,000 being spent on them? Of course not. The princelings of the NGO establishments got that money — for themselves. That’s what’s made them politically powerful, enough to call the shots at city hall.
Democrats and Social Justice Warriors view homelessness as a huge profit center, and seek to increase the ranks of the homeless at every opportunity.
Speaking of Bob Lee’s murder, the former San Francisco fire commissioner was attacked with crowbar the day after Lee was stabbed to death.
Also, an arrest was made in the Lee case and it was a fellow tech guy who knew him. “A tech executive named Nima Momeni was arrested by San Francisco police Thursday morning in the April 4 killing of Cash App founder Bob Lee…Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.” So not a random gibbering drug-addicted transient.
Speaking of San Francisco street crime, a Whole Food closes one year after opening due to violence and theft.
Speaking of store closings in blue cities, Walmart is closing half their Chicago stores.
Is it it riot and murder season in Baltimore already? Ha! Trick question! It’s always riot and murder season in Baltimore.
“Embattled Soros-Backed St. Louis Prosecutor Sanctioned By Judge Amid New Complaints.”
A St. Louis judge sanctioned St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office last week for allegedly withholding evidence in a double-murder case, while allowing the suspect out on bond, amid rising criticism about left-wing prosecutors allowing crime to flourish in major U.S. cities.
Alex Heflin, 23, was held without bond since January after he was initially charged with two counts of second-degree murder and armed criminal action, local media reported. But those charges were recently reduced to involuntary and voluntary manslaughter before he was released, while his April 17 trial has been postponed until June 12.
Judge Theresa Counts Burke ruled in favor of Heflin’s lawyers after they filed a motion accusing a prosecutor under Gardner of violating discovery rules. They alleged that her office did not turn over evidence, including a 911 call recording and DNA evidence.
“The court finds that there have been repeated delays by the state in obtaining discovery and providing it to the defense,” Burke wrote, according to local reports.
“There has been a lack of diligence on the part of the state in following up and providing discovery to the defendant in a timely fashion. As a result of the state’s actions and lack of diligence, the court grants defendant’s second motion for sanctions.”
Under Burke’s order, Heflin will have to remain on GPS monitoring. She also ordered the circuit attorney’s office to hand over their list of witnesses within 24 hours, provide DNA test results within 24 hours, or ask a crime lab for the DNA results.
Remember when Reagan was criticized for taking the deficit above $100 billion? Now it’s over a trillion. Every six months. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
2024 update: Tim Scott getting in.
Mike Pompeo getting out.
Fort Worth ISD to make DEI die.
“Molotov balloons are a ball filled with sulfuric acid, but white strips are a type of paper treated with potassium chlorate and a sugar mix. When the balloon breaks, the acid reacts with the potassium chlorate and sugar, which causes ignition.”
Another girlboss indicted: “Penn grad Charlie Javice, founder of Frank, charged with fraud over $175M JPMorgan deal.” Seems the heart of the indictment is fake users.
Prosecutors and the SEC allege that Javice orchestrated a scheme to deceive JPMorgan into believing that Frank had access to valuable data on 4.25 million students who used the company’s service when in reality the number was less than 300,000.
Prosecutors said when JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) sought to verify the number of Frank users and the amount of data collected about them, Javice fabricated a data set. She is alleged to have an unnamed co-conspirator who first asked Frank’s director of engineering to create an artificially generated data set. Prosecutors said the director of engineering declined the request after expressing concerns about its legality.
Javice, according to prosecutors, then approached an outside data scientist and hired him to create the synthetic data set — which was then provided to an agreed-upon third-party vendor in an effort to confirm to JPMorgan that the data set had over 4.25 million rows.
Based on that alleged fraudulent data, prosecutors said JPMorgan agreed to buy Frank for $175 million. As part of the deal, the nation’s largest bank hired Javice and other Frank employees. Prosecutors said Javice received over $21 million for selling her equity stake in Frank and, per the terms of the deal, was to be paid another $20 million as a retention bonus.
Prosecutors said as the fabricated data set was being created, Javice and her co-conspirator sought to purchase real data for over 4.25 million college students to cover up their misrepresentations.
Treading the fine line between “fake it until you make it” and “interstate wire fraud.”
Bud light tranny pander wrecks brand. “I’ve never seen such little sales [as] in this past few days.”
In fact, they’ve lost six billion dollars in market cap.
“People With Taste Buds Continue Decades-Long Boycott Of Bud Light.”
The history of Barrett firearms. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Facebook to lay off 10,000 employees, including some of the people bragging that they had no work to do.
We’re having a party, a bankruptcy party. (Maybe.)
Tragic non-steak roasting befalls 18,000 cows.
Possible sequel to Cocaine Bear hits unexpected obstacle. Or vice-versa.
“BLM Leaders Call For Renewed Protests This Summer After Finding A Fantastic Beach House For Sale On Zillow.”
“Pentagon Leaker Kicking Himself For Not Just Leaving Classified Documents Strewn Around His Garage.”
“Disaster On Mandalorian Set As Lizzo Eats Baby Yoda.”
Tags:#BlackLivesMatter, 2024 Presidential Race, ABC, Babylon Bee, Baltimore, Barrett .50, beef, beer, Bob Lee, Budget, Budweiser, California, Cash App, Charlie Javice, Chicago, Crime, deficits, drone, Economics, Fort Worth, Fort Worth ISD, George Soros, homeless, James Gordon Meek, JP Morgan, Kim Gardner, LinkSwarm, Mike Pompeo, murder, Nima Momeni, Russo-Ukrainian War, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warriors, Star Wars, Texas, Theresa Counts Burke, Tim Scott, transexual, Ukraine, Walmart
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 5 Comments »
Thursday, April 13th, 2023
Just a rumor at this point, but there seams to be substantial talk that Mitch McConnell is retiring.
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has been out of the public eye for weeks, following a serious fall that hospitalized him. Now multiple sources confirm that Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota are actively reaching out to fellow Republican senators in efforts to prepare for an anticipated leadership vote — a vote that would occur upon announcement that McConnell would be retiring from his duties as leader, and presumably the Senate itself.
One source says that Cornyn has been particularly active in his preparations, taking fellow senators with whom he has little in common to lunch in attempts to court them.
Requests are being targeted at a plethora of conservative senators, including the sixteen who voted to delay the leadership election earlier this year, a proxy for opposition to McConnell’s leadership. Rick Scott, the Florida senator and former NRSC head who challenged McConnell, ultimately received ten protest votes. These members could prove key to determining the next Republican leader. Queries are also being made internally about the rules regarding replacement, and how the contest would be structured given the lack of an obvious heir apparent.
McConnell fell at a dinner event for the Senate Leadership Fund on March 8 at the Waldorf Astoria, formerly the Trump Hotel, in Washington, DC. He suffered a concussion, and only after being treated at a hospital and at his home did murmurs begin that he might be unable to return to the Senate. These discussions increased in volume based on the inability of other senators to do their jobs — with California’s Dianne Feinstein missing votes due to a shingles diagnosis and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania’s hospitalization for depression.
McConnell has guided the Republican Senate since 2007, and his role at the top of the party has been enormously significant.
Indeed.
This link comes from Ace of Spades, who is quite enthusiastic about McConnell being shown the door. “You need to spend some more time with your Chinese donors and corporate bagmen, Mitch.”
I’m a bit more sanguine.
The job of the Senate Majority/Minority leader is to be the hated asshole. (Lyndon Baines Johnson is widely regarded as the most effective Senate leader of the 20th century, and he was an absolute fucking tool.) Herding cats in the Senate requires the leader to be the heavy, and the balancing act means that partisans will always be disappointed in a leader’s actions. After all, disappointment is steeped into the Senate by design, as the cold saucer to cool the hot tea of the House.
Cornyn is one of my senators, and I’m not enthused about him taking office. Scott would be better. Thune used to be solid but has turned squishy. I don’t know much about Barrasso, but his Heritage Action rating (a quick-and-dirty rating, but better than nothing) is 85%, which seems low for Wyoming.
Whoever does replace McConnell as GOP leader in the Senate, it’s almost a certainty that we’ll be comparing him unfavorably to McConnell within a year.
It’s the nature of the job.
Tags:John Barrasso, John Cornyn, John Thune, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Mitch McConnell, Republicans, Rick Scott
Posted in Social Justice Warriors | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, April 12th, 2023
Next to the idea that a man can magically become a woman by declaring himself one, and the idea that criminal should be set free because they’re actually victims of whiteness/capitalism/etc., “reparations” are one of the most absurd and counterproductive ideas floated under the banner of “social justice.” the idea that people who were never slaves should extort money from people who were never slave owners is an unconstitutional absurdity that no one should take seriously.
Which is why this story warms the cockles of my heart.
A Target security guard punched a customer during a confrontation that was sparked when she asked for “reparations” while at a checkout line with more than $1,000 in groceries, according to a police report.
The ugly incident happened in October at the megastore in Blue Ash, Ohio, and began when Karen Ivery asked a cashier for their manager regarding the bill and reparations, according to the police report reviewed by The Post.
Social Justice Karens are worst Karens.
The cashier alleged to authorities that Ivery brought up reparations several times during their brief encounter before the manager arrived, the report states.
When speaking with the manager, the customer first asked for reparations and grew angry as she walked “aggressively” toward the manager, according to the report.
“Ivery kept berating her about reparations and her privileged life,” the report alleges as the patron kept walking toward the manager.
That’s when Zach Cotter, a loss prevention officer, intervened and asked Ivery to calm down and leave the store, the report states.
But she allegedly began screaming at Cotter and followed him to his office.
When he tried to shut the door, Ivery allegedly forced her way in and Cotter threw a punch, according to the report.
Surveillance footage of the incident reported on by the Daily Mail shows the staffer’s punch caused the woman to hit the floor.
After reviewing footage of the incident, authorities wrote that they determined Ivery was the “aggressor” and she was placed under arrest.
Good. Deluded people who demand free money for breathing should be derided and ignored, and aggressive people who barge into offices making threats have well earned a five-finger reparation to the face.
Tags:Crime, Karen, Karen Ivery, Ohio, Social Justice Warriors, Target
Posted in Communism, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court | 20 Comments »
Monday, April 10th, 2023
A century ago, the Klu Klux Klan was the most prominent anti-Catholic organization in America.
Political cartoon of the Klan fighting the Pope, brought to you by the kind of deep research only skimming a Wikipedia entry can provide.
The Klan stood ready to defend America against sinister conspiracy of the Bishop of Rome and his swarthy, dual-loyalty followers with vowels at the ends of their names.
I was thinking you have to go pretty far to style up the Pope’s hat more than in real life, but no, this 1943 Klan-affiliated cartoon is actually parodying the Papal Tiara, only used for coronations and which was abandoned by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Also, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that we had bigger foreign rulers to worry about than the Pope in 1943…
Well, times change and the Klan is a dead letter. Today, thanks to modern efficiency and social justice, the fight against the dread hand of Rome is carried out by none other than the FBI.
As part of its effort to identify extremists in the Catholic Church, the FBI recruited at least one “undercover employee” to “develop sources among the clergy and church leadership,” Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) revealed Monday.
Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a subpoena demanding FBI director Christopher Wray testify and provide more information to Congress about the federal agency’s intelligence-gathering initiative targeting Catholic Americans.
“This shocking information reinforces our need for all responsive documents, and the Committee is issuing a subpoena to you to compel your full cooperation,” Jordan claimed in the letter.
“Americans attend church to worship and congregate for their spiritual and personal betterment,” the letter added. “They must be free to exercise their fundamental First Amendment rights without worrying that the FBI may have planted so-called ‘tripwire’ sources or other informants in their houses of worship.”
The weaponization committee demanded that the FBI turn over information related to its investigation of Catholics after a former FBI agent leaked a memo entitled, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.” The memo, issued by the bureau’s Richmond field office, relied on information compiled by the biased Southern Poverty law Center about alleged “extremist” Catholic communities that prefer the Latin Mass and hold to conservative social teachings.
Presumably also “extremists” who believe that there are two biological sexes, or that dare to disagree with the policies of Obama the Lightbringer (PBUH).
Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before The State.
Is your church FBI approved, comrade?
Tags:Catholics, Democrats, FBI, Social Justice Warriors
Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 2 Comments »
Friday, April 7th, 2023
Happy Good Friday! The Biden Recession continues it’s downward spiral…
…a deep dive into how the Russian Conspiracy Hoax has corrupted institutions, Chicago doubled down on failure, and unions want to take your packages away. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
“Small Businesses File For Bankruptcy At Record Pace, Surpassing COVID Crash.” So much for a Biden presidency helping the little guy…
Ditto manufacturing. “US manufacturing near three-year low.”
I was going to excerpt this Tablet deep dive into the Russia Conspiracy Hoax and its aftermath, but it’s so long and detailed, I’m not sure excerpting it can do it justice. Read the whole thing.
Matt Taibbi: Eat Me, MSNBC.
They could either keep doing what reporters had done since the beginning of time, confining themselves to saying things they could prove. Or, they could adopt a new approach, in which you can say anything is true or confirmed, so long as a politician or intelligence official told you it was.
We know how that worked out. I was never invited back, nor for a long time was any other traditionally skeptical reporter, while Nance — one of the most careless spewers of provable errors ever to appear on a major American news network — became one of the Peacock’s most familiar faces.
I don’t know Malcolm and don’t mean to get nasty about this, but: even before that January 2017 broadcast, he had an extraordinary record, one that should have scared away any retraction-averse producer. On August 20th, he went on with Joy Reid and said the Green Party’s Jill Stein “has a show on Russia Today.” This wasn’t true, as Stein quickly pointed out, but MSNBC refused to acknowledge the error. Media watchdog FAIR repeatedly asked for a correction, as did friend Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept, but they refused to budge.
This may not seem a big deal, but at the time it was still weird and something of a pioneering move for a major news organization to just refuse to fix a clear error.
Nance went on to make a lot more, some I would classify as important. A tweet of his in late 2016 was a major source for the pre-election misconception that the Wikileaks-leaked emails of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta were “riddled with forgeries” and “#blackpropaganda.” He would regularly make all sorts of claims without evidence, like that the K.G.B. had “been surveilling Donald Trump since 1977,” and that “little” comes from Trump’s mouth that isn’t “carefully planned to benefit the Russian Republic,” and all sorts of other nonsense.
I was quiet until he said Glenn “shows his true colors as an agent of Trump and Moscow,” “reports in to his masters in Russia,” and is “deep in the Kremlin pocket.” This was outrageous. I was shocked MSNBC didn’t fire him on the spot. Still, I voiced objections in a measured way I hoped might get through, either to Nance or to someone at the network. “I’ve been on the air with Malcolm Nance and he seemed like a nice guy,” I tweeted, “but this awful practice of calling people traitors and foreign agents based on no evidence has really gotten out of hand.”
Nance’s response was “Ok, you’ve convinced me. You need to be blocked. #Bye.” He remained a regular guest on the network, which didn’t cool on booking him until the Russia story fell apart with the release of the Mueller report the next year.
The Nance situation was symbolic of what happened at the network from the beginning of Trump’s term, really beginning in early 2017. It went from being a place where you had to be at least in the ballpark of demonstrably true to being a place where the factual standard was, “Whatever dogshit drops out of the mouth of any hack or spook.”
Moreover the network didn’t just re-report this stuff, it became the favored launching pad for all the most blatant blue-Anon disinformation, like California congressman Adam Schiff saying he had “more than circumstantial” evidence of collusion, or former Obama defense official Evelyn Farkas suggesting the Trump administration would try to destroy evidence if they “found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff’s dealing with Russians.” Farkas later testified under oath that she “didn’t know anything” about collusion.
Snip.
As we later found out, among other things via Jeff Gerth’s gigantic piece in the Columbia Journalism Review, the FBI said nothing about many stories it knew to be wrong, including the influential New York Times exposé, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.” The possibility that officials can lie to us in this way — leaking, asking that attribution be limited to uncheckable “sources familiar with the matter,” then saying nothing as stories start taking water — is exactly why we don’t stick our necks out for such people.
Snip.
the network doubled down, seemingly hiring as contributors every unemployed prosecutor or natsec official they could find, especially from failed Russiagate probes. They’d already spent on names like ex-CIA head John O’Brennan, former assistant FBI counterintelligence chief Frank Figliuzzi, House Intel Director of Investigations and future congressman Dan Goldman (who met Adam Schiff in an MSNBC green room), and federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. Now, they added cadaverous Mueller sidekick Andrew Weissmann and, astonishingly, Weissmann’s deputy, the fired FBI lawyer Lisa Page. They also began bringing in Page’s lover, fellow FBI firee Peter Strzok, as a commentator.
America became familiar with Page and Strzok after their texts — referring to the Trump-Russia investigation as an “insurance policy,” and ripping “sandernistas,” among other things — became public. These were living monuments to press excesses of the Trump era. As Gerth wrote, Strzok quietly reported to bosses after the Times’s “repeated contacts” story came out, saying, “We are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials.” Strzok in other words was exactly the kind of person to whom Rachel might have been referring when she rhapsodized about FBI “not saying anything” to dissuade us from believing errors.
Page on April 10, 2017 got a text from Strzok, saying he wanted to talk to her “about [a] media leak strategy with DOJ.” This was a day before a Washington Post story that cited “law enforcement and other U.S. officials” in saying the secret FISA court found probable cause to believe former Trump aide Carter Page (no relation) was an “agent of a foreign power.” Whoever leaked this was sabotaging not just the Post, but every downstream media org picking up the story, because the story at its roots was wrong: Carter Page was not an “agent of a foreign power,” as the FISA court had been misled, by Steele and the FBI. MSNBC was one of the first outlets to regurgitate this thing.
When sources lie to you, you should be mad. At minimum, you should be ripping their names out of your Rolodex (or modern equivalent). MSNBC did the opposite, hiring seemingly everyone who’d helped them down this reputation-tarnishing path.
MSNBC bet everything on its switch in 2017, and though it paid handsomely at first — in spring of 2017 they became the first cable network in two decades to unseat Fox for the #1 spot, with Rachel owning the top-rated non-sports program on cable — the collapse of the Mueller investigation triggered a long, frankly earned, post-trout-fishing slide. No doubt the indictment of Donald Trump will reanimate things, but prior to that it was grim, as Fox was beating CNN and MSNBC combined by the end of January. The ratings picture for March showed that MSNBC’s top show was The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, rated 11th, followed by The Beat With Ari Melber at 16th.
After all this, after throwing away all their standards, clowning themselves with years of wrong stories, doling out rice bowls to the procession of spooks who now clog their airwaves, and watching as their ratings predictably collapsed, now they want to give me a hard time. Not because I got anything wrong, but because they don’t like my opinions, or where things like the Twitter Files reports came from.
Stuck on stupid. “Far-Left Democrat Brandon Johnson Wins Chicago Mayoral Race.”
Johnson, 47, is a Cook County commissioner, a former social studies teacher, and a paid lobbyist for the radical Chicago Teachers Union. He ran as a decidedly far-left activist, and was backed by Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America.
Johnson campaigned on promoting racial justice and uplifting the working class. He is an opponent of charter schools. In order to pay for a variety of new social programs, he has called for increased taxes on large corporations, wealthy residents, and suburbanites who visit the city. During his campaign, Johnson promised $1 billion in new spending.
Because Lori Lightfoot’s administration wasn’t enough of a disaster…
“Sick Of Same Old Crime And Violence, Chicago Tries Electing A Democrat This Time.”
The SEIU is bleeding membership. Good. (Hat tip: Gail Heriot at Instapundit.)
Speaking of unions behaving badly, the Teamsters are planning a UPS strike.
Yet another reason for the Trump charges to be thrown out. “The progressive daughter of judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money case in Manhattan who worked for Kamala Harris and Joe Biden…Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter, Loren, 34, works for progressive digital strategies firm Authentic Campaigns. She was a digital director for Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign and has worked for a slew of other Democratic campaigns.”
Dispatches from the Soros-funded decline of New York City: “On Saturday, the New York Police Department announced that a man who shot a thief in self defense will be charged with attempted murder despite being shot twice and having to wrestle the firearm away from the thief.” (Update: Soros tool Alvin Bragg changed his mind.) (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has signed into law a measure that requires the state’s public pension funds to make investment decisions on financial risks and returns, rather than environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.”
“Stormy Daniels Ordered to Pay Trump Nearly $122,000 in Legal Fees.”
“Texas Bill Would Create State-Issued Gold-Backed Digital Currency.” This would be a super-interesting story if I thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell of this passing and the Federal Reserve not quashing it.
So much pollen this time of year…
Happy Easter Weekend, everyone!
Tags:Alvin Bragg, Andy Beshear, bankruptcy, Bernie Sanders, Biden Recession, Brandon Johnson, Chicago, cryptocurrency, Democratic Socialists of America, Democrats, dogs, Donald Trump, Environmental Social Governance (ESG), gold, Juan Merchan, LinkSwarm, Loren Marchen, Matt Taibbi, Media Watch, New York City, SEIU, Social Justice Warriors, Stormy Daniels, Teamsters, Twitter, unions, UPS
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, unions | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
Smoothly-run offices have high retention rates and low attrition rates. So what does it tell you that Texas Democratic State Rep. Jolanda Jones has a 100% attrition rate in her senior staffers last week?
The senior staff for Democrat State Rep. Jolanda Jones of Houston announced their resignation over her ‘toxic and unethical’ behavior Thursday.
A Democrat behaving toxicly and unethically?
Jones, a freshman in the Texas House and former contestant on the reality show Survivor, reportedly “actively covered up [her] son Jio’s inappropriate relationship with one of [her] interns, who is significantly younger than him and is in a power imbalance, and [is] now using [her] position to intimidate and silence [her] own staff members.”
Nepotism? Check. Sexual harassment? Check. Also, Jiovanni Jones is evidently out on bail on felony drug charges. Criminal charges? Check.
According to Jones’ senior staff, she “continued to endorse, encourage, and create an abusive and hostile work environment in the workplace without accountability for [her] or [her] relatives’ actions.”
Jones’ chief of staff, legislative director, and district director told her to “own your S.H.I.T.,” in reference to Jones’ book titled “Owning My S.H.I.T.: Suffering Hardship Internalizing Trauma.”
Social justice warrior on social justice warrior fratricide? Check.
The staff’s resignation letter, which can be read in full below, focused mainly on an alleged inappropriate relationship between Jones’ son, Jiovanni Jones, and an intern in the office:
“Jio is not only your son, but General Counsel at Elite Change Inc. (registered lobbying firm and also the financial vehicle of your campaign manager, Dallas Jones).
More nepotism plus a mechanism to rake off campaign donations into your family’s pockets? Check.
If the name Dallas Jones seems familiar, it’s because he was accused of helping Democrats carry out election fraud back in 2020.
This inappropriate relationship may constitute as sexual harassment or a conflict of interest between his office of employment and your state office.
“It is concerning that you have not taken any steps to address his behavior, and instead have chosen to put everyone in the office at risk,” said the senior staff. “Your son is an absolute liability, and his behavior is now affecting the livelihoods and credibility of everyone on your payroll. It is so disappointing to see that while you build your profile on overcoming abuse, you cannot stand up to the abuser that you raised. You are holding a legal case hostage over your son’s girlfriend because you allow him to gaslight and emotionally and physically abuse all the women in his life – work and personal – while dragging your entire office through it.”
Funny how when you start digging into charges of cronyism against a Democratic office holder, a whole host of other unsavory activity comes tumbling out into the open…
Tags:Dallas Jones, Democrats, Elite Change Inc., Houston, Jiovanni Jones, Jolanda Jones, nepotism, Social Justice Warriors, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
Friday, March 31st, 2023
One quarter of the year gone! Career criminals coddled by Soros Stooges, crazy woman who thinks she’s a man murders children, lots of Flu Manchu fraud, and Botox makes you crazy(er). It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Everyone and their dog is covering the ham sandwich Trump indictment, so I’ll leave that to others. I will note that Alan Dershowitz is not impressed. “Based on what we know about this case, it may be one of the weakest cases in my six years of experience.”
“Voter Suppression Is Real And It’s Not What You Were Told.
On the morning of Election Day last November, William French went to his local polling place in Freeland, Pennsylvania, to cast his vote. But the qualified and registered voter wasn’t allowed to. The disabled U.S. Army veteran was told that the precinct had run out of paper for ballots and he had to come back later in the afternoon.
So that’s what he did, returning at 3:30 p.m. But the precinct still didn’t have ballots. Election workers told him to return yet again. But by nightfall, it was too difficult. French has endured 17 surgeries on his destroyed leg and uses a cane to walk. But the sidewalks are a mess, and he was worried about the risk of falling and further injury.
That same morning, Melynda Reese and her husband went to their polling location in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. But only Reese’s husband was allowed to vote, and for the same reason: The precinct had run out of paper. They came back at 4:00 p.m. and were told there would be a lengthy wait.
Reese is a corrections officer and her husband’s primary caregiver. He had recently suffered two cardiac arrests and a stroke. He required regular medication and attention and couldn’t be left alone. Long waits were also too much to bear. The couple returned at 6:30 p.m., and saw a line that stretched so long that they knew they couldn’t wait. Around 9:15 p.m., an election official called Reese and told her that ballots were finally available and she could vote. But her husband had just taken his sleeping pills and she couldn’t leave him unattended.
French and Reese are just two of the thousands of voters affected by poor election administration in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The two just sued Luzerne County, its Board of Elections and Registration, and its Bureau of Elections in federal court for violations of their constitutional right to vote.
“Voters in Luzerne County through no fault of their own, were disenfranchised and denied the fundamental right to vote. William French and Melynda Reese are two of those voters. They bring suit to vindicate the denial of their sacred right to vote, to make sure voters are not disenfranchised in the future, and to bring integrity back to elections in Luzerne County,” said Wally Zimolong, lawyer for French and Reese.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Did the FBI have a “mole” that would tip Hunter Biden off about any China probes.
The House Oversight Committee is investigating the explosive claims by Dr. Gal Luft, a former Israel Defense Forces lieutenant colonel with deep intelligence ties in Washington and Beijing, who says he was arrested to stop him from revealing what he knows about the Biden family and FBI corruption — details he told the Department of Justice in 2019, which he says it ignored.
Luft, 56, first made the claims on Feb. 18 on Twitter, after being detained at a Cyprus airport as he prepared to board a plane to Israel.
“I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the U.S. The U.S., claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. I’ve never been an arms dealer.
“DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim, and Hunter Biden.
“Shall I name names?”
Luft remains in jail awaiting extradition to the US over what he says are trumped-up charges of arms trafficking to China and Libya, and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Luft claimed that he tried to reach out to the DOJ about the Chinese energy company CEFC paying Hunter $100,000 and James Biden, Joe’s brother, $65,000 “in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative around the world.”
Maybe. Could just be a grifter trying to skate.
“James O’Keefe Uncovers Possible Lucrative Money-Laundering Scheme for Dems.”
James O’Keefe has not allowed his forced exit from Project Veritas to stop him. His new journalism outfit, O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), just released a video uncovering evidence of what O’Keefe calls a possible “money-laundering scheme” for the Democrats. Some individuals reportedly appear to have donated thousands of times over a relatively short period to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to ActBlue and Biden for President, based on Federal Election Commission records.
“FEC data shows that some senior citizens across the U.S. have been donating thousands of times per year,” O’Keefe began. “Some of these individuals’ names and addresses are attached to over $200,000 in contributions. We went and knocked on a few of their doors to corroborate the data that we received from a group of citizen journalists called Election Watch in Maryland.” The video then showed O’Keefe visiting someone who is listed as donating over $217,000, through 12,000 separate contributions. This money was earmarked for various entities through leftist platform ActBlue over three years’ time. Some of the donations were made with variations of the person’s name and address, O’Keefe stated.
The data he obtained was state and FEC data, O’Keefe said. “We’re wondering if these donors are victims of what appears to be a money-laundering scheme, or [if] these residents actually participated in the scheme. We’re making phone calls, we’re knocking on doors, these are things that you can do, we hope you do that.” There are “bizarre amounts of data” on homes and individuals making many thousands of dollars of donations, O’Keefe said, urging others to help him investigate.
The first person shown opening the door to O’Keefe, a Marylander listed as donating $32,000 in 3,000 different contributions, said he was unaware of the donations but advised O’Keefe as a solution to hit Donald Trump “with a bat.” The man added, “I want to see a scar on his f**king head. Now stop f**king with me,” and slammed the door.
Another donor, Cindy, according to O’Keefe, supposedly donated over $18,000 in 1,000+ donations to ActBlue in 2022, which would necessitate donating “three times a day, every day, for the whole year.” When asked if she’d donated over $18,000, Cindy responded with a quick laugh, “I doubt that. No, I don’t think so… I wish I could have donated $18,000 to Biden’s presidency.”
Meanwhile Carolyn Lenz, in Tucson, Ariz., told OMG that she “absolutely [did] not” donate over 18,000 times for $170,000+ to ActBlue. She looked at the data showing “she” donated multiple times a day, often in $5 to $15 increments, and insisted that the donations were not hers. “They must be” fraudulent, Lenz said.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Judge stops California Soros prosecutor from slashing triple murderer’s sentence.”
After rejecting her in 2018, the voters of Alameda County, California selected Pamela Price as their new District Attorney last year. Price had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from George Soros for her two campaigns. That probably tells you most of what you need to know, since Soros only funds candidates who are soft on crime and willing to empty the jails as much as possible. Price quickly proved herself no exception, seeking to cut a plea deal with a killer who had been arrested for one triple murder for hire, was accused in the murder of a court witness, and several other violent crimes. Rather than the 75 years to life sentence that Delonzo Logwood was eligible for, Price wanted to cut him loose after fifteen years. Thankfully, a County District Judge stepped in and rejected the deal out of hand. (Free Beacon)
A California judge this week blocked a newly-elected progressive prosecutor’s effort to slash a triple murderer’s sentence.
Alameda County district judge Mark McCannon rejected District Attorney Pamela Price’s plea deal for a 31-year-old man jailed for a 2008 triple murder-for-hire, among other crimes. Price, who took office in November and has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the progressive billionaire George Soros, attempted to sentence Delonzo Logwood to just 15 years in prison, though he was eligible for a sentence of 75 years to life.
“10 Arrests, 33 Charges, 31 Days — One Man!”
You can’t keep a bad man down. Keith Chastain, 38, is a one-thug crime spree.
Chastain racked up an impressive array of arrests in Fresno County, California, (of course). Between Feb. 19 and March 21, he was arrested 10 times for a menagerie of crimes encompassing 15 misdemeanors and 18 felonies, including:
- six stolen cars
- fraud
- DUI (duh)
- drugs (duh)
- vandalism
Chastain was hit with three additional charges — DUI, trespassing, and auto theft — but those were dropped when cops failed to file the charges in time.
Snip.
“Unfortunately, this is not as unique of a situation as it seems,” Tony Botti, spokesman for the Fresno County Sherriff’s office, stated. “California has watered down the laws so much over the years for property criminals and repeat offenders that they are not held accountable like they should be. Sadly, it is our community members who suffer due to these soft-on-crime policies.”
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Aggravated robbery defendant violates bond conditions more than 1,000 times, gets rewarded by two judges.”
According to court documents, Edwin Maldonado spent many months thumbing his nose at what he was ordered by the court to do.
His punishment for that is more like a prize.
“You’ve got someone who was rewarded for being a failure, and this guy was a failure over 1,000 and some odd times,” said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers.
First, Maldonado gets a felony charge for drug possession. A few weeks later, he’s charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. He makes his $30,000 bond and walks out of jail.
“I’ve certainly had clients hauled back into court on violations, maybe two or three times that have been alleged,” said criminal defense attorney Emily Detoto.
Associate Judge Tiffany Hill presided over a bond revocation hearing for Maldonado.
“For obvious reasons, you are not abiding by your rules and conditions period, and God knows what he was doing when he wasn’t where he was supposed to be,” Kahan said.
According to court documents, Maldonado failed to comply with any of his bond conditions for eight months.
According to his GPS monitor, he left his curfew zone 847 times, was called 453 times about his whereabouts, and had more than 1,000 GPS monitor violations.
“Suspect Charged in Robbery that Paralyzed Victim Was Out on $100 Bond for Weapons Charge.”
A suspect arrested and charged in a recent brutal “jugging” robbery in Houston that left a woman paralyzed was out on a $100 bond for a weapons-related charge.
On the morning of February 13, Nung Truong, 44, withdrew money from a bank ATM but was followed for approximately 24 miles by two suspects. Surveillance video released by the Houston Police Department shows a black male bumping into Truong and causing her to drop her belongings. The suspect initially fled with an envelope but returned seconds later to body-slam Truong to the ground before taking $4,300 in cash.
A mother to three children aged 13, 15, and 20, Truong is now paralyzed and unable to walk or care for herself.
Last Friday, Houston Police arrested Joseph Harrell, 17, and Zy’Nika Ayesha Woods, 19, for the attack and charged both suspects with Aggravated Robbery with Serious Bodily Injury.
According to court records, on January 26, 2023, Harrell had been granted a General Order bond of $100 for Unlawful Possession of a Weapon. He also faces charges of Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon related to an incident in February in which he threatened another victim with a gun. Harrell is currently being held in the Harris County jail on bonds totaling $240,000.
Snip.
Although Harrell’s Unlawful Possession of a Weapon charge was assigned to Harris County Court 2 under Judge Paula Goodhart, his bond was signed by Judge David Singer.
Elected to Harris County Criminal Court 14 in 2018, Singer lost in the March 2022 Democratic primary election and his term ended December 31, 2022. As a one-term judge, Singer is not eligible under state code to serve as a visiting judge.
The 11th Administrative Judicial Region confirmed to The Texan that Singer is not listed as a visiting judge.
The Harris County Office of Court Management emailed the following statements to The Texan:
“David Singer was appointed as associate judge pursuant to Section 54A.002 of the Texas Government Code and the Local Rules for Harris County Criminal Courts at Law. His start date was Jan. 1, 2023.”
Finland gets the green light to join NATO, with Turkey and Hungary approving their membership. Sweden’s application is still under negotiation. As I noted previously, tangling with the Finns has not been a source of happiness for Russia.
Poor priorities. “European Ammo Maker’s Growth Stymied By TikTok Data Center Sucking Up Electricity.”
“Several homeless encampments have popped up behind shops at South Town Square in South Austin, driving business and customers away.”
“Florida Governor DeSantis Signs Universal School Choice Bill.”
LA City Council member Mark Ridley-Thomas convicted of taking bribes. “He was convicted of one count of bribery, one of conspiracy, one count of honest services mail fraud, and four counts of honest services wire fraud. The jury acquitted him on 12 other counts.”
“Protesting WA’s capital gains tax, Fisher Investments says HQ moving to Texas.” This is in response to a Washington state supreme court ruling allowing a state capital gains tax.
Crazy woman who thinks she’s a man murdered children in a Christian school this week.
“As Veterans Learned the DCCC Had Leaked Their Data, the VA’s Tech Chief Was Meeting With His Wife. She Runs the DCCC.”
Veterans Affairs assistant secretary Kurt DelBene is married to Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.), chairwoman of the DCCC. It’s a big club, and you’re not in it. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Covid crook convicted.
Federal prosecutors announced a 58-year-old Plainview man is facing 102 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $4 million in federal relief funds passed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday, Andrew Johnson pleaded guilty in the Northern District of Texas to three counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and one count of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity, according to a news release published by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Johnson swindled millions from the Paycheck Protection Program passed in the early weeks of the pandemic to help stave off the economic effects of business closures, government restrictions, and shelter-in-place mandates. As part of the fraud, Johnson applied for and received forgiveness for 27 bogus loans.
He spent more than $3.5 million of the stolen funds on “home renovations, vacations, clothing, cosmetic surgery, college tuition, cars, wedding expenses, and equipment for an unrelated business venture,” according to the DOJ.
Speaking of fraud: “Nonprofit vendor defrauded Austin Public Health of $417K.”
After an investigation that took longer than a year, the Office of the City Auditor in Austin said it found Central Texas Allied Health Institute (CTAHI), a nonprofit City of Austin contractor, committed fraud against Austin Public Health and falsified health records.
According to the investigative report, CTAHI misrepresented over $1.1 million in financial transactions across three contracts with Austin Public Health and was incorrectly paid roughly $417,000 between December 2020 and September 2021 because of fraudulent contract claims. The report also claimed CTAHI falsified its COVID-19 vaccine contract performance by overstating vaccination totals and fabricating patient data.
“This is up there with some of the biggest cases we’ve investigated on my team,” said Brian Molloy, chief of investigations at the Chief of the City Auditor.
CTAHI, President Todd Hamilton, and Dr. Jereka Thomas-Hockaday — both of whom were named in the report — denied the claims made in the report in a statement Thursday.
Snip.
CTAHI’s three contracts with Austin Public Health were for COVID-19 testing, workforce development, and COVID-19 vaccines, according to the city. Between December 2020 and September 2021, the city said CTAHI submitted 23 claims for reimbursement to APH under the workforce development and COVID-19 vaccine contracts.
Flu Manchu is the fraud fount that just keeps giving… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
NHL might stop pushing gay pride after backlash from players and fans. “Philadelphia Flyer’s player Ivan Provorov didn’t want to participate in a ‘Pride’ event during warmups…Soon, other players also refused to participate after Povorov showed it could be done, and some entire team organizations dropped their planned LGBT pride events. And thanks to this one man’s stand, the NHL is considering dropping the whole ‘Pride’ push.”
Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel and coiner of Moore’s Law, is dead at age 94. Semiconductors have radically changed just about every facet of the world.
Italy refuses to eat the bugs.
“Botox alters brain activity connected to emotions.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
Samsung phones fake moon photos.
“An aperiodic monotile exists!”
“This woman was visiting Asia and noticed that all the plus-sized clothing stores have very direct names.”
“Progressives Across Nation Locked Out Of Accounts After CAPTCHA Asks ‘Select All Squares That Contain A Woman.'”
“Media Calls For Moment Of Silence For Shooter Who Was Misgendered.”
Tags:Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Johnson (crook), artillery, Austin, Babylon Bee, Botox, California, campaign finance fraud, Central Texas Allied Health Institute (CTAHI), China, Crime, Delonzo Logwood, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Donald Trump, eat the bugs, Edwin Maldonado, FBI, Finland, Fisher Investments, Florida, fraud, Gal Luft, George Soros, Gordon Moore, Houston, Hungary, Hunter Biden, Italy, James O'Keefe, Jereka Thomas-Hockaday, Joseph Harrell, Keith Chastain, Kurt DelBene, LinkSwarm, Mark McCannon, Mark Ridley-Thomas, NATO, NHL, Norway, Obituary, Pamela Price, Ron DeSantis, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Semiconductors, Suzan DelBene, Taxes, Texas, Tiffany Hill, Tik-Tok, Todd Hamilton, Turkey, Ukraine, Veterans Administration, Washington, Zy’Nika Ayesha Woods
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Military, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 30th, 2023
The term of Austin Mayor Steve Adler was so disasterous that it’s wrecking havoc on Austin even after he’s out of office. The massive scores of drug-addicted transients still plague Austin, and the defunding attempt that, at heart, was a massive cash grab for far leftwing activists. All that, and the election of Soros-backed leftwing DA Jose Garza, has brought about a crisis in Austin policing.
Severely understaffed, defunded Austin PD on verge of retirement wave after city council ‘pulls rug out’ again
Police sources told Fox News Digital that 150 officers have made appointments inquiring about their retirement options
Austin police facing staffing shortages as 911 wait times soar…
Austin police officers past and present are warning Fox News Digital that the Texas capital’s police force critically depleted as a result of defunding in 2020 is on the verge of losing another wave of officers in response to a breakdown between the city and the police on a new contract.
An Austin Police Department source told Fox News Digital this week that 40 officers have filed their retirement papers following a 9-2 city council vote a few weeks ago to scrap a four-year contract that the city had previously agreed to in principle and instead pursue a 1-year contract that the police union’s board has rejected.
That move is believed by many to be due to intense pressure from anti-police activists in the city who look to hold off a long term deal until after voters decide on competing ballot initiatives dealing with “police oversight” that go before voters in May.
“It’s my opinion that the radicals and activists in the city have such a grip on our elected officials that at some point in time over the last year or so their plans changed,” the source, who is an Austin Police Department officer, said. “They said O.K. now we’re going to get signatures for this ballot initiative in May and switch gears and put pressure on city leadership to move away from a four-year deal to a one-year deal because the four-year is detrimental to what we are trying to accomplish.”
Dennis Farris, president of the Austin Police Retired Officers Association, told Fox News Digital he knows of 35 officers from the department that have filed retirement papers and at least six of them are “high ranking officers.”
“I fear we’re going to see a mass exodus of the senior people with longevity to where you’re going to have a department where maybe the average service time was in the high teens now and I think it’s going to drop into the low teens,” Farris said, explaining that departments without strong senior leadership often experience more problems due to “inexperience.”
Farris said that two waves of retirements, officers who have already filed and officers who will file when the contract officially expires at the end of March, could result in as many as 100 retirements. Two police sources told Fox News Digital that 150 officers have reached out to the retirement board in the last few days to discuss options.
The situation has gotten so bad that street racers felt no compunction about blocking off streets just south of downtown and doing donuts.
No wonder Dallas is trying to poach officers from APD.
Is there hope on the horizon? Some. Newly installed mayor Kirk Watson, though a Democrat, rejects Adler’s Social Justice Warrior “police defunding” policies. And Watson has helped forge a stopgap solution to the immediate crisis: Having DPS troopers assist with Austin policing.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) will supplement troopers to Austin Police Department (APD) shifts for assistance with the city’s staffing crisis.
The City of Austin announced the partnership with DPS on Monday, with Mayor Kirk Watson saying, “During my run for mayor, I promised we would make city government work better in providing basic services.”
“This is an example of that. It’s a common-sense, practical response to a serious need and arose out of a positive working relationship between the Capital City and the Capitol of Texas. I want to thank Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and DPS Director Steven McCraw for being willing to step in and work with us to ensure the safety of our shared constituents.”
DPS officers’ primary focus in conjunction with the agreement will be on traffic response, but may provide backup to city police during emergencies.
APD Chief Joseph Chacon added, “This is a wonderful resource and partnership that will provide relief to our APD officers and detectives who want nothing more than to focus on keeping Austin safe — whether that’s responding to domestic violence incidents, combatting DWI, or investigating criminal activity.”
Similar agreements have been implemented in Dallas and San Antonio, and Austin says it will come at no cost to the city. DPS has assisted APD before, including during last month’s breakout of street takeovers.
This is only a stopgap. The real solution is to immediately start recruiting and training more APD officers, and voting out Garza and all the pro-defunding, anti-police Austin City Council members who helped Adler get the city into this mess.
Tags:Austin, Crime, Dan Patrick, Democrats, Greg Abbott, Kirk Watson, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Texas DPS
Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 27th, 2023
The Biden Administration has shown a clear preference for rewarding far left political leanings than technical competence in its nominees for top posts (I’m looking at you, Pete Buttigieg). Texas Senator Ted Cruz took a strong stand against this trend by opposing the nomination of Phil Washington to head the FAA.
From an editorial by Cruz and North Carolina Senator (and pilot) Ted Budd:
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) held an emergency safety summit after a series of disturbing near collisions of planes at airports across the country. These close-call incidents, which could have been disastrous, followed the January malfunction of the FAA’s NOTAM safety system that led to the first nationwide grounding of aircraft since the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.
These serious safety challenges at the FAA are stark reminders of why it’s so important for the head of the agency to have extensive aviation experience, especially in aviation safety. The FAA, on an average day, is responsible for ensuring safe air travel for more than 45,000 flights and nearly 3 million airline passengers. With the stakes so high, it’s irresponsible to entrust the role of protecting millions of Americans who fly with a person who needs on-the-job training. Yet, that’s exactly what we have with President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as FAA administrator, Phil Washington.
Little of Washington’s career has touched aviation. After serving in the military, Washington worked as a transit executive in Denver and Los Angeles , dealing with train and bus systems. Less than two years ago, he became CEO of Denver International Airport, a job that primarily involves overseeing the airport’s shopping, dining, parking, and buildings — not aviation matters. Notably, in this role, he has neither significant involvement with the airport’s flight operations nor does he oversee air traffic controllers, pilots, and aircraft.
Washington’s recent hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee confirmed what’s abundantly clear from his resume: he lacks the extensive aviation experience needed to lead the FAA. At his hearing, he was unable to answer basic aviation questions we asked him, including safety questions about aircraft certification, pilot licensing, and airports.
It’s no mystery why.
Unlike other FAA administrators, he does not have decades of aviation experience. Washington has never flown a plane, never worked for an airline, and never worked for a company that manufactures or maintains aircraft. But what he does have are political connections. He donated to the Biden campaign, co-chaired its policy committee on infrastructure, and led the Biden administration’s transition team for the Department of Transportation. It’s unacceptable that Biden is playing politics with the flying public’s safety by treating the head of the FAA as a patronage job.
Washington’s lack of extensive aviation experience has caused widespread concern about his nomination. At his Senate hearing, multiple Democratic senators questioned his qualifications to lead the FAA. State and local aviation groups all over the country, including pilot groups, oppose his nomination. One of them, the Montana Pilots Association, has said that he is “singularly unqualified to serve as FAA Administrator.” Last week, a bicameral group of members of Congress who are pilots, including former military pilots, urged Biden to withdraw Washington’s nomination because he is “woefully unqualified to fill this role.”
Not only is Washington unqualified, but he’s also apparently under investigation. He is embroiled in an ongoing criminal public corruption probe that is being led by the Democratic attorney general of California. The probe concerns a politically-connected contracting scheme from Washington’s time leading the Los Angeles Metro. Washington has been named in not one but two search warrants in the probe, with the most recent having been issued just last September. It’s inexplicable that President Joe Biden has picked an FAA nominee who is materially involved in an ongoing criminal investigation.
The safety challenges and responsibilities of the FAA are far too important to have anyone other than a highly experienced aviation expert at the helm.
Guess what?
President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration withdrew his nomination on Saturday evening, following nine months in limbo and amid concerns from senators in both parties over his background and relative lack of aviation experience.
DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted late Saturday that Phil Washington, the CEO of Denver International Airport, has decided to take himself out of the running.
“The FAA needs a confirmed Administrator, and Phil Washington’s transportation & military experience made him an excellent nominee,” Buttigieg tweeted. “The partisan attacks and procedural obstruction he has faced are undeserved, but I respect his decision to withdraw and am grateful for his service.”
If only Buttigieg would follow Phil Washington’s lead.
If you want to fight the Biden Administrations attempts to drag America to the far left, it helps if you have someone who know how to play the game.
Tags:Democrats, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Phil Washington, Regulation, Republicans, Ted Budd, Ted Cruz
Posted in Democrats, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors | 1 Comment »