Archive for the ‘Budget’ Category

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Number of Police Austin Adds In New Budget: Zero

Thursday, July 20th, 2023

Despite a massive deficit in the number of police officers needed to patrol city streets, want to guess how many police Austin’s new budget plans to add?

Would you believe zero?

Austin’s far-left City Council continues to view police as the enemy, continuing it’s defund-the-police bias even after most city’s have abandoned it as madness. Their funding priorities continue to be finding new ways to rake off graft to the hard left.

(Hat tip: Texas Scorecard.)

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Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats | 5 Comments »

Movie Review: The Death of Stalin

Wednesday, July 19th, 2023

Title: The Death of Stalin
Director: Armando Iannucci
Writers: Fabien Nury (comic book and original screenplay)), Thierry Robin Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor, Simon Russell Beale, Jason Isaacs, Michael Palin, Olga Kurylenko, Adrian McLoughlin, Paddy Considine, Paul Whitehouse, Paul Chahidi, Andrea Riseborough, Rupert Friend

Time for another edition of “Lawrence reviews a movie that came out years ago,” because I don’t have cable or streaming. And The Death of Stalin is a movie I kept waiting to get cheaper or turn up used on DVD, but it never did. So I finally ponied up for a copy.

Now that I’ve watched it, it’s the rare film that actually lives up to the hype, an absolutely scorching black comedy about high level commies scrambling for power (and survival) as Stalin is dying and after he kicks off.

It’s a tremendous cast, each giving a great performance, as they play one off the other in the sudden power vacuum. Jeffrey Tambor’s Georgy Malenkov is theoretically in charge but too weak to make anyone fear his authority. Simon Russell Beale’s slimy NKVD head Lavrenti Beria (one of history’s nastiest pieces of work) is decisive and cocksure, believing he has enough dirt on everyone to keep his head above water, no matter how much blood he has on his hands. Steve Buscemi’s Nikita Khrushchev is the reluctant party toady who realizes he has to unite the rest of the Committee against Beria before the latter can purge him. Michael Palin (in echoes of his Monty Python and Brazil roles) plays Vyacheslav Molotov as a man who has so mastered communist doublethink that switches from condemning his imprisoned wife mid-sentence to praising her return when Beria produces her.

Into the inner circle comes Stalin’s children, Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough), possibly the only main character without blood on her hands, and her drunken brother Vasily (Rupert Friend), whom the Politburo hacks immediately start sucking up to. Finally, into Stalin’s funeral swaggers Field Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs, having tremendous fun with the role), the macho, cocksure head of the military who ultimately provides the fulcrum upon which the others can rid themselves of Beria.

All of this is done in the hilarious, profane, black comedy style of Director/Writer Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It, right down to the Scottish swearing. Just about everyone here is (as in history) an abhorrent cog in a genocidal totalitarian state, and it’s a pleasure to see them sink knives (rhetorical and otherwise) into each other.

Beria, the nastiest of the nasty, overplays his hand and succeeds in uniting the others against him, for a bloody, satisfying end.

Certain liberties have been taken, as historically there were more than nine months between Stalin’s death and Beria’s execution. But The Death of Stalin is faithful to the spirit of the thing, if not the letter.

All in all, this is a hilarious black comedy, and the best film about communism since The Lives of Others.

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Posted in Budget, Communism, Media Watch | 14 Comments »

Abbott Carries Through With Threat, Vetoes Slew Of Bills

Saturday, June 17th, 2023

If you’ve read BattleSwarm long enough, you know I view Texas Governor Greg Abbott as a cautious, careful politician. He generally pursues conservative policies, but not with the drive and fervor of, say, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The bussing illegal aliens to blue cities ploy was a welcome departure from Abbott’s caution, but here too his sentiment trailed rather than lead conservative consensus.

But it appears that Abbott has finally found the issue he’s willing to play hardball on: Property tax reform.

fter Gov. Greg Abbott indicated Wednesday he could veto a large number of bills if no compromise is reached between the House and Senate on property tax relief, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Abbott is threatening to destroy the work of the legislature.

Abbott made his comments during a bill signing ceremony on Wednesday, with just days left until Sunday, June 18—the last day he can sign bills into law or veto them. In Texas, any legislation not specifically vetoed by the governor becomes law.

There were 4,550 pieces of legislation passed by the Texas House and Senate and sent to the governor as part of the 88th Session of the Legislature. As of Wednesday night, Abbott had signed 873 pieces of legislation into law and vetoed five.

“As we get closer and closer to this Sunday, all of these bills that have yet to be signed face the possibility, if not the probability, that they’re going to be vetoed,” said Abbott.

Abbott has called for all of the $12 billion currently allocated to property tax relief to be used for compression—or buying down local school property taxes. While the House approved this plan on the first day of the current special session, Patrick and the Senate have stood firm in their desire for some of the money to be used to increase the homestead exemption. According to Patrick, this is a way to prioritize relief for homeowners over businesses.

“In a ploy to apparently get his way, Governor Abbott suggests he is threatening to destroy the work of the entire 88th Legislative Session – hundreds of thousands of hours by lawmakers doing the work the people sent us to do,” wrote Patrick on Twitter.

I usually back Patrick over Abbott, but looking at the list of bills he’s vetoed, I can’t say I’m broken up over them. (Some snippage for brevity.)

SB 2613
Author: Sen. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound)
Sponsor: Rep. Lynn Stucky (R-Denton)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Tabor Ranch Municipal Management District; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes; granting a limited power of eminent domain.
Veto Date: June 16
Abbott’s statement: “While Senate Bill No. 2613 is important, it is simply not as important as cutting property taxes. At this time, the legislature must concentrate on delivering
property tax cuts to Texans. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.” [Most of Abbott’s veto statements for subsequent bills are of the “X is important, but not as important as cutting property taxes” formulation, so I’ve snipped those.-LP]

SB 2605
Author: Sen. Pete Flores (R-Pleasanton)
Sponsor: Rep. Brad Buckley (R-Killeen)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Knob Creek Municipal Utility District of Bell County; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2598
Author: Sen. Angela Paxton (R-McKinney)
Sponsor: Rep. Frederick Frazier (R-McKinney)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Honey Creek Improvement District No. 1; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments and fees.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2597
Author: Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe)
Sponsor: Rep. Cecil Bell Jr. (R-Magnolia)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Montgomery County Municipal Utility District No. 237; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1979
Author: Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola)
Sponsor: Rep. Caroline Harris (R-Round Rock)
Caption: Relating to an annual study by the Texas A&M University Texas Real Estate Research Center of the purchase and sale of single-family homes by certain institutional buyers.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2616
Author: Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Brownsville)
Sponsor: Rep. Maria Luisa Flores (D-Austin)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Travis County Municipal Utility District No. 27; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2604
Author: Sen. Boris Miles (D-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston)
Caption: Relating to the creation of the Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 589; granting a limited power of eminent domain; providing authority to issue bonds; providing authority to impose assessments, fees, and taxes.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2453
Author: Sen. Jose Menendez (D-San Antonio)
Sponsor: Ana Hernandez (D-Houston)
Caption: Relating to certain regulations adopted by governmental entities for the building products, materials, or methods used in the construction of residential or commercial buildings.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2379
Author: Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown)
Sponsor: Caroline Harris (R-Round Rock)
Caption: Relating to aquifer storage and recovery projects that transect a portion of the Edwards Aquifer.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2260
Author: Sen. Cesar Blanco (D-El Paso)
Sponsor: Rep. Toni Rose (D-Dallas)
Caption: Relating to management review of certain investigations conducted by the Department of Family and Protective Services.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 2052
Author: Sen. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville)
Sponsor: Rep. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin)
Caption: Relating to permit fees for groundwater wells imposed by the Southeast Texas Groundwater Conservation District.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1712
Author: Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock)
Sponsor: Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo)
Caption: Relating to the purchase, sale, or lease of real property on behalf of a limited partnership or a limited liability company.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1568
Author: Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels)
Sponsor: Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-Plano)
Caption: Relating to the persons authorized or appointed to exercise the power of sale under the terms of a contract lien on real property.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1431
Author: Sen. Chuy Hinojosa (D-McAllen)
Sponsor: Rep. Bobby Guerra (D-Mission)
Caption: Relating to the confidentiality of certain information for a current or former administrative law judge for the State Office of Administrative Hearings.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 526
Author: Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas)
Sponsor: Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield)
Caption: Relating to requiring prior approval by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to offer a degree or certificate program to certain persons who are incarcerated or subject to involuntary civil commitment.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 485
Author: Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas)
Sponsor: Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress)
Caption: Relating to designating the second Saturday in October as Hospice and Palliative Care Day.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 361
Author: Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin)
Sponsor: Rep. Hugh Shine (R-Temple)
Caption: Relating to the eligibility of a person employed by a school district as a teacher to serve on the appraisal review board of an appraisal district.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 348
Author: Sen. Drew Springer (R-Muenster)
Sponsor: Rep. Morgan Meyer (R-Dallas)
Caption: Relating to the prohibition on posting on the Internet information held by an appraisal district regarding certain residential property.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 315
Author: Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood)
Sponsor: Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos (D-Richardson)
Caption: Relating to the definition of telephone call for purposes of regulating telephone solicitations.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 267
Author: Sen. Phil King (R-Weatherford)
Sponsor: Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock)
Caption: Relating to law enforcement agency accreditation, including a grant program to assist agencies in becoming accredited.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 247
Author: Sen. Carol Alvarado (D-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Mary Ann Perez (D-Houston)
Caption: Relating to specialty license plates issued for honorary consuls.
Veto Date: June 16

SB 1080
Author: Sen. Lois Kolhorst (R-Brenham)
Sponsor: Rep. Stan Gerdes (R-Smithville)
Caption: Relating to a mitigation program and fees for the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District.
Veto Date: June 15

SB 2493
Author: Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston)
Sponsor: Rep. John Bryant (D-Dallas)
Caption: Relating to repairs made pursuant to a tenant’s notice of intent to repair and the refund of a tenant’s security deposit.
Veto Date: June 15

SB 1998
Author: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Hugh Shine (R-Temple)
Caption: Relating to the calculation of certain ad valorem tax rates.
Veto Date: June 15
Abbott’s statement: “Senate Bill No. 1998 requires data reporting on property taxes, but does nothing to cut property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

HB 2879
Author: Rep. Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress)
Sponsor: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Caption: Relating to venue in certain actions involving a contract for an improvement to real property.
Veto Date: June 15
Abbott’s statement: “House Bill No. 2879 would insert the government into private negotiations involving the work of contractors, subcontractors, and materialmen. Laws about venue selection are simply not as important as cutting property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

HB 2138
Author: Rep. Kyle Kacal (R-College Station)
Sponsor: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Caption: Relating to the sale of charitable raffle tickets by certain nonprofit wildlife conservation associations.
Veto Date: June 15
Abbott’s statement: “Though House Bill No. 2138 would expand gambling for a worthy cause, our oath obliges us to take a second look at statewide sales of online raffle tickets so that they do not run afoul of Article III, Section 47(d) of the Texas Constitution. Laws authorizing online raffle ticket sales are simply not as important as cutting property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

HB 4158
Author: Rep. Mike Schofield (R-Katy)
Sponsor: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Caption: Relating to the determination and reporting of the number of residence homesteads of elderly or disabled persons that are subject to the limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed on the properties by school districts.
Veto Date: June 14
Abbott’s statement: “House Bill No. 4158 appears to require more paperwork about property taxes, but does nothing to cut property taxes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

SB 467
Author: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano)
Caption: Relating to increasing the criminal penalty for the offense of criminal mischief involving impairment of a motor fuel pump.
Veto Date: June 14
Abbott’s statement: “Senate Bill No. 467 would impose a harsher sentence for tampering with a gas pump than for damaging the electric grid or cutting a livestock fence. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

SB 2035
Author: Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston)
Sponsor: Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R-Southlake)
Caption: Relating to the issuance of certain anticipation notes and certificates of obligation.
Veto Date: June 13
Abbott’s statement: “Senate Bill 2035 has too many loopholes. This bill can be reconsidered at a future special session only after property tax relief is passed.”

(My apologies for your eyes glazing over skimming reading that.)

I’m split between my admiration for Abbott having the balls to veto these bills, and the lazy and generally false statement of saying “X is important, but not as important as property tax relief,” given that most of these bill are not very important at all, save to a few special interests. Some of them, such as SB 2453, should have been vetoed on its merits for the government sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. Without reading the full texts of each and every bill (not my job, because I’m not Governor of Texas), almost all the one with Democratic sponsors seem like they should be vetoed on the merits, and the rest seem pretty special-interest geared. At a glance, the only veto I actually disagree with is SB 467, because gas pump skimmers have recently become a big fraud vector.

But Abbott is right on one big issue: The 88th Texas Legislative Session should have spent the time to pass property tax relief, an issue that directly impacts the pocket books of millions of Texas homeowners. I have not researched the issue enough to determine whether compression or a raising the homestead exemption are more desirable. Abbott and the Texas Public Policy Foundation favor compression, while Patrick favors raising the homestead exemption. Though I can well understand his rejecting House Speaker Dade Phelan’s “let’s pass this and adjourn so you have to accept our bill without negotiation” tactic.

But I’m not upset with Abbott’s vetoes. He should have done a lot more of them, a lot earlier on, to cut down on the growth of government spending and regulation.

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Posted in Budget, Communism, Regulation | 6 Comments »

Abbott Gets His Slush Fund Back

Saturday, June 10th, 2023

Remember the old Chapter 313 program Texas used to dole out incentives to favored companies to relocate to Texas? It’s back under a new name.

House Bill 5, which author State Rep. Todd Hunter (R–Corpus Christi) calls the “Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation Act,” would create a new statewide economic incentive program to replace the state’s controversial Chapter 313 program, which ended after lawmakers declined to renew it during the 2021 legislative session.

Although both the Republican Party of Texas and the Democrat Party of Texas oppose corporate handouts in their platforms, State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R–Georgetown), has said “the majority of the Legislature does see value in a job-creating, economy-growing incentive program.”

HB 5 was a priority of House Speaker Dade Phelan (R–Beaumont) and approved by a vote of 120-24 in the House and 27-4 in the Senate.

However, Jeramy Kitchen, executive director of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility told Texas Scorecard the new law is a “contradiction and nothing more.”

“On one hand, he is telling Texans that he wants to see historic property tax relief and the elimination of the property tax, or more specifically the school M&O portion of the property tax,” explained Kitchen. “Both of those are things that TFR supports and encourages the legislature to take action on.”

“His signing of House Bill 5 however, points to a contradiction, as it ultimately will do nothing more than burden those same individual property taxpayers he purports to provide historic relief to, as large qualifying corporations receive a property tax abatement under the guise of economic development,” said Kitchen.

Like Chapter 313, HB 5 allows businesses to apply for a 10-year abatement—or reduction—of school district property taxes, which the state pays instead. To receive an abatement, the business would have to show it plans to hire a certain number of employees earning above-average wages for its particular industry.

Unlike the previous incentive program, HB 5 requires not just the applicant and school district to agree to the abatement, but also the comptroller, governor, and a seven-member legislative oversight committee composed of lawmakers from the state House and Senate.

This committee would have the final say on approving proposed projects and would provide periodic recommendations to the Legislature regarding which types of projects should be considered.

The problem with the old program was that it let government use taxpayer money to pick winners from the politically connected. Abbott has wanted the restoration of his economic incentive “carrot” ever since it expired. The new law even creates another level of politicos for businesses to suck up to get tax rebate goodies, and I bet competition to get assigned to that new “oversite committee” will be fierce.

The old program probably did incentivize a few edge-case businesses to move to Texas who wouldn’t otherwise, but Texas’ low-tax, low-cost and business-friendly regulatory environment already provides plenty of incentives to move here, as evidenced by the fact that businesses kept relocating here even in their absence.

At least there’s one improvement in the new version: “After Chapter 313 received much criticism for its funding of “renewable energy” projects, which Texas Scorecard previously examined in an extensive investigation, lawmakers also blocked such industries from receiving taxpayer funding through HB 5.”

Taxpayers are better served by keeping their own money than theoretically enjoying the down-the-line economic benefits of government functionaries showering their money on corporate welfare for businesses willing to do the requisite sucking-up to political figures in order to get paid to move here.

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Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans, Texas, Welfare State | 2 Comments »

LinkSwarm for June 9, 2023

Friday, June 9th, 2023

Welcome to the Friday LinkSwarm! This week: Too much Facebook/Instagram/pedophile news, and not enough songs about buildings and food.



  • Funny how the indictment against Trump dropped just as evidence surfaced that Biden had taken $5 million in bribes from Bursima. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
    

  • Thanks to “green energy,” there’s a good chance that more energy blackouts are coming this summer.

    Summer’s coming. That means sunshine, swimming, cookouts — and blackouts.

    That’s the warning from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.

    According to NERC, at least two-thirds of the country is at risk for major power outages this summer.

    This extends to most everyone west of the Mississippi except for Texas.

    Texas and much of the Midwest will be fine, the report says, so long as we don’t experience hot, windless summer days.

    Well, that’s a relief. When do we ever get hot, windless summer days in Texas and the Midwest?

    Part of the problem is the steady removal of fossil-fuel plants from the grid.

    These plants are supposed to be replaced by renewables — wind and solar — but wind doesn’t work on windless days, and solar doesn’t keep your air conditioning running on steamy nights.

    The Wall Street Journal reports the Environmental Protection Agency has made things worse with new nitrogen-oxides rules from its recently finalized “Good Neighbor Plan, which requires fossil-fuel power plants in 22 states to reduce NOx emissions. NERC predicts power plants will comply by limiting hours of operation but warns they may need regulatory waivers in the event of a power crunch.”

  • Institute for the Study of War: “Ukrainian forces conducted a limited but still significant attack in western Zaporizhia Oblast on the night of June 7 to 8. Russian forces apparently defended against this attack in a doctrinally sound manner and had reportedly regained their initial positions as of June 8.” Other sources are reporting modest Ukrainian gains.
  • Instagram is evidently home of a giant pedophile network.

    A comprehensive investigation by the Wall Street Journal and the Stanford Internet Observatory reveals that Meta-owned Instagram has been home to an organized and massive network of pedophiles.

    But what separates this case from most is that Instagram’s own algorithms were promoting pedophile content to other pedophiles, while the pedos themselves used coded emojis, such as a picture of a map, or a slice of cheese pizza.

    Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests, the Journal and the academic researchers found.

    The pedophilic accounts on Instagram mix brazenness with superficial efforts to veil their activity, researchers found. Certain emojis function as a kind of code, such as an image of a map—shorthand for “minor-attracted person”—or one of “cheese pizza,” which shares its initials with “child pornography,” according to Levine of UMass. Many declare themselves “lovers of the little things in life.” -WSJ

    According to the researchers, Instagram allowed pedophiles to search for content with explicit hashtags such as #pedowhore and #preteensex, which were then used to connect them to accounts that advertise child-sex material for sale from users going under names such as “little slut for you.”

    Sellers of child porn often convey the child’s purported age, saying they are “on chapter 14,” or “age 31,” with an emoji of a reverse arrow.

  • Instagram can’t block pedophiles, but it can block the account of Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Remember: Opposing the corrupt Biden Cabal is a worse crime than pedophilia for vast swathes of our media elites… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of Meta, they’re threatening to “pull news feeds on its platforms for California residents if the state legislature passes the Journalism Preservation Act.” That act “requires big tech companies to pay news outlets a journalism usage fee.” For once the pedo-coddlers are right: No one should be forced to subsidize failing social justice-infected newsrooms.
  • Speaking of pedophiles: “Itasca ISD Superintendent Michael Stevens arrested, charged with online solicitation of a minor.” Maybe parents wouldn’t worry so much about educators trying to screw their children if educators didn’t keep trying to screw their children.
  • This week in Democrats passing unconstitutional laws that strip citizens of rights: “llinois’s Gov. J. B. “Jumbo Burger” Pritzker signed himself a whale of a state law yesterday that went into effect IMMEDIATELY. And, immediately, restricted Illinois citizens from pursuing constitutional claims against their state government unless they filed the lawsuits in one of two, Democratic approved, state sanctioned, Democratic counties – Cook or Sangamon.” That’s a prima facie violation of the First Amendment “right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
  • Free New York City crack pipe vending machine cleaned out overnight. “Free crack pipe vending machine” sounds like the punchline to a Norm MacDonald joke from the 1990s, but it’s now evidently the policy of New York Democrats.
  • North Dakota’s Republican Governor is running for President. Burgum is evidently a billionaire after being an early investor in Great Plains Software, which was sold to Microsoft in 2001. The fact he’s close to Bill Gates doesn’t give me a lot of warm fuzzies, and Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg proved that rich-but-unknown outsiders shoveling money into a Presidential campaign costs you a lot of jack and earn you boatloads of squat. He’s a pretty decent public speaker, but in a blow-dried 80’s executive sense, and he sort of looks like if Richard Belzer had played the Michael Douglas role in Falling Down.
  • By contrast, Chris Sununu realized he had no business running for President. Good.
  • American Airlines has to ground more than 150 regional jets due to a pilot shortage.
  • I know nothing more than this. Evidently local media have ignored it as well:

  • Pitch Meeting for 2023 The Little Mermaid. “Life being better down where it’s wetter is tight!”
  • U.S. women’s soccer team loses 12-0 to fourth tier Welsh soccer club.
  • When life imitates Mythbusters.
  • “Due To High Crime, Mafia Closes Its Chicago Office.” “How are we supposed to conduct respectable business — loan sharking, bribery, racketeering, illegal gambling — with so much crime going on? It’s insane!”

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Media Watch, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 4 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for June 2, 2023

    Friday, June 2nd, 2023

    Bit of a short LinkSwarm this time around, as I was focused on putting out a book catalog this week. Plus a lot of damn news from San Francisco.
    

  • Every Company Leaving California: 2020-2023. All the following have located to Texas:
    • Ruiz Foods
    • Cacique Foods
    • Kelly-Moore Paints
    • Landsea Homes
    • McAfee
    • Boingo Wireless
    • Obagi Cosmeceuticals
    • Chevron
    • Aviatrix
    • Review Wave
    • Tesla
    • NinjaOne
    • AECOM
    • MD7
    • Wiley X
    • Wedgewood LLC
    • Green Dot Corporation
    • Digital Realty
    • Lion Real Estate Group
    • Charles Schwab
    • Oracle
    • Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • CBRE Group
    • O. W. Lee
    • Incora
    • DZS (Dasan Zhone Solutions)
    • QuestionPro

    And those are just the ones with over 100 employees. There are much more with fewer (including Gordon Ramsay North America, which has a chain of restaurants, which has moved its headquarters to Irving, despite having no restaurants in Texas). (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Like so much of the rest of the welfare state, minority contracting is a scam.

    For the past few years, Atlanta has been roiled by corruption scandals centering on the city’s decades-old program to favor minority-owned businesses in government contracting. The troubles started when Elvin “E. R.” Mitchell, Jr., a black contractor, began paying what became more than $1 million in bribes to city official and friend of the mayor Reverend Mitzi Bickers. Mitchell and his associates wanted to ensure that they could keep winning city-favored contracts and subcontracts for minorities, despite submitting bids higher than their competitors’. Mitchell also helped Bickers bribe officials in Jackson, Mississippi, so that she could secure minority-favored contracts on some of that city’s projects. Meantime, Larry Scott, head of Atlanta’s Office of Contract Compliance, which ensures that minority firms win contracts, started a side gig to help such businesses get favorable deals with the city—receiving over $220,000 in unreported income and partnering with the mayor’s brother and sister-in-law in the scheme. Mitchell, Bickers, Scott, and several other city officials have been sentenced on federal charges ranging from bribery to wire fraud.

    Affirmative-action plans in schools or workplaces get the headlines, but the practice of favoring minorities in government contracts is almost as old, and even more far-reaching. Such favoritism—in the form of Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE), or Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) programs—exists across all levels of government and in states and cities of every political hue.

    The subject of government contracting, or procurement, may not seem exciting, but its importance can’t be overstated. Nearly 10 percent of the U.S. economy goes through government contracts. The federal government spends over $600 billion yearly on contracts, making it the largest buyer of goods and services on the planet. State- and local-government spending on contracts totals about $1.3 trillion annually. Government contracts and purchases range from aircraft carriers and highway construction projects to office supplies and human-resources software. Favoritism to minority-owned companies pervades this vast universe.

    Minority contracting was never a coherent way to make amends for the nation’s long, lamentable history of racism. Instead of righting historical wrongs, the policy has enriched a small subset of already-wealthy businesses, bred corruption and fraud, deepened racial divisions, and cost taxpayers countless billions of dollars—while doing nothing to help the truly disadvantaged. Indeed, minority residents of urban areas pay the highest price for lackluster and expensive services caused by such programs. One underappreciated reason for the unparalleled costs of American urban and infrastructure projects is that the government too often picks contractors based on their sex or race, not the quality or cost of their bids.

    Snip.

    Today, governments use several methods to favor minority contractors. At the federal level, Congress has stated that “not less than 5 percent” of all contracts should go to “disadvantaged” businesses. Regulations clarify a “presumption” that “Black Americans; Hispanic Americans; Native Americans,” and “Asian Americans” are disadvantaged. Government treats the goal as a floor, not a ceiling: in recent years, the true share of contracts going to disadvantaged firms has been around 10 percent, and politicians have urged the bureaucracy to push the total higher. The SBA then sets goals for individual agencies—recently demanding, for example, that the Department of Transportation offer 21 percent of all contracts to disadvantaged enterprises. It also requires that federal “prime contractors” (the lead contractor on a project) create subcontracting plans to maximize minority participation.

    State and local governments set even higher goals for minority procurement but usually focus on encouraging large businesses to subcontract out to minorities. Chicago insists that 26 percent of all construction dollars go to minority companies and 6 percent to women-owned businesses. But a city-funded report noted that “almost all City funded construction projects require M/WBE” goals for subcontractors and that “project goals should exceed the ‘baseline’ goal.” Maryland has a target of 29 percent of contract dollars to minority firms. New York City and State have set a goal of 30 percent of all contracts going to MWBE, and the city itself goes into more detail, setting precise contracting goals for each race and business category (for instance, black-owned businesses should get 11.81 percent of all city professional-service contracts).

    Agencies have various ways of meeting these benchmarks. Federal agencies can directly award contracts to minority firms, without a normal bidding process and through a no-bid deal, if they cost less than $5 million. This arrangement, of course, has caused abuse. After 9/11, the federal government, hoping to accelerate security purchases, expanded awards to “Alaska Native Corporations,” which had a special exemption that allowed them to get no-bid minority contracts of unlimited amounts. Federal contracts to these corporations increased 20-fold in the decade ending in 2009, when spending totaled almost $6 billion. The army’s infectious-disease center at Fort Detrick, in a no-bid deal, shifted the management of all its contracts to an Alaskan Native Corporation, whose most significant former venture was a failed cruise-ship line. Another such corporation won a port-scanning deal and then subcontracted it out to traditional defense companies; only 33 of the corporation’s 2,300 employees were Alaskan Natives. Though Native Americans are the smallest “disadvantaged” group assisted by the federal government, they get 2.7 percent of all federal contracts—more than twice the proportion of any other group.

    Snip.

    The City of Austin Disparity Study for 2022, conducted by Colette Holt & Associates, a large disparity-study firm started by a lawyer who had previously worked for Chicago’s city government, is typical. It approaches 300 pages and contains a recitation of every supposed ill that has befallen a minority business in the Texas capital. The report uses only anonymous quotes that make accusations against unnamed individuals about racism or sexism. “There is no requirement that anecdotal testimony be ‘verified’ or corroborated,” the report notes.

    Try as they might, these studies have had little success proving racism or sexism in contracting. They typically use a “disparity ratio” to show the difference between the number of available minority firms and the number of government contracts going to these firms, though these ratios rarely account for the ability of different firms to perform government jobs. Yet studies conducted by Austin and Washington State found that MWBE firms were more likely to get contracts than were those owned by white men. A Missouri disparity study found that minority firms were more likely to get contracts than nonminority firms. A Chicago disparity study found that black and Hispanic firms were about twice as likely to get construction contracts, and Asian firms four times as likely, relative to their availability.

    These reports’ surveys of minority firms find that most aren’t worried about discrimination. Of those MWBEs responding to a survey in Austin, 75 percent said that they had not experienced barriers to contracting based on race or gender. Over 85 percent agreed that they did not get different prices or terms because of their race or gender. Disparity studies ignore such data and argue that the minority of minorities who report unspecified discrimination need assistance.

    When studies admit that there is no discrimination in contracting, politicians refuse to abide by them. Miami-Dade County made the mistake of employing a legitimate accounting firm, KPMG, for a disparity study, which determined that companies owned by blacks and Hispanics were not underused. The Miami mayor rejected the study. Los Angeles’s city council rejected a study that found that black firms did not suffer discrimination in contracting. The occasional lawsuit will surface, challenging these disparity studies when they provide no evidence of discrimination. But in such cases, governments will simply look for another minority contractor to conduct another study calling for more minority contracting.

    Minority-contracting programs are a magnet for fraud. No-bid contracts represent an obvious avenue, but the most common kind of MWBE fraud is simple: contractors with subpar bids either lie about being run by minorities or lie about involving other minority businesses in the contract. The Wedtech scandal in the 1980s involved such fraud; though John Mariotta, a Puerto Rican immigrant, had started the company, it was partially run by Fred Neuberger, a Romanian Jew who escaped the Holocaust in Europe but did not count as “disadvantaged” for the purposes of the 8(a) program. Similar issues arose with the recent Atlanta scandals: while contractor Charles Richards was white and won many “prime” contracts, he promised to subcontract work to Mitchell’s minority firm, and then paid Mitchell without asking his firm to do any work. A 2016 Department of Transportation presentation stated that more than one-third of its contracting-fraud cases involved minority contracting and that, over the preceding five years, cases involving minority-contracting fraud had led to $245 million in financial penalties and 425 months of incarceration for offenders.

    These cases tend to follow a certain playbook. A minority-owned front company wins the government contract, takes a small cut, and issues a pass-through contract to a white-owned firm. The largest such case in American history involved Schuylkill Products, a Pennsylvania firm that manufactured concrete bridge beams but had used a Filipino-owned front company for 15 years to win more than $130 million in contracts. The federal investigation led to several prison sentences in 2014. Front-company and pass-through fraud has dogged construction work at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and New York casinos. According to the New York State inspector general, the minority firms in the casino-fraud case did little more than submit invoices. A former Dallas councilman, meantime, went to prison for his role in setting up minority front companies for government contracts. Sometimes, the fraud is even more direct: in Seattle, the owner of a company that was paid to clean up homeless camps falsely identified as black on city forms. She also happened to be a city employee.

    Hey, that sounds sort of familiar…

  • “Target Donates To Group That Promotes Secret Child Gender Transitions, LGBTQ Books In Schools.”

    Target has repeatedly boasted about efforts to support the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, also known as GLSEN, an entity which helps teachers place LGBTQ books in school libraries and hide their students’ so-called gender transitions from parents.

    Conservatives have launched a boycott against Target after the retail behemoth marketed a female swimsuit as “tuck-friendly” and with “extra crotch coverage,” as well as hired an artist who creates Satanic items to make various designs for the company. Links between the company and GLSEN, which supports “affirming learning environments for LGBTQ youth” and activates “supportive educators,” resurfaced amid the backlash against Target.

    The retail behemoth boasted last year about donating more than $2.1 million to GLSEN over the past decade, lauding the group’s mission to create “affirming, accessible, and antiracist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students.” Target also actively promotes GLSEN on its online store.

  • Strangely enough, having a DA who will prosecute criminal and not lawful citizens defending themselves makes a difference. “San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins follows the law and the evidence and does not make decisions based on what may be politically expedient.”
  • Chesa Boudin, the recalled Soros tool she replaced, was just named head of UC Berkeley’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center.
  • Speaking of Soros-plagued cities: “Citywide Youth Curfew Begins In Baltimore As Mayor Strives To Restore Law And Order.”I doubt Mayor Brandon Scott’s policy will make that much of a difference, though maybe with Soros-tool Marilyn Mosby out of office and awaiting trial on federal perjury charges, maybe there’s a chance of Baltimore improving. But remember:

  • Of course. “Just Stop Oil’s Hollywood Patron Has Holiday Home in Ireland That he Jets Off to ‘When the Going Gets Tough.'” “Oscar winner Adam McKay, whose films include The Big Short and Don’t Look Up, is one of a group of multi-millionaires behind the Climate Emergency Fund. The Beverly Hills-based fund raises cash from its mega rich supporters and distributes it to ‘disruptive’ activists, including handing almost £1million to help Just Stop Oil wreak havoc in the U.K.” Being a Democrat means never having to apologize for your hypocrisy.
  • Speaking of liberal hypocrites: Darren Mark Stallcup, a “World Peace Movement” activist, launched a fundraiser for other people to escape the zombie apocalypse hellhole San Francisco. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Shareholder value destruction update: Since their disasterous tranny pander, Anheuser-Busch has lost $27 billion in market cap.
  • Three Antifa supporting assholes arrested.

    The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and the Atlanta Police Department (APD) arrested Marlon Scott Kautz, age 39, of Atlanta, Savannah D. Patterson, age 30, of Savannah, Ga., and Adele Maclean, age 42, of Atlanta, on Wednesday on charges of money laundering and charity fraud in association with fundraising efforts for the domestic terrorists who are currently in jail.

    “The GBI, along with the Atlanta Police Department, have arrested three people on charges stemming from the ongoing investigation of individuals responsible for numerous criminal acts at the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center and other metro Atlanta locations,” reads the GBI’s press release.

    The trio ran a non-profit called Network for Strong Communities, which worked with another group called the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which, at least on paper, was a bail fund for the thugs who attacked the training center property and other areas in Atlanta.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • IMDB has chosen to actively suppress negative ratings of the Little Mermaid remake.
  • Given that, it might be time to take a look at Worth It or Woke for honest movie reviews.
  • Dwight has a good look at the Battleship Texas, and (for Memorial Day) seaman Christen Christensen, who was killed in combat during the bombardment of a German shore battery off Cherbourg.
  • Don’t let JinJin eat poop off San Francisco’s street, or they may end up tripping balls.
  • “America Votes To Add ‘Can You Walk And Speak In Sentences’ To Presidential Job Application.”

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Elections, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    Kicking The Debt Can Down The Road To 2024

    Thursday, June 1st, 2023

    Another year, another punt in dealing with America’s ever-mounting debt problems.

    After intense negotiations between U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20) and President Joe Biden, an agreement was struck which passed the House with both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.

    The so-called “Fiscal Responsibility Act” (FRA) passed the House Wednesday in a 314 to 117 vote, with 71 Republicans joining 46 Democrats in the minority voting against the measure.

    The deal will suspend the nation’s debt ceiling until after the 2024 presidential elections, leaving it up to the next White House and Congress to navigate a deal that addresses the ever-expanding national debt.

    With the debt nearing $32 trillion, the congressional budget analysis estimates it will grow by around $4 trillion during the period the FRA is in place, or until early 2025.

    Congressman August Pfluger (R-TX-11) was one of the members who voted in favor of the bill but acknowledged in a phone interview that the bill was far from perfect and isn’t to be considered a home run by fiscal conservatives.

    Pfluger explained there were some major wins in the negotiations that caused him to vote yes.

    “The number one thing we took away from holding the Energy Committee meetings in Midland was calls from the oil and gas industry to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and I’m proud to say we got the most significant reforms to NEPA in 50 years as part of this deal, and Biden isn’t happy about it,” he said.

    Pfluger explained how under NEPA laws, oil and gas permitting and regulations can slow industry projects down, taking almost 10 years in some cases to get federal permitting. He also said the deal would greenlight important pipeline projects.

    In addition, Plfuger said he supported the welfare reforms, requiring 80 hours per month of work or job training from The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) recipients, and clawing back of IRS funding, and while the proposal didn’t cut as much spending as he would like to see, it was still a small step in the right direction.

    Here is where the usual blogging protocol would be to put in my analysis of the good and bad points of the deal. Nah, it stinks, because it doesn’t treat the looming national debt crisis seriously. We need a republican House, a Republican Senate, and a president who is willing to ride herd and veto non-balanced budgets to start fixing the problem, and we haven’t had that combination in my lifetime. Gerald R. Ford was the last Republican President who really fought to balance the budget, and republican congressional leadership hasn’t done so since the days of New Gingrich, Phil Gramm and Dick Armey.

    Democrats will always vote for higher deficits because their entire business model is predicated on raking off the graft and doing the bidding of elites who prosper from asset inflation. Republicans as a whole always cave to them because no one holds them in line and because every debt limit hike is always an emergency rushed into law at the 11th hour when nobody is paying attention and they can whine “But we had to!”

    Real austerity is limiting government outlays to receipts, and we haven’t had that since Gingrich and company held the line and the Dotcom boom brought in then record revenue in the late 1990s. Undoing Gramm-Rudmam-Lotta was disasterous.

    I’d like to think that DeSantis could hold the line on deficit spending if he gets in. Sadly, we know from experience that Trump (whatever his other strengths) won’t…

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    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans | 6 Comments »

    Q: What Does It Take To Fire A Black Female SJW Professor? A: Holding A Machete Against A Reporter’s Neck

    Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023

    To be a black, Hispanic female, social justice warrior professor is to sit pretty close to the top of the victimhood pyramid. (She just needs be a disabled lesbian to hit for the cycle.) Given those exalted victimhood credentials, you have to wonder: How bad would her transgression have to be to get her fired?

    Well, we now have an answer! You have to hold a machete against a reporter’s neck on camera.

    We’ve found the line!

    The manic Manhattan college professor who threatened a Post reporter with a machete has been fired, the school said Tuesday — as it emerged she is suing the NYPD for allegedly abusing her during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

    Shellyne Rodriguez was sacked by Hunter College just hours after the adjunct professor was caught on camera holding the blade to the veteran reporter’s neck while threatening to “chop” him up outside her Bronx apartment.

    “Hunter College strongly condemns the unacceptable actions of Shellyne Rodriguez and has taken immediate action,” school spokesman Vince Dimiceli told The Post.

    “Rodriguez has been relieved of her duties at Hunter College effective immediately, and will not be returning to teach at the school.”

    The unhinged art professor wielded the machete and spewed the menacing remarks after the veteran Postie approached her regarding a viral video that showed her flipping out on pro-life students at Hunter College earlier this month.

    So evidently the line is holding a bladed weapon at someone’s throat.

    Good to know…

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, unions, video | 16 Comments »

    Followup: Homeless Industrial Complexer Tried To Channel Money To Own Company While On City Payroll

    Saturday, May 20th, 2023

    Just before news broke that the Austin City Council was cancelling a homeless camp cleanup contract over the sketchy nature of one contractor, the Austin Texas Times published another expose on another recipient for that contract.

    Turns out at least one city employee involved in the contract was all but handing the money to himself.

    All the evidence indicates this is was almost certainly an inside job.

    It certainly appears that at least one City of Austin employee colluded or communicated with friends and business associates to secure lucrative seven figure contracts.

    Despite being grossly unqualified and totally inexperienced for the job.

    It also seems like ICCS Academy is lying about a bunch of stuff on their bid submission.

    Snip.

    Believe it or not, the ICCS Academy bidding process raises even more red flags than P Squared Services.

    There are two City of Austin employees listed as “authorized contacts” for Item 23.

  • Sandra Wirtanen
  • John Wesley Smith

    • This screenshot shows John Wesley Smith is the “Small Minority Business Resources” contact for this proposal.

    Guess where John Wesley Smith used to work as the ‘Compliance Director’ before he started working for Austin city government?

    ICCS Academy!

    Can you imagine a bigger conflict of interest?

    Maybe that’s why ICCS Academy yanked their website yesterday (link).

    However, this snippet on DuckDuckGo still appears when you search for ‘John Wesley Smith ICCS Academy’

    John Wesley Smith was the Compliance Director for ICCS Academy.

    His bio states he also works as a “Small Business Counselor with the City of Austin”.

    Snip.

    QUESTION: Shouldn’t John Wesley Smith have immediately recused himself from the bidding and contract negotiation process for Item 23, due to his massive conflict of interest as the current / former Compliance Director for ICCS Academy?

    Massive Conflict of Interest

    Gee, I wonder how the other eight companies who submitted bid proposals for Item 23 feel about the former Compliance director of ICCS Academy overseeing the bidding process, and awarding a $7 million contract to his former colleagues?

    John Wesley Smith was definitely the Compliance Director for ICCS Academy at one point in time.

    Whether that was two weeks, two months or two years ago – it doesn’t matter.

    John Wesley Smith should have removed himself from this project due to the awful optics and huge conflict of interest.

    John Wesley Smith’s LinkedIn profile shows his current role with Austin city government is “Business Development Coordinator II”.

    John Wesley Smith says he’s in charge of “negotiating contractual agreements for the City of Austin” and is “responsible for various minority/women procurements.”

    Huh.

    For the record, ICCS Academy is currently a registered vendor with the city of Austin.

    However, all of their ‘certified commodities’ are in education, training and consulting.

    So a training vendor gets picked to do homeless site cleanup despite no experience in the field because a (former?) employee works for the city and just happens to be able to throw business their way.

    How convenient.

    If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that the entire reimagining police lunacy was all about social justice warriors saying time and time again “take money from the police and give it to us.” There’s an entire industry of social justice grifters (both in homelessness and every other social justice cause) whose entire existence is dedicated to making life for average citizens worse while sucking as much money as possible from taxpayers. You can bet that this is far from the first time such self-dealing has occurred, and I bet forensic audits of both city contracts and the “nonprofit” entities that receive them would reveal numerous example of quid pro quo kickbacks.

    Again, kudos to Teddy Brosevelt (whoever he may be) for peeling back the lid of Austin’s social justice warrior corruption problem.

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    Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 4 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For May 19, 2023

    Friday, May 19th, 2023

    The Russian Collusion Hoax is now officially bunk, Budweiser’s self-inflicted freefall continues, blue city commercial real estate bites the moose, and a whole lot of shocked face to go around. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • John Durham finally delivers his report sinking the Russian collusion hoax.

    The Department of Justice and the FBI did not have “any actual evidence of collusion” between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and began their Crossfire Hurricane probe of Trump’s campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” according to a report released on Monday by special prosecutor John Durham.

    Durham scolded federal law enforcement and counter-intelligence officials for failing to “uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law” as part of their investigation.

    He wrote that at least one FBI agent criminally fabricated language in an email that was used to obtain a FISA surveillance order. And he accused FBI leaders of displaying a “serious lack of analytical rigor” and relying significantly on “investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents,” referring to staffers and allies of Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee, whose campaign funded the Steele dossier through its law firm Perkins Coie.

    Compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the dossier is an unverified collection of opposition research accusing then-candidate Trump and his campaign aides of collaborating with Kremlin officials. The FBI used the dossier to secure a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page, though its central claims were subsequently disproven by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

    The report notes that the FBI was quick to investigate Trump, while it proceeded cautiously with allegations against Clinton.

    The 316-page report sent to Congress was nearly four years in the making. It concluded that neither federal law enforcement nor intelligence officials “appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” which the FBI “swiftly opened.”

    The report accuses federal officials of acting “without appropriate objectivity or restraint.” Peter Strzok, then the FBI’s deputy assistant director for counterintelligence, opened the investigation “immediately” at the direction of Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director. “Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump,” the report states.

    It states that former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith “committed a criminal offense by fabricating language in an email that was material to the FBI obtaining a FISA surveillance order.”

    Durham wrote that FBI officials continued to seek FISA surveillance while acknowledging that “they did not genuinely believe there was probable cause to believe that the target was knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of foreign power, or knowingly helping another person in such activities. And certain personnel disregarded significant exculpatory information that should have prompted investigative restraint and re-examination.”

    “Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” Durham wrote.

    Read the full Durham Report here.

    So how many hacks are going to give back their Pulitzer Prizes?

  • Speaking of which:

  • “Media Admits They Lied About That Russia Collusion Thing But Are Totally Telling The Truth About Everything Else.”
    

  • “Gov. Newsom Announces California Budget Deficit Bigger than Projected.” Legal Insurrection has already used the “unexpectedly” here, so I’ll just note that Newsom is the far lefty a whole lot of Democratic Party power players want to substitute for Biden at the top of the ticket in 2024.
  • “Soros-Backed Group Pushes Chicago Mayor To Slash Funding for ‘Racist’ Police Force.” Of course they do. Chicago Democrats are going to get what they voted for, gooder and harder. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • “NIH Renews Funds for ‘Bat Coronavirus’ Research despite Energy Department, FBI’s Lab-Leak Conclusion.” That’s like catching Mrs. O’Leary’s cow after she’s burned down Chicago, strapping lit fireworks to her body and letting her loose in the dynamite factory.
  • “The Censorship-Industrial Complex: Top 50 Organizations To Know.”
  • “Man Who Assaulted Congressional Staffers Had Previously Been Let off by Soros-Funded Prosecutor.” There’s not enough shocked face in the world…
  • Seattle-area official defends nominating sex offender to committee that includes one of his victims. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • “New York, San Francisco Office Buildings Are Absolute Ghost Towns.”

    “Things are so bad, in fact, that 26 Empire State Buildings could fit into New York City’s empty office space, as occupancy in the city is hovering around 50% of prepandemic levels.”

    “In San Francisco, the downtown area is experiencing its worst office vacancy crisis on record – with 31% of space available for lease or sublease, the SF Chronicle reports.”

  • “DeSantis Defunds ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ Bureaucracies in Florida Public Universities.” Trump did a lot of things right as President, but he never fought social justice warrior madness with the same ferocity that DeSantis has in Florida.
  • Speaking of DeSantis, he’s expected to launch a 2024 Presidential campaign next week.
  • Also 2024 race news: Biden may not even be on the primary ballot in New Hampshire. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Bud Light finds out there’s no bottom to their tranny pander pit. “Sales volumes of Bud Light fell by 23.6 percent in the week ended on May 6, according to retail scanner numbers cited by Beer Business Daily that are based on Nielsen IQ data. That’s a drop from the 23.3 percent slide Bud Light suffered in the final week of April.”
  • Finnish nuclear plant coming online drops spot energy prices by 75%.
  • Russia’s energy revenue falls by 47%.
  • Child mutilation ban passes Texas House.
  • “24 Republican governors pledge to assist Texas in securing its border.

    Republican governors released a joint statement on Tuesday pledging to assist Texas in securing its border with Mexico.

    In response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s request for assistance, twenty-four Republican governors committed to helping secure the 1,254-mile-border and commended the Texas Republican for the recent actions he was forced to take due to the failures of the Biden administration’s open-border policies, according to the Washington Examiner.

    “The federal government’s response handling the expiration of Title 42 has represented a complete failure of the Biden Administration,” the joint statement reads. “While the federal government has abdicated its duties, Republican governors stand ready to protect the U.S.-Mexico border and keep families safe.”

    “All states have suffered from the effects of deadly illegal drugs coming across the border, and every state is a border state due to the devastating influx of drugs in our communities. Republican governors are leading the way to address the border crisis by increasing fentanyl sentencing and increasing support for law enforcement interdiction of drugs, among other measures,” they continued.

    “Texas Governor Greg Abbott has exemplified leadership at a critical time, leading the way with Operation Lone Star, and deploying the Texas Tactical Border Force to prevent illegal crossings and keep the border secure. We support the efforts to secure the border led by Governor Abbott.”

    On Tuesday afternoon, Abbott sent an urgent request to all of the nation’s governors asking them to band together to defeat the invasion at the US/Mexico border, something he said impacts every community in the United States.

    “The flood of illegal border activity invited by the Biden Administration flows directly across the southern border into Texas communities, but this crisis does not stop in our state. Emboldened Mexican drug cartels and other transnational criminal enterprises profit off this chaos, smuggling people and dangerous drugs like fentanyl into communities nationwide,” Abbott wrote.

    “In the federal government’s absence, we, as Governors, must band together to combat President Biden’s ongoing border crisis and ensure the safety and security that all Americans deserve,” he requested.

    While no Democratic governors responded to the letter, twenty-four Republicans pledged to help from states which include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

  • “Yes, Migrants Believe Biden Has Rolled Out A Big Welcome Mat.”

    Jorge Mijares left Venezuela months ago — last November, he says. He’s been in Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, for four weeks. But he planned to cross over Thursday night, as Title 42 immigration restrictions ended.

    “I have the app,” said Mijares, 54. “I’m just waiting for it to tell me when to go.”

    He’s not concerned about the Biden administration’s warnings against migration. After all, he has many friends who have made it across — safely.

    There’s an app that tells you how to break U.S. immigration laws. Of course there is. Silly of me to be even slightly surprised. “The street finds its own uses for things” as the now-elderly cyberpunks used to say…

  • Twisted Sisiter’s Dee Snider is not down with your tranny madness. You submitted this with a better “we’re not going to take it” pun.
  • Speaking of tranny madness: Cross-dressing serial thief Samuel Brinton arrested as a fugitive from justice.
  • “Toronto ‘Anti-Capitalist’ Pay-When-You-Can Cafe Shuts Down After Just One Year.”

  • Chutzpah: Taking a paycheck for not working for 15 years. Boss Level Chutzpah: Suing for a raise for not working.
  • Meet Scary Barbie, the star-shredding black hole.
  • “Poll: Most Democrats In Favor Of Welcoming Immigrants Into Someone Else’s Neighborhood.”
  • “Dad Punishes Misbehaving Son By Giving Him Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Elections, ObamaCare, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

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