It’s amazing how quickly post-Obama Democrats went from at least pretending to care about border security to absolutely opposing deporting any illegal alien felons for any reason. Evidently nothing will prevent Democrats from treating ICE agents as the enemy.
Well, almost nothing.
It turns out that Democrats can be brought back into compliance using the universal language of politics: Money.
Houston’s new ordinance prohibiting police from detaining suspects with administrative warrants from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may cause the city to lose $110 million in state grants for public safety.
In a 12 to 5 vote last week, the Houston City Council approved a proposition submitted by Council Members Alejandra Salinas, Abbie Kamin, and Ed Pollard that rescinded a previous Houston Police Department policy under which officers could detain suspects with the administrative warrants for up to 30 minutes while waiting for ICE to respond.
On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office notified Houston Mayor John Whitmire that the city’s newly approved policy breached agreements with the state to receive certain grants for public safety purposes.
Should the governor’s office rescind the grants, the city will be required to repay $110 million already received. Earlier this month, City Controller Chris Hollins forecast that the city will face a budget deficit of $174 million by the end of the fiscal year.
Even for a city as big as Houston, $110 million is a lot of cheddar. And lo and behold, Houston City Council appears to be changing course.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire is calling for a repeal of a city ordinance limiting cooperation between the Houston Police Department and federal immigration authorities, just days after voting in favor of it himself, as Gov. Greg Abbott threatens to pull more than $110 million in state public safety grants.
The ordinance, passed by the city council in a 12-5 vote on April 8, eliminates a prior requirement that HPD officers hold individuals for up to 30 minutes to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to respond to the scene. Under the new policy, a routine stop ends when the original lawful basis for the stop ends. The measure also adds a quarterly public reporting requirement for HPD detailing how often officers inquire about immigration status or contact federal authorities.
Snip.
Whitmire voted in favor of the ordinance last week, saying at the time it reflected existing HPD practices. By this week, his position had shifted. Speaking after a press conference about the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the mayor said the city had no choice but to act.
“We’ve got to correct that policy,” Whitmire said. “There’s only one opinion that matters, and that’s the governor’s. We can’t survive in a city that does not have public safety funding to the tune of losing $110 million.”
He also blamed the ordinance’s sponsors, saying three council members running for office decided to elevate the issue unnecessarily. Salinas is currently running for Harris County Attorney.
Whitmire has called a special city council meeting for Friday morning to vote on whether to repeal the ordinance. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has also opened an investigation into whether the new policy violates state law.
The ordinance drew criticism from the Houston Police Officers’ Union from the start. Union president Douglas Griffith argued that council members were overstepping into matters the department had already handled internally under Police Chief Noe Diaz, and warned that without a defined window for ICE to respond, individual officers could face personal liability.
The union also noted that only around 75 traffic stops last year resulted in someone with an immigration warrant being turned over to ICE, and framed the ordinance as a distraction from the city’s $170 million budget deficit.
The five council members who voted against the ordinance—Amy Peck, Willie Davis, Fred Flickinger, Twila Carter, and Mary Nan Huffman—issued a joint statement warning that the measure would make officers afraid to do their jobs and expose the city to potential lawsuits.
The dispute carries legal weight beyond the grant question. Senate Bill 4, signed by Abbott in 2017, requires local governments and law enforcement agencies to comply with federal immigration detainer requests and imposes penalties including removal from office, fines up to $25,000 per day, and criminal charges for officials who knowingly fail to comply.
Money talks. Democrats will do just about anything to pander to the open borders activists that increasingly make up the party’s woke mind virus-infected ideological core, but evidently all sorts of “immutable principles” turn out to be very mutable indeed when there’s real money involved.
Happy Good Friday! More Democrat voting fraud, Iran manages to shoot down a couple of planes, more California fraud under Governor Hairgel, Commies gonna commie, Microsoft behaving (and performing) badly, Pakistan’s nefarious actions backfire (yet again), the best rifle for a militia, and a list of bad actors in the job market.
This is Democrat Joel Caldwell of the “Coalition for the People’s Agenda,” a Fulton County ballot-harvesting NGO chief—caught on tape admitting it all.
Democrats are stuffing ballot drop boxes with fraudulent votes, and it’s all caught on videotape. He also admits this is how they rigged the 2020 election and why Democrats fight to the death against voter ID.
• They pay people to illegally ballot-harvest.
• They bribe ballot counters and election officials.
• They forge and falsify ballots.
And the Atlanta mayor straight-up stole the election.
He says it all himself—on tape.
Joel Caldwell:
“That’s what happened in 2020, ’cause that’s when the ballots—they started stuffing them ballots and people stuffing them ballots, and they got videotape of them, but nobody talks about it. That’s why Trump was making that big deal about it, because you see it on videotape. It’s like, come on. We see the man pull up and put a hundred ballots in this box. You know? You can’t do that sh*t.
So groups were paying people to do just that—drop off ballots.”
He continues: That’s why Democrats fight to the death against voter ID laws.
Joel Caldwell:
“That’s why the Republicans are always trying to fight the ballot—you know, that’s the whole argument, because Republicans are the ones who put out that kind of stuff, so they want voter IDs and stuff. Democrats are fighting voter ID laws. It’s a two-sided thing. That’s what they’re fighting over. Republicans are trying to say, ‘Hey, look, we got proof of this sh*t.’
And the Democrats are like, well, we don’t want voter ID laws, and we want to make it where you can just drop your ballot off—online voting and different things they try to come up with.”
Iran manages to shoot down both an F-15 and an A-10 on the same day. Two of the three downed airmen have already been rescued. It’s worth noting that neither of those planes are remotely stealthy.
Earlier this week, Jose Medina-Medina, an illegal immigrant whom the Biden administration caught and released at the border, murdered Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman. Medina-Medina had previously been arrested at least twice in Chicago, yet was released by local authorities, thanks to their sanctuary policies. According to reports, he approached her, raised a gun, and opened fire as she tried to flee. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Democratic Party’s response has been nothing short of horrific.
Snip.
The reaction from Democrats to Gorman’s death has been so despicable that Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) unloaded on his own party over it.
“Why can’t we just talk about that life lost?” Fetterman told Fox News’s Bill Hemmer. “Why can’t we just acknowledge that this is serious, serious failure?”
Fetterman also invoked the Laken Riley Act, the legislation requiring the detention and deportation of illegal immigrants who commit crimes. Fetterman was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote for it — a fact he’s clearly not going to let his colleagues forget.
“I think only seven or eight Democrats even voted for [the] Laken Riley [Act],” he said. “Why can’t you just agree that if you’re breaking the law and you’re already here illegally, deport them? I just don’t understand.”
He continued, “Tragedies like what happened to that young woman, they are gonna continue to happen,” he said. “That’s beyond common sense.”
Hemmer pressed him on why Democrats can’t seem to get there, and Fetterman gave an honest, if uncomfortable, answer.
A Just the News investigation has detailed how a wealthy Marxist activist best known for the funding of a global financial network both inside the U.S. and around the world has extensive ties to Chinese Communist Party-linked organizations inside of China.
China-based entrepreneur Neville Roy Singham lives and works in Shanghai, — which the American businessman now calls home — where he runs his network of pro-CCP news sites and other China-linked endeavors. Singham, who sold his ThoughtWorks tech company in 2017, has used the money to fund openly communist endeavors worldwide. Just the News can show that inside of China, Singham and his network collaborate with an array of Chinese propaganda sites, Chinese universities, and other Chinese groups committed to advancing the CCP.
Singham leads and funds a global financial and activist network that operates inside the U.S. and many other countries, and while he rarely grabs the spotlight for himself in public speeches, he did so in November through the Chinese release of a report that sought to denigrate U.S. and Allied Power contributions to WWII.
Singham admitted during a CCP-backed forum in Shanghai in November that he had written the 174-page report to combat the U.S.-backed “international rules-based order” — which he called a “lie” — and to help the CCP and its longtime strongman Xi Jinping achieve a “new world order” more favorable to China. This report and the conference where it was introduced helped expose the extensive CCP-linked network in which Singham is ensconced within China.
Just the News reviewed hundreds of pages of Chinese business documents and U.S. tax records, English and Chinese language news sites, Chinese government websites, and more in an effort to provide the most comprehensive look yet at Singham’s operations from his perch in Shanghai.
Also: “Singham colludes with CCP to rewrite history of WWII to advance Xi Jinping’s ‘new world order.'”
The wealthy Marxist businessman behind a sprawling far-left network is collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party to denigrate the Allied actions in World War II in an effort to upend the U.S.-led international system and to advance Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “new world order.”
China-based businessman Neville Roy Singham leads and funds a global financial and activist network that operates inside the U.S. and many other countries, and while he rarely grabs the spotlight for himself in public speeches, he did so in November through the release of a report that denigrates U.S. and Allied Power contributions to WWII.
Singham directly admitted during a CCP-backed forum in Shanghai in November that he had written the 174-page report to combat the U.S.-backed “international rules-based order” — which he called a “lie” — and to help the CCP and its longtime strongman Xi achieve a “new world order” more favorable to China.
The wealthy communist activist summed up the crux of his WWII argument thusly: “As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War (WAFW), the Western powers spin their familiar tale: U.S. industrial might and British resolve saved the world from fascism. This is a lie. The truth burns in the numbers: while the Western powers calculated their economic advantage, the Soviet and Chinese peoples paid in blood. Fascism was defeated not by Anglo-American capital but by socialist leadership and mass heroism – a brilliant strategy from Moscow and Yan’an, unbreakable resilience from workers and peasants who refused to surrender, and a sacrifice that saved humanity from slavery.”
Multiple senior HHS officials estimate that, under Gavin Newsom, California’s state Medicaid program has lost 25 percent of its budget to fraud. This would mean it is currently losing $50 billion a year to scammers, fraudsters, and organized crime rings.
Snip.
We conducted interviews with public officials, fraud experts, and political figures, and reviewed hundreds of pages of government reports, state audits, criminal indictments, and other public records on California fraud. From unemployment insurance and Medicaid to failed homeless initiatives and welfare programs, seemingly every state program has been compromised by criminals. The best estimates suggest that, on the governor’s watch, fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen at least $180 billion from taxpayers.
In this firehose torrent of news, less attention than is proper has been paid to the fact that we’re finally going back to the moon. Or, technically, around it, since they’re doing the figure flyby of the dark side. They’re already halfway there…
Though the mainstream media will undoubtedly portray them as “mostly peaceful,” much of what we saw at the “No Kings” protests Saturday was anything but, whether through actions or symbols used during the demonstrations.
We’ll start off with New York City, where the Communist flags were in full effect:
BREAKING: Leftists in NYC chant “There is only one solution, Communist revolution” at the No Kings rally.
Communist flags at the NYC ‘No Kings’ protest pic.twitter.com/bIh2UiwkDI
— NJEG Media (@NJEGmedia) March 28, 2026
Snip.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz (D) was pledging solidarity with the Somali community:
“We will never leave the side of our Somali Minnesotans. Here’s our pledge to you, our Somali Minnesotans, your grandchildren will still be here when that orange clown is in the dustbin of history.”
I guess its too much to ask a Democrat governor to stand with actual Americans. Plus rioting in Denver.
Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case challenging a Mississippi statute allowing mail-in ballot received up to five days after Election Day to be counted.
The law appears to defy three federal laws that require that federal elections be held the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. The question is what did Congress mean by Election Day. Was it a day, five days later, a month later. Does Election Day mean election season.
The 5th Circuit ruled against Mississippi, which brought the case to SCOTUS. It could have profound impact on Democrats’ mail-in ballot strategy if ballots must be received by election official by Election Day.
I discussed the case and oral argument, plus redistricting and the Equal Protection Projects challenge to discriminatory NY State education practices, with Jesse Kelly, who tweeted out the portion regarding NY State: “It appears Kathy Hochul is defying the Supreme Court.”
Pam Bondi is out as attorney general, President Trump announced Thursday, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will serve as acting attorney general.
“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump said in a statement on Truth Social. “Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900.”
“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General,” he added.
The announcement came just one day after Bondi was at the White House to attend Trump’s address to the nation on the Iran war. She had also accompanied Trump to the Supreme Court to watch oral arguments in a birthright citizenship case.
The handling of the Epstein files and the lack of progress on indicting anti-Trump conspirators like James Comey were suggested as reasons for Trump letting her go.
Target has gone from pushing the radical transsexual agenda to being boycotted by Randi Weingarten for not condemning ICE. I haven’t shopped there once since they started boosting the tranny agenda, but maybe it’s time to go back again…
Pakistani is enjoying a nice, rich dinner of blowback.
For decades, the Islamabad establishment has played a dangerous game, nurturing the Taliban as a strategic depth agent against India. Today, this plan backfires, and the resulting explosion of violence threatens to send a fresh wave of illegal immigration toward the already strained borders of the European Union.
The “open war” declared by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif marks the end of a thirty-year illusion. The apprentice has not only left the master. He has now turned openly against him. The March 16 strike on Kabul was the moment masks fell. When Pakistani warplanes hammered a rehabilitation centre in the heart of the Afghan capital, the “Islamic brotherhood” of the two neighbours officially ceased to be.
Islamabad claims it is hunting the TTP — the Pakistani Taliban who find sanctuary under the wings of their Afghan cousins. Kabul denies it. The result is a cycle of diplomacy-in-name-only, where the only language spoken is the language of the air strike, the AK-47 and the suicide vest. This is the reality of the post-American vacuum.
Critics of the Biden presidency, watching from America and Europe, see the vindication of their most cynical instincts. They warned that the vacuum left by the 2021 withdrawal would be filled by chaos. They were right. Just look at Bagram Airfield. It once was the crown jewel of American power. It has now become a trophy in a war between two states the West can no longer control.
While the world’s eyes are fixed on the Iranian plateau, South Asia is burning. The region’s most volatile border is no longer Kashmir. It is the frontier where the Taliban’s jihadist agenda meets Pakistani nuclear-armed desperation. How safe is the world when a nuclear power goes to war with a ghost? The answer is terrifying. Pakistan’s military capacity dwarfs that of the Taliban, yet the Taliban have time, resolve and a complete lack of accountability.
While the Pakistani economy teeters and its domestic security implodes with a second insurgency front up against Baloch separatists in the south, the Afghan Taliban are playing the long game. They see a Pakistan that is overextended and a West that is exhausted. They are not interested in ceasefires brokered by Qatar or Turkey. They are interested in survival and the expansion of their ideological reach.
Almost nobody talks about it, but we are witnessing the “Gaza-fication” of the Durand Line. The same knowhow of displacement and grazing the land is being applied to the tribal areas. Millions of thousands of people have already been displaced. But the humanitarian cost is only a footnote in a larger, more brutal calculation.
For Islamabad, this is an existential fight against the TTP thorn in its side. For Kabul, it is about defending the sovereignty they fought for twenty years to reclaim. Neither side can afford to blink. The light of the old order is fading. The era where the Pakistani military could manage Afghanistan like a colonial fiefdom is over. The trust is dead.
Trump’s “America First” doctrine means that if Pakistan wants to fight this war, it will do so without a blank check from the Pentagon. The bitter truth for the region is that old security guarantees are gone. We are entering an era of fluidity, where borders are written in fire. The “special relationship” between Islamabad and Kabul has become hatred. The Taliban have proven they can survive an American occupation. Surviving Pakistan’s aggression should not be that hard.
And then there are all of those “refugees” Euroelites seem bound and determined to import. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
The attack involved a sophisticated mix of long-range unmanned systems, likely between eight and fifteen primary strike drones supported by smaller decoys designed to saturate Russian air defenses. These drones traveled approximately one thousand kilometers from Ukrainian territory, penetrating deep into Russian airspace and reaching the Gulf of Finland near the Estonian border. Evidence suggests the use of fixed-wing kamikaze drones optimized for endurance and precision. Ukrainians also utilized small prop-planes modified to fly as unmanned aircraft, mounting droppable Fab bombs on the bottom, which could be dropped on target, in addition to the craft being used as a kamikaze platform.
Also:
Ukraine has delivered a decisive strategic blow just as Russia expected to capitalize on soaring oil prices driven by the Iran war, but got its export system crippled instead. With unimaginable 40% of its oil export capacity wiped out, ports burning for days, and follow-up strikes continuing, the question is no longer whether Russia can recover quickly, but whether Ukraine will strike again before Russia has the chance to do so.
After over four years of war, Ukraine’s military says it’s testing an exoskeleton in the field that can help soldiers more easily load artillery and run at speeds of up to 12 mph over sustained periods. The tests would mark one of the first known examples of exoskeletons used on the front lines of an active military operation.
A Facebook video shared late last week by Ukraine’s 7th Air Assault Corps shows a handful of soldiers putting on the device while inside of a muddy artillery trench. The device itself wraps around a soldier’s waist and legs and is supported by a back brace. The military claims that it can reduce overall load on leg muscles by 30 percent. In practice, that means the devices should make it easier for soldiers to pick up and load heavy artillery rounds. Each round can weigh upwards of 100 pounds, depending on the particular caliber used. Since a soldier on the battlefield may load several dozen of those runs every day, all of that weight adds up and can increase the odds of injury or fatigue.
Not quite Heinlein’s powered armor, but we’re getting there…
Paxton’s office has now proposed detailed rules to implement the statute. The proposal was submitted to the Secretary of State on March 16 and published in the Texas Register on March 27, triggering a public comment period before the rules can be finalized.
The draft rules flesh out how SB 17 will work in practice, with the Office of the Attorney General as the central enforcement hub for the ban.
One of the most significant features is a new duty to report suspected violations.
Under the proposal, anyone involved in facilitating a real estate transaction—such as mortgage lenders, title insurance companies, property insurers, appraisers, and licensed real estate professionals—would be required to report any suspected SB 17 violations to the attorney general.
Complaints would have to be submitted either through an online complaint form on the OAG’s website or by mail to a designated address. Failure to report may subject entities to enforcement action once the rules are in place, potentially deputizing the real estate industry to help police foreign adversary land deals.
The rules would also place a tight lid on information that reaches Paxton’s office.
All complaints, civil investigative demands, and related materials submitted to or issued by the OAG would be treated as confidential and not subject to public disclosure, except when disclosure is required by law. That means Texans may see enforcement actions and lawsuits, but not necessarily the complaints and background investigation files that triggered them.
Wither Canada? “The 177,000 signature threshold has now been passed, officially clearing the requirement for an Alberta independence referendum on October 19th.”
John Cleese: “The British do not like the kind of diversity that intends to take over Britain and kill any infidel who does not convert to Islam.”
Weirdly, Microsoft is also saying that “Microsoft says Copilot is for entertainment purposes only, not serious use — firm pushing AI hard to consumers and businesses tells users not to rely on it for important advice.” Which is ironic, since right now its website touts Copilot as “AI built for work.”
Stephen Green: And the first piece of software to break on the moon mission? Microsoft Outlook.
And speaking of Microsoft woes, “Microsoft closes worst quarter on Wall Street since 2008 on AI concerns.”
Speaking of bad actors in the job market: “Outrage as Oracle makes thousands of foreign-worker requests amid layoff bloodbath.”
As thousands of Oracle employees awoke on Tuesday to an email informing them they were being laid off, the workers likely didn’t know the tech company had been busy trying to hire foreign staff.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, Oracle filed for roughly 3,126 petitions to employ H-1B workers in fiscal years 2025 and 2026. Employers must submit the paperwork when seeking to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations like technology. Some 436 of those petitions were filed this year alone.
Amazon, which in January said it would axe 16,000 corporate employees, has filed for some 2,675 H-1B petitions during the same two-year fiscal period. That came on top of news in October that the retail giant was axing 14,000 corporate workers.
What’s the best gun for a militia? No surprise that three different gun experts (including Ian McCollum) all pick the AK-47.
Critical Drinker finally watches Mr. Inbetween, and really likes it. It’s been on my radar for a while, but there doesn’t seem to be a US DVD or Blu-Ray release of it, and I don’t have any streaming service.
Some Iran War updates, Russo-Ukrainian War updates, Democrats, Trannies, and Tranny Democrat child sex offenders, a Democrat judge bonds out a would-be jihad mass murderer, Bible discussion turns a bus rider stabby, and gamers come out against AI “assistance.” Plus: Marlene Dietrich, show us your guns!
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Still having the occasional 429 error, but if I wait an hour, they seem to clear.
President Trump weighs boots on the ground options in Iran. In addition to the Marines, the storied 82nd Airborne Division is an option.
IRGC “Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naeini killed in overnight strike.” “Naeini had been the public face of Iran’s military communications throughout the conflict.” Not anymore…
When co-host David Friedberg asked Fetterman point-blank, “Who do you think leads the Democratic Party today?” the Pennsylvania senator didn’t flinch. “Oh, we don’t have one,” he said. “I think the TDS, that’s the leader right now. You know, right now our party is governed by the TDS.”
Fetterman then described what that governance actually looks like in practice – a kind of loyalty test that runs in reverse. Opposition to Trump has become the organizing principle, the ideological north star. Agree with anything the other side does and you face consequences. “It’s made it virtually impossible, without being punished, as a Democrat, to agree something’s good, or ‘I agree with the other side,'” he said.
He then cited Operation Epic Fury – the U.S. military campaign against Iran – as the latest illustration of the problem. Fetterman said he is “literally the only Democrat […] in Congress, that I’ve come across that’s saying, ‘I think it’s a great thing to break and destroy the Iranian regime.’ I think it’s entirely appropriate to hold them accountable.”
Fetterman correctly pointed out that this is not a fringe or even partisan position, historically. Every Democrat who ran for president in recent memory vowed Iran would never get a nuclear weapon. Now that it’s actually happening, the party’s response has been mostly blind criticism of President Trump for finally taking action.
Fetterman previously accused Democrats of refusing to put “country over party” over the Iran strikes.
“The last two professional candidates for the Democratic Party all agreed that we can never allow Iran to acquire nuclear bombs, and that’s made that possible now. I think we can say, ‘Hey, that’s a great thing. That makes the world more safe, more secure and holds Iran accountable,’” he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity earlier this month, after 53 House Democrats voted against a resolution declaring that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism — something which isn’t remotely in doubt. “That’s almost 25% of Democrats in the House that can’t just call Iran the world’s biggest terrorism underwriter,” Fetterman added.
“Virtually every Democrat that I’m aware of says we can never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb, and they were a significant risk to America,” Fetterman continued. “I know why they [Democrats] don’t say that now because I’m aware that it is very damaging as a Democrat to just happen to agree with the president on anything. But, for me, that’s easy — country over party.”
Deep State functionaries seem unclear on tricky concepts like “chain of command” and “democracy.” “”US intel hid Chinese 2020 election meddling from Trump because they opposed his policies.” “Dr. Barry A. Zulauf, a member of the Senior National Intelligence Service reported that others in the intelligence community said ‘I don’t want my intelligence going to the White House where it will be used by that vulgarian in the Oval Office to support policies against China with which I personally disagree.'”
Analysts inside the U.S. intelligence community sought to conceal evidence of Chinese influence efforts from President Donald Trump during the 2020 election, with analysts saying they didn’t want their intel used by “that vulgarian in the Oval Office” to pursue policies toward China they personally disagreed with.
The revelation is found within a January 2021 report written by — and never before reported upon comments by — analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf, who conducted a review of the spy community’s handling of Russian versus Chinese meddling efforts during the 2020 election. Among his conclusions was that intelligence analysts downplayed China’s actions because they had disdain for the “vulgarian” Trump and did not want to support the policies and priorities of the Trump administration toward China with which they “personally disagree.”
Just the News reported this week that the U.S. intelligence community has known since early 2020 that Beijing also gained access to American voter registration data and used that information to conduct opinion analysis related to the presidential election between Trump and then-former Vice President Joe Biden.
This is not the only piece of evidence pointing to Chinese government election influence efforts in the 2020 election. Although much about China’s activities in 2020 remains classified, Just the News conducted a thorough review of publicly-available intelligence assessments, federal indictments, foreign government warnings, and cybersecurity firm analyses.
There is credible evidence that Chinese government-linked cyber hackers and Chinese social media troll farms took aim at the U.S. presidential election in 2020 and sought to undercut Trump during his run against now-former President Biden. There are also indicators that Chinese intelligence and law enforcement agencies — China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and its Ministry of Public Security (MPS) — also played a role in 2020.
Republicans love America. Democrats’ love for America is contingent on a Democrat in the White House.
A man who was shot and killed by police in Dallas was part of Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s security detail, multiple sources reported on Friday.
According to CBS News, the individual in question was “known publicly as Mike King,” although he’d been using various aliases to gain employment.
He was also running a business that placed law enforcement officers in off-duty jobs — and was a figure present near Crockett at numerous campaign stops during her failed bid to gain the party’s Senate nomination, as photographic evidence showed.
King was fatally shot Wednesday after a standoff with a SWAT team in Dallas outside of Children’s Medical Center.
According to DFW Scanner, a site that chronicles crime reports from police scanners in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, the suspect “barricaded himself in a vehicle at 1934 Medical District Drive.”
“Officers used tear gas in an effort to get the suspect out of the vehicle. He exited the vehicle armed with a gun, and pointed it at officers,” the report noted. “Officers opened fire and killed the suspect.”
Early reports indicated that he was a fugitive who was known to police and was under investigation for impersonation of a law enforcement officer.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Democrats just have a gift for hiring they best, don’t they?
“Reddit’s biggest trans moderator was just unmasked as convicted child sex abuser.” Branden “Brynn” Dunleavy. “The whistleblower, who waved the red flag, said he thinks this Branden and his crimes were deliberately shielded” by other Reddit moderators. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Monsterous: “Transgender ‘youth advocate’ was just charged with raping a BABY GIRL.” William Kelso Flournoy IV even filmed himself doing it. Hell’s too good for him.
The accusations come from two of the alleged victims themselves, one who was 12 when she said the sexual abuse started. The other alleged victim quoted in the piece was 13 when she says Chavez sexually abused her:
Ana Murguia remembers the day the man she had regarded as a hero called her house and summoned her to see him. She walked along a dirt trail, entered the rundown building, passed his secretary and stepped into his office.
He locked the door, as he always did when he called her, and told her how lonely he had been. He brought her onto the yoga mat that he often used in his office for meditation, kissed her and pulled her pants down. “Don’t tell anyone,” he told her afterward. “They’d get jealous.”
The man, Cesar Chavez, one of the most revered figures in the Latino civil rights movement, was 45. She was 13. Ms. Murguia said she was summoned for sexual encounters with him dozens of times over the next four years.
[…]
Ms. Murguia and Ms. [Debra] Rojas, both of whom are now 66, were the daughters of longtime organizers who had marched in rallies alongside Mr. Chavez. He used the privacy of his California office to frequently molest Ms. Murguia, she said. He had known her since she was 8 years old. She became so traumatized that she attempted to end her life multiple times by the age of 15.
How is it so many Democrat “community organizers” and “activists” turn out to be sexual predators? Those movements seem to draw them like flies to an open sewer…
Fallout: “Abbott Blocks Annual Cesar Chavez Observation in Texas.”
Samuel James Hall, a green card holder from Great Britain, appeared in federal court on a misdemeanor charge of voting by an alien. According to his defense attorney, James Alston, Hall has lived in the Houston area for several years but is not a U.S. citizen. Federal prosecutors allege he cast a ballot in Harris County during the 2024 General Election, voting in races for president, vice president, U.S. Senate, and the House of Representatives. The charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in federal prison. Hall posted bond and is free while his case moves through court.
“Former MD Anderson Researcher Pleads Guilty To Stealing Cancer Research for China.” “Harris County court records show that Yunhai Li pleaded guilty on March 6 to a state jail felony charge of attempted theft of trade secrets. He was recently sentenced to 364 days in the Harris County jail and received credit for 196 days already served, indicating a remaining time in jail of 168 days. Court records indicate Li, 35, is expected to be deported upon release.” (Previously.)
After paying Bari Weiss $150 million for The Free Press and hiring her to run their newsroom, CBS News announced a fresh round of layoffs on Friday which will affect over 60 jobs, or 6% of the news division, according to the NY Times.
“Certain parts of this newsroom need to get smaller in order for us to make room for the things that we need to build to remain competitive in the future,” said Weiss, who entered the scene last October, during a Friday newsroom-wide conference call.
The move follows roughly 100 layoffs last year, while ratings have continued to plummet under Weiss.
Today’s round includes the entirety of CBS News Radio – a century-old division that “served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927,” said network president Tom Cibrowski in a memo.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess the average CBS Radio news listener age is around 85…
After decades of relying on Vietnam-era designs, the Army has approved the first offensive hand grenade to enter the service since 1968.
The new M111 Offensive Hand Grenade was approved for full material release this year, the Army announced Tuesday in a statement. The new grenade relies primarily on blast overpressure rather than fragmented inner pieces to incapacitate, making it better suited for close-quarters combat inside of buildings, bunkers and tunnels.
Full material release allows the Army to field the weapon across the force after testing has confirmed that it meets safety and performance requirements. The approval lets the Army move the grenade from development into production.
The Army’s standard M67 fragmentation grenade explodes shrapnel in all directions, making it risky for soldiers to use in tight spaces. Blast overpressure refers to the intense pressure wave created by an explosion.
“One of the key lessons learned from the door-to-door urban fighting in Iraq was the M67 grenade wasn’t always the right tool for the job. The risk of fratricide on the other side of the wall was too high,” said Col. Vince Morris, the Army’s project manager for Close Combat Systems, in the statement. But a weapon utilizing blast overpressure instead of fragmentation, he said, “can clear a room of enemy combatants quickly leaving nowhere to hide while ensuring the safety of friendly forces.”
The M111 is intended to replace the body and fuze of the Mk3A2 grenade series, which has an asbestos body that has restricted its use. Unlike the Mk3A2, the new weapon has a plastic casing that is consumed during detonation.
It also uses the same fuze system as the M67 grenade, allowing the service to streamline manufacturing.
With 310 meters in length and roughly 90 meters at the beam, the 80,000-tonne France Libre will dwarf its predecessor, the 42,000-tonne Charles de Gaulle, which has served as the Marine Nationale‘s sole carrier strike platform since 2001. Power will come from a pair of TechnicAtome K-22 pressurized water reactors, granting the vessel virtually unlimited range and endurance at speeds of up to 27 knots via three shaft lines. Crew complement (including air wing) is set to be about 2,000 sailors.
They’re targeting it to be ready for service in 2038.
Insane story out of Houston: “Armed Man Wearing Tactical Gear Arrested for Attempted Entry to Klein Elementary School.”
A 39-year-old man in tactical gear, armed with a handgun and taser, attempted entry to Zwink Elementary in Klein Independent School District (ISD) on March 10.
Kyle Chris lives four minutes away from the school and was arrested on the evening of March 11, more than 24 hours after the incident. He has a felony charge of unlawfully carrying a weapon in a prohibited place.
District officials say Chris was able to enter an initial set of front doors during a 15-second period after a parent entered and before the doors shut completely. Zwink Elementary’s double-door system kept Chris in the entrance and stopped him from entering the area of the school with access to students.
But the story gets even more insane: “Kyle Chris” turns out to be “Muhi Mohanad Najm” and Democrat Judge Lori Chambers Gray bonded him out for $75K.
Talking about the Bible on a bus in Austin? That’s a stabbing. Boy, Steve Adler’s decision to lure drug addicted transients to Austin, and Jose Garza’s determination to keep violent lunatics on the streets, just keep paying dividends.
Among the numerous things he predicted incorrectly:
In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death [from mass famine].
This was, of course, entirely false. It did not happen. It is hard to overstate how wrong this was. Indeed, after the communist-run Great Leap Forward famine in 1950s-1960s China, major famines have become a vanishing rarity on the global stage
Snip.
Elsewhere, in a comical essay that presented itself as being written from the future, Ehrlich claimed the U.S. population in 1999 would be around 22 million, the result of a famine-induced “Great Die-Off.”
There is a personality type that every institution eventually learns to fear. Not the whistleblower. Not the activist. Not the dissident. Those are legible threats. They want something. They have an agenda. They can be categorized, managed, countered, discredited.
The personality the institution cannot process is the person who corrects errors because they are errors.
Not because the correction serves their interests. Not because they are aligned against the people who made the error. Not because they are building a case or advancing a cause or positioning themselves for advantage. Because the error exists. Because it is wrong. Because someone published a number that is not the right number, and the wrong number is sitting there, propagating, being cited, being absorbed, being built upon, and nobody is fixing it.
This person will spend three hours writing a detailed correction of a statistical claim in a policy document that has nothing to do with their field, their career, their politics, or their life. They will do this for free. They will do it knowing that the correction will make them no friends and several enemies. They will do it on a Saturday. They will do it again the following Tuesday when they find another error in a different document.
If you ask them why, the answer is: because it’s wrong.
That answer is incomprehensible to most institutional actors. And the incomprehension is the beginning of the immune response.
It’s not our job to make sure nVidia’s fucking shit lands. It’s my job to identify when their shit has not landed and has, in fact, remained suspended in mid-air. It’s not a great metaphor. And I guess I say it’s not our job, but that’s not really true; they’re the entire economy. We all work for them, in a literal way. The rational play here is to suck as many dicks as possible, and to suck them on an industrial scale. We might suck a dick here, a dick there, but we need to be thinking about these firm rods like a Henry Ford or a Ray Croc. You better clap to keep this fucking fairy alive or your gramma is gonna have to live in a hedge like a witch.
I saw impressive environmental lighting for sure, but that’s not what punched people in the gut. All people did was respond viscerally to Grace Ashcroft. That’s not who she is. We had an uncanny valley, and now we have… I dunno. An “Eerie Mesa.” We don’t like that either. And when I say we don’t like it, I mean our bones don’t like it. There’s a Eurogamer article on nVidia’s response, which is to say that we don’t know everything and are thinking about it wrong, which is a great pitch. I talked to Gabe a couple years ago about how eventually nVidia would just… do it. Do it all, do the whole shebang. Expound mathemagically on base assets and shim the whole thing. I wish I’d said so at the time! I could link back to it, and simply deploy the Lemmy Face. In the meantime, it’s not clear to me that the developers I’m interested in are gonna feel like jacking this thing off until their game doesn’t look scary.
Speaking of people rejecting scary faces, Meta is closing down it’s virtual realty project after pouring $80 billion on it. Or saying they lost $80 billion so they can rake off the money somewhere else…
Mark Felton has a fun video up covering Marlene Dietrich’s guns she brought back after entertaining U.S. troops in Europe during World War II, including gifts from Omar Bradley and George S. Patton!
Dune Part 3 trailer drops. The difficulty here is that Parts 1 and 2 were made from Dune, which is a great novel, where this is made from Dune Messiah, which isn’t. Indeed, Dune Messiah takes place after Muad’Dib’s jihad has swept the galaxy, and it looks like there will be a lot more jihad in the movie than the book. I’m guessing this is the rare case where the movie may be better than the book.
Remember Colony Ridge, the housing development northeast of Houston evidently pitched to illegal aliens that boasted such “features” as high crime rates and substandard infrastructure? A settlement between the state and the developer means no more home sales to illegal aliens there.
A sweeping settlement between the State of Texas, the federal government, and Colony Ridge will require buyers in the controversial Liberty County development to present Texas-issued identification or valid immigration documents—effectively shutting down future direct land sales to individuals unlawfully present in the United States.
Filed Tuesday in federal court, the agreement resolves multiple enforcement actions brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who had accused Colony Ridge of deceptive sales practices and discriminatory, predatory lending. Colony Ridge denies any wrongdoing but agreed to the terms to settle the litigation.
Under the settlement, Colony Ridge must require purchasers to present an unexpired Texas-issued driver’s license or identification card, or a valid passport and visa, as well as take steps to confirm buyers are not on terrorism watch lists or affiliated with transnational criminal organizations. The company is also required to verify compliance with Texas laws restricting certain real estate transactions tied to designated foreign countries.
If actually enforced, the driver’s license requirement alone should halt the vast majority of home sales to illegal aliens. Unlike certain Democrat-run states, Texas doesn’t hand out driver’s licenses to illegal aliens like party favors.
The agreement halts Colony Ridge’s business model that fueled its explosive growth. For three years, the developer is barred from seeking approval for new residential plats intended for direct-to-consumer land sales. Limited exceptions apply, but new subdivisions must include deed restrictions, county permitting compliance, architectural controls, and in many cases require a home to be constructed before resale.
In addition, Colony Ridge is required to spend at least $48 million on infrastructure improvements within existing subdivisions, including $18 million dedicated to drainage and flood control and $30 million for roads, water, sewage, and other public-safety infrastructure.
Independent Texas-based engineering firms must reevaluate drainage systems, design improvements capable of handling major storm events, and conduct recurring inspections, with existing deficiencies prioritized ahead of new development.
Another $20 million must be allocated to increasing law enforcement presence in the area over the next decade. Those funds may be used for local patrols, construction of DPS or county law enforcement substations, additional officers, equipment, and expanded immigration enforcement partnerships. Annual spending is capped, and any unused funds must be redirected to public safety infrastructure.
The settlement further imposes strict consumer-protection requirements. Colony Ridge must adopt formal underwriting standards, implement a default-avoidance plan to reduce foreclosures, and provide buyers with expanded disclosures regarding utilities, flood risks, permitting timelines, and the true total cost of ownership. Future buyers will also receive a limited rescission window allowing them to unwind a purchase within two payments and receive a refund under certain conditions.
Colony Ridge seemed designed as a corner-cutting development meant to be marketed to illegal aliens from the get go. It first started pulling its antics way back in 2011, which suggests that several county and state functionaries were woefully late in sounding the alarm, as it didn’t really attract much attention until the Texas Public Policy Foundation published a report on it until 2020. Paxton didn’t file a lawsuit until 2024, and it wasn’t swept for illegal aliens until 2025.
The backlash over Colony Ridge probably encouraged state officials to take a more aggressive and pro-active approach to the planned Muslim EPIC City enclave northeast of Plano before construction actually started. But it’s still going to take several years to clean up the mess created by Colony Ridge developer Houston Terrenos.
Illegal aliens are no longer going to be allowed to buy houses in Texas anymore…
Communist China is always looking to steal technology from the West through its “Thousand Talents” espionage program, and this week brought two more instances from Texas.
Federal officials say a Houston-based smuggling ring funneled some of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence technology to China, marking one of the largest known violations of U.S. export-control laws in recent years.
The case, outlined in a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, centers on Hao Global LLC and its owner, 43-year-old Missouri City resident Alan Hao Hsu.
According to prosecutors, Hsu and a network of partners moved tens of thousands of restricted Nvidia H100 and H200 GPUs out of the country between late 2024 and early 2025. These are the same high-end chips that drive large-scale AI development, from national security research to sophisticated military systems.
Hsu pleaded guilty earlier this fall after admitting he knowingly exported or attempted to export more than 160 million dollars’ worth of controlled GPUs to the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, and other destinations where federal law bars their shipment.
According to investigators, the group disguised the nature of the products, falsified shipping records, and routed more than 50 million dollars in wire transfers originating from China to finance the operation. Hsu is the first person ever charged and convicted in an AI diversion case.
Court documents describe mislabeled cargo, falsified customer identities, and a steady flow of high-value chips moved through U.S. warehouses before being pushed overseas. Prosecutors say the conspirators relied on a network of intermediaries to hide the ultimate destination of the technology, which the U.S. considers critical to maintaining its strategic advantage in artificial intelligence.
While Hsu pleaded guilty, the case did not end with him. Two others now face federal charges: 43-year-old Fanyue “Tom” Gong, a Chinese national living in New York, and 58-year-old Canadian citizen Benlin Yuan of Mississauga, Ontario. Both men were arrested in recent weeks.
Gong, who owns a New York tech company, is accused of using straw purchasers and overseas partners to obtain GPUs, strip their Nvidia labels, rebrand them with a fake company name, and ship them overseas as generic computer parts. Prosecutors say he coordinated with employees at a Hong Kong logistics firm and a China-based AI company to move the technology into restricted jurisdictions.
Yuan, meanwhile, allegedly helped organize teams to inspect mislabeled shipments and coached associates on how to provide false information to federal agents. Court filings indicate he discussed fabricating a cover story after authorities detained some of the hardware. He also faces accusations that he assisted with handling and storing additional restricted GPU shipments tied to the same Hong Kong firm.
Hsu faces up to 10 years in federal prison at his sentencing in February. Gong could receive up to 10 years if convicted, while Yuan faces as many as 20 years on conspiracy charges. Hsu remains free on bond. Gong and Yuan are being held pending further proceedings.
Federal officials framed the case as a direct threat to national security.
U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei said the smuggling network undermined the country’s technological edge at a time when AI capability is tightly linked to military strength. Ganjei noted, “These chips are the building blocks of AI superiority and are integral to modern military applications. The country that controls these chips will control AI technology; the country that controls AI technology will control the future. The Southern District of Texas will aggressively prosecute anyone who attempts to compromise America’s technological edge.”
Eh, the “country that controls these chips will control AI technology” is an overstatement. Nvidia’s Tensor Cores are highly efficient at performing matrix operations, but they’re not magic. There’s no calculation they do you can’t perform on a CPU or GPU, albeit it more slowly and at a much higher cost per watt.
The second case of Chinese espionage comes from Texas A&M:
Texas A&M’s associate head of graduate studies of chemistry resigned and returned to his homeland to work at a Chinese government-funded laboratory. A research security specialist called this a security failure on the university’s part.
In October 2025, Yongjiang Laboratory in Ningbo, China, announced that Dr. Lei Fang had taken a leadership position at the lab. Up to that time, he had worked at Texas A&M since 2013 before resigning this spring.
Research security specialist Allen Phelps of IPTalons identified Yongjiang as a Chinese government-funded nonprofit, and part of China’s network of state-backed labs. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence identified China as a national security threat in its 2025 Annual Threat Assessment.
“From the day I set foot outside the country, I knew I was coming back,” Dr. Fang said, according to a Google translation of the Yongjiang press release. Born in 1983 in Poyang, China, Dr. Fang’s loyalty to his homeland appears to have never left his mind. Despite studying and working in multiple American universities since 2006, Phelps’ research showed Dr. Fang “extensively traveled” to China to attend conferences and give lectures between 2014 to 2020.
In a report he provided to Texas Scorecard, Phelps’ analysis of open source information found a “clear, documented pattern of foreign engagement” that he believes should have alarmed Texas A&M because of his work while employed by them.
For example, Phelps reported that Dr. Fang licensed a Texas A&M-owned U.S. patent to Ningbo Kunpeng Environmental Sci-Tech Co., Ltd., a company Dr. Fang co-founded in 2017. Phelps called this a “stunning conflict of interest.” He added that “this not only raises questions about the proprietary nature of the research but also about whether his primary commitment was to the American taxpayer who funded the underlying science, or to his foreign commercial and academic partners.”
Beyond just Texas A&M, there are national security concerns. “Dr. Fang was not just a professor; he was a recipient of prestigious, sensitive federal grants … that were active up to or beyond his 2025 departure,” Phelps wrote the report.
Dr. Fang was a panelist at the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship in 2016 and 2017, and was a technical reviewer for American research proposals. Phelps wrote this gave Dr. Fang “privileged, non-public access to the cutting-edge research” of competing scientists in America. Phelps wrote that Dr. Fang took this “sensitive information” back with him to help run Yongjiang Lab.
Phelps also noted Dr. Fang’s public resume showed that during the same time he received U.S. federal funding, he had a “Flexible Joint Visiting Professor” position with Nanchang Hangkong University’s Key Laboratory of Jiangxi Province—a Chinese lab known to engage in national defense research.
Dr. Fang joining Yongjiang is another red flag. Phelps reported this lab seems to serve as a central hub for Chinese talent recruitment programs. Such efforts have long been part of China’s infiltration operation of American universities. A February 2020 report from the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee sounded the alarm on China’s talent recruitment efforts as a means “to supercharge Chinese innovation at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.”
At this point, we should ban Chinese nationals from holding any position at any U.S. research university, laboratory or institute that takes federal money. China will always demand their citizens steal from the west if put into a position to do so.
Democrat attempts to link Trump to Jeffrey Epstein backfire big-time, more illegal alien felons get deported, more Democrats committing fraud, more DOGE-discovered spending insanity, Letterman inducts Zevon, and the weirdest White House love-in ever.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins has said the department will “completely deconstruct” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in an effort to remove fraud and corruption from the program.
The USDA told Newsweek: “Secretary Rollins wants to ensure the fraud, waste, and incessant abuse of SNAP ends. Rates of fraud were only previously assumed, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard recertification processes for households is a part of that work. As well as ongoing analysis of state data, further regulatory work, and improved collaboration with states.”
SNAP supports about 42 million low-income Americans nationwide by helping them cover the costs of groceries each month.
The program came into the spotlight during the recent government shutdown—the longest in U.S. history—when many did not receive their benefits as scheduled in November.
Rollins’ comment also comes amid the government’s announcement of two major changes to the program: Work requirement provisions brought in by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could see millions removed from the program, and recipients could be required to reapply for the benefits so that those no longer deemed eligible can be removed from the program.
In an interview with Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow on Tuesday, Rollins said early data already showed that “186,000 dead people are receiving SNAP benefits,” while another 500,000 people are receiving the benefits in more than one state.
USDA data indicates that more than 226,000 fraudulent benefit claims and 691,000 fraudulent transactions received approval in the first quarter of 2025, Fox Business reported.
Fraudulent transactions refer to when SNAP-receiving households do not authorize claims because of card cloning or various kinds of electronic theft.
These fraudulent claims and transactions cost the government more than $102 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, higher than the $69.4 million figure in the previous quarter and $31.9 million during the same period last year, the USDA data shows.
As a result of these issues, Rollins said the department had made “hundreds of arrests” in regard to fraudulent claims for SNAP benefits.
She also said the recent crackdown on SNAP benefit fraud and eligibility was “an unintended consequence of the Democrats shutting the government down for 43 days,” adding that it “shined this very bright light on one of their pet programs and now has given us a platform to completely deconstruct the program.”
Sounds like a whole lot of fraudsters are going to get snapped off SNAP, thanks to the #SchumerShutdown.
Welcome to Unintended Consequences Theater. I’m your host, Leonard Pinth-Garnell…
“The U.S. economy roared ahead in September 2025, shattering expectations with the creation of 119,000 jobs — more than double what economists predicted.” I can hardly wait for all this job creation to get to me…
“Jeffrey Epstein was texting sitting members of Congress, Democrat non-voting delegate Stacy Plaskett specifically, and directing the questioning during a congressional investigation of Donald Trump.” Doesn’t exactly seem like Trump and Epstein were best buddies, does it?
Desperate to tie President Donald Trump to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats are ignoring their own ties shown in newly published documents to the deceased registered sex offender.
One email in the more than 20,000 documents obtained from the Epstein estate and released publicly by the House Oversight Committee shows that a consulting firm working for now-House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, shortly after he was first elected to Congress in 2012, solicited Epstein for a donation. This came long after Trump barred Epstein from his Florida estate in 2007, when he said he cut ties with the financier.
“Dear Jeffrey – We are thrilled to announce that we are working with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, one of the rising stars in the New York Congressional delegation,” a team at Dynamic SRG, a political fundraising and public affairs firm, wrote to Epstein in a May 2013 email.
“Sometimes referred to as ‘Brooklyn’s Barack’, he is a staunch supporter of President Obama and a progressive voice for the people of New York City,” the firm said, touting Jeffries in the email. Jeffries’ name is listed on Dynamic SRG in a database of “selected current and former clients.”
Nowadays people refer to Jeffries as “TEMU Obama.”
The email came roughly five years after Epstein became a registered sex offender in Florida and pleaded guilty to state prostitution crimes related to his alleged involvement with underage girls. He avoided federal charges through striking the controversial deal and served only 13 months in state prison.
The Democrats love money a whole lot more than they hate sex offenders.
#4 – $254 million in unemployment benefits for toddlers under five. If your preschooler is filing claims, we may have bigger issues than fraud.
#3 – The DOD built an HR IT system that ran 780% over budget at a casual $280 million.
Somewhere, a contracting executive is laughing on his yacht that just docked in the Greek islands.
#2 – HUD “misplaced” $1.9 billion. Misplaced! As if money that could pave a small state just slipped behind the couch cushions.
#1 – And the grand champion: $516 billion spent on 1,264 expired, defunct, fossilized government programs. Half a trillion dollars shoveled into the graveyard of bureaucracy. No wonder the Uniparty attacked DOGE so fervently.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) was hit with a federal indictment Wednesday, accusing her of stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds to support her 2021 congressional campaign.
Cherfilus-McCormick, who has been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee since December 2023, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami and faces up to 53 years in prison if convicted.
Snip.
The Justice Department alleges that Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, and several co-defendants, including her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, 51, “conspired to steal” an overpayment of $5 million in FEMA funds their family health care company received in July 2021 as part of a COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract.
The defendants allegedly routed the funds “through multiple accounts to disguise its source” and used “a substantial portion of the misappropriated funds … as candidate contributions” to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 congressional campaign.
Cherfilus-McCormick and another co-defendant, Nadege Leblanc, 46, further schemed to utilize “straw donors” to contribute the stolen money to the Florida Democrat’s campaign, according to prosecutors.
The congresswoman and her tax preparer, David K. Spencer, 41, are also charged with conspiring to file a false federal tax return for allegedly falsely marking political spending and other personal expenses as business deductions — and inflating Cherfilus-McCormick’s charitable contributions to ease her tax obligations.
As Democrats continue to demonize and vilify the nation’s law enforcement officers, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers keep protecting communities from violent criminal illegal immigrants. Once again, DHS and ICE collaborated to remove some of the “worst of the worst” illegally residing in the United States.
While Democrats, and their accomplices in the legacy media, regularly promote narratives denigrating illegal immigration enforcement operations, the fact is, as DHS has regularly highlighted, “70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens convicted or charged with a crime in the U.S.” And while Democrats insist on prioritizing the safety of the criminal class over the welfare of the innocent, DHS and ICE continue to protect Americans from bad people.
These bad people include illegal immigrants convicted of manslaughter, murder, and lewd acts with minors. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin commented on these violent people when speaking to the Washington Examiner.
Snip.
Andres Mendoza-Salomon is an illegal immigrant who was living in the U.S. Previously, he was convicted of “lewd act with a child under 14, contact with a minor – sexual intent, harmful matter to seduce minor, and indecent exposure in Ventura, California,” according to DHS. These are disgusting actions by a dangerous individual. The local community is better with him after ICE’s involvement. But you won’t see Mendoza-Salomon’s picture on legacy media news reports.
Snip.
Oscar Arturo Sanchez-Mondragon was also arrested by ICE on Monday. He is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was convicted of “manslaughter in the second degree and tampering with physical evidence in Boone County, Kentucky,” according to DHS. He was free to roam within the U.S. and put innocent lives in danger. ICE ensured that he would no longer be a threat to any community.
ICE arrested an illegal immigrant from El Salvador with a particularly violent history, as well. Miguel Antonio Urias-Argueta had a rap sheet that featured convictions for “criminal possession of a weapon, criminal use of a firearm, attempted assault, and attempted murder in Nassau County, New York,” DHS reported. He’s the kind of illegal immigrant who presents a distinct danger to those around him, based on his criminal record. ICE ensured he would no longer be a threat and arrested him. Unfortunately, once again, no Democrats or members of the media will mention ICE’s arrest of Urias-Argueta, or that communities are safer because of their enforcement operations.
The agency’s other arrests on Monday included an illegal immigrant from Mexico who caused the “death of another by driving a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol in Sparks, Nevada,” DHS said. Higinio Rodriguez-Ramirez is in the country illegally, also from Mexico, and was convicted of “burglary of a habitation in Johnson County, Texas,” according to DHS.
A wealthy Plymouth, Michigan couple has landed in federal court, accused of hiring more than 200 undocumented immigrants to work at their national plumbing business over the years, and housing many of them in run-down motels and houses — all while they raked in $74 million in revenue, according to a new court filing in New York.
That’s where Moises and Raquel Orduna-Rios are facing federal charges, including money laundering, following a five-year investigation that started with federal agents spotting one of the couple’s company vans outside a motel in Amherst, New York. The agents also encountered — and arrested — a small group of undocumented immigrants, who explained the van belonged to their ‘boss,’ court records show.
This operation took place in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, and New York where the charges are being filed.
That boss was 36-year-old Moises Orduna-Rios, president of Michigan-based Orduna Plumbing Inc., which also has operations in New York, North Carolina and Ohio. He was arrested on Tuesday, Nov. 18, after years of being monitored by federal agents who kept close tabs on his company vans, financial transactions, communications and his illegal workers who made $800-$1,500 per week, and in some cases had their living expenses covered.
“Legislation To Fast-Track Removal of Criminal Aliens Heads to US House Floor. The bill would address loopholes enabling the abuse of asylum protections and make the removal of convicted violent criminal aliens mandatory.”
U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill’s Expedited Removal of Criminal Aliens Act passed through a review by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and now moves to the House floor for further action.
The Texas Republican’s legislation, H.R.5713, would strengthen President Trump’s border security plan by allowing law enforcement to remove violent criminal aliens quickly.
“For far too long, Democrat leaders have allowed illegal aliens to get away with unspeakable crimes on our soil, turning a blind eye to the suffering American families who call this land home,” said Gill. “It’s time to empower our brave men and women in law enforcement to get foreign bad actors out of our country quickly, before they have a chance to cause more pain.”
The proposed legislation would stop abuses of protections meant for asylum seekers. The bill would also give law enforcement stronger removal authority over violent criminal aliens, making “detention and expedited removal of gang members, terrorists, and individuals convicted of violent crimes or crimes against vulnerable groups” mandatory.
Currently, removal proceedings can take years of litigation and lengthy appeals, even after a foreign national has been convicted of a serious crime that warrants removal from the United States. The new legislation would fast-track the removal process for criminal illegal aliens.
Speaking about the bill in a post on X, Gill said it “gives law enforcement the authority to swiftly remove violent criminal aliens and protect American communities.”
Similar proposed legislation by U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R–Richmond) cleared a House Judiciary Committee review on Tuesday. Nehl’s bill, H.R. 4711, the Rapid Expulsion of Migrant Offenders who Violate and Evade (REMOVE) Act, would require removal proceedings to conclude within 15 days.
“The Biden Administration let millions upon millions of illegal aliens into our country who wreaked havoc on our communities and drained public resources,” said Nehls.
The new Texas congressional map passed by the Legislature this summer, intended to gain five seats for Republicans, constitutes a racial gerrymander according to an El Paso federal court, which enjoined the state from enforcing it for the 2026 midterms.
The long-awaited ruling came on Tuesday after a couple of weeks of anxious speculation from both sides; the filing period for the midterms began on November 8 and ends on December 8.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” Judge Jeffrey Brown of the El Paso court’s three-judge panel wrote.
“For the reasons explained below, the Court PRELIMINARILY ENJOINS the State from using the 2025 Map. The Court ORDERS that the 2026 congressional election in Texas shall proceed under the map that the Texas Legislature enacted in 2021.”
But: “U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith issued a scathing dissent Wednesday against the federal judicial panel ruling that blocked Texas’ new congressional map from going into effect for 2026, calling it ‘the most outrageous conduct by a judge that [he has] ever encountered in a case in which [he has] been involved.'”
On November 7, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Andriy Sybiha released a statement on X stating that at least 1,436 citizens from 36 African countries have been duped into participating in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hailing from impoverished circumstances in their home countries in Africa, many young men look at Russia as an accessible country to secure economic opportunity. Some arrive to study in Russian universities. Others scour for employment that will allow them to work without documents, but mostly all are convinced that signing a contract in Russian will award them a comfortable salary that can be used to support their families back home. Signing a contract, Mr. Sybiha warns, is equivalent to signing a death sentence.
According to reports in the LA Times, recruits are promised a monthly pay ranging between $2,500 to $3,500, nearly ten times the average in a country like Cameroon. But when these men go missing or are killed, Russian authorities hardly share any information with the bereaved families, including the bodies of the fallen or their earnings.
Ukraine on Monday signed a letter of intent to buy up to 100 Rafale warplanes, drones, air defense systems and other key equipment from France over the next 10 years, as part of efforts to strengthen the country’s long-term security.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who signed the document with French President Emmanuel Macron, called it “a historic deal” at a joint news conference at the Elysée presidential palace. The letter is a preliminary commitment of Ukraine stating its interest in buying a series of French defense equipment.
Snip.
The Rafale is France’s most advanced fighter jet, a high-tech, delta-winged, multi-role warplane known for its maneuverability and efficiency. It has been deployed in the country’s foreign military operations including in the Middle East and Africa, and comes at a cost estimated at over $100 million per aircraft.
“Preliminary commitment” is a long way from “fighters in the air.”
A federal grand jury indicted nine alleged “North Texas Antifa Cell operatives” last week on charges including rioting, providing material support to terrorists, and attempted murder in connection with the July 4 attack on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Alvarado.
Seven additional individuals were also charged with providing material support.
“This is the first indictment in the country against a group of violent Antifa cell members,” Acting U.S. Attorney Nancy E. Larson stated. “The charges the Grand Jury has leveled against these defendants, including material support for terrorists, address the vicious attack perpetrated by an anti-ICE, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, anarchist group.”
Yesterday’s twelve-count indictment charges Cameron Arnold, a/k/a Autumn Hill, Zachary Evetts, Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, a/k/a Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, and Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada with multiple offenses for their roles related to the Prairieland attack.
Snip.
The nine individuals indicted yesterday are charged with the following offenses:
Riot, with the intent to commit an act of violence, involving conduct such as shooting and throwing fireworks and explosives, slashing tires on a government vehicle, spraying graffiti on property and vehicles, destroying a closed circuit camera, shooting at officers, and dressing in black bloc.
Defendants charged: Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto
Providing Material Support to Terrorists, including property, services, training, communications equipment, weapons, explosives, personnel (including themselves), and transportation.
Defendants charged: Arnold, Evetts, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, E. Soto, and I. Soto
Conspiracy to Use and Carry an Explosive, and Using and Carrying an Explosive, during a riot.
Defendants charged: Arnold, Evetts, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, E. Soto, and I. Soto
Attempted Murder of Officers and Employees of the United States, involving the unlawful attempt to kill with malice aforethought Correctional Officers-1 and 2, and an Alvarado Police Officer.
Defendants charged: Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda
Discharging a Firearm During, and in Relation to, and in Furtherance of a Crime of Violence, i.e., the attempted murder of two correctional officers and an Alvarado Police Officer.
Defendants charged: Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda
Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record, by transporting a box containing numerous Antifa materials, such as insurrection planning, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents and propaganda from Sanchez Estrada’s residence to a location in Denton, Texas, intending to conceal the box’s contents and impair its availability for use in a federal grand jury and federal criminal proceeding.
Defendant charged: Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada
Conspiracy to Conceal Documents and other objects that would implicate Maricela Rueda in the riot and shooting at the Prairieland facility.
Defendants charged: Sanchez Estrada and Maricela Rueda
If convicted, Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda each face a minimum penalty of ten years in federal prison and a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Batten, Elizabeth Soto, and Ines Soto each face a sentence ranging from a minimum of ten years up to fifty years in federal prison. Sanchez Estrada faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count.
China remains infuriated by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statement last week that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would threaten Japan‘s “survival” and would thus justify military engagement to defend Taiwan.
This is an entirely logical assertion by the new prime minister. A Chinese conquest of Taiwan would result in Beijing’s dominance of trade flows in the western Pacific and its militarily encirclement of Japan’s southern outlying islands. Beijing would be able to leverage this military power to demand political concessions that fundamentally diminished Japan’s democratic sovereignty. In turn, the United States should be grateful to Takaichi. Her leadership here stands in stark contrast to that of other regional leaders such as South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung.
It is partly due to this broadcasting of support for the U.S. that Beijing’s fury with Takaichi remains incandescent.
If China doesn’t want to fight Japan, maybe they should refrain from invading Taiwan.
Never underestimate President Trump’s ability to do the unexpected. Commie New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met with Trump in the White House…and it turned into something of a love-in:
While his hard-left fellow-travelers now denounce Mamdani for meeting with Trump?
No matter who is running things, Palestinians seem to love terrorism more than life. “Palestinian Authority Paid Terrorists $214M This Year, Major Increase From 2024.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Giant pile of waste mysteriously appears in the English countryside. I’m not saying it’s necessarily unassimiliated Muslim immigrants doing it (I’m sure the UK has plenty of English litterbugs), I’m just suggesting that’s the way I would bet…
After long denying that Houston had been cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mayor John Whitmire has now admitted that the Houston Police Department has been cooperating with the federal agency, though he noted that it was the bare minimum.
The comments came at a conference hosted by former Kemah Mayor Bill King. During an interview with Whitmire, King mentioned a New York Times profile written last month.
In that article, Whitmire essentially said that, unlike the mayors of other big cities, such as Chicago or Los Angeles—where leaders constantly challenge Trump and his policies, especially on immigration—he prefers to keep a lower profile and focus on his job as mayor. Whitmire noted, “I don’t respond to Trump — that could be counterproductive. Do I have personal views? Sure, and they’re strong, but why do you want to challenge him?”
On Saturday, Whitmire highlighted this position yet again, stating a certain level of cooperation with the administration was crucial to keeping Houston from becoming a military zone. “I’m not going to say that we’re not cooperating with ICE, because that’s frankly not true,” he said. He continued by pointing out that, even if he tried to get ICE out of Houston’s public spaces, the result would likely be 500 more officers from the Trump administration in response.
Not to mention that it’s a matter of obeying federal law.
Sarah Hoyt thinks talk of an inevitable “civil war” are overblown.
This is why I don’t get spooked at things like ante-fa. Because I was spooked, then I poked around and saw that they only operated in areas where the authorities were on their side. And even then, they couldn’t spread thinner than 3 cities or so at a time. This tells you it’s no groundswell movement. Heck, it’s not even as big as the fairly manufactured unrest of the 70s. Because of the way that the news and media worked back then, the people on the street seemed to feel more sympathy for the 70s bs than anyone does now. (No. I don’t know if that was true or the fact that the media and news of the time lent themselves to manipulating the history of the period, as well.)
Or the reason I didn’t lose all hope in people over the Covidiocy. Yeah, I know. It sure did seem like everyone was onboard. Only we drove if not quite coast to coast close enough, which allowed us to see how widely the nonsense was ignored, and how p*ssed people were on it. After all, it’s very easy to think everyone is onboard with it when places like Twitter and Facebook were censoring any posts questioning it. (At the order of the administration — bah. What DDR bullsh*t.)
This is the reason I know the groyper bs isn’t taking hold pretty much anywhere except with the extremely online showing how extremely online they are and edgy. And bots. And foreigners. And foreign bots. Because the general attitudes on the street haven’t changed.
The only people I see talking about “groypers” and Nick Fuentes are either leftwing media, leftwing activists, or gadfly figures headed toward the exit gates from conservatism like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens.
“JD Vance Convicted Of Threatening To Kill JD Vance.” “67-year-old James Donald Vance Jr. is also convicted of threatening President Donald Trump and one of Trump’s children.”
Speaking of nomengangers, Texas Democrat Representative Jasmine Crockett accused EPA head Lee Zeldin of taking money from Jeffrey Epstein. It was a different Jeffrey Epstein.
Natalie Greene, 26, was arrested Wednesday and charged with masterminding the violent bogus ambush at Egg Harbor Township Nature Reserve on the night of July 23, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced.
Prosecutors said the accused fraudster claimed three gun-wielding men approached her and a friend on the trail around 10:36 p.m. before threatening to shoot her and striking her in the head.
An actual Republican hate crime hoax! That leaves the Hate Crime Hoax tally at (counts) I think 20 Democrats to 1 Republican, but I might be multi-counting Jussie Smollett coverage in various LinkSwarms…
Federal Department of Justice (DOJ) officials announced charges against 21 alleged members of a violent criminal street gang known as “Kiccdoe” in Arlington.
The group has been charged with racketeering, murder, drug trafficking, and gun crimes, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy Larson announced in a press release last week.
As of Friday, November 7, all 21 were in custody.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Arlington Police Department began investigating “Kiccdoe” in April 2024 after one of its members was shot and killed on a high school campus in Arlington. After the murder, several retaliatory shootings between “Kiccdoe” members and other Arlington gang members allegedly took place.
“Kiccdoe” began on the east side of Arlington. Its members use words and symbols such as “kiccdoe,” “KDN” for Kiccdoe Nation, “6,” or “600,” including on their clothes, to demonstrate their association with the gang, court documents stated.
Members also allegedly produced and distributed songs and videos about their gang activities and crimes.
Yes, that’s a super-smart way to avoid being caught. What could possibly go wrong? The Feds never would have had to work the tax evasion angle if Al Capone had put out a rap video bragging about his illegal booze empire.
In order to join or remain in good standing in the gang, its members would have to commit violent acts referred to as “stripes,” the court documents stated. The federal complaint alleged that these crimes included murders, robberies, assaults with dangerous weapons, sales of illegal drugs, and continuing threats of violence.
The violent offenses took place from early 2022 through this year, the DOJ said.
The alleged gang members range in age from 18 to 22, and many are charged with more than one offense.
For example, Isaiah Wiley of Dallas is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
Despite promising job numbers, the Biden Recession is still with us: “Nearly a third of U.S. job postings don’t result in an actual hire, creating a ‘ghost job economy‘ with millions of roles that never materialize.”
This hero dog was shot by burglars while trying to protect his home. After three successful surgeries, he was discharged like this nearly 2 months later. pic.twitter.com/ExW5LjOt2J
Mexico has long suffered from drug cartel violence, at least since the demise of Colombian cartels in the 1990s. Various cartels seem to hold sway over different parts of Mexico, as tracked by this fairly up-to-date map from Wikipedia, the source of all vaguely accurate knowledge.
Half of those cartels I’ve never even heard of.
Ordinary Mexican citizens have regularly put up with levels of violence and government dysfunction that no American citizens (well, aside from those in deep blue cities who keep voting for that very thing) would put up, partially because of widespread belief that both Mexico’s government, and PRI and PAN, are in the pockets of the cartels. But that might finally be changing.
Thousands of demonstrators marched in the Mexican capital on Saturday to protest against violent crime and President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government.
I just want to observe how unlikely “Claudia Sheinbaum” is for the name of a Mexican president.
Sheinbaum said the marches, which also took place in other cities, had been funded by right-wing politicians who oppose her government.
The rally was organised by Gen Z youth groups, drawing support from citizens protesting against high-profile killings, including the assassination just weeks ago of Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo – who had called for tough action against cartels.
Demonstrators dismantled parts of a barrier protecting the National Palace, where Sheinbaum lives. Police protecting the compound used tear gas on the crowds.
Authorities have arrested 20 people for crimes including robbery and assault, Mexico City security chief Pablo Vazquez told reporters.
Protesters waved banners displaying messages including “We are all Carlos Manzo”, while others wore cowboy hats in tribute to him.
This isn’t the first protest against cartel violence, but it may be the first to reach the center of government.
Manzo was shot on 1 November while he attended a Day of the Dead festival.
He was known for speaking openly about drug-trafficking gangs in his town and cartel violence.
He had been demanding tough action against armed cartel members who terrorise the country.
The cartels are not shy about murdering their critics in Mexico, frequently with a considerable bit of torture first.
And of course, the whole point of the cartels is to export drugs into the lucrative market of the United States. Here’s a story from Houston today.
With the help of a vast network of local distributors in the United States and two of his trusted men, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” who has continuously led the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), transformed Houston, Texas, into a drug distribution hub serving five U.S. states.
A court document obtained by MILENIO details how the network was established six years ago from the Jalisco cartel’s headquarters in Mexico, through an alliance with the Gulf cartel, which has dominated the drug corridor originating in Houston.
U.S. investigations reveal that since 2019, the CJNG has expanded into Houston to significantly increase the distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl to other Texas cities, such as Galveston, and other locations like New Orleans, Louisiana; Pensacola, Florida; and Atlanta, Georgia. Nashville, Tennessee, and Chicago, Illinois.
El Mencho didn’t arrive alone. In addition to a vast network of local distributors, two of his most trusted men in Mexico built the prolific network that generates millions of dollars in profits and which, to this day, remains at the center of investigations initiated with Operation Rainmaker, by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The case reviewed by MILENIO focuses on Gerardo Villarreal Martínez, a Mexican-American aligned with the CJNG, arrested last year. He came to the attention of Houston authorities in 2019 after becoming involved in El Mencho’s network, which included 40 other people, most of them based in Texas.
According to the indictment, the CJNG network operates through small distribution cells in the Houston area. Roque Zamudio Mendoza, another of the accused, was in charge of coordinating the distribution of drug shipments arriving from Mexico. Today he is a fugitive. He is presumed to be hiding in Mexico. Fifteen other defendants are also fugitives.
After hundreds of wiretaps of Villarreal’s phone calls, it was determined that he had contact with the highest levels of the cartel. His distributor in Mexico was Itiel Palacios García, alias El Compa Playa, who in turn coordinated directly with El Mencho and one of his main lieutenants, Audias Silva Flores, alias El Jardinero.
The DEA gathered enough evidence to request his arrest for drug trafficking on March 26, 2024.
On April 3 of that year, he appeared in court in Galveston, Texas, for his detention hearing. Agent Emerson testified that Villarreal should be held in pretrial detention pending trial on 12 counts of money laundering and drug trafficking.
And that’s just one story plucked today.
It would be great if the Mexican people were finally rising up against drug cartel tyranny, but I’m not holding my breath…
Happy Anti-Communism Week everyone! (In addition, of course, to May 1st being one of two Victims of Communism Day.) The #SchumerShutdown ends with a whimper, a whole lot of SNAP fraud has been uncovered, more Democrats committing fraud, Chip Roy wants a complete immigration halt, Ukraine hits a bunch more Russian oil refineries, some semiconductor shenanigans, another company leaves Delaware for Texas, some tech companies in trouble, an interesting new pistol design, and a novel theory on “AI-related layoffs.”
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
As a side note, the mosquitos have been brutal the last few days. Possibly because it’s been a very warm (though largely dry) November, and the bats have already migrated south.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday night signed a continuing resolution at the White House that ends the record-breaking 42-day federal government shutdown.
The Senate passed the resolution on Monday and the House passed it earlier Wednesday evening. The resolution will keep the entire government funded through Jan. 30, and extends funding for military construction, Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, and Congress beyond that, through Sept. 30.
Trump slammed Democrats for causing the shutdown by refusing to go along with a clean continuing resolution for over a month, and urged voters to remember the party responsible for causing the six-week-long chaos during next year’s midterms.
“Republicans never wanted a shutdown and voted 15 times for a clean continuation of funding,” Trump said. “The Democrats shutdown has inflicted massive harm … So I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this when we come up to midterms and other things. Don’t forget what they’ve done to our country.”
The resolution gives backpay to many federal workers and reinstates employees who were fired during the shutdown, but does not include an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies despite it having been a key Democratic demand in the shutdown. The subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year.
And what did Chuck Schumer get for shutting down large portions of the federal government for more than a month? Two things: “Jack” and “Squat.”
I hear that if you call Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office, the hold music is Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.”
Last Tuesday night, Democrats were jubilant, convinced they had just inflicted the first of many consequential defeats upon their detested foes, President Trump and the Republican Party. And now here we are, six days later, and Democrats are once again disappointed, infuriated, and at each other’s throats.
For the past 41 days, Republicans have had 53 senators willing to reopen the government, joined by Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and “independent” Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats. But it requires 60 votes to cut off debate and bring the legislation to the floor for a vote, and thus to reopen the government, Republicans needed at least four more Democrats to change their mind.
Last night, five additional Democratic senators agreed to vote to reopen the government — and in the eyes of their fellow Democrats, effectively surrendered. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire shifted their positions.
Those eight agreed to reopen the federal government at current funding levels through January 30, and in exchange, all they needed was a pledge from Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota to hold a vote on legislation to extend the Obamacare exchange premium subsidies by the second week of December.
There are one or two other deal-sweeteners in there for Kaine, notably an attempt to reverse more than 4,000 federal layoffs the Trump administration announced in the shutdown, and language to prevent future layoffs through January 30.
Snip.
Republicans just got the government reopened in exchange for a promise of a vote — not even promise of passage! — and rehiring government workers who were on the job on September 30. That’s a very small price to pay, and Republicans didn’t have to get rid of the filibuster, the ultimate short-term gain, long-term loss for Republicans in the Senate.
Across three-fifths of the United States, the Trump administration has found half a million people receiving SNAP benefits twice over and 5,000 dead people receiving them. In deep blue states, the fraud is probably much worse.
It is important to clarify that 20+ states out of the 50 did not comply with the federal government’s request for information on SNAP beneficiaries, likely because they are trying to hide how many illegal aliens are illicitly receiving food stamps. So the horrifying numbers revealed by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, The Ingraham Angle, are actually incomplete, and will probably be much higher if the administration can make radical Democrat states provide the necessary data.
Snip.
The secretary continued to list off food stamp recipient statistics: “80% [are] able-bodied Americans, meaning they can work, they don’t have small children at home, they’re not taking care of an elderly parent. They can work, and they choose not to work, of course, because they’re getting significant benefits from the taxpayer.”
We need to restore shame to able-bodied adults living on the public dole.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
A Texas congressman is proposing a “freeze” on all immigration until the federal government fixes the country’s broken system.
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R–TX) said Wednesday he is introducing a bill called the “Pause Act” that will freeze all immigration until Congress achieves certain objectives, including reforming chain migration and birthright citizenship and ending H-1B visas.
He said the nation’s record-high foreign-born population is creating “a cultural problem about who we are as Americans.”
Roy, who is in a four-way race to be the Republican nominee for Texas attorney general in 2026, explained his proposal on The Benny Show.
In addition to the immigration freeze and related reforms, Roy called for revisiting Plyler v. Doe, a case originating in Texas that resulted in a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring states to fund the education of illegal alien children.
Roy also said his bill would require vetting people for their adherence to Sharia law.
“Why are we importing any human being that is adherent to Sharia law, which is totally contrary to the Constitution, and our values, and Western civilization?” Roy asked host Benny Johnson.
“In Texas, we’ve been dealing with the brunt of the illegal immigration influence. But now we’re seeing, I think, the ramifications of the H-1B system and how it has been abused, in addition to chain migration and diversity visas, which we’ve been trying to fix for a long time, and we’ve been unable to do so,” said Roy.
Mostly agree with this, though there would probably have to be a way for individual exceptions to be made (say, a foreign Christian under a death threat from jihadists, or a Russian or Chinese defector, or a foreign NBA draft choice). But it should be so narrow as to require the personal approval of DHS Director Kristi Noem…
There are Somalis in Minnesota who wouldn’t vote for far leftist Somali Omar Fateh because he was from a different Somali clan, and they want members of the rival clan kicked out of the country…
They also hit multiple targets in Novorossiysk, including both the oil terminal and the S-300/400 system defending it. Also, there’s no way I can donate €100 right now, but I really want one of those “This Is Fine” patches…
Orchestrating Over 180 Anti-Trump Lawsuits Through CREW: As co-founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Eisen led hundreds of ethics complaints and lawsuits against the Trump administration, often perceived as partisan harassment that politicizes oversight and strains constitutional separation of powers.
Snip.
Involvement in USAID Funding Scandal: Accused of ties to $17M misappropriation via family-linked NGO, raising corruption concerns in foreign aid.
Plenty more at the link.
(Heavy sigh) Look, I’ve been avoid the whole stupid Tucker Carlson thing because he hasn’t been a particularly important part of the mediascape for a while, and plenty of other people were already dog-piling him. Yet, this week he seemed to turn up some pretty interesting information on would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks. Namely that he was a pro-Trump supporter…until he radically changed his tune in early 2020.
On July 19, 2019 Crooks writes: “Ilhan Omar and others are invaders and should honestly be killed and their dead bodies sent back.”
On July 20, 2018, Crooks writes: “If youre saying trump is a bad president you arent a patriot as trump is the literal definition of Patriotism”
Seven hours after that comment, Crooks writes: “I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who dont deserve anything this countru [sic] has given them”
Later that evening he wrote: “Everyone of the Trump hat-ing democrats deserve to have their heads chopped of and put on steaks for the world to see what happens when you fuck with America”
These types of comments continued for months, “and became increasingly violent.”
“If any of the democratic candidates win. They wont be in there for long. Because unlike the dems we have guns and lots of them”
He also quoted Mao – writing “The only real political power comes from the barrel of a gun.”
The Change:
In early 2020 as the pandemic shifted into the headlines, crooks “radically” changed – writing of “trumps stupidity.”
He then began to mock the idea of the deep state – writing that “The deep state is simply made up of anybody who dis-agrees with the right wing. Conversation over.”
In Feb. 2020, Crooks called out Trump supporters as “brainwashed,” and a “cult.”
Later that day, Crooks called Trump a racist.
And in April 2020 when the COVID panic was in full swing, Crooks became pro-lockdown, writing “It seems that you people don’t understand that sometimes Public safety comes before your Personnel rights.”
He then wrote: “…going to a chinese new years party in america isn’t putting you at risk for corona virus because believe it or not viruses don’t spread through race like Tucker Carlson probably told you.”
In May of 2020, Crooks called Republican concerns over voter fraud “ignorant.”
He then wrote a comment that sounded like a “digital manifesto,” Carlson reports.
“they only way to fight the gov is with terror-ism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building a set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to asasinate them. Any sort of head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren’t going to end well.”
Sounds like another “known wolf,” doesn’t it? And the assertion that “there’s no deep state” (combined with what else we know about the assassination) makes you go “Hmmm.”
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is pushing back on the idea that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as Obamacare, has made health insurance costs more affordable, saying, “Obamacare makes everyone else poor.”
Lee shared a graphic, first posted by President Trump on Truth social, showing how major health insurance company stocks have performed since the ACA was enacted in 2010 to November 2025.
The seven major health insurance companies depicted on the graph show gains of anywhere from 414% to 1177% in their stock prices between March 2010 and November 2025.
Health insurance companies are making money hand over fist—not because they’ve discovered new & innovative ways of making Americans healthier, but because Obamacare insulates them from competition while giving them massive subsidies
Lee called out the insurance providers, noting that they’re “making money hand over fist” but not because they are providing “new & innovative ways of making Americans healthier.”
Instead, Lee says, these health insurance companies are prospering due to the bureaucratic barriers that prevent new competition and from massive subsidies from the federal government.
The Saudis are getting ready to purchase 48 F-35s.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson was arrested Wednesday in an FBI corruption probe and charged with multiple counts of bank and wire fraud.
Federal authorities accused Williamson, 53, of participating in a scheme to funnel campaign money from former federal Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra into a personal account. Sean McCluskie, Becerra’s former chief of staff, was named as a co-conspirator.
“This is a crucial step in an ongoing political corruption investigation that began more than three years ago,” U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said in a statement. “As it always has, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to work tirelessly with our law enforcement partners to protect the people of California from political corruption.”
Williamson and McCluskie stole $225,000 between February 2022 and September 2024 from Becerra’s dormant state campaign fund, the federal indictment says. The Department of Justice investigation into the matter began three years ago, under former President Joe Biden’s administration, FBI Sacramento Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel said.
“The news today of formal accusations of impropriety by a long-serving trusted advisor are a gut punch,” Becerra told local outlet KCRA 3.
Williamson was hit with 23 charges, including conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruct justice, subscribing to false tax returns, and making false statements, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Democratic political consultants are so money-hungry they’ll rake graft off other Democrats. Big fleas have little fleas…
Man, it sure seems like a lot of prominent Democratic politicians are committing mortgage fraud. ‘Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) was hit with a federal criminal referral for alleged mortgage and tax fraud related to his purchase of a $1.2 million home in Washington, DC, that he claimed as a primary residence.” As Dwight notes: “You may remember Eric Swalwell for such hits as ‘banging a Chinese spy‘” and “threatening to use nuclear weapons against gun owners.”
So a Chinese fraudster connected to Communist intelligence services wandered in from Canada and bought a trailer park next door to a stealth bomber base in Missouri.
This is not the opening line of a surreal joke.
Whiteman Air Force Base is home to our tiny fleet of B-2 bombers, and yet an RV park just a mile away “is one of several properties near U.S. military interests acquired by a web of shell companies, which are ultimately owned by a couple who live in Canada and belong to organizations controlled by disgraced Chinese tycoon and self-described former CCP intelligence ‘affiliate,’ Miles Guo,” according to a bombshell Daily Caller report.
Someone in the federal government needs to get this fixed. Get a warrant to toss the entire trailer park to see what spectrum warfare equipment they might be using, then seize the place under eminent domain for national security reasons.
BREAKING: The Attorney General of Kansas just charged Mayor Jose Ceballos of the City of Coldwater for illegally voting as a noncitizen in several elections.
Not only did he get elected city councilman & mayor as a noncitizen, he also voted. WOW! The six charges come immediately… pic.twitter.com/amhsJJvaZW
‘We now have tools, thanks to the current White House, that we haven’t had in over 10 years,’ said Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, ‘that we can check through the SAVE program, to find out if folks end up on our voter rolls. And they could be a legal resident, but they’re not a citizen. We want to make sure that gets clarified.’
Deport him.
Least you think I’m never critical of President Trump, I want to note that his trial balloon for 50 year mortgages is a really bad idea. It’s not a way to build wealth, and the only party getting rich off that deal is the banks. Financially, you’d be better off living in a van for a few years until you can afford a real mortgage.
This certainly has a whiff of scandal: “Houston ISD Sues Texas Attorney General to Block Release of Emails with California PR Firm. The district wants to keep communications with a PR firm from becoming public.”
Houston Independent School District (ISD) filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to block the release of emails between the district and Los Angeles public relations firm Bryson Gillette.
Bryson Gillette is former Obama aide Bill Burton’s public relations firm run by Democratic operatives. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was a senior adviser there.
Bryson Gillette was involved with the district’s rebranding in May. Houston ISD’s Chief of Public Affairs and Communications Alex Elizondo told an advisory committee that the district had a brand identity that “isn’t inviting or super compelling.”
A Houston ISD spokesperson said the rebrand came at no additional cost to the district and coincided with the rollout of new district and campus website designs scheduled for August.
According to the suit, ABC13 News requested one month of emails between Houston ISD and Bryson Gillette on May 8, which the district received on May 9. On May 21, the district asked Paxton to withhold documents and submitted the required materials to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) asserting attorney-client privilege.
The OAG issued a ruling on August 12, ordering Houston ISD to release the records and stating that attorney-client privilege did not apply.
Houston ISD filed a lawsuit in Travis County on September 11, looking to block the emails from release.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly slurred a federal judge by name, echoing President Trump’s history of diatribes against judges even before the current Democrat started copying the former Democrat’s social media style and insulting nicknames.
The perceived contender for the 2028 Democratic nomination for president may cluck his tongue again when he sees the latest order from U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez in a lawsuit against The Golden State’s alleged mandate on school districts to hide from parents their children’s asserted gender identity at odds with sex.
The President George W. Bush nominee ordered state Attorney General Rob Bonta and the California Department of Education to “show cause” on why they should not be sanctioned for “misleading” Benitez so he would remove them from the suit by teachers who allege their school district muzzled them and parents of “gender incongruent children.”
The state defendants’ motions to dismiss and opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment claimed that CDE had “withdrawn and conclusively replaced” an FAQ page that contained the challenged policies, which they claimed was the “only basis” for being named defendants and thus made the case moot, Benitez wrote.
“However, evidence demonstrates that the CDE may have merely moved the challenged content of the FAQ page to a new, required ‘PRISM’ training module,” as documented by the plaintiffs’ lawyers at the Thomas More Society, the judge said, ordering state defendants to explain their behavior Nov. 17 in court.
“From day one, officials from the local school district all the way to the governor’s mansion have tried to deflect responsibility” but “have now been caught not only lying to California taxpayers but attempting to mislead the Court to escape accountability,” TMS Executive Vice President Peter Breen said in a statement.
Based on early voting and some voting day results, no candidate secured over 50 percent of the votes cast, so the two highest vote recipients will move on to the runoff election, the date of which remains to be set by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The North Texas Senate seat was vacated when former state Sen. Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills) resigned and was appointed by Abbott to fill the vacancy as the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.
Snip.
Wambsganss was endorsed early on in the race by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has vocally opposed expansion of casino gambling in Texas. She has also received support from Texans United for a Conservative Majority (TUCM), which opposes gambling expansion as well. Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a group not frequently on the same side of an electoral battle as TUCM, has also supported Wambsganss.
The Substrate startup has been doing the rounds in the news lately, thanks to its proposition of making chips using particle accelerators and X-rays instead of conventional EUV lithography, claiming it can eventually have angstrom-sized features at only $10,000 per wafer—in U.S. fabs, no less.
Oooo, where to begin? IBM tried experimenting with x-ray lithography in the 1980s and 90s, and found the rays were too energetic to use because they damaged wafers.
And technically, semiconductor equipment manufacturing already has particle accelerators: they’re called ion implanters and they’re used for gate dopants. Axcelis (formerly Eaton Semiconductor) and Applied Materials (both companies I worked for in the 1990s) make good money selling them, and there are a whole bunch of limits-of-physics reasons why you can’t use them for lithography. (Historical trivia: Applied Materials used to have their own in-house designed ion implanters, but their current offerings trace back to a competitor named Varian they bought in 2011.)
Those are bold claims, and an article by Fox Chapel Research (FCR) is seriously questioning whether they pay off.
The write-up is the first of two parts, and takes aim at not just the seemingly outlandish technological claims, but also at the track record of the venture’s founders, as well as the overall messaging on Substrate’s website. The start-up is backed by various investment funds, namely but not only Founders Fund, of whom Peter Thiel is part of.
The report says the founders are James and Oliver Proud, who reportedly have no experience in the semiconductor industry, nor do any of the investor funds. James’ latest venture was apparently the Sense sleep tracker, a product that had its inception on Kickstarter to the tune of $2.5m, but didn’t materialize until funding rounds raised over $50m. After release, the tracker was found to be borderline useless by reviewers and drew many comparisons to a scam.
ClowfishTV floats an interesting theory: A lot of those “AI-related” layoffs are just companies using that as an excuse to purge the woke from the ranks.
For more than half a century, Delaware stood as America’s corporate capital, renowned for its business-friendly laws, respected Chancery Court, and consistent legal rulings. But in recent years, leftist activist lawmakers and politicized judges have undermined that very foundation, sparking an exodus of major companies seeking stability and fairness to more welcoming states like Texas and Nevada.
On Wednesday morning, Coinbase joined the growing exodus, announcing on its website and in a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal that it is moving its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas.
“For decades, Delaware was known for predictable court outcomes, respect for the judgment of corporate boards, and speedy resolutions,” Grewal wrote in the op-ed.
However, he pointed out that recent inconsistent Chancery Court rulings and reliance on ad hoc legislative fixes do not create a sustainable business environment.
“Our decision to leave is about ensuring more predictable opportunities for the company, our shareholders, our customers and the new on-chain ecosystem we’re building,” he noted, adding, “Texas offers efficiency and predictability, in part thanks to recent corporate-law reforms that enhance governance flexibility and legal predictability.”
Grewal concluded, “Delaware wasn’t always the go-to choice for companies. At one point it was New Jersey, and before that New York. We’ve reached another inflection point in corporate law. The more states that can credibly attract companies, the better—and we’d like to see Delaware step up to stay in the mix. But as for Coinbase, you can find us in Texas….”
The exodus list from Delaware increases:
Tesla: Moved to Texas.
SpaceX: Moved to Texas.
Trump Media & Technology: Moved to Florida.
Dropbox: Moved to Nevada.
TripAdvisor: Moved to Nevada.
Roblox: Moved to Nevada.
Pershing Square: Moved to Nevada.
The Trade Desk: Moved to Nevada.
AMC Networks: Moved to Nevada.
Madison Square Garden Sports: Moved to Nevada.
Fidelity National Financial: Voted to move to Nevada.
So was a Delaware judge letting Elon Musk know how much he hated him for supporting Trump worth it?
“750-meter-long Chinese bridge partially collapses just weeks after opening.” From a landslide, but I’m betting the usual Chinesium/tofu drugs construction quality didn’t help…
At its Midlothian Data Center, alongside a number of state officials, Google announced a $40 billion data center infrastructure investment in Texas.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, said that the investment will go toward the construction of three data center campuses located in Armstrong and Haskell counties.
Armstrong County is southeast of Amarillo. Haskell County is north of Abilene. Both counties have a whole lot of nothing there.
“They say that everything is bigger in Texas – and that certainly applies to the golden opportunity with AI,” Pichai stated.
“This investment will create thousands of jobs, provide skills training to college students and electrical apprentices, and accelerate energy affordability initiatives throughout Texas.”
Gov. Greg Abbott said the new Google AI data center announcement is “a Texas-sized investment in the future of our great state.” U.S. Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) were also in attendance, along with Congressman Jake Ellzey (R-TX-06) and a number of other local officials.
“Google’s $40 billion investment makes Texas Google’s largest investment in any state in the country and supports energy efficiency and workforce development in our state,” Abbott added. “We must ensure that America remains at the forefront of the AI revolution, and Texas is the place where that can happen.”
Google has already officially broken ground on two other data centers in the state: one in Midlothian in 2019, and the other in Red Oak in 2023. The technology company has since announced further investments into data and cloud infrastructure to the tune of $2.7 billion.
This most recent announcement of a $40 billion investment will focus on building out infrastructure to support the three new data centers. Some of that investment includes building up new and existing energy storage facilities, advanced water use operations, and partnering with universities to offer technology training and education.
My reservations about Google’s AI notwithstanding, that will offer a bunch of real jobs for real Texans…assuming the AI bubble doesn’t burst before they get built.
Speaking of tech firms in trouble, video game maker Ubisoft (makers of Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed games) has not only postponed an earnings report, they’ve suspended stock trading. I can’t recall a single instance where that was a good sign. The last time we mentioned Ubisoft, they were pissing off Japanese gamers for including a black samurai in one of their games…
Ian McCollum looks at the new Rideout Arsenal Dragon, a low-bore-axis, lever-delayed pistol. It’s funky looking and has some interesting features, including complete non-tool disassembly. However, the price point would make it way too expensive to consider even if I had a job, he experiences several firing malfunctions testing it (though it is a prototype), and I fear the tiny little tabs it uses may not hold up under heavy use. Still a pretty interesting design.
Illegal aliens continue raking in welfare benefits, the #SchumerShutdown continues, a look at the Democrats’ foreign paymasters, a jihad attack thwarted, cartels are enslaving American Indians in California in the name of weed, some Joe Rogan interviews, Nasty Nancy bows out, Kill Bill returns to theaters, and Bass Pro Shop Fight Club.
It’s astounding, the things we learn when the money runs out and governments actually have to start prioritizing for a change. As the Schumer Shutdown drags through Week Five with no end in sight, the country’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — aka “food stamps” — ran out of money on Saturday. And given who was taking, it’s a miracle that there was any money left at all.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins reported yesterday that earlier this year, “we told every state to send us their SNAP data so we could make sure illegal immigrants aren’t getting benefits meant for American families. 29 states stepped up. 21 blue states refused — and two SUED US FOR ASKING!”
That’s because we’re spending billions on benefits to illegal aliens.
My guess is that the Center for Immigration Studies — which bills itself as “low-immigrant” yet “pro-immigration” — was being a bit ironic with this headline: Illegal Immigrants To Be Hit Hard As SNAP and WIC Benefits Expire.
The organization’s 2023 analysis of government data showed that “households headed by illegal immigrants make extensive use of the welfare system, particularly food assistance programs.” CIS estimated that 59% of households headed up by an illegal are on one or more welfare programs, whether it’s cash, food assistance, Medicaid, or housing.
Read that again. We’re giving cash, food, healthcare, and housing to people who aren’t even supposed to be here.
Millions of them, in fact. Even though I could have sworn that Democrats insisted up and down that sort of thing never happened. No wonder 21 blue states didn’t want Rollins looking at their books.
Houston, we have a problem. A very expensive problem.
His suggestions: Require proof of citizenship for all welfare benefits, and ban junk food from purchase with EBT.
The Schumer Shutdown continues. Democrats offered a one year ObamaCare extension and Republicans told them to get stuffed. Republicans should counter-offer an extension of the subsidies for American citizens…but none for illegal alien, plus states are required to submit their benefits database so illegal aliens can be kicked off the program and deported. That would make it even more painfully clear Democrats favor illegal aliens over citizens when they refuse…
Foreigners not only are paying to promote liberal causes and by extension liberal candidates but foreigners are running their own candidates. The Squad has a couple of them and Minneapolis is about to get a Somali mayor.
Foreigners are funding the Indian who was born in Uganda and sent to New York City at some point. Now he’ll a jihadist-friendly communist—but if justice prevails, he may end up in prison instead of being in City Hall.
The New York Post reported last week, “Zohran Mamdani was hit with two criminal referrals Tuesday filed by a campaign finance watchdog accusing the lefty socialist of accepting illegal contributions from foreign donors.
“The Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed the referrals—alleging Mamdani may have violated the Federal Election Campaign Act and New York Election Code—with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on Tuesday.
“The referrals were filed after The Post reported earlier this month Mamdani’s campaign raked in nearly $13,000 in contributions from at least 170 donors with addresses outside the U.S.—including one from his mother-in-law in Dubai.”
Ed Morrissey:
The Democrat Party has turned into the Globalist Party. Their constituency isn’t American voters; it’s the international cognoscenti, who want an America that submits to the “global community.” That is why Democrat leaders do not adapt their policies and positions to the clear consensus in the American electorate, because they have already adapted to constituencies outside the United States.
That isn’t the only institution orienting itself away from American constituencies, and for the same reason. Over the last several decades, Academia has seen billions of dollars flow into its coffers from places like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. There too, the money has pushed institutions to indoctrinate students into radical-Left globalist values and agendas. Universities have largely stopped providing foundational Western-civilization values and education in favor of revisionist propaganda about Western imperialism and colonialism. This in turn colors all of the institutions into which radicalized graduates enter and rise within those structures.
Jonah Goldberg, from 2009 (back before Trump broke his brain):
Liberalism has openly yearned to “Europeanize” American social policy for decades. Liberals point to European health-care systems, union rules, tax policies, industrial policy, foreign policy, and even sexual mores, and say: “We need to be more like them.”
This is a very old story. The founders of modern liberalism, led by Woodrow Wilson and the two Roosevelts, were quite open about their effort to adopt a more European approach to political economy. The progressive leader William Allen White said in 1911: “We were parts, one of another, in the United States and Europe. Something was welding us into one social and economic whole with local political variations. It was Stubbs in Kansas, Jaures in Paris, the Social Democrats in Germany, the Socialists in Belgium, and I should say the whole people in Holland, fighting a common cause.”
But it was FDR’s New Deal that truly aimed to “assimilate the American into the ‘European’ political experience,” according to historian Daniel Boorstin.
After years of Democrats telling the American people that former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a thriving system, the glaring truth revealed now during the government shutdown is that not only has the ACA resulted in widespread fraud and allegations of kickbacks to insurance companies, the American people are footing the bill for subsidies to hide the fact that Obamacare is broken.
“Everything Obama told us was a complete lie,” E.J. Antoni told John Solomon during a special report on the government shutdown sponsored by the Association of Mature American Citizens.
Antoni, who serves as chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, continued: “When he said, ‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.’ No you couldn’t. Obamacare made a lot of those health care plans illegal. He said, ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.’ No, it forced a lot of doctors out of business, and it forced a lot of doctors to no longer take most insurance.”
President Barack Obama repeatedly promised Americans during the rollout of the ACA — commonly known as Obamacare — that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” a claim intended to reassure Americans about the ACA’s impact on existing healthcare arrangements. However, millions of people lost access to their preferred and established physicians due to narrowed insurance networks and cancellations of plans which did not comply with the law’s new requirements, leading even left-leaning PolitiFact to name it the “Lie of the Year” in 2013.
Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., revealed the latest scandal within Obamacare. Bergman, speaking to Just The News, laid out the timeline for subsidies which were meant to lighten the burden for Americans but when unused, were pocketed by the insurance companies.
Bergman explained that “In 2010, the Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act. Then in 2014, ACA premium tax credits became available, meant to help families earning 100 to 140% of the federal poverty level – that was designed to help those folks. In 2021, through the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act), Democrats temporarily extended and expanded those subsidies to everyone, regardless of income, for one year. In 2022, the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), they extended the expansion again, but only through January 1 of 2026.”
Bergman emphasized that the expiration imposed by Democrats implicitly meant that the extension was not meant to be permanent. That extension expires and is what Democrats have shut down the government over. As Bergman puts it, “They’re blaming us, the Republicans, for letting their own temporary extensions expire.”
The largest surprise regarding these subsidies, is that they haven’t been going directly to patients. They’ve been going to insurance companies, according to Bergman. “Insurance companies’ profits right now are up something like 240+ percent. There’s something morally wrong with that. Not only is it shamefully wrong, but morally wrong.”
Bergman did not name any specific insurance companies.
“Millions of these so-called ghost enrollees, people who are technically eligible, but are unaware of it, never use these subsidies. The insurers pocket the difference.”
OpenSecrets reported that in 2012, the health insurance industry donated roughly $9.6 million to Democrats. In 2024, the industry donated almost $40 million to Democrats.
Five people between the ages of 16 and 20 were arrested Friday, CBS News has learned. Authorities say they were inspired by a former member of the Michigan Army National Guard who was arrested in May for allegedly planning an ISIS-inspired attack against a U.S. Army site in suburban Detroit.
(Just a reminder that Detroit suburbs like Dearborn Heights are majority-Muslim.)
The men were inspired by another “Michigan man” who was arrested in May:
Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19, was accused of providing support for a planned attack on the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command facility at the Detroit Arsenal.
Democrats have been importing unassimilated Muslims into America for, what, 30 year now? 40? Who initiated the plan, and why?
Over 1,500 alleged criminal illegal aliens were arrested during a 10-day operation in Southeast Texas — including documented gang members, a convicted murderer, and over a dozen sexual offenders.
The Houston branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the operation between October 22 and 31, arresting a total of 1,505 alleged criminal illegal aliens.
Among the arrests were 17 “documented gang members,” including an alleged Mexican Mafia gang member, who was convicted for raping and impregnating his minor sister and is wanted in Honduras for murder. A suspected MS-13 gang member was also among the arrested, after he “ran inside a local washateria, climbed through the ceiling panels to get on the roof and became wedged in a sign on the side of the building,” before being captured by Houston ICE.
Forty “aggravated felons” were reported as being among the 1,505 arrested, as were 13 sexual predators.
One of the arrested is Vongphachan Phothisome of Laos, who was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child. Similarly, an illegal alien from Honduras, Rony Andy Martinez Lopez, was convicted of “lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and cruelty towards a child.”
A comparable week-long operation conducted by Houston ICE in early September yielded about half the arrests as this October one, with 822 alleged criminal illegal aliens arrested last month.
Native American sovereignty and California’s policies that shield illegal immigrants have allowed Mexican drug cartels to swoop in on tribal lands of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, a confederation of several tribes, the sheriff said.
The valley, known for illegal marijuana grows on tribal lands, is remote and surrounded by forested mountainous terrain. It’s a patchwork of tribal lands and those sold off to private owners years ago.
[Mendocino County Sheriff Matt] Kendall, 56, grew up here in the 1970s. During the drive to Covelo, an isolated town in the valley, he talks about how the times have changed over the decades.
“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, it was a beautiful place—a lot of freedom here,” he said. “When we were kids, we’d be riding our horses and having fun. Every kid in this valley had a horse. We’d go out to the river. All of us had summertime jobs, hauling hay and cutting firewood.”
His nostalgic journey ends abruptly as he passes a burned-out building with murals of missing women on its walls—a stark reminder of the violence that plagues the valley. Other banners along the road display their names and faces, including that of Khadijah Rose Britton, a native American woman who, according to the FBI, was last seen in Covelo being kidnapped at gunpoint in 2018.
Today, Kendall says, “there’s a little bit of farming, and then just tons and tons of marijuana, and pretty much all of it is illegal.”
“We see a lot of Hispanics here when there is no work, no sawmill jobs, no grapes, no vineyards and not much logging. They’re all here taking orders to grow marijuana, and a lot of it’s happening on tribal lands.”
He estimates up to 80 percent of the illegal marijuana in Mendocino County is grown on tribal lands, based on aerial surveillance and satellite imagery revealing a vast network of illegal grow ops.
A blow against tranny madness. “Supreme Court Reinstates Trump Admin Requirement That Passports Reflect Biological Sex.”
Joe Rogan interviews Elon Musk, again. I have not remotely watched all three hours of it, but I don’t rule out posting clips from it in the future.
Speaking of Musk, Telsa shareholders just approved a $1 trillion pay package for him, assuming he hits certain metrics over the next decade. My guess is that’s a whole lot of pie in the sky, even for him…
Speaking of three hour Joe Rogan interviews, he did one with Billy Bob Thorton that just dropped. I’m sure I’ll watch all of that one as well…
Nancy Pelosi announces her retirement. She was able to force the abomination that was ObamaCare over the line, and grab a lot of taxpayer-funded pork for Democrats, but it’s doubtful her terms as Speaker resulted in lasting achievements for Democrats. She was bad, but if another Democrat manages to be Speaker in my lifetime, my default assumption is that they’ll be much, much worse…
A Washington Parish grand jury in Louisiana has indicted Democratic Bogalusa, Louisiana Mayor Tyrin Z. Truong on charges of malfeasance in office, public intimidation, and theft, according to the Bogalusa Daily News.
The indictment is part of what officials describe as an ongoing multi-agency investigation involving federal, state, and local authorities. Prosecutors allege Truong intentionally carried out his official duties unlawfully and knowingly allowed other city employees to ignore theirs. His arraignment is scheduled for November 10, 2025.
According to prosecutors, the case centers on claims that Truong misused Bogalusa taxpayer funds to pay a personal legal debt from a 2023 Louisiana public records lawsuit in which a judge ruled that Truong personally owed attorney fees and penalties after refusing to release public documents.
When the Bogalusa City Council denied his request to use public money, prosecutors say Truong threatened retaliation, vowing to overwhelm council members with records requests. Investigators allege he then pressured a city insurance vendor to issue a check labeled as a “reimbursement,” had it deposited into a city account, and ordered another check for the same amount to be written to himself.
Rookie mistake. Graft pros always have the check written to an intermediary cutout who withdraws the money and pays them in cash…
In 2022, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) announced a plan to give $715 million in taxpayer cash and tax incentives to lure Gotion, a Chinese battery maker, to rural central Michigan. She did it in the midst of a reelection campaign so she could fire off a press release claiming credit for 2,600 “good-paying jobs.”
She didn’t mind the fact that this proposed one-square-mile plant would be located less than 100 miles from an Army and National Guard training facility called Camp Grayling. The real irony is that the U.S. military has been training the Taiwanese military at Camp Graying for years to repel a Chinese invasion. Our governor was going to pay the CCP to operate a plant in the middle of the state. Genius!
Local residents rose up. Yes, of course, because they objected to the possibility of Chinese spies roaming around their community. But also because they resented the way in which the project was unveiled. Elected officials signed nondisclosure agreements with economic development agencies and then said they were legally bound from sharing details with the residents footing the bill.
The more questions citizens had, the more obstinate company, township, and state officials became. Green Charter Township is made up of normal people: farmers, small business owners, and the like. James Chapman, the chief project proponent and former township supervisor, quickly lost his patience in meetings and yelled at the rubes who had the temerity to attend and voice their opinions. They would yell right back. The massive project, shrouded in arrogant secrecy, bitterly divided the small community.
It reached a boiling point when township officials who were supporting the project either resigned or were overwhelmingly recalled. A new board was elected, and they went about doing the due diligence that taxpayers expect elected officials to pursue for such an expensive and disruptive project.
The CCP-linked company sued the new board, driving up massive legal bills for the tiny community. The company didn’t want to wait for environmental approvals, tearing down trees and homes. The community continued fighting, even employing President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Trump publicly opposed the project. Vance held a campaign rally across the street.
When they took office in January, they changed former President Joe Biden’s scam electric vehicle mandates, and the whole racket collapsed. It was the beginning of the end for the Gotion project.
Last week, the state of Michigan announced it was withdrawing the promise of $175 million in taxpayer cash, although $50 million had already been delivered. It’s unclear whether taxpayers will receive an accounting of where that money went.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Voting fraud alert. “North Carolina Republicans say texts show that local Democrats are paying for people’s votes.”
The North Carolina Republican Party referred an alleged vote-buying scheme to the State Board of Elections for investigation on Friday, claiming that a voter had been offered $100 to vote for Democratic candidates in the Wilmington City Council election.
‘This is a troubling allegation and an egregious affront to our democracy and an attempt to buy votes in exchange for cash,’ NC GOP Chair Jason Simmons said in a press conference. ‘The North Carolina Republican Party stands committed and steadfast in its determination for free, fair and transparent elections.’
“FAA Orders Flight Cuts at Texas Airports as Democrat-Led Shutdown Deepens. The FAA will cut flights by 10 percent at 40 of the nation’s top airports due to staffing shortages among air traffic controllers.”
The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently signed Addendum No. 9 to their 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), paving the way for faster follow-on licensing of advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel technologies.
This agreement, signed Oct 24th and effective immediately, comes as major concerns have been raised by reactor development companies and industry observers regarding the double work that may be required of developers when they bring their tested products over to the NRC. Demand for clean, reliable energy by data centers and major industrial companies has created a stronger need for change in the path to reactor design commercialization, with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon signing long-term offtake agreements with reactor operators Constellation, NextEra, and Talen.
The addition to the MOU comes from the directives out of Trump’s executive orders signed back in May of this year. From section 5.d of the executive order “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”:
“Establish an expedited pathway to approve reactor designs that the DOD or the DOE have tested and that have demonstrated the ability to function safely. NRC review of such designs shall focus solely on risks that may arise from new applications permitted by NRC licensure, rather than revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE or DOD processes.”
Surprisingly, the DOE and NRC took the executive order one step further and included a streamlined licensing process for nuclear fuel facilities as well. It becomes less surprising when we remember the current administration has highlighted multiple times the desire to reduce the reliance on foreign nuclear fuel supplies. Even with the Russian uranium import ban, the US is still importing over a fifth of the required enriched uranium from Russia through last year. The US government is looking to expand the domestic capacity of every step in the fuel chain as quickly as possible.
Faster, please.
“Top 20 Theories on Why the EU Committed Cultural Suicide.” They’re not mutually exclusive. And the piece needs an entry for cultural relativism/Frankfurt School and a Gramscian “war of position” against civil society.
Digital media hasn’t become the antidote to television. Digital media, empowered by the serum of algorithmic feeds, has become super-television: more images, more videos, more isolation. Home-alone time has surged as our devices have become more bottomless feeds of video content. Rather than escape the solitude crisis that Putnam described in the 1990s, we now seem to be more on our own. (Not to mention: meaner and stupider, too.)
It would be rash to blame our berserk political moment entirely on short-form video, but it would be careless to forget that some people really did try to warn us that this was coming. In Amusing Ourselves to Death1, Neil Postman wrote that “each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.” Television speaks to us in a particular dialect, Postman argued. When everything turns into television, every form of communication starts to adopt television’s values: immediacy, emotion, spectacle, brevity. In the glow of a local news program, or an outraged news feed, the viewer bathes in a vat of their own cortisol. When everything is urgent, nothing is truly important. Politics becomes theater. Science becomes storytelling. News becomes performance. The result, Postman warned, is a society that forgets how to think in paragraphs, and learns instead to think in scenes.
Snip.
Short-form video is indistinguishable from what today’s youth consider the definition of American success. For five straight years, Gen Z has told pollsters that the thing they most want to be when they grow up is an “influencer.”
When literally everything becomes television, what disappears is not something so broad as intelligence (although that seems to be going, too) but something harder to put into words, and even harder to prove the value of. It’s something like inwardness. The capacity for solitude, for sustained attention, for meaning that penetrates inward rather than swipes away at the tip of a finger: These virtues feel out of step with a world where every medium is the same medium and everything in life converges to the value system of the same thing, which is television.
I’m not free from guilt myself. I only turn on my TV one day a week, but I watch waaaaaaay too much YouTube. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Greg Ellifritz via Dwight.)
GM to iPhone users: Drop dead. “General Motors is dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support across all of its brands—Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC.”
“Microsoft just revealed that OpenAI lost more than $11.5B last quarter.” “If Microsoft owns 27 percent of OpenAI, it stands to reason under equity accounting that it bears 27 percent of OpenAI’s losses. Microsoft’s admission that it shaved $3.1 billion off its net income to account for its share of OpenAI losses therefore suggests OpenAI lost about $11.5 billion during the quarter.”
“Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR unites Volume 1 and Volume 2 into a single, unrated epic—presented exactly as he intended, complete with a new, never-before-seen anime sequence.”
Coming to theaters in December. If I wasn’t in financial turtle mode, I’d probably go out and see it…
Just like the old gypsy woman said, New York City voted for the commie jihadist. This is great for national Republicans crafting attack ads for next year’s election, but bad for ordinary New York citizens who don’t want their city to turn into a festering hellhole.
Festering hellhole is one of the polar defaults for post-war NYC. Back under liberal Republican mayor John Lindsay (yes, there used to be such things as “liberal Republicans”), NYC had earned the title as “the ungovernable city.” High crime, endemic corruption, shaky finances, failing infrastructure and poor sanitation made New York in the 1960s-70s so unpleasant that it became a movie cliche all its own (see The Out of Towners or The Warriors).
But a funny thing happened on the road to perdition: A couple of strong mayors (first Ed Koch, then Rudy Giuliani) managed to pull the city back from the brink by concentrating on lowering the city’s spiraling crime rates. Giuliani’s “broken windows” policing in particular made New York livable again, by prosecuting petty criminals before they could impact the quality of life by graduating to bigger crimes, pretty much the opposite of the soft-on-crime “put repeat offenders back on the streets” policies pursued by Soros-backed DAs like Alvin Bragg.
One of the few reasons New York City has held together as well as it has through previous leftwing incompetent mayors like David Dinkins and Bill de Blasio is the presence of some 33,000 New York police officers. The NYPD had its own sleaze and corruption problems in The Bad Old Times, as exemplified in movies like Serpico or Prince of the City that only started getting cleaned up after the Knapp Commission. Under Giuliani, the NYPD regained its reputation as one of the better run police departments in the country.
Now that police-hostile Mamdani has been elected, just what are honest NYPD cops supposed to do? The Houston Police Department has a suggestion: Come on down!
Soon after Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral election on Tuesday night, the Houston Police Officers’ Union began encouraging New York City police officers to move to the Lone Star State.
Following the projection of Mamdani’s win, the union began highlighting work for the Houston Police Department through a series of social media posts.
“NYPD, are you disgusted with the election of Zohran Mamdani? Join us! The Houston Police Department is hiring police officers!” one post read. “Texas’ largest police union invites you to consider joining the Houston Police Department!”
Zohran Mamdani, who calls himself a democrat socialist, has previously attacked the NYPD as “racist,” “wicked,” and “corrupt.” He has also called for defunding the NYPD.
Fox News called the race for Mamdani just minutes after the polls closed Tuesday evening.
Job perks highlighted by the Houston union include competitive pay, a police chief who is a retired Texas Ranger rather than “a politician,” affordable housing, and a state government that supports law enforcement.
I sincerely doubt Houston is the only city trying to poach NYPD officers in the wake of Mamdani’s election.
The Jewish head of the FDNY commission resigned after the election results. The Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents most NYPD cops, has had disputes with pretty much every NYC mayor back into the dim mists of time, but before Mamdani, they’ve never had a mayor who was actively hostile to the NYPD and on the side of criminals. New York’s Taylor Act prevents police from striking, but what if they simply…left? Or, in an act of “Irish Democracy,” simply refuse Mamdani orders they don’t like?
It’s possible that NYC under Mamdani will descend into ungovernable chaos that will put Lindsay’s feckless reign in the shade…
