Early on, a lot of observers predicted that Russia, with it’s vast store of Soviet-era aircraft, would quickly achieve air-superiority over Ukraine. That hasn’t been the case.
This video from the British Imperial War Museum lists some reasons why.
Takeaways:
They failed to hit Ukrainian aircraft on the ground in the opening phases of the war.
A “great deal of mismanagement, kleptocracy, you know, favored projects over some kind of strategic effect.” Note how Putin is always announcing some sort of awesome wonderwaffen while neglecting basic needs like logistics.
“The level of corruption in Russia itself has had an impact on its ability to have a tactical or even strategic effect without support from the air. Russia’s ground forces have been largely unable to mount effective combined arms operations.”
“The key reason for Russia’s inability to effectively use its air force has been its failure to take out Ukraine’s mobile surface to air missile systems. They have been unable to suppress enemy air defenses.”
Ukraine made an early effort to obtain SAM systems from the west.
Both mobile tracked systems like S-300 and MANPADS have been used.
Failure to achieve air superiority has both sides investing in drones.
“What you do is you flood the airspace, almost like a denial of service attack, as we see on the Internet. As you attack a server, for instance, by having so many pings against it, it essentially shuts down the server. And what we see in the case of Russia is that it’s doing the same thing. It’s trying to flood the air defense systems.”
“The relatively low cost of these drones is one of the main reasons for Russia to deploy them, and in such numbers. Each drone reportedly costs around $20,000. And so losing an expensive advance guided missile to these drones is not an ideal strategy for Ukraine.”
One reason not covered: Russia seems to have used up a good portion of it’s high tech weapons in the opening phases of the war, and western sanctions mean that it can’t easily replace them. Sophisticated fighter bombers are a whole lot less effective when they’re reduced to dropping gravity bombs rather than guided munitions.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to impeach controversial Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-PA).
Five lawmakers, including three Republicans and two Democrats with constituencies in Philadelphia, formed a committee to investigate Krasner earlier this year. Members of the lower chamber voted by a margin of 107 to 85 in favor of impeaching Krasner, enabling the Pennsylvania Senate to remove the official with a two-thirds majority.
“Texas Democrats Blame Lackluster Midterm on 2021 Election Reform, Redistricting, and Poor Border Messaging.” Note that the word “policies” appears nowhere in the article…
The partisan index for Texas counties. Republican counties tended to get slightly more Republican while Democratic counties got slightly less Democratic.
A study conducted by criminologist Michael Smith of the University of Texas at San Antonio shows that 56 percent of individuals charged with violent crimes or weapons law violations in Dallas are released on bail or their own recognizance. That figure includes about 75 percent of offenders charged with weapons law violations, about two-thirds of those arrested for aggravated assault, and 34 percent of those arrested for murder.
Smith examined 464 arrests from 2021 and followed the cases through May 15 of this year. The dataset included all (109) arrests for murder, 25 percent (73) of arrests for robbery, 25 percent (154) of arrests for aggravated assault involving a family member, 10 percent (67) of arrests for aggravated assault not involving a family member, and 10 percent (61) of arrests for weapons law violations.
Almost a quarter of those released were arrested again within the course of the study. The average length of time between release and the second arrest was 148 days.
Disney shares are down 40 per cent this year, and last week’s quarterly report makes for grim reading. Disney’s expenses and operating losses are skyrocketing. Even the hugely popular Disney+, which continues to gain in subscribers, made an operating loss of $1.47 billion – more than double its loss last year. An internal memo last week announced job cuts and a hiring freeze.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Disney’s troubles arrive in a year when the company has been distracted by politics. Indeed, it seems to have gone into overdrive to promote woke causes, both on screen and off.
Most infamously, in March, Disney waded into a bruising political battle with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, over his Parental Rights in Education Act. The law, now enacted, bans ‘classroom instruction’ on issues of ‘sexual orientation or gender identity’ for Florida schoolkids under the age of 10. Although the law has the overwhelming support of parents, from across the political spectrum, it sparked fury in media circles. Critics were quick to dub it the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, arguing that it ‘marginalises LGBTQ+ people’.
Disney was only too happy to join in the chorus of denunciation. The act ‘should never have passed’, said Disney in a statement. ‘Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.’ Disney also pledged to donate $5million to organisations opposed to the law. But DeSantis hit back. He revoked a special tax status that Disney’s Florida theme parks had enjoyed since 1967.
Disney’s growing reputation for championing woke causes is costing it more than just its tax exemptions. It is now clearly damaging its relationship with audiences. As recently as March 2021, Disney’s public-approval rating was 77 per cent. But a September poll finds approval for Disney has now fallen to only 51 per cent among all Americans. And it has fallen into negative territory among Republicans. As pollster Chris Wilson notes: ‘It is highly unusual for a family entertainment company to find itself outside the good graces of so many Americans.’
Let me start out by explaining how cryptocurrency works: You exchange your money for digital strings of numbers based on math you don’t understand, for one of the following reasons:
A. You believe those digital strings of numbers will be worth more money at some point in the future.
B. You want to buy drugs online in a theoretically untraceable manner (said theoretical untraceability being a key property of the math you don’t understand).
C. You want to place your money beyond the reach of your national government.
There are exceptions to the above (say, you’re mining your own cryptocurrency, or you know enough math to understand exactly the mathematical properties of how blockchain-based cryptocurrency works), but I’m going to guess that one of the three above use cases apply to 95% people using cryptocurrency.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to C, and even understand how A might be tempting (hey, crypto has dropped so much I might buy a couple thousand worth of Dogecoin, just for the hell of it, as a pure speculation play), but cryptocurrencies as a whole are not a proven store of worth on par with, say, a bar of gold, a share Apple stock, or a
Is cryptocurrency money? Sort of.
Cryptocurrency offers something that sometimes acts like money, offers anonymity like money, and offers an alternative to government-backed fiat currencies. Instead of being backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government, cryptocurrency is backed by the full faith of millions of technologically savvy individuals who believe the math is sound.
The math may indeed be sound, but that didn’t save it from the loss of investor confidence of the Crypto Winter we’re now experiencing. And that winter is absolutely slamming the business models of people who sought to make crypto more like other forms of money.
Enter Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, whose crypto empire just collapsed.
Amid all the jubilation and gloating by Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and pals over the Democrats’ better-than-expected showing in the midterms comes a disturbing story that may explain something about how they won such a curious election.
Biden’s second-biggest donor, cryptocurrency billionaire wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried, a k a SBF, saw his business file for bankruptcy days after the election, but not before pumping $40 million into the Democratic Party to spend on “get-out-the-vote” and other shadowy ballot-harvesting mechanics for the midterms.
The shambolic 30-year-old whiz kid, once said to have been worth $16 billion, had spent $10 million helping get Biden elected in 2020.
SBF’s mother, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, also is co-founder of left-wing political action committee Mind The Gap, which has raised a reported $140 million to help Democrats win elections through the same “get-out-the-vote” grift.
Tree. Acorn. Distances.
A more unlikely billionaire you could not find — and of course his money was built on thin air. A math genius with poor social skills, SBF reportedly lived in a “polycule” — a polyamorous relationship with multiple people — in a luxury penthouse with about 10 co-workers in the tax haven of the Bahamas, where his collapsed crypto exchange FTX was headquartered.
Otherwise, he was sleeping on beanbags in his office, eating vegan fries and, according to his own Twitter feed, popping amphetamines and sleeping pills to regulate his chaotic sleeping habits.
Just the sort of person you want to entrust billions in currency to!
Now Reuters is reporting that between $1 billion and $2 billion of customer funds have vanished from FTX, conveniently after the Democrats safely spent his money.
At last report, SBF and his mysterious co-founder, Gary Wang, were being held “under supervision” by Bahamian authorities after reportedly planning to flee to Dubai, according to fintech publication Cointelegraph.
It is a stunning fall to earth. The financial media and big investors have feted the young billionaire as a saint who shunned earthly pleasures like Lamborghinis and Rolexes, but lived only to give away all his money and make the world a better place.
He was the most famous millennial adherent of a cult known as “Effective Altruism,” which originated at Oxford University, found fertile ground in Silicon Valley — and now has gone down in flames along with him.
“Indulgences! Buy your Social Justice Indulgences here!”
EA is a disguised form of socialism, because all the “good” that is done just happens to match up perfectly with the left’s obsessions, whether climate change, social justice, equity, banning meat or his favorite, “pandemic preparedness.”
In a Nas Daily online video, an awkward Bankman-Fried was featured this year as a role model of altruism for young people: “Sam is not a traditional billionaire because he believes in the concept of ‘earn to give’ … Next decade he will probably give away more than $10 million … He wants to get rich in order to impact the world and change it.”
Some detail snipped.
The sinister neo-socialists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) loved SBF so much, they made FTX a “corporate partner” — but that page on the WEF website has vanished in the last 48 hours, leaving an error message.
Venture capital firm Sequoia was a big backer, investing over $200 million in SBF, a lot of which he then invested back in Sequoia, whose chairman and managing partner Michael Moritz is a big donor to the Dems as well as to anti-Trump hate group the Lincoln Project, and reportedly is a neighbor of Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco.
Blue cities bleed, more Democrats violating election laws, another Democratic congressional staffer exposed for carrying water for Red China, Elon Musk takes over and immediately starts cleaning house at Twitter, and more transexual lunacy. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
As polling continues to show crime is a top issue for voters, the number of homicides has skyrocketed nationwide.
In fact, homicide rates rose by an average of nearly 10% in 50 of the most populated U.S. cities between the third quarter of last year and the third quarter of this year — and are still rising — according to a new study.
WalletHub compared 50 of America’s largest cities based on per capita homicides for the third quarter (July through September) of each year since 2020, using locally published crime data to compile its findings.
According to WalletHub, these were the ten cities with the highest homicide cases per 100,000 residents from July through September:
St. Louis, Mo. (19.69)
Kansas City, Mo. (14.86)
Detroit, Mich. (13.24)
Baltimore, Md. (12.45)
New Orleans, La. (10.99)
Milwaukee, Wisc. (10.46)
Memphis, Tenn. (9.99)
Philadelphia, Pa. (9.36)
Norfolk, Va. (7.78)
Chicago, Ill. (7.71)
The top prosecutors in most of these cities are backed by progressive megadonor George Soros, a billionaire who’s spent the last several years injecting tens of millions of dollars into local district attorney races nationwide, backing candidates who support policies such as abolishing bail, defunding the police, and decriminalizing or deprioritizing certain offenses.
In St. Louis, for example, Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner is one of the first prosecutors bankrolled by Soros’ financial network of organizations and affiliates, heavily funded by these sources in 2016 and again in 2020.
Amid high homicide figures, Gardner has declined more cases and issued fewer arrest warrants than her predecessor, charging fewer felonies and prosecuting thousands of fewer cases as a result. She has also deferred prison sentences for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies as part of her reform initiatives.
Gardner has said this is part of her “platform to reduce the number of cases unnecessarily charged in order to focus on the more difficult cases for trial.”
Last year, Gardner came under fire after three murder cases under her purview were dismissed in one week due to prosecutors in her office not showing up for hearings or being unprepared.
Her campaign website boasts that she’s “made jail and prison a last resort, reserved for those who pose a true public safety risk,” while limiting “the arrest and detention of people accused of misdemeanors and low-level felonies.”
Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner is another Soros-funded prosecutor.
Soros spent almost $1.7 million through the Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC to help Krasner in 2017, pouring more than five times as much money into the race as Krasner himself. Four years later, Krasner received a combined $1.259 million from Soros-funded groups for his reelection.
During his tenure, Krasner has cut the future years of incarceration by half and slashed the length of parole in probation supervision by nearly two-thirds compared to the previous DA. He has also made a priority of not prosecuting people who are illegally in possession of guns unless they hurt or kill people.
The top prosecutors in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Norfolk, and Chicago have also been backed by Soros-linked money. Many of the others are self-described progressive prosecutors.
According to some experts, progressive prosecutors pursuing soft-on-crime policies have contributed to the spike in homicides and other violent crime.
“Prosecutors in most major cities have failed the people they serve by refusing to prosecute criminals, including those charged with violent crimes,” Tristin Kilgallon, associate professor of pre-law and history at the University of Findlay, told WalletHub. “Countless violent crimes have been committed by those who have been released back into the streets due to recent ‘bail reform’ initiatives or by prosecutors who declined to pursue charges.”
“Texas Secretary of State Finds ‘Serious Breaches’ in Harris County 2020 Election Audit. Auditors found multiple chain of custody issues and violations of state and federal law requiring maintenance of records in the state’s largest county.”
Issues found by auditors relate primarily to the county’s extralegal “drive-thru” voting initiated by then-interim County Clerk Chris Hollins.
Auditors found that for at least 14 polling locations the county does not show chain of custody for the Mobile Ballot Boxes (MBB) and that there were multiple MBBs created for some voting locations. Auditors say the MBBs from the polling locations “were not the MBBs ultimately tabulated.” They also note that they have been able to locate some missing MBBs, but have not been given an explanation as to why the originals were not tabulated. Each MBB can hold 9,999 ballots.
Another issue found by auditors is that poll book and provisional voting data provided by the county do not match the number of cast vote records on some of the devices.
Ennis also noted that after upgrading voting systems the county does not appear to have retained “any equipment or computers that provide relevant reports or alternatively, can read the MBBs” from 2020 or recover the cast vote records stored in them as required by both state and federal election codes.
Why, it’s almost like the Democrats running Harris County wanted to commit election fraud…
Speaking of election fraud, Facebook has been fined $25 million for breaking Washington State election law.
According to court documents, King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North found Meta to be in violation of Washington’s political disclosure law 822 separate times between 2019 and 2021 and issued the maximum possible fine for each instance, which totaled up to $30,000 per violation.
Meta was also ordered to “come into full compliance” with the state’s election transparency laws within the next 30 days as well as pay the attorney’s fees for the case, which Ferguson has requested be tripled for a total of $10.5 million. The final total will be decided by North at a later date.
According to The Seattle Times, the state’s election transparency laws, which have been in place since 1972, require ad sellers to “disclose the names and addresses of political buys, the targets of such ads and, the total number of viewers of each ad.” The judge found that Meta had intentionally violated the standards.
Washington Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson said “that he had “one word for Facebook’s conduct in this case – arrogance.”
He told the Times, “It intentionally disregarded Washington’s election transparency laws,” Ferguson said. “But that wasn’t enough. Facebook argued in court that those laws should be declared unconstitutional. That’s breathtaking.”
When Pennsylvania Democrats insist that a candidate who suffered a life-threatening stroke in May is recovering well and “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office,” that candidate must look and sound fine to prove they’re telling the truth. Last night, in the lone debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race, John Fetterman looked and sounded very, very far from fine. But you can judge for yourself by watching the whole debate here.
I expected Fetterman’s debate performance to be a Rorschach test, with Democrats insisting that he was fine and hand-waving away any problems, and Republicans pointing to every verbal misstep, pause, or oddly worded answer. But by the end of the hour, there was little debate, no pun intended. John Fetterman’s ability to hear, understand, process information, and speak appears to still be severely impacted by his stroke. Perhaps the worst moment of the night came when one of the moderators asked him about a statement he made in 2018 opposing fracking, and how he could square that past stance with his current claim that he always supported fracking. After a long pause, presumably from reading the moderator’s question from the monitor, Fetterman said, “I, I, I do support fracking and . . .” and then for a moment, Fetterman’s head shook, and his mouth moved, but no words came out. Then he picked up again: “I don’t . . . I don’t. I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.” With everyone watching likely mortified and embarrassed to watch Fetterman struggle to finish the sentence, the moderator mercifully moved on to the next question.
Elon Musk took over Twitter late Thursday and fired company CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, senior legal representative Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett.
Musk, the world’s richest man, acquired the social media giant through a $44 billion purchase. He reportedly had until Friday to complete the deal.
In a video tweet that went viral, Musk appeared at Twitter’s corporate offices Wednesday carrying a sink, implying that employees would need to accept that he was now in charge.
This is a good start, but all the people on the Safety and Trust Council need to be fired, and all accounts suspended or banned need to be restored.
Rishi Sunak is the new UK Prime Minister, and Nigel Farage is not impressed:
A House Democratic staffer was fired after her outreach to other congressional aides allegedly on behalf of the Chinese embassy was revealed this week, National Review has learned. After an investigation found that the staffer had acted improperly, her boss, Representative Don Beyer, swiftly removed her.
“Congressman Beyer was totally unaware of these activities prior to being contacted by the House Sergeant At Arms,” Aaron Fritschner, his deputy chief of staff, told National Review in a statement this morning. “As soon as he learned of them, he followed every directive he was given by security officials. The staffer in question is no longer employed by the office of Congressman Beyer.”
Fritschner added that Beyer, who has a hawkish record on China, was “deeply upset” upon learning about the activities of the now-former staffer, Barbara Hamlett.
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr, a Democrat, was found to exhibit such misconduct that comprise more than 100 incidents over a period of about two years.
The misconduct “encompassed repeated acts of dishonesty; the blatant and systematic disregard of due process, the law, court orders, and local rules; the disrespectful treatment of court staff and litigants; and the abuse of capias warrants and the court’s contempt power,” stated the court’s per curium opinion. “That misconduct warrants an indefinite suspension from the practice of law.”
According to auditor’s records, Harris County has not yet recovered more than $1 million paid for a since-canceled COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract tied to the felony indictments of County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s staff.
In addition, invoices indicate that the contractor paid more than half a million of the taxpayer funds to data firms assisting progressive candidates with campaigns and voter turnout.
In 2021, the county awarded an $11 million contract to Elevate Strategies, owned by highly-connected Democratic strategist Felicity Pereyra. Pereyra had previously worked for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and Commissioner Adrian Garcia’s (D- Pct. 2) campaign when he ran for mayor of Houston.
After revelations that Hidalgo’s staff had sought to alter experience requirements for potential vendors, and had instructed the purchasing department to disqualify the University of Texas Health Science Center, Hidalgo announced she would cancel the contract. But the public later learned that the county paid out $1.4 million to Pereyra’s firm after the date of cancellation.
During a March 2022 meeting of the Harris County commissioners court, First Assistant County Attorney Jay Aiyer told commissioners that Elevate Strategies had repaid about $200,000 and he expected another $1 million in repayment soon.
In response to queries from FOX26 political reporter Greg Groogan, the county attorney’s office responded that they had recovered $600,000, but refused to comply with an open records request and appealed to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office in an effort to keep the repayment amounts out of the public eye.
Attorney and former Houston mayoral candidate Bill King sought records from the county auditor, which showed that while the county had paid $1.425 million, Elevate Strategies has only returned $208,000.
Among invoices Elevate Strategies submitted to the county are expenditures of $538,057 for software and canvassers from known Democratic voter turnout groups Civis Analytics and NGP VAN EveryAction.
Founded by Dan Wagner, former chief analytics officer of Obama for America, Civis Analytics has worked to increase voter turnout for a variety of progressive candidates and organizations including Battleground Texas. The group touts data collection that can be compiled into individual voter records for use in political campaigns.
Likewise, NGP VAN’s website advertises the company as “the leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations.”
Last year, Hidalgo defended the use of political campaigning groups, saying they had the tools to conduct the outreach. But Rice University professor and political analyst Mark Jones told The Texan there is not a great deal of overlap between the kinds of residents targeted.
“Those are companies focused exclusively on likely voters, which is not the same thing as a vulnerable population that would be the target of a COVID vaccine outreach campaign,” said Jones. “The Civis Analytics and NGP data sets are not designed to reach those targets. They are designed to reach people who are likely to turnout in the 2022 county judge election.”
Jones also noted that Elevate Strategies contract lists as a sub-contractor the Texas Organizing Project, which is another group that conducts canvassing and campaigning on behalf of Democratic candidates, including Hidalgo.
Go that? Lina Hidalgo approved over $1 million in funding for a company who’s primary job is getting Democrats (including herself) elected, paid them money after the contract was cancelled, and when told to give the money back, the Democrat company kept more than $1 million, and then Hidalgo’s office tried to cover it up.
Hidalgo doesn’t just need to be voted out of office, she and her cronies need to be sent to prison for abusing taxpayer money by spending it for partisan political advantage.
Democrats flee, lettuce wins, a flood of extra executives, and Musk gets out the hatchet. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
People leaving the Democratic Party describe it as cancer:
While Democrat voters have been leaving the party for years, their reasons have become more urgent.
“When people were feeling pushed away years ago, to the point where they were starting to walk away, there was more of a casual tone about it,” former liberal Democrat Brandon Straka, founder of #WalkAway told The Epoch Times.
“People were beginning to feel the effects of leftist, communism, Marxism infiltration into our society, our culture, and our politics.”
Straka founded #WalkAway in 2018 after making his personal decision to leave the party public while inviting others to join him. Since then, thousands of exiting Democrats made social media videos explaining why they were choosing to #WalkAway, giving Straka a window into the minds of these voters.
At that time, people were just noticing changes in the party, he said. They weren’t always identifying what it meant, but they knew they didn’t like how it felt, and quietly left.
“But now, it’s akin to cancer. Cancer doesn’t stop growing and spreading just because people don’t like it. And what’s happening with the left is no different,” Straka said. “Particularly with them getting rid of Trump, installing Biden, and the Democrats taking full control of the government. This is a cancer that’s rapidly growing and spreading now. And it’s becoming not just uncomfortable, but I think intolerable, for a lot of people.”
Drugs dealers openly selling on Broadway. Thinks to mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, and the feckless actions of Soros-backed DA Alvin Bragg, Democrats have undone not only all the hard-won law-and-order gains of Rudy Giuliani’s broken windows police, but they’ve actually brought NYC back to the nadir of the crime-ridden New York of the 1970s. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is heading to his third high-profile defeat in five years. But he and Planned Parenthood have an ace of their sleeve: registering dead voters.
A Texas firearms dealer is suing the Biden administration for weaponizing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to shut down law-abiding gun retailers over paperwork errors discovered during audits.
President Joe Biden ordered the Department of Justice in June of 2021 to enforce “zero tolerance for willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers that put public safety at risk,” but after a 500 percent increase in federal firearm license revocations for retailers over the last year, it’s clear the Biden administration isn’t just going after gun sellers who intentionally violate the law.
Punishing minor slip-ups, the lawsuit argues, draws on a drastically different interpretation of the law than the definition federal courts have held based on the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The lawsuit, to which the federal government has 60 days to respond, also argues that the Biden administration’s new policy sets an unreasonably high standard that is not applied to any other industry.
That’s why Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, chose to bring this case.
Those energy-hostile Democratic Party policies just keep paying dividends: “New England facing natural gas shortages, rolling blackouts this winter.”
The reality is that the normal flow of natural gas into the region is limited and has been unable to keep up with increasing demand levels over the past decade. That means that utility operators have to rely on liquid natural gas (LNG) imports to make up the difference during peak demand periods. During such times, LNG accounts for as much as one-third of the total natural gas used for heating and electricity.
But why is that? You won’t need an ace detective to figure that out. Utility companies in New York, Connecticut, and other New England states projected supply shortfalls more than a decade ago. Fortunately, New York and Pennsylvania sit on some of the richest natural gas resources in the country, found in the Marcellus shale deposits. The companies requested new, higher-volume pipelines to carry natural gas to meet the spiraling demands of New York City, particularly at the furthest end of the gas lines in Long Island. They also urged the development of local gas production to feed those lines. Similar situations were noted all across New England.
Instead of doing that, New York refused to approve new gas lines and passed a moratorium on natural gas drilling in the state. This brings us to the current situation where the same amount of natural gas is being used, but increasing amounts of it come in the form of LNG that has to be imported either from other regions of the country or from overseas. The energy crunch in Europe is eating up a lot of the available LNG, so there may not be enough for New England this winter.
A star reporter for ABC News has been missing since an April 27 FBI raid at his Arlington, Virginia apartment.
Emmy award winner James Gordon Meek – a deep-dive journalist who was also a former senior counterterrorism adviser and investigator for the House Homeland Security Committee, abruptly quit his job of 9 years and “fell off the face of the earth,” after the raid, one of his colleagues told Rolling Stone.
A recent proliferation of phony executive profiles on LinkedIn is creating something of an identity crisis for the business networking site, and for companies that rely on it to hire and screen prospective employees. The fabricated LinkedIn identities — which pair AI-generated profile photos with text lifted from legitimate accounts — are creating major headaches for corporate HR departments and for those managing invite-only LinkedIn groups.
Last week, KrebsOnSecurity examined a flood of inauthentic LinkedIn profiles all claiming Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) roles at various Fortune 500 companies, including Biogen, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Hewlett Packard.
Since then, the response from LinkedIn users and readers has made clear that these phony profiles are showing up en masse for virtually all executive roles — but particularly for jobs and industries that are adjacent to recent global events and news trends.
Does the Federal Reserve swapping some $6 billion worth of dollars for Swiss Francs with the Swiss National Bank mean a global financial crisis is coming? Boiling down his argument: A.) The Swiss National bank has a weekly dollar auction every Wednesday. 99%+ of the time, no one shows up for them. B.) Last Wednesday, 15 parties (meaning banks) showed up for them to the tune of some $6 billion. C.) The only reason they would do that is if they don’t trust their current repo counterparties, and D.) This is what happened when Flu Manchu hit and before the Subprime Meltdown in 2008. If it’s any consolation, they first started showing up for the latter in December of 2007, so you might have nine months to buy gold, ammunition and canned goods…
“According to the latest campaign finance reports, Republican Alexandra del Moral Mealer has raised a record-setting $4.9 million dollars in support of her campaign for Harris County Judge, outraising Democratic incumbent Lina Hidalgo 4 to 1.”
Related: “Hidalgo Booed Exiting Meeting Where GOP Commissioners Continue Boycott of Tax Increase.”
Woke reporter: Are you just super excited to coach against another black coach? Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles: “We don’t see color…the minute you guys stop making a big deal about it, everyone else will as well.”
Higher inflation, widespread corruption in the federal government, the Bank of England makes Liz Truss blink, and Muslims take exception to Dearborn Public School’s gay agenda. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The Journal reviewed more than 31,000 financial disclosure forms and analyzed more than 850,000 financial assets and 315,000 trades to shed light on any conflicts of interest among more than 12,000 senior career bureaucrats and political appointees. Its investigation found that “thousands of officials across the U.S. government’s executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made.”
“Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while those companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies, during both Republican and Democratic administrations,” the Journal reports. “When the financial holdings caused a conflict, the agencies sometimes simply waived the rules.”
The federal employees weren’t even subtle about it. Per the Journal, “More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.”
That’s sus.
To get an understanding of how shady this behavior is, consider examples from a few specific agencies. At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, the Journal found that “more than 200 senior officials… or nearly one in three, reported that they or their family members held investments in companies that were lobbying the agency.”
Similar corruption plagues the Department of Defense, where, per the investigation, “officials in the office of the secretary or their family members collectively owned between $1.2 million and $3.4 million of stock in aerospace and defense companies, on average, during years the Journal examined. Some owned stock in Chinese companies while the U.S. considered blacklisting the companies.”
Sometimes there’s a major story out there you don’t have time to really pay attention to, and such is the case with the UK “mini-budget”/Bank of England story. Basically, new UK PM Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Treasury Kwasi Kwarteng went “We’re going to cut taxes despite soaring inflation” and the Bank of England (which evidently said that UK pension funds were hours from collapse last week) went “No you’re not.” Well, Truss just blinked, Kwarteng is out, and now the UK government is going to raise taxes.
Here’s a video explainer of the complexities of the Bank of England intervention in the bond market.
I’ll still trying to wrap my mind around the phrases “pension fund margin call” and “unlimited quantity” of short term repo liquidity reserves.
The Biden administration’s new technology restrictions are already causing disruptions in China as US semiconductor equipment suppliers are telling staff based in the country’s top memory chip maker to leave, according to WSJ, citing sources familiar with the matter.
State-owned Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. has seen US chip semiconductor equipment companies, including KLA Corp. and Lam Research Corp., halt business activities at the facility. This includes installing new equipment to make advanced chips and overseeing highly technical chip production.
The US suppliers have paused support of already installed equipment at YMTC in recent days and temporarily halted installation of new tools, the people said. The suppliers are also temporarily pulling out their staff based at YMTC, the people said. –WSJ
It’s hard to overemphasize how badly screwed China’s chip industry is with this latest move. Semiconductor equipment not only needs regular maintenance, but extremely specialized expertise when something goes wrong and your yields crash, wizards who can look at a wafer defect chart and determine by experience what’s gone wrong with which tool. Without support and spare parts from the western semiconductor equipment giants, expect yields to start crashing in a matter of months, if not weeks, especially if Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron join the pullout.
The IRGC may be mobilizing retired servicemembers and other affiliated officers to suppress protests in Tehran on October 15.
Protesters have killed more Iranian security personnel in the current protest wave than in any previous wave in the regime’s history according to regime statistics.
Anti-regime protests occurred in at least 11 cities in seven provinces.
Social media accounts that are representing themselves as youth groups organizing and coordinating protests called for countrywide unrest on October 15.
Snip.
Social media accounts that are representing themselves as youth groups organizing and coordinating protests called for countrywide unrest on October 15. Dozens of social media accounts are presenting themselves as provincial components of a broader youth movement aimed at overthrowing the regime. The movement does not appear to have a central headquarters or hierarchy—at least on social media—and some of these groups’ rhetoric is notably disjointed from the others. These accounts claim to have a presence in multiple Iranian cities, including Tehran, Karaj, Neyshabour, Hamedan, Shiraz, and Ahvaz. Some of these accounts called for protests in Khuzestan on October 14, which did materialize in three different cities across the province on that date. Another account claimed that it had activated “sabotage groups” to destabilize the regime on October 14. The Tehran Neighborhood Youth group currently has the most followers and has posted for the longest period of time, possibly suggesting that it inspired copycat accounts based in other cities.
Some of these groups are presenting themselves as having moved from protest organization to coordinating phase one insurgency attacks.
In private, Democratic party officeholders are super racist.
But they’ll arrest parents and take their children if you fail to bow to their transexual madness. “Virginia Democrat Bill Would Criminally Prosecute Parents Who Don’t Affirm Their Kids As Transgender. Previous attempt at the bill was co-sponsored by a senator who served jail time for having sex with a teenager.”
A Virginia Democrat lawmaker says she will introduce legislation to have parents criminally prosecuted if they do not “affirm” their child as transgender. Teachers and social workers would report parents to Child Protective Services under the bill envisioned by state Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (D-Fauquier).
Guzman told WJLA that “It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that CPS charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment.”
Guzman, a social worker, went public with her plans to introduce the bill a week after The Daily Wire reported that a National Association Of School Psychologists official named Amy Cannava boasted that she was working with an unnamed state delegate matching Guzman’s description to craft such legislation. “I want to see a kid in a home with food and shelter and insurance and support, but I also don’t want to lose kids to death,” Cannava said, adding that “I will not deny the fact that I have put parents in their place in my office or at school.”
Cannava is also affiliated with a group called the Pride Liberation Project that said it would pick up trans and gay teens who didn’t like their parents, and “work with other supportive adult organizations in the region to find you someone who can provide you a kind and affirming home.”
A similar bill was quietly introduced in 2020 by Guzman and four other Democrats immediately after they took control of the legislature in the 2019 elections. It redefined the term “abused or neglected child” to include one whose parent “inflicts, threatens to create or inflict, or allows to be created or inflicted upon such child a physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
The sole Senate sponsor of the 2020 bill was Joe Morrissey, who served prison time for contributing to the delinquency of a minor after sleeping with his teenage secretary. He accepted a plea deal after initially being indicted on possession of child pornography and other charges.
You know who else hates rolling out the gay agenda to public schools? Muslims.
The only religious people the left is truly scared to offend are Muslims. Criticizing Muslims is completely off the table according to the left’s rules of engagement, so if Muslims are upset about something, the amount of twisting, back-bending, and acrobatics the left will perform in order not to offend them will be something to see.
So when hundreds of Muslim parents, upset at gay porn in the school libraries, showed up to a school board meeting in Dearborn, Mich., and it devolved into shouting and chaos with board members running away and gay protesters being chased to their cars, the fallout was absolutely hilarious. The headline in the Detroit Free Press after the event went haywire was “LGBTQ and Faith Communities Struggle for Unity.” BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Can you imagine what the headline would have been if it were a Baptist church chasing gay protesters to their cars? “Fascist White Supremacist Book Burners Bash Gay Man in Parking Lot,” or “Rabid Religious Zealots Terrorize Gay Man Defending Right to Read,” or something equally terrible. I don’t know about you, but I’m enjoying this disaster.
Enjoy this thread and all the videos in it. I know I did.
Shouting between various factions as groups take over Dearborn public schools board meeting. Board members have left. Unclear if they are coming back or if meeting will restart. Heavy police presence. pic.twitter.com/XIMEqIRR1X
Problem: Too many Germans are voting for a rightwing party the left disapproves of. Solution: Ban it. Thank God banning other political parties in Germany has never had any negative consequences…
Speaking of things that could never possibly have any negative consequences, Balarus dictator and Putin toady Alexander Lukashenko decrees that all price increases are forbidden. Enjoys those coming goods shortages, Belarussians. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Florida Surgeon General releases study showing heightened cardiac death rates for men ages 18-39 after taking the Flu Manchu mRNA vaccine. So Twitter banned him. Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before The Narrative. (They later reinstated him.)
Ukrainian troops shoot down a cruise missile with a MANPADS.
Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million to Sandy Hook families. As I noted last week, Alex Jones is an unreliable loon, but that judgment seems excessive and punitive merely for running his mouth.
I hope all BattleSwarm readers are safe from the Joe Biden Armageddon thus far. Today’s LinkSwarm features Democrats disdaining the rules followed by the little people, the UN is delusional enough to think they can run the world and defy the laws of economics, and petting dogs is good for you.
UNCTAD, the UN agency dealing with global trade, demanding *all* central banks stop rate hikes and instead switch to price controls. They argue, “policymakers appear to be hoping that a short sharp monetary shock – along the lines, if not of the same magnitude, as that pursued… under Paul Volker – will be sufficient to anchor inflationary expectations without triggering recession. Sifting through the economic entrails of a bygone era is unlikely, however, to provide the forward guidance needed for a softer landing given the deep structural and behavioural changes that have taken place in many economies, particularly those related to financialization, market concentration and labour’s bargaining power.”
I am not playing tennis with them either, but note the radicalism. Indeed, their latest report also argues, “supply-chain disruptions and labour shortages require appropriate industrial policies to increase the supply of key items in the medium term; this must be accompanied by sustained global policy coordination and (liquidity) support to help countries fund and manage these changes.” So, industrial policy. And Fed swap-lines. Expect both ahead.
They also ask why we haven’t regulated shadow-banking, and why we allow speculators in global commodity markets who have nothing to do with underlying trade. On the latter they note, “Market surveillance authorities could be mandated to intervene directly in exchange trading on an occasional basis by buying or selling derivatives contracts with a view to averting price collapses or deflating price bubbles.” I expect nothing but that ahead – and geopolitically driven to boot.
This boils down to: “Hey, we need to institute economic policies proven to fail, because otherwise lots of rich people will lose money!” Wage and price controls were tried in the 1970s and they failed miserably. The longer governments try to defy the market, the more terrible the snapback when those efforts fail.
On Tuesday, the New York Times framed a story circulating on the right over a software company’s connection with the Chinese Communist Party as a “right-wing conspiracy theory.”
“At an invitation-only conference in August at a secret location southeast of Phoenix, a group of election deniers unspooled a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential outcome,” was the Times’ original lede (via the Daily Caller).
In it, the Times wrote that “right-wing” election deniers in Arizona had fabricated a conspiracy theory that election software company Konnech had secret ties to the CCP, and was passing them information on around two million US poll workers.
“In the two years since former President Donald J. Trump lost his re-election bid, conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play a major role in elections to a barrage of outlandish voter fraud claims,” reads the article. “But the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups. Their claims often find a receptive online audience, which then uses the assertions to raise doubts about the integrity of American elections.”
The next morning, Konnech executive Eugene Yu was arrested for the alleged theft of poll workers’ personal information.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is facing the threat of a recall election and it’s not just the city’s rising crime that has petition signers enraged.
The two people behind the petition are both Democrats demanding the Democrat mayor leave office for her “failure to put New Orleans first and execute the responsibilities of the position,” according to Fox News.
In 2021, more than 150 officers left the New Orleans Police Department, despite a surge in murders and carjackings. Carjackings so far this year stand at 217, an increase of over 200 percent since 2019, according to the Metropolitan Crime Commission weekly bulletin.
But it’s the mayor’s exorbitant travel spending that has people up in arms.
She traveled to sister cities Ascona, Switzerland, and Juan Antibes-les-Pins on the French Riviera this summer, costing the City of New Orleans close to $45,000, including first-class international airfare with lie-flat seating.
The city’s travel policy requires employees to pay the difference in cost for work-related airfare upgrades, stating “employees are required to purchase the lowest airfare available … employees who choose an upgrade from coach, economy, or business class flights are solely responsible for the difference in cost,” Fox News reported.
But Cantrell hasn’t paid the near $30,000 bill from her first-class international flight upgrades over the summer.
She has claimed the visits are an investment in the city and necessary for her safety.
“My travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury,” The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. “As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone. As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be. Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn’t understand the world Black women walk in.”
Yes, I’m sure the men and women who walk the streets of New Orleans at night have never know unthinkable fear of having to fly coach to Switzerland.
“Federal Law Does Not Exempt LGBT Employees From Bathroom, Dress Code, Policies, Judge Rules…A U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) policy document from June 2021 overreached in its interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling forbidding employment discrimination based on sexual preference and gender identity, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas found. Texas sued over the guidance.”
Well, fellas, if you don’t want OPEC+ to be in a position where it can influence U.S. gasoline prices a month before the election, you need policies that minimize the U.S. market’s dependence upon the global oil market. This means maximizing U.S. oil production and expanding U.S. refinery capacity.
It would be a mild exaggeration to declare that the Biden administration hascompletely stopped issuing leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands and in federal waters, but only a mild one. As the Wall Street Journal reported last month, “President Biden’s Interior Department leased 126,228 acres for drilling through Aug. 20, his first 19 months in office, the analysis found. No other president since Richard Nixon in 1969-70 leased out fewer than 4.4 million acres at this stage in his first term.” It’s not a complete halt, but it’s very close to one. This means that the U.S. is almost entirely dependent upon oil production from private lands.
The good news is that there’s still a lot of oil beneath private lands. As of July, the U.S. was producing 11.8 million barrels per day, an increase from the 11.1 million barrels per day produced in January 2021, the month President Biden took office. But before the pandemic hit in early 2020, the U.S. was producing 12.8 million barrels per day, and it even hit 13 million barrels per day in November 2019. We have the proven ability to produce about 1.2 million more barrels per day than we are, if we want to do so and our public policies encourage it. But right now, they do not.
The Biden administration keeps insisting that it’s doing everything it can to bring gas prices down, including releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — which is now at its lowest level in 40 years. But what’s in the SPR is oil, not gasoline, and oil must still be refined. You can’t just pump the stuff out of the ground and put it in your car.
U.S. refineries are running at full capacity, or just short of full capacity. This is why oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases got sent to Europe and Asia, because they had the room and equipment to turn it into actual usable fuel. The U.S. currently has no more spare ability to turn the oil from the reserve into stuff that will actually make your car move; yelling at the oil companies isn’t going to change what is fundamentally an engineering problem.
And Democrats absolutely refuse to let anyone build new oil refineries.
Multiple sources have confirmed that Nord 2 was full of natural gas; that it was full for at least months; and that said natural gas had never moved.
It. Just. Sat. There. For — allegedly — months.
During normal operations of a pipeline, you run a pig through fairly regularly. A “pig” is a bit of equipment pushed by the gas flow, and as it moves along it shoves water and hydrate slurry down to where it can be removed; and it scrapes compounds off the inside walls (hydrogen sulphide, I’m looking at you) that might be are probably eating your pipe.
Note the part above where the pigs are pushed by the gas. The gas in Nordstream 2 never moved. That means no pig ever went down the line to shove water out, move hydrate slurry, or stop H2S from corroding the steel of the pipeline.
As I said in the previous post — and I will continue to say — none of this rules out intentional Acts of War. There are idiots enough in that region that sabotage can’t be discounted.
“A lot of folks are running the White House. Joe Biden just isn’t one of them.” “Biden is surrounded with longtime D.C. power players, such as Ron Klain, Susan Rice, Anita Dunn, John Podesta, Gene Sperling – a veritable “who’s who” of Beltway knife fights and insider skullduggery. Throughout their long careers, they’ve never sought credit or voter approval. Just power.”
“NYC Mayor Declares State of Emergency over Influx of Illegal Immigrants. [New York City mayor Eric Adams] said at least 17,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city by bus from other parts of the country since April.” Oh, a million illegal aliens come over the border into Texas and it’s no big deal, but 17,000 show up in your “sanctuary city” and suddenly it’s a problem!
“NYU Fires Chemistry Professor After Students Launch Petition Claiming His Course is Too Hard.” The lesson here seems to be that businesses shouldn’t hire NYU grads…
British blogger eats on £1 for a single day and has a very tough time of of it, even with foraging and scavenged condiments. Despite the dollar-pound exchange rate being so favorable, I don’t think I could do that on $1 a day shopping at HEB, and even if you made it $1.25, it would have to be three meals of ramen. Also, I don’t think I can even buy a single carrot at HEB (if I had wanted to), spaghetti is considerably more than 23¢ for 500 grams. $5 for $5, that I could do, and $30 for 30 days would be grim but very doable (price, pasta, and beans).
Remember: When it seems like grant money is handed out mainly to be raked off as graft, that’s only because it frequently is.
Federal officials are calling it one of the largest pandemic fraud cases in the country —which is quite a feat considering the billions stolen from the Paycheck Protection Plan and billions more stolen in Unemployment Insurance. But here we are: 49 people have been arrested in connection with the Feeding Our Future fraud case, and the list could be growing.
According to a Fox affiliate, “authorities alleged the massive fraud scheme took at least $250 million from the federal child nutrition program — money that was intended to help feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
One of the more prominent names on the list of fraudsters, Mohamed Noor, is a community journalist and owner of a media company in Minneapolis. Noor was charged earlier this week for stealing federal money meant to help fee low-income families —nice guy, Mr Noor.
Moor is the owner of Xogmaal Media Group, one of the companies that fraudulently received and misappropriated Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
Mohamed, who’s widely known as Deeq Darajo, was trying to flee the country to avoid prosecution —luckily, he was apprehended.
From The Sahan Journal:
Xogmaal used Feeding Our Future as a sponsor to receive federal funding for meals through the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Federal prosecutors say Deeq Darajo is the cousin of Abdikerm Eidleh, a former Feeding Our Future employee who federal prosecutors allege took more than $3 million in kickbacks from food sites to enroll them in the Child Nutrition Programs.
The charges say a Feeding Our Future employee expressed concern about enrolling Xogmaal in the Child Nutrition Programs in February 2021.
“We took a lot of organization [sic] that don’t work with children or are advocate, [sic] I am just realizing that now,” an unnamed employee wrote to Feeding Our Future Executive Director Aimee Bock in an email, according to the charges. “For example Xogmaal is a TV show program. They have no interest with children. These are the things we need to clean up.”
“Bock still submitted Xogmaal’s application to the Minnesota Department of Education, which administers the Child Nutrition Programs for the state, according to the charges. Soon Xogmaal claimed to be feeding 1,000 children a day, seven days a week. By April 2021, Xogmaal claimed to feed 1,500 kids a day, seven days a week, according to the charges.”
But Xogmaal wasn’t feeding any children. Instead, Xogmaal received close to $500,000 in food-aid money —$387,000 of this was sent to shell companies controlled by Abdikerm.
FYI: This Mohamed Noor, Mohamed Muse Noor, does not seem to be the same as former police officer Mohamed Noor, who recently did time for manslaughter of an unarmed woman, or Democratic State representative Mohamud Noor.
You can’t tell your Noors without a scorecard.
But back to the Noor at hand, what sort of media company was Xogmaal? One focused on Somali issues, in the Somali language. Click on the contact us link, and you can see the fine attention to detail the firm displayed.
Nothing screams “quality” quite like “Lorem ipsum.”
I thought to myself “What are the odds that the people involved in this scam are making donation to Democratic candidates? I’m guessing pretty good.”
At least nine of the 48 people accused of defrauding the government of $250 million meant to feed hungry children have donated to Democratic officeholders in Minnesota.
The number is likely higher and Alpha News is working to confirm the identities of additional defendants.
Campaign finance records show 42-year-old Liban Yasin Alishire donated $2,500 in May of this year to the reelection campaign of Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Alishire listed Hoodo Properties as his employer, which was a shell company he created to purchase luxury items and real estate with money he stole from the government, according to an indictment.
Snip.
Liban Yasin Alishire
Attorney General Keith Ellison: $2,500 (5/27/22)
Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Asad Mohamed Abshir
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Abdihakim Ali Ahmed
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/2021)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: $2,700 (3/31/2021)
Ahmed Abdullahi Ghedi
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: $2,700 (2/23/21)
Salim Ahmed Said
Sen. Omar Fateh: $1,000 (6/6/21)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Abdulkadir Nur Salah
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/26/21)
Minneapolis Council Member Jeremiah Ellison: $600 (12/20/21)
Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud, previously served on Mayor Frey’s community safety working group
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/26/21)
Abdi Nur Salah, former aide to Mayor Frey
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: $1,000 (7/27/21)
Hmm, it’s like all of them have something in common…
If you see “community activists” committing fraud, it’s a good bet that donations to Democrats are not far behind.
More Democrats convicted for committing voting fraud, Russian forces are driven out of Lyman, and the Eurocrats freak out of Italy’s voters daring to disobey their wishes. Plus advice on what not to invest in.
In February, 2021, the Biden administration-run Centers for Disease Control (CDC) awarded a Soros-backed pro-migrant nonprofit $7.5 million under the guise of pandemic-related support for “LATINX ESSENTIAL WORKERS AS HEALTH PROMOTERS,” and aimed “to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate impacts among Latinx and Latin American immigrants,” according to an analysis by the Daily Caller.
The group, Alianza Americas, is currently suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and other Florida officials over migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard earlier this month.
The group has also received nearly $1.4 million from George Soros’ Open Society Network.
Alianza Americas is “focused on improving the quality of life of all people in the U.S.-Mexico-Central America migration corridor.” The membership-based group, which Soros’ Open Society Foundations network (OSF) sent almost $1.4 million to between 2016 and 2020, was awarded a $7.5 million CDC grant in February 2021, according to a grant listing reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. -Daily Caller
The CDC funds were distributed under a program called “Protecting and Improving Health Globally: Building and Strengthening Public Health Impact, Systems, Capacity and Security.”
Add this to the many, many things Republicans should investigate if they gain a congressional majority.
Former U.S. Rep. Michael “Ozzie” Myers, a Pennsylvania Democrat, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deprive voters of civil rights, bribery, obstruction of justice, falsification of voting records, conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election, and orchestrating schemes to fraudulently stuff ballot boxes for specific Democrat candidates in Pennsylvania elections held from 2014 to 2018. Myers was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond to 30 months in prison, three years supervised release, and ordered to pay $100,000 in fines, with $10,000 of that due immediately, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero.
“A right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party” won Italy’s election and will form a new majority government.
Naturally, the Eurocratic elite are far from thrilled that Italians exercised unapproved voting preferences. “EU Commission President Threatens Italy On Eve Of Election, Says Brussels Has ‘Tools’ If Wrong Parties Win.”
Funny how they mention that some fascists were involved in founding Meloni’s party, but never mention how the Partito Democratico, the leftist and second largest party in Italy, were formerly commies.
“This Ohio School District Is Promoting an ‘LGBTQ+ Resource Guide’ With Instructions on Sex Work, Abortions. Hilliard City School District guide also encourages students to transition gender without parental consent.” All this encouraged by the National Education Association, which evidently thinks it is perfectly fine to literally instruct your children on how to be whores. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
A double-dose of Glenn Greenwald:
I can't stress this enough: at its core, Democratic politics is about criminalizing opposition to their party and ideology.
Dissenting ideas are "disinformation" and must be censored by Big Tech. Trump voters are inherently criminal ("insurrectionists") and should be imprisoned.
This is the face of authoritarianism – even though it looks different than you were taught to expect. And it's the mindset of tyrants everywhere:
This is someone so inebriated by her sense of righteousness and superiority that she views dissent as an evil too dangerous to allow: https://t.co/kmG4zTgPwh
Important investing tip: A single deli in rural New Jersey is not, in fact, worth $100 million. Which explains the fraud charges.
Speaking of bad investments, remember how growing hemp was going to make farmers rich? Yeah, not so much.
Since I post a lot of Peter Zeihan videos, I thought it only fair that I post this critique of Zeihan by Yaron Brook. He opines that, while Zeihan has important things to say about geography and demographics, he ignores the central role of ideas in shaping the world.
