Former Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has settled his lawsuit against Houston oilman Michael Looney, who evidently received money embezzled by Dewhurst campaign adviser Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield:
Former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the once powerful Republican who was bilked by an adviser for at least $2.8 million, has settled a lawsuit against a Houston oilman who used a chunk of the stolen money to invest in a new business.
The out-of-court settlement ends years of litigation by the three-term ex-lieutenant governor aimed at recouping funds embezzled from two campaign accounts by former adviser Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield, a Dewhurst spokesman said.
Once a trusted consultant to one of Texas’ wealthiest politicians, Barfield was sentenced in February to more than seven years in federal prison for orchestrating a complex money funneling scheme in which he falsified records, bank statements, invoices and campaign finance reports.
Dewhurst filed a civil lawsuit against Barfield in 2013 to get some of the money back. That lawsuit was settled when Barfield signed over his multi-million dollar West Austin home as part of the agreement.
However, Dewhurst’s lawyers also set their sights on Houston businessman Michael Looney, who partnered with Barfield and, according to court documents, received “several hundred thousand dollars” of stolen Dewhurst money.
The funds, according to the lawsuit, were used to start a new oil and gas business co-owned by Looney and Barfield that would make use of valuable seismic data under license from ExxonMobil.
Dewhurst’s lawsuit was asking for an award of one-half interest in the seismic data and the new company. The exact value of the data was not released, but Looney’s lawyers said in a filing that Barfield “stood to make millions and millions of dollars” if the deal went through.
The terms of the lawsuit settlement were not disclosed.
Theory: The people flooding into Europe are innocent families of refugees fleeing war. Reality: “young men [heaving] rocks at the authorities and showing up on YouTube videos shouting Allahu Akbar.”
“There is something shallow and decadent about a pontiff who prioritizes “climate change” even as every last Christian is driven from the Archeparchy of Mosul. What will they say of such a pope? That he fiddled with the thermostat while Rome burned?”
I increasingly think the Democrat/Muslim union has to do with old-fashioned relativism. Democrats don’t actually believe that women’s rights and gay rights apply to everyone; white people: sure. Arabs? Well, who am I to judge? And Muslims know this.
When Robby George is just dumbfounded as to why all these Muslims support the party of abortion on demand and gay marriage, the answer seems pretty clear to me: They’re supporting the party of abortion on demand and gay marriage for infidels
Another:
I think the issue is more that they see Muslims as a new potential mascot group that they can champion and therefore obtain that cheap sense of moral superiority that comes with riding in like a white knight. I think a lot of liberal attitudes towards minorities aren’t actually based on the good of the minorities, but how good it makes the liberals feel to champion them. Muslims are (as of now) a tiny, insignificant minority. They’re mostly kinda swarthy, so the “it’s racism” meme is easily transferable, and a significant chunk of liberals loathe Christianity.
Is it 10? I may have missed one or two along the way.
Funny how Planned Parenthood’s defenders always speak as though it is a sacred charity, but when Planned Parenthood personnel don’t know they’re on camera, it’s “an industry.”
Here’s the unedited version of the main talk for comparison:
Just when you think you’ve already seen the most idiotic ideas in firearms “safety” gizmos, this comes along. It’s a mini clip-on airbag condom for police sidearms to reduce the muzzle velocity of their first shot to nonlethal velocity.
This is like trying to prevent automobile deaths by creating a cumbersome device that ensures the parking break is always on.
Evidently the super-genius developers of this gizmo failed to notice that police already have a wide range of non-lethal force at their disposal, including tasers, beanbag rounds and rubber bullets.
So: a stupid, unworkable solution to a non-existent problem (fatal police shootings have been declining, not rising) hyped for political reasons (they have to find some way to keep black Americans voting for Democrats) that won’t be purchased by police departments and wouldn’t be used by cops even if the department did.
I would say it’s a mystery why the people behind this think criminals would be deterred by a nonlethal shot when they’ve already failed to be deterred by a policeman aiming a semiautomatic weapon directly at them and yelling at them to freeze (because that’s just a natural prelude to wacky hi-jinks), but these are probably the same people who thought gun-free zones would work…
Via Dwight comes word that “Six defendants in the sweeping criminal prosecution of Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow, part of a public corruption and organized crime investigation that ensnared a once-prominent Democratic politician, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, prosecutors said.”
For those playing along on the home game:
George Nieh pleaded guilty to every count filed against him, including 146 counts of money laundering and a slew of weapons and drug charges.
Leslie Yun pleaded guilty to five counts of money laundering and drug-related charges.
Kevin Siu pleaded guilty to eight of the 24 money laundering counts against him, and
Alan Chiu pleaded guilty to 13 of 36 money laundering charges.
Yat Wa Pau pleaded guilty to trafficking in contraband cigarettes and admitted to his involvement in sales of contraband cigarettes worth more than $300,000.
Andy Li pleaded guilty to felony possession of a firearm along with money laundering and marijuana possession.
Funny how California Democratic State Senator Leland Yee, the ostensible “big fish” in the investigation, plead guilty to a single charge, while Nieh (who was reportedly one of Chow’s closest associates), plead guilty to everything.
Hey, remember Donna ISD down in the Rio Grande Valley? You know, where the school board president committed suicide over a vote-buying scandal that followed hot on the heels of a bribery and graft scandal?
“Last year, school officials failed to account for more than $1 million in missing funds. Marking the third consecutive year of unbalanced books, the district’s chief financial officer was removed — and reassigned as director of accounting.”
Snip.
Perched near the Mexican border, Donna schools serve a poor, heavily migrant community where public funds are coveted.
“Everyone is employed by the school district, the city or the county. It’s all about contracts and which friends get the bids,” Rio Grande Valley activist Maricela De Leon told Watchdog.org.
To hammer out those contracts, the board hired Robert J. Salinas, a convicted felon who served federal prison time for money laundering. Salinas now enjoys a $300,000 annual retainer and bills at $250 per hour. In May, Salinas charged the district more than $33,000, according to Breitbart Texas.
First, there is no state income tax in Texas. Some people know this and some don’t—few really grasp what it means practically. It means that if you make decent money and decide to move here and rent something affordable, it’s essentially free to live in Texas. If you make $150,000 a year, your state income taxes in California are roughly $12,000 per year (in NYC it’s closer to $15,000). Or, you can put a thousand bucks a month toward your rent here. If you decide to buy, property taxes are high—but what you get for the money more than makes up for it. My editor at the Observer recently tried to cajole me into coming back to New York. Our house now—which has its own lake and is 29 minutes from the airport which never has lines—costs less than the rent we were paying for our lofted studio apartment in Midtown. Are you kidding?
“The average full-career California teacher receives a pension benefit equal to 105% of their final earnings. CalSTRS CEO says the plan isn’t generous enough.”
Texas’ 2016 Fiscal Year started September 1st. “Several taxes that were eliminated on September 1 include the Inheritance Tax, Oil Regulation Tax, Sulphur Regulation Tax, Fireworks Tax, Controlled Substance Tax Certificates, and the Airline/Passenger Train Beverage Tax.”
Evidently California’s Democratic politicians stay up late at night devising ways they can make the state go broke even faster. The answer: Host the Olympics again.
Korean-owned businesses in LA consider relocating to El Paso. “Kim makes the case that El Paso, once home to plants for denim companies including Levi’s and Wrangler, has abundant skilled laborers, fewer regulations, much cheaper rent and direct flights from Los Angeles.”
Never mind the usual pro-cop-killing idiocy. Nothing says “I’m a badass” quite like holding a gun store’s AR-pattern rifles in each hand…while the anti-theft chains are still attached…
So Hillary’s Super Secret Secure Server was actually hosted on the same server as the not secret and not particularly secure Clinton Foundation email system.
Which means any hacker that could pwn the Clinton Foundation server (and why wouldn’t they?) could almost certainly pwn Hillary’s private e-mail server, chock full of illegal classified national security information, through any number of exploits or privilege escalation attacks.
And evidently she was running her emails off an Exchange 2010 Server, which meant it was running on top of Windows, which means there were no end of exploits by which a dedicated hacker could gain control.
“Oh hey! I’m hosting this list of ISIS secret agents on my Doom III deathmatch server! I’m sure there’s no way that could possibly backfire on me!”
Or to put it in non-computer terms, she was storing classified information in an unlocked tin box under her bed that everyone in her neighborhood also knew contained bundles of unmarked $100 bills, and she was just hoping no one broke in.
She’s a major security risk that should never, ever be in the oval office…
So Damon Linker has penned a one-eyed-liberal-in-the-land-of-the-blind piece on how cultural elites have brought opposition to immigration (and Donald Trump) upon themselves by their failure to enforce border controls.
These institutions have been sluggish to respond to this discontent because two (sometimes overlapping) factions of our political and economic elite strongly support high levels of immigration — or at least oppose doing very much to stop it.
One of the factions — the business class and its neoliberal champions in government, think tanks, and NGOs — believes in a free-flowing international labor market that treats borders as superfluous.
The other faction — liberal lawyers, activists, intellectuals, journalists, academics, members of the clergy, and (once again) NGO staffers — has a deep-seated moral suspicion of nations and political boundaries in general. Why should an American count for more than a Mexican who crosses the border into the United States? Shouldn’t a refugee fleeing violence in North Africa enjoy full political rights upon setting foot in the European Union? Don’t all human beings deserve to be treated equally under the law? Isn’t opposition to such equality an example of bald-faced racism?
He’s not entirely mistaken, as these things go, but he’s leaving out one important factor: crass self interest.
Univeralism is all well and good as an explanation, but it’s crass self-interest that underlies most of the opposition to enforcement of existing immigration laws. Yes, crass self interest from business lobbies who want cheaper labor, but also crass self interest from left wing parties to construct a new electorate more to their liking. Tony Blair’s Labour Party did precisely this in the UK.
The Democrats believe (probably correctly) that a legalizing a massive influx of illegal aliens from Mexico and points south can help make them a permanent majority party, which is why they continue to support Obama’s unconstitutional and deeply unpopular illegal alien amnesty. It is this crass self interest that is why the Obama Administration refuses to deport illegal aliens who are taking entry level unskilled and manual labor jobs from the poor black and white Americans that used to make up their base. Indeed, for the Democratic Party it’s a twofer: they get a new voter from Mexico and they make an American more dependent on the big government welfare statism that is the bread and butter of their business model.
Illegal aliens may be bad for America, but they’re good for the Democratic Party. And that’s why Democrats in general, and the Obama Administration in specific, refuse to enforce border controls.
