Archive for the ‘Austin’ Category

LinkSwarm For January 10, 2024

Friday, January 10th, 2025

Trump is sentenced to nothing, Los Angeles burns, the Rotherham scandal boils, Biden flips off the nation (twice) before leaving office, Trudeau to go, and Germany starts disarming people who disagree with the government. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Obviously Biden felt he hadn’t screwed Americans enough before leaving office, so he made sure to strike a blow against low gas prices one more time on the way out.

    President Joe Biden will ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of federal waters, the White House announced Monday, striking a final blow against domestic energy production just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

    The outgoing president is set to use his authority under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf of Mexico, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska from future oil and gas leasing.

    Snip.

    The move comes on the same day that Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris is set to be certified by Congress. Trump has vowed to increase oil and gas production on a simple three-word energy policy: “Drill, baby, drill.” Biden’s latest action, however, poses an obstacle to the incoming president’s energy plans.

    Asked about the ban during a Monday radio interview, Trump told host Hugh Hewitt he would “unban it immediately.”

    “It’s really our greatest economic asset,” Trump said.

    Established 72 years ago, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act governs energy leasing activities in submerged lands under U.S. jurisdiction that extend three miles beyond the shoreline. An open-ended provision in federal law gives a president the authority to permanently withdraw portions of the Outer Continental Shelf without providing a way for a succeeding president to reverse course.

    Therefore, the solution may not be as simple as Trump signing an executive order on his first day in office to undo the action. Congress would need to take legislative action. Or if Trump decides to revoke Biden’s withdrawal, that action may prompt legal challenges.

    Democrats seem bound and determined to keep Americas broke for the sake of their environmental virtue signaling.

  • Those 34 hush money “felonies” were so serious that President Trump was sentenced to serve no jail time.
  • LA wildfire toll: “10 Dead, 10,000 Structures Burned In Los Angeles Area Inferno As Fire Damage Could Exceed $150 Billion.”
  • During the fire, hydrants ran out of water because nobody in the Democrat-dominated state could be bothered to fill the reservoir.
  • How badly does Los Angeles Democratic mayor Karen Bass suck? Just look at this timeline. She thought it was more important to jet off the Ghana than stay around when LA was faced with wildfire weather.
  • It gets better: A man apprehended setting fires with a blowtorch around LA won’t be charged with arson. Because I guess burning people’s homes is social justice or something.
  • Canadian Prime Minister and all-around tool Justin Trudeau is resigning, though not until his successor is chosen in general elections. Canadian citizens enjoyed rough per-capita GDP economic parity with U.S. citizens when he took office. Now? “The gap between the Canadian and American economies has now reached its widest point in nearly a century.” And workers in Canada earn less than workers in even the poorest U.S. states. Heck of a job, Justin!
  • After an Elon Musk tweet brought up the Rotherham child gang rape scandal again, Keir Starmer’s Labour government went into full denial mode.

    Gangs of predominantly Pakistani men have been raping and torturing vulnerable underage girls over the past three decades, with several independent inquiries having indicated systemic failures to investigate the crimes (because it would be ‘racist’). Three separate reports, published in 2013, 2014 and 2015 revealed that local politicians and police covered up the rapes.

    Of note, foreigners are three times as likely to be arrested for sex offenses vs. British citizens.

    In response Elon Musk launched an attack on Starmer, accusing him of failing to properly investigate and prosecute the gangs, which he called a “state-sponsored evil,” and alleging that Starmer was “complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN.”

    And as The Telegraph notes, the state “had to bury the story.”

    Denial about the extent of the problem is rooted deep in Britain’s political system. At times, it appears that the government’s approach to multiculturalism is not to uphold the law, but instead to minimise the risk of unrest between communities. Confronted with gangs of predominantly Pakistani men targeting predominantly white children, the state knew exactly what to do. For the good of community relations, it had to bury the story.

    In Rotherham, a senior police officer told a distressed father that the town “would erupt” if the routine abuse of white children by Pakistani heritage men became public knowledge. One parent concerned about a missing daughter was told by the police that an “older Asian boyfriend” was a “fashion accessory” for girls in the town. The father of a 15-year-old rape victim was told the assault might mean she would “learn her lesson”.

  • Islamist MP Naz Shah just stated outright that raped girls should “shut their mouths for the good of diversity.” Just as with Democrats and illegal aliens, a little child rape is considered a small price to pay for all that glorious multiculturalism…
  • UK’s Labour-dominated parliament really doesn’t want anyone investigating Rotherham.

    So, British MPs have voted against making a national inquiry into grooming gangs, in a 364-111 vote.

    Man, when the “ruling class” of public servants don’t want something discussed, they really let us know about it. Big shots in England, who have no problem discussing American issues of governance, and even were fine with some of their citizens coming over the pond to campaign during our last election, are really, really annoyed that Americans are beginning to talk about the “grooming gangs” (read rapist gangs) who have operated in Rotherham and elsewhere who have been doing their thing for years, and with seeming impunity.

    They’re really very annoyed about the American intrusion, you know. So much so, some are saying if the Americans don’t shut up about it, England should come cold all over its relationship with the USA.

    Well, that’s gobsmacking, isn’t? It’s basically saying, “Shut up, stop talking about all the raping we did nothing to address or nip in the bud, or we won’t be your friends, anymore. We’ll take our soccer ball and go home, we will!”

    I shouldn’t be so surprised. I’ve seen, and noted, in the past that for some there are two classes of sexual abuse/rape victims. The justly and properly acknowledged victims of priests, ministers, rabbi’s and religious — anything that involves church-centered abuse) and then the abused and raped people whose victimhood appears to be a lesser ken: Non-minor vulnerable adults; victims of public school teachers and staff; victims in state-run facilities. And now, apparently, English girls.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Fortunately, here in the U.S., the rule of law still actually means something. “Federal Judge Blocks Biden Administration’s Title IX Rewrite Protecting ‘Gender Identity.’”
  • Zuckerbot looks like he’s serious about purging wokeness from Facebook/Meta root and branch.

    Meta is immediately ending its DEI programs days after enacting sweeping changes to promote free speech on its platforms ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

    Meta vice president of human resources Janelle Gale sent an internal memo Friday announcing the company’s decision to terminate its DEI programs, Axios first reported, making it the latest large corporation to put an end to progressive workplace initiatives.

    A Meta spokesperson confirmed Axios’s reporting when NR asked for comment. NR has reached out for additional comment.

    “The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” Gale said in the memo, echoing the justifications given by other companies in walking back DEI.

    “The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” the memo adds.

    “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”

    Meta is getting rid of its DEI team and changing the role of chief diversity officer Maxine Williams. Additionally, Meta is ending its equity and inclusion programs, and its supplier diversity goals.

    “We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds,” Gale said.

    Likewise, Meta is abandoning its diversity hiring approach and its corporate representation goals to prevent the impression that the company is hiring solely based on demographic characteristics.

    “It’s important to us that our products are accessible to all, and are useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We continue to be focused on serving everyone, and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life,” the memo concludes.

    Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will be replacing its fact-checking program with a “community notes” style approach mimicking Elon Musk’s X. The “community notes” feature on X allows for crowdsourced fact checking and demonetizes posts that get slapped with a note for misleading information.

    Zuckerberg conceded that the fact-checkers Meta partnered with following the 2016 election were too politically biased, a nod to a longstanding complaint among conservatives. Meta is also reducing its “content moderation” policies to allow for greater freedom of speech on Facebook and Threads on controversial topics such as immigration and gender ideology. On that note, Meta is bringing back its promotion of political posts and moving its content moderation teams to Texas to prevent political insulation.

    Well, Austin, anyway…

    In August, Zuckerberg admitted that Meta was wrong to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story and criticized the Biden administration for pressuring Facebook into suppressing certain content related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story and skeptics of stringent Covid-19 policies was a priority for congressional Republicans in their investigations over the past two years.

    He also went on Joe Rogan and added UFC head Dana White to Meta’s board. If Zuckerberg is a weather-vane, the MAGA winds must be very strong indeed…

  • “In 2024, seven states signed legislation against DEI or stripped funding for it at universities — Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming. Those states join Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and North Dakota, all of which moved against DEI before last year.”
  • Biden’s letting 11 terrorists out to fly to Oman because of course he is. All 11 are Yemanis. At least he’s not letting Khalid Sheikh Mohammad go. Yet…
  • Remember how in The Prisoner, one security device was a giant rolling ball? China evidently took inspiration from that, but there version is made out of metal.
  • Global warming does it again. “Rare snow blankets Sahara dunes in Northern Africa.”
  • Amish farmer wins lawsuit to keep selling raw milk.
  • Ukraine hits another oil storage facility, this one in Engels, Saratov.
  • Meanwhile, in Germany: “Saxony-Anhalt begins disarming AfD members. AfD members in many German states are stripped of many of their rights, including the right to privacy and lawful gun ownership.” You know, I get the feeling I’ve seen this movie before… (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • The mystery of the Syrian-Jordanian border.
  • Remember how we were supposed to “Believe All Women”? Well, here’s yet another case of a woman lying about a male coworker sexually harassing her.
  • “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to s—” BLAM! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • To paraphrase Mel Brooks, tragedy is when I have a toothache, comedy is when you fall down an open manhole.
  • How car theft rings are stealing exotic cars by posing as legitimate car transport companies.
  • I don’t often cover New York sports teams or link to ESPN, but this story about how the “New York Football Giants” (to use Dwight’s preferred nomenclature) went 3-14 puts the fun in dysfunctional, including asking their starting cornerback to take a pay cut…right before a game.
  • Women’s sports bar shuts down just five months after opening.” Why, it’s almost as if the two sexes are different in the degrees of their affinities for sports…
  • How allied vehicles got white stars in World War II.
  • Soundgarden now has a fat female lead singer for some reason. She decided to go crowd-surfing, and the audience went “Nah, we’re good.” Thump ensues.
  • Adam Savage goes down a rabbit hole of ridiculously small cassette tapes.
  • Borepatch points us to a pretty awesome RasberryPi-driven Christmas lights display.
  • “Biden Honors Kamala Harris With Presidential Medal Of Participation.”
  • “Biden Online Store Clearance Sale Now Offering Presidential Medals Of Freedom For $9.99.”
  • FBI Baffled Terrorist Attack Occurred As They Imprisoned All Jan 6 Attendees.”
  • Trudeau To Be Humanely Euthanized.”
  • “British Man Arrested For Making Meme Offensive To Child Rapists.”
  • “Guy Who Said Facebook Was Not Suppressing Free Speech Announces Facebook Will Stop Suppressing Free Speech.”
  • Paxton Takes Aim At Austin Homeless Industrial Complex

    Thursday, December 5th, 2024

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took time out from his busy schedule of suing the federal government to sue a tendril of the Austin homeless industrial complex.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center (SHNC), a South Austin-based non-profit organization, alleging that it is “operating as a common nuisance in violation of Texas law.”

    “In South Austin,” the lawsuit states, “a once peaceful neighborhood has been transformed by homeless drug addicts, convicted criminals, and registered sex offenders. These people do drugs in sight of children, publicly fornicate next to an elementary school, menace residents with machetes, urinate and defecate on public grounds, and generally terrorize the surrounding community.”

    The suit goes on to say that it is SHNC “who is responsible” for the alleged issues.

    “It permits this drug use on and around its surrounding property. And it then permits the homeless to linger in and around the community even if they are in an unstable state.”

    Paxton’s suit also points out that the center “operates mere feet from an elementary school.”

    The lawsuit is asking the court to stop the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, or youth centers, or in ways that disturb the surrounding community. Additionally, the state requests that the center be ordered to “close for one year.”

    It’s my working thesis that the Homeless Industrial complex is a way to not only rake off graft and corruption for the left, but also launder money to donate directly to Democrats And what do you know? Search for Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center on Open Secrets yields 15 donations, all to Democrats, including Colin Allred and Kamala Harris this year.

    Another thing: The Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center isn’t that large, yet they seem to have no less than 35 people on their board and payroll.

    The Paxton lawsuit doesn’t delve into this, only the baleful effect importing drug addicted transients has had on the center’s neighbors. The new “social justice” approved “housing first” method of “fixing” homelessness is to just keep letting the drug-addicted transients continue using drugs. This actively prevents them from rejoining society as productive members, but is a great way for leftwing activists to keep farming them for government subsidies.

    We have direct evidence of graft in previous Austin homeless programs, and this lawsuit by the state of Texas may turn up some very interesting tidbits in discovery…

    LinkSwarm For November 22, 2024

    Friday, November 22nd, 2024

    The Trump witchunt trial is suspended, PA Democrats give up the steal, the ruble collapses, a real estate developer is busted for bribery, thrash metal TDS, and an unexpected voice of sanity and reason from…Cenk Uygur?

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • New York Judge Indefinitely Postpones Trump Hush-Money Sentencing, Will Consider Dismissing Case.” Why, it’s almost as if the entire farcical trial was a witch hunt from the beginning.

    Judge Juan Merchan indefinitely postponed the sentencing hearing in President-elect Donald Trump’s New York criminal case, which had been planned for next week, in light of Trump’s election.

    Merchan is giving Trump’s legal team more than a week to file its motion asking for a dismissal under the argument that his return to office provides him a new host of immunity-related defenses.

    Trump’s lawyers will be required to file by December 2, after which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will have until December 9 to respond.

    Snip.

    While Trump could face up to four years in prison, the more likely sentence in the case — should it move forward — would be probation, which could include some combination of a fine or community service, as the former and future president is a first-time offender.

    “Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a letter filed Tuesday.

    Trump’s team had requested a December 20 deadline to file.

    Bragg, for his part, has argued in favor of freezing the case for the entirety of Trump’s term in office, and then revisiting the sentencing at the end of Trump’s tenure.

    But Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove have argued dismissal of the case “is necessary under the Constitution and federal law to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power — and in the interests of justice — following President Trump’s victory in the Electoral College and the popular vote in the 2024 Presidential election.”

  • Democrat Bob Casey realizes he won’t be able to cheat his way to victory and concedes after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reiterates that no, you’re not allowed to illegally count the ballots we’ve already declared illegal.
  • The Harris campaign spent $12 million doing polling on her strengths and weaknesses. I’m going to guess that the amount Trump spent on polling his strengths and weakness was “zero.”
  • Matt Gaetz withdraws from consideration as Trump’s Attorney General, and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is the new nominee.
  • Heh:

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Musician turns Democrat freakouts into epic thrash metal:

  • Are we running out of gunpowder? (Hat tip: KR Training.)
  • To paraphrase Instapundit, we’ve entered some sort of hellworld where Cenk Uygur is a voice of moderation and reason, calling out far left pollster Allan Lichtman for blowing his election call, whereupon Lichtman shrieks that Uygur is committing “blasphemy” against him. Everyone and their dog has posted this, but I’m linking to the Asmongold clip because his seems to be the shortest.
  • Ukraine hit a military manufacturing facility 1,279 km from the Ukrainian border in a drone strike.
  • The Russian ruble hit a two year low against the dollar.
  • Trump intends to squeeze Iran.

    US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to reinstate its “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran, targeting Tehran’s economic stability and its ability to support militant proxies and nuclear development, The Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing sources close to the transition team.

    The sources revealed that the administration plans to impose stricter sanctions, particularly on Iran’s oil exports, which serve as a critical revenue source.

    The anticipated sanctions could drastically reduce Iranian oil exports, which currently exceed 1.5 million barrels per day, up from a low of 400,000 barrels per day in 2020. Experts suggest that these measures would severely impact Iran’s economy. Bob McNally, an energy consultant and former US presidential adviser, indicated that reducing exports to a fraction of current levels would leave Iran in a far worse economic position than during Trump’s first term.

  • The Danish Navy is following a Chinese ship suspected of severing communication cables in the Baltic Sea.
  • In a followup to yesterday’s story, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered state entities to divest from investments in Communist China. “One investment group specifically highlighted in Abbott’s letter is the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), which manages billions of dollars in assets for both university systems. UTIMCO has come under scrutiny after a Texas Scorecard investigation revealed its investments in more than 50 Chinese companies.”
  • Laken Riley’s illegal alien murderer convicted and sentenced to life without parole. Oh, and he had previously enjoyed a taxpayer-funded stay at the Roosevelt Hotel and a flight to Georgia. Thanks, Joe Biden.
  • El Salvador’s gang prison doesn’t play around. A whole lot of this would (rightfully) be considered cruel and unusual punishment, but we should veer more in this direction rather than putting illegal alien rapists up in hotels…
  • Michael Johnston, the mayor of Denver, “is “suggesting the use of force against ICE agents who are carrying out the lawful actions of the U.S. government.”
  • “Dallas Developer Pleads Guilty to Bribing City Council Members.”

    Sherman Roberts, who led the City Wide Community Development Corporation, was indicted four years ago for a bribery scheme involving former Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway and former City Council Member Carolyn Davis for their support of loans and low-income housing tax credits for his apartment projects.

    He now faces up to five years in prison and is expected to be sentenced in March.

    Roberts paid Davis several thousand dollars in cash, and promised future payments after her council tenure ended, in return for Davis’ support of his projects — Serenity Place, Runyon Springs, and Patriot’s Crossing — according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.

    Roberts was a Democratic Party donor, but in fairly piddling amounts for a real estate developer…

  • Middle School Principal Arrested for Possession of Child Pornography…Chad Dwight Barrett, a 56-year-old principal at Hardin Junior High School in Liberty, was arrested on November 14 following a police investigation that found he sent a student an inappropriate video.”
  • “Incoming Lawmaker Files Legislation to Allow Death Penalty for Sex Crimes Against Children.” Would need to see the details, but clearly scumbags raping small children deserve to die…
  • Repeat criminal told sheriff it would take “his tank and his helicopter” to get him out of his house, but in the end all it took was a needle.
  • Southern Poverty Law Center tries to dox Not The Bee staffers over #WrongThink.
  • Advanced Auto Parts closes all of it’s California stores. Thanks, Gavin Newsom.
  • Carmakers stopped making affordable cars in order to underwrite their move into electric cars. Result: They can’t sell cars and their overflow lots are full.
  • The DOJ wants Google to sell off Chrome. Well, that would be a start in addressing their monopoly position in Internet searches, but would hardly be sufficient. They should also have to spin off YouTube. And because consumers were directly harmed by their monopoly, they should be required to add 2GB of storage a year for every Gmail user for 20 years, he said self-interestedly. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The time of the turning: “Sold-out NYC crowd ERUPTS, chants USA as President Trump attends UFC 309 with Elon Musk, RFK Jr, Speaker Johnson.”
  • Austin governance at its usualist: “CapMetro puts dozens of electric buses in storage amid manufacturer’s financial collapse. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Shocking news from the world of science: Weed isn’t good for you. “According to their findings, exposure to cannabis was associated with a range of cancers – breast, pancreatic, liver, thyroid, testicular and lymphoma – that also develop quickly and are more aggressive.”
  • Sweden’s Gender Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg is deeply afraid of…bananas.
  • Service for a hypercar costs more than the purchase price of a non-hyper car.
  • Thomas E. Kurtz, creator of BASIC, RIP. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Enjoy the Honest Trailer for Megalopolis, with bonus Teen Girl Squad reference.
  • Interesting video on attempts to replicate flickering firelight using electric bulbs. (This is what I currently use for the Halloween season, and it’s adequate for my needs.)
  • The TDS doctor is in.
  • “Trump Worried Everyone Will Quit Before He Can Tell Them ‘You’re Fired.'”
  • “Fattest, Sickest Country On Earth Concerned New Health Secretary Might Do Something Different.”
  • “After Illegal Immigrant Found Guilty Of Murder, Dems Sentence Him To Flying Coach.”
  • “Sunny Hostin Forced To Read Legal Notice Acknowledging Nothing Said On ‘The View’ In Its Entire History Has Ever Been Remotely True.”
  • “Before DOGE Cuts Funding, NIH Working Feverishly To Complete Study On The Effects Of Giving Meth To Jetpack-Wearing Hamsters.”
  • That’s a happy puppy.

  • Election Shenanigans From Travis County Dems

    Saturday, November 2nd, 2024

    The People’s Republic of Austin is a deep blue dot in the midst of deep red Texas, and Democrats are ramping up election shenanigans to keep it that way.

    Local GOP Sues Travis County Over Election Staffing

    According to the Travis County GOP, 41 percent of locations on Election Day lack any Republican poll workers.
    …UPDATE: The Travis County Republican Party has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court after the 3rd Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit as moot.

    A lack of Republican election staffers, despite the county party having submitted over 900 names to the local election office, has caused the Travis County Republican Party to take drastic action.

    According to a press release, the Travis GOP filed an emergency petition against the county elections division for refusing to staff polling locations with Republicans.

    The filing alleges “the Travis County Elections Department ignored repeated requests from TCRP for polling location staffing, only delivering the information just four days before the start of early voting. The received information shows a severe lack of Republican presence at Early Voting and Election Day polling locations.”

    According to the GOP, 24 percent of early voting locations have no Republican election judges, and 50 percent have no Republican election workers. For Election Day, 41 percent of locations lack any Republican poll workers.

    The Texas Election Code requires polling locations to assign someone from the other major party as the alternate judge if they assign someone from one major party as the presiding judge.

    “It is totally unacceptable that large portions of our county have no Republican election judges assigned, despite our providing far more than the number of available workers needed,” said Travis County GOP Chair Matt Mackowiak. “As long as I am TCRP chair, we will hold local government accountable when they violate our rights and risk election integrity. This is an egregious example, and we look forward to our day in court.”

    Of course, pulling this sort of election shenanigans so close to the election gives very little time to correct the abuse. Here’s hoping the Texas Supreme Court comes back with some form of injunctive relief to have Republicans monitoring election day…

    2024 Round Rock ISD Election: No On Bonds And Social Justice Warriors

    Monday, October 21st, 2024

    The election is bearing down like a freight train, and early voting just started in Texas. So let’s look at this year’s bond and RRISD board elections.

    Here’s what the bonds are ostensibly for.

    In August, the school board voted 5-2 to place a $998 million bond proposal on the November ballot. With interest, the bonds would cost local property taxpayers $1.5 billion—55 percent more than voters will see on the ballot.

    The proposal is divided into four separate propositions:

    Proposition A seeks to allot $798 million ($1.2 billion with interest) to update roofs, floors, air conditioning systems, electrical, and plumbing. It also includes money for school paint jobs and the purchase of new buses.

    The proposition would further dedicate resources to constructing a Career and Technical Education facility to expand classes like automotive shop, cosmetology, and dental assistance.

    Proposition B contains an estimated $125 million ($160 million with interest) to update instructional technology and infrastructure to shore up the reliability and security of the district’s network.

    Proposition C includes $8.6 million ($13.7 million with interest) for the district’s fine arts programs.

    Proposition D would provide $65.9 million ($104 million with interest) to update the locker rooms, lighting, and scoreboards of existing athletic facilities and add artificial turf to competition fields.

    Seems like a lot of maintenance updates for schools that are relatively new. The parents who have come out against bonds note that the demographics of the district are shrinking, not growing.

    In 2018 the district had long term projection done by a company called Templeton Demographics. They projected we would have 24,136 elementary school students this year. The daily attendance reports available on the district website show 20,536 students. The districts enrollment peaked in the 2019-20 school year. The newest projections done by Zondra Education show the potential of a continued decline in enrollment through 2033.

    More from Don Zimmerman in Texas Scorecard: “The purpose of the $1.3 billion (including interest) bond tax election is to fund a greedy partisan political machine and its partisan cronies who profit from the obscene taxes and even more obscene sexualization and religious indoctrination of children while their academic achievements decline.”

    I recommend voting No on all RRISD bond proposals.

    For the board election, the choices are easy: Estevan Jesus “Chuy” Zárate (Place 1), Melissa Ross (Place 2), and Dr. Mingyuan “Michael” Wei (Place 7) are are radical social justice warriors who call their opponents “fascists” for opposing DEI and the transsexual agenda. RRISD voters should vote for:

  • Joshua Escalante for Place 1
  • April Guerra for Place 2
  • James Steele for Place 3
  • LinkSwarm For October 18, 2024

    Friday, October 18th, 2024

    Harris plagiarizes Wikipedia and blows off Catholics, Gwen Walz assigns America homework, social justice groomers keep trying to trans your kids, Williamson County’s sheriff gets accused of pay-for-play corruption, another Hamas leader eats a last meal of kosher drone, Columbia U wants to silence a pro-Israel professor, and a meat recall expands to my local supermarket.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Evidently illegal aliens are Democrats only hopes for a victory in November. “Biden-Harris Admin Files Lawsuit To Stop Virginia From ‘Removing Noncitizens From Voter Rolls.'”

    The Biden-Harris administration announced [last] Friday that it was filing a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for enforcing voter integrity laws in the state that aim to curb illegal voting in elections.

    Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who has a history of espousing racist views, claimed without evidence that Virginia’s move to increase election integrity was an “eleventh hour effort” intended, in part, to “disenfranchise qualified voters.”

    The DOJ claimed that it was doing so because it was “too close to the Nov. 5 general election” to remove voters:

    Section 8(c)(2) of the NVRA, also known as the Quiet Period Provision, requires states to complete systematic programs aimed at removing the names of ineligible voters from voter registration lists no later than 90 days before federal elections.

    However, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order requiring that non-citizens be removed from voter rolls was signed on August 7, 2024 — exactly 90 days before Election Day.

    The problem is the people who are being removed from the voter rolls are not, in fact, voters because they are not citizens, said Youngkin.

    “With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls – a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote,” Youngkin said.

    Youngkin said that the lawsuit was a “desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy.”

  • Kamala Harris’s has a plagiarism problem.

    At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal-justice issues.

    However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)

    Let’s consider a selection of these excerpts from Harris’s book, beginning with one in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited NBC News report, with the duplicated material marked in italics:

    In Detroit’s public schools, only 25 percent of the students who enrolled in grade nine graduated from high school, while 30.5 percent graduated in Indianapolis public schools and 34 percent received diplomas in the Cleveland Municipal City School District. Overall, about 70 percent of the U.S. students graduate from public and private schools on time with a regular diploma, and about 1.2 million students drop out annually. Only about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation’s largest cities receive diplomas.

    There’s more. In another section of the book, Harris, without proper attribution, reproduced extensive sections from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release. She and her co-author passed off the language as their own, copying multiple paragraphs virtually verbatim. Here is the excerpt, with the airlifted material in italics and abbreviations, such as percentages and state names, treated as verbatim substitutions:

    High Point had its first face-to-face meeting with drug dealers, from the city’s West End neighborhood, on May 18, 2004. The drug market shut down immediately and permanently, with a sustained 35 percent reduction in violent crime. High Point repeated the strategy in three additional markets over the next three years. There is virtually no remaining public drug dealing in the city, and serious crime has fallen 20 percent citywide.

    The High Point Strategy has since been implemented in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Raleigh, North Carolina; in Providence, Rhode Island; and in Rockford, Illinois. The U.S. Department of Justice is launching a national program to replicate the strategy in ten additional cities.

    In a section about a New York court program, Harris stole long passages directly from Wikipedia—long considered an unreliable source. She not only assumes the online encyclopedia’s accuracy, but copies its language nearly verbatim, without citing the source. Here is Harris’s language, with duplicated material in italics, based on the page as it appeared in December 2008, before she published the book:

    The Mid-town [sic] Community Court was established as a collaboration between the New York State Unified Court System and the Center for Court Innovation. The court works in partnership with local residents, businesses, and social service agencies to organize community service projects and provide on-site social services, including drug treatment, mental health counseling, and job training. What was innovative about Midtown Court was that it required low-level offenders to pay back the neighborhood through community service, while at the same time it offered them help with problems that often underlie criminal behavior.

    To make matters worse, in duplicating Wikipedia’s language, Harris seems to have missed critical information and misstated a relevant detail. She claims, in prose identical to the online encyclopedia’s, that “illegal vending was down 24 percent” as a result of the court’s policies. Early in the paragraph, Harris cites the Bureau of Justice Assistance report to substantiate the figure. But she made a mistake: On Wikipedia, the “24 percent” figure was apparently tied to a different report, which found that “arrests for unlicensed vending,” rather than unlicensed vending as such, “fell by 24 percent” (emphasis mine). Her reliance on Wikipedia, an unreliable source, led to an unreliable conclusion.

    While the BJA report was not the proper source for the “24 percent” claim, it did appear in the Wikipedia entry’s list of citations, and apparently was a fruitful resource for Harris and her coauthor, as they reproduced substantial portions of its sentences.

    Nothing says “commitment to rigorous academic scholarship” quite like not just quoting verbatim from Wikipedia, but doing so incompetently.

  • Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News. It didn’t go well for her.

    Host of Fox News “Special Report” Bret Baier finally snagged that interview with Vice President and selected Democrat nominee Kamala Harris. Harris was campaigning in Washington Crossing, PA and was proud of the former Republicans and Trump administration people who took the stage with her and happy with their endorsement, delighted in their support of her as a presidential candidate.

    The entire interview was a train wreck, but there were particular moments that were exceptionally cringeworthy, damaging, and proved with glaring certainty why she is unfit to lead.

    Baier started off with the topic of illegal immigration, and you could visibly see Harris deflate like a balloon before the first question was asked.

    Immediately Harris tried to filibuster Baier and do this interview’s version of “I’m speaking.” Harris brought up the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which she claimed addressed the flaws in the asylum system with more judges, 15 million more border agents, increased penalties, stemming the flow of fentanyl, shore up entry points, and how she has worked toward bipartisan efforts to strengthen the border.

    Baier gently pushed back with documented facts, and Harris briefly got that deer in headlights look she gets when she is desperately trying to find her talking points. Then she jumped on her supposed record as California Attorney General (not her current position as VP) as proof that she knew how to handle this crisis. Failing to understand that the fact that a crisis exists is proof that you have no ability to correct it.

    But the most purely evil and damning part of this topic of illegal immigration was the fact that Harris could not even form the words to apologize for allowing criminals into the country that resulted in the senseless deaths of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Rachel Morin.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Watch the woman who’s been in office almost four years ask to “turn the page.”

  • By contrast, President Trump evidently did pretty well at the Al Smith charity dinner.

    Former president Donald Trump poked fun at vice president Kamala Harris during the Al Smith dinner on Thursday evening, criticizing his political rival for failing to show up at the charity event in person.

    Harris addressed the crowd at the white-tie event, which raises funds for Catholics charities, in a pre-recorded video – a highly unusual move for a presidential candidate. It has become a tradition for presidential candidates to speak at the event since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared together in 1960.

    The vice president is the first presidential contender to skip out on the dinner since Walter Mondale in 1984.

    There’s an auspicious precedent.

    “I guess you should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis and she would have been here, guaranteed,” Trump said.

    He went on to joke that Harris must be “out receiving communion from Gretchen Whitmer,” a reference to a viral video from earlier this month of the Michigan governor feeding a chip to a leftist influencer on her knees.

    Trump accused the vice president of being “disrespectful to Catholics.”

    He also quipped about the Democratic nominee’s odd’s of winning the election, saying, “There’s a group called White Dudes for Harris but I’m not worried about them. Their wives and their wives’ lovers are voting for me.”

    Zing!

  • Does Kamala Harris Have a Catholic Problem in PA?” Ya think?

    Does Kamala Harris need a mea culpa in PA? Or does her disconnect from voters in the Rust Belt go beyond state lines and religion?

    That question has rolled around in my head since reading William McGurn’s column yesterday at the Wall Street Journal. McGurn uses Gretchen Whitmer’s bizarre mockery of the Catholic Eucharist while wearing a Harris-Walz hat to argue that the Democrat anointee for the presidency now has a Whitmer-created problem. But is that entirely true, or does it go beyond Whitmer’s blasphemy?

    McGurn recognizes a broader problem, but perhaps not its scope. First, he outlines the direct issues with Catholics, who comprise 30% of Pennsylvania:

    As California’s attorney general, Ms. Harris signed several friend-of-the-court briefs opposing religious exemptions for private employers such as Hobby Lobby and religious nonprofits such as the Little Sisters of the Poor. She said she was “proud” to have co-sponsored California’s Reproductive FACT Act, which compelled pro-life pregnancy centers to display notices about where women could get an abortion. The Supreme Court in 2018 rejected the law as a likely violation of the First Amendment.

    But perhaps Ms. Harris’s most notorious Catholic moment came after she was elected senator. When Brian Buescher was nominated for a federal judgeship, she grilled him about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s fraternal organization. Although President John F. Kennedy was also a Knight, Ms. Harris treated the group as though it were the Ku Klux Klan.

    She would later co-sponsor the Equality Act, which the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops said could force doctors and hospitals to perform abortions they oppose. Last month she snubbed New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan by declining to attend this Thursday’s Al Smith dinner, an election-year staple that has brought Democratic and Republican candidates together in a civil setting for decades.

    Those are the direct issues, and those aren’t limited to Pennsylvania. Overall, Republicans now have a statistically significant edge in party ID among Catholics, according to Pew polling this year, 50/44. Nationally, Catholics accounted for 25% of the vote in 2020, although apparently pollsters didn’t include data on religion in state-level exit polling. One can expect a similarly significant number of Catholics in Wisconsin and Michigan, and perhaps slightly lower levels in states like Arizona and Georgia. In every state, however, Catholics make up a far larger part of the electorate than the Arab-Americans did in Michigan, and yet both Biden and Harris obsessed over their support all year long.

    That’s one problem, but that’s not the only problem. A more recent Pew poll shows Harris trailing Donald Trump with Catholics by five points, even worse than Hillary Clinton performed in 2016. But the issue isn’t entirely religious:

    Mr. Biden may be the last of the big-time Democrats whose base was the white working class. But it confers a sensibility Ms. Harris is conspicuously lacking. …

    Politico reports that Ms. Harris’s prospects are “considerably dicier” because of a “cultural dissonance” between her progressive San Francisco persona and white working-class Catholic Pennsylvanians.

    That gets closer to the real danger for Democrats, but it has less to do with “white” and “Catholic” than it does to working class. Biden had a political and cultural connection to working-class voters, not just because of his Catholicism but because of his background. He fit into that milieu even if that mainly came as a conceit, especially after fifty years in Washington DC, but he could talk in their language too … at least before his brain turned to jelly. People keep overlooking his 2012 address to the Democrat convention, which turned out to be the best of the week, in which he artfully bridged the gap between the working class and the Academia-drenched elite that had mainly taken over the party in the current generation.

    Harris simply can’t do that. Not only is she incapable of connecting at anywhere near that level, she only recently even showed a desire to do so. Her lame attempt at repeating the mantra “I was raised in a middle-class household” ad nauseam is about as close as she gets. Culturally, she comes from the Academia-drenched elite and speaks their language, to the extent she speaks any political language effectively at all. Harris tosses around clichés as a means to connect to working class voters, which initially appeared to appeal to them but have turned into a major liability now.

    The Democratic Party’s naked contempt for both religious believers and the actual working class has been evident for a long, long time.

  • More on the subject: “Blowing Off the Al Smith Dinner Might Have Cost Harris Pennsylvania — and the Election.”

    The Catholic vote is not as monolithic as it used to be. In 1928, the Catholic vote was overwhelmingly Democratic, concentrated in urban centers. By 1960, the Catholic vote was fracturing through intermarriage and economic issues, but Kennedy still received about 65% of the vote from his co-religionists.

    Today, Donald Trump can expect to get about 60% of the Catholic vote. In Pennsylvania, The Catholic vote might be pivotal in a state that Harris absolutely, positively has to win.

    “Her San Francisco progressive persona isn’t a good fit for Joe Biden’s native state,” William McGurn wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday.

    Snip. “In an election in Pennsylvania that will almost certainly be decided by less than 100,000 votes, Harris skipping the Al Smith Dinner was not only stupid but might be the mistake that cost her the White House.” Eh, probably not. Harris will probably lose the election because she’s part of an administration had presided over a wretched economy and let in millions of illegal aliens. Plus she’s a horrible candidate that literally nobody voted for. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Google is up to its old tricks, “hiding Conservative news on election 23 pages deep.””When using the search term “donald trump presidential race 2024,” researchers had to scroll through 23 pages of results before they come to a U.S.-based right-leaning news source, a single Fox News video six results down on the 23rd page.”
  • Newsweek: Look at these Nazi Trump supporters! Reality: They were Antifa plants.
  • Trump is on target to carry every single swing state.
  • The Harris-Walz campaign evidently feels the best use of Gwen Walz’s time is to have her read groomer books about gay dads.

  • Gwen Walz also seems to feel that the best way to get men to the polls is assigning them homework.

  • Yes, social justice warrior teachers do want to trans your kids. “Court Shuts Down BLM Teacher Trying To Force Trans Ideologies On Kids.”

    Megan Williams is a first-grade teacher who forced her 6 and 7-year-old students to “observe” so-called Transgender Awareness Day. This Black Lives Matter activist subjected these small children to non-curricular propaganda about “gender identity” and sex changes.

    Williams disturbingly went so far as to tell these kids that their “parents ma[d]e a guess whether they’re a boy or a girl” and may have been wrong. Parents complained, but Williams was backed by her school principal and superintendent.

    Three mothers fired back by filing a lawsuit against Williams, the school, the district, and district officials in June of 2022. Their goal was to obtain a moratorium “on gender dysphoria and transgender transitioning,” parental notice and opt-out rights on the topic absent such a prohibition, compensatory damages, and punitive damages.

    Thankfully, Judge Joy Conti of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania just ruled largely in favor of these mothers.

    Judge Conti stated that “parents have a constitutional right to reasonable and realistic advance notice and the ability to opt their elementary-age children of noncurricular instruction on transgender topics and to not have requirements for notice and opting out of those topics that are more stringent than those for other sensitive topics.”

  • CBS is at it again, selectively editing videos to cover up criticism of Biden-Harris disaster failures, this time for Republican Speaker Mike Johnson.

    Here’s the remarks in the aired clip shared by Johnson:

    MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the FEMA Director says there’s only $11 billion left from that $20 billion that was allocated. So that’s a different accounting than this 2% you say was distributed.

    SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yeah. So they’ve obligated some funds, but they’ve only distributed 2%…The rescue and recovery efforts are still going on, and then we address the rest of it.

    And here — I’ll put it in bold — is what CBS edited out for the broadcast:

    MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the FEMA Director says there’s only $11 billion left from that $20 billion that was allocated. So that’s a different accounting than this 2% you say was distributed.

    SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yeah. So they’ve obligated some funds, but they’ve only distributed 2%, and when I was there on the ground, and you should go, I mean, bring the cameras and talk to the people there, they’ll tell you, don’t- don’t take politicians words for this or the administration’s word, talk to the people there on the ground they had not been provided the resources almost two weeks out from the storm that they desperately needed. And when I was there 13 days, post- you know, post the storm hitting that state, people are still being rescued. They’re stuck in the higher elevations in the mountains because the roads are down and all the rest. So they need every- every available resource and all hands on deck. The rescue and recovery efforts are still going on, and then we address the rest of it.

  • Incumbent Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Colin Allred met for their only debate.

    Issues in the debate ranged from abortion to the border crisis, and allowing boys in girls’ sports.

    On abortion, Cruz said he supported Texas’ pro-life laws while acknowledging that other states would make different decisions.

    “In Texas, we overwhelmingly support that parents should be notified and have to consent before their child gets an abortion. In Texas, we overwhelmingly agree that late-term abortions in the eighth and ninth months, that’s too extreme. And I’ll tell you, in Texas, we overwhelmingly agree that taxpayer money shouldn’t pay for abortions,” said Cruz.

    He went on to attack his opponent’s position on abortion as extreme, noting that Allred “voted in favor of striking down Texas’ parental notification law. He voted in favor of striking down Texas’ parental consent law. He voted to legalize late-term abortions, including the eighth and ninth months.”

    Allred, meanwhile, said he would fight to “restore a woman’s right to choose” and to “make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again.”

    Snip.

    One of the biggest issues playing out in the campaign thus far has been Allred’s position on allowing boys in girls’ sports. The issue has been the target of Cruz’s campaign ads and led to Allred denying the accusations, despite voting against legislation to protect girls sports.

    “I know a lot of y’all at home, for example, saw two biological men competing in women’s boxing at the Olympics,” said Cruz. “That was wildly unfair. You know, my youngest daughter plays volleyball. It’s not fair for a biological boy or man, a teenage boy, to spike the volleyball at her, and he has voted repeatedly in favor of that.”

  • “Did Biden-Harris Divert FEMA Funds For Luxury Migrant Apartments With Flat-Screen TVs?”

    FEMA’s entanglement with the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous open southern border policies by diverting storm relief funds ($1.4 billion, according to NYPost) for illegal and legal aliens may have undermined the federal agency’s ability to effectively manage emergencies, such as the Katrina-like disaster unfolding in the US Southeast.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas dropped the bombshell [two weeks ago]: FEMA “does not have the funds” to see Americans through the rest of this Atlantic hurricane season. The federal agency drained the funds by prioritizing taxpayer funds for illegal and legal aliens versus US citizens as the Biden-Harris globalist team rolled out the red carpet to anyone, even terrorists, via the open southern borders.

    Connect the dots, if you can,” Tim Murtaugh, an adviser to former President Trump’s campaign, wrote on X, adding, “DHS says FEMA might not have enough cash to help people through hurricane season. But in 2 years of a new Biden-Harris program, they’ve spent $1 BILLION on housing and other services for migrants.”

    Shedding a whole heck of a lot of color on the situation, Savanah Hernandez, a reporter for Turning Point USA, wrote on X that she has uncovered some of the “first looks” inside fully furnished luxury apartments for migrants that received free rent and utilities for two years.

    Hernandez wrote in a note on The Post Millennial:

    The Brunswick Landing apartments in Maine sparked controversy earlier this year when it was discovered that homeless migrants in the area were getting the opportunity to live in the units rent-free for up to two years. Migrants living in the apartments shared that not only is the rent-free, the utilities are paid and we got an inside look at the furnished apartments that would run the average American about $2,300 dollars.

  • FEMA: Disaster Relief No Longer About Emergency Response, It’s About ‘Disaster Equity.'”

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is supposed to be the government’s premier emergency relief organization in times of disaster, like the situation now faced by victims of Hurricane Helene’s aftermath in North Carolina and Tennessee.

    But according to the FEMA website, the agency now places higher priority on instituting Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity guidelines than on easing the suffering of Americans displaced by disaster.

    Among the goals listed in FEMA’s strategic plan are to:

    • Instill equity as a foundation for emergency management
    • Lead whole of community in climate resilience
    • Promote and sustain a ready FEMA & prepared nation
    • What does that look like in action?
    • Here’s an example of a FEMA disaster preparedness meeting where participants discuss how LGBTQIA individuals were suffering disproportionally before the storm compared to other disaster victims.

    Notice how the focus shifts from doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people to ensuring that they are promoting “equity in disaster relief.”

    Social justice is racist poison that ruins everything, and now it’s costing Americans their lives.

  • Here we go again. “Report: Migrant Caravans Leaving Southern Mexico Headed Toward US Border.”
  • A pretty bold take on the 2024 election. “You were not supposed to know Kamala is this stupid because Trump is supposed to be dead.”
  • Strange news from Russia.

    Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has declared a “blood feud” against three federal lawmakers from neighboring North Caucasus republics in his first comments on last month’s deadly shooting outside the Moscow headquarters of Russia’s largest online retailer Wildberries.

    Kadyrov has vowed to help Vladislav Bakalchuk, the estranged husband of Wildberries CEO Tatiana Kim — Russia’s wealthiest woman — to return his wife and block the merger of their e-commerce giant with the smaller outdoor advertising group Russ.

    The family and business dispute escalated last month when Bakalchuk led a group of men to Wildberries’ Moscow offices and allegedly tried to force their way into the building. Two security guards, who were ethnic Ingush, were killed in the shootout and multiple felony charges, including murder, were filed against Bakalchuk and several other ethnic Chechens involved in the incident.

    Kadyrov is a piece of work, but one with a sufficiently strong independent power base that Putin has felt compelled to buy him off. Kadyrov declaring a blood fued against Russian officials probably isn’t a sign of harmony in Russia’s government…

  • A Ukrainian F-16 may have shot down a Russian Su-34.
  • Israel killed Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. There’s even a video of his last moments that’s sort of anticlimactic. Also, I keep thinking that “Sinwar” sounds like an elfish language created by Tolkien…
  • Kudos to Israel for taking out the trash.

    Sinwar is only the latest high-profile terrorist to meet his fate at the hands of the IDF. His predecessor at the top of Hamas’s hierarchy, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran when a bomb covertly smuggled into an Iranian diplomatic safehouse exploded in July. Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, was neutralized in a July airstrike after seven unsuccessful IDF attempts to deliver him to justice. Hamas deputy commander Marwan Issa met his fate in March, two months after his deputy, Saleh al-Arouri, was cut down in the suburbs of Beirut by an Israeli drone.

    A little over a year after the war Hamas inaugurated against Israel on 10/7 in the deadliest one-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the terrorist organization has been entirely decapitated. Its fighters are scattered, disorganized, and reduced to chaotic rearguard actions against the Israeli troops busily rolling them up. Critics of Israel’s campaign like to insist that Hamas is an idea and therefore cannot simply be dispatched like the thousands of its fighters the IDF has cut down. True enough, but an idea cannot shoot at you or launch rocket attacks on your cities. That requires well-connected, deeply embedded commanders with years of experience conducting asymmetrical insurgent attacks on a superior force. Those commanders are all dead.

    The Israeli officials who have pursued Hamas’s barbarians until the end have done so without much encouragement from the West. Indeed, the death of every Hamas commander was fretted over in the West as though it created a new impediment to peace and to the negotiations over the hostages Hamas itself captured on 10/7 — 97 of whom still have not yet been located. Joe Biden’s administration withdrew almost all rhetorical support for Israeli operations in places like Rafah, where Sinwar himself was taken out. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government deserves the gratitude of the civilized world for rejecting these entreaties seeking Israel’s surrender in its righteous war.

    The Israelis did not choose the way this war began, but they will be the authors of its conclusion. And the end is near. The Israelis have brought the Gaza Strip closer to its day of liberation from the tyranny of an illegitimate terrorist regime than all the combined efforts of the peace processors in the global diplomatic corps ever achieved. It is a shame that the American administration that stood so stalwartly with Israel at the outset of this campaign willingly sacrificed its ability to celebrate alongside its Israeli counterparts. This should be America’s victory, too. But by spending months on end agonizing over how Israel was achieving its honorable objective, the Biden White House and its allies lost sight of our shared strategic goals.

  • We hit the Houthis with B-2s. I didn’t have that on my 2024 dance card…
  • Where Austin homicides have occurred in 2024.
  • Austin is thinking of moving Austin police, firefighting, and EMS headquarters to a building on South Mopac, which is on the opposite side of town and river from the current police headquarters. I can only assume that someone on the council (or a big supporter) owns the building…
  • Williamson County’s Democrat Sheriff Accused of Accepting Pay-to Play Donation. On September 24, the Williamson County Commissioners Court issued a contract for over $500,000 to Family Hospital Management Company for ‘Jail Inmate Psychological Services’. Just four days before a county contract was issued, [Democrat Sheriff Mike] Gleason received a $20,000 campaign donation from the founder and CEO of the company that received the contract.” “Jail Inmate Psychological Services” sounds like a great avenue for leftwing graft…
  • “A North Carolina Democratic county leader, who is also running for a seat in the state House, was arrested after allegedly stealing Trump signs near a road last week. Moore County, North Carolina, County Chair Lowell Simon, 68, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor larceny of political signs after he admitted to removing Trump signs and keeping them in his car.”
  • “The Young Turks’ Ana Kasparian says she ‘woke up’ after being molested by LA homeless man and ‘the good people’ slammed her for talking about it. Kasparian described feeling “politically homeless” and shared how the backlash she received from liberals after the assault played a key role in her reevaluation.” Seems like social justice warriors feel that being molested by a homeless man or raped by an illegal alien is a small price to pay for taxpayer-subsidized abortion…
  • Boy dressed as girl assaults actual girl, gives her a concussion and blurred vision. You know what the school administrators did, don’t you? That’s right, they suspended the victim.
  • Edgewood ISD Superintendent Gets Raise While Students Are Failing. Edgewood ISD extended Superintendent Eduardo Hernández’s contract until 2029 and raised his annual salary to $291,923.””Only 23 percent of Edgewood ISD students can read, write, and do math at or above grade level.” Edgewood is on the west side of San Antonio.
  • Columbia U is trying to make their campus Judenfrei.

    Columbia University is temporarily suspending a prominent pro-Israel business professor’s access to campus after he publicly criticized school officials for permitting anti-Israel campus demonstrations on the anniversary of the October 7 massacre.

    Columbia notified Israeli-American business professor Shai Davidai on Tuesday that he will be banned from campus for violating university policy on harassing school employees.

    On Tuesday night, Davidai posted a video on social media accusing Columbia of retaliating against him for posting a video of himself asking Columbia’s chief operating officer Cas Halloway why he allowed pro-Hamas demonstrators to protest on the anniversary of October 7.

    “Right now I was supposed to be at the school of social work at Columbia, where the Jewish students are holding their own memorial service for the senseless violence of October 7th. But then I got a call from my lawyer, who says the university has decided to not allow me to be on campus anymore,” Davidai said.

    “Why? Because of October 7th. Because I was not afraid to stand up to the hateful mob. And because I was not afraid to expose Mr. f**king Cas Holloway for not doing anything about it.”

    Davidai should sue them over equal rights violation for millions. Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.

  • “Two never-before-seen tools, from same group, infect air-gapped devices.”

    Researchers have unearthed two sophisticated toolsets that a nation-state hacking group—possibly from Russia—used to steal sensitive data stored on air-gapped devices, meaning those that are deliberately isolated from the Internet or other networks to safeguard them from malware.

    One of the custom tool collections was used starting in 2019 against a South Asian embassy in Belarus. A largely different toolset created by the same threat group infected a European Union government organization three years later. Researchers from ESET, the security firm that discovered the toolkits, said some of the components in both were identical to those fellow security firm Kaspersky described in research published last year and attributed to an unknown group, tracked as GoldenJackal, working for a nation-state. Based on the overlap, ESET has concluded that the same group is behind all the attacks observed by both firms.

    The practice of air gapping is typically reserved for the most sensitive networks or devices connected to them, such as those used in systems for voting, industrial control, manufacturing, and power generation. A host of malware used in espionage hacking over the past 15 years (for instance, here and here) demonstrate that air gapping isn’t a foolproof protection. It nonetheless forces threat groups to expend significant resources that are likely obtainable only by nation-states with superior technical acumen and unlimited budgets. ESET’s discovery puts GoldenJackal in a highly exclusive collection of threat groups.

    Then there’s this: “The basic flow of the attack is, first, infecting an Internet-connected device through a means ESET and Kaspersky have been unable to determine.” There’s a 99% chance that these air-gaped systems are being attacked through the usual human engineering or security lapse vectors. Which leaves a 1% chance of some form of electromagnetic witchcraft…

  • “WeightWatchers Squeezes Higher After Unveiling New Low-Cost GLP-1 Treatment…WW announced the addition of a new compounded semaglutide to its lineup to beat America’s obesity crisis sparked by the processed foods industrial complex. The new treatment starts at $129 per month, and each additional month will cost $189. This is significantly less than GLP-1 obesity treatments from big pharma, which cost north of $1,000 a month.”
  • “Pair arrested after cops find bag full of drugs in car — labeled Definitely Not a Bag full of Drugs.'” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Fiat/Stellantis merged with Chrysler in 2014, and now they’re threatening to shut it down in two years.
  • BrucePac listeria meat recall expands, now includes some HEB items.
  • Disney plans to slash budgets on Marvel movies going forward. On the one hand, that’s probably prudent, since it gets harder and harder to turn a profit with soaring budgets. On the other hand, Marvel’s recent problems aren’t a product of big budgets, they’re a product of wokeness and crappy scripts.
  • Because The Acolyte was so successful, Hollywood decided that what they really need is another TV show about space witches.
  • The craziest nature videos of the decade.
  • Rick Beato has an interesting video with R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills. I didn’t realize that the other three members wrote the music then handed it off to Michael Stipe, who would go off and create the lyrics by himself.
  • “Experts Say Kamala Can Still Win If She Doesn’t Appear In Public Again Between Now And Election Day.”
  • “Kamala Appeals To Black Voters By Offering Free Pack of Menthols and Copy of ‘Madea’s Family Reunion’ On DVD.”
  • “Kamala Campaign Forced To Hire Gay Actors For Ad After Being Unable To Find Any Straight Male Kamala Supporters.”
  • “Kamala Greets Latino Crowd With ‘Donde Esta La Biblioteca?‘”
  • “Terrified Tim Walz Stands On Chair All Day Waiting For Wife To Get Home And Kill Spider.”
  • Washington Post Gives Entire Staff Day Off To Mourn Loss Of Hamas Leader.”
  • Smart dog!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’ve been unemployed a year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Also, a hearty thanks to everyone who has already donated.

    Austin’s Unemployment Rate: A Data Point

    Wednesday, September 25th, 2024

    The official Austin unemployment rate is 3.6%. But having just attended a job fair at an area Texas Workforce Commission which was geared toward older workers, I can give you firsthand evidence that things are a lot worse than official statistics let on, because that place was slammed.

    The main room with employer tables was so crowded they had to wait for would-be applicants to leave before letting more in. And if I had known it was going to be that hot and crowded, I wouldn’t have worn the suit. Most attendees didn’t, and seemed to be looking for blue collar and service jobs.

    The fair was dominated by City of Austin departments (and APD was even there looking for recruits), but no technical writing positions (I didn’t expect there to be), and IT positions in general seemed thin on the ground. Most of the jobs there seemed to start in the high teens per hour.

    Now, it’s been a long, long time since I last attended a job fair, but Back In The Day I never saw one as busy as this one. Nor do I think the statistical understatement of the true magnitude of job losses under the Biden Recession is limited to Austin. With companies hiring illegal aliens rather than Americans, the problem is only likely to get worse.

    Treat this as a data point, for whatever its worth.

    Since we’re on the subject, I’ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Paxton Sues Travis County Over Partisan Voter Drive

    Sunday, September 8th, 2024

    We’ve had a lot of stories of Harris County Democratic Party corruption, but don’t forget another Democratic establishment in the People’s Republic of Travis County, which Texas Attorney General is suing for funding an illegal partisan voter drive.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued members of the Travis County Commissioners Court as well as the Travis County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar, asking the court to “prevent them from giving a partisan organization thousands of taxpayer dollars to identify the names and addresses of potentially unregistered voters without statutory authority.”

    In the suit, Paxton alleges that Civic Government Solutions (CGS), a voter outreach company, was hired to “conduct services for the County that the County is unauthorized to perform.”

    Paxton’s lawsuit explains that CGS CEO Jeremy Smith has made public comments about “getting people to vote for progressive candidates.” Smith is also listed as CEO of Civitech, a company that Axios described as a “progressive data startup.”

    And what do you know! A search of Open Secrets shows that of 142 political donations, all went to Democrats.

    “Travis County has blatantly violated Texas law by paying partisan actors to conduct unlawful identification efforts to track down people who are not registered to vote,” said Paxton in a press release.

    “Programs like this invite fraud and reduce public trust in our elections. We will stop them and any other county considering such programs.”

    Paxton is arguing that the Travis County officials acted ultra vires — beyond their legal authority, in other words — by contracting with Smith and his company to collect personal information and target unregistered voters.

    He further claims that these officials only have the powers explicitly granted to them by law, and argues that nothing in the Election Code allows them to identify and reach out to potentially unregistered voters, some of whom may not be eligible to vote.

    Paxton argues that this action could harm the integrity of Texas elections by encouraging ineligible people to register to vote. As a result, Paxton is asking the court to issue a temporary and permanent injunction to stop Travis County from moving forward with the contract.

    Pushing to get ineligible people to vote for Democrats seems to be the Democrats’ top goal this year, be it illegal aliens or convicted felons, and they’ve been pursuing it by varied means. Paxton has also fought voter fraud with search warrants in Bexar County and preventing similar “justice” organizations from soliciting voter registration outside DPS offices.

    Paxton seems to determined that the voting fraud that happened in 2020 won’t be happening here in Texas.