Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! The Biden Administration has done everything it can to worsen inflation, The Ministry of Truth’s Scary Poppins dissolves into a puddle, a whole lot of school groomer news from all across the country, and the world’s longest D&D game.
The Biden administration’s first response to any problem is to pretend that it isn’t a problem. That’s how inflation went from a minor problem to a major one. Unwilling to take the necessary steps to rein in inflation early — pushing the Fed to raise interest rates and slowing down the torrent of money going out the Treasury’s doors — Biden and congressional Democrats at first insisted that inflation wasn’t a real problem: “Transitory,” they called it.
And then when inflation turned out not to be transitory, they thought they could just pin it on the Russians. Jen Psaki sniffed smugly at the “Putin price hike,” as though Americans were too stupid to understand that inflation at home had started long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That gambit fizzled, too.
When you don’t have any fresh ideas or real principles — and when your long-term goals are limited by the fact that the president, who was born during the Roosevelt administration, isn’t exactly buying any green bananas — then the easiest thing to do is to throw money at every problem.
Throwing money at things is how you make inflation worse.
Washington had already thrown a lot of money at the economy during the COVID-19 emergency, and, predictably, the emergency spending outlasted the emergency. By the time Biden was elected in 2020, Washington had thrown $2.6 trillion in budgetary resources at COVID and had authorized as much as $4 trillion in subsidized federal lending. That was new money amounting to about a third of GDP sloshing around the economy. Biden’s first priority was pushing out another $1 trillion in a phony infrastructure bill (that has little to do with actual infrastructure) and a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, even though the Consumer Price Index was already rising steeply, according to the Federal Reserve.
Stimulating an already overstimulated economy is how you make inflation worse.
Our inflation problem is only partly an issue of dovish monetary policy and reckless spending. There are problems in the real-world physical economy, too, those “supply-chain issues” we hear about. The Biden administration has done extraordinarily dumb things to make these worse, too, keeping in place the worst of the Trump administration’s anti-trade policies. That “Made in the USA” talk sounds good on the stump, but the truth is we need a lot that we don’t make at home and aren’t going to — including much of the steel and other vital inputs for the high-value manufacturing we actually do here.
The incredible fact is the Biden administration still had punitive tariffs on Ukrainian steel while it was seeking financial aid for the Ukrainians — it wasn’t until the Chamber of Commerce and conservative critics started making a stink that the administration changed its stance.
More Biden magic: “Dow Suffers Longest Losing Streak In 99 Years.”
“Hunter Biden Took In $11 Million Over 5 Years.” I would treat NBC’s number as a floor rather than a ceiling…
Scary Poppins resigns from the Ministry of Truth because all those vicious right-wing bullies were mean to her about her gross bias and constant lying.
I know you’ll be shocked, shocked to find Taylor Lorenz attempt to ride to her rescue:
Investigating and criticizing a Homeland Security official is now "harassment" and bullying, according to the WashPost and @TaylorLorenz.
Only ordinary citizens can be investigated — not high-level US Security State operatives. Them's the rules:https://t.co/rtHpupbeMw
In sum, a free press exists to unmask and punish private citizens with the wrong politics ("shoe-lace reporting"), not to investigate and scrutinize the beliefs, conduct and claims of powerful government officials ("harassment" and bullying).
Also seems odd that WPost allowed @TaylorLorenz (who, credit where due, broke the story of the DHS "pause") to write an entire article arguing Nina Jankowicz should be off-limits from criticism, without mentioning Jankowicz argued the same about Lorenz:https://t.co/Sh6mzcKRe0
Indeed, Jankowicz has a very long history of defending Lorenz and expressing solidarity for the trauma Lorenz suffers when her work is criticized. That's almost certainly where Lorenz got her version of events and seems like it should be disclosed when Lorenz defends Jankowicz. pic.twitter.com/R49NHCQ3RZ
I live in a manufacturing city with a very strong union voice speaking into the politics of our community. Yet a fascinating and unmistakable phenomenon has been occurring over the course of the last decade or two. Though the percentage of citizens in our area who post their “Proud Union Home” yard signs has likely increased, the percentage of them identifying as, or supporting, the Democratic Party has dropped precipitously during that same time frame.
For the first time in my city’s history, Republicans swept all municipal offices in the last election. So what is happening, and is it a microcosm of some larger trend?
I can’t offer any scientific study or analysis; I can only tell you what I have been told. Though former President Trump attempted overtures towards the “made in America” union mentality, that isn’t the most often cited rationale among Democrat dropouts. Instead, their disillusionment seems to stem from the prevailing belief that the party has been hijacked by single-issue ideologues that are willing to destroy party cohesion and solidarity if it means advancing their singular cause. More and more of these ex-party members now consider the Democrats the “Abortion First” party.
Again, that may be just the frustrated sentiments of disgruntled Dems in rural Indiana who feel as though the once big tent that embraced them has become far more rigid and dogmatic in who they welcome under the awning. Gone seem to be the days of the party’s Rust Belt/Union Grit identity, replaced today with a coalition that obsesses over white guilt, pronoun pandering, and legal feticide.
“Tucson high school counselor accused of sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old student…police officials in the Southern Arizona city said Zobella Brazil Vinik turned herself in to detectives on May 11.”
Bellingham School District board director is advertising a “queer youth open mic” for ages 0-18 taking place in her sex shop which she owns. @BhamSDpic.twitter.com/jIIdAV0YOu
Speaking of sexual predators after your children, this is pretty horrifying: “Texas Teen Goes to Bathroom at NBA Game, Is Found 10 Days Later Sold for Sex in Oklahoma Hotel.”
In another action-packed school board meeting in McKinney, the board president was served with a lawsuit for suppressing the free speech rights of citizens who disagree with her policies.
Civil rights attorney Paul Davis served Amy Dankel, president of McKinney Independent School District’s board of trustees, during the public comments portion of Tuesday night’s meeting.
“Your outrageous display of tyranny in how you trampled on the rights of the public at the last meeting was shocking,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In recent months, McKinney ISD’s school board meetings have featured a heavy police presence.
On several occasions, police officers have ejected citizens, at Dankel’s direction, for failing to observe her rules of decorum during public comments.
Davis said Tuesday that Dankel’s rules “placed an unconstitutional restraint on First Amendment rights by disallowing signs, clapping, and comments.”
He also says Dankel enforced her rules unequally.
She directed police to physically remove people who were wearing green—supporters of conservative trustee Chad Green, who Dankel is trying to oust from the board.
“Those same rules were not applied to people wearing blue,” Davis said, referring to Dankel supporters. “For that, we have filed a civil rights lawsuit against you.”
Kevin Whitt is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
During last month’s school board meeting, the pro-family activist spoke against the district’s failure to proactively identify and remove sexually explicit books found in students’ libraries—a contentious topic in McKinney and other districts across the state since last year.
Later in that meeting, Whitt was dragged out by City of McKinney police officers for uttering a single word—“disgusting”—after a local mom finished comments that included excerpts from one of the explicit books.
Speaking of Texas school boards getting sued parents, Round Rock ISD is being sued over violating parent’s rights.
The contentious saga in Round Rock ISD continues after two parents filed a federal lawsuit last week against five school board trustees, the district superintendent, and several district police officers.
Last year, the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office arrested Jeremy Story and Dustin Clark on charges of “hindering proceedings by disorderly conduct” following a September school board meeting. Both men were released the next day.
The lawsuit claims the defendants violated Story’s and Clark’s rights under the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment. Additionally, the suit accuses the defendants of violating 42 U.S. Code 1983, or misusing their power to deny their constitutional rights.
The two men attended last September’s school board meeting to protest Superintendent Dr. Hafedh Azaiez’s continued employment and a proposed tax increase.
Texas Scorecard chronicled multiple scandals involving Round Rock ISD in a special report and a podcast series, Exposed, which included investigations into the school district and Azaiez. Five of the district’s seven trustees, dubbed the “Bad Faith Five,” were also brought under scrutiny for allegedly covering up domestic violence allegations against Azaiez.
At the August 16 board meeting, Round Rock ISD officers removed Story after he referenced the investigation into Azaiez. Amy Weir, president of the school board, instructed district officers to escort Story from the building, claiming his concerns about Azaiez did not follow the meeting’s agenda.
At the same meeting, trustees Mary Bone and Danielle Weston walked out after accusing the district of intentionally limiting seating under the guise of following COVID-19 safety guidelines. Clark then demanded the board let more citizens in to witness the meeting, and Weir subsequently instructed district officers to escort him out.
Three days later, Williamson County officers arrested Story and Clark. Although Story’s charges pertained to the August 16 meeting, Clark’s charges dated back to a September meeting of the school board. Their lawsuit, filed May 11, accuses all defendants of suppressing Story’s and Clark’s constitutional rights and claims they were arrested illegally.
If successful, the lawsuit would void Azaiez’s contract and prevent Round Rock ISD from restricting attendance at school board meetings due to COVID-19.
Groomer teachers are even popping up in Ohio:
Elementary-high school students at @OlentangySD were allegedly given an invasive electronic survey on their pronouns, sexual orientation, and mental health. Parents were not notified and were not asked to consent. pic.twitter.com/opEPFNm6dC
Speaking of Michigan lawsuits over gross abuse of state power, a couple is suing Highland Park after the police seized their building and legal marijuana business, charged them with no crime, and then offered to give it back if they bought the police department two cars.
Speaking of crooked Democratic politicians, you would think that all that graft Bill De Blasio’s wife raked off would allow him to retire in style, but evidently that festering bucket of crooked failure just can’t stay out of the spotlight, and is now running for congress.
People magazine may cease its print version. Bonus: “Sources told The Post that under Wakeford, People had been selling more than 200,000 copies at the newsstand a week. Since then, newsstand sales have been uneven, with a May 2 Prince Harry cover dipping to about 160,000 copies sold, and a March 14 Lizzo cover cratering to between 125,000- 150,000 copies sold, which is said to be one of the worst selling issues in People’s half-century history.” Funny how no one gives a rat’s ass about woke royals and the morbidly obese…
Larry Correia gives a deserved royal fisking to an article by a leftwing feminist who wonders why her boyfriend reads that primitive “science fiction” stuff rather than modern literary fiction that checks all the required Victimhood Identity boxes.
Greetings, and welcome to Friday the 13th LinkSwarm! Inflation keeps soaring, diesel and baby formula shortages wrack the nation, and too many creepy transexual pedophiles pop up in the news.
The East Coast of the U.S. is reporting its lowest seasonal diesel inventory on record. And some trucking companies appear spooked.
The East Coast typically stores around 62 million barrels of diesel during the month of May, according to Department of Energy data. But as of last Friday, that region of the U.S. is reporting under 52 million barrels.
The sharp increase of diesel prices has been a major stressor in America’s $800 billion trucking industry since the beginning of 2022. According to DOE figures, the price per gallon of diesel has reached record highs — a whopping $5.62 per gallon. It’s even higher on the East Coast at $5.90, up 63% from the beginning of this year.
When relief is coming isn’t yet clear, and experts say higher prices are the only way to attract more diesel into the Northeast.
There is a clear dividing line between American households with newborns and those without, and you can see it in which people have been talking about, and worrying about, a nationwide infant formula shortage for months and which people just heard about the problem recently. Target, Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens are all limiting how much infant and toddler formula customers can purchase per visit. So how did the U.S. — the wealthiest, most advanced, and most prosperous nation on the planet — end up in a situation where so many parents are worrying about feeding their youngest children?
Most reporting on the infant-formula shortage points the finger at Abbott Laboratories, which instituted a February recall of powder formulas, including Similac, Alimentum, and EleCare, manufactured in its Sturgis, Mich., facility. The recall — which the company emphasizes was voluntary — came after four consumer complaints of Cronobacter sakazakii (a.k.a. Salmonella Newport) in infants who had consumed powdered formula manufactured in the Sturgis plant. Cronobacter germs can cause sepsis, a dangerous blood infection, or meningitis, which swells the protective linings surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Those infected with Salmonella bacteria develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps twelve to 72 hours after infection, and infants are more severely affected than adults.
Abbott Laboratories emphasized that no product it distributed to consumers has tested positive for the presence of either of these bacteria, but that during testing in the Sturgis facility, the company found evidence of Cronobacter sakazakii in areas of the plant where products would not come in contact with it. As a precaution, it recalled all formula manufactured in this facility with an expiration of April 1, 2022, or later. No Abbott liquid formulas are included in the recall, nor are powder formulas or nutrition products manufactured at other Abbott facilities.
Here, it’s worth noting that the supply chain for infant formula was strained well before Abbott’s recall. According to the data-research firm Datasembly, the percentage of stores nationwide at which formula was out of stock surpassed double digits way back in July 2021, and by January 2022, it had hit 23 percent.
According to Datasembly, infant formula is now out-of-stock in 40 percent of stores nationwide. Moreover, in Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Texas, and Tennessee, more than half of baby formula was completely sold out during the week starting April 24. In another 26 states, between 40 and 50 percent of infant-formula supplies were sold out.
Unspeakable depravity: “Trans porn company owners sentenced for forcing 7-year-old girl into sexual exploitation…One of these members, Marina Volz, a biological male who identifies as a woman, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for forcing ‘her’ 7-year-old daughter to participate in sexual acts.”
Speaking of Democrats supporting child rapists: “Woke L.A. DA George Gascon’s Pet Transgender Child Rapist Is Now Facing a Murder Charge….child rapist, “Hannah” Tubbs, who gamed the system and magically became a ‘woman’ so he could serve his sentence in a female juvenile prison and do easier time with a chance of getting out early.”
Still more elite institutions parading their transexual pro-pedophilia positions: “Child sex abuse center hires professor who faced backlash over pedophile comments…[Allyn Walker], an academic who resigned from a Virginia university after saying it wasn’t necessarily immoral for adults to be sexually attracted to kids has been hired by a Johns Hopkins University center aimed at preventing child sexual abuse.”
The NBA: Pulls All-Star Game out of Charlotte because it thinks a North Carolina bathroom bill discriminated against transsexuals. Also the NBA: To stage a game in the United Arab Emirates, where homosexuality is punishable by death.
“EV Automaker Hailed As The ‘Next Tesla’ Is Hemorrhaging Cash And Investors…Start-up electric vehicle (EV) maker Rivian Automotive’s stock [fell] 18.72% to $23.40 per share on Monday, a whopping 87% decline from its November peak of $179.47 a share.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Writer who checks all the proper boxes sells a first novel that turns out to be plagiarized. So she publishes an apology. Which turns out to also be plagiarized. The frogurt is also cursed. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
They’re making a sequel to This Is Spinal Tap, perhaps the funniest movie ever made, featuring the original principles. My enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that chances are extremely high it will suck.
While testifying before the House Budget Committee yesterday, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Xavier Becerra affirmed that yes, his department was in favor of taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgeries for minors. “So for the record, you favor HHS funding . . . for sex-reassignment surgeries for minors?” Lauren Boebert, (R, Colo.) asked. Becerra answered:
I will do everything I can to defend any American, including children, whether or not they fit the categories you have mentioned or not. And if they talk about gender-affirming care, I am there to protect the rights of any American.
In other words: yes.
Related:
“They’re losing their minds because parents want to protect kids from grooming. Pay attention to this.” pic.twitter.com/j8EhsQi9gM
“Black Lives Matter Secretly Bought a $6 Million House.” I’m shocked, shocked that people who encouraged riots to help out Democrats are corrupt. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Biden: Surely Democrats everywhere will embrace my scaled-back Build Back Better bag of bloated bilge! Kyrsten Sinema: “LOL! Get rekt!”
Neither snow no rain, nor gloom of night, shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. But multiple assaults? Yeah, they’re drawing the line there. So no more mail for a block of Santa Monica, California, until they fix the problem. This is your mail on one-party Democratic control.
Get A Rope Part 1: “Hospital Refuses Father-To-Son Kidney Transplant Over COVID Jab.”
In theory, at least, the role of an organization such as McKinsey is to ask, “Why?” Everyone wants to start a streaming service. Why does yours make sense? If CNN were run by thoughtful people, it might have taken the opportunity to ask some fundamental questions of itself before procuring a new toy: “Who are we?” “What do we do?” “Are we good at it?” “Why do our staff keep getting themselves embroiled in scandals?” “Has anyone heard Brianna Keilar utter a single sentence that might be termed useful?”
Had these questions been asked, it might have dawned on CNN’s leaders that the way in which Brian Stelter sees the network is not, in fact, the way in which anyone else sees the network. Had these questions been asked, it might have become apparent to CNN’s leaders that Americans do not regard CNN and its staff as brave, diligent, indispensable firefighters, that consumers do not believe Jim Acosta to be a hero, and that, when people think about America’s turbulent democracy, the last person who comes to their minds as a fix is Jim Sciutto. Had these questions been asked, CNN’s leaders might have learned that the network’s obsession with Fox is annoying to viewers, and that launching CNN+ with a flagship documentary, The Murdochs: Empire of Influence, would probably send the wrong message. As for the network’s slogan: “The Most Trusted Name in News”? One might as soon call Chris Cuomo a wit.
Thus, the entirely predictable disaster that is unfurling before our eyes. And, thus, CNN’s bafflement that it has become a joke. And what a joke! 10,000 people a day? That’s the size of the home crowd at a Durham Bulls minor-league-baseball game. It’s the number of people who attend “MerPalooza,” a “celebration of mermaids and mermen,” or the international UFO convention and film festival, or BronyCon.
I think this comparison is unfair to BronyCon, which has historically attracted a much lower percentage of sex offenders than CNN…
You would think that by now, even the more dandified blue bloods of Conservative Inc. would have learned something from the Trump uprising about the power of populist and culture war issues. But increasingly it seems like even some of those that didn’t develop full-blown Trump Derangement Syndrome objected not only to Trump’s style, but his actual substance. They seem more afraid of alienating liberal MSM and Hollywood friends over culture war issues than paying attention to outrage among actual voters.
That’s why this Twitter thread is fire.
There are different reasons why some conservatives gravitate to this way of thinking. Some are paid grifters. Some live deep inside the left-wing information sphere and inherit its prejudices, such as the notion cultural combat is toxic for conservatives but OK for lefties.
Some believe they can win ideological struggles without sullying themselves with filthy politics. If they just hold their principles high and visibly disdain effective political strategy, people will someday realize the Right has been right all along, and rally to its banner.
I’m not sure that’s the case. I think a number of them are worried that they’ll be blocked from obtaining cushy corporate-funded sinecures at colleges and think-tanks if they ruffle too many feathers. They want their bread to stay well-buttered, and are willing to keep quiet in order to stay on as some sort of pet opposition as long as the left is willing to throw them occasional “strange new respect” bones and rub their furry bellies.
For these timid elements of conservatism, the worst offense of the Right is questioning the motives of the Left. Nothing makes them spring into action against other conservatives faster than insinuations of bad faith or sinister motives against the Left.
This attitude holds among timid conservatives even as the Left wages all-out war and loudly asserts there are no honest, sincere, good-faith arguments against its agenda. Is there a political argument on the Left that doesn't begin with denying the good intentions of opponents?
They'll tell you it's paranoia and slander to talk about the destructive agenda of the Left even as hyperventilating lefties are busy laying out their agenda with hundreds of social media videos and vowing to destroy anyone who gets in their way.
You don't want to fight an ugly culture war? Well, guess what? EVERYTHING is culture. Everything either feeds into culture, or is shaped by it. The Left gets that, and deployed legions of paid shock troops to capture institutions and corporations while you kept your hands clean.
Now we've arrived at the final destination, the fatal terrain, the fabled Hill to Die On: political and sexual indoctrination of goddamn FIVE YEAR OLDS using public money and state institutions – and it's STILL not time to take the gloves off, huh? Still time for tone policing?
It's as if some conservatives fear the Left's true agenda is so hideous – as carefully laid out by lefties themselves – that if we expose it and speak honestly about it, the public will turn against US for putting such ugliness into their Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.
What that grassroots army of parents needs right now is REPRESENTATION. They're looking for candidates to support at every level. And they need intellectual firepower, ideological support, a movement that understands their concerns and offers a philosophy to illuminate them.
That's where you're supposed to come in, conservatives – from activists to professional pundits. Or do we get another Tea Party debacle where the grassroots gets trashed by the establishment and left to the mercy of grifters because they threatened to rock the boat too hard? /end
The Social Justice Warrior-infected Democratic Party has moved so far, so fast, to such radical extremes, that it’s even woken up the normies. When a school board revolt breaks out in San Francisco, you would think that even the dullest blades in the Conservative Inc. silverware closet would sense the once-in-a-generation realignment opportunities, but no. They seem to be off daydreaming of their next Ahoy cruise or a Jeb! restoration rather than detecting the smell of blood.
The Biden Administration is all-in on slicing off your daughter’s breasts and cutting off your son’s dick. pic.twitter.com/lWrgwSUQeJ
The “moderate” Biden Administration is declaring that it may mutilate your children in the name of transgenderism without telling you. And that’s not a hill to die on? Is there any hill they’ll die on that doesn’t involve marginal tax rates?
These is a giant red wave building to sweep left-wing crazies from power almost everywhere that cuts across all previous demographic, geographic and class lines. Conservative Inc. can ride that wave, or be drowned by it.
Russian forces have retreated from a Ukrainian airfield that was key to their original plan of overthrowing Volodymyr Zelensky’s government.
Hostomel airport, just oustide Kyiv, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Ukraine war, as Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, sought to establish an air bridge to the capital.
Control of the airport, 20km from Kyiv, changed hands several times, as Ukrainians at first defended fiercely and then attacked the Russian occupiers.
Five weeks on, the Russians have moved out having failed in their mission, according to a senior US defence official, as it abandons plans to take the capital and shift forces to the east.
This is a huge win for Ukraine, but it also means that surviving Russian forces can shift over to east Ukraine where the war is still hot.
Also: “Ukraine forces pulled off a rare attack on Russian soil Friday when two military helicopters destroyed a fuel depot in the city of Belgorod, situated roughly 40 miles north of the border with Ukraine.”
A key inflation metric monitored by the Federal Reserve soared 6.4 percent in February compared to a a [sic] year ago, reaching a new 40-year high.
The latest price surge, which affected the price of fuel, groceries and other consumer essentials, represents the largest year-over-year increase since January 1982, according to data released by the Commerce Department on Thursday.
Not taking into account food and energy fluctuations, which tend to be more erratic and can overemphasize inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index, the preferred inflation gauge of the Federal Reserve, jumped 5.4 percent in February from a year prior. Including gas and groceries, PCE surged 6.4 percent.
It’s gonna get worse…
The Biden Administration is evidently all-in on tranny madness and grooming your children:
The Biden Administration has now determined that "gender affirming care" – including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries – is a right of trans youth and "appropriate" and "necessary" for their health.
The Biden Justice Department will come after states that disagree.
Speaking of DeSantis, he has some pretty sweet talent lined up for this:
Johnny & Ronnie Van Zant, brother of original Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, made DeSantis’s new campaign video, “Sweet Florida,” replete with shots at the press, a dig at Fauci and loads of beach and flag-waving b-roll pic.twitter.com/Wd3F7u466Q
Through brand names like “comprehensive sex education” and one of its parent programs, “Social-Emotional Learning (SEL),” our government schools have been turned into Groomer Schools, and parents are beginning to notice. What many will not understand, however, is that this isn’t just a fluke of our weird and increasingly degenerate times. It is, in fact, a long-purposed Marxist project reaching back into the early 20th century. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, join James Lindsay as he explains the long history of the sexual grooming that has come into our schools through Critical Gender Theory and Queer Theory as they have crept into educational programs.
There’s an hour long video there I haven’t watched all of yet…
Speaking of groomers:
An Oregon elementary school teacher has been arrested near Seattle for two charges of attempted child rape & more. Andrew Bert Hammond, a fourth-grade teacher at Newby Elementary School, allegedly proposed to meet at a hotel & had handcuffs & duct tape. https://t.co/o2aJnzmZpX
Just how bad is the graft, waste and fraud in that $1.5 trillion porkulus bill? This bad. Look over that vast list of special subsidies and ask yourself “How many of these programs are designed to channel taxpayer money into the pockets of Democratic activists.” The answer seems to be “Most of them.”
“8 Joe Biden Scandals Inside Hunter Biden’s MacBook That Corporate Media Just Admitted Is Legit.” China, Ukraine, Russia, etc.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is leaving for MSNBC. So many angles: A.) Rats, sinking ship. B.) That revolving door between Democratic staffers and the MSM continues apace. C.) I hear she has an offer to star in Chairman of the Board 2.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the supply chain: “22,000 Union Workers At 29 West Coast Ports May Strike…West Coast union dockworkers may strike if they don’t come to an agreement to replace their existing contract with marine terminals. The contract is set to expire at the end of June.” Labor strikes are yet another part of the classic winter of discontent formula the Biden Administration is using to bring back the worst of the 1970s.
Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner has presided over a surge in violent crime, and his new policy promises more of it. Krasner recently announced plans to de-prosecute crimes for offenders aged 18 to 25, ignoring how this age group tends to contain the most violent of criminal defendants.
Krasner’s office has established a new unit that will move some 18-to-25-year-old defendants into “rehabilitative programming” instead of seeking criminal punishments. As Krasner’s data dashboard demonstrates, “rehabilitative programming” is just a euphemism for dismissing charges. Krasner promises that the program will be limited to nonviolent offenses, including drug trafficking and other offenses. (The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that gun crimes will not be included, but Krasner has previously stated that prosecutions for illegal gun possession are “not only ineffective but unjust and racially discriminatory.” The link in the district attorney’s office data dashboard about Philadelphia’s Gun Violence Task Force takes the reader to a page that states “Article Not Found.”)
This new program reflects Krasner’s determination not to think like a prosecutor, but instead to think like the criminal defense lawyer he was. The program was developed by Sangeeta Prasad, a fellow with the district attorney’s office who previously served as a public defender in New York, New Mexico, and Philadelphia. Before assuming her current post, she had no prior experience as a prosecutor, just like Krasner. The chief public defender for Philadelphia has called the new unit “an incredible initiative,” but Philadelphia courts were not invited to the press conference announcing the plan and stated that they were not aware of the experiment.
The new initiative comes at an awkward time. In 2021, Philadelphia experienced the highest number of homicides in its history, and the violence is continuing in 2022. Indeed, Philadelphia homicides have risen every year that Krasner has been in office, as carjackings, shootings, and drug overdoses soar. What makes the policy more bizarre is that it runs counter to decades of criminological research. One of the iron laws of criminal conduct is the so-called age-crime curve, which demonstrates that the majority of serious crimes are committed by defendants between the ages of 15 and 25. This finding obtains around the world and has been replicated time and again.
Speaking of repeat offenders, Millen, Georgia police Officer Larry “Ben” Thompson quit after being caught on tape having public sex while on-duty. Fair enough, but his lengthy record of misdeeds makes you wonder why he wasn’t fired long ago, since he managed to shoot another officer in the arm (“negligent discharge”) and killed a guy in a traffic accident in route to a call. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Nevada/Utah Ponzi scheme leads to FBI shootout. “The alleged $300 million scheme, run by a lawyer named Matthew Beasley, came to a head when FBI agents went to his home earlier this month and Beasley drew a gun on himself, before pointing it at agents, prompting them to shoot him.”
“[Fort Worth Superintendent] Kent Scribner will leave the district this August instead of in 2024, when his contract ends. In response to recent outcry from parents regarding Superintendent Kent Scribner’s support of CRT-based policies, Fort Worth ISD’s school board voted 7-0 to move up Scribner’s last day as superintendent to August 31, 2022.”
Ouch! Texas “Taxpayers’ Property Appraisals Rising 20% to 50% as Supply Chain Disruptions Meet Population Growth.” Austin-Round Rock is slated for the biggest increase, some 35.4%.
Don’t look now, but there’s another big Zero Day Internet infrastructure exploit out in the wild. “Spring4Shell is a remote code execution vulnerability in Spring Framework that can be exploited for remote code execution without authentication.” Spring is a Java framework that’s almost 20 years old, so the issue could potential be lurking in a lot of places…
Speaking of false accusations of racism, Gibson’s Bakery win over Oberlin in court yet again. “A three-judge panel on the Ninth District Court of Appeals issued a unanimous decision to uphold a 2019 ruling by Lorain County Judge John Miraldi, who initially awarded the bakery more than $40 million in punitive and compensatory damages, Cleveland.com reported. However, the sum was later reduced to $25 million, though the bakery was awarded more than $6 million for lawyers’ fees.”
We were driving on the PA Turnpike when a warning came across about sudden snow squalls and possible dangerous highway conditions. We got snow but nothing like THIS! Prayers for all involved. 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/IrNX6inRQi
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on, justice for Juicy, Italy’s truck drivers go Galt, giant spiders invade, and musicians are being screwed yet again. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The Russian invasion of Ukraine had two goals. The first was to take control of Ukraine, intending to complete the task begun in Belarus – the task of rebuilding Russia’s strategic buffers and securing Russia from attack. The second goal was to demonstrate the capabilities and professionalism of the Russian military and to further deter hypothetical acts and increase Russia’s regional influence. The two goals were interlocked.
The occupation of Ukraine has not been achieved, but it is not a lost cause. Perceptions of the strength of Russia’s military, however, have been badly damaged. There is no question but that Russian planners did not want to fight the war Russia has been fighting. Rather than a rapid and decisive defeat of Ukraine, Russia is engaged in a slow, grinding war unlikely to impress the world with its return to the first ranks of military power. At this point, even a final victory in its first objective will not redeem the second. It is important to start identifying the Russian weaknesses.
The first problem was a loss of surprise. Carl von Clausewitz placed surprise at the top of warfare. Surprise contracts the time an enemy has to prepare for war. It also imposes a psychological shock that takes time to overcome, making it more difficult to implement existing plans. And it increases the perceived power of the enemy. In Ukraine, however, extended diplomacy gave Kyiv time to adjust psychologically to the possibility of war.
Moscow failed to understand its enemy. Russia clearly expected Ukrainian resistance to collapse rapidly in the face of the massive armored force it had gathered. It did not expect the Ukrainian populace to fight back to an extent that would at least delay completion of the war.
Snip.
Russian war plans centered on three armored groups based in the east, south and north…The three Russian armored battle groups were widely separated. They did not support each other. Instead of a single coordinated war, the Kremlin opted for at least three separate wars, making a single decisive stroke impossible. A single integrated command, essential for warfighting, seemed to be lacking.
The use of armor vastly increased the pressure on Russian logistics. Instead of focusing supplies on a single thrust, it had to focus on three, plus other operations. Logistics for the major armored forces seemed to have broken down, making war termination impossible and further extending the war.
In recent days, Russia has adapted and turned toward taking cities. This is generating an effective counterforce among fighters who understand the streets and alleys and use them to delay Russia’s progress. Fighting in cities is among the costliest and most time-consuming actions in war. Capturing cities takes resources and is not the key to victory. Cities take on importance only after the enemy force has been defeated and demoralizing the nation is essential. The city is the prize of war, not the military goal. Russia turned the conflict from a counter-military to a counter-population war, which increased resistance by sowing desperation in the cities.
The foolish ease with which Russia expected to win this war reminds me of the Southern dandies at the beginning of Gone With The Wind proclaiming how the Civil War would be over in weeks since the Yankees would “turn and run, every time.” Didn’t turn out that way. (Hat tip: Al Fin Next Level.)
Speaking of which, this seems like poor tactics and situational awareness:
The Biden administration’s bumbling on the matter of sending MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine is the result of both nations’ fears that the action would drag them directly into the war in Ukraine. Poland wanted to send the jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and Washington shied away from the prospect of having fighter jets fly out of a U.S. base in a NATO country into the war zone in Ukraine. The thinking was that this would look too much like the United States and NATO carrying out a military operation against Russian forces in Ukraine.
In practical terms, the U.S. (and U.K.) prohibition of Russian oil imports probably will not have much of an economic effect — certainly not in comparison to the other measures that have been taken — but even largely symbolic gestures can have a powerful effect, and the Kremlin seems to be very much agitated by the boycott.
The Biden administration’s bumbling on the matter of sending MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine is the result of both nations’ fears that the action would drag them directly into the war in Ukraine. Poland wanted to send the jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and Washington shied away from the prospect of having fighter jets fly out of a U.S. base in a NATO country into the war zone in Ukraine. The thinking was that this would look too much like the United States and NATO carrying out a military operation against Russian forces in Ukraine.
In truth, the United States is a belligerent if Vladimir Putin says the United States is a belligerent. He is perfectly capable of making up a pretext, however absurd, to justify whatever action he wants to take — that is why Russians are in Ukraine in the first place. His subjects in Russia are largely pliant and inclined to accept the propaganda they are fed, and those who aren’t can be jailed, terrorized into silence, or murdered. Putin can do what he chooses — it is not like he is worried about an upcoming election.
The MiG fiasco underlined the Biden administration’s predictable fecklessness and disorganization — America needed a Keystone pipeline but we got the Keystone Cops — and if there is any serious thinking going on in the White House about what Putin’s response to our “declaration of economic war” is likely to be, there isn’t any obvious evidence of it. The posture of the Biden administration by all appearances is one of wishful thinking: that while the United States and the world have rightly taken a side in this conflict, the fighting is going to stay in Ukraine.
What if it doesn’t?
A direct military attack by Russian forces on the United States is, of course, unlikely. But a Russian attack on Moldova is far from unthinkable. It is entirely possible that Putin will attack a NATO member such as Lithuania, Latvia, or even Poland, whose people have gone to such extraordinary lengths to assist the Ukrainians. There are already Americans fighting in Ukraine, as private volunteers rather than as part of our armed forces. If Putin is looking for a pretext, he will have no trouble finding one.
The United States is keenly interested in keeping the fighting in Ukraine. But the fighting will stay in Ukraine for only as long as Putin believes it is in his interest to keep it there. That may not be much longer. Putin already has failed to achieve his main political objective in Ukraine and will not achieve it no matter how long the conflict drags on; what was intended as a show of awesome military might has instead been a display of weakness and incompetence. A wider war — a glorious crusade — might soon suit Putin’s purposes better than does a quagmire in Ukraine, where the Russian army has been reduced to trying to substitute atrocities for victories.
President Joe Biden has said that U.S. forces will defend “every inch” of NATO territory. But Biden was there when the Obama administration offered a lot of big talk about “red lines” in Syria and then did nothing. Biden’s people right now are engaging in counterproductive (to say the least) negotiations with Tehran that serve no obvious U.S. interest, and going through Moscow to do so. Vladimir Putin calculates and, as he has just demonstrated, he sometimes miscalculates. Putin might be inclined to take an inch and put Biden to the test.
This seems unlikely, but the actual invasion of Ukraine seemed unlikely until it happened.
“Putin flirts with economic suicide.” “When a government declares that it will confiscate the assets of foreign companies and foreign investors and that it won’t pay its debts, severe and lasting economic calamity follows.”
“Special Counsel Finds Mark Zuckerberg’s Election Money Violated Wisconsin Bribery Laws.” “Nearly $9 million in Zuckerberg grant funds directed solely to five Democratic strongholds in Wisconsin violated the state’s election code’s prohibition on bribery. That conclusion represents but one of the many troubling findings detailed in the report submitted today by a state-appointed special counsel to the Wisconsin Assembly.”
“Manhattan merchant banker, 61, is charged with being a spy in the US: Dual US-Russia citizen ‘ran a propaganda center in NYC and communicated directly with Vladimir Putin…Elena Branson, or Chernykh, has been charged with six counts of failing to register as a foreign agent, among other crimes.” Also helped Russians obtain visas under false pretenses. (Hat tip: ColorMeRed.)
As voting for the Texas primaries has wrapped up, the eyes of the nation at large are on the Rio Grande Valley. Many observers expect 2022 to be a big year for Republicans and the GOP, predicting to see the party build on its 2020 inroads with Hispanic voters and believing it will have success in what has previously been Democrat stronghold. To that end, the GOP fielded a wide slate of candidates, and the party has data that suggests it may be successful.
The numbers suggest two trends that portend well for the GOP: enthusiasm and historic numbers among Republican voters, and depressed turnout for Democrats. Compared to the 2018 and 2020 primary elections, Republicans had significantly higher turnout. That trend is present across all four counties in the RGV, but especially in Starr County. In 2018, a total of 15 people voted in the Republican primary; in 2020, that number increased to 46. This year, a whopping 1,773 people in Starr County voted in the Republican primary.
Conversely, Democrats had generally lower turnout in the RGV Democrat primaries compared to 2018, and about a 7.83 percent lower turnout compared to 2020.
The Florida state Senate on Tuesday passed a parents rights bill, a media-maligned piece of legislation that will prohibit primary school teachers from talking about sexual orientation with children in pre-K through third grade.
Senate passage of the Parental Rights in Education bill by a vote of 21-17 marks a milestone in parents’ efforts across the nation to fight back against the radical left in the classroom. The legislation also represents a model for other states to use as they push back the woke tides.
The Florida House of Representatives passed the legislation last month, 69-47. It now goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature.
Opposition to the Parental Rights in Education bill has been fierce, with many on the left attempting to reframe the law as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The left has attempted for years to indoctrinate children with LGBT ideology in public schools, and now activists are furious at attempts by conservatives to push back.
To be clear, the Florida legislation is not an “anti-gay” bill. It is instead a bill aimed at protecting children—and preventing educators with an agenda from infecting young kids with radical ideology.
By all means, make Democrats defend lecturing kindergartners on transsexualism and anal sex in November. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Rapper Tom MacDonald complains about “The Biggest Music Industry Screw Job Ever!” No, given it’s the music industry, not even close. There are hundreds of artists who have been screwed worse. But the lengths to which Billboard and their data recording company go to in order to avoid certifying the sales of independent musicians is certainly eye-opening.
“Our gas prices are now higher than in zombie apocalypse films.” That would be the Will Smith I Am Legend (the classic Richard Matheson novel it was based on featured vampires, not zombies).
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on, Hunter Biden’s bestie’s going to the big house, a massive voting problem (and possible fraud) winds up in court in Harris County, and a tiny bits on both Amazon and anime.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Not in this LinkSwarm: links on the Zaporizhzhia Ukrainian nuclear reactor, since I’m not sure I can trust any of the information sent out by either side.
It is not foreordained that Russia wins and Ukraine loses. Winning a war is not merely an exercise in numbers or technology. As General George S. Patton observed, “Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.”
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to quickly topple the Ukrainian government and kill President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the war has widened into a contest involving almost the entire border region shared by the combatants along with the stretch of border between Belarus and Kyiv some 80 miles to the north of Ukraine’s capital city.
Much media attention has been given to Russia’s advances along the Sea of Azov in the south and on the approach to Ukraine’s third-largest city, Odessa, on the shores of the Black Sea as well as the remarkable attack that captured Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia. These Russian successes are discouraging for Ukrainian defenders but, in the grand contest, they matter far less than the battle for Kyiv.
Snip.
There are fascinating signs coming out of what may be a decisive battle to the northwest of Kyiv on the long, winding, secondary road from Chernobyl. This is the road where a 40-mile-long column of Russian vehicles was spotted by satellite. Most of the vehicles are supply trucks. They would be carrying fuel, ammunition, and food for the Russian forces that have advanced to the very outskirts of Kyiv itself but have seemingly been stalled for several days.
Snip.
Out of this come three reports that, if true, suggest the beginnings of a devastating reversal for Russian forces operating northwest of Kyiv.
First, reports today in multiple outlets that Russian Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky was killed in combat by a sniper. Sukhovetsky, 47, was an elite Russian Spetsnaz commando and veteran of Russia’s war in Syria. The commander of the Russian 7th Airborne Division, he was assigned the mission of leading the Russian thrust from Belarus to Kyiv. Men like Sukhovetsky have an outsized presence on the battlefield. They’re inspirational. Their personal leadership at the point of the spear often means the difference between victory and defeat during the fast-paced controlled violence of war. His loss would be devastating to his men and to the organizational momentum of the forces he commanded.
That Sukhovetsky was killed by a sniper suggests that he was personally trying to regain the initiative against Ukrainian forces who had fought him to a standstill.
The second report of merit is the heavy damage sustained in the town of Irpin on the northwest border of Kyiv’s city limits. The damage to this city suggests a major battle — an effort by the Russians to breakthrough. They didn’t.
The final piece of the puzzle is the Battle of Bucha. Ukrainian forces claimed the recapture of Bucha hours after the devastation visited on Irpin. The timing is important here. The Russians tried and failed to take Irpin and then the Ukrainians retook Bucha two miles to the northwest of Irpin.
The roughly 80-mile route from the Belarus-Ukraine border from the Chernobyl salient to Kyiv on the western side of the Dnieper River runs over a secondary asphalt road. This road frequently crosses rivers, runs through small villages, or is bordered on both sides by the eastern extent of the mighty Pripyat Marsh — the geographical feature which defines the border between Ukraine and Belarus.
The road is not able to support a large military force, even if unopposed in an exercise, especially during the spring and fall months during a time the locals call “Rasputitsa” — the mud season. Unfortunately for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military commanders, Ukrainian soil never froze solid this winter, so the fall Rasputitsa is still a factor.
This is why there have been so many photos coming out from the conflict that show all manner of Russian military vehicles bogged down in the mud. As soon as a vehicle on a narrow road becomes disabled or is destroyed in combat, or as the vehicles maneuver off-road in response to combat, they risk becoming mired. Even if they don’t get stuck in the mud, they end up consuming far more fuel that must be delivered to them than they would were the ground frozen solid.
Thus, that 40-mile-long column of “tanks” is more likely mostly trucks carrying fuel, ammunition, and food to the advanced forces of the Russian 20th Combined Arms Army on the outskirts of Kyiv. That this column hasn’t apparently moved much may mean that the Russian forces just north of Kyiv are running low on basic supplies.
This greatly increases the importance for the Russian army to achieve success to the east of Kyiv where the road network is far more developed and, if the terrain is captured and secured, capable of bringing in the volume of supplies needed to properly surround Kyiv and place it under siege.
In the meantime, the forces near Kyiv may be vulnerable to a Ukrainian counterattack. While some of the Russian conscript soldiers and even the veteran contract troops may be more likely to surrender due to low morale exacerbated by a lack of food and fuel.
In about three weeks, we’ve seen a Vladimir who was “off” go from chess to raising on a busted flush in something that is well beyond “off.” The nuclear escalation is not exactly unexpected, at least if you know a bit about the Soviet playbook for such things. What matters is if he still has full control, and/or the extent to which Dead Hand has been brought online. All I will say is that if his ability to give certain orders has been unofficially curtailed, it would not be the first time. If it hasn’t, it is not a good idea to poke the crazy man with the button via official actions.
And there are a lot of official actions out there that are not going to help in regards the deteriorating man. Among others is Switzerland deciding that they are neutral, but not that neutral. Add to it firm allies who have told him no, even after he just helped them out literally a few weeks ago… Even Xi has said no on some fronts. None of this is likely to slow down the deterioration. Or provide enough of a reality check to get through to him as he rages in his bunker with his captive oligarchs.
And while we are at it, let’s look at the attack itself and the absolute fuck up that it, and subsequent actions by STAVKA (call it what it is), truly are. It was billed as a demonstration of the new Russian way of war, their version of “Shock and Awe.” Problem is, S&A or any other form of blitz is heavily dependent upon superior logistics, something the Soviets nor the Russians have ever had. You need massive amounts of ammo, fuel, parts, and replacement troops to pull it off. Replacement troops not only because of losses, but the need to detail out troops to hold key points as you go. It also requires highly trained troops who know land nav inside and out.
From what I am learning, the order went out to make this happen. The actual order, however, may not have even approached what would be given for a small-unit special ops strike. Contingency plans? Decap. No? Then try for decap again. Decap. Decap. Try it again damnit! There are differing reports on the number of Wagner troops killed or captured, but a good number were sent in on assassination missions. They were not alone. Problem was, they were all alone as the original push down got bogged down; the efforts to do airmobile and airborne ops were shot down (literally in some cases); and, the public is now on high alert to the saboteurs and assassins roaming major cities trying to mark targets, etc. Don’t expect rules of war for those caught marking civilian buildings for strikes. For now, expect a return to grinding Soviet bombardment, civilian casualties be damned.
The fact is, Vladimir has already lost simply because he didn’t win. He is committed, and is committing Russia and all its people, to a long, grinding, bloody slog that is going to have severe economic impacts. Just replacing ammunition, gear, people, is going to have a severe impact. Add to it the growing official and unofficial sanctions? The Russian people are going to feel this one, in ways they never have before. Current Vladimir does not care. He’s lost to that. He has no way to go in and control the country, or even the parts he’s tried so desperately to annex. Even those are likely to slip from him given the current state of “uppitiness” on the part of the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians have not won. At best they have pushed things into a long grind with some chance of a stalemate. Yet, by doing this they have won. They have prevented the cheap and easy victory on which Vladimir counted. They have forced him into committing military and economic resources he does not have over the long term. Heck, even the short term. Russia’s economy was already teetering, current operations and responses are going to crater it unless something major happens. I’ve lived through a couple of power struggles in the Kremlin; under these circumstances, I hope we all do live through what is to come. A quick clean change of leadership seems unlikely given the Keystone gang we’ve seen so far, but it may be our best hope.
All we can do is wait and see what happens. While current circumstances are not new or unique on many levels, I will note that in my lifetime I’ve never seen a situation like this where key leadership was this insecure. Xi is in some ways hanging by a thread, and knows his enemies in the CCP are looking for any excuse to bring him down. Vladimir we’ve discussed. The Europeans, particularly the Germans? They are not secure either, especially since the Green policies have caused them to firmly place their mouth around Putin’s, er, finger, in regards energy. To see them decide to fund their own military, back off on the idiocy of green (maybe), and truly support the Ukraine strikes more as a desperation move than a rational push. Johnson is a non-entity right now, and not to be taken seriously. Our own dementia patient? Hell, he’s just waiting for his ice cream and to be allowed to go back upstairs to watch Matlock. Those behind him, however, are desperate beyond belief. Not one major stable leader anywhere in the world. That’s a new one and I thought I had about seen it all after watching the Soviets/Russians for more than 40 years now.
No NATO no-fly zone. Good. I very much want to see Putin defeated, but clearly NATO can’t be expected to respond to an attack on a non-member country, and that would be a dangerous escalation.
“More than a year” for $60 million in fraud? Seems a little lite.
The defendant, Devon Archer, was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison by Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams, who said the crime was “too serious” to let him just walk.
“There’s no dispute about the harm caused to real people,” Abrams said, noting that the defrauded tribe, the Oglala Sioux, is one of the poorest in the nation.
Archer will also have to pay more than $15 million in forfeiture by himself and more than $43 million in restitution with his co-defendants in the case.
The convicted fraudster has maintained his innocence and intends to appeal the conviction and sentence, his attorney, Matthew Schwartz, said in court Monday.
In brief statements to Abrams just before Archer was sentenced, he and Schwartz claimed he was taken advantage of by corrupt businessmen who wanted to use him in the scheme.
“He came under the influence of a person he trusted too much and didn’t ask enough questions,” Schwartz said.
“Trusted too much.” Yeah, he trusted he wouldn’t get caught because of his powerful friends.
What are the odds this was the only crooked deal Archer had his fingers into? I’d say pretty close to zero.
The Democrats will suffer historic losses in the November midterms.
This disaster for their party will come about not just because of the Afghanistan debacle, an appeased Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the destruction of the southern border, the supply chain mess, or their support for critical race theory demagoguery.
The culprit for the political wipeout will be out-of-control inflation—and for several reasons.
First, the Biden Administration is in such denial of inflation that it sounds to Americans simply callous and indifferent to the misery it has unleashed.
Biden officials have scoffed at price spikes as “transitory.” Or they have preposterously claimed spiraling costs are a concern only to the elite. They blame the Ukraine crisis. Or they fault the out-of-office bogeyman, Donald Trump.
The administration assures us that consumer prices are only rising at an annualized rate of 7.5 percent—as if the steepest increase in 40 years actually is not all that bad.
Yet the middle class knows that inflation is far worse when it comes to the stuff of life: buying a house, car, gas, meat, or lumber.
Second, inflation is an equal opportunity destroyer of dreams. It undermines rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals. It unites all tribes, all ideologies, all politics against those who are perceived to have birthed the monstrous octopus that squeezes everything and everyone it touches.
The conservative passbook holder sees his meager life savings eaten away. The liberal teacher’s car payments stretch from six to 10 years.
The prospective Republican home buyer sees his hard-earned potential down payment eaten away each month. The Democratic carpenter feels his new higher wages buy even less.
Third, inflation is ubiquitous, inescapable, omnipotent—and humiliating. It destroys personal dignity. And its toxicity is insidious, sort of like seeping, odorless, colorless, but nevertheless lethal carbon monoxide.
Unlike now-unpopular critical race theory, it cannot be avoided for a day. You cannot tune it out like one does the mess in Afghanistan or the now nonexistent southern border. Inflation attacks everyone in 24/7, 360-degree fashion.
It belittles you at the gas station. It downsizes you at the food market. It humiliates you in the obscene real estate market. It makes you look stupid when you are paying for a new car. It ridicules you when you buy lumber. Suddenly you apologize that you really cannot afford your child’s braces.
Fourth, inflation undermines a civil and ordered society. It unleashes a selfish “every man for himself” mentality, the Hobbesian cruelty of a “war of all against all.”
Inflation is the economic and emotional equivalent of smash-and-grab or carjacking. It is a brazen robber in broad daylight that so infuriates Americans by its boldness. It convinces them their very civilization is dying.
“Federal Court Declares Diversity Initiative At Thomas Jefferson High School To Be Unconstitutional.” “Judge Claude Hilton ruled that the county unconstitutionally engineered the reduction of Asian-American students to achieve greater racial diversity.”
Did you know that one of the biggest freight management companies in America was temporarily locked down by a cyberattack? “Expeditors International, a top-five freight management company by revenue, disclosed Wednesday that last month’s cyberattack will have a “material adverse impact” on finances and that it will be late filing its 2021 annual report because of difficulty accessing information on its accounting systems.”
Once again Harris County has drawn scrutiny over a slew of election day problems and may need a court order to continue counting votes beyond a state proscribed deadline.
Issues with elections procedures began days before March 1 as election judges found that supplies were not available for pickup at the appointed time on Friday, February 25. Even after the delayed distribution of supplies on Saturday, election workers complained that many kits were lacking essential equipment.
The situation worsened by Tuesday, and during a conference call with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) and representatives from the local Democratic and Republican parties, Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria notified the state that her department may not be able to count all early and election day ballots by the statutory deadline of 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 2.
According to a statement from Secretary of State John Scott, the counting delay was “due only to damaged ballot sheets that must be duplicated before they can be scanned by ballot tabulators at the central count location.”
“Our office stands ready to assist Harris County election officials, and all county election officials throughout the state, in complying with Texas Election Code requirements for accurately tabulating and reporting Primary Election results. We want to ensure that all Texans who have cast a ballot in this year’s Primary Elections can have confidence in the accuracy of results.”
According to the state election code, however, any votes counted after the statutory deadline may not count unless the county obtains a court order. Furthermore, under laws in effect since 1986, failure to deliver precinct election returns by the deadline is a Class B misdemeanor.
Calling the county’s elections problems the “worst in 40 years,” Harris County Republican Party (HCRP) Chair Cindy Siegel told KPRC news, “This has been a complete mess. We’ve had equipment delays, we’ve had equipment problems, equipment wasn’t delivered, we had polls that were unable to be set up.”
In a statement to The Texan, HCRP said that after consulting with the SOS, “if the count does not appear to be near completion in all races by [Wednesday] afternoon, the parties have tentatively agreed to seek a court order to require the Harris County Election Administrator to continue counting beyond the 24-hour deadline required by law, and to enjoin the law to allow the count to continue.”
Responsibility for conducting primary elections falls to the two main political parties, but they have contracted with the Harris County elections division to administer the elections.
Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) who formerly served as the Harris County voter registrar, called for immediate changes to the elections division.
“[Harris County Judge] Lina Hidalgo must fire her hand-picked election administrator,” Bettencourt told The Texan. “Because if she doesn’t, I don’t think we’re going to have an election in November.”
In 2020, the three Democrats on the Harris County Commissioners Court overruled objections from two Republican commissioners and the Democrat elected voter registrar Ann Harris Bennet to create the new office of elections administrator. Prior to the revamp, the elected county clerk and elected voter registrar managed elections in the state’s largest county.
The commissioners court then appointed Longoria, a former staffer for state Sen. Sylvia Garcia (D-Houston) who had previously run unsuccessfully for Houston City Council, with an annual salary of $190,000.
Under Longoria’s guidance, the county approved $54 million for the elections division last summer which included $14 million to purchase new voting equipment.
Earlier this year, Longoria told commissioners the March primary would cost more than $8.8 million.
In 2020, Harris County received nearly $10 million in grants from Mark Zuckerberg’s Center for Tech and Civic Life and another $1 million in 2021 just before the Texas Legislature restricted such private grants.
According to sources familiar with the equipment, the second page of the paper ballot has been jamming machines and now requires entry by hand. Allegedly, although the early voting period ended Friday,
The question, of course, is whether this is a sign of manifest incompetence, or a sign of widespread attempted vote fraud?
If it was a fraud attempt, we should be grateful that it was bungled so badly in the primary that a lot more attention will be paid.
And the judge didn’t sound pleased:
Update: the "court finds it is required…to impound the precinct election materials in the possession of Ms. Longoria and her staff and for the court to supervise the activities necessary to complete the count…" https://t.co/h1FL7F5XTn
Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signs bill banning men from women’s sports. I’ll take “Headlines no one would understand 20 years ago” for $400, Alex.
Democratic Party Gaslighting: The Continuing Journeys:
The party that painted this now wants you to believe they support Law Enforcement. Americans won’t forget this — especially not on Election Day. pic.twitter.com/nCBkDmI6yf
— Kari Lake for AZ Governor (@KariLake) March 3, 2022
When I surveyed readers about what they wanted to see covered, several voiced support for more state political news. And early voting ends Friday. So here’s a long-in-gestation post on the state of the Governor’s Race.
The problem is that, while I’d love to see a competitive Republican primary, I’m not sure there is one.
Despite Allen West claiming he’s in the lead (don’t buy it) and Don Huffines dropping a significant amount of direct mailers, this is not only Greg Abbott’s race to lose, at this point I doubt he’s even going to be drawn into a runoff.
Before we get to the details, let’s deal with the incredulity outside the state that Abbott is even in any sort of race at all. He’s a conservative Republican incumbent, isn’t he?
Incumbent? Yes. Republican? Yes. Conservative? By the standards of Democrat-run states, unquestionably. I’m sure the Republican residents of California, Michigan, New York and Washington would love to trade their Democratic governors for Abbott. But among conservative activists, there is a simmering resentment that Abbott hasn’t been nearly as conservative on a number of topics as he could be, that he’s “left money on the table” and talks a much better game than he’s actually accomplished.
But let’s start with the things Abbott has gotten right. Under Abbott, Texas has generally controlled spending, and the low tax and low regulation environment has seen the Texas economy recovery quickly from the Flu Manchu lockdown recession. So too has Texas continued to lure big companies and projects from other states to Texas, from Apple to Samsung to Tesla.
So too, Abbott has been on the right side of just about social issue. He’s been consistently pro-Second Amendment. Texas’ innovative abortion law was hailed by pro-life groups across the country. Abbott has talked a good game on the Biden Administration’s inability to secure the border, and got funding for border wall construction passed.
But a lot of conservative activists have accused Abbott of being all hat and no cattle. For example:
Take Abbott’s much-vaunted Operation Lone Star, an effort by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to secure the Texas border with Mexico. Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, the implementation leaves much to be desired:
“It was common knowledge inside the command group that [Operation Lone Star] is just a political stunt,” retired Command Sergeant Major Jason Featherston, who served as Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Texas Army National Guard, told Chronicles. “Do I think we should have soldiers on the border? Absolutely. But what’s gone wrong with this is that it was hastily done and poorly planned.”
Featherston was present at the birth of Operation Lone Star and retired from his career while overseeing the Texas Military Department’s largest branch (the Army National Guard), with 19,000 people under him. Featherston said that while he cares little for politics, his “number one priority in all of this is making sure soldiers get paid on time and get the equipment they need and that they and their families are treated the way they need to be treated.” A lot of that isn’t happening or has been fraught with setbacks.
The border guards lack of basic equipment, and many troops don’t even have access to portable bathrooms, Featherston said.
There is also the huge issue of the 2021 ice storm power outage. Obviously Greg Abbott doesn’t control the weather, but he does control appointments to ERCOT, and touted trendy renewable energy that proved inadequate for preserving baseline power needs during the emergency. All that said, the grid held up just fine during the most recent (far less severe) cold snap, which may eliminate the last hope of Abbott’s primary opponents (and Beto O’Rourke) to lay a glove on him.
While Abbott lifted Texas lockdown restrictions earlier than many states, he did issue a slew of constitutionally questionable mandates during the early states of the coronavirus pandemic, including lockdowns and mask mandates. He was also notably slower than governors like Ron DeSantis at lifting restrictions.
Abbott has frequently been criticized both for being more reactive on culture war issues like Critical Race Theory and transsexual genital mutilation procedures on children, and that he has relied on executive orders rather than pushing for special session bills to pass laws to rectify the problem.
Abbott has also been dinged for raising money in California, something Ted Cruz (rightly) dinged both David Dewhurst and Beto O’Rourke over.
There’s a lot of truth to some of these charges, but I also don’t think any of them will actually derail Battleship Abbott. With his huge name recognition, money advantage and polling currently showing him at 60%, I expect Abbott to win to the primary and slaughter O’Rourke in the general.
Ricky Lynn Perry, AKA “not that Rick Perry.” I cannot find either website or Twitter feed for this guy, so that link goes to a Texas Tribune article on him. Here’s his iVoter profile. He’s not a serious candidate, and I only mention him here so nobody gets fooled by seeing “Rick Perry” on the ballot.
Unsurprisingly, Abbott’s war chest tops the charts, with $62.6 million cash on hand, having raised nearly $1.5 million in the first 20 days of January. Abbott has also spent more than $4.5 million in the same period as he campaigns around the state, releasing mailers and radio and TV advertisements.
Solidly in second, Huffines raised more than $1.1 million in the same timespan, bringing his total cash on hand to $2.3 million. Huffines’ expenditures show more than $2.7 million spent as he crisscrosses the state campaigning to Texans.
Meanwhile, West raised $331,000 and maintains about $83,000 cash on hand as of January 20. West spent more than $230,000 in 20 days on campaigning and advertising as he traverses the state to speak with Texans.
The Texas Ethics Commission is not showing Prather’s January 31 report, only his previous report accounting for July-December 2021. During that time, the report shows Prather raised more than $100,000 and had around $20,000 cash on hand.
That little money for Allen West doesn’t show a candidate that’s ahead.
I’ve tried numerous times to get a meeting with the governor,” said Miller. “In the seven years that we’ve both been in our offices, I’ve never got a meeting with the governor, never got a phone call returned, never got an email or letter returned.”
Miller continued to express his frustration in Abbott’s lack of communication and explained just how difficult it is to get in contact with the governor.
“Well, it’s kind of like working with sasquatch,” said Miller. “Everybody knows he’s real and some people have seen him, but I’ve never seen him. I can’t get a meeting with him.”
I’ve gotten several direct mailers from Huffines, including one in which he states his opposition to Critical Race Theory and LGBT ideology. I’ve gotten none from Abbott (though he has sent me a zillion fundraising emails) or West (and a lesser number of fundraiser emails).
The Carter-era “misery index” (inflation + unemployment) is rising, Canada’s truckers are still honking, more Democratic sleazebag activity, the far left is coming for your kids, China continues to misbehave, and a tragic cheese display collapse shocks onlookers. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Biden continues to work his magic on the economy. Expected job numbers: +200,000. Actual job numbers: -300,000.
Why the BLS is applying such a grotesque seasonal adjustment to it, is unclear (actually, if one assumes that the Biden admin tapped the BLS secretary on the shoulder, then it is very clear).
It’s not just outside analysts who reach this conclusion: in Table C to its report, the BLS showed “December 2021-January 2022 changes in selected labor force measures, with adjustments for population control effects” and confirmed that if one had used an apples-to-apples basis for the January numbers, the number of Employed workers (from the Household Survey) would be down -272K. Instead, thanks to the population control effect adjustment of 1.471 million, the final number was 1.199 million!
In summary, while the markets had been trading for months on fake data when the BLS failed to catch up to covid reality, and was applying stale seasonal adjustments, they are doing so again today, only in the opposite direction with the BLS now overextending itself in the opposite direction, with a January seasonal adjustment that has never been greater!
Inflation hit 5.8% in 2021, the most in 39 years. Pretty sure this year is going to be a lot worse.
How bad is inflation? Dwight sent over this link on an Austin restaurant shutting down that includes an eye-opening inflation tidbit. “He pointed out that a container of fryer oil that a year ago cost about $17 had risen to about $50.”
Canada’s freedom truckers seem to be making headway with regional governments, some of whom have promised to lift vaccine mandates, but asshole authoritarian Justin Trudeau is refusing to budge.
There are two naturally occurring viruses that are particularly similar to SARS-CoV-2. The first is RaTG13, which shares 96.2 percent of its genome with SARS-CoV-2, according to a paper released by the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli. This virus was collected from bat feces in a copper-mine shaft in Tongguan, Mojiang, Yunnan Province, China, that was the site of a small-scale deadly viral infection with some curious similarities to Covid.
In April 2012, six miners were assigned to clean bat guano from the mine shaft. Four miners had been working at the site for two weeks, and two had been working there for four days when they all grew ill with a cough and fever and experienced difficulty breathing, aching limbs, heavy and bloody mucus and saliva, and headaches — symptoms of a viral respiratory infection that are similar to the effects of Covid. All six miners were admitted to a Kunming hospital in late April and early May, and three died — one after two weeks, one after a month and a half, and one after three months. The other three survived.
Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a prominent Chinese pulmonologist whose high-profile role has been compared to that of Dr. Anthony Fauci in the United States, consulted on the cases of the miners. Recognizing that the virus afflicting the miners could be comparable to SARS, researchers sent blood samples to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for antibody testing.
In 2012 and 2013, teams of researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted a study of coronaviruses in bats in that abandoned mine shaft — and one of the samples they collected was RaTG13.
The second virus that is particularly similar to SARS-CoV-2 is really a cluster of three similar viruses discovered in Laos in autumn 2021. A team led by Marc Eliot, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, collected saliva, feces, and urine samples from 645 bats in caves in northern Laos and found three new viruses that were each more than 95 percent identical to SARS-CoV-2, which they named BANAL-52, BANAL-103, and BANAL-236.
Some skeptics of the lab-leak theory contend that the BANAL viruses proved that SARS-CoV-2 is likely a naturally occurring virus, and because Laos was roughly 1,000 miles from Wuhan, this pointed away from the notion that the Covid pandemic could be traced back to a leak from Wuhan Institute of Virology or any other labs in the city. But there is ample reason to believe that viruses from Laos — perhaps not the BANAL trio, but similar ones — were also shipped from Laos to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In 2010, Wildlife Trust, a nonprofit international conservation organization dedicated to protecting wildlife, announced it was rebranding itself under the name EcoHealth Alliance. The organization’s president, Peter Daszak, declared that his group had become “the central organization defining the intersection of local conservation and global health” and touted itself as being “on the forefront of informing the public, businesses, and the scientific community about emerging diseases, including potential pandemics.” It is safe to say that EcoHealth Alliance is one of the largest, best funded, and best connected nonprofits, focusing upon “field research and develop[ing] tools to save ecosystems and predict and prevent pandemics.”
EcoHealth Alliance/illegal gain of function section snipped.
We know for a fact that the people collecting samples do not always follow the necessary safety procedures. And the risk of accidental infection does not disappear once the viruses and bats are brought back to the laboratories.
Lab accidents happen. The first argument against the lab-leak theory that can be safely dismissed is the notion that Chinese scientists were simply too careful or too diligent to ever let a virus escape their lab. Accidents occur even in the most well-trained and highly regarded research facilities in the world. In June 2014, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that they had unintentionally exposed personnel to potentially viable anthrax. A month later, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found samples of smallpox, dengue, and spotted fever just sitting in a storage room. A decade earlier, the Chinese CDC’s National Institute of Virology in southern Beijing had accidentally released SARS. Twice.
In February 2019, Lynn Klotz, a senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, laid out a report in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists detailing that from 2009 to 2015, a federal program “received a total of 749 incident reports from select-agent research facilities,” including “1) needle sticks and other through the skin exposures from sharp objects, 2) dropped containers or spills/splashes of liquids containing pathogens, and 3) bites or scratches from infected animals.”
China obviously places the same importance on lab safety as it puts into quality control. Lets pick it up where more CCP perfidy kicks in:
Finally, there is the undeniably suspicious behavior of the Chinese government since the first cases were reported in Wuhan in December 2019. Until January 21, 2020, the Wuhan Regional Health Commission insisted that “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission has been found.” On January 4, 2020, former CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield was incredulous during a phone call with his Chinese counterpart, George Gao. Redfield described asking his old friend Gao, “George, you don’t really believe that mother and father and daughter all got it from an animal at the same time, do ya?” Gao insisted there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. But Redfield recounted that two days later, Gao broke down during a call, “audibly and tearfully distraught after finding ‘a lot of cases’ in the community who had never visited the wet market.”
In late January and early February, the Chinese government ordered all labs processing samples of the strange new virus to destroy them. On January 3, China’s National Health Commission ordered institutions not to publish any information related to the unknown disease and ordered labs to transfer any samples they had to designated testing institutions, or to destroy them. The justification for this order was public safety, although it is hard to see the public-safety benefit in suppressing information about the disease.
It took a year to get a World Health Organization investigative team into Wuhan, and when that team arrived, it encountered angry refusals to turn over raw data about the earliest cases. According to the New York Times, “disagreements over patient records and other issues were so tense that they sometimes erupted into shouts among the typically mild-mannered scientists on both sides.” The Chinese government has refused to allow another team of investigators to enter Wuhan or the labs in the city. The Chinese government does not care if it looks guilty.
A much-hyped U.S. intelligence-community investigation completed in August offered almost nothing useful, declaring, “All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.” Ninety days of effort, with all the resources of the U.S. government, generated nothing new.
To paraphrase Ebright, in the autumn of 2019, there were three institutions in the entire world that were doing gain-of-function research on novel coronaviruses found in bats. One was in Galveston, Texas, one was in Chapel Hill, N.C., and the third was in Wuhan, China.
In theory, the pandemic could have started with some random Chinese person who didn’t have any connection to the bat coronavirus research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan CDC. This person would have a spectacularly unlucky run-in with a bat or other animal, and that random Chinese person caught the exceptionally rare naturally occurring animal virus that infects, sickens, and spreads among human beings like wildfire. This same hyper-contagious bat virus would have the exceptionally unusual trait of being extremely difficult to find in bats.
This extraordinarily unlucky person would then travel to the metaphorical doorstep of one of the three labs in the world doing gain-of-function research on novel coronaviruses found in bats and start infecting other people in the city of Wuhan. Under the natural-origin theory, the Wuhan laboratories just happen to be mind-bogglingly unlucky that events played out in a way that so closely mimics the consequences of a lab accident.
That would be a remarkable series of coincidences.
Read the whole thing.
Data point. “Younger, working-age people began dying in greater numbers as vaccine mandates hit.”
More data:
Been seeing a lot of governors crediting their mask mandates for "defeating" the Omicron wave. Thought I'd plot COVID cases in states with mask mandates vs. states without them, and, well… pic.twitter.com/WdhsyCINjp
Glenn Youngkin is governing Virginia according to the implicit campaign slogan that powered his victory: stop messing with our kids, you freaks! That’s the polite version, anyway. Other Republican officials should follow his lead and solidify the GOP as the party of parents.
Youngkin ran as a conservative champion of normalcy, especially in schools. His campaign was assisted when his opponent declared parents should not have a say in what their children are taught, thereby confirming everything Youngkin was running on.
Since being sworn in, Youngkin has banned school mask mandates, banned teaching racist ideas from sources such as critical race theory, and requested the new state attorney general, Jason Miyares, to investigate the apparent coverup by Loudoun County officials of a rape committed by a skirt-wearing boy in a girls’ bathroom. He has also started cleaning house in the bureaucracy.
These measures have provoked pushback from the usual suspects. Left-wing teachers are now worried they’ll get in trouble for teaching the race essentialism derived from critical race theory. Some counties have defied the governor over school mask mandates, and are punishing students who choose not to wear them. But Youngkin is holding firm, knowing this is what he was elected to do.
Across the nation, parents are in revolt against the Democrat-led educational establishment, and Republicans should eagerly join the fray. After all, it was the Democrat-loving teachers unions that fought to keep schools shut down long after we knew that children were at almost no risk from Covid-19. Likewise, it has mostly been Democrats and their allies forcing children to wear masks when school is open, even though (as a few on the left are finally admitting) masks are particularly harmful for children, while offering no real benefits.
There are other indignities and cruelties, of course, from shutting down outdoor playgrounds to forcing schoolchildren to study or eat lunch outdoors in freezing temperatures. And these miseries have been inflicted long after any plausible ability to defend them as emergency measures, or to plead ignorance of the consequences. Under pressure from the teachers unions and education bureaucracy, Democrats have chosen to sacrifice the well-being of children. Even many liberals now want an alternative to the endless school shutdowns, masks, and other pandemic security theater.
Students across the country as young as kindergarten-age are learning that “everybody gets to choose their own gender” and are receiving kid-friendly lessons on disrupting “Western nuclear family dynamics” as part of this week’s national Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.
The activist-driven curriculum for the Week of Action, which kicked off Monday, is based off the 13 “Black Lives Matter Guiding Principles.” Those principles include a commitment to restorative justice, being transgender affirming and queer affirming, creating space for black families that is “free from patriarchal practices,” and “the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics and a return to the ‘collective village’ that takes care of each other.”
Black Lives Matter at School offers kid-friendly versions of the 13 principles designed for elementary and middle-school students.
The Week of Action also includes a list of four national demands: end zero-tolerance discipline policies; mandate black history and ethnic studies; hire more black teachers; and fund counselors, not cops, according to a “starter kit” on the Black Lives Matter at School website.
In the starter kit, New York City kindergarten teacher Laleña Garcia, author of a children’s book about BLM principles, writes that while “discussing big ideas with little people” it is necessary to “consider age-appropriate language so that our students or children can grasp the concepts.” For example, she suggests not talking about police violence with “our youngest children.”
When discussing BLM’s principle of being transgender affirming, Garcia offers the following kid-friendly language: “Everybody has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind. Everyone gets to choose if they are a girl or a boy or both or neither or something else, and no one else gets to choose for them.”
When discussing the BLM principle of a “Black Village,” which includes the goal of disrupting the Western nuclear family structure, Garcia suggests teaching kids that “there are lots of different kinds of families; what makes a family is that it’s people who take care of each other; those people might be related, or maybe they choose to be a family together and to take care of each other. Sometimes, when it’s a lot of families together, it can be called a village.”
Speaking of Democratic policies endangering kids: Repeat child sex offender illegal alien arrested at the border.
Even in San Francisco, the backlash against the Soros-backed-Democrat-DA crime wave has begun: “S.F. police will no longer cooperate with DA Boudin over police shooting investigations.”
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said he intends to sever an agreement with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office spelling out the D.A.’s lead role in investigating police use-of-force incidents, in-custody deaths and police shootings.
The agreement was originally struck in 2019 following intense debate in San Francisco over the role the city’s police department should play in investigating its own officers following a rash of police shootings. Police and the District Attorney’s Office renewed the agreement last year.
The more we learn about the Jenny Thornley affair, the more it appears that senior members of the Pritzker administration, including potentially the governor and his wife, may have facilitated a fraud on the state by a now-indicted former campaign aide to enrich her and then obstructed efforts to bring her to justice.
This is a tangled web, so stay with me as I set forth a timeline of events and characters, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The former executive director of the Illinois State Police Merit Board, Jack Garcia, discovered evidence that one of the employees under his direction, Jenny Thornley, was stealing money from the people of the state
Garcia is a well-known, skilled investigator who previously supervised the divisions of internal investigations and forensic services, before becoming the first deputy director of the Illinois State Police. Thornley was a campaign aide for Gov. J.B. Pritzker (her husband, Jared, was also a senior political appointee at the Illinois comptroller’s office) and close enough to Pritzker and his wife, M.K., that she had their personal telephone numbers.
After assembling the evidence and building the case, Garcia scheduled meetings to fire Thornley and refer her for prosecution on the morning of Feb. 3, 2020. However, on the eve of that day, Thornley contacted (at least) the governor’s wife (pictured, at left) and asked her to intervene, alleging that Garcia had assaulted her sexually a week or so earlier.
The governor’s chief counsel promptly called the merit board (which is an independent agency created “to remove political influence” from State Police hiring, promotion and discipline) to “advise” it to: (a) cancel her firing and the referral for prosecution, (b) suspend Garcia (the experienced investigator who uncovered the Thornley fraud) and (c) retain an outside counsel proposed by the governor’s office. The merit board went along, but also suspended Thornley, and Garcia voluntarily took and passed a lie detector test.
Then Thornley sued to stop the investigation of her own claim of sexual harassment.
The outside counsel, Christina Egan, nonetheless completed an investigation by July 2020 (at the cost of $500,000 paid by the people of Illinois), confirming the evidence Garcia assembled that Thornley had stolen money and committed forgery, and finding no evidence of Thornley’s sexual assault allegation. The State Police Merit Board then reinstated Garcia, fired Thornley, referred her for prosecution. She has now been indicted for theft and forgery.
However, after Thornley was fired, someone with clout in the Pritzker administration somehow granted her disability payments reserved for people that are actually state employees. These payments (amounting to some $71,000) went on for more than a year, ending days before she was indicted for theft and fraud. These extensive payments were for “injuries” sustained from an “assault” that Egan determined had not occurred.
Speaking of Democratic family corruption: “Smoking gun documents tie Nancy Pelosi’s son to fraud and bribery scheme to remove permit violations against squalid San Francisco flop house owned by his ex-girlfriend and probed by the FBI.”
The criminal justice system in Harris County is broken,” said Aimee Castillo, sister of murder victim Josh Sandoval.
Suspect Devan Kristopher Jordon was out on three felony bonds when he allegedly shot Sandoval during a home invasion robbery last May. Jordon had also missed a court date the week prior to the murder, but authorities did not issue an arrest warrant.
“I think the criminal justice system is just a revolving door. They murder, they go in, and they come out, and they go in,” said Glenda Martin, Sandoval’s mother. “I think it’s a horrible thing.”
Commissioner Tom Ramsey (R-Pct. 3) presented a resolution honoring Sandoval’s life and noted that the suspect was also affiliated with the same crime ring allegedly responsible for the murder in Houston of an off-duty New Orleans police officer last August.
“There are people who are hurting people who are being allowed to walk around and they should not be period. That is the point,” intoned Commissioner Jack Cagle (R-Pct. 4).
The fieriest moments of the meeting, however, came later from Steve Radack, former constable and former commissioner who said Democrats on the commissioners court had “blood on their hands.”
“I never dreamed that after serving 32 years on this court that there would be three members of this court — Hidalgo, Garcia, and Ellis — who would kiss the rears of hardened criminals, who victimize law-abiding citizens, including law enforcement officers,” said Radack. “I’m calling on you three to resign from office so the healing can begin.”
This is the worst cheese display collapse since Cheeses of Nazareth suffered a collapse of their famed "A Whey In A Manger" display the day before Christmas in 2019.
These are two stories that have merged into a bigger story. Parents in Loudoun County, Virginia (a D.C. suburb that includes most of Dulles airport) started fighting against the school board’s imposition of Critical Race Theory, a debate that became so hot and heated (especially after it was revealed that the board had suppressed news about the rape of a students by a boy wearing a skirt in the girl’s bathroom) that it became the main issue in the Virginia Governor’s race between Clinton crony retread Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin.
So here’s a roundup of the issue before voters go to the polls Tuesday:
The anti-Trump, pedo-protecting Lincoln Project was forced to issue an emergency press release Friday afternoon after Democratic operatives they paid to impersonate tiki-torch wielding Trump supporters were doxxed, after they stood in front of Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus.
The hoax was spread by several notables, including Terry McAuliffe’s spokeswoman, Christina Freundlich.
It was also spread by MSM journos [see the Glenn Greenwald thread below].
And then… the internet figured out who the operatives were;
One of them is the financial director for the Virginia Young Democrats… and since being outed as such, has made his Twitter private.
With the race tightening, Democrats have been doubling down on their infernal strategy of labeling Youngkin as a racist.
Retweeting a race-baiting anti-Youngkin ad from the “Republican” Lincoln Project, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) opined that the only reason Youngkin doesn’t say openly racist things about black people is because it would be politically damaging, so he “codes it with ‘Critical Race Theory.’”
“There’s a word @GlennYoungkin would really like to say to talk about black people, but he knows he can’t, so he codes it with ‘Critical Race Theory.’ Don’t take my word, trust the honorable Republicans who made this ad and know how this ugly strategy works,” wrote [Democratic Rep. Eric] Swalwell on Twitter, quote tweeting the Lincoln Project’s latest ad.
The news media are the ones spreading fake news and inflaming racial tensions for partisan reasons:
The people who most vocally claim to be worried about disinformation and Fake News — to the point that they want to censor the internet in its name — are, by far, the most aggressive and prolific disseminators of disinformation and Fake News. Always. Dems & corporate outlets.
White Democrats sitting with their white families in their white neighborhoods now believe they own racism and race discourse, to be deployed for their amusement and fun, or with any slight belief that it will advance their interests. They're the owners👇https://t.co/kGNaSD3VZJ
Speaking of white Dem scumbags who think they own racism discourse, the Lincoln Project – led by Rick Wilson, last seen frolicking on a boat with a cooler covered by the Confederate Flag – admits to staging the fake white nationalist rally in Virginia:https://t.co/P5yH4D1wB4
I can't think of any clearer expression of the rot of US liberalism and Dem Party politics than the white scumbags of the Lincoln Project — MSNBC stars — engineering a fake racist rally while Dem operatives & MSNBC analysts used it to accuse Youngkin of racism. Utterly sick. pic.twitter.com/sqk7QTvoL7
And I'd ask rhetorically whether the Lincoln Project admitting to having perpetrated this racist fraud — while MSNBC analysts spread it all over the internet — means MSNBC will stop having them on, but if fleecing donors & covering up for child predators didn't, this won't.
On June 22, Scott Smith was arrested at a Loudoun County, Virginia, school board meeting, a meeting that was ultimately deemed an “unlawful assembly” after many attendees vocally opposed a policy on transgender students.
What people did not know is that weeks prior on May 28, Smith says, a boy allegedly wearing a skirt entered a girls’ bathroom at nearby Stone Bridge High School, where he sexually assaulted Smith’s ninth-grade daughter.
Juvenile records are sealed, but Smith’s attorney Elizabeth Lancaster told The Daily Wire that a boy was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy – one count of anal sodomy and one count of forcible fellatio – related to an incident that day at that school.
Students in the district staged a walkout in protest. The students were from “Broad Run High School, where the attacker was relocated and is still technically enrolled.”
A law firm that employed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe is being paid handsomely to fight victims of alleged sexual abuse in schools, on behalf of a school system that the girls say failed to protect them.
In one case the Hunton Andrews Kurth law firm, where McAuliffe served as a senior adviser from 2019 until recently, is battling a young woman who says that she was repeatedly raped on her Fairfax County middle school campus as a 12-year old and that she was slashed with a knife, burned with a lighter, anally penetrated, and gang raped.
The law firm and McAuliffe’s campaign did not return request for comment, but McAuliffe reported income apparently linked to the firm in 2021, after announcing his run for governor of Virginia on December 8, 2020. Later advertisements from the firm for McAuliffe fundraisers refer to him as a “former colleague.”
The girl in the middle school case said she was afraid of having her real name attached because one of her alleged tormentors had threatened to kill her if she came forward. The law firm is seeking to have the lawsuit thrown out because it was filed under a pseudonym, even though there is no dispute that the school system knows who she is. A judge rejected Hunton’s argument, but it filed an appeal on behalf of its client, the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS).
In a separate case, a girl alleged that after FCPS administrators were told of an unwanted sexual incident on a band trip, a school security officer told her there was no point in seeking criminal charges, and the school gave an award to her alleged abuser. Hunton told the court that the school system lost documentation showing its investigation of the allegations – which occurred in part because it was not using a sexual harassment allegation database that it had promised to use pursuant to a federal settlement in the other girl’s case. In both cases, a women’s rights group filed “amicus” briefs to express opposition to Hunton’s arguments.
Joining McAuliffe’s former law firm and FCPS in the latter case was the National School Boards Association, which filed its own amicus brief. The trio is banking on an aggressive interpretation of Title IX, a law that provides protections in sexual assault cases, that would be more favorable to school administrators and less favorable to victims. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals smacked down their logic, but Hunton has signaled its intent to take the case to the Supreme Court. A win there would mean the same interpretation would apply to schools across the country.
Wait, a Bill Clinton crony involved in attempts to silence and discredit rape victims? Try to contain your shock.
“Brenda Sheridan, chair of the Loudoun County Public Schools board, criticized parents protesting the use of critical race theory in schools, claiming “[t]here is no rational debate [on the issue]…Critical race theory has been manipulated to replace what is really equity initiatives and teaching students about their biases and our teachers about their biases.” “Equity” is the tell that they are trying to impose critical race theory. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Chris Rufo has proof that Critical race Theory is being taught in Virginia schools, in the form of official documents. (Hat tip: Twitchy.)
Woman who survived China’s Cultural revolution denounces Critical Race Theory:
Loudon County School board meeting: Virginia teacher and mom who survived Maoist China's Cultural Revolution purge warns against the dangers of Critical Race Theory 'indoctrination camps' teaching 'neo-racism in schools'. pic.twitter.com/i4Eya10RGa
The Loudoun County Sheriff says he’s not going to be the school board’s enforcer:
The Loudoun County Superintendent asked the Sheriff's office for undercover agents to track parents at school board meetings, but the Sheriff refused, saying there wasn't "any justification" for such repressive measures. https://t.co/w1x8y93tqYpic.twitter.com/wnj6mKxh6g
The school boards want the full power of the federal government to silence critics and to stop people from saying things school board members do not want to hear.
What they don’t want to hear is that Critical Race Theory is racist anti-white indoctrination. They don’t want to hear that cloth masks don’t stop any virus. And school boards really don’t want to hear that a boy in a skirt raped a girl in a bathroom.
Boy do they not want to hear about that last one.
In its letter, the association cited 20 incidents. There are 14,000 school boards in America. That’s a pretty paltry amount, and the cases cited were dubious.
In the letter, the organization said, “In Virginia, an individual was arrested, another man was ticketed for trespassing, and a third person was hurt during a school board meeting discussion distinguishing current curricula from critical race theory and regarding equity issues.”
That was a reference to the Loudoun County School Board meeting on June 22, in which Scott Smith, 48, tried to confront the board about the rape of his daughter in the restrooms by a boy in a skirt.
The board had closed off discussion after retired state Senator Dick Black spoke. He tweeted, “The LCPS shut down the public input after the audience erupted in applause at the end of my speech. Hundreds of parents continued to rally for hours to send the message that these CRT policies are racist. Parents and teachers, stand up for your children now.”
Smith then tried to speak. The board had deputies arrest him. That led to a scrum. He was charged with trespassing — at a public meeting in a public building. He still faces a trial.
The board then shut down the meeting and continued the meeting the next day in private. I am not sure how Virginia’s open meetings law works, but if it allows this, then the law needs to be changed.
The backlash surprised me. Democrat Terry McAuliffe fueled it. He is seeking his old job as governor back.
In a debate, he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
That appeased his teacher union supporters and the snob set.
But it also set in motion a process that had state school board associations withdrawing from the national board, which now has withdrawn its letter. There is no way in hell that 14,000 school boards are going to go along with branding parents domestic terrorists.
The New York Post reported, “The National School Boards Association board of directors Friday repudiated a letter its two top officials sent to President Biden, which precipitated Attorney General Merrick Garland’s order that the FBI to investigate complaints of threats to school officials from parents.
“In a message to NSBA members, the board said that ‘we regret and apologize for the letter,’ which was sent Sept. 29 and co-signed by association CEO Chip Slaven and President Viola Garcia.”
Retired Republican Congressman Peter King of New York believes Democrats stepped on a rake this time.
King wrote, “A sleeping giant has been awakened. Parents and taxpayers are taking traditional school board issues and controversies into the political arena. As parents continue to mobilize, they can be expected to bring other child-related issues — such as school violence, open borders, and the inability to buy Christmas toys — into next year’s midterm congressional campaigns. This cannot be good news for Democrats, who will have to play defense on all these issues while being compelled to explain why the Biden administration has sicced the FBI on parents who publicly protest school policies.
“Intended or not, this grassroots school board movement is a real-world response to the expanded influence of progressives and socialists on government and education. The awakened giant is fighting back!”
I hope that rake hits Democrats right where it hurts.
Also: “The January 6 protest at the Capitol was not an insurrection. A boy in a skirt is not a girl. And Scott Smith is not a domestic terrorist.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Who will win in Virginia? Any pollster worth their crosstabs should tell you they don’t know. It’s too close. All of the latest polls are tied or within the margin of error. It shouldn’t be that way, which is why Youngkin has the edge. He shouldn’t be this close.
For a GOP candidate with the former president’s endorsement — and McAuliffe’s constant reminder of it — we’re likely missing some of the Trump effect in our polling. This is the non-response bias that keeps me up at night as a pollster — the notion that those who answer our questions, particularly in contentious races, are somehow different than those who don’t.
It would not surprise me if Youngkin is ahead at this point, and that he wins in November.
Three reasons:
Core message
Youngkin has focused most of his campaign on education, which is an extremely savvy move for a first-time candidate. While most elections don’t turn on education, this time it might. Parents have been upset with the closing of schools and limitation of activities. Some parents are furious over masks and critical race theory.
Youngkin has said that he will leave masking decisions up to parents, not school systems. Moreover, he is for parents making decisions on virtually all educational issues, an empowering message. McAuliffe, instead, stands with institutions and unions. While McAuliffe is right on masking, standing against parents is a very bad message, which he’s handled very badly.
Handling opposition research
Youngkin has been masterful at countering opposition research hits, which have been the core of McAuliffe’s campaign. Shot: Youngkin plays footsie with 2020 truthers. Chaser: McAuliffe did it twice. Shot: Youngkin wants Texas-style abortion rules in Virginia. Chaser: Youngkin said in a debate he would shorten the period when a women can get an abolition to where a fetus feels pain, which is about two to four weeks less than it is now. Shot: Youngkin is against masks. Chaser: Youngkin wants parents to decide, not school boards.
In each of these cases, Youngkin mitigates the damage of the attack, and — in some cases — returns fire more powerfully. While Youngkin is a newbie to politics, he’s campaigning like a pro.
Voter enthusiasm
Finally, first-time candidate Youngkin has far stronger voter enthusiasm than the lifetime political hack and retread governor McAuliffe. The commonwealth allows governors to return for another run after four years, but it’s generally a bad political look for the party.
Democrats have been in power here for several years, and it’s resulted in a fair amount of corruption and far-too-left of center policies for this purple state. Trump twice masked it as a blue state, but it’s really not. Virginia is two states, north and south, and the counties that go blue and red roughly split. Being the change candidate in this environment fuels enthusiasm.
There’s literally nothing new and exciting about McAuliffe. Democrats are fighting with each other just up the road in Washington, deadlocked on policy, and Virginia’s candidate is unusually tied to the party. A sign of a lack of enthusiasm for Democrats: McAuliffe admitted on a recent call that Biden is unpopular here.
There are other signs — or lack of them. Drive around Loudoun County, the most up-for-grabs one in the commonwealth, and you will have to search for a McAuliffe yard sign. Yes, yard signs are overrated as a persuasive political tactic, but they reflect voter enthusiasm. This is not upstate or downstate. This is right in the middle, and McAuliffe is invisible, while Youngkin is everywhere. If you are a low-information voter, you could be excused for thinking that there is only one name on the ballot. McAuliffe has run a negative campaign, while Youngkin has a set of policies that are coherent and different.
One reason McAuliffe might do better: voting fraud:
Earlier this month, Fairfax County, Virginia — a locale that broke 70-30 for President Joe Biden and Democrat Sen. Mark Warner in 2020 — previewed the attacks on election integrity likely planned for the midterm cycle of 2022 and beyond. There, election officials in the deep-blue county approved absentee and mail-in ballot applications lacking the statutorily mandated last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number, then promptly mailed these unauthenticated individuals ballots for next Tuesday’s election.
While last week the Virginia Institute for Public Policy (VIPP), a public policy organization dedicated to election integrity, filed suit against the county registrar and the three members of the Fairfax County Electoral Board responsible for flouting state election law, a hearing on the case is not scheduled until Friday. By then, the election will be only days away and a court is unlikely to order ballots returned by the deadline discarded.
We saw this precise scenario come to pass throughout the United States in 2020, with state officials ignoring the election code dictates established by the legislative branch. But the lawlessness happened too late for lawsuits to wind through the court system in time for the decision to matter.
