Posts Tagged ‘Babylon Bee’
Friday, May 15th, 2020
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Today’s theme is Democratic Governor’s ignoring the constitution to keep their precious lockdowns going, Obamagate, spying (domestic and foreign), a bit about aircraft, and funny animals. Dig in!
The economy: is the worst over? Let’s hope.
Remember how Georgia lifting the lockdown and opening the economy was going to kill everyone’s granny? Yeah, not so much: “Georgia Records Lowest Number of Coronavirus Patients in over a Month.”
More medical hope:
Ever since President Trump expressed optimism about the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, the mere mention of that drug can elicit instantaneous, strident, and finger-wagging condemnation by the mainstream media and all those who are pulling for the pandemic to lay waste to the economy and pave the way for a fundamental progressive transformation of America. Despite its use by health-care providers across the country and around the world to successfully treat COVID-19, you will be mocked as either a fool or a snake oil salesman if you approvingly utter the word “hydroxychloroquine” or even express hope that it can be used to save lives. The word is simply not to be tolerated in polite, progressive society.
Well, it appears that the list of forbidden words is about to get longer. The new additions include “corticosteroids” and “Methylprednisolone.”
What do these widely available and relatively inexpensive drugs with known safety profiles have in common with hydroxychloroquine? Leading physicians are using them in addition to hydroxychloroquine to successfully treat COVID-19. And they are doing so without waiting two or three years for the results of randomized clinical trials.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“Wuhan Virus Watch: Over Half of All U.S. Deaths Have Occurred in Just Five States.” “New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania. New York remains the hardest-hit state of any in the country by far, having logged nearly 27,000 deaths as of Saturday afternoon. The next-hardest-hit state, New Jersey, had recorded over 9,100.”
Speaking of Michigan:
It is difficult to describe, and impossible to exaggerate, just how badly Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID-19 response has been, and it has been a catastrophe from the very beginning. In early March, when the country was already becoming concerned about the spread of the virus, Whitmer did not cancel the Democratic presidential primary, and indeed, there was record turnout for the March 10 primary, which turned into a “super spreader” event in metropolitan Detroit. She has since bungled practically every aspect of the pandemic, including her deliberately punitive and irrational lockdown policy. Now she would have us believe that she is the real victim of all this:
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Wednesday that the lockdown protests are “racist and misogynistic” and called on those with a platform to discourage the demonstrators.
Whitmer told ABC’s “The View” that the protests are “really political” as demonstrators have brought nooses, Confederate flags and Nazi symbolism.
“This is not appropriate in a global pandemic,” she said. “But it’s certainly not an exercise of democratic principles where we have free speech. This is calls to violence. This is racist and misogynistic.”
I have no idea who brought nooses, etc., to these protests, although I suspect these were false-flag agents provocateurs — leftists pretending to be part of the protest and acting in ways intended to discredit Whitmer’s opponents. None of this, however, justifies her policies.
Just in case you thought there was an end to her awful policies: “Michigan state Rep. Leslie Love (D-Detroit) is blasting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) policy of returning coronavirus patients to nursing homes, making the Detroit lawmaker the second Democrat to criticize the governor publicly in less than a month.”
Speaking of which: “NY officials allowed COVID-positive workers to stay on the job at nursing homes — the facilities account for 25% of deaths in the state.” More of that brilliant one-party Democratic rule…
“Media Lies: Democrat Governors Doing Great Jobs Despite Higher Wuhan Death Rates.”
Continuing the theme (click to expand image):
Wisconsin Governor and bureaucracy: “Screw your rights. Stay at home.” Wisconsin Supreme Court: “Unconstitutional.” Wisconsin Governor and bureaucracy the very same day: “Oh yeah? Then screw your religion! No meetings for you God weirdos!” Every. Knee. Must. Bend.
That crap doesn’t fly in Texas:
Dallas County Commissioner Judge Clay Jenkins has repeatedly tried to act as the ruler of Dallas County by attempting to force his will on everyone within it and each time he’s been put back in his place by everyone from the citizens of Dallas County to his own fellow commissioners.
Jenkins has now awakened the wrath of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who issued a warning to him and other officials in other Texas counties who are trying to illegally prevent Texans from living doing things such as attending church.
According to Paxton’s office, a warning was issued to three county judges and two mayors telling them to back off their make-believe thrones, or else there will be consequences:
Attorney General Ken Paxton today issued letters to three Texas counties (Dallas, Bexar, and Travis) and two mayors (San Antonio and Austin), warning that some requirements in their local public health orders are unlawful and can confuse law-abiding citizens. These unlawful and unenforceable requirements include strict and unconstitutional demands for houses of worship, unnecessary and onerous restrictions on allowing essential services to operate, such as tracking customers who visit certain restaurants, penalties for not wearing masks, shelter-in-place demands, criminal penalties for violating state or local health orders, and failing to differentiate between recommendations and mandates.
The curve Democrats really want to flatten:
The government-imposed lockdown needs to end. But lot’s of people have (properly) set their own lockdown standards:
Many of the most important mitigation strategies are unknown to the general public because they’ve taken place behind closed doors on the initiative of employers, not bureaucrats, and have little or nothing to do with legal mandates (which are themselves, as I can attest is the case here in Canada, a contradictory, hastily-conceived patchwork of federal and provincial directives and advisories). To give but one example I happen to be familiar with: Many of the men and women you see driving delivery trucks and construction vehicles are now governed by all sorts of rules, at pickup and drop-off, that allow them to perform their functions without coming within six feet of others. In some cases, they’ve been enabled with apps on their phones or dash-mounted tablets that permit them to coordinate these functions without any direct on-site human interaction whatsoever. Or they might be subject to thermometer-gun screenings to determine if they have a fever. Having implemented these lockdown-lite policies at great cost and inconvenience, employers aren’t going to dump them the moment the government gives them permission to do so, even though these procedures have increased costs and decreased output.
Many employers I speak to are actually far more constricted by the concerns of their own employees than by the law itself. At one workplace that I know of, the boss announced that loosened provincial restrictions mean that everyone can come back to work this month. To his surprise, his employees announced that they’d voted on the issue through Facebook, and, no, they would not be coming back, at least not yet. And in Quebec, which is starting to let elementary-school students come back to class this month, thousands of parents—a majority at some schools—have decided to keep their children home. I am told by reliable sources within my own family that some of these parents are even pressuring their neighbours to do likewise, and are shaming dissenters on social media as bad parents. It’s lockdown by mob.
To some extent, I find this attitude of populist hyper-vigilance to be exasperating, because sending your young kids to school is now generally safe (and, selfishly, because I think my own seven-year-old could benefit from getting back to a structured education environment). But we got into this mess by letting our guard down, and so it’s not surprising that many ordinary people want to err on the other side of the equation for a month or three. Whatever your views, though, if you’re all in a fuss about lockdown policy, please remember that the real lockdown was never imposed by government. It turns out that it was inside each and every one of us all along.
Devin Nunes thinks that the entire Trump transition team was under surveillance by the Obama Administration. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Don Surber asked a question back in 2017 that we ought to take a fresh look at: Was Obama using the NSA to spy on Romney during the 2012 election? Given what we know of Crossfire Hurricane, would anyone put it past him?
Related:
Russia, Russia, Russia!
Oh, lovely. Crowdstrike admits that there was no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC server.
Lives better for the living:
Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would like to know the truth behind Obama’s Fast and Furious illegal gun running program. A lot of us would like to know the same thing…
EU and German courts (strangely two different things in this story) are having a pissing match over whose gavel is bigger.
Canadian Broadcasting Company can’t decide just how it wants to lie about The Epoch Times and its reporting on the Chinese Communist Party’s culpability in the Wuhan Coronavirus. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
TSMC to build chip foundry in Arizona. This is a pretty big deal, as TSMC currently has the best fab tech in the world, and this will be their first ground-up American foundry (they currently have (I think) two other American fabs as the result of acquisitions from WaferTech and TI).
“Arkansas Professor Arrested For Concealing Communist Chinese Funding.”
An engineering professor at the University of Arkansas has been arrested by the FBI and faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly hiding funding that he received from the communist Chinese government.
The New York Times reports that “Simon Ang of the University of Arkansas, was arrested on Friday and charged on Monday with wire fraud.”
“He worked for and received funding from Chinese companies and from the Thousand Talents program, which awards grants to scientists to encourage relationships with the Chinese government,” the report notes, adding that “he warned an associate to keep his affiliation with the program quiet.”
The report explains that Ang’s alleged hiding of the funding enabled him to also get US government subsidies, specifically from NASA, to the tune of more than $5 million.
“Chinese Government Lays Off Entire Propaganda Team As American Media Doing Their Job For Them.
“CNN Replaces President Trump’s Press Briefings With President Xi’s.”
Capitalist fungus. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
“Billy doesn’t respond well to pressure.”
“Why we at $FAMOUS_COMPANY Switched to $HYPED_TECHNOLOGY.”
Important safety tip: Don’t stand on an active airport runway. This was Austin, so odds are it was an adler.
For Rich:
The Los Angeles Rams uniforms are horrible garbage.
“Democratic States Deploy Greta Thunberg Drones To Lecture People Who Go Outside.”
Water sausage eats breakfast:
Goat rodeo:
This dog is on my wavelength:
Tags:2020 Presidential Race, aircraft, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Andrew Cuomo, Arkansas, Austin, Babylon Bee, Brian Stelter, China, Clay Jenkins, coronavirus, corticosteroids, Crossfire Hurricane, Crowdstrike, Democrats, Devin Nunes, dogs, EU, fraud, Georgia, Germany, goats, Greta Thunberg, Gretchen Whitmer, homeless, hydroxychloroquine, Ken Paxton, Leslie Love, Los Angeles Rams, Massachusetts, Media Watch, Methylprednisolone, Mexico, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, NFL, Obamagate, otters, Pennsylvania, Regulation, Ron DeSantis, Ronald Shurer, Semiconductors, Simon Ang, spying, Texas, TSMC, Wisconsin, World War II, Wuhan, Xi Jinping
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Economics, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Regulation, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 2 Comments »
Friday, January 31st, 2020
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! If you’re reading this, you haven’t died from the Coronavirus yet, despite China’s best efforts! And so many Babylon Bee slams of CNN that I couldn’t just pick one:
This morning’s contarvirus totals:
Total Infected: 9,776 (up from 2116 Sunday)
Total Deaths: 213
Total Recovered: 187
Number of Countries Where Cases Have Been Confirmed (new in bold): 22 (China (including Hong Kong), Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Macau, South Korea, United States of America, France, Germany, United Areb Emirates, Canada, Italy, Vietnam, Cambodia, Finland, India, Napal, Philippines, Sri Lanka)
Thoughts: If that’s not quite exponential growth it’s a pretty good first cousin. A case in Mumbai is scary. 11 cases in Japan is scary for the opposite reason, in that the Japanese take hygiene very seriously and have been unable to prevent spread there. No confirmed cases in Indonesia, which is probably only a matter of time.
The Cornoavirus is the demon bedeviling Xi Jinping: “Yes, ‘demon’ is a metaphor for a pathogen capable of killing millions. However, it is a demon the dictatorship’s repressive policies animate and tolerate in lieu of free communication.”
2019-nCoV, however, is beyond Xi’s dictatorial control. China’s dictatorship may awe Free World idiots, but it cannot intimidate a pathogen.
The coronavirus and its potential consequences of mass death expose the dictatorship’s brittleness. If you prefer, substitute “incompetence masked by police intimidation and lack of free expression” for “brittleness.”
Brutal authoritarian political control exacts overt and covert systemic costs. Western commentators — The New York Times’ Tom Friedman is a particularly smarmy example — admire authoritarian China’s alleged skill at solving major problems that dithering Western democracies cannot. What really dazzles Friedman and his ilk is the regime’s one-command-solves-it pose. Information control, especially control of dissent, bolsters this fraud.
Since 1980, China has made extraordinary economic progress, but its government’s destructive decisions are telling. The notorious one-child policy produced a demographic devil. What Western admirers touted as a farsighted plan to promote zero population growth killed millions of baby girls, skewed female-male sex ratios and, as of 2010, began creating a worker shortage.
Doctors in China and several Asian countries — the virus is on the verge of savaging Thailand — advocate isolating infected patients. The Great Firewall of China isolates the Chinese people from global information access and sharing. Beijing demands its citizens use state-sponsored social media in lieu of global alternatives. Isolation from information sharing hinders angry citizens from criticizing the communist leaders.
But this system isolates Chinese leaders from bad news — like mass illness — that caring human beings must share….As the party bigwigs dither, a deadly pathogen kills.
More thoughts from Richard Fernandez:
It was an example of ‘No Borders’ but not in a good way. The pathogen got on a plane abetted by a delay in acknowledgement. “The Chinese government failed to act quickly enough to curb the spread of the Wuhan virus, risking further outbreaks,” Guan Yi, the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong told the Asia Times. The Chinese government’s own data, hosted on Wikipedia, confirms this. It shows how at the beginning the numbers were small, the infection still all in one place. After a week it blew up.
This illustrates how giant totalitarian governments like China’s can be at a disadvantage in dealing with emergent events. What it gains in ruthless response cannot always make up for lost response time caused by the official denial of embarrassing facts. That explains why establishments are often surprised by events like Brexit and Hillary Clinton’s shock loss. They are unexpected because they were not in the 5 year plan. They arrive like a bolt from the blue.
When the unexpected happens the official Narrative often increases the reaction time of the system. While events are slow moving there may be no penalty but in the fast moving global world threats like the coronavirus may hit the public even before institutions admit it exists. The old model of globalization has paradoxically both speeded up the rate at which events occur and slowed the rate at which behemoth transnational institutions can respond.
The result is a mismatch and failure of institutions is the theme which unites Brexit, the US impeachment and the repeated viral threats from China.
Back on January 1st, eight Chinese doctors tried to warn people about a “viral pneumonia” going around. Want to guess what happened? That’s right. They were punished for spreading rumors.
First person-to-person coronavirus transmission case confirmed in Chicago, bringing the total to six cases in the U.S.
Kurt Schlichter thinks that President Donald Trump needs to get ahead of the coronavirus curve by communicating with the public, lest the impeachment-thwarted Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) make it into his “Katrina.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Meet Dr. Peng Zhou a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Leader of the Bat Virus Infection and Immunization Group. You know, the same institute that posted a “help-wanted” ad to research Ebola and SARS-associated coronaviruses in bats just before the local coronavirus outbreak there. What are the odds?
Seems that the college station student reported on last week tested negative for the coronavirus. Indeed, all four suspected Texas cases tested negative.
Speaking of China, I meant to blog this and forgot until Dwight reminded me: Charles M. Lieber, the chair of Harvard’s chemistry department, “a leader in the field of nanoscale electronics, has not been accused of sharing sensitive information with Chinese officials, but rather of hiding — from Harvard, from the National Institutes of Health and from the Defense Department — the amount of money that Chinese funders were paying him.”
Dr. Lieber was one of three scientists to be charged with crimes on Tuesday.
Zaosong Zheng, a Harvard-affiliated cancer researcher was caught leaving the country with 21 vials of cells stolen from a laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, according to the authorities. They said he had admitted that he had planned to turbocharge his career by publishing the research in China under his own name. He was charged with smuggling goods from the United States and with making false statements, and was being held without bail in Massachusetts after a judge determined that he was a flight risk. His lawyer has not responded to a request for comment.
The third was Yanqing Ye, who had been conducting research at Boston University’s department of physics, chemistry and biomedical engineering until last spring, when she returned to China. Prosecutors said she hid the fact that she was a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army, and continued to carry out assignments from Chinese military officers while at B.U.
If one pandemic were not enough, there’s also an outbreak of Lassa Fever in Nigeria.
Know how the MSM keeps harping on President Donald Trump’s “unpopularity?” A deep dive into various poll metrics suggests “not so much.”
This is pretty interesting:
(Hat tip (and more at) The Other McCain.)
More on that CNN clip I talked about yesterday:
63 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. Are they all slack-jawed yokels motivated by hostility to geography, and facts? Do they all — or even most — have strong Southern accents? And, irrespective, is a Southern accent a predictor of stupidity? Many of my neighbors have strong southern accents. One of them is a surgeon. Whither nuance?
This particular clip has landed with such a bump because it also serves as an example of how inaccurately mediocrities tend to see themselves. Rick Wilson’s joke was second-rate and obviously pre-written, and yet Don Lemon reacted as if Wilson was Dave Chappelle — even going so far as to say he “needed” it. This behavior is learned. Since Donald Trump was elected, a certain set of political “strategists” — many of whom aren’t actually strategists, Ana Navarro — have come to see CNN as a clearing house for their bad one-liners, each sitting at home preparing zingers that they hope, once delivered, will go viral. This one has gone viral, of course, but for the opposite reason than its architects hoped: Because it is pathetic.
“CNN Announces Daily ‘Two Minutes Hate‘ Segment”
“CNN Unveils New Format Where Hosts Just Watch Fox News And Yell At It.”
Possibly my fav: “Flock Of Monocled Geese In Top Hats Joins Don Lemon In Round Of Laughter At The Commoners.”
“Political correctness and liberalism are literally killing people in Seattle.
It’s about squishy prosecutors and judges who let repeat offenders walk free. It is about a city council that has designed this because anarchy will allow them to rebuild the city in a socialist image.
Today, a woman is dead and seven others are injured. A 9-year-old remains in the hospital. It is shameful but unfortunately predictable, given who we have running things around here.
Snip.
We do not let the cops do their jobs. The cops know who the gang members and drug dealers are. They also know that if they see a drug transaction and write it up for the prosecutor’s office, it’s going to get kicked because it’s not a serious enough crime. And when prosecutors pursue criminals, judges let them walk free.
The two suspects in this downtown shooting have been arrested 44 times with 20 convictions and 21 times with 15 convictions. Marquise Tolbert, the one with 20 convictions, had three felonies last year alone. You tell me how someone with three felonies in 2019 is walking around free and able to engage in a shootout that kills a woman and injures a bunch of other people, including a 9-year-old kid. Both Tolbert and William Tolliver, the other suspect, are just 24 years old. They both have previously been arrested and charged with drive-by shootings and unlawful possession of a firearm in 2018. So the courts knew full well that these were gun-toting gang members. Why did our justice system let them walk free? Why do we place criminals above law-abiding citizens?
“Trump at the March for Life Seals Irrelevancy of Never Trumpers.”
Never Trump Republicans looked even more ridiculous at the end of the March for Life than they did that morning.
Trump was embraced by the largest gathering of pro-life Americans and Trump embraced them. Trump at the March for Life:
Sadly, the far-left is actively working to erase our God-given rights, shut down faith-based charities, ban religious believers from the public square, and silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life. They are coming after me because I am fighting for you and we are fighting for those who have no voice.
Never Trump Republicans can’t imagine a man like Trump attending the March for Life.
Never Trumpism is built on a foundation of sanctimony.
These sanctimonious few don’t like how Trump speaks. They don’t like his bombast. They don’t like his past. He’s not George Bush.
Get over it. He’s winning.
That he is not George Bush might be Trump’s greatest transgression to Never Trumpers. Much of the hatred is mercenary, as so many have suffered financially from the end of their consultancy gravy train.
But Trump actually attended the March for Life. If you don’t think that matters to the 100,000+ who marched, then you can’t judge prevailing winds.
Snip.
What’s also striking about the Never Trumpers is how their hatred resembles a pathology, like some deep raw childhood memory. Trump is their aunt’s cat who used to viciously scratch them each visit. Trump is the playground bully who threw the football at their face. Trump is the twisted cousin who made you look at his dead animals in jars hidden in the back shed. He’s the bogeyman of their nightmares.
It all wells up in them, decades later, in outbursts, fears, and rage. It’s unhinged.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome is burning out the core audiences that made the media profitable. The Impeachment Eve rallies failed miserably with turnouts in the hundreds in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. A month later, turnout at the Women’s March had declined from the hundreds of thousands to the thousands. Even as impeachment was underway, the audience wasn’t there.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Chip Roy produce a proposal to fix health care.
James Younger case ends with joint custody and crazy mom not allowed to inflict hormone therapy on her eight-year old.
Border agents find longest smuggling tunnel yet discovered in San Diego, over three-quarters of a mile. “It includes an extensive rail/cart system, forced air ventilation, high voltage electrical cables and panels, an elevator at the tunnel entrance, and a complex drainage system.” (Hat tip: CutJibNews at Ace of Spades HQ.)
“Leaked French Internal Intelligence Report Claims 150 Neighborhoods ‘Held’ By Radical Islamists.”
Minority kids perform better in conservative school districts.
Democrats caught teaching illegal aliens how to break the law and vote. Yet again. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Bernie Sanders is backing hard left challenger Jessica Cisneros against Texas Democratic incumbent congressman Henry Cuellar for the 28th Congressional District. The winner will face Republican Sandra Whitten in the general.
Germans have proof Huawei colluded with Chinese intelligence agencies. Duh, of course they did.
IBM replaces longtime CEO Virginia Rometty with Arvind Krishna. Probably a good move. The few people I knew who worked at IBM under her tenure had little good to say about the company, whose longterm trend has been offshoring and outsourcing rather than hiring fulltime U.S. employees. But every group in IBM seems like its own little fiefdom.
Dwight offers a moderately deepish dive into two fraud cases, including a celebrated social scientist and a celebrated organic farmer.
Congrats to Republican Gary Gates for winning the Texas House District 28 special election runoff over Democrat Eliz Markowitz. This is Gates’ first successful race in eight tries, and he supposedly threw a ton of money into it.
Noted without comment: “2nd California child molester dies after beating with cane.”
Florida New Jersey Man Mayor.
“Utah man builds bulletproof stormtrooper suit with 3-D printer.” Caveat: Not all of it is bullet-proof and it took 400-600 hours to make.
Gaming the buffet. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Too painful to laugh, too funny not to laugh. Bet she was pissed off… (Hat tip: Michele Frost.)
Looks staged. Still funny.
Tags:#NeverTrump, 2020 Election, abortion, Arvind Krishna, Babylon Bee, Bernie Sanders, Border Controls, Boston University, Charles M. Lieber, China, Chip Roy, CNN, Communism, coronavirus, Crime, Democrats, dogs, Donald Trump, Elections, Elizabeth “Eliz” Markowitz, Eric Ciaramella, France, fraud, Gary Gates, Germany, Harvard, health care, Henry Cuellar, Huawei, IBM, India, Indonesia, James Younger, Japan, Jessica Cisneros, Jihad, Kurt Schlichter, Lassa Fever, March for Life, Media Watch, Mexico, New Jersey, Nigeria, ObamaCare, pandemic, Peng Zhou, Republicans, Seattle, spying, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas 28th Congressional District, Thailand, Thomas Friedman, transexual, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Ukraine, Virginia Rometty, Wuhan, Xi Jinping, Yanqing Ye, Zaosong Zheng
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Texas, Uncategorized, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 20th, 2019
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! I thought fall started tomorrow, but various reference sources say the fall equinox doesn’t actually occur until Monday, September 23.
Flash flooding hits the Houston area from Tropical Storm Imelda. “Gov. Greg Abbott has declared a state of disaster for 13 counties.” Plus a post office roof collapsed and I-10 was closed in both directions for a while east of Houston.
Democrats remain stuck on stupid:
What happens when a political party is hijacked by fanatics, ideologues, and hysterics who don’t care whether they win or lose an election?
They lose elections.
That’s where the Democrats are headed because they’d rather be “right” than clever. And when it comes to the issue of race, Democrats think they have a corner on “right.”
They’ve got a small problem, though. In order to appeal to the fanatics, ideologues, and hysterics to tap them for money and support, they have to at least give lip service to their warped views on race. And that includes calling you and me and about 70 percent of the American voters “racist.”
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
How New York Times ignored the real bombshell in the Kavanaugh book:
Not only did Christine Blasey Ford’s key witness and friend — Leland Keyser — state that she didn’t recall the party where Ford claimed she was assaulted, she also says she doesn’t remember “any others like it.”
Her words were strong: “It would be impossible for me to be the only girl at a get-together with three guys, have her leave, and then not figure out how she’s getting home,” she said. “I just really didn’t have confidence in the story.”
Even more, Pogrebin and Kelly uncovered a pressure campaign to get Keyser to alter her testimony, to back Ford. Keyser told the writers, “I was told behind the scenes that certain things could spread about me if I didn’t comply,” and they report on group texts containing ominous language about Keyser’s allegedly “f***ed up” life.
While the reaction to the allegations against Kavanaugh was almost uniformly partisan (Republicans rejected the claims; Democrats either believed them or thought they cast enough doubt on Kavanaugh to deny him the nomination), there is — in fact — a truth of the matter here. Kavanaugh did or did not assault Ford, and in any fair proceeding Keyser’s testimony would detonate like a bomb. Remember, this wasFord’s witness and friend. She’s a Democrat. And, moreover, there was now evidence of a pressure campaign that looked a lot like an attempt to suborn perjury.
And Pogrebin still doesn’t get what she did wrong:
Pogrebin is at the center of a discussion of gross journalistic malpractice after publishing a story Saturday night with colleague Kate Kelly that failed to mention that a woman who, according to a man named Max Stier, had Kavanaugh’s penis pressed into her hand at a campus party by multiple friends of his has said she recalls no such incident. That woman has also declined to talk about the matter with reporters or officials. Why even publish Stier’s claim, which was discounted by Washington Post reporters who heard about it a year ago, that he witnessed such an incident during a Yale party in the 1980s? Because of the narrative, Pogrebin says. “We decided to go with it because obviously it is of a piece with a kind of behavior,” she said on WMAL. Pure confirmation bias.
Though the woman at the center of the story wants no part of it, Kelly and Pogrebin published her name anyway (in their book, albeit not in the Times). “You’re kind of directing attention at a victim and she’s gonna be besieged,” Pogrebin said on the radio show, in explaining why the Times piece left the name out. “Even if people can ultimately find her name, it’s not necessarily important to make it easier for them to do so.” Oh, so publishing her name in a book does not constitute making it too easy for people to find this private citizen? It’s a separate but serious scandal. This woman has been made a public figure in a national story without her consent. Even if she were the victim of sexual misconduct, the Times would ordinarily take steps to protect her identity. Yet she has made no claim along these lines, and Pogrebin and Kelly outed her anyway. Is there no respect for a woman’s privacy? Is every woman in America to think of herself as potential collateral damage should she ever cross paths with any Republican whom Times reporters later tried to take down?
In her WMAL interview this morning, Pogrebin repeatedly refers to the woman as a “victim.” This word choice is instructive about Pogrebin’s thought process. Calling her a victim would be begging the question if the woman claimed this status for herself. She would then be only an alleged victim. But she isn’t even that. She has made no claim to be a victim, yet Pogrebin describes her as one anyway. This is a case of a reporter overriding her reporting with her opinion. Pogrebin then impugns the woman by saying she was so drunk that her memory can’t be trusted. She also says that “everyone” at the party was massively drunk and that their memories are therefore unreliable.
Does she hear herself talking? If this is true, it means Max Stier was also drunk and his memories also can’t be trusted. (Someone should ask Pogrebin whether she was present at this party about which she knows so much.) By what journalistic standard does a reporter discount what is said by the person with the most direct and relevant experience of a matter — the woman in question at the Yale party — in favor of a drunken bystander? If both the woman and Stier were drunk, why is his memory more credible than hers? If something like this had actually happened to her, wouldn’t she be more likely than anyone else to remember it? Maybe Stier is remembering a different party. Maybe he’s remembering a different guy. Maybe he made it up.
Trump’s Kulturekampf:
A new America supposedly is marching forward under the banner of ending fossil fuels, curbing the Second Amendment, redistributing income, promoting identity politics and open borders, and providing free college, free health care and abortion on demand.
An insomniac Trump fights all of the above nonstop and everywhere. In the past, Republican presidents sought to slow the progressive transformation of America but despaired of ever stopping it.
No slugfest is too off-topic or trivial for Trump. Sometimes that means calling out former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for persuading NFL stars to kneel during the national anthem. Huge, monopolistic Silicon Valley companies are special Trump targets. Sometimes Trump enters cul-de-sac Twitter wars with Hollywood has-beens who have attacked him and his policies.
Trump variously goes after antifa, political correctness on campus, the NATO hierarchy, the radical green movement, Planned Parenthood, American universities and, above all, the media — especially CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
For all the acrimony and chaos — and prognostications of Trump’s certain failure — a bloodied Trump wins more than he loses. NATO members may hate Trump, but more are finally paying their promised defense contributions.
In retrospect, many Americans concede that the Iran Deal was flawed and that the Paris climate accord mere virtue signaling. China was long due for a reckoning.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation proved fruitless and was further diminished by Mueller’s bizarrely incoherent congressional testimony.
Some of the most prominent Trump haters — Michael Avenatti, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Antony Scaramucci and Rep. Adam Schiff — either have been discredited or have become increasingly irrelevant.
Trump has so enraged his Democratic adversaries that the candidates to replace him have moved further to the left than any primary field in memory. They loathe Trump, but in their abject hatred he has goaded the various Democratic candidates into revealing their support for the crazy Green New Deal, reparations for slavery, relaxed immigration policies and trillions of dollars in new free stuff.
In a way, the left-wing Democratic presidential candidates understand Trump best. If he wins his one-man crusade to stop the progressive project, they are finished, and their own party will make the necessary adjustments and then sheepishly drift back toward the center.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Democrats are lying about healthcare. For starters: How much ObamaCare sucks. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Democratic megadonor Ed Buck finally arrested after overdosing a third black man. This one, unlike the previous two, survived. He’s also been charged with running a meth ring.
Chronicle of an apocalypse foretold. And foretold. And foretold. And foretold. And foretold… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Why Britain should ditch the EU:
The real issue is far older and more important than whether 52 percent of Britain finally became understandably aggrieved by the increasingly anti-democratic and German-controlled European Union.
England is an island. Historically, politically and linguistically, it was never permanently or fully integrated into European culture and traditions.
The story of Britain has mostly been about conflict with France, Germany or Spain. The preeminence of the Royal Navy, in the defiant spirit of its sea lords, ensured that European dictators from Napoleon to Hitler could never set foot on British soil. As British admiral John Jervis reassured his superiors in 1801 amidst rumors of an impending Napoleonic invasion, “I do not say, my lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea.”
Britain’s sea power, imperialism, parliamentary government and majority Protestant religion set it apart from its European neighbors — and not just because of its geographical isolation.
The 18th century British and Scottish Enlightenment of Edmund Burke, David Hume, John Locke and Adam Smith emphasized individualism, freedom and liberty far more than the government-enforced equality of result that was favored by French Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is no accident that the American Revolution was founded on the idea of individual freedom and liberty, unlike the later French Revolution’s violent effort to redistribute income and deprive “enemies of the people” of their rights and even their lives.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Hillary Clinton blames her 2016 presidential defeat on “voter suppression.” Which is a weird way to say “refusing to campaign in the Midwest.”
Poll of Palestinian opinions. I’m sure many will point out the 37-50% (depending on the question) who support war against Israel. I’m more interested in the 48% who believe in possession by djinn or demons. (To be fair, the percentage in America would probably be similar in 1973…)
Israel’s election is still up in the air. The liberalish Blue and White faction appears to have edged Likud 33 to 31, but 61 votes are required to form a government. Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has 55 votes to form a coalition government with orthodox religious parties that Blue and White vows not to join a coalition with.
“Fmr DNC Chair Donna Brazile: ‘I get in trouble’ when I refuse to say that Trump is a racist.”
“‘Rats, All of You!‘ Comedians Bill Burr, Spade, Schneider Slam Cancel Culture.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
A tweet on the racist history of gun control:
How to get emails in a freedom of information act request from the LAPD. Bonus: In 2015, they were still using Groupwise… (Hat tip: Amy Alkon.)
Here’s a long study on the effects of red meat consumption. Conclusion?
Although meat has been a central component of the diet of our lineage for millions of years, some nutrition authorities—who often have close connections to animal rights activists or other forms of ideological vegetarianism, such as Seventh-Day Adventism (Banta et al., 2018 Banta, J. E., J. W. Lee, G. Hodgkin, Z. Yi, A. Fanica, and J. Sabate. 2018. The global influence of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on diet. Religions 9 (9):251. doi: 10.3390/rel9090251.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar])—are promoting the view that meat causes a host of health problems and has no redeeming value. We contend that a large part of the case against meat is based on cherry-picked evidence and low-quality observational studies. The bald claim that red meat is an “unhealthy food” (Willett et al., 2019 Willett, Walter, Johan Rockström, Brent Loken, Marco Springmann, Tim Lang, Sonja Vermeulen, Tara Garnett, David Tilman, Fabrice DeClerck, Amanda Wood., et al. 2019. Food in the anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet 393 (10170):447–92. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is wildly unsupported.
Based on misrepresentations of the state of the science, some organizations are attempting to influence policy makers to take action to reduce meat consumption. Simplification of complex science increases persuasive power but may also serve ideological purposes and lead to scientistic approaches. According to Mayes and Thompson (2015 Mayes, C. R., and D. B. Thompson. 2015. What should we eat? biopolitics, ethics, and nutritional scientism. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 12 (4):587–99. doi: 10.1007/s11673-015-9670-4.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), manifestations of nutritional scientism in the context of biopolitics can have various ethical implications for “individual responsibility and freedom, concerning iatrogenic harm, and for well-being”. Well-meaning yet overemphasized and premature recommendations may eventually cause more damage than benefit, not only physiologically but also by unjustifiably holding individuals accountable for their health outcomes. We believe that a large reduction in meat consumption, such as has been advocated by the EAT-Lancet Commission (Willett et al., 2019 Willett, Walter, Johan Rockström, Brent Loken, Marco Springmann, Tim Lang, Sonja Vermeulen, Tara Garnett, David Tilman, Fabrice DeClerck, Amanda Wood., et al. 2019. Food in the anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet 393 (10170):447–92. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), could produce serious harm. Meat has long been, and continues to be, a primary source of high-quality nutrition. The theory that it can be replaced with legumes and supplements is mere speculation. While diets high in meat have proved successful over the long history of our species, the benefits of vegetarian diets are far from being established, and its dangers have been largely ignored by those who have endorsed it prematurely on the basis of questionable evidence.
(Hat tip: Powerline.)
Bill Gates says not to break up tech giants. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?
Speaking of Gates, here’s a list of all the connections between Gates and Jeffrey Epstein. Plus lots of denials.
First Blood author David Morrell on the meta-genius of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, which I highly recommend seeing if you haven’t already.
Baby Shoggoth found.
“Snopes: ‘The Claim That Trump Is Hitler Lacks Concrete Evidence But Alludes To A Deeper Truth.'”
“Millennial Diagnosed With Tragic Inability To Even.”
Heh: I seem to have my own Fark logo now: 
. Fark used to be more-or-less balanced between left and right posters, but that went away several years ago (long before Trump), and now it’s overwhelmingly left-wing trolling. Every time the Clown Car update gets linked, there’s a tsunami of hate posting, “your blog sucks,” accusations of paying off admins, etc. Honestly, I suspect that all the rageposting is precisely why the admins greenlight the links…
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, Anthropogenic Global Warming, Atkins, Babylon Bee, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bill Burr, Bill Gates, Blue and White (Israel), Brett Kavanaugh, Brexit, Christine Blasey Ford, comedy, Crime, David Spade, Democrats, Donald Trump, Ed Buck, environmentalism, EU, flooding, Foreign Policy, Green New Deal, gun control, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Houston, Israel, Israeli Elections, Jeffrey Epstein, Jihad, LAPD, Leland Keyser, Likud, Microsoft, ObamaCare, Palestinians, Rob Schneider, Robin Pogrebin, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, technology, UK, vegans, Victor Davis Hanson, weather
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court | No Comments »
Friday, August 9th, 2019
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! It’s been both super busy and super-hot here at BattleSwarm headquarters…
Leftward ho:
Ah, the good ol’ days of . . . April, or so, when conservative critics of the Democratic party could still count on being lectured to about the enduring moderation of Team Blue and chastised for paying so much attention to such figures as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a member of the Democratic Socialists of America) and Senator Bernie Sanders (a member of the Democratic Socialists of America) and claiming that these self-described socialists are the socialists they describe themselves as being, who want to “abolish capitalism” (the stated mission of the Democratic Socialists of America) and the traditional family to boot (“democratizing the family to get rid of patriarchal relations,” in the words of the Democratic Socialists of America), all of which, the usual media scolds tut-tutted, was unfair. “The Democratic party is the party of moderates,” as Politico magazine editor Bill Scher argued.
Somebody must have slipped some psilocybin into the Democrats’ potato salad at this year’s May Day picnic. Open borders? Check! Eviscerating the Bill of Rights? Absolutely, with one of those weird barbed Uncle Henry gut-hook knives! What else? I hope that whichever debate moderator finally presses this crew about the limits of late-term abortion is over 35, because Elizabeth Warren was pretty clearly ready to roll up her sleeves and perform an impromptu D&E right there underneath the Art Deco adornments and heavy brocade curtains of the Fox Theater in beautiful downtown Detroit.
Speaking of the Democratic Socialists of America, Stephen Green looks in on those lunatics. “No perfume in the quiet room, no misusing doors, no talking to cops, no talking to the press, always display your credentials, beware of right wing infiltrators.” Plus the usual lunacy about pronouns, and triggering, and singing “The Internationale.”
Border control policies start working:
Monthly apprehensions of migrants in Mexico have begun to slow down, indicating that its government’s recent border crackdown is yielding results.
Authorities in Mexico apprehended 18,758 migrants in July, according to preliminary data from Mexico’s immigration agency, reported by The Wall Street Journal. While this number is more than double the amount detained in the same month last year, it is a decline from the record-setting 31,573 apprehensions in Mexico in June.
“China Wants to Hit Back at Trump. Its Own Economy Stands in the Way.”
China’s imports from the United States only a fraction of the trade going the other way, so it cannot match Washington tariff for tariff. Much of that trade consists of agriculture goods like soybeans, as well as specialized products like Boeing jetliners or the American-made chips for the smartphones China makes.
There are several things China could do. It could call for a boycott of American goods or stop buying Boeing planes. It could devalue its currency, which would in effect partially nullify American tariffs. It could make life much harder for American business and executives in China, or it could exercise its power over key parts of the global supply chain, like its dominance over key manufacturing minerals called rare earths.
Some investors on Friday signaled they expect at least one of those moves. China’s currency, the renminbi, fell to its weakest point so far this year. Shares of rare earths companies rose, while Boeing’s shares fell more than the broader market on Thursday.
But each of these measures has drawbacks. Perhaps the biggest among them is that China’s economy is growing at its slowest pace in 27 years. Many of the arrows Beijing has in its quiver could ricochet and hit its own factories and workers.
Plus the perils of weakening the renminbi. Also: “As they consider their moves, Chinese officials will also try to parse Mr. Trump’s negotiating strategy. Experts said his capricious style had flummoxed Beijing.”
How the media pick and choose which parts of the El Paso shooter’s manifesto to hype.
More on the same subject:
The manifesto is insane. Part of it discussed commonly debated issues such as the environment and the economy in ways that are well within the boundaries of political conversation going on today — indeed, that might have come out of the New York Times or many other outlets. Other parts of it mixed in theories on immigration from far right circles in Europe and the U.S. Then it threw in beliefs on “race-mixing” straight from the fever swamps. And then it concluded that the solution is to murder Hispanic immigrants, going on to debate whether an AK-47 or an AR-15 would best do the job. By that point, Crusius had veered far from both reality and basic humanity.
But the question is, was he inspired by President Trump? It is hard to make that case looking at the manifesto in its entirety.
Crusius worried about many things, if the manifesto is any indication. He certainly worried about immigration, but also about automation. About job losses. About a universal basic income. Oil drilling. Urban sprawl. Watersheds. Plastic waste. Paper waste. A blue Texas. College debt. Recycling. Healthcare. Sustainability. And more. Large portions of the manifesto simply could not be more un-Trumpian.
Dayton shooter was indeed a “Pro-Satan Leftist Who Supported Elizabeth Warren.”
How President Donald Trump changes the political calculus.
This is a colossal fraud, and it won’t work. The public doesn’t buy it; the candidates aren’t talking about it; when Congress returns in September, Lindsey Graham’s Senate Judiciary Committee will grill the authors of the politicization of the intelligence agencies, the FBI, and other parts of the Obama Justice Department as well as the propagators of the false Steele dossier and the fraudulent FISA warrant applications. Graham (R-S.C.), will get the publicity, and the bare-faced liars who chair the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), will be talking to themselves about their “solid evidence” of the president’s crimes. Weissman and the lesser Democratic Torquemadas couldn’t find them; Nadler and Schiff can’t declare what their evidence is (because there is none).
This is the last echo of this attempted rape of the Constitution and no one will be listening when the Congress returns in September. They will listen to the Graham committee’s exposés of the Democrats who acted corruptly, and they will notice the indictments when the special counsel, (John Durham, who unlike Mueller does have full retention of his faculties), starts bringing them down.
The president deliberately has escalated the controversy by attempting to make the four extremist freshman Democratic congresswomen the real face of the Democrats, and by pointing out, in the case of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the inappropriateness of Cummings’ assault on the integrity of the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
The president undoubtedly knows that he is playing with fire assaulting the most holy of the taboos of political correctness so explicitly, though his grasp of the political arithmetic is almost certainly correct. I assume he can reassure his own followers and whatever independent voters may be left in this fierce partisan crossfire that he is not racist. In sober times, it would be clear that no case whatever exists that he is a racist. But these are not sober times and he has contributed something to their insobriety, though—one must remember—in reaction to immense provocations.
Is the UK headed for a November 1st election the day after Brexit? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
How Trump’s legal team of “nobodies” defeated Robert Mueller’s team of credentialed elites.
Liberals just come out and admit that yes, they do indeed want to seize the guns of law-abiding Americans.
More on “Red Flag” laws:
Active shooters are a rounding error. “If you feel the need to take training to protect your life and the lives of your loved ones, take a Defensive Driving Course.” (Hat tip: Karl Rehn.)
“AT&T employees took bribes to plant malware on the company’s network. DOJ charges Pakistani man with bribing AT&T employees more than $1 million to install malware on the company’s network, unlock more than 2 million devices.”
Two Amazon subcontractor drivers stole an estimated $10 million worth of goods over several years, selling many items through pawn shops.
“Minimum Wage Hikes in NYC Are Forcing Businesses to Cut Jobs and Raise Prices.”
Washington Post writer goes through Sugar Detox.
But here’s the part that blew my mind: I started to lose weight. Before the detox I weighed 166 pounds. Twelve weeks later, I hit a new low adult weight: 155. I’ve cinched in my belt a notch. My bloodwork looks much better (my triglycerides dropped by half in six weeks). And as my belly fat has reduced, I do feel better and more energetic.
The weight-loss and triglyceride reduction mirrors my own experience when I first went on Atkins.
Speaking of meat: the vegetarians who became butchers.
New York Times revenues continue to decline. I’m sure that somehow this is all Russia’s fault…
Leftwing protestors call for the murder of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Naturally Twitter suspended the account…of his reelection campaign, for showing videos of leftwing protestors calling for his murder:
Lunatic tranny balls-waxing lawsuit filer Jonathan Yaniv arrested for brandishing a stun gun.
Uber lost $5.24 billion this quarter. That’s with a “B”.
At least two people on Joaquin Castro’s list of San Antonio Trump donors also donated to him. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
”Democrats Propose Creation Of National Trump Voter Registry.
“Experts Warn We Have Only 12 Years Left Until They Change The Timeline On Global Warming Again.”
Tags:active shooter, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Amazon, AT&T, Atkins, Babylon Bee, Border Controls, Brexit, China, Crime, Democratic Socialists of America, Democrats, Donald Trump, El Paso, Foreign Policy, Guns, Joaquin Castro, Jonathan Yaniv, Kevin D. Williamson, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Mexico, minimum wage, New York City, New York Times, Robert Mueller, San Antonio, Social Justice Warriors, socialism, Texas, Trade War, transexual, triglycerides, Twitter, Uber, UK
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, August 2nd, 2019
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! As mentioned previously, today starts an extremely busy week for me, so expect some light blogging ahead.
“Why Do Democrats Run All Of The Dangerous And Rodent Infested Cities?”
Rep. Cummings, while being very obsessed with Russia, seems utterly bewildered with the idea that anyone could dare question why so many billions of federal dollars flow to places like West Baltimore when they are obviously doing no good.
Look at other cities in similar dilapidation and there holds a unique truth: Democrats run them all.
How long will sewage run down the streets of San Francisco? How long will St. Louis, Detroit, and Baltimore, continue to rotate as the nation’s most dangerous crime infested metros? And how long will federal dollars keep chasing bad money with new?
Snip.
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report and as reported in the USA Today (from Feb 19, 2019), the top 10 most dangerous cities in America are run by Democrats.
The overwhelming majority of them are also all governed by Democratic Governors. And the Congressional districts represented are also majority Democratic.
Did I mention that each of them also has higher unemployment rates than the national average?
In Baltimore, Democrats have run everything for more than four decades. Federal dollars have flowed in, and yet the stench, sight, and symbolism of it all—stinks.
El Chapo may be convicted, but the cartel wars continue:
In the end, the forces that are driving these trends in Mexico are larger and more powerful than any individual, and there is very little that any one person can do to counter or control them. It is true that individuals such as Gulf cartel founder Juan Garcia Abrego and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, the “godfather” of the Guadalajara cartel, were instrumental in altering the relationship between Mexican cartels and their Colombian counterparts. They succeeded in boosting the role of Mexican cartels from mere errand boys, who received a small cut of the Colombian cartels’ profits on cocaine smuggled through Mexico, to full partners that received an equal share of the profits. The vast profits that the cocaine trade brought to the Mexican cartels was a game changer. They provided the Mexican groups with vast quantities of cash to hire armies of hit men, arm them with military-grade weapons and bribe officials at every level of government. This vast wealth also allowed them to challenge — and in some places usurp — the government’s monopoly on force and governance as they pursued their campaign of “plata o plomo” (silver or lead) to either bribe or kill people in authority.
Mexican cartels multiplied their profits by embracing the heroin trade, eventually coming to dominate the North American heroin market. They also ventured into the synthetic drug trade, as drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl brought them even larger profits than cocaine or heroin. Literally awash in money, many Mexican cartels struggled to launder and spend all the money they were making.
Naturally, however, this vast fortune has come with consequences beyond just coming to the attention of authorities. Given the huge sums at stake, business partners and even family members have turned into sworn enemies as they fight over a greater share of the profits. And in addition to fighting over smuggling routes to external markets — which have grown to include Australia and Europe, in addition to the United States — they are also fighting bitterly for control of the sizable domestic Mexican retail drug market in places like Mexico City, Cancun, Tijuana and Juarez. Moreover, they are struggling to grab control of the lucrative petroleum theft racket, while also engaging in extortion, kidnapping, prostitution, human smuggling and other criminal activities.
In the end, I believe that Balkanization will continue to impact even the larger and stronger cartels such as Sinaloa and the CJNG [Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, or just New Generation]. I anticipate additional rounds of Sinaloa infighting and while the CJNG had been largely immune from the trend, the emergence of the Nueva Plaza cartel, which is composed mostly of former CJNG members under the direction of Carlos “El Cholo” Enrique Sanchez Martinez and Erick “El 85” Valencia Salazar, has showed that it, too, is vulnerable to greed and infighting.
Indeed, Gulf cartel leader Cardenas Guillen earned the nickname “El Mata Amigos” (the friend killer) for, unsurprisingly, turning on those close to him amid the greed-driven infighting. The amount of internecine conflict, however, has only grown since Cardenas Guillen’s 2003 arrest, as evidenced by recent murder trends, much of which stems from intracartel fighting, as well as battles among different groups.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is having a Social Jusstice Warrior diversity meltdown:
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairwoman Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) was set to make an unplanned trip to Washington from her district Monday amid an outcry from top black and Latino lawmakers over a lack of diversity in the campaign arm’s senior management ranks.
Bustos’ sudden return to D.C., just days after Congress left for a six-week-long August recess, comes as aides and lawmakers are calling for systematic changes to the DCCC, the party’s main election organ.
POLITICO reported last week that black and Hispanic lawmakers are furious with Bustos’ stewardship of the campaign arm. They say the upper echelon of the DCCC is bereft of diversity, and it is not doing enough to reach Latino voters and hire consultants of color. In addition, several of Bustos’ senior aides have left in the first six months of her tenure, including her chief of staff — a black woman — and her director of mail and polling director, both women.
In the most dramatic move so far, Texas Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Filemon Vela told POLITICO Sunday that Bustos should fire her top aide, DCCC executive director Allison Jaslow.
“The DCCC is now in complete chaos,” the pair said in a statement to POLITICO. “The single most immediate action that Cheri Bustos can take to restore confidence in the organization and to promote diversity is to appoint a qualified person of color, of which there are many, as executive director at once. We find the silence of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on this issue to be deafening.”
It’s lovely to see Democrats inflict the same “diversity” pain on themselves as they’ve tried to inflict on the rest of the country. The DCCC was already lagging badly behind Republican efforts, and a “diversity” witch hunt will only add to its problems.
It may be a bigger issue than you realize:
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ powerful campaign arm, has just abruptly purged half a dozen staffers. Why? Because they are white.
It appears that no one had anything against these particular staffers … except for the color of their skin. Although roughly half the committee’s full-time staff (13 of 27) were nonwhite, this was not enough for some Democratic members of Congress. They complained DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois had brought in too many white staffers when she won the position. And they put enough pressure on her that she sacrificed her loyal staffers to the god of diversity.
Even if all these staffers ended up with cushy lobbying jobs as a reward for their loyalty, this is still a lot more shocking than people perhaps realize.
There are two possible interpretations of this mass-purge at the DCCC. Either a few Democrats are making a racial issue out of a patronage question, once again knifing each other under the cover of intersectionality, or Democrats are genuinely angry that half the staff at the DCCC are white. As often happens with the Democratic Left, it is difficult to tell just where the insincerity ends and the fanaticism begins.
But either interpretation implies that this is not a party fit to govern.
“The biggest loser in Wednesday’s Detroit debate was sanity.”
Here’s a quick cheat sheet. All the Democrats support policies that would raise taxes. They all support policies that would make the country poorer because less energy independent. Some want to give free college tuition to illegal immigrants, all want many more immigrants, legal or illegal. Most think Trump should be impeached. Some want to abolish private insurance, most want ‘Medicare for all.’ Gov. Inslee insisted that ‘it is time to give people adequate mental health care,’ a statement that won a round of applause. Judging from what was said from the platform tonight, I think he may be right.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Baltimore murder rate worse than Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, driving asylum surge.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
The United States has officially withdrawn from the INF treaty. “The Russians have been flagrantly violating the treaty for years, and it doesn’t apply to China, which has massively built up its missile program, including intermediate-range systems.”
Speaking of China, don’t look now, but it looks like they’re about to Tiananmen Hong Kong.
Get woke, go broke: Remember Gillette’s “toxic masculinity” social justice warrior pandering commercial? “P&G reported a net loss of about $5.24 billion, or $2.12 per share, for the quarter ended June 30, due to an $8 billion non-cash writedown of Gillette.” Nothing says “woke” quite like destroying eight BILLION dollars of shareholder value…
Long, long, long article on Alan Deshowitz and his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. I remain pro-civil liberties and anti-kid-diddling. Most interesting tidbit: The raid on Epstein’s home produced “an expired passport that contained Epstein’s photograph alongside an assumed name, with the country of residency listed as Saudi Arabia.”
More on the subject: Derschowitz defends himself.
Campaign funds of the living dead!
Texas DPS implements soft decriminalization of marijuana:
Texas’ largest law enforcement agency is moving away from arresting people for low-level marijuana offenses. It’s the latest development in the chaos that has surrounded pot prosecution after state lawmakers legalized hemp this year.
As of July 10, all Texas Department of Public Safety officers have been instructed to issue a citation for people with a misdemeanor amount of the suspected drug — less than 4 ounces in possession cases — when possible, according to an interoffice memo obtained by The Texas Tribune. The citation requires a person to appear in court and face their criminal charges.
Those issued a citation for misdemeanor charges still face the same penalties if convicted — up to a year in jail and fine of $4,000.
I’d like to see actual decriminalization rather than selective enforcement, but you can argue that of all the laws DPS is required to enforce, enforcing marijuana prohibition (at least on adults) is a waste of time unless the driver is impaired.
“New York City Still Trying to Avoid A SCOTUS Fight Over Gun Law.” Because they know they’ll lose. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
Australian expedition sent to Antarctica to celebrate the golden age of Australian antarctic exploration. Like many golden age Antarctic expeditions, it was filled with disaster. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Why Snopes fears The Babylon Bee and feels the need to “fact check” them.
Two superintendents enter Whataburger, one superintendent leaves.
“Adrian Peterson Reportedly Made Over $100 Million But Owes Millions in Debt.”
Congratulations to Dwight for ten years of blogging.
Happy birthday, Herman Melville.
Bronypocalypse now.
Tags:Adrian Peterson, Alan Dershowitz, Allison Jaslow, Antarctica, Babylon Bee, Baltimore, Border Controls, Cheri Bustos, China, Crime, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democrats, Elections, Elijah Cummings, Filemon Vela, Gillette, Gulf Cartel, Hong Kong, INF Treaty, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, LinkSwarm, marijuana, Mexico, Military, New Generation drug cartel, NFL, Proctor & Gamble, Russia, San Antonio, Sinaloa Cartel, Snopes, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Texas DPS, Vicente Gonzalez, Welfare State, Whataburger
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, February 25th, 2019
I updated last week’s clown car update to note that Bernie Sanders was In, and he promptly raised $6 million for his campaign. Now we’re waiting on the other three Bs (Biden, Beto and Bloomberg) to make up their minds.
538 Presidential roundup.
538 polls.
Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.
15 Democratic contenders ranked by a Washington Post columnist, with Harris at the top, just in case you needed a nice tall glass of consensus MSM grab-fanny.
Now on to the clown car itself:
Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Out.
Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Learning toward In. All people know about him is a speech slamming Ted Cruz. Like slamming President Trump, that’s not exactly going to make you stand out from the field. Also, if he does run, his brother, James Bennet, will step down as New York Times option editor. Thanks for reminding everyone, yet again, how incestuously intermixed our elite mainstream media is with the Democratic Party.
Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning toward running. Hamlet is still expected to run. 538 notes that Biden not running wouldn’t be unprecedented, with Gore 2004 as the closest example, but the latter had just come off a huge losing general election effort. Vox wonders what happens if he doesn’t run.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Leaning toward In. In a shocking development, people who have received money from Michael Bloomberg are quite enthused with Michael Bloomberg running for President.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Silicon Valley loves Cory Booker. That could be a problem for him.”
Booker, long the darling of the tech industry and some of its marquee leaders, is traipsing into a transformed Silicon Valley when he touches down in town this weekend for his first fundraising trip here since he announced he was running for president. Friday lunch guests at the San Francisco home of David Shuh, Friday dinner guests at the 9,300-square-foot Piedmont home of Ali Partovi, and Saturday evening guests at the Atherton home of Gary Lauder (an heir to the Estée Lauder beauty empire) are paying up to $2,800 each to rub shoulders with Cory Booker.
Then again, most have probably met him before. The presidential candidate has collected half a million dollars from the internet industry over his five years in the Senate, from people like LinkedIn’s Hoffman, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Emerson Collective founder Laurene Powell Jobs, and early Facebook exec Sean Parker.
Why? He is culturally of this place, donors say.
But times have changed, and Silicon Valley is no longer merely an ATM for Cory Booker.
Twitter is no longer primarily a place to find an elderly man snowtrapped in his home in Newark, like Booker once did — it is now also a cesspool of hate and misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg is no longer a hero brandishing a $100 million check in a well-meaning attempt to save Newark’s schools, like Booker once described him — he is a bogeyman who badly mishandled our last election and is now as divisive as any of the people running for president.
Silicon Valley is itself a minefield that in some ways sums up the broader political challenge for Booker in 2020: He’s running as a liberal on issues including tech regulation, but the progressive left holds him in suspicion — and he could face more as he begins to court tech money more openly.
Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Likely In. Say’s he’ll make a decision next month and swears he’ll be the most pro-union candidate. Would being the darling of an ever-fading part of the blue coalition be enough to win in a divided field? Maybe.
Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1.
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He gets lots of good press…in Indiana. Elsewhere? Not so much.
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He was in Denison, Iowa. Want a live feed of his Iowa tour? If so, what’s wrong with you?
Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not. But she met with Biden and Klobuchar. Her endorsement could be a serious boost for Klobuchar. For Biden? Doubt it.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Out.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. He appeared in Iowa for crowds of 20 to 40.
Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. He appeared on The Steele Report in Waterloo, Iowa. Said voters are not interested in socialism. I’m starting to get the hunch that Delany may hang around in the field longer than you might think.
Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Twenty Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Tulsi Gabbard, including the fact she’s of American Samoan, not Indian, decent. Gets a Guardian profile.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She hired two more Iowa staffers and Pfizer executive Sally Susman is hosting a fundraiser for her. And she’s already losing to ranch dressing.
Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Out.
California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says she’s not a socialist. Heh: “Viewers Starting To Doubt Objectivity Of Reporter With ‘KAMALA 2020’ Face Tattoo.”
Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: Probably In. Appeared on a stage in Ames with Castro and Harris. Also says he’s not cut out to be a senator. Who’s asking you?
Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Gov. Jay Inslee says he could decide on presidential run ‘as soon as’ this week.” Wait, I thought he was already in. I mean, he even has a SuperPAC Sometimes it’s hard to see all the way to the back of the clown car…
Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. Here’s this week’s “Klobucher treats her staff like shit” article, including the “she ate a salad with a comb” bit that got covered everywhere.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run. He was “close to making a decision” seven days ago, then nada.
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley: Sounding doubtful.
Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Starting to seem doubtful. Other than a foreign policy chat at the Brookings Institution, it’s radio silence on the Moulton front.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: Maybe. He’s days away from that “end of the month” decision window. “Beto Tries to Trick Hispanics Into Thinking He’s One of Them“:
The Hamlet of West Texas—who recently retired from Congress after somehow managing to lose a Texas Senate race against an opponent with sky-high negatives despite raising more than $70 million from a national donor base, and then went on a “listening tour” across America to find himself—recently acknowledged that he is trying to make up his mind about whether to spend 2020 running for president or taking another stab at the Senate by challenging Republican incumbent John Cornyn.
My guess is that O’Rourke will ultimately travel whatever road is lined with the most television cameras. Of course, vanity—even to the point of narcissism—is not a disqualifier in a politician. It’s practically a job requirement.
Snip.
Take the name, which he switches on and off like a light switch. He was “Robert” at birth, “Beto” in childhood, “Robert” again in boarding school and at Columbia, and “Beto” again when he returned to El Paso to run for office.
Either this guy has an identity crisis the size of Texas, or he is just crafty enough to try to have his flan and eat it too—becoming Latin, or a white male, whichever is more convenient.
The urban legend has it that O’Rourke came by his nickname the ol’ fashioned way—by having it bestowed upon him by Latino friends in El Paso, who thought he was pretty decent for a white guy, dubbed him an honorary Mexican, and declared that, from that day forward, he would be known as “Beto.” According to this narrative, O’Rourke became Latino simply by rubbing shoulders with Latinos. It’s like how you get poison oak.
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan: Maybe? Still thinking about it.
Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Nothing pays quite like pimping socialism: “Sanders Blows Past Other Candidates, Raised $5.9 Million in First 24 Hours.” “The Bernie backlash has already begun.”
Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
California Representative Eric Swalwell: Leaning toward In. The big Swalwell story last week was him tweeting about not having coffee at Trump Tower. Because nothing says “sacrifice” like walking an extra half block…
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Backs “reparations” for black people and American Indians. The jokes pretty much write themselves. (Which didn’t stop The Babylon Bee: “Elizabeth Warren Claims Two Men In Colonial Outfits Assaulted Her With Smallpox-Infested Blankets.”)
Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. (She has 2.6 million followers.) “Marianne Williamson Wants to Be Your Healer in Chief.” Believe it or not, the article is actually sappier than the headline implies. Sweet Jesus, the women who buy healing crystals finally have their candidate.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: Running but no one cares. Twitter. Facebook. Finally, a man willing to take on the robot threat.
Tags:2020 Presidential Race, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Babylon Bee, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Bill De Blasio, Cory Booker, Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, Eric Schmidt, Eric Swalwell, Google, Hillary Clinton, Jay Inslee, Joe Biden, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Marc Benioff, Marianne Williamson, Media Watch, Michael Bennet, Michael Bloomberg, New York Times, Pete Buttigieg, robots, Sally Susman, Sherrod Brown, Tulsi Gabbard
Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, unions | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 21st, 2019
The perpetrator of the fake hate crime du jour is now reaping his rewards:
CHICAGO — “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett has been officially charged with felony disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report, officials announced on Wednesday.
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office said Smollett filed the false police report claiming he was attacked on Jan. 29. A court hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. CT Thursday.
Earlier on Wednesday, Smollett “officially classified” a suspect in a criminal investigation for allegedly filing a false police report, according to a tweet from Chicago police spokesman Officer Anthony Guglielmi.
A Cook County grand jury was hearing evidence just weeks after the young actor reported being the victim of a hate crime on January 29, the police spokesman said. Filing a false police report is a Class 4 felony.
Smollett’s transformation from victim to suspect in a reported crime that captured national headlines came on the same day that a high-ranking police source said Chicago detectives were working to obtain the actor’s financial records.
So: Filing fake hate crime reports to paint your political opponents as racist gay-bashers is bad, mmmmkay?
Now let’s go to the memes:
And The Babylon Bee: “Jussie Smollett Offered Job At CNN After Fabricating News Story Out Of Thin Air.”
But wait! There’s even a cherry on top! Snopes actually fact-checked the Babylon Bee story: “This was not a genuine news story, although some readers mistook it for such.”
Conclusion: Snopes has some really, really stupid readers…
Tags:Babylon Bee, Chicago, Crime, Democrats, hate crime hoax, Jussie Smollett, Trump Derangement Syndrome
Posted in Crime, Democrats | No Comments »
Friday, August 3rd, 2018
I’m hoping that this week is Peak Busy for me. Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:
Rasmussen: “Today’s [President Donald Trump] approval ratings among black voters: 29% This time last year: 15%.” Overall Trump approval rating at 50%.
Related: “President Donald Trump was lauded by inner-city pastors, including one who said he may go down as the ‘most pro-black president’ in recent history, during a White House roundtable on Wednesday that was focused on efforts to reform the prison system.” (Hat tip: Da Tech Guy via The Other McCain.)
ObamaCare is now optional:
At long last, the Trump administration has created a “freedom option” for people suffering under Obamacare. A final rulemaking issued Wednesday reverses an Obama-era regulation that exposed the sick to medical underwriting. The new rule will expand consumer protections for the sick, cover up to two million uninsured people, reduce premiums for millions more, protect conscience rights, and make Obamacare’s costs more transparent. And unlike President Barack Obama’s implementation of his signature healthcare legislation, it works within the confines of the law.
Federal law exempts “short-term, limited duration” health insurance from having to carry the unwanted coverage and hidden taxes Obamacare requires. Many consumers have understandably taken refuge from soaring Obamacare premiums in short-term plans.
Hoping to force those consumers into Obamacare plans, the Obama administration sabotaged short-term plans by stripping them of crucial consumer protections. It cut the maximum plan term from 12 months to three months, and forbade issuers from offering “renewal guarantees” that allow the sick to continue purchasing short-term policies at healthy-person rates. State insurance regulators protested that these restrictions literally stripped sick patients of their coverage.
Wednesday’s rule reinstates and even expands the consumer protections Obama curtailed. It allows short-term plans to last 12 months, and allows insurers to offer them with renewal guarantees.
You read that right. Democrats curtailed consumer protections; Republicans are expanding them.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Yesterday’s controversy de jour: “Sarah Jeong: NY Times stands by racist tweets reporter.”
Andrew Sullivan on the same topic:
Is the newest member of the New York Times editorial board, Sarah Jeong, a racist?
From one perspective — that commonly held by people outside the confines of the political left — she obviously is. A series of tweets from 2013 to 2015 reveal a vicious hatred of an entire group of people based only on their skin color. If that sounds harsh, let’s review a few, shall we? “White men are bullshit,” is one. A succinct vent, at least. But notice she’s not in any way attacking specific white men for some particular failing, just all white men for, well, existing. Or this series of ruminations: “have you ever tried to figure out all the things that white people are allowed to do that aren’t cultural appropriation. there’s literally nothing. like skiing, maybe, and also golf. white people aren’t even allowed to have polo. did you know that. like don’t you just feel bad? why can’t we give white people a break. lacrosse isn’t for white people either. it must be so boring to be white.” Or this: “basically i’m just imagining waking up white every morning with a terrible existential dread that i have no culture.” I can’t say I’m offended by this — it’s even mildly amusing, if a little bonkers. (Has she read, say, any Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson?) But it does reveal a worldview in which white people — all of them — are cultural parasites and contemptibly dull.
A little more disturbing is what you might call “eliminationist” rhetoric — language that wishes an entire race could be wiped off the face of the earth: “#cancelwhitepeople.” Or: “White people have stopped breeding. you’ll all go extinct soon. that was my plan all along.” One simple rule I have about describing groups of human beings is that I try not to use a term that equates them with animals. Jeong apparently has no problem doing so. Speaking of animals, here’s another gem: “Dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.” Or you could describe an entire race as subhuman: “Are white people genetically disposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.” And then there’s this simple expression of the pleasure that comes with hatred: “oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.” I love that completely meretricious “old” to demean them still further. And that actual feeling: joy at cruelty!
Another indicator that these statements might be racist comes from replacing the word “white” with any other racial group. #cancelblackpeople probably wouldn’t fly at the New York Times, would it? Or imagine someone tweeting that Jews were only “fit to live underground like groveling goblins” or that she enjoyed “being cruel to old Latina women,” and then being welcomed and celebrated by a liberal newsroom. Not exactly in the cards.
Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro admits that socialism doesn’t work. Just think how much pain could be avoided if he had admitted this before people had to eat their dogs…
California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein had a Chinese spy on her staff for nearly 20 years. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Mistaken police call for an active shooter at a McAllen mall turns out to be an illegal alien robbery gang. Result? Seven illegal alien criminal suspects arrested.
Fort Myers, Florida: “Police Officer Dies After Being Shot By Illegal Alien.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“Noncitizens across U.S. find it easy to register to vote, cast ballots.” And some have even had other people do it for them without their knowledge… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Sheldon Silver Sentenced: Seven in Sing Sing. (Actually, it’s not clear the former New York Assembly speaker will be serving his sentence in Sing Sing, but we can only hope, for the sake of the alliteration…)
Maryland forces 90-year old woman to tear down wheelchair ramp she built for he own home.
Kane bodyslams Democratic opponent in Mayor of Knox County race.
Tommy Robinson freed in the UK.
Related tweet:
Woman rams car for having a Trump bumper sticker.
China cracks down on illegal coffins. Which is to say, any coffins, since cremation is now mandated. Including seizing and destroying coffins old people have spent their entire lives saving for.
“He Made the Most Beautiful Films of All Time and They Put Him in Prison For It.” He being Sergei Parajanov and they being the Soviet Union. (Hat tip: Don Webb on Facebook.)
Liberal NYC lawyer who worked under both Bloomberg and De Blasio talks about just how bad De Blasio sucks:
When Bill de Blasio became mayor of New York in 2014, things changed drastically. I started to hear rumblings early on. My former colleagues who were dedicated public servants were concerned by a large-scale rollback of Bloomberg’s strategic initiatives. These seemed to be based on partisan politics and black-and-white thinking as opposed to critical analysis. It was very disappointing for me since I had also voted for de Blasio.
Although I was still working in the same social-services agency where I had remained at the end of Bloomberg’s term, my job changed radically. I had no contact with the new commissioner who appeared to be disengaged from substantive discussions about social-services programs for an extremely vulnerable population. In fact, she was much more preoccupied with renovating her office — I heard her new desk alone cost thousands of dollars. She even requested that a private bathroom be built for her. She had the attitude of an oligarch and was disturbed that she had to vet invitations to galas through legal and City Hall. She wanted carte blanche to attend expensive events.
She also refused to meet with the lawyers in her department and she kept the door to her office closed and didn’t know the names of the people who worked in her agency.
Under my commissioner, there were no benchmarks, no goals and she did not hold regular meetings with her general counsel. Under her tenure, the legal unit was gutted. And there were no consequences for failing to meet performance goals because there were no performance goals.
Comics video blogger Jeremy Hambly attacked at GenCon. “The Quartering also provided another update claiming five eyewitness have identified the attacker as Matt Loter, the owner of Elm City Games.” GenCon promptly expelled Loter. Ha! Just kidding!
Liberal Chicago Sun-Times reporter: “Donald Trump is going to be re-elected in 2020. The Democrats don’t have anyone who can touch him. Bank on it.”
“Millennial Drops Support For Socialism After Learning How Hard It Is To Get Avocado Toast In Venezuela.” The Babylon Bee has just been tearing it up recently. I probably need to add them to the blog roll.
Tags:Andrew Sullivan, Babylon Bee, Bill De Blasio, black, China, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Donald Trump, Economics, Florida, Foreign Policy, Fort Myers, GenCon, Jeremy Hambly, liberal racism, LinkSwarm, Matt Loter, McAllen, Media Watch, Michael Bloomberg, New York, New York City, New York Times, Nicolas Maduro, ObamaCare, polls, racism, Regulation, Republicans, Sarah Jeong, Sergei Parajanov, Sheldon Silver, Social Justice Warriors, Soviet Union, spying, Texas, Tommy Robinson, UK, Venezuela, voting fraud
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »