Posts Tagged ‘pedophilia’

LinkSwarm For December 26, 2025

Friday, December 26th, 2025

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! GDP says that some of the economy is already booming, Minnesota Somali fraud is even greater than we thought, Nigerian jihadis get dirtnapped, California drives yet more businesses out, another Democrat pedophile busted, Trump cleared in Epstein scandal by NYT, some cursed gun images, and some leftover Christmas cheer.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Is the Trump Boom here? “US Economy Grows By Big 4.3% In Third Quarter.” I can hardly wait for this booming economy to catch up with me…
  • “Minnesota Somalia Community Fraud Likely to Exceed $9 Billion.

    According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, 14 Medicaid services currently under audit and deemed “high risk” have cost the state $18 billion since 2018. “I don’t make these generalizations in a hasty way,” he said. “When I say significant amount, I’m talking on the order of half or more. But we’ll see. When I look at the claims data and the providers, I see more red flags than I see legitimate providers.”

    Thompson said during a press conference announcing new indictments that entire companies were created not to provide medical services but to pocket federal funds for international travel, luxury vehicles and lavish lifestyles. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”

    Thompson then outlined an industry of “fraud tourism” where some outsiders -specifically two from Philadelphia- even travelled to the state to participate in the financial windfalls. The scheme was “easy money,” he said.

    Why, it’s almost as if the Democrats running the state didn’t try to stop the fraud…

  • Ukraine continued to hit Russian oil infrastructure by hitting a fourth oil and gas platform in the Caspian Sea.
  • They also used Storm Shadow to hit a refinery at Novoshakhtinsk.
  • they also hit a variety of targets, including a Spetznaz headquarters in Donetsk.
  • President Trump ordered the bombing of multiple Islamic State terrorist camps in Nigeria, with the permission of the Nigerian government.

    Nigerian foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, has told broadcaster ChannelsTV that he was on the phone with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and that Nigeria “provided” the intelligence.

    “We spoke twice. We spoke for 19 minutes before the strike and then we spoke again for another five minutes before it went on,” Tuggar said.

    He added that they spoke “extensively” and that President Bola Tinubu gave “the go-ahead” to launch the strikes.

    Tuggar did not rule out further strikes, describing them as an “ongoing process” that would also involve other countries.

    In an interview with the BBC, Tuggar insisted the strikes had “nothing to do with a particular religion”. He said the operation did not have “anything to do with Christmas, it could be any other day – it is to do with attacking terrorists who have been killing Nigerians”.

    Of course, the Islamic State has everything to do with religion, but it’s smart to say “We’re not killing Muslims, we’re killing terrorists.”

  • The BBC has more information on the strikes, saying they hit not Boko Haram, but “a smaller group [known] locally as Lakurawa” that “sought to establish a base in north-western Sokoto state.” DoD images released suggest the use of Tomahawk cruise missiles, but I haven’t seen any confirmation of the weapons used in the strikes.
  • Harsh but fair: “Democrats are letting criminal illegal immigrants kill people.”

    Democrats are allowing people to be murdered by illegal immigrants so they can brag that they are not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    This is the reality of the most recent case in Fairfax County, Virginia. There, El Salvadoran national Marvin Morales Ortez had been jailed and charged with multiple crimes after “maliciously wounding” someone who was living in the same home with him. When the alleged victim did not show up to testify, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office dropped the charges, and a judge ordered Ortez to be released. He was then arrested after allegedly murdering the same person he had injured, not even a day after being released.

    ICE had put a detainer request on Ortez, given that he was an illegal immigrant, but Fairfax County refused to honor it and hand him over to be deported. Now, someone is dead. And this is not the first time there has been an issue with Ortez; Descano dropped murder charges against him from a 2019 killing where he had, according to Descano’s own office, confessed to participating in the murder. He has been charged with at least seven crimes in Fairfax County over the past five years, but Descano has dropped charges against him multiple times.

    And, sure enough, he is also an alleged member of MS-13.

    There are some questions to be asked here. For one, how can you be unable to prosecute an alleged MS-13 member after bringing charges against him multiple times? Descano’s office has constantly claimed noncooperation by the alleged victims, as if that is an insurmountable obstacle. But, more importantly, why not just hand him over to ICE, send him back to El Salvador, and never play this cat-and-mouse game where you arrest him for crimes and drop the charges the moment the case is more difficult than a slam dunk?

    This guy could have been deported at any time, and yet he was allowed to stay free in Fairfax County through dropped charges and ignored ICE detainers. The Democrats who run Fairfax County are so obsessed with supporting illegal immigration that they allowed an alleged murderer to stay in the country, constantly released him from jail, and watched him allegedly commit another murder in the process.

    This is the mindset of Democrats across the country in all sanctuary states, cities, and jurisdictions. They care more about protecting the concept of illegal immigration than they do about the lives of the people who are being victimized by illegal immigrants.

  • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has posted a woman’s privacy complaint form. So if any of you woman see a man pretending to be a woman using your restrooms, now you know where to report them.
  • Good news, everyone! California officials are not allowed to lie to parents about their children.

    California state officials received an emphatic legal rebuke over public school policies that required school officials to withhold from parents the gender identity or “social transition” expressions of minor students.

    U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled yesterday in a summary judgment decision that California’s parental exclusion policies are unconstitutional and issued a class-wide permanent injunction in the case of Mirabelli v. Olson.

    The injunction permanently blocks California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state’s Department of Education from forcing teachers to lie to parents about their children being socially transitioned with new names and pronouns.

    I hope every parent who had their child “transitioned” sues the asses off the groomers.

  • Speaking of crazy trannies: “Transgender felon who blinded Seattle woman was arrested and released 8 times this year.”
  • Because the People’s Republic of California wasn’t doing enough to destroy business in their state, they’re passing on more business-destroying taxes.

    We may never run out of signs that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is an utterly incompetent executive who belongs nowhere near power. The latest is that he has not repaid a federal pandemic unemployment loan, effectively creating a new California tax on jobs.

    During the 2020 pandemic, the Trump administration provided loans to states to help address unemployment as businesses were shut down. California received a loan of $20 billion and, more than five years later, has not paid it back. In fact, California is one of only two states that have not repaid their loans. And California failed to do this despite the Biden administration giving all states the ability to repay loans with federal stimulus money.

    This means the cost is now passed on to California employers. Every employer in California will be required to pay an additional $42 per employee in payroll taxes to help the state pay back the loan. That will increase by $21 every year until the loan is paid back (which is not projected to happen until the 2030s). It does not matter if the employee is part-time or full-time. It does not matter if the employer is a big business or a small, family-run store. Everyone will be taxed for each person they employ.

    That means, in effect, Newsom and California Democrats have allowed a new tax on employing people to take effect while having the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. California, with onerous regulations and taxes, already makes job growth difficult; in 2024, 96.5% of new jobs created were government jobs. This will only make it even more difficult, all because Newsom and California Democrats want to recklessly spend money without making sure everything is paid for.

  • Stephen Green wonders if Trump’s Venezuela move might topple Communist Cuba.

    ity poor Cuba — one of the wealthier nations in the Latin America before the Communists got hold of it, and now at risk of “collapse” due to President Donald Trump’s seizures of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers.

    If you liked the pressure Trump’s blockade put on the Maduro regime, you’re gonna love the second-order effects it could have on Cuba.

    The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that “Venezuelan oil exports are at risk thanks to a partial blockade targeting sanctioned tankers — the kind that carry about 70% of the country’s crude.” The story continued, “Were Venezuela’s oil shipments to stop, or sharply decline, the Cubans know it would be devastating.”

    Cuban exile and energy expert Jorge Piñón told the Journal, “It would be the collapse of the Cuban economy, no question about it.”

    Communist Cuba has relied on foreign benefactors to stay afloat, pretty much since Fidel Castro and his butcher boys like Che Guevara seized power more than 60 years ago. In recent years, the regime — ruled since 2018 by Communist party chief Miguel Díaz-Canel — relies on the largess of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro for cheap oil the country can’t afford to buy at market price.

    Yes, even at today’s low prices. I’d also pause here a moment longer and ask you to ponder that under the Communists, Cuba is so poor that Maduro’s Venezuela — where they already ate all the zoo animals — is its economic lifeline.

    Venezuela is in such dire straits that oil shipments to Cuba already declined by two-thirds, from 100,000 barrels a day to 30,000. That was before we started pulling over their tankers and checking for license and registration.

    My PJ Media colleague Sarah Anderson reported Saturday that U.S. forces just “seized another oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X, “This morning [the U.S. Coast Guard] in coordination with the [Department of War] executed a lightning strike operation to seize the Motor Tanker Centuries, which is suspected of carrying oil subject to U.S. sanctions. The iron fist of America’s joint military and federal law enforcement rules the waves.”

    With the Motor Tanker Centuries tanker went another small fraction of $150-$435 million or so in hard currency imports (estimates seriously vary!) the Maduro regime requires each week to do little things like pay the troops who keep it in power.

    And Díaz-Canel’s lifeline got that much shorter.

    It would be ironic of all that military buildup people think is for Venezuela actually liberated Cuba…

  • “Massachusetts mayor needs translator because he doesn’t speak English.”

    How does this happen in an American city with nearly 90,000 residents?

    Welcome to Lawrence, Massachusetts…

    Mayor [Brian] DaPena was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He came to the United States, according to his website, in the early ’80s.

    More than 40 years later, he still struggles with English, showing no interest in assimilating to American culture or language.

  • “REPORT: ‘Ghost jobs’ with no intent to hire make up 22% of online job postings.” I think that estimate is too low. I think it’s probably more like 40-50%.
  • Another Democrat arrested for child porn.

    If a Democrat ever tries to lecture you about decency and morality, just drop this name on them: Randy Sprinkle.

    Yes, that’s a real name. It’s actually the name of a Democrat operative who was just arrested by the FBI and charged with distributing child porn. Randon “Randy” Alexander Sprinkle, 30, it turns out, was recently the finance chairman of the Virginia Democrat Party; he once served as a leader in the Young Democrats of Virginia, and worked in 2025 as the campaign treasurer for Richmond City Council Vice President Katherine Jordan.

    And, now, Mr. Sprinkle is in big trouble with the law. It seems that he was an avid user of an app called “Jack’d,” which markets itself as “the premier social app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people” and boasts of having more than 15 million members. Whilst using Jack’d (under the name “Randy,” by the way), Sprinkle unknowingly made contact with an undercover FBI agent working out of the Manassas, Virginia, FBI field office; the agent is referred to as “OCE” in the 9-page affidavit against Sprinkle that was filed Friday.

    Here’s the exchange Sprinkle initiated on the app:

    Randy: “Hey how’s it going”
    OCE: “What’s up man”
    Randy: “Just horny af you, telegram”
    OCE: “Let’s go Randy, what’s your Tele”
    Randy: “hmudmv9, got a face pic btw”

    Once the conversation was brought over to Telegram, Sprinkle advised the agent of his twisted, perverted interests: “Mostly into Yng, rape, incest you.” Sprinkle later sent the agent a video of a young boy being sexually abused by a grown man.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • You know it must have physically pained them to admit this: “NY Times Finds ‘No Evidence’ Implicating Trump in Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.”

    To justify their efforts, reporters Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate drowned exonerating details in a sea of innuendo, for example: “Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.” (Italics added)

    Almost all of the specific allegations of bonding between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein date back to the 1990s before Trump’s marriage to Melania in 2005. The reporters pretend to be shocked that during this period Trump enjoyed the kind of lifestyle rich men have enjoyed since the beginning of recorded time.

  • Why buying a car sucks: Wildly different quotes from dealers for the same Ford F150 model.
  • Jack in the Box is closing up to 120 stores.

  • A Pennsylvania nursing home blew up.
  • Inside the debt settlement industry, which seems to use a whole lot of micro-targeted AI videos.
  • Project Farm reviews batteries.
  • Ian McCollum looks at cursed Chauchat images (the French World War I light machine gun)…and finds that some of the modifications might be useful.
  • And speaking of cursed gun images, Brandon Herrera does his usual lineup. Come for the wooden lower AR-15, but stay for the hand-lettered “U.S.MARSHAL” jacket.
  • The Critical Drinker is not impressed with the latest Avatar movie.
  • The Pitch Meeting for Die Hard.
  • William H. Macy talks about how he landed his role in Fargo.
  • The Professor of Rock interviews Rick Beato.
  • Best of the Internet 2025.
  • Statue of Liberty collapses…in Brazil.
  • Driver does donuts around Christmas tree in Kazakhstan…and it ends exactly how you would expect. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Rudolph Changes Name To Rolanda, Dominates Female Reindeer Games.”
  • “Disappointing: Thompson Submachine Gun-Shaped Box Turns Out To Be Socks.”
  • “Every Single Parking Spot To Be Either Handicapped Or Online Pickup By 2027.”
  • I think he likes his visits.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm for December 5, 2025

    Friday, December 5th, 2025

    Following hot on the heels of Thanksgiving travel and the final push to put out a new Lame Excuse Books catalog next week, this is going to be a somewhat briefer LinkSwarm.

    This week: The Supreme Court greenlights the Texas redistricting map, a whole lot of support behind Trump Accounts, more Tim Walz corruption in Minnesota, the January 6 pipeline bomber turns out to be a black anti-Trump radical, more Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on Russian infrastructure, another pedo teacher exposed, Netflix buys Warner Brothers, and a tsunami of horrifying sequels barrels towards movie screens. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Texas’ Redistricting Map Left Intact by U.S. Supreme Court, Permanently Halting Lower Court Ruling.”

    Texas’ newly redistricted congressional map will remain in effect for the 2026 primary after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday approved a stay of a lower court panel’s ruling against the new lines.

    The State of Texas had applied for a stay of that ruling by the El Paso-based federal judicial panel that came down last month, which declared that legislators illegally considered racial factors in the redraw. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) then appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing many of the fiery arguments made by the panel’s lone dissenter, Judge Jerry Smith.

    Before Thanksgiving, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay of the ruling, pending further consideration by the full court.

    Now that stay has been made permanent, pending a full appeal later on, in a 6 to 3 ruling by the court along ideological lines. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch penned a concurring opinion.

    “First, the dissent does not dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” the trio wrote.

    “Thus, when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. Id., at 34; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 234, 258 (2001). Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.”

    They concluded, “Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.”

    Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

    On to 2026.

  • Billions Spent By One-Party-Rule Maryland Democrats With Little Oversight.”

    The one-party rule of ‘Democratic Kings’ in Maryland continues to reveal an optically displeasing truth about these leftist activists masquerading as competent politicians, who are anything but, and their epic mismanagement of state finances has only occurred because of limited oversight into their radical agendas.

    Fox Baltimore reports that a state legislative audit uncovered major concerns about the oversight of billions of dollars spent by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and his rudderless leftist allies in Annapolis, who champion everything from failed climate-crisis policies to wokeism to gender identity agendas to social justice and criminal justice reforms, as well as protecting illegal aliens (new voter base) – this is anything but ‘Maryland First’…

    “Most recently, a state audit revealed 42 state offices spent a total of $8.5 billion last year with minimal oversight. That audit came on the heels of a State Highway Administration audit detailing $360 million in unauthorized spending for federal projects, and a separate Social Services Administration audit revealing a lack of protections for foster care children in Maryland,” Fox Baltimore wrote in a report.

    Taxpayers Protection Alliance president David Williams told Fox Baltimore journalist Jeff Abell, “It’s a problem that almost $9 billion is going to these entities and we just don’t know where the money is going.”

    Williams expressed serious concerns over the findings, pointing out, “This is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. We know the checks have gone out but there are no balances to be sure the money is being spent wisely.”

    He called for increased oversight, saying, “If you’re receiving taxpayer money, there has to be full accountability, and this is billions of dollars we’re talking about.”

    The lack of oversight in Maryland comes as no surprise, given that the state suffers from a disastrous one-party rule of far-left Democrats who care more about upholding the globalist framework of climate-crisis and illegal alien policies.

    Moore’s photo next to dark-money-funded NGO emperor Alex Soros makes it all the more clear why he and Maryland Democrats operate with a globalist framework in the first place.

    The result of one-party rule has been a ballooning deficit, soaring taxes, a credit rating downgrade, and a continued large-scale exodus of residents fleeing to red states as Maryland quickly loses its charm and is on track to transform into the next “Illinois 2.0.” On top of the financial failures, power grid mismanagement has collided with surging data center demand, sending power bills through the roof.

    It’s not a mystery where it went. It disappeared into the pockets of radical leftwing activists and NGOs.

  • Ted Cruz and Cory Booker want to help create Trump Accounts.

    An unlikely bipartisan Senate duo is spearheading a push for employers to donate to the new “Trump accounts” created under the GOP’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation package last summer.

    Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., teamed up on a letter sent to Fortune 1000 CEOs on Monday encouraging their companies to contribute to the new investment accounts created for young children. Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged a $6.25 billion donation to the accounts Tuesday that earned them a White House appearance with President Donald Trump.

    The savings accounts, which are funded with after-tax contributions, were dubbed “Trump accounts” under the budget reconciliation law. The government will contribute $1,000 to the accounts for babies born this year through the end of Trump’s term.

    The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the provision would cost $15 billion over 10 years. The Dell donation would expand the program to reach children who wouldn’t qualify for the federal contribution.

    “These tax-advantaged accounts ensure that every American child is an immediate shareholder in America’s largest companies and will experience the miracle of compound growth through their lifetime,” Cruz and Booker wrote in their letter seeking corporate contributions.

  • Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick “Backs Trump’s Baby Investment Plan, Wants To Double It in Texas. Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth.”

    Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Texas should create its own version of President Donald Trump’s new child investment accounts, announcing that the state should provide every Texas newborn with an additional $1,000 in publicly funded, long-term savings beginning in 2027.

    The initiative mirrors and expands upon the federal Trump Accounts program created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which seeds every American newborn’s account with $1,000 that cannot be accessed until adulthood and grows through investment in a broad U.S. stock-market index. The accounts are intended to accumulate wealth from birth and teach families and children long-term financial planning.

    In a post on X, Patrick said he “loves” Trump’s idea to invest $1,000 at birth that “cannot be spent until age 18 and must be used for education or other qualifying expenses,” and he applauded Texans Michael and Susan Dell for contributing $6.25 billion to help launch the federal program.

    “If I see a great idea from the President that helps Texans, my first question is always, ‘why not do it in Texas, too?’” wrote Patrick.

    He noted that about 400,000 babies are born each year in Texas and said that one of his top priorities for the 2027 legislative session will be passing what he calls the “New Little Texan Savings Fund.” Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth, invested in the S&P 500 in alignment with the federal program. Combined with Trump Accounts, Patrick says Texas children would receive a total of $2,000 in initial investment capital, not including voluntary family contributions.

  • “Sec. of Transportation Warns Gov. Walz To Revoke Illegal Driver’s Licenses or Lose Funding.”

    U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he’ll withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota, after a review found nearly one-third of driver’s licenses in the state were issued illegally.

    In a letter on Monday, Duffy warned Minnesota officials that more than $30 million in federal highway funds may be withheld unless the state revokes any commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) that should not have been issued and addresses deficiencies in the state’s commercial driver’s license program.

    According to KTSP TV, Secretary Duffy alleged that one-third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) were issued illegally.

    Minnesota will have 30 days to revoke the illegally-issued licenses or face the loss of funding.

    Secretary Duffy noted that, “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens — endangering American families on the road. That abuse stops now under the Trump Administration.”

    “The Department will withhold funding if Minnesota continues this reckless behavior that puts non-citizens gaming the system ahead of the safety of Americans,” Duffy added.

  • “Minnesota DHS Employees Accuse Governor Tim Walz of Ignoring Fraud Warnings.”

    Over 400 employees of the Minnesota Department of Human Services are accusing Governor Tim Walz (D) of failing to act on warnings of widespread fraud and of retaliating against whistleblowers.

    The accusations come as federal probes are examining the theft of more than a billion dollars from programs like child nutrition, Medicaid, and housing aid and as federal prosecutors announced charges against a 78th defendant in the theft of $250 million from Feeding Our Future child nutrition program.

    In a post on X, the Minnesota DHS group called out Walz for ignoring what the group called “a pattern of ignored warnings, threats to whistleblowers, and unqualified appointees prioritizing image over fixes.”

    In their post, the Minnesota DHS group explains that, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t a political group but have been continually disappointed in the lack of response they’ve received as well as the governor’s response to those who have pointed out the fraud.

    “We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the group wrote.

    In addition to retaliating against whistleblowers, the group claims, “Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.”

    Snip.

    In their post on X, the group states that Walz is “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota” and calls for taking the next step of bringing in “external auditors and new leadership.”

  • January 6 pipe bomber suspect identified as Brian J. Cole Jr., 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia.” Spoiler: He’s not a right-wing white guy:

    To quote Instapundit: “WEIRD THAT THE FBI COULDN’T FIND THIS GUY WHOSE EXISTENCE WAS A FATAL BLOW TO THE NARRATIVE.”

  • President Trump just struck down Obama-era CAFE rules to make trucks great again.
  • Ukraine drone struck FSB headquarters in Chechnya and Livny oil depot in Oryol. The simmering resentment of Russia in Chechnya never went away, so killing a whole bunch of FSB goons isn’t going to help Russia keep a lid on the place.
  • Ukrainian missiles hit the Temryuk gas terminal in Krasnodar, just the other side of the Kerch Strait Bridge.
  • Ukraine also used marine drones to set two tankers ablaze on the Black Sea.
  • But Russia may have staged an attack on another on their own black sea tanker in order to gaslight Turkey into sanctioning Ukraine.
  • A Russian tanker is evidently listing near Senegal.
  • Russia’s central bank forced to sell gold reserves to cover budget, support ruble.”
  • “Reports say that four military-type quadcopter drones buzzed the flightpath of President Zelensky’s aircraft as it arrived at Dublin Airport on Monday and then went to buzz an Irish Navy ship. This is likely Russian drones and suggests an intelligence leak.” They also buzzed an Irish naval ship, which did jack squat about them because “the ship didn’t have air radar capabilities,” which suggests that either the ship was really small, or the Irish Navy is absolutely useless in a real shooting war. (They also say that the ship was only armed with machine guns, when they’re also supposed to carry 20mm Rheinmetall autocannons.)
  • “Caleb Elliott was initially arrested on October 3 and is currently in custody on charges of recording and photographing students nude in the locker room at Moore Middle School. The victim count is currently around 40 students. There have been allegations that Elliott was transferred to Moore Middle School following inappropriate behavior at a previous school, had a relationship with a student, and placed cameras inside of the locker room.”

  • “2025: The Year Late-Night TV Collapsed.”

    As Hollywood continues to contract on several fronts, late-night shows are not as sustainable as in the past.

    Colbert found that out the hard way in July. CBS announced Colbert’s “Late Show” gig will end in May of 2026. Even more dramatic? No one is slated to replace him. “The Late Show” will end as Colbert signs off.

    The shocking part? Reports said the show was costing CBS roughly $40 million a year. Why would any business take that kind of a fiscal drubbing in the first place?

    That came on the heels of “The Tonight Show” shrinking from five nights a week to four, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” losing his house band and several late-nighters losing their gigs.

    Period.

    Think Samantha Bee, Desus & Mero, Trevor Noah, James Corden and Amber Ruffin.

    That, plus news that late-night TV revenues have plunged in recent years (along with their audiences), suggested Jimmy Kimmel’s prediction might come true faster than he anticipated.

    Late-night TV has much less than 10 years left. This year proved it.

    Kimmel nearly took his own show down. The far-Left host suggested Charlie Kirk’s killer was part of the MAGA movement without evidence or a shred of logic.

    ABC/Disney sent him the bench for a week before he returned sans apology. He cried, again, but not for misleading viewers.

    The Hollywood Left and the media rallied on Kimmel’s behalf, and he returned to the show to spread more misinformation.

    Meanwhile, Fox News’ “Gutfeld” continued to out perform the competition on a smaller budget (and, admittedly, an earlier time schedule). That proves there’s a market for a right-leaning audiences ignored, or insulted, by the current late-night landscape.

    The future doesn’t look bright for the late-night survivors. Kimmel’s contract ends in May, but he’ll likely sign a new deal before then. ABC proved it couldn’t force Kimmel to apologize for spewing misinformation, and Hollywood would rise up, en masse, anew if ABC/Disney let Kimmel walk.

    Does it matter if “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” might be losing money a la Colbert? It’s clear money isn’t the deciding factor anymore given what CBS endured for far too long.

    It doesn’t ultimately matter. The late-night talkers showed their cards in 2025. They’re all parts of the DNC at this point, sometimes literally.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Netflix is buying Warner Brothers for $87 billion. To quote the press release:

    This acquisition brings together two pioneering entertainment businesses, combining Netflix’s innovation, global reach and best-in-class streaming service with Warner Bros.’ century-long legacy of world-class storytelling. Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wizard of Oz and the DC Universe will join Netflix’s extensive portfolio including Wednesday, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Adolescence and Extraction, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide.

    “Our mission has always been to entertain the world,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “By combining Warner Bros.’ incredible library of shows and movies—from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends—with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.”

    I’m sure the Bugs Bunney-KPop Demon Hunters crossover will be lit…

  • President Trump signed bill increasing “the special Medal of Honor pension from $1,406.73 per month to $8,333.33 per month.”
  • Ontario Premier Doug Ford loaned Algoma Steel $100M right before they laid off 1,000 workers.
  • Someone alert Louis Rossmann: “Automatic License Plate Reader Company Flock Operating in Texas with Expired License. The private company’s Texas license expired in September.”

    A company that provides a controversial surveillance technology to both private and public entities throughout Texas was found to have been operating under an expired state license, amid state and federal lawmakers calling for greater scrutiny of the company over privacy and security concerns.

    Flock Safety, Inc. installs automatic license plate readers (ALPR) that capture the license plate number and location of each vehicle that passes by. Police can then compare the data in relation to stolen vehicles, missing persons, or other crimes, and law enforcement has successfully used the technology to solve cases.

    Flock’s high-resolution cameras create a detailed file that includes other markers on each vehicle, including bumper stickers. The company’s cloud-based system also connects with ALPR data from jurisdictions across the nation in real time, allowing users to map vehicle movement.

    After receiving complaints last year that Flock had been installing and operating ALPR cameras on private properties without a license since 2021, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) sent the company a cease and desist order in September 2024. Despite documented violations, DPS granted Flock a license for private operations, but that license expired on September 30, 2025.

    (Previously.)

  • More AI vulnerabilities to worry about. “Researchers at Icaro Lab, a collaboration between Sapienza University in Rome and the DexAI think tank, have discovered that AI models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic can leak illicit content across various subjects when instructions are given in poetic form. The illegal content ranges from making nuclear weapons, creating child exploitation material, and developing malware.”

    Shall I compare thee to a Teller-Ulam Implosion Core?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate

  • “President Donald Trump pardons Moody Center developer accused of rigging contract bidding process. Former Oak View Group CEO Timothy Leiweke was pardoned several months after he was indicted by the U.S. Justice Department.” (Previously.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Dark, dark historical look at how the Japanese Imperial Navy ruthlessly executed Christian missionaries and nuns and dumped their bodies at sea, including many from their allies the Germans.
  • Give in to the dark side…and buy one of James Earl Jones’s guns.
  • Critical Drinker tours Estonia. Consider this your periodic reminder that communism sucks and that just about everything they build looks soul-crushingly ugly.
  • Speaking of the Drinker, he also covers the production hell that was Cats.
  • Science, not settled. A whole lot of cracks in what was thought to be settled cosmology have recently appeared, and the uncertainty may result in a revolution in our understanding of the universe, but no one knows what it is yet.
  • Volcano Tornado.
  • Architect Frank Gehry dead at 96. Never cared for his work, so this is just an excuse to haul out this classic Onion bit from back when they were funny: “Frank Gehry No Longer Allowed To Make Sandwiches For Grandkids.”

  • Adam Savage geeks out over Paramount archive storage, including a ton of weird dead media formats.
  • Consumer news you can use: “How Much it REALLY Costs to Own a Bugatti.”
  • The Honest Trailer for Kill Bill Parts 1 and 2.
  • Red Letter Media has a terrifying look at all the sequels, prequels and expanded universe movies coming down the pike. The frightening thing is that some are fake, but I’m not sure any are actually off the table for Hollywood. Honestly, I think I could write Bag of Sugar: The Movie. See, first we change the name to Too Sweet. An evil corporate executive wants to destroy the magic bag of sugar that’s been in the family-owned sugar business for generations…
  • Beard Meats Food samples the fare at Jeremy Clarkson’s The Farmer’s Dog pub.
  • A Kickstarter for a phone case that’s intentionally heavy and annoying.
  • Black Hawk Down Remake To Be Filmed In Minneapolis.”
  • “Catholics And Orthodox Finally Unite To Denounce Wham’s ‘Last Christmas.'”
  • Life with big dogs:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • If you want to receive a copy of my latest book catalog, drop me a line.
  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For November 21, 2025

    Friday, November 21st, 2025

    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.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • The Trump Administration is planning to completely deconstruct SNAP.

    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?
  • “Leading fundraising group for Democrats solicited Epstein years after he pleaded guilty in Florida.”

    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.

  • Top 20 Insanities DOGE revealed in 2025.”

    #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.

  • “Democratic Florida Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick accused of stealing $5M in FEMA funds.”

    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.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Pedophiles and murderers among this week’s ‘worst of the worst’ ICE arrests.”

    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.

  • Another day, another scheme to exploit illegal aliens.

    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.

  • “Under Trump Administration, State Dept Has Revoked 80,000 Non-immigrant Visas In 2025.”
  • El Paso federal judge strikes down Texas redistricting.

    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.'”
  • Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery hit by drones.
  • Ryazan oil refinery hit again.”
  • Attack ship on fire off the belt of Orion Oil tanker on fire off the coast of Vladivostok.
  • Paul Warburg says the decline of Ural crude prices from $55 to $36 a barrel has been disasterous for Russia’s economy, even before the effects of Ukraine’s oil industry strikes are taken into account.
  • Novomichurinsk Power Station in Ryazan Hit By Drones.”
  • “Lured to Russia With the Promise of Work, Many African Nationals Unknowingly Sign Contracts To Fight in Ukraine.”

    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 plans to buy up to 100 Rafale warplanes and air defense systems from France.”

    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.”

  • “Federal Grand Jury Adds Terrorism Indictments Over July 4 ‘Antifa’ Attack on Texas ICE Facility.”

    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.”

    More:

    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.

  • Japan says that it will defend Taiwan if China tries to invade.

    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…
  • Houston mayor defends police coordination with ICE.

    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.

  • Stephen A. Smith interviews Ted Cruz. Cruz even challenges him to a game of basketball…
  • 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.
  • Speaking of crazy women, “Ex-GOP aide paid fetish artist to mutilate her, claimed it was an anti-Trump attack.”

    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…

  • “21 Alleged Arlington Gang Members Arrested on Violent Crime, Drug Charges.”

    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.”
  • David Letterman inducts Warren Zevon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A well-deserved honor.
  • Asmongold looks into the Ubisoft situation and compares woke online games “journalists” to the Sirens of Greek myth, lying about the quality of their games and luring them onto the rocks of unprofitability…
  • Jay Leno asks: Which is the better investment: A 1967 Lamborghini Miura, a 1993 Dodge Viper, or a 2013 Bugatti Veyron? The results may surprise you.
  • The story of how the Grumman LLV became America’s ubiquitous mail delivery vehicle.
  • The McRib is back. It’s the guy in the suit reviewing it, and you may or may not like his schtick…
  • “In Devastating Blow, Newly Released Emails Reveal Trump Not Well-Liked By Pedophile.”
  • “To Save Time, ICE Begins Mass Arrests Of Everyone At Soccer Fields.”
  • “Five Guys Now Offering 50-Year Burger Financing.”
  • “Starving African Children Raise Money To Feed Ariana Grande.”
  • “Shocking Study Reveals Someone Still Making Avatar Movies.”
  • “Troubling New Survey Shows 90 Percent Of Graduating High School Seniors Don’t Know The Airspeed Velocity Of An Unladen Swallow.”
  • “Scholars Now Believe Number Of The Beast Is Actually 67.
  • Good boy!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For October 31, 2025

    Friday, October 31st, 2025

    Happy Halloween! Biden’s FBI turned January 6 investigations into a vast monitoring program aimed at Republicans, the Schumer Shutdown continues, a whole of disturbing illegal alien sex offenders, Milei wins again in Argentina, Russian floating crane does what Russian ships do best, the autopen scandal deepens, and one really weird gun.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Arctic Frost was an operation by the Biden FBI to use the half-assed January 6 riot to turn the federal government into a Stasi aimed at Republicans, including “Nearly 200 Subpoenas Targeting 400 GOP-Linked Individuals, Entities.”

    The Biden-era FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation into President Trump and the broader GOP’s role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot was more wide-ranging than previously known, according to newly released documents showing the bureau issued nearly 200 subpoenas targeting more than 400 Republican entities and individuals as part of the probe.

    Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) released records on Wednesday showing 197 subpoenas were issued to individuals and businesses during the FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation targeting 430 GOP individuals and entities. He obtained the records through protected whistleblower disclosures.

    Financial institutions, Trump-aligned political organizations and operatives, conservative think tanks, and payroll companies were among the subpoena recipients, according to a list compiled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Federal investigators sought communications between the targeted individuals and media companies, prominent Trump-world officials, and legislative staff. The investigative efforts also encompassed MAGA fundraising efforts and donors.

    Several GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel Grassley leads as chairman, spoke at a press conference Wednesday afternoon unveiling the new information.

    “What is revealed in those 1700 pages of documents, those 197 subpoenas, is nothing short of a Biden administration enemies list,” Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said.

    ohnson said he knew most of the 38 individuals from his state on the Biden administration’s “enemies list” and urged his fellow lawmakers to assist the Trump administration with getting to the bottom of the FBI’s conduct.

    “This extended far beyond President Trump and extended to President Trump’s supporters not only here in the United States Senate but more broadly,” Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas) lamented.

    “Merrick Garland was a member of Joe Biden’s cabinet. He was willing to do whatever Joe Biden and his political operation wanted him to do, including destroying President Trump,” Cornyn added.

    The “Arctic Frost” investigation looked into the role President Trump played in the Capitol riot. The probe eventually morphed into special counsel Jack Smith’s Washington, D.C., criminal case against Trump. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray personally signed off on the investigation when it was launched in 2022, according to a decision memo Grassley divulged last week.

    Snip.

    A ninth GOP Senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, was also targeted during the “Arctic Frost” investigation, Axios first reported. Several of the GOP lawmakers in the FBI’s crosshairs promoted Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from him. The attempts by Trump’s allies to contest the 2020 election formed the basis of Smith’s D.C. criminal case and criminal prosecutions in the swing-states Trump lost to former President Biden. Numerous individuals targeted in “Arctic Frost” later faced criminal charges for their failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

    “Jack Smith was a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor. This was a political enemies list from the beginning,” Cruz said. “This is an executive who believes it is justified spying on their opponents in the legislature because they convinced themselves the ends justified the means.”

    Smith attempted to subpoena AT&T to obtain Cruz’s cellphone communications and the company’s legal counsel declined to comply, Cruz said. He praised the company for standing its ground against Smith’s attempt to gain his phone records. Cruz said that Washington, D.C., federal Judge James Boasberg signed an order prohibiting AT&T from informing Cruz of the subpoena for a year because of the potential for Cruz to destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses.

    And Cruz has sent me three fundraising emails based on it this week alone.

  • Victory in Portland. “Antifa Retreats From Portland ICE Facility After Police Dismantle Encampment.”

    The decentralized anti-fascist warriors in the Portland-area cell, aligned with the radical Democratic Party, were in full retreat overnight after officers from the Portland Police Department cleared out their encampment in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Portland metro area.

    Nick Shirley, who is an independent journalist and who met with President Trump at the White House earlier this month for a round table on Antifa, wrote on X, “ANTIFA HAS BEEN DISMANTLED IN PORTLAND After 140 days of controlling and camping on this street in Portland, Antifa has officially been cleared out as the police FINALLY stepped in and cleared the encampment.”

    “Inside the encampment, they had loads full of medicine, medical gear, party supplies, a fridge, BBQ, etc ANTIFA’s 140 days of control have officially come to an end,” Shirley said, with an accompanying video showing inside the encampment that housed gender-confused purple-haired people who hate the Western world and capitalism.

  • Federal Reserve drops interest rates by a quarter point. Feel the excitement…
  • David Weigel is shocked, shocked to discover that Democrats embracing social justice policies has made them super unpopular.

    Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self-described “white liberals” while losing ground with other voters, according to a new center-left group’s report shared first with Semafor.

    The group, called Welcome, consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is “out of touch.” Most voters, the group found, believe the party over-prioritizes issues like “protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,” and “fighting climate change” while not caring about “securing the border” or “lowering the rate of crime.” (Welcome began as a PAC in 2022, then founded a nonprofit with the same name for political research.)

    Elected Democrats will receive copies of the report after its Monday publication, followed by events to promote it in DC and New York. The report urges party members to abandon some of the progressive language about race, abortion, and LGBTQ issues that Democrats began using after the 2012 election — and recommends the nomination of more candidates willing to vote with Republicans on conservative immigration and crime bills.

    “The Democratic Party had better listen — for the good of our nation,” former Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, who ran the party’s House campaign committee when it lost seats in 2020, wrote in her endorsement of the report.

    Inspired by The Politics of Evasion, an influential 1989 paper that inspired the party’s more centrist shift under Bill Clinton, the 70-page Deciding to Win document argues that Democrats must be “willing to break with unpopular party orthodoxies.” Its prescription for getting the party out of its current wilderness isn’t simple: avoidance of “both a pivot to corporate centrism and the pursuit of progressive ideology purity.”

    Greg Schultz, who managed Joe Biden’s 2020 primary campaign but was replaced for the general election, worked with Welcome to shape the report.

    “For the last 20 years, Democrats have just misunderstood how you actually win elections,” he told Semafor. “I thought Biden had proven in the 2020 primary that the base of the Democratic Party is a 58-year old woman without a college degree. But when you hear people in DC say ‘the base,’ they mean white intellectuals that live in a few coastal cities.”

    The report directly challenges Democrats’ predilection for the interests of “highly educated and affluent voters,” arguing that their influence “may be responsible” for the party’s closer association with left-wing politics.

    Sort of sounds like Weigel’s friends are finally noticing what Republicans were saying at least as far back as Obama’s first term. But wait!

    “We have much to learn from the relentless focus of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani” on those fronts, the authors write.

    The risk they see is in Democrats moving left on other progressive policies, which even some in the party establishment have done while criticizing Mamdani and other democratic socialists. From 2013 to 2024, between the beginning of Barack Obama’s second term and the end of Joe Biden’s sole term, the report offers clear metrics to show how the party changed its language and gave support to left-wing bills that had little chance of passage.

    So they only want the Democrat Party to be a little bit pregnant with socialism and social justice. Yeah, good luck with that, heretic. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Two rogue Democrat judges think they can bypass the executive and judiciary branches and order specific programs funded during the Schumer Shutdown. “On Friday, US District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island announced that he would order the US Department of Agriculture to distribute a pool of contingency funds ‘as soon as possible.’ While minutes before, Boston US District Judge Indira Talwani ruled that the US government must announce by Nov. 3 whether they would authorize at least partial funding for the program using around $6 billion in contingency funds – and if so, when will they do it.”
  • Tulsi Gabbard announce arrest of horrifying Mexican baby trafficker “La Diabla.”

    Mexican authorities in August, with the use of DNI intelligence, captured an infamous human trafficker who would lure pregnant women to steal their babies and organs.

    She would then sell the stolen babies and organs on both sides of the border, which is how the United States got involved.

    Aguilar was part of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.

  • “Newsom’s Prostitution Law Creates Disturbing New Sex Market In LA.”

    California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pimp shield law, pushed by Democratic legislator Rep. Scott Weiner, has helped foster a disturbing new sex market on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, featuring prostitutes as young as 12 and 13 years old. For far too long, the “kiddie stroll,” as it’s known, has gone unreported because major media outlets refused to cover it, allowing it to flourish under the watch of Democratic politicians.

    But now it’s time to shine a light in the darkness and expose the truth about what’s happening to these poor young girls and why nothing has been done to bring the harrowing evil to an end.

    An article from the New York Times Magazine is finally covering this horrific scene in Los Angeles, though they’ve conveniently neglected to cover anything concerning the prostitution law Newsom’s administration passed.

    “For the 77th Street Division, which covers the northern half of the Figueroa Corridor, prostitution had always been a problem. But in recent years, the officers had seen the magnitude of child sex trafficking explode,” wrote reporter Emily Baumgaertner Nunn.

    “Gangs that had long sold drugs began to take advantage of Figueroa’s lucrative opportunity. With a dozen girls, one trafficker could easily make $12,000 a night. ‘Drugs are sold once and gone forever, but girls can be resold indefinitely,’ said [police sergeant Alvaro] Navarro, who had been in the division for two decades. Motel owners who noticed the parades of customers but feared the gangs’ retribution kept quiet,” Nunn continues.

    There’s little doubt that much of the silence and fear of gang retaliation for speaking out against this vile form of human trafficking stems from the lack of police presence on California streets, particularly in Los Angeles. Democrats in the state slashed funding for police and tied officers’ hands, making it harder to pull these girls — who are just children — out of sex trafficking.

    In fact, Nunn points out that the sex-trafficking unit in the city was disbanded due to budget cuts, which means each division within the police department has fewer resources available to tackle the issue. There are supposed to be a total of six investigators looking into human trafficking. Now there’s only one.

    Children suffer abuse in ways too sick and twisted to imagine, and thanks to anti-cop policies from radical leftists trying to appease minorities for votes, leaders ignore it instead of acting. This is truly a miscarriage of justice. It’s immoral and evil.

    “Their jobs grew even more challenging when California repealed the law allowing the police to arrest women who loitered with the intent to engage in prostitution. The repeal, known as SB 357, was intended to prevent profiling of Black, brown, and trans women based on how they dressed. But when it was implemented in January 2023, the effect was that uniformed officers could no longer apprehend groups of girls in lingerie on Figueroa, hoping to recover minors among them.

    Now officers needed to be willing to swear they had reason to suspect each girl was underage — but with fake eyelashes and wigs, it was nearly impossible to tell. One girl told vice officers that her trafficker had explained things succinctly: ‘We run Figueroa now,’ he said,” Nunn writes in her article.

    By the end of 2023, the city attorney started referring to Figueroa as the “Kiddie Stroll” because many of the girls working the street were under 13.

    The Democrat Party is now objectively pro-rape and pro-pedophilia.

  • “ICE continues arresting ‘worst of the worst‘ illegal migrants accused of sexual crimes.”

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday told Just The News exclusively that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are continuing to arrest the “worst of the worst” illegal migrants, despite a government shutdown.

    The latest arrests include illegal migrants who have been convicted of crimes such as lewd and lascivious acts on a minor, aggravated criminal sexual assault with bodily harm, aggravated kidnapping and possession with the intent to distribute.

    Monday’s arrests include a Cuban illegal migrant in Florida who was convicted of lewd and lascivious act on a minor, a criminal illegal migrant from Mexico, convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault with bodily harm, and aggravated kidnapping in Illinois, and an illegal migrant in Tennessee who was convicted of sexual assault.

    “Nothing—not even the Democrats’ government shutdown—will slow us down from arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Yesterday, the brave men and women of ICE arrested pedophiles, rapists, and kidnappers. These are the types of predators ICE is taking off of America’s streets every single day. DHS will stop at nothing to make America safe again and remove these violent illegal offenders from our streets.”

    Another illegal migrant from Mexico, identified as Adan Martinez-Gonzalez, was arrested in Texas after being convicted of aggravated kidnapping. Mexican illegal migrant Nicanor Hernandez-Gutierrez was apprehended by ICE and was previously convicted of possession with intent to distribute a quantity exceeding five kilograms of cocaine.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • “Why Are So Many Arrested Minorities Booked As ‘White‘?”

    Former DOE nuclear engineer Matt Von Swol notices something that’s been floating around for years; the insane number of minorities (mexicans and blacks) who are booked as “WHITE” when they get arrested – something which obviously manipulates ‘inconvenient’ crime stats – something that TPUSA’s Andrew Kolvet noted have been “widely corrupted to serve a racist agenda.’

    “I searched through thousands of arrests in my county and every single Hispanic individual who has been arrested is labelled as “WHITE”” Van Swol posted on X.

    Many deep blue cities choose social justice over truth.

  • President Trump has broken the progressive ratchet.

    It’s axiomatic in Washington, D.C., that changes that are undertaken by administrative action alone are easy to reverse.

    There’s no doubt that if a Democratic president wins next time, he or she will undo much of what Trump has done through executive action, but will he or she be able to take it all the way back to where it was before?

    I don’t think so. It will certainly be goodbye to the Gulf of America and the Department of War, and ICE raids will stop immediately. But Trump has struck blows against long-standing progressive priorities that were pursued in a piecemeal fashion, meant to build up and become irreversible over time. On these, it will be hard for the left to recover — in other words, Trump has broken the progressive ratchet.

    How does the ratchet work? It begins with small, unobjectionable, or perhaps even salutary steps, coupled with assurances that potential downsides or extreme outcomes will never come about. Then, over time, incremental moves are made in the same direction until the unreasonable policy that we’d been assured would never happen is entrenched reality.

    It is the work of decades, and it depends on no one ever pushing things back in the other direction (that would be reactionary) and everyone’s accepting the endpoint as a fait accompli.

    To wit: First, women flying in combat roles. Then, women in ground combat roles, with the proviso that training and standards will stay the same. Then, gender-normed physical fitness tests and lower standards for everyone.

    First, race-neutral civil rights laws, then temporary affirmative action, then permanent quotas and set-asides, then a widespread corporate and educational architecture devoted to promoting racialist practices and ideology.

    First, respect and rights for gay people, then respect and rights for trans people, then everyone in America having to designate their pronouns, people getting shamed and fired for “misgendering” trans people, “gender-affirming” surgeries for minors, males competing in female sports, and the active encouragement of nonconforming sexual identities in the schools.

    Trump has yanked the other way so far on these ratchet issues that it’s not clear when or how the left can get them back to the status quo ante.

    It took so long to get there in the first place that snapping back to politicized training standards, pervasive DEI, or the most outlandish forms of the trans agenda will be very difficult.

    Also, the sense of inevitability that the ratchet created, and the sense of helplessness on the part of opponents, has now been shattered.

    Finally, there’s the problem that plausible deniability has been lost. The ratchet allowed for radical social change to be sheathed in incrementalism and in the righteousness of the starting point — DEI was on a continuum with civil rights; watered-down physical standards on a continuum with the inclusion of women in combat roles who needed no special accommodation.

    Now, a revanchist Democratic administration would have to proceed directly to the most controversial and unpopular parts of the left’s agenda.

  • The Biden autopen scandal deepens.

    Top Biden administration officials misused executive authority and took actions without then-President Joe Biden’s authorization as his mental acuity declined, a House investigation found.

    President Biden’s inner circle hid the extent of his mental decline from the American people and exercised executive authority by abusing the presidential autopen and taking advantage of a lax chain-of-command, according to a report released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee.

    “The Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history. As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized,” the report reads.

    “The Committee has found that there was, in fact, a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline and that there is no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him,” the report adds.

    The Biden White House worked to conceal the extent of his mental decline through scripted messaging, controlled public appearances, and limited access. Staffers controlled Biden’s daily activities, appearances, and workload to prevent the public from seeing his diminishing mental capacity, the report says.

    For the most part, Biden’s staff dismissed the possibility that the American people were concerned about his mental faculties. In a similar manner, Biden’s staff attributed his disastrous June 2024 debate performance to a bad cold and minimized Biden’s struggles on that fateful night.

    The Oversight Committee investigated the coverup of Biden’s mental capacity with a specific focus on the Biden administration’s autopen usage at the end of his term. According to the committee, Biden officials used presidential authority and initiated executive actions without direct authorization from Biden himself, including using the autopen to sign executive orders without written approval.

    Top Biden administration officials misused executive authority and took actions without then-President Joe Biden’s authorization as his mental acuity declined, a House investigation found.

    President Biden’s inner circle hid the extent of his mental decline from the American people and exercised executive authority by abusing the presidential autopen and taking advantage of a lax chain-of-command, according to a report released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee.

    “The Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history. As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized,” the report reads.

    “The Committee has found that there was, in fact, a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline and that there is no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him,” the report adds.

    The Biden White House worked to conceal the extent of his mental decline through scripted messaging, controlled public appearances, and limited access. Staffers controlled Biden’s daily activities, appearances, and workload to prevent the public from seeing his diminishing mental capacity, the report says.

    For the most part, Biden’s staff dismissed the possibility that the American people were concerned about his mental faculties. In a similar manner, Biden’s staff attributed his disastrous June 2024 debate performance to a bad cold and minimized Biden’s struggles on that fateful night.

    The Oversight Committee investigated the coverup of Biden’s mental capacity with a specific focus on the Biden administration’s autopen usage at the end of his term. According to the committee, Biden officials used presidential authority and initiated executive actions without direct authorization from Biden himself, including using the autopen to sign executive orders without written approval.

    National Review previously reported on internal emails showing the White House’s process for deciding on commutations for violent criminals was chaotic and insular. The Biden administration did not consult with the families of the victims of the violent criminals as part of its clemency process.

    Another instance the report mentions is the pardons Biden issued in the final hours of his presidency to members of his family. No records exist for the in-person meeting that led to the decision to grant those pardons.

    Rather, Zients verbally authorized the use of the autopen after an aide of his transmitted the decision to issue the pardons. Zients did not know who actually applied the autopen and did not confirm with President Biden that he approved the pardons. The aide sent an email on Zients’s behalf expressing approval of the Biden family pardons.

    If Biden didn’t issue the pardon, the pardon is invalid.

  • The #SchumerShutdown is so unpopular that Republicans poll numbers are up five points. Usual poll caveats apply.
  • Sometimes, the good guys actually win.

    Free marketeers have good reason to cheer, or at least sigh with relief, with Milei’s party doing well in the Argentinian midterm elections…

    In the middle of the month, this newsletter explained why the Trump administration traded $20 billion in U.S. dollars for the equivalent amount in Argentinian pesos. The Argentinian currency, which had already lost a lot of its value, was dropping perilously over fears President Javier Milei’s party might lose the midterm elections and the country would revert to its previous reckless big-spending habits. The currency trade, spearheaded by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, represented an economic lifeline to Argentina and a metaphorical bet that Milei’s party would do well in the midterms, and keep the country on a smaller-government, more free-market-oriented path.

    Secretary Bessent, collect your winnings. From the Wall Street Journal:

    With nearly 99 percent of votes counted, Milei’s Freedom Advances party won almost 41 percent of the national vote, more than doubling its representation in Congress. That means his party and allies secured at least one-third of the seats in both chambers — the critical threshold that allows Milei to preserve his veto power and defend his sweeping decrees.

    The result, stronger than most polls had predicted, gives Milei fresh political momentum after months of unrest over deep spending cuts and a grinding recession last year. It also shores up his standing with Washington and the International Monetary Fund, which have tied future financial support to the survival of his austerity experiment. Market analysts expect Argentine bonds and the peso to rally when trading opens Monday, reflecting relief that Milei still has political traction after taking office two years ago.

  • “Ukrainian drones hit the Mariysky oil refinery in Mari El, the Stavrolen chemical plant and the Novospasskoye oil depot.”
  • They also hit the Oryol thermal power plant.
  • Oopsie!
  • Greece sends Ukraine the big guns. “Greece is transferring 60 U.S.-made M110A2 203mm self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, along with 150,000 shells and thousands of Zuni rockets.”
  • Finally: “Texas Higher Ed Board Officially Bans In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens.” Rick Perry was a very conservative governor in many ways, but backing subsidized tuition for illegal aliens was one of his stupidest ideas.
  • Ken Paxton takes a scalp. “Dallas Doctor Surrenders License After Texas AG Sues For Prescribing Gender Transition Drugs To Minors.” “Paxton announced on Oct. 24 that Dr. May C. Lau has given up her state medical license but that the legal case over her alleged violation of Texas’s ban on gender transition treatment for minors is still ongoing.”
  • “Switzerland jails man for ‘transphobic’ comment that biological sex can be determined by skeletal remains.” What the hell, Switzerland? You used to be cool…
  • “California’s Retirement Fund Lost 71% Of $468M Investment In Clean Energy And Won’t Say How.” “According to state records analyzed by the Center Square, the CalPERS Clean Energy & Technology Fund (CETF), launched in 2007, has seen its value fall from a total commitment of $468.4 million to $138 million as of March 31, 2025. That represents a loss of more than $330 million, even after paying $22 million in fees and costs to private equity managers.” I’m sure the right pockets got lined. For Democrats, losing taxpayer money is ephemeral, but virtue signaling is forever.
  • Oklahoma: “State Rep. Ajay Pittman suspected of embezzling campaign funds, forgery, court records show.” Guess the party.
  • “Come meet “Blue Jay,” the Amazon robot that is supposed to replace at least 600,000 jobs soon.” Supposedly this will simply result in not hiring more people rather than laying people off. Supposedly.

  • But Amazon did just announce a layoff of 30,000 corporate employees.
  • UPS also laid off 48,000 employees.
  • The Peace President keeps on winning. “President Trump participates in a peace treaty, trade and critical mineral agreement signing with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand.”
  • “A staffer for Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey was hit with drug trafficking charges after authorities intercepted eight kilograms of cocaine being delivered to a state office building. LaMar Cook, who has served as deputy director of Healey’s western Massachusetts office since 2023, was charged with trafficking over 200 grams of cocaine, unlawful possession of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition related to the bust, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced Wednesday. Multiple parcels containing about 21 kilograms of cocaine have been seized by Massachusetts State Police throughout the investigation into Cook.” Why yes, eight kilos of Peruvian Marching Powder is indeed more than 200 grams. Indeed, that’s the sort of quantity that might keep Hunter Biden supplied into the spring…
  • “Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan have announced the expansion of their West Coast pipeline project in Texas to facilitate natural gas transportation to markets in Arizona and California. The 1,300-mile refined fuel project, named the Western Gateway Pipeline, will be able to supply 200,000 barrels per day with the announced expansion capacity. “This shift allows those volumes to remain in California, increasing supply availability for in-state markets,” the project’s website describes.” Supposed to be up and running by 2029.
  • Norway buys 300 Chinese electric busses only to find out that the can be turned off remotely.
  • Biden’s autopen pardons are the gift that keeps giving. “Thirty-one-year-old Khyre Holbert—a convicted felon whose 20-year crack cocaine and firearm-possession sentence was commuted by former President Joe Biden at the end of his term—was slapped with a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition charge following his alleged participation in a shooting in Omaha, Nebraska.”
  • Top shotgun shooter vs. top drone pilot.
  • Computer control modules now making it impossible to turn on your car’s light bulbs.
  • The Ounce pistol is pretty funky.
  • Slam Frank is “Holocaust victim Anne Frank reimagined as a pansexual Latina with non-binary lover and neurodiverse family in controversial NYC musical.” Maybe NYC deserves Mamdani…
  • Critical Drinker really liked Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
  • It’s a tarp!

  • This is your reminder that I continue to post Halloween content on my other blog.
  • “Democrats Vow To Starve As Many Food Stamp Recipients As It Takes To Get Free Healthcare For Illegal Immigrants.”
  • “Republicans Donate $50 Million To Kamala 2028 Campaign.”
  • “Elderly Lesbian Throuple Turns Out To Be Green Day.”
  • “Jets Starting To Wonder If They Should Try A Different Sport.”
  • Dog is my copilot:

  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For September 12, 2025

    Friday, September 12th, 2025

    Too damn much news out this week. Biden’s “boom” is busted, Charlie Kirk’s assassin is caught, Israel dirtnaps top Hamas kingpins in Qatar, the curse of BlueSkyism, more illegal alien perverts sexually abusing children, more of the evil George Soros funds, and California’s “Jay Leno Bill” dies in committee. Plus some Prog Rock.

    Hell of a week. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm.

  • Turns out the “Biden Boom” was a complete lie.

    The U.S. economy probably added close to a million fewer jobs in 2024 and early 2025 than previously reported, the latest sign that the labor market, until recently a bright spot in the economy, may be weaker than it initially appeared.

    The revised data was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as part of a longstanding annual process known as benchmarking. But the big downward adjustment comes at an awkward moment for the agency, just weeks after President Trump fired its top official following a separate set of negative revisions last month.

    The data released on Tuesday showed that employers added 911,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months through March than had been indicated in the monthly payroll figures. That implies the economy added only about 850,000 jobs during that time — half as many as previously reported.

  • Charlie Kirk’s assassin captured.

    Police have identified the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah man who authorities say became more political ahead of the shooting and recently expressed animosity toward Kirk.

    Robinson, who is believed to have acted alone, came to the attention of the authorities after he contacted a family friend following the assassination, Utah Governor Spencer Cox revealed during a Friday morning press conference. That friend reported Robinson to the local sheriff’s office and Robinson’s father, a veteran police officer, then orchestrated his surrender to authorities at his home in Washington County, Utah.

    The alleged gunman is expected to face at least three felony charges, including aggravated murder, obstruction of justice, and felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by NBC News. Cox said state law requires authorities to file the charging documents within three days.

    Robinson appears to have become more political ahead of the shooting and criticized Kirk by name at a recent dinner, a family member of Robinson’s told authorities. Robinson said Kirk was “full of hate” and accused him of “promoting hate,” Cox said, though the affidavit, released later, indicates another family member may have made those remarks.

    Robinson’s arrest comes after authorities had recovered a high-powered bolt action rifle they believe was used in the assassination, along with unspent rounds that were engraved with antifascist writing.

    “Hey fascist, catch,” read the engraving on one round. Another round was engraved with the message “Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao,” a reference to a song favored by resistance movements and revolutionary anti-capitalist partisans.

  • Charlie Kirk, Martyr.” (Hat tip: TPPF’s The Post email.)

    This is who they chose to kill: the affable man whose main act was having good-faith political debates with college students. The man who, since fatherhood, was turning more toward Christianity as both a purpose and a theme. He was a partisan to be sure, but he was nowhere near the outer limits of the American tradition, especially given his relentless fixation on Lincolnian persuasion as a stabilizing force in a slowly disintegrating polity. The ones who kept losing debates with him didn’t feel that way, of course, but they were only the instrument, not the object, of his work. The object was the millions of Americans who watched, learned, and saw who won again and again—and decided that they wished to side with the winner.

    In this way, Charlie Kirk was perhaps the closest thing to Socrates in the American public square. The leftist intellectuals who sneered at him—the rube peddling his simple lines, his crass sophistry, his heartland aw-shucks certainties—would guffaw at the parallel, but it is no less true. He argued—amiably, fairly, relentlessly—until they couldn’t stand it any longer. And like Socrates, they had him killed.

    Also like Socrates, his students will now do more for his cause after his martyrdom than they ever did during his life. The Socratic vindication was in his deification through literature at the pens of Plato and Xenophon. Millennia later, everyone remembers the philosopher, but vanishingly few know who ended his life.

    The armies of Charlie Kirk, martyr, will be much more vast: not a handful of Athenians but millions of Americans. Their work will not be in philosophical literature but in the politics of the years to come. Whatever benefit accrues to the Republican Party is merely incidental. We are now in the realm of fundamental politics, which is concerned with the nature of the nation and the wielding of power for the common good. The generation of Americans that Charlie Kirk molded will be drawing conclusions about both from his life and his death alike.

  • President Trump says that Charlie Kirk’s assassin smells a lot like George Soros.

    After President Trump told Fox & Friends hosts that Charlie Kirk’s assassin is “in custody,” he went on to comment about radical leftist organizations, stating, “We are going to look into Soros. It looks like a RICO case.”

    Recall that on Wednesday night, just hours after Kirk’s assassination, President Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office, calling it a “dark moment for America.” He vowed to crack down on radical left movements across the country that have fueled chaos and even death this year.

    Then on Thursday night, Texan News reporter Cameron Abrams wrote on X that Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and two dozen others in Congress called for a select committee on “the money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.”

    Just weeks ago, Trump stated on Truth Social that George Soros and his radical leftist son, Alex Soros, “should be charged with RICO because of their support of violent protests.”

    Around that time, the “dark money” leftist NGO network operated by Arabella Advisors reportedly lost one of its top funding sources: Bill Gates.

    Civil terrorism expert Jason Curtis Anderson of One City Rising states:

    After the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, President Trump is interested in pursuing a RICO case against George Soros, America’s primary financier of far-left NGOs. What will likely be revealed is a complex web of dark money that observers have warned about for 20 years but never acted on.

    At the center of this web are the various George Soros Open Society Foundation legal entities—four separate tax-exempt charities and one 501(c)(4) dark-money channel. Next are the Tides Foundation organizations, funded primarily by the Pritzker family, which include three separate tax-exempt charities and one 501(c)(4) dark-money channel. Following them are the Rockefeller Foundation nexus, NEO Philanthropy, the Ford Foundation, and a host of similar operations, including the Singham network. Collectively, these entities form America’s dark-money ecosystem. They fund permanent protests, bail demonstrators out of jail, finance legal efforts to sue local governments and police departments, influence immigration policy, promote drug decriminalization and criminal-justice reforms, and help elect district attorneys who decline to prosecute crime. On top of all of this, they also have entities like the Working Families Party that elect local politicians.

    The money flows from donations to tax-exempt charities into non-tax-exempt 501(c)(4)s, and then trickles down to local groups. From there, funds reach the most radical organizations, which can’t even qualify for 501(c)(3) status and are instead “fiscally sponsored” by parent organizations. Because of this fiscal-sponsorship loophole, the books of these groups remain opaque. Everything from terror financing to protests-turned-riots connects in some way to these foundations.

    The revolution against the West is, in effect, a network of tax-exempt charities operating as a powerful parallel government that no one ever voted for. It must be stopped before it’s too late.

    A look into Soros-funded terrorist networks is long overdue. Here’s hoping a lot of indictments, bank account freezes and billions in civil forfeiture claims are forthcoming.

  • Your reminder that the social justice left are horrible people:

  • A roundup of how some horrible people on the left are celebrating Kirk’s assassination. Probably much, much more on this topic in a day or three.
  • Nate Silver covers how Democrats are cursed by the horror of Blueskyism.

    Bluesky, the Twitter spinoff that was once billed as a kinder, gentler alternative to what is now known as X, probably isn’t on death’s door. But after a burst of growth around the election, it’s shrinking and steadily declining in influence, even as other corners of the left thrive during Trump’s second term.

    Snip.

    Even on a logarithmic scale — on a linear scale, the graph is boring, because everything but Twitter would pretty much just be a flat line — the gulf between X and the other platforms is clear. And since the election, Bluesky has lost ground. More precise data based on the number of unique “likers”, “posters” and “followers” at Bluesky tracks a similar curve, with an initial peak around the election and a secondary peak after Trump’s inauguration but persistent erosion since then. The number of unique posters at Bluesky peaked at just under 1.5 million on Nov. 18, 2024 but has since fallen to an average of about 660,000 on weekdays and 600,000 on weekends: in other words, a drop of more than half.

    The decline in Bluesky’s number of unique daily followers is even more substantial. They topped out at 3.1 million on Nov. 18 last year, but are now just under 400,000 per day: almost a tenfold decline. So while a dedicated troupe of Bluesky regulars are still skeeting up a storm, they’re gaining less and less traction, preaching only to the converted.

    Snip.

    Bluesky was initially popular with Twitter refugees who disliked Musk’s takeover of the platform, some of whom proclaimed that Elon had unleashed the “gates of hell” by restoring banned accounts or predicted that the platform would implode due to a shortage of engineering talent. I suppose I have no problem with this; ironically, the first post in Silver Bulletin history is entitled “In case Twitter goes to zero”. (I wanted a hedge in case it did, although if we’re being honest, I also had one eye out the door as ABC News was beginning to dismantle FiveThirtyEight.) However, this also self-selected for a certain type of user, adherents of an attitude that I call “Blueskyism”.

    Blueskyism should not be mistaken for general left-of-center political views. Google search traffic for Bluesky over the past year is highly correlated with Kamala Harris’s vote share, but has some other skews: controlling for the Harris vote, it’s (statistically) significantly higher in states with a large white population and where the percentage of people with advanced degrees is higher. Bluesky is disproportionately popular in D.C., but also in crunchy white states like Vermont and Oregon. Search traffic for Twitter/X over the same period shows the same bias toward highly educated states, but less toward Harris voters4 and actually an inverse correlation with the white population share. (X gets more search traffic in more diverse states.)

    Demographics alone only go so far in explaining Blueskyism, however. It’s not a political movement so much as a tribal affiliation, a niche set of attitudes and style of discursive norms that almost seem designed in a lab to be as unappealing as possible to anyone outside the clique.

    Emphasis added. Snip.

    Some of the most annoying people on the platform have exited for Bluesky.

    As compared to other people with a similar level of public prominence — so not heads-of-state or celebrities or NFL quarterbacks — I was a “trending topic” on Twitter as often as just about anyone for a period from roughly 2018-2021. Matt Yglesias and Maggie Haberman also come to mind as other people who share this particular “honor”, which is not a welcome one: it means you’re the main character of the day, the person that other people have decided to dogpile upon.

    There’s still some of this. If you tweet about election-related stuff, there is a pervasive tendency to “shoot the messenger” from partisans when the polls aren’t going their way. But much less than there once was: no more of the dogpiles for exceptionally strange reasons that I couldn’t even explain to my IRL friends.

    And that’s because this behavior — I guess you could call it harassment but I’m a big boy and I can take it — consistently came from a relatively narrow group of power users, birds of a feather who flocked together, people who could demonstrate their fidelity to the group by picking on the main character. On Bluesky, exactly the same people — and I do mean exactly — attack exactly the same perpetual enemies, but to roughly 1/60th the size of the audience.

    So I feel freer using Twitter these days for jokes, memes, and tongue-in-cheek ideas that aren’t meant to be taken entirely seriously, intended to be read as though they’re written in comic sans.

    Snip.

    What really matters in elections is simply being popular and winning over new converts. Blueskyism, with its intolerance for dissent, is the opposite of that.

    Because, yes, while this is personal for me, annoyingness matters in politics.

    Snip.

    The three essential characteristics of Blueskyism.

    The first essential characteristic: Smalltentism

    Aggressive policing of dissent, particularly of people “just outside the circle” who might have broader credibility on the center-left. Censoriousness, often taking the form of moral micropanics that designate a rotating cast of opponents as the main characters of the day. Self-reinforcing belief in the righteousness of the clique, and conflation of its values with broader public sentiment among “the base”.

    A healthy political movement, you’d think, would welcome people who agree with them on 70 percent of issues, particularly if it sees Trump as an existential threat to democracy and wants a broad coalition against him. Blueskyists do literally almost the exact opposite: their biggest enemies are people on the center-left like me and Yglesias and Ezra Klein. Or center-left media institutions like the New York Times, which are often viewed as more problematic than Fox News.

    This aggressive policing of boundaries might at least have been tactically smart during the miraculous Blue Period when Twitter was afflicted with Blueskyism. Yglesias, say, is followed by a lot more Democratic staffers than Ben Shapiro or some actual conservative is.

    But now that Blueskyism is losing the battle of ideas, it just draws the tent narrower and ensures that it will remain obscure. There’s nothing more Blueskyist than this, literally creating a “list of shame” of Bluesky posters who remain active on Twitter.

    And sometimes, Blueskyists even make violent threats toward people who disagree with them. For instance, the journalist Billy Binion says he recently “logged onto Bluesky to find thousands of people screaming at me, many of whom were telling me to kill myself” after having posted that “billionaires should exist”. There’s some of that on every social media platform, unfortunately, and I’m not going to make assertions about the relative frequency on Bluesky without taking some more comprehensive approach to the question. It certainly shouldn’t have a reputation for civil discourse, however, and this may help to explain the high rate of exits from the platform.

    The second essential characteristic: Credentialism

    Appeals to authority, particularly academic authority. Centering of the suitability of the speaker based on his or her credentials and/or identity characteristics (standpoint epistemology) as opposed to the strength of his or her arguments, accompanied by the implicit presumption to claim to be speaking on behalf of the entire identity group.

    Although Blueskyism is small, its practitioners mostly consist of people within the professional-managerial class: (over)educated blue-state liberals, perhaps people who have drawn the short straw of elite overproduction. You can see that in the demographic data, or in the attitude site management takes: the platform literally just banned people from Mississippi because of a dispute over age verification.

    And Bluesky has become relatively popular among academics, which I regard as a problem on various levels. The Democratic Party has already forgotten how to talk to large groups of voters like young men, who have become considerably less likely to complete college than young women. Meanwhile, the experts have made a lot of mistakes, and sometimes the reason is because they’ve become self-serving in pursuit of social media validation or blinded by political partisanship. Increasingly often, I’ll see academics engage in incredibly sloppy argumentation and this seems to be correlated with recent exposure to Bluesky. Because Bluesky is so small, it has a highly specific signature. It’s like if you have some toxic persona on the periphery of your friend group; someone starts speaking in a particular way that you just know they recently hung out with George or Gina.

    While academic credentials are one way to gain credibility under Blueskyism, they aren’t the only one. Even though the Google search data suggests that the platform is disproportionately white, an alternative is to claim to speak on behalf of a disadvantaged group. I swear to God, I’m not trying to make this about “wokeness” but there is overlap there.

    Perhaps the most prominent example of Blueskyism creeping into real life is when a group of left-leaning public health professionals, who often took a bullying approach during Twitter’s Blue Period, went out of their way to rationalize mass protests after George Floyd was murdered in 2020. Personally, I think it was perfectly fine to join in on these protests; political expression is important (and these protests were usually outdoors and masked). But I also think a lot of other things, like sending your children to school or visiting your dying relatives in the hospital, would have risen to this threshold also, and this group specifically used their credentials to endorse the Floyd protests after having campaigned for those other activities to be prohibited.

    Indeed, this controversy recently resurfaced on Bluesky. After Brian Schatz, the Democratic senator from Hawaii, wrote sympathetically in response to a Sean Trende tweet that recalled the hypocrisy of endorsing the protests, he and other “Dem elected/staff/consultants” were blamed on the platform for being “awash in right-wing brainrot.”

    The third essential characteristic: Catastrophism

    Humorless, scoldy neuroticism, often rationalized by the view that one must be on “war footing” because the world is self-evidently in crisis. Sublimation of personal anxiety as a substitute for political activism or material solutions to the crisis, with expressions of weariness and pessimism signaling virtue and/or savviness.

    Although the first two characteristics already limit the appeal of Blueskyism, this makes it worse. Even people who might otherwise be sympathetic to Bluesky have noticed how impossible it is to get away with a joke on the platform, one of the things that X sometimes13 still has going for it. The Bernie-era, Chapo Trap House strain of left-wing discourse also at least had a caustic if sometimes juvenile humor streak. Blueskyism does not.

    Instead, the prevailing Blueskyist attitude is often something like this — that we’re in the midst of a “late stage capitalist hellscape” and that you have to be “delusional” to have any amount of hope or optimism”.

    Most people outside of Bluesky don’t think like this. Although literally almost zero Democrats are happy with the state of the country, overwhelming majorities of Americans are happy with how their personal lives are going and are able to compartmentalize politics away or recognize that other things matter in life, too.

    Conclusion: “A subculture like Blueskyism that sees depression as a rational and even virtuous response is going to select for a lot of miserable people. And misery likes company. So the Blueskyists gather in a corner, exchanging tales of woe, while the rest of us slink away.”

    Though there is the usual Silver hemming, hawing and sifting things into ever-finer categories (not to mention his willful denial that “wokeness” is an actual thing, despite so carefully delineating some of its most central characteristics, and his dismissal of the Twitter Files), it’s still worth reading the whole thing. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Rich Hamas honchos throught they could hang out safe in Qatar while their footsoldiers died in Gaza. Wrong.

    Israel carried out a strike on senior Hamas leaders in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on Tuesday afternoon.

    Qatar quickly accused Israel of “reckless” behaviour and breaking international law after the attack on a residential premises in the city.

    The Israel Defense Forces claimed to have targeted those “directly responsible for the brutal October 7 massacre”.

    Snip.

    According to the Israeli military, it conducted a “precise strike” targeted at Hamas senior leaders in Qatar using “precise munitions”.

    Israeli media says the operation involved 15 Israeli fighter jets, firing 10 munitions against a single target.

    Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political bureau since 2012 and has played a key role in facilitating indirect negotiations between the group and Israel since the 7 October attacks.

    Hamas said members of the group’s negotiating delegation in Doha were targeted but survived the strike. However Hamas said six others, including a Qatari security official, were killed.

    According to Hamas, those killed were:

    • Humam Al-Hayya (Abu Yahya) – son of chief negotiator al-Hayya
    • Jihad Labad (Abu Bilal) – director of al-Hayya’s office
    • Abdullah Abdul Wahid (Abu Khalil)
    • Moamen Hassouna (Abu Omar)
    • Ahmed Al-Mamluk (Abu Malik)
    • Corporal Badr Saad Mohammed Al-Humaidi – Qatari internal security forces
  • Russia sends drone swarm into Polish airspace.
  • “Trump is enjoying his highest approval rating of either term right now according to a DailyMail/J.L. Partners poll. He’s sitting at a solid 55% approval rating.”
  • Justice Kavanaugh: Judges are not appointed to make policy calls.

    Once again, the Supreme Court has stepped in to prevent a rogue district judge from hamstringing the executive branch in performing core executive functions under Donald Trump. And once again, the Court’s conservative majority has dispatched this order without explanation, over an angry and overwrought dissent from the Court’s liberals. This time, however, Justice Brett Kavanaugh stepped up to explain what was going on.

    The Court’s order this morning in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo stayed an August 1 order by district judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong-

    That name sounds like it came out of a Monty Python skit.

    -of the Central District of California, a Biden appointee and former Obama Justice Department official. The order will thus have no effect unless and until the Ninth Circuit rules in the case — perhaps only a brief reprieve, given that the Ninth Circuit previously declined to stay Judge Frimpong’s initial temporary restraining order in the case.

    The crux of the case is whether the government may stop individuals in Los Angeles on suspicion of being illegal immigrants on the basis of four factors: “(i) presence at particular locations such as bus stops, car washes, day laborer pickup sites, agricultural sites, and the like; (ii) the type of work one does; (iii) speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; and (iv) apparent race or ethnicity.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent noted that the order attempted to enjoin Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) only from stops based solely on those four criteria, but as Kavanaugh noted, there are inherent problems in the judiciary trying to prospectively micromanage law enforcement in such fashion: “Even if the Government had a policy of making stops based on the factors prohibited by the District Court, immigration officers might not rely only on those factors if and when they stop [the lawsuit’s named] plaintiffs in the future,” and “the District Court’s injunction threatens contempt sanctions against immigration officers who make brief investigative stops later found by the court to violate the injunction. The prospect of such after-the-fact judicial second-guessing and contempt proceedings will inevitably chill lawful immigration enforcement efforts. . . . Judges are not appointed to make those policy calls.” As Kavanaugh added, particular plaintiffs do not have standing to enjoin the government in advance from stops that may or may not involve them and may or may not, depending on the circumstances, violate the Fourth Amendment.

  • “DHS Launches ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ Immigration Crackdown in Chicago Despite Local Pushback.”

    The Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Midway Blitz on Monday to combat the influx of illegal immigration Chicago has seen under Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.

    DHS said that the program was created in honor of Katie Abraham, a college student who was struck and killed by a Guatemalan national in a drunk driving hit-and-run accident in Illinois.

    “DHS is launching Operation Midway Blitz in honor of Katie Abraham who was killed in Illinois by a criminal illegal alien who should have never been in our country. This operation will target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “For years, Governor Pritzker and his fellow sanctuary politicians released Tren de Aragua gang members, rapists, kidnappers, and drug traffickers on Chicago’s streets — putting American lives at risk and making Chicago a magnet for criminals.”

  • How the Biden Administration helped enable illegal alien child sex trafficking.

    During Joe Biden’s term, an estimated 233,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border and were completely lost.
    The Trump admin has now found 22,638 of these children.

    But many of them have suffered unbelievable horrors:

    John Fabbricatore, HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement senior advisor, said to Fox News:

    We found children who have been raped. We’re talking about debt bondage, where children are being made to work off debt, trafficking debt. We’re talking about children that were brought into situations and then treated like sexual slaves.

    So far, 27 of the children Biden lost have been found dead, often from murder or drug overdose.

    Children are in horrific environments, just environments that they should not be in, where the sponsor is a heroin dealer and that child winds up dying of a heroin overdose.

  • Before Charlie Kirk drove everything else off the news, the murder of Iryna Zarutska was the story the media didn’t want to report on.

    Iryna Zarutska was a 23-year-old Ukrainian who fled the war in her country for Charlotte, North Carolina.

    Over the weekend, police released video of her being stabbed in the neck by a violent career criminal.

    Iryna got on the train, sat down, and immediately went “condition white” (looking at her phone without paying attention to her surroundings).

    Let this be a reminder that, if you’re in public, you need situational awareness at all times.

    In the blink of an eye, her throat was slashed and she was bleeding out over the floor of the train.

    Despite the horror of the crime, the media has remained ostensibly quiet.

  • Charlotte Pocketed $3.3M From Left-Wing NGO To Empty Jails For ‘Racial Equity.'”

    The optics are incredibly awful for the entire Democratic Party machine.

    The brutal killing of Iryna Zarutska (Ukrainian refugee) on a commuter train in North Carolina highlights not only the willingness of leftist corporate media to cover up news stories that jeopardize their woke narratives but also the broader failure of so-called criminal justice reform, which appears to have shockingly backfired and become a major public safety threat. Adding to the mounting outrage, a leftist magistrate judge released the schizophrenic monster on cashless bail (before he killed Zarutska) – another failure point. And then there’s this: far-left nonprofits accelerated the push for disastrous criminal justice reforms.

    It’s now widely known that Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, Zarutska’s killer, had been previously arrested 14 times in North Carolina for crimes ranging from assault to firearms possession, and whose own mother admitted he was schizophrenic and should never have been allowed back on the streets, was recently released on cashless bail (before he killed Zarutska) by a progressive magistrate judge despite a two-decade violent crime spree.

    But the failures don’t stop with local leftist politicians and rogue progressive judges (or magistrate judges) who embrace woke and enabled criminal justice reform from hell. They extend much deeper – into the shadowy world of the dark-money-funded nonprofit industrial complex, which poured millions of dollars into Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to push for “reducing the jail population.”

    “Another factor in the death of Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte’s light rail–the left-wing MacArthur Foundation giving Mecklenburg county a $3.3 million grant to reduce the jail population. Specifically as part of racial equity aims,” Daily Wire’s Megan Basham wrote on X.

    Basham noted, “Like Soros’ Open Society, the MacArthur Foundation incentivizes local municipalities to make residents less safe by leaving threats like Decarlos Brown on the streets.”

  • Via Stephen Green comes news that the suspect in a Dallas beheading was an illegal alien the Biden Administration let out of custody one week before Trump47 took office.

    [Yordanis] Cobos-Martinez has a prior criminal history of:

    False imprisonment in CA (unknown disposition)
    Indecency with a child in Texas (dismissed)
    Grand theft of vehicle in Florida (dismissed)
    Carjacking & false imprisonment in CA (acquitted on carjacking, convicted of false imprisonment).

    Disturbing surveillance video shows Cobos-Martinez allegedly kicking and picking up the victim’s severed head in the motel parking lot as it drips blood…

  • Ilsky Oil Refinery Hit by Drones: Over 27% Of Russia’s Refining Capacity Gone!”
  • “Ukrainian drones strike fuel pumping station supplying diesel to Moscow.”
  • “Russian Oil Tanker in Primorsk Set on Fire by Drones & Smolensk Oil Depot Hit.” Primorsk is a good 1,000km from the Ukrainian border, up near Finland.
  • Report from Ukraine says that a number of Russian commanders in Donetsk were killed in coordinated drone strikes. Usual caveats apply.
  • Gold hit an all-time high this week.
  • Malcom Gladwell has a long history of being disigenious asshat.
  • “Pete Hegseth updates pronouns of Navy’s ‘transgender healthcare’ director to ‘She/Her/Fired.'”
  • Speaking of which, it’s now The Department of War again.
  • Long overdue. “War Department bans Chinese nationals from Cloud environments.” (Previously.)
  • U.S. busts China-based fentanyl ring, charges 29 in operation.”

    The Trump administration announced Wednesday that an unprecedented law enforcement operation has busted a Chinese-based fentanyl drug and money laundering conspiracy, resulting in charges against 22 Chinese nationals, four Chinese pharmaceutical companies and three U.S. citizens.

    FBI Director Kash Patel described Operation Box Cutter as a “first-of-its-kind” law enforcement action targeting the threat posed to the American public by China-manufactured precursor chemicals used in the production of fentanyl.

    “We’re done playing whack-a-mole,” he said during a press conference in Cincinnati, Ohio.

    “We didn’t arrest a couple of people. We charged an enterprise-wide system in mainland China to include dozens of individuals and banks and companies that are responsible for making these lethal precursors and shipping them here.”

    The Dayton, Ohio, grand jury five-count indictment unsealed Wednesday focuses on a Tipp City, Ohio, resident, 39-year-old Eric Michael Payne.

  • Trump endorsements have that winning touch.

    At this rate, with President Donald Trump being one of the most decisive presidents in history, statistics show that his endorsement could undoubtedly lead a candidate to victory.

    As Ian Vallencillo, commissioner of Sweetwater, Florida, told the Washington Examiner, Trump is one of “the most popular political figures,” stating that voters “overwhelmingly support Trump’s picks.”

    At this rate, with President Donald Trump being one of the most decisive presidents in history, statistics show that his endorsement could undoubtedly lead a candidate to victory.

    As Ian Vallencillo, commissioner of Sweetwater, Florida, told the Washington Examiner, Trump is one of “the most popular political figures,” stating that voters “overwhelmingly support Trump’s picks.”

    The commissioner is right.

    Candidates endorsed by Trump have lost, but very rarely. Former Republican North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson conceded his gubernatorial election against an incumbent after receiving Trump’s approval, partly over a scandal that engulfed the news cycle days before the election.

    Similarly, former presidential candidate and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) lost his reelection bid, over years of controversy, anti-Trump skepticism, and a failure to get the Republican Party in the White House in 2012.

    During the 2024 federal and gubernatorial election cycles, Trump endorsed 306 candidates. Eighty-nine percent of those candidates now occupy the office they ran for. In the 2022 election cycle, Trump endorsed 195 candidates, 83% of whom were sworn in to office a few months later.

    One of those key endorsements includes the key race of Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), who unseated a longtime incumbent, former Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, by a 0.5% margin.

    Similarly, in the same election cycle, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) won his Senate race against former Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who had been in office since 2007.

    The year before that, after former California GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy resigned from Congress in 2023 following a motion for him to step down as speaker of the House from a Trump-endorsed representative, California Assemblyman Vince Fong was elected soon after receiving the nod from the president.

    Similarly, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who was challenged by a local Democratic advocate, won his third term soon after Trump endorsed him.

  • “Democratic Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick Under Federal Investigation for Campaign Finance Fraud,Taxpayer Fund Misuse.”

    The latest scandal involves a web of shell companies, family members on mysterious payrolls, and taxpayer money that somehow found its way into campaign coffers. Multiple federal agencies are now investigating what appears to be a deliberate scheme to circumvent campaign finance laws through a maze of LLCs and nonprofits. The numbers are staggering: millions in taxpayer funds allegedly embezzled, hundreds of thousands in unreported campaign contributions, and a trail of financial breadcrumbs leading through family businesses.

    The politician at the center of this storm? Democratic Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida.

    Cherfilus-McCormick had won her seat after campaigning against the corruption of her predecessor, Alcee Hastings.

    Today, Cherfilus-McCormick finds herself drowning in exactly the kind of investigations she once condemned. The Federal Election Commission has launched a formal probe into her campaign’s alleged violations, while the Office of Congressional Ethics has found “probable cause” that she accepted illegal campaign contributions. The schemes are breathtaking in their audacity: her husband and sister-in-law running an LLC that funneled $725,000 through a nonprofit that then paid her campaign vendors. A political consultant with direct access to these funds, making payments on her behalf while she pretended not to know.

    But here’s where my blood really starts to boil. Before entering Congress, Cherfilus-McCormick was CEO of Trinity Health Care Services, a family company that received a $5 million “overpayment” from Florida’s emergency services department – supposedly due to a misplaced decimal point. Instead of immediately returning the taxpayer money, investigators allege she began moving it between family businesses, including companies where she held major stakes. The state had to sue to get its money back.

  • As expected. “James Talarico Launches Democrat Bid for U.S. Senate. Talarico has positioned himself as one of the more left-wing voices in the Texas Legislature.”
  • Remember how Adam Carolla said the Palisades fire would used as an excuse for a land grab by the Democrats running Los Angeles and California? Guess what? “Iconic Malibu restaurant is told it can’t rebuild after Palisades Fire.”
  • Illegal alien sexually assaulted a woman, was ordered to be deported, but instead got a state job in Minnesota.

    An Alpha News reporter participated in a ride-along with ICE agents during the arrest. Wilson Tindi, a Kenya native, pled guilty to sexually assaulting a sleeping woman in Minneapolis in 2014 after breaking into her home. A judge ordered Tindi to be deported, but a federal judge later overturned this ruling. ICE released him after 18 months.

    After his release, Tindi became a chief audit officer at Minnesota’s education department. He was later fired after his past became known, raising questions about how he was ever hired in the first place.

  • While everything else was happening, the second Texas special legislative session ended.

    Among the most high-profile and controversial legislation passed was a handful of social issue bills — in particular, one establishing civil cause of action against chemical abortion pill providers, and another separating publicly-funded private spaces by biological sex. The former came with its fair share of backdoor negotiations and amendments before it was successfully carried through both chambers, as was the case for multiple priorities of Abbott’s.

    One issue which faced an untimely end in the Legislature was the attempted regulation of hemp-derived THC products. Ultimately, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), and Abbott were unable to reach an agreement on Wednesday.

  • After that failure, Abbott just issued an executive order limiting consumable THC sales to those over 21.
  • Collateral damage from the death of print magazines. “Publishers Clearing House Winners Say They Are No Longer Receiving Their Lifetime Payments.”
  • It seems that some leftwing Texas school nurses are practicing malicious compliance.

    Texas Education Agency Updates First Aid Guidelines After Controversy Over Withheld Medical Care

    The TEA updated their guidance to allow schools to provide “first aid” without parental consent.

    The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has released updated guidelines for how Texas public schools should approach the implementation of Senate Bill (SB) 12, known as the “Parent Bill of Rights,” after recent reports of school nurses not providing first aid to students.

    One aspect of SB 12 that caused distress and confusion among lawmakers, parents, and schools alike is the requirement for school districts to receive documentation of notice and consent from parents for their child to receive “medical, psychiatric, and psychological treatment.”

    State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Allen) posted a letter on social media he had sent to TEA Commissioner Mike Morath last week regarding “concerns with the implementation” of SB 12 after reports of how “some school districts are taking an ‘all or nothing’ approach” to the new policy requirements, which has resulted in “band-aids” and “ice packs” being withheld from children.

    Following the publication of the letter, which was also signed by the bill author state Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), reports of children not being treated for certain “general care” services began being made public.

  • “Texas State Terminates Professor Who Called for Overthrow of US Government.”

    “After a thorough review was conducted of the video recordings of the statements, it became clear to me that their actions amounted to serious professional and personal misconduct,” Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse stated late Wednesday. “Conduct that advocates for inciting violence is directly contrary to the values of Texas State University. I cannot and will not tolerate such behavior.”

    “As a result, I have determined that their actions are incompatible with their responsibilities as a faculty member at Texas State University,” Damphousse continued. “Effective immediately, their employment with Texas State University has been terminated.”

    Damphousse was referring to Tom Alter, who was previously an associate professor of history at Texas State.

    Alter had been exposed making comments calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government.

  • Facebook and Tik-Tok are garbage. You know what’s worse? Eurocrats trying to regulate and tax them.

    The European Commission has suffered a major defeat in court over its plans to make large tech platforms pay it to enforce the Digital Services Act.

    Meta and ByteDance’s TikTok took the European Commission to court after it presented them with a “supervisory fee” equal to 0.05 per cent of their yearly global net income. The bill was to cover the EU executive’s expenses in monitoring their compliance with the Digital Services Act.

    The Digital Services Act (DSA) gives the European Commission oversight of very large online platforms and search engines—ones with more than 45 million EU users a year. To fund this oversight, the Commission has said it will charge these providers an annual fee, based on their average monthly users.

    The Commission adopted rules saying how it would set these fees on 2 March 2023. The next month, on 25 April, it classified Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as very large platforms. That November, it finalised the 2023 fees for each.

    In two decisions 10 September, the Court of Justice of the EU determined the Commission’s supervisory fees on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok were void for procedural grounds.

    To set the 2023 fees, the Commission decided to calculate each platform’s average monthly users using a methodology based on third-party data it attached to each decision.

    However, the Court ruled that this methodology for calculating fees should have been established through a delegated act–a process which involves the European Parliament and Council.

    The judges said it was incorrect for the European Commission to determine the fees using implementing decisions it devised on its own authority alone.

  • Add “classic cars” to the long list of things California Democrats hate.

    Jay Leno’s star power wasn’t enough to persuade a California legislative committee to pass a measure to allow owners of classic cars like him to be exempted from the state’s rigorous smog-check requirements.

    The Assembly Appropriations Committee on Friday blocked Bakersfield Republican Sen. Shannon Grove’s Senate Bill 712 from advancing for a full vote. Leno had testified in support of the measure in Sacramento earlier this year.

    The committee’s members and its powerful Democratic chairperson, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks of Oakland, did not provide a reason for killing the bill during Friday’s hearing, which quickly and with little fanfare announced the fate of 260 other bills that had been placed on the committee’s so-called “suspense file.” Seventy other bills also were killed without explanation.

    The Senate and Assembly’s appropriations committees, which both met Friday and rejected hundreds of bills, are supposed to be the gatekeepers for bills proposing to spend taxpayer money. But the committees’ suspense files are where hundreds of politically touchy bills die quietly each year with only a few insiders knowing the real reasons.

  • Random meme stolen from Facebook:

  • So I don’t think I’ll be watching all of the Joe Rogan podcasts with Carrot Top or Charlie Sheen, but I suspect I’ll be watching snippets from them, and felt I should make you aware of their existence…
  • For some reason, all three Top Gear/Grand Tour presents have decided they need to come out with their own gin.
  • Rick Beato examines why Genesis’ “Entangled” is a great song.
  • Speaking of Prog Rock, here’s a piece on how a burned out Mike Oldfield pushed through to deliver Hergest Ridge.
  • Ten musical pieces you know, but not the names of. I already knew a good number, but a few were new, and a couple of others I didn’t know under their original language name.
  • Not a Babylon Bee story: “Emotional support alligator is no longer welcome in Pennsylvania Walmart.”
  • “‘Why Won’t Conservatives Give Up Their Guns?’ Ask The People Shooting At Them.”
  • “Democrats Condemn Violence They Incited.”
  • “Dems Warn Surveillance Videos Perpetuate Stereotypes By Accurately Depicting Events.”
  • “Tough-On-Crime Democrats Propose ‘100 Strikes And You’re Out’ Law.”
  • “ICE Enforcement Action At Chocolate Factory Nabs 475 Illegal Oompa Loompas.”
  • “Greta Thunberg Reports Flotilla Struck By Jewish Space Laser.”
  • “Kids Find A Secret World Behind Old Wardrobe, But It’s Just Toledo, Ohio.”
  • “NFL Fires Officiating Crew That Allowed Chiefs To Lose Season Opener.”
  • “Colorado Authorities Warn Marijuana Consumption Could Lead To Attending Rockies Games.”
  • When the little Lebowski became The Big Lebowski:

  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    You Can’t Tell The Satanic Leftwing Tranny Deathcults Without A Program

    Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025

    Friday’s LinkSwarm entry on crazy tranny shooter Robert Paul Westman’s link to various satanic death cults was pretty brief, but there seems to be a lot more to cover there. Starting with America’s Transtifa problem.

    At the start of the year, only eight days into President Trump’s second term, the FBI’s counterterrorism division held an unclassified briefing on an emerging domestic terrorism threat: “Nihilistic Accelerationism.”

    I hadn’t run across “The Com” before. I think I’ll have to add a little Quick Reference Glossary at the bottom.

    As far as I can tell, “Accelerationism” comes in two main flavors. The technoutopian, transhumanist flavor is mostly libertarian-tinged immanization of the Singularity escutcheon eschaton sorts, the kind of people who want to bring about a tech-driven Utopia. They’re almost certainly wrong about living forever in a tech-heaven as a digitized, uploaded consciousnesses, but they’re builders, not destroyers.

    Then there’s the other kind. You know The Dark Knight meme?

    That’s them. They want to make the world itself Hell, and the hand-basket isn’t traveling fast enough for them.

    Some of the most recent examples of nihilism and accelerationist beliefs can be found alarmingly emanating from the political far-left. Violence, chaos, and destruction are recurring themes found in their online posts, propaganda, manifestos, and civil disobedience (also known as “civil terrorism”).

    Take, for example, the transgender mass shooter last week that carried out a horrific attack against Christians at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring 17 others before taking his own life, wrote in a dark, troubling manifesto posted online that he was “tired of being trans.”

    GPS—Robert “Robin” Westman devices were present during at least 5 antifa protests. Upon cross pollinating devices at his residence, there were numerous ‘burner’ phones. His devices have also appeared to have been present with a number of Zizians, including their founder Jack LaSota, on two occasions two months apart.

    It adds up, because he claims to “hate fascism & inequality”, he had “1312” in his username. He was 100% trantifa, not a “right winger” like many lying Antifa are trying to claim to distance themselves from the sh*t storm surrounding the church shooting of children.

    It’s also important to point out that the Far Left/Antifa to Trans pipeline many times, terminates with incorporating Nazi ideology through the Pro Palestine intersection involved.

    The Zizians, are a cult-like group that has been widely described in media reports as a radical collective primarily consisting of transgender vegans with ties to rationalist communities, anti-AI ideologies, and extreme activism.

    The whole online vegan/pedophile crossover puts that Ryan Long bit in a new light:

    This group has been linked to a series of murders and suspicious deaths across multiple U.S. states in 2025, earning it labels like “trans murder cult” or “vegan death cult” in various news outlets and online discussions.

    The Zizians originated from online rationalist and effective altruism circles in the Bay Area, drawing in highly intelligent individuals, including math geniuses and programmers.

    The group’s leader, Jack LaSota (also known as “Ziz” or “Jack Ziz”), is a transgender person who reportedly promoted extreme veganism, anti-artificial intelligence views, and authoritarian control over members.

    Experts have compared it to cults using models like Steven Hassan’s BITE (Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional control) framework, noting how it allegedly manipulated followers through emotional and ideological means.

    The group has been accused of issuing “kill orders” and fostering an environment that led to violence, though not all members are implicated in crimes.

    In early 2025, the group came under scrutiny after a traffic stop in Vermont led to the discovery of connections to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland. A 21-year-old transgender member of the Zizians was indicted on federal murder charges and faces the death penalty.

    The Zizians have been tied to the deaths of a Pennsylvania couple (parents of one member) and other incidents in California, including an attempted murder and a faked death. In total, the group is linked to at least six killings across three states: Vermont, Pennsylvania, and California.

    Additional arrests include LaSota on trespassing charges (held without bail) and other members like Alexander Leatham and Suri Dao, who face trial for related murders. One case involved a German math prodigy allegedly drawn into the group before her involvement in crimes.

    As of mid-2025, multiple members are in custody, with ongoing trials and federal investigations. The U.S. Justice Department is pursuing capital punishment in at least one case. The group has gone underground, but it has sparked broader discussions about cult dynamics in online communities.

    Zizians. Great. I’ll add that to the list.

    Some of these groups get categorized as “neo-Nazi,” but the trans cult is entirely on the left, and Satanists are hardly flocking to vote Republican. (And then there’s the whole “how did a party with ‘national socialism’ in its name get assigned to the right?” thing.)

    Seruga also claimed that the transgender mass shooter was also “100% trantifa,” which opens up another rabbit hole that Andy Ngo, senior editor at The Post Millennial, has covered in-depth for quite some time about the disturbing rise of “trans militancy” across America.

    Ngo’s new report, titled “The Violent Ideology and Lies Fueling Trans Militancy,” warns that the transgender mass shooter attack on Christians in Minneapolis last week “wasn’t an isolated attack….”

    This propaganda is blasted nonstop across social media, Reddit threads, internet forums, and radical leftist blogs.

    But wait! That’s not the only crazy Satanic deathcult out there! The FBI has also warned people about The Com, which also evidently runs a SWATing-for-hire service.

    In recent weeks, VICE has reported on the recruitment and radicalization of children as young as 12 by Satanic neo-Nazi accelerationist groups like 764, No Lives Matter, and Milikolosskrieg, which operate within a wider criminal network primarily through encrypted messaging platforms like Signal, Telegram, and Discord. While it might be tempting to dismiss this as little more than disaffected kids venting online, the influence of this network has been directly tied to numerous incidents of real-world violence—leading it to be identified as a threat in a series of public service announcements by the FBI, which refers to it as ‘The Com.’

    At the end of last month, Minnesotan 20-year-old Logan Anthony Seitz was arrested for stabbing a woman “around 20 times” in a park. In a criminal complaint obtained by CBS, he told investigators he’d had the urge to randomly kill a person since he was ten years old and went out that day intending to find his victim. But coverage of the case missed a crucial detail: Seitz is a longtime member of SR1, a subgroup of a notorious The Com-adjacent sextortion network known as 764. His attack was not only acknowledged but celebrated on Telegram channels associated with these groups, where he is known by the alias ‘Corrupt.’

    It’s not the first time a case like this has been traced back to The Com. Between July and October 2024, at least six unprovoked assaults in Hässelby, Stockholm were filmed and posted on Telegram channels linked to 764. A 14-year-old boy was detained on suspicion of two assaults, and confessed to one—the attempted murder of an 80-year-old man. In April 2025, two individuals linked to 764 were arrested in connection with a bomb plot targeting a Lady Gaga concert in Brazil attended by over 2 million fans.

    The threat posed by these groups, which are often influenced or inspired by the Order of Nine Angles (O9A), has now drawn the attention of the United States’ federal government.

    On July 23, the FBI issued three PSAs about The Com, highlighting the growing dangers it poses to young people online. According to the briefings, The Com has thousands of members, primarily between 11 and 25 years of age. Most recruits are drawn in through gaming platforms and social media. The Com groups featured in the FBI reports engage in a range of criminal activities, including ransomware attacks, stabbings, sabotage, swatting, extortion, the distribution of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), DDoS attacks, SIM swapping, and cryptocurrency theft, among other things.

    Just sound like a lovely bunch all-around, don’t they? It’s like they went “Why be a mere online edgelord when I can rape children and kill people in real life?”

    Consider this yet another reason for rational, law-abiding citizens to go armed.

    Glossary of Far-Left Satanic Transsexual Death Cults

    This is a quick overview for my own reference and people researching the topic.

    Note: Some of these entries link to Wikipedia articles, and the usual caveats apply.

    • Accelerationists: See Nihilistic Accelerationists.
    • The Com: FBI’s term for an aggregate of almost all the Satanic pedophile death cults mentioned here.
    • CVLT: “CVLT, also known as Cult, is an international Neo-Nazi and nihilistic online organization that was responsible for acts of child exploitation. Several of the organization’s leaders were arrested in US for producing child pornography and coercing minors to commit self-harm. According to police, CVLT has exploited approximately 2 minors in California and 16 minors around the world in total. US Department of Justice described it as “an online group that espoused neo-Nazism, nihilism, and pedophilia as its core principles”. CVLT is affiliated with The Com, a broad network of international cybercriminals. CVLT became known after one of its leaders, Kaleb Merritt, was caught and convicted of raping a girl and taking inappropriate pictures of her. CVLT was created in 2019 by a French-Indian school student, named Rohan Rane.”
    • Milikolosskrieg: Relatively new group of neo-Nazi accelerationsists whose membership seems to skew young (12-18).
    • Nihilistic Accelerationists: People who want to see the world (especially the “normie” world) burn, and will embrace any evil and any tool to achieve their goals.
    • No Lives Matter: “No Lives Matter (NLM) is a misanthropic, neo-Nazi online group that advocates for violence, terrorism and the destruction of humanity. Its core principles are radical nihilism and anti-humanism.”
    • Order of the 9 Angels: Neo-Nazi Satanists enthusiastic about rape and pedophilia. They think “respectable” “left-hand path” groups like The Church of Satan and The Order of Set are wimpy, cringing pussies. “Back in the 1990s a weirdo (named Myall back in the day) claimed that family knew the REAL SECRET of the nine angles. It was mainly Neo-Nazi stuff — ‘Kill a Jew for Satan.’ The guy claimed 100s of followers and had several Orders he was running.'” There’s even a timeline of crimes connected to the group.
    • 764: Global Satanic child predator network. “An international network of predators steeped in Satanism lure children from seemingly harmless online platforms like Discord, Minecraft, and Roblox and extort them to sexually exploit and grievously harm themselves. Some victims are even pushed to suicide.”

      The abuse perpetrated by members of com groups is extreme. They have coerced children into sexual abuse or self-harm, causing them to deeply lacerate their bodies to carve “cutsigns” of an abuser’s online alias into their skin. Victims have flushed their heads in toilets, attacked their siblings, killed their pets, and in some extreme instances, attempted or died by suicide. Court records from the United States and European nations reveal participants in this network have also been accused of robberies, in-person sexual abuse of minors, kidnapping, weapons violations, swatting, and murder.

    • Transtifa“: Neologism describing radical left-wing transsexuals who feel violence (up to and including murder) is justified against anyone who rejects radical transsexual ideology.
    • Zizians: “A cult-like group that has been widely described in media reports as a radical collective primarily consisting of transgender vegans with ties to rationalist communities, anti-AI ideologies, and extreme activism.”

    Parents, monitor your children’s Internet activities. There are some real sickos out there.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch some sappy dog rescue videos to get this out of my head…

    LinkSwarm for August 29, 2025

    Friday, August 29th, 2025

    The Trump Administration guts two lefty slop buckets of graft, Israel lights up the Houthis big time, crazy tranny shooter might have been in satanic cult too crazy for the Church of Satan, Ukraine bombs the snot out of Russia’s oil infrastructure (again), Scotland and Germany continue to favor unassimilated Muslim immigrants over their own citizens, a secret Spinal Tap concert, and the full weight of Plano ISD comes down on a nefarious…a choir booster club?

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Another court win for Trump47. “Supreme Court Rules 5-4 That Trump Can Slash $783 Million In DEI Research Funding.”

    The Trump administration is free to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research funding on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) following last week’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court.

    In a 5-4 vote, the justices lifted an order from a federal court judge in Boston that blocked $783 million in cuts made by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on health research grants that were being used to advance DEI efforts as well as “gender ideology extremism.”

    The Supreme Court was split on the 5-4 decision which marks another win for President Trump and clears the way for his administration to move forward with canceling hundreds of grants after U.S. District Judge William Young ordered the health-related grants restored in June.

    Chief Justice John Roberts was among the dissenters in the high court’s decision and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted with conservative majority to let the administration stop the grant funding.

    Roberts and Barrett did land on the side of the dissent and allowed to stand a portion of the lower judge’s order that voided a number of NIH policies that targeted DEI programs at the direction of the White House.

  • Speaking of self-dealing garbage corrupt Biden Administration toadies were cutting themselves in for, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick voided ‘illegal’ $7.4B payment to Biden ally-staffed nonprofit for semiconductor research.

    Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick canceled an Biden administration agreement Monday to distribute billions of dollars for semiconductor research through a nonprofit set up and staffed by former political appointees, according to a letter obtained by The Post.

    The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act provided for $11 billion in semiconductor research and development funding to be given out by the Commerce Department’s National Semiconductor Technology Center.

    “Rather than establishing these operations within the Department, however, Biden Administration officials spent significant time, effort, and resources creating an unaccountable, outside entity–Natcast–to administer taxpayer funds,” Lutnick wrote Natcast CEO Deirdre Hanford.

    Four days before Biden left office on Jan. 20, Lutnick noted, the Commerce Department agreed to set aside $7.4 billion in “advance payments” to Natcast after spending nearly two years setting it up and tapping administration officials, advisers and allies to fill out positions.

    That arrangement both effectively removed the incoming Trump administration from being involved in the process and provided “virtually all” of Natcast’s funding — prompting incoming Departments of Justice and Commerce officials to take another look at the Sunnyvale, Calif., nonprofit.

    “These actions do not just give the appearance of impropriety; they flout federal law,” Lutnick told Hanford, pointing out that no provisions in the CHIPS Act authorized an outside entity like Natcast to distribute semiconductor research funds.

    “The GCCA [Government Corporation Control Act] plainly prohibits agencies from establishing a corporation to act as an agency without specific authorization, and the January 16, 2025, agreement does nothing other than set forth the terms of the Biden Administration’s attempt to do just that.”

    Natcast’s selection committee included Biden White House alums like Jason Matheny, former deputy director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and Kendra Wilkerson, the CEO of a nonprofit that “promotes greater equality for women and nonbinary professionals in technology fields,” according to the Biden Commerce Department.

    Donna Dubinsky, another Natcast executive, worked as senior counselor to former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and signed off on the nonprofit’s 501(c)(3) status.

    Susan Feindt, the Biden Commerce Department’s vice chair of its CHIPS Act advisory committee, is now the senior vice president of ecosystem development at Natcast.

    Jeremy Licht, the former chief counsel on semiconductor incentives at the Biden Commerce Department, is now the general counsel at Natcast.

    They weren’t robbing Peter to pay Paul, they were robbing you to line their own pockets. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Try to contain your shock, but D.C.’s Democrat government was lying about crime statistics.

    White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller told reporters Monday that the Trump administration has uncovered a “massive scandal” in Washington D.C. involving the doctoring of crime statistics.

    He said the alleged corruption is currently under investigation and said details of the corruption will soon be brought to light.

    “The results will stun you,” he said.

    Miller made the remarks in the Oval Office after President Trump signed a slew of new executive orders to end cashless bail throughout the United States and in the District of Columbia, prosecute the burning of the American flag, and additional measures to address crime in Washington D.C.

    Miller said D.C. already had the worst crime statistics in the United States when “honestly measured,” but those stats “dramatically understated how bad it was.”

    The White House advisor told reporters that murders and homicides were allegedly being reported as accidents instead of murders.

    “This is how severe the manipulation of the crime data has been in the city and it will all be uncovered and it will all be brought to light,” he said.

    For the past two weeks—since the D.C. crime crackdown began—the city has not seen a single murder or homicide.

    “No police officer working in the city can remember a time in their lives when there has been no murders,” Miller asserted.

    He said police officers have told him that members of the public have been thanking them for making D.C safe again.

    “For the first time in their lives, they can use the parks, they can walk on the streets, you have people who can walk freely at night without worrying about being ribbed or mugged,” he said. “They’re wearing their watch again, they’re wearing jewelry again, they’re carrying purses again.”

    Miller explained that D.C. residents had been forced to “change their who lives for fear of being murdered, mugged or carjacked.”

    He added that Trump had freed the 700,000 residents of the city from “the rule of criminals and thugs.”

    Miller credited Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Terrance C. Cole with discovering that street criminals in Washington D.C. have been “doing business directly with the transnational criminal cartels,” which are foreign terrorist organizations.

    “So not only was the city being run by these criminal thugs, but they were working with some of the most dangerous terrorist organizations on the planet to traffic weapons and drugs into this city,” he explained.

  • Israel gets tired of the Houthis tugging on their cape.

    Israel’s military conducted airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, on Sunday, targeting high-profile sites in a significant escalation of hostilities.

    The strikes hit areas near the presidential palace, the Asar and Hizaz power plants, and Houthi facilities suspected of housing artillery, including ballistic missiles, according to regional reports.

    The operation was a direct response to recent Houthi attacks on Israel, including projectile launches on Friday, a military source told the Jerusalem Post. While Israel has previously targeted Houthi infrastructure, its strikes have largely focused on the strategic port city of Hodeida, a critical economic and military hub. The shift to Sanaa signals a broader and more aggressive approach to the conflict.

    At least two people were killed and five others injured, Al Masirah, a Houthi-affiliated media outlet reported, according to Al Jazeera.

    “The attacks were carried out in response to repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the state of Israel and its citizens, including the launch of surface-to-surface missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles towards the country’s territory,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

  • There’s video:

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Crazy trans-cult member Robert Paul Westman, who hated Donald Trump and Jews, murdered children at a Minneapolis church this week.
  • Weirdly, the crazy murderous tranny’s manifesto name-checked Brandon Herrera. He is not pleased. (And there is a previous parallel.)
  • “Westman’s videos, posted hours before the shootings, may only suggest he used ‘very similar to the symbolism used by violent global satanic cults called Order of 9 Angles and 764.'” I reached out to a “left-hand path” guy I knew from science fiction for background, and he offered the following:

    Many years ago Dr. Anton LaVey asked Micheal Aquino to write two “Lovecraftain Pieces” for the _Satanic Rituals — “Th Cermony of the Nine Angles”and “The Call to Cthulhu”.

    Then back in the 1990s a weirdo (named Myall back in the day) claimed that family knew the REAL SECRET of the nine angles. It was mainly Neo_Nazy stuff — “Kill a Jew for Satan” The guy claimed 100s of followers and had several Orders he was running –my favorite was the “lesbian: Order of the Sapphic Satanists. He tried to join Islam and run an atisemetic Islamic Runic brotherhood that worshipped Azathoth. It did not go well. The ONA shows occasionally with anti-Jewish slogans.

    According to this piece last year, 764 is a global Satanic child predator network.

  • Zohran Mamdani’s advisors are just as filled with lunacy as him.

    The likely next mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, is, as President Donald Trump put it, a “100% Communist lunatic,” and so you won’t exactly be dumbfounded to learn that his advisors are a rogue’s gallery of political hacks and psychopaths the likes of which have not been seen since Chairman Mao sat down for a tete-a-tete with his fellow cultural revolutionaries. It’s clear that one way or another, once this clown moves into Gracie Mansion, New York City is in for it: skyrocketing crime, an inundation of illegal migrants, bankruptcy, the destruction of the city’s economic base — all that and more is on the table.

    Fox News reported Thursday Mamdani’s “growing circle of influence is littered with activists who have espoused anti-Israel views and socialist principles as he attempts to dispel the narrative that he is too ‘radical’ to run the nation’s largest city.” Yeah, these advisors show that he is indeed far too radical to be mayor of New York, but that’s not likely to keep him from being elected.

    Among those advisors is Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), which advocates ending “state support for detention, deportation, and mass incarceration.” Awawdeh insists that illegal migrants “deserve” healthcare, presumably at the expense of the American taxpayer. He has also ranted: “NO LISTEN… SEEKING ASYLUM AT THE BORDER IS A LEGAL RIGHT. ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES FROM VIOLENCE, PERSECUTION, & IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE. THE U.S. HAS A LEGAL OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE REFUGE. #WelcomeWithDignity”

    A legal obligation to provide refuge for anyone fleeing any kind of difficulty? Do tell. Anyway, NYIC has “taken in $175,000 from the sprawling George Soros nonprofit network,” and if that connection of Soros to Mamdani is too tenuous for you, there is plenty more. Fox News reported on Aug. 14 that “A former top executive for liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) between 2017 and 2020 is back in the spotlight amid reports highlighting his involvement with Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral campaign and connecting Obama world to the campaign.”

    The Soros exec in question is Patrick Gaspard, an old political hand on the left; the first campaign he worked on was Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential run. Gaspard “has served in several high-profile political positions, including advising former President Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, serving as the Democratic National Committee’s executive director, and being tapped as the Center for American Progress (CAP) president in 2021.”

  • Another Trump Administration victory over crime.

    Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, is set to face the rest of his life behind bars as the Trump administration ramps up its efforts to dismantle cartels.

    Zambada, 75, confessed in a Brooklyn, New York, courtroom Monday that he had coordinated with Mexican officials to smuggle drugs into the U.S. for decades — and ultimately pleaded guilty to serving as principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise and racketeering conspiracy.

    The Trump administration has pledged to take down the cartels — and experts predict Zambada’s guilty plea paves the way for the Justice Department to launch more indictments against high-profile cartel members moving forward and exerts additional pressure on Mexico to comply with U.S. requests.

  • Russia may not have an oil industry at all when this war is over. Ukraine just hit two more oil refineries, Kuybyshevskiy in Samara and Afipsky in Krasnodar. “Multiple swarms hit this refinery, which makes Russia’s air defense look even more incompetent than usual.” It was also 1,000km away.
  • They also hit the Ust-Luga gas processing terminal near St. Petersburg with ten drones. “This terminal is responsible for processing stable gas condenscent in naphtha jet fuel fuel oil and distillates.” The location makes me wonder if a goodly portion was intended for the export market.
  • They also hit Syzran oil refinery again.

    The map of Russian refineries reveals a key strategic problem. The main processing capabilities are in the European part of the country, whilst fuel consumption is rising in the far east. Fuel logistic chains for eastern regions span thousands of kilometers, creating additional costs and risks. Kilometer-long queues in cities are a direct result of the imbalance between western production and eastern consumption.

  • And they hit another fuel train, this one in in Dzhankoi, Crimea.
  • Russia tries to war crime a Ukrainian civilian with a drone, but it gets taken out by another civilian.
  • New problems require…very old solutions? “Ukrainians hunt Russian drones dangling out of prop planes with shotguns.”
  • “Chinese National Charged With Stealing Sensitive Data from UT-MD Anderson.”

    Harris County’s District Attorney Sean Teare has charged Yunhai Li, a 35-year-old former MD Anderson Cancer Center researcher, with attempting to steal and take proprietary cancer-related research back to China. This comes after multiple warnings about research security in Texas higher education.

  • Texas House votes to the Attorney General’s power to prosecute election fraud.
  • “Trump Administration to Retake Control of D.C.’s Union Station amid Crime Crackdown.”

    While the Department of Transportation has owned the historic station since the 1980s, it has allowed a nonprofit, the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation, more control over the station year after year.

    Now, the Department of Transportation says it plans to use a new deal with Amtrak and USRC to fund improvements to elevators, lighting, security and other repairs to the roof and several major systems.

  • “Scottish Girl Arrested For Using Knife And Axe To Ward Off Migrant Stalker.” She was defending her 12-year old sister from unassimilated would-be Muslim statutory rapists, so of course the police had to arrest her…
  • “How can you tell the difference between a police raid and a home invasion?”

    Last week, a Houston resident foiled a home invasion attempt by a couple criminals trying to impersonate the police. According to the news article:

    “Police said the men told the homeowner they were serving a warrant. They were wearing bullet-proof vests, had badges around their necks and were wearing ski masks.”

    The homeowner ended up shooting and killing both offenders.

    There are many more tips in the article, but police don’t wear ski masks while serving a warrant…

  • “Texas Teacher Arrested on Federal Child Porn Charge…Robert Jerome Custer, 56, was arrested on a federal charge of accessing child sexual abuse material, commonly called child pornography. Custer previously worked as an educator and counselor in Palestine, Barksdale, Kingsville, and Abilene, according to a statement from the Texas Department of Public Safety.”
  • Welfare state is not sustainable, says German chancellor.”

    The German welfare state is no longer financially sustainable, Friedrich Merz said on Saturday.

    The chancellor argued for a fundamental reassessment of the benefits system as spending continues to soar past last year’s record of €47bn (£40bn).

    In a state-level party conference meeting on Saturday, Mr Merz said: “The welfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed with what we can economically afford.”

    Once the export champion of Europe, Germany’s economy has slowed dramatically since 2017, with GDP growing by only 1.6 per cent since then versus 9.5 per cent for the rest of the eurozone.

    Germany’s economy shrank by 0.2 per cent last year following a 0.3 per cent dip in 2023 – the first time since the early 2000s the economy has retreated two years in a row.

    Industrial production fell under the Left-leaning “traffic light” coalition of Olaf Scholz and continues to slide under the new government, with GDP declining by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2025.

    Meanwhile, spending on social welfare has exploded, and is set to increase further this year as Germany’s population ages and unemployment rises. Although the majority of benefit recipients are German, large numbers are non-German citizens.

    German elites will do anything to support its welfare state…except stop importing unassimilated Muslim immigrants. Just like all the rest of Europe’s elites. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • “Paxton Seeks End to Federal Decree Mandating Release of Harris County Misdemeanor Suspects. The O’Donnell federal consent decree has governed county bail practices since 2019.”
  • A decade after the radical left first started shoving tranny bathrooms down the public’s throat without debate, Texas is finally limiting bathrooms to biological sex.
  • Mark Teixeira, Longtime Major League Baseball Player, Launches Texas Congressional Bid.” He’s running as a Republican for the 21st Texas Congressional District, where incumbent Chip Roy is running for Attorney General.
  • Having a meth habit is going to be disqualifying for a lot of jobs. Like District Attorney for Mariposa County. Thus it’s no surprise that DA Mike McAfee resigned…
  • Another electric bus company goes bankrupt. “Quebec-based Lion Electric, which the Biden administration awarded $159 million ‘to manufacture 435 school buses between 2022 and 2024,’ has fallen into bankruptcy.” (Previously.)
  • LA police can’t catch fleeing suspect…even after he stopped to fill up on gas.  
  • This is a weird story. “Moms Arrested for Running North Texas Choir Booster Club. Cleared of charges, moms still lost choir booster club money to the school district.”

    Local authorities in Collin County, including a school district, have harassed three moms in a quest to control a school booster club and its funds, even going so far as to arrest them.

    Plano Independent School District targeted the Jasper High School Choir Booster Club for control of its bank account after the mothers charged with running the independent organization insisted that the district pay for Jasper High School’s stage—as was the district’s responsibility.

    The district had the Plano police arrest the booster club’s founders—Laura Cervantes, Krisinda Lingenfelter, and Maria Luisa King. Yet, after a Collin County grand jury failed to find enough evidence to prosecute these moms, a Plano municipal judge recently awarded the club’s bank funds to Plano ISD.

    Also this: “Oral arguments were held on May 30 before Judge Paul McNulty, chief judge for the Municipal Court of Plano. Texas Scorecard was in attendance. Recording devices were banned from the trial and the booster club was denied its request to bring a court reporter.” Also, another judge involved in the case, Lisa Bronchetti, evidently wrote a bad check to the club but still failed to excuse herself.

    Like I said, weird…

  • Newark Airport sucks. Objectively. One major culprit? God.
  • Roanoke’s famous lost colony was never lost.
  • Spinal Tap did a secret concert at Stonehenge.

  • Ryan George tackles the difficulties of reading online news sites.
  • “Dear Stupid Bitch, I’m sorry to hear that your cat is a Communist.”
  • “Nation That Once Charged Into Certain Death For Freedom Now Letting Their Daughters Handle The Rape Gangs.”
  • “Travis Kelce Finally Acquires Ring Without Help Of Referees.”
  • Hap, hap, happy dog.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Illegal Alien News Roundup For August 20, 2025

    Wednesday, August 20th, 2025

    The Trump47 Administration’s efforts to control the border continues to rack up win after win, despite the best efforts of Democrats to prevent deportation of their beloved illegal alien felons, so let’s do a quick roundup.

  • ICE Arrests Creeps, Killer Among Other Criminals.”

    It was another busy weekend for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as federal agents arrested more dangerous and violent criminals and predators whom Democrats want to protect.

    From pedophiles to drug traffickers to killers, the illegal alien floods under previous presidents — and particularly under Joe Biden — were plentifully filled with the “worst of the worst,” as ICE puts it. Now the Trump administration faces the monumental task of tracking down and arresting hundreds of thousands of these thugs.

    ICE confirmed that it has arrested Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila, an illegal alien from Honduras, who is accused of being drunk when he struck a vehicle while he was driving the wrong direction on a highway. In the July 20 crash, Martinez-Avila killed 18-year-old Hallie Helgeson and severely injured her 19-year-old high school sweetheart Brady Heiling, who subsequently died from his injuries. ICE was able to arrest the homicide suspect despite being in a sanctuary jurisdiction in Wisconsin and having less than an hour’s notice to come make the arrest. Hopefully, justice is coming hard and fast for Martinez-Avila.

    On August 16, ICE highlighted other major criminals just arrested by agents. Hilberto Velasquez-Ramirez, for instance, is an illegal alien from Guatemala who was previously convicted of homicide by vehicle in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Meanwhile, Gilberto Castillo-Talavera, a 29-year-old illegal alien originally from Honduras, has a conviction for sexual assault of a child in Travis County, Texas.

    As for Gustavo Jose Gonzalez-Recarey, who came here illegally from Cuba, he was previously convicted of a lewd and lascivious act with a child in Riverside, Calif.

    Jhan Carlos Caceres-Peguero is an illegal alien from the Dominican Republic who has a previous conviction for trafficking fentanyl in Essex County, Mass. Finally, Isaiah Alexander, an illegal alien who comes from Jamaica, was convicted of assault in Albion, N.Y. These are just a handful of the criminal illegal aliens ICE has arrested recently.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • More criminals rounded up.

    As liberals, Democrats, and others on the Left continue to disparage the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, officers in those agencies continue to do their jobs protecting Americans from the worst of the worst violent illegal immigrant criminals in the country. DHS and ICE continue to make the country a safer place.

    One of the worst criminals apprehended was Magdeleno Barbosa-Montalvo, a 53-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico. According to DHS, Barbosa-Montalvo’s criminal record includes a heinous act in Vincennes, Indiana, where he was previously convicted of sexual misconduct with a minor. Another who could be filed under the “worst of the worst” was Adalberto Turcios-Mejia, a 66-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras whose criminal history includes a conviction for “indecency with a child by contact in Austin, Texas.”

    Wow, seems like Austin is quite the hotspot for illegal aliens sexually abusing children.

    ICE also arrested known drug traffickers this weekend. These are people who peddle poison, which makes its way to Americans, causing harm in communities throughout the country. One of those apprehended was a 48-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, Ramon Lopez-Ruiz. According to ICE, Lopez-Ruiz was previously convicted for “trafficking in cocaine in Durham County, North Carolina.”

    Snip.

    But ICE’s work did not stop there. Amid the onslaught of verbal attacks and vilification by Democrats, they arrested Daniel Hernandez-Sanchez, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico. According to DHS, Hernandez-Sanchez has a long criminal rap sheet, which includes a “conviction for robbery in Mendocino, California.” Also arrested was Cindy Rivas-Cruz, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Guatemala. She was convicted of larceny in Draper, Utah, DHS reported.

    ICE also arrested Ibrahim Albawaneh, an illegal immigrant from Jordan. His criminal history includes “convictions for possession of a controlled substance and aggravated assault in Vermillion County, Illinois,” according to the Department of Homeland Security. Another person arrested was Roslandy Garcia-Cruz, an illegal immigrant from Cuba, who, DHS said, had “23 criminal convictions across four different states.” These included crimes where Garcia-Cruz “knowingly and with intent to defraud” innocent people. He also possessed “15 or more counterfeit or unauthorized access devices, possession of criminal tools, counterfeiting, and probation violation.”

    There was also Oscar Pille-Aguilera, an illegal immigrant from Mexico. According to DHS, his criminal history includes “conviction for exploitation of child/elderly/disabled in Collin County, Texas. Omar Balbino-Navarro, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was also arrested by ICE this weekend. He had a criminal history that included a conviction for carrying a concealed dirk or dagger in Ventura, California, according to DHS.

    D&D players will remember that a dirk is longer and straighter than a dagger, thus giving you better reach for stabbing orcs…

  • Democrats are enabling murderous illegal immigrants.”

    Democrats are so devoted to keeping illegal immigrants in the country that they are enabling murderous illegal immigrants to stay in the country, and even fighting against their deportations in one notable case.

    That case is in New York, where Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul pardoned Somchith Vatthanavong, a Laotian illegal immigrant who killed a man in 1988. He was convicted of first-degree manslaughter after he admitted that he shot the man while trying “to scare him” and that it “was too dark” and he couldn’t actually see where he was shooting. But Hochul now wants to ensure that his criminal record does not flag him for deportation, and so she did so quietly with no announcement, only acknowledging the pardon after the New York Times reported on it.

    Snip.

    Meanwhile, Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is dealing with the consequences of his anti-deportation laws. Raul Luna-Perez killed two people and injured another while driving drunk, and a New Jersey Superior Court judge has released him pending a trial, despite prosecutors asking for pretrial detention. Luna-Perez had three previous arrests before this fatal crash, including two for DUI, leading Murphy’s team to claim he should have been deported already.

    That is the same Phil Murphy whose administration has restricted cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, and the same Phil Murphy who weirdly claimed that he was harboring an illegal immigrant above his garage and that the authorities could never find her. Luna-Perez was only free to kill two people in a DUI because he wasn’t immediately flagged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement by New Jersey police the first time he was arrested for DUI, and the blame for that lies with Murphy’s anti-deportation policies and messaging.

  • Then there’s the illegal alien trucker in Florida who killed three people performing an illegal u-turn.

    Over the weekend, the leading news story was about Harjinder Singh, an Indian man who killed three people in Florida when he attempted an illegal U-turn on the highway in his semi truck.

    The public quickly learned that Singh has been in the United States illegally since 2018, yet was somehow able to get a CDL in California to drive massive trucks across the nation.

    People quickly connected Singh’s name to another man named Harjinder Singh who attempted to drive a semi over a small bridge in Arkansas in January 2019, collapsing it.

    You can’t tell the Harjinder Singhs without a scorecard.

    And yes, there is dashcam footage of the illegal u-turn:

  • Finally, it takes a heart of stone not to laugh. “Illegal Alien Influencer that Filmed ICE Raids Arrested While Livestreaming.”

    A Colombian illegal alien influencer that documented efforts to crack down on illegal immigration was arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency while livestreaming.

    Leidy Tatiana Mafla-Martinez filed inside her Tesla when ICE officials apprehended her last Friday in Los Angeles, California.

    The migrant reportedly screamed, “no, no, no,” over and as well as, “wait, wait,” in Spanish as ICE agents ordered her out of the car.

    Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, “On August 15, ICE arrested Leidy Tatiana Mafla-Martinez, a criminal illegal alien from Colombia who was convicted for driving under the influence in Los Angeles.”

    “This criminal illegal alien entered the country in 2022 and was RELEASED by the Biden administration,” she added.

    “During her arrest, Martinez claimed to experience shortness of breath. She was given proper medical treatment and will be held in ICE custody pending removal proceedings,” the DHS official continued.

    DHS said that some witnesses tried to interfere with the arrest, with one person towing away a government vehicle.

    McLaughlin stated, “During the arrest, an individual unlawfully towed a government police vehicle. He mocked and videotaped ICE officers chasing after him.”

    FA, meet FO.

  • LinkSwarm For August 15, 2025

    Friday, August 15th, 2025

    There’s been a lot of media articles that the runaway Texas House Democrats are going to cave, but it hasn’t happened yet. The Trump Administration continues to rack up success after success at the border, Ukraine hits more Russian oil facilities, once again Adam is full of Schiff, more illegal alien sex traffickers nabbed, and China finally picks on someone its own size.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • DHS reports all-time border crossing lows.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that the U.S.-Mexico border is experiencing “all-time lows” of illegal immigrant crossings after President Donald Trump’s administration ramped up efforts to secure the southern border.

    On August 1, DHS released preliminary numbers for the month of July that report to show nationwide encounters are 90 percent lower than during the Biden administration, in addition to the “lowest single-day apprehensions in history” — on July 20, DHS reported just 88 apprehensions at the southern border and 116 across the country.

    “History made, again. The numbers don’t lie — this is the most secure the border has ever been,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. “President Trump didn’t just manage the crisis — he obliterated it. No more excuses. No more releases. We’ve put the cartels on defense and taken our border back.”

    The numbers released from DHS reflect previous assessments made by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which said in July that nationwide apprehensions have hit a “new historic low” following a “dramatic shift” in policy focus since President Donald Trump entered office.

    According to the Migration Policy Institute, encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped to levels not observed since the 1960s.

  • Progress. “Trump Purges 275,000 Illegal Aliens From Social Security.”

    Months after President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum targeting illegal aliens and other ineligible individuals from collecting Social Security Act benefits, the president told reporters at the White House on Thursday afternoon that nearly 300,000 illegals have been removed from the government program that provides financial benefits to eligible citizen taxpayers and/or lawful permanent residents (green card holders).

    “Last month, I signed the One Big Beautiful Bill, and allowed No Tax on Social Security for our great seniors … and to protect our benefits, we’ve already kicked nearly 275,000 illegal aliens off of the Social Security system,” Trump told reporters.

    Recall that on April 15, the president signed a memorandum directing federal agencies to take immediate action to purge the Social Security system of illegals and fraudsters.

    As Maureen Steele via American Greatness elegantly noted earlier this year, “We don’t need an executive order to bar illegals from Social Security – we need a government that obeys the law.”

    Let’s not forget that the Biden-Harris regime facilitated the invasion of illegal aliens, allowing millions of these third-worlders to siphon dollars and essential services from citizens and lawful permanent residents – in what some have described as a classic Cloward–Piven strategy.

    The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that taxpayers spend more than $182 billion annually to cover costs associated with 20 million illegal aliens and their children, which includes $66.4 billion in Federal expenses plus an additional $115.6 billion in state and local expenses.

    The free lunch for the Democratic Party’s illegals is coming to an end.

  • President Trump brokers peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia after 35 years of conflict.” Neither Russia nor Iran can be happy with how President Trump has strengthened America’s position in their own backyards…
  • In deep Schiff over Russigate lies.

    A Democratic whistleblower told the FBI that Senator Adam Schiff authorized the leak of classified information related to the Russia collusion investigation in 2017 in an effort to discredit President Trump, newly-released documents show.

    The whistleblower, who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than ten years, first reported Schiff’s alleged behavior to the FBI in 2017, when Schiff was leading the committee’s Russian collusion investigation.

    FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed on Monday that he had handed over the documents, first obtained by Just the News, to Congress. “We found it. We declassified it. Now Congress can see how classified info was leaked to shape political narratives – and decide if our institutions were weaponized against the American people.”

    The FBI interviewed the whistleblower most recently in June 2023, at which point the unidentified intelligence officer said he had been part of an all-staff meeting called by Schiff in which the then-California representative “stated the group would leak classified information which was derogatory to President of the United States Donald J. TRUMP. SCHIFF stated the information would be used to Indict President TRUMP.”

    “[The whistleblower] stated this would be illegal and, upon hearing his concerns, unnamed members of the meeting reassured that they would not be caught leaking classified information,” the report added.

    The whistleblower expressed concerns that Schiff’s actions were “treasonous” and “illegal.”

    Indeed.

  • Remember how Alan Dershowitz said that two judges are holding up release of the Epstein files? Obama Judge Refuses To Release Ghislaine Maxwell Grand Jury Transcripts.”

    District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer (Obama) wrote in his order that the government’s premise that unsealing the records would shed light on meaningful new information was “demonstrably false,” and that “unsealing the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence.”

    “Contrary to the Government’s depiction, the Maxwell grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest. Far from it,” he wrote. “It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents. And the information it contains is already almost entirely a matter of longstanding public record.

    Translation: Either it implicates powerful Democrats, or else we need to keep the issue alive to try to dirty up President Trump.

  • Truth: “White House Deputy Chief of Staff on Redistricting Battle: ‘We all know Democrats cheat.”

    White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is blasting Democrats for complaining about the current redistricting uproar and accuses them of stealing dozens of House seats by counting illegal aliens in the last census.

    Miller told Newsmax that Democrats brought in tens of millions of “invaders” into the nation through their open borders policies to “rig the results of the census” and the apportionment of congressional seats.

    Miller pointed out that even though Republicans won a landslide in the House popular vote, they only picked up a 4-seat majority due to Democratic gerrymandering, manipulation and rigging of congressional districts.

    He contrasted the gains of this last election with the 2010 election, in which the Republicans won a much smaller majority in the popular vote, yet gained 63 seats in the House.

  • President Trump has put D.C. Police under Federal control and deployed the National Guard to the capital.

    President Trump on Monday announced plans to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and to deploy several hundred National Guard troops and more than 100 FBI agents to the streets of Washington, D.C., to assist local law enforcement in fighting crime.

    “I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, squalor and worse,” Trump said during a press conference on Monday. “This is liberation day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back.”

    “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people,” he said.

    Trump said the murder rate in D.C. is higher than some of the “worst places” in the world, including Bogota, Colombia.

    Trump has the authority to take over the Metropolitan Police Department under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which includes a provision that grants him the ability to take over the department when there are “special conditions of an emergency nature.” As part of the federal takeover, Attorney General Pam Bondi will lead the department, while Terry Cole, the new DEA Administrator, will be the interim federal commissioner of the department.

    On Friday, the Trump administration dispatched federal law enforcement officers to tourist hotspots around D.C. Trump has also threatened to federalize the district if crime rates do not fall and on Monday, he said he would send in the military, if needed.

  • One immediate effect: Cooperation with ICE in deporting illegal aliens.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded several DC police executive orders Thursday that restricted officers from arresting illegal migrants – vowing that the nation’s capital will not be a sanctuary jurisdiction under President Trump.

    “DC will not remain a sanctuary city. Actively shielding criminal aliens will not happen,” Bondi declared in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

    The attorney general’s comments came as she issued a new directive voiding commands issued – as recently as earlier Thursday – by DC Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith.

  • Smith is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. “DC police chief [Pamela Smith] asks what ‘chain of command’ means after question from reporter.”
  • A sampler of the rich life people enjoy in the District of Columbia. Human poop on the sidewalk and masturbating transients figure prominently..
  • Hilarious news this week: “Two Chinese ships collide while chasing Philippine Coast Guard boat.” A Chinese Coast Guard ship collided with a Chinese Navy ship. And yes, there is video:

  • A Ukrainian drone strike hit an oil depot in Ukhta, Komi Republic, a good 2,000km from Ukraine.
  • They also hit a Shahed drone assembly plant in Nizhnekamsk, 1,200km from Ukraine.
  • They also hit an electronics factory in Arzamas.
  • They also hit the JSC Monocystal plant, a maker of military optics systems.
  • They also hit the Saratov oil refinery.
  • And a big strike on a Volgograd oil refinery.
  • The Democrat decision to channel money to their green energy scam and ignore reliable fossil fuels is sending electric rates soaring across the northeast.

    A power bill crisis is gripping parts of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and is set to worsen, threatening to financially crush households as long-range forecasts point to a brutally cold winter. What began in Baltimore, Maryland – as first covered in our reporting one year ago- has now spread to New Jersey, where residents are furious over skyrocketing electricity costs.

    The common denominator in both states? A disastrous green energy agenda, pushed by radical leftist lawmakers, is dismantling reliable and cheap fossil fuel power generation in favor of unstable solar and wind. This has unleashed a power bill armageddon on working-class and middle-class households, as well as mom-and-pop businesses, all while baseload power demand surges in the era of AI data centers.

    Fox News is beginning to latch onto the power bill crisis theme, starting with coverage of New Jersey residents who are absolutely furious over exploding power bills. This new development could severely damage the state’s Democratic leaders in the upcoming elections.

    This all started when New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities approved a 17 to 20% rate hike for power bills in June. Many residents were shocked when they opened their bills at the end of last month.

    “$200 more, I know my electrical bill,” one Jersey woman told Fox News reporter CB Cotton, adding, “I was shocked. So to say the least, I’m very disappointed. This is killing us, and every time you turn around it’s something more. You only get little pleasures in life that you enjoy, and my air conditioner is one of them.”

    Perhaps Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to shutter the state’s nuclear and coal plants, without a one-to-one replacement for lost capacity on the grid, was a catastrophic error that is only now coming home to roost. He also prioritized offshore wind farms and other green energy projects, which have left the grid more fragile than ever.

    “Just like the old gypsy woman every Republican ever said!”

  • How bad is the Democratic Party sucking? The Teamsters Union is donating to Republicans.

    The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, disillusioned and even disavowed by Democratic leaders, is showing Republicans some love in the midterms. The union’s donations are evidence of a realignment that could outlast President Trump’s term unless Democrats embrace at least some union-friendly policies like tariffs.

    Prior to 2024, the Teamsters backed almost no Republicans. This year, the Democrat, Republican, Independent Voter Education PAC gave the maximum, $5,000, to each of 22 House Republicans and backed several Senate candidates, Politico reports. They also gave $50,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association.

  • Casino interests aren’t giving up on buying Texas.

    After dumping millions into the 2024 election cycle and coming up short, Las Vegas Sands appears ready to roll the dice again.

    New financial disclosures show that Texas Sands PAC, the Texas-based political arm of the casino giant, has more than $9 million in cash on hand heading into the upcoming election season. That money comes almost entirely from Miriam Adelson, the billionaire owner of Las Vegas Sands and majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Despite its name, Sands does not operate casinos in Las Vegas or anywhere in the United States; its operations are exclusively in China and Singapore.

    While the group has largely held off on spending in recent months, records show it contributed $1.8 million to members of the Texas House during the 2024 cycle—$1.34 million to Republicans and $457,500 to Democrats. That spending mirrors the strategy the group employed last time: pour money into protecting lawmakers who supported its push to legalize casino gambling in Texas.

    That effort didn’t go as planned.

    Despite getting casino legislation to the floor of the Texas House in 2023, Sands watched its momentum collapse in the primaries. Voters rejected the very lawmakers who had sided with the casino giant. Former House Speaker Dade Phelan, the top recipient of Sands money, was forced into a runoff. Meanwhile, 14 Republican House members who voted for casino legislation either lost re-election or chose not to seek it.

    Sands and Adelson attempted to salvage the cycle with a massive last-minute push. The Texas Defense PAC, funded entirely by Adelson, poured more than $7 million into runoff races in an effort to rescue Phelan’s allies. But again, the money didn’t translate into wins.

    Now, Sands is recalibrating.

    Although no major new contributions have been reported yet this cycle, those connected to the group have continued to work in some statewide campaigns.

    Former State Sen. Kelly Hancock, who is now running for state comptroller, has hired John Jackson to run his campaign.

    Until earlier this year, however, Jackson served as Sands’ head political consultant in Texas. He previously managed campaigns for Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

    Hancock did not respond to a request for comment on whether he supports the group’s efforts to bring government-monopoly casinos to Texas.

    Neither Don Huffines or Christi Craddick—the other two candidates currently in the race—have casino operatives leading their campaigns.

    Hancock is not the only one with senior staff tied to the casino operator.

    Jordan Berry, a recent registered lobbyist for Sands, also serves as a campaign consultant to numerous candidates in the state legislature, including State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R–Galveston) in his campaign for attorney general. Berry’s lobby registration with all his clients ended on June 23.

  • City-owned Kansas City grocery store closes despite because of millions of dollars in subsidies.
  • Not this shit again: “Judge Rules Against Little Sisters of the Poor in Obamacare Contraception Case.”

    A U.S. district court decided on Wednesday to strike down a 2017 federal regulation that exempted religious employers from the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for employer-sponsored health insurance to cover the cost of contraception.

    If the ruling holds, religious non-profit organizations such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, the defendants in the case, may now be required to file for an accommodation process with the government that still maintains employees’ access to contraception without the religious organization having to pay. For-profit employers would have access to no religious exemption from the mandate whatsoever.

    Judge Wendy Beetlestone, chief judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, found that the Trump administration’s 2017 rule expanding religious exemptions from the contraception mandate was “arbitrary and capricious,” thus violating statutory authority. Consequently, she declared the rule vacated.

    The left can’t stop attacking the Little Sisters of the Poor because it is intolerable to them that there is an legitimate source of moral authority apart from the state. Catholic nuns must be forced to pay for contraception (and abortions) as a token of their submission to social justice. Every. Knee. Must. Bend.

    I know you’ll be shocked to learn that Beetlestone is an Obama appointee…

  • “Man Says His Minneapolis Neighborhood Is Too Dangerous For Apartment Security Contractor.”

    So on Monday, I get a text from my property management company saying that they’ve retained an outside security company to address the numerous complaints about loitering and drug sales in the neighborhood.

    ‘Beginning today, you will see these security personnel around the properties and in the neighborhood, goes on and on about procedures.’

    Okay. Today’s Wednesday. It’s two days later, I get an email from my property management, and they said,

    ‘We’re disappointed to share that the security company that was hired has pulled out of the neighborhood. After a day and a half of doing recon and observing activity in the neighborhood, they decided the problems with crime exceed their resources to control. We will continue to work with organizations and neighborhood and explore other options to improve public safety and so on.’

    Funny what happens when a Democrat-run locale decides to “defund the police” because a random black drug user died…

  • “Commissioner Ramsey Seeks Removal of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Following a vote to censure Hidalgo, Ramsey said, ‘It is time to consider replacing Judge Hidalgo.'”

    Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo faced a historic 3-1 censure vote from the commissioners court after her proposed property tax increase was rejected. The vote followed accusations of disruptive behavior, prompting Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey to call for her removal.

    This is the first time a Harris County judge, the chief executive of the county, has been censured.

    Lots of candidates (Democrats and Republicans) are lining up to run against Hidalgo next year.

  • Sex trafficking ring broken up in Nebraska.

    United States Attorney Lesley A. Woods announced that five people were charged by complaint for a range of federal violations that center around their alleged conspiracy to engage in labor trafficking, sex trafficking, and harboring of aliens at several hotel locations across the Omaha metro area and into central Nebraska. The defendants own, operate and manage several hotels in the Omaha metro area located at the following locations where federal search warrants were executed in the early morning hours of August 12, 2025:

    • The AmericInn, 2920 S 13 Ct., Omaha;
    • The Inn (formerly Super 8), 9305 S 145th St., Omaha;
    • The New Victorian, 10728 L St., Omaha; and
    • Roadway Inn, 1110 Fort Crook Rd S, Bellevue, NE.

    The five Nebraska men from Nebraska with very Nebraskan names were identified as:

    • Kentakumar Chaudhari, a/k/a Ken Chaudhari, age 36, of Elkhorn, NE;
    • Rashmi Ajit Samani, a/k/a Falguni Samani, age 42, of Elkhorn, NE:;
    • Amit Prahladbhai Chaudhari, a/k/a Amit, age 32, of Omaha;
    • Amit Babubhai Chaudhari, a/k/a Matt, age 33, of Omaha; and
    • Maheshkumar Chaudhari, a/k/a Mahesh, age 38, of Norfolk, NE.

    Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers conducted a search of 14 premises, including homes and several “Brow and Lash” salons associated with the men.

    During the operation, law enforcement officers rescued 10 minors from an alleged labor trafficking conspiracy that involved putting children under the age of twelve years old to work at the hotels for long hours with little to no pay. Seventeen adult victims were also rescued from the same conspiracy.

    The US Attorney’s Office says at least one of the defendants were running a sex trafficking operation that sold both children and adults into prostitution. Sex trafficking was “not only allowed at the hotels … but also encouraged.” Prosecutors say hotel management and employees sexually abused the victims personally, as well as selling their victims out to others.

    Drugs were also openly used and sold at the hotels, according to officials.

    The Biden Administration went all-out to ensure that all 50 states got to enjoy that vibrant illegal alien diversity they imported…

  • Former Austin Elementary School Teacher Gets 71 Years For 20 Child Sex Crimes. Kevin Abeyta taught art at Austin ISD’s Campbell Elementary.”
  • An Arizona judge freed an illegal alien child rapist despite him violating the Mann Act.

    An Arizona judge is reportedly planning to free an illegal alien who kidnapped and raped a girl from Kansas whom he brought all the way to Arizona.

    The 14-year-old girl went missing on July 20, but authorities were able to track her cell phone and locate her in an Extended Stay America hotel in Chandler, Arizona. The kidnapper is a man named Cristian Leonardo Caal Mucu. When police arrived, the teenage girl was alone in the hotel room. What local media was reluctant to admit was that Caal Mucu is an illegal alien. And now this predator is set to be released on bail with only electronic monitoring.

    How is he not being handed over to the FBI and/or ICE? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Of the 2,942 religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024, 2,041 (69%) offenses targeted Jews.”
  • China has a supergenius to solve its housing collapse problems: Force government-backed corporations to buy unsold homes. What could possibly go wrong?

  • Hollywood unions want to control YouTube. Also, people in Hell want ice-water.
  • Funko popped.
  • The Critical Drinker really liked Weapons.
  • “Democrats Warn New Trump Census Could Negate All The Illegal Alien Votes Biden Brought In.”
  • “Democrat Mayors Report Violent Crime Down 40% Since They Redefined ‘Violent’ And ‘Crime.'”
  • “Gavin Newsom Vows To Double California’s Violent Crime If Trump Doesn’t Stop Cleaning Up D.C.”
  • Saying hello to the new neighbor:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For August 1, 2025

    Friday, August 1st, 2025

    President Trump wins another huge (and hugely favorable) trade deal for America, more Obama/Clinton skullduggery exposed, a whole lot of sick perverts get arrested, Nigel Farage plays Cassandra, Russia gets hammered by both Ukraine and God, plus an unusually high amount of hypercars and Star Trek.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Winning: “Trump strikes massive trade deal with EU on energy, arms, tariffs.”

    The United States has reached a trade deal with the European Union after President Donald Trump pressured the group of nations, as well as others, to open up trade with the US using the threat of tariffs.

    While being joined by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump detailed the plans for the deal. “The European Union is going to agree to purchase from the United States $750 billion worth of energy.”

    “They are going to agree to invest, into the United States, $600 billion more than they’re investing already. So they’re investing a large amount of money. … They’re agreeing to open up their countries to trade at zero tariff,” Trump added. “So that’s a very big factor, opening up their countries. All of the countries will be opened up to trade with the United States at zero tariff, and they’re agreeing to purchase a vast amount of military equipment.”

    The president added that the number for the military equipment is not exact, and then also said the EU imports to the US will have a “straight across tariff of 15 percent” on automobiles and other goods. The tariffs on EU goods were previously in the single digits on average, according to the New York Times. The EU had hoped to reach an agreement for 10 percent across the board on tariffs.

    The Very Best People repeatedly told us that President Trump’s tariff strategy would inevitably plunge us into a trade war and send the economy into a recession, if not a recession. It turns out, once again, that Trump has far better grasp of negotiating strategy than they do.

  • How Trump is winning on trade:

    When Mr. Trump first unveiled his reciprocal tariffs, virtually all the important foreign countries flocked to make a deal with him; they ignored Communist China.

    Why is that? Because America’s the greatest country in the world. With the best economy.

    And nobody trusts the Chinese to do anything, much less honor a trade deal.

    What’s more, Mr. Trump and his team have already made a number of deals with the United Kingdom, the European Union, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea.

    Talks with Mexico are constructive and will be extended.

    We can’t be sure, but it’s likely that the China talks will be extended.

    In general, Mr. Trump is charging a very modest 15 percent or 20 percent fee as the price for doing business with the greatest economy in the world.

    That modest fee could generate something like $400 billion a year in tariff revenues.

    And here’s his new wrinkle: vast foreign direct investment into America

    For example, $600 billion from the EU, and perhaps another $600 billion from Japan. Maybe $750 billion from EU energy purchases. Think clean burning LNG produced by America’s first in the world energy industry.

    Direct investment pledges of as much as $5 trillion or $6 trillion coming from governments and companies all around the world — including the Middle East. And even in Asia — with South Korea putting up $350 billion.

    We’ll learn more about how this direct investment is going to work, but the point is — the stimulus from all of that vastly outweighs any fiscal drag from the mostly moderate reciprocal tariff rates.

    That’s Mr. Trump’s brand-new wrinkle. And it’s a very clever ploy.

  • “Thousands of Russia-hoax docs found in “burn bags” inside “secret room” at FBI headquarters.”

    FBI Director Kash Patel found a trove of sensitive documents related to the origins of the Trump – Russia probe buried in multiple ‘burn bags’ in a secret room inside the bureau, sources told Fox News Digital.

    Sources told Fox News Digital that the ‘burn bag’ system is used to destroy documents designated as classified or higher.

    Sources told Fox News Digital that multiple burn bags were found and filled with thousands of documents.

    Sources exclusively briefed Fox News Digital on some of the contents of the classified annex — including that the U.S. intelligence community had credible foreign sources indicating that the FBI would play a role in spreading the alleged Trump – Russia collusion narrative — before the bureau ever launched its controversial Crossfire Hurricane probe.

    A source familiar with the contents of the classified annex told Fox News Digital that while it may not have been exactly clear in the moment what the intelligence collection meant, with the benefit of hindsight, it predicted the FBI’s next move ‘with alarming specificity.’

  • More.

    White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took members of the press corps to task over their refusal to cover newly released evidence that shows Hillary Clinton approved the Russian collusion hoax against Donald Trump.

    Leavitt’s comments come on the heels of a newly declassified appendix to the Durham Report that exposes a reported Clinton campaign plan to falsely accuse President Trump of collusion with Russia.

    Leavitt chided members of the press, telling them, “This is a story that every outlet in this room should be covering,” and that “This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton approved the Russia Hoax against President Trump. Her campaign financed it.”

    Leavitt added that “the FBI and the CIA were both weaponized to accelerate this hoax against then-candidate and former president Trump.”

    The Press Secretary told reporters that, “The president wants to see justice served and he trusts the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to implement that justice and hold these people accountable.”

    The so-called “Durham annex” to John Durham’s Special Counsel report was released yesterday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and brings previously classified information to light regarding the Clinton campaign’s plans to falsely tie Trump to Russia.

    In a press release, Grassley said, “History will show that the Obama and Biden administration’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump. This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history. The new Trump administration has a tremendous responsibility to the American people to fix the damage done and do so with maximum speed and transparency.”

    Maybe it’s time to bring this back:

  • The entire left is in the find-out phase.

    Travel back in time to the year 2021 and you might find yourself in the middle of a bizarre debate over the virtues of “cancel culture”. At the time the political left was aggressively trying to secure long term power within the US through a multi-pronged psychological offensive – A war on the minds of the masses designed to force Americans into submission.

    A big part of their strategy relied on the fundamentals of Cultural Marxism: The combination of Marxist mob tactics, artificial consensus and the exploitation of minority grievances as a vehicle for controlling speech. This was the rise of the “woke movement” to the halls of government.

    The root of their power was not martial. In fact, the political left is weak and largely astroturf with minimal ability to project power in a physical way. If conservatives wanted to destroy them tomorrow the task would be relatively easy. We don’t because many of us still have hope that our problems can be solved through peaceful discourse.

    What the leftists did have at their disposal was a massive institutional apparatus of government agencies, corporations, Big Tech and NGOs. The full might of the establishment cabal was on their side, which meant they had the means to enforce “cancel culture” and silence their ideological opponents.

    I don’t think there has ever been a psychological war on a population that was more pervasive and tyrannical. Not since Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China has a citizenry been under such a siege by their own government. The fact that we survived this event, defeated the onslaught and actually grew a grassroots anti-woke movement without the use of social media forums is truly mind blowing.

    Very few people today realize the level of victory that was achieved. We thwarted perhaps the largest 4th Generation “mind war” ever devised and we did it without any institutional access. We won by simple truth and word of mouth.

    Another tool that the leftists and globalists used was the mobilization of illegal migrants, gays and minorities as a shield against criticism or counter-protest. If conservatives and moderates fought back with superior debate or our own protest groups, we were immediately accused of racism, xenophobia and homophobia. Merely presenting an opposing view to the progressive machine was considered an act of evil.

    Large contingents within all of these groups were happy to go along with the agenda for numerous reasons.

    First and foremost, DEI allowed them to easily game the system. They could snatch up grants, subsidies, welfare, and leapfrog over more talented and more intelligent competitors in education and business simply because of their “marginalized status”.

    Secondly, the system under progressives was two-tier; leftists activists, illegals and minorities were given preferential protection while breaking the law and causing chaos. Conservatives were labeled terrorists for any act of defiance. We were banned from the largest web platforms. Some of us were targeted by the online mob and lost our jobs. Others were “de-banked” and threatened with ostracism from the economy. Still others were imprisoned.

    This imbalance of the law bred a culture of entitlement, especially within the LGBT cult and the black community. Illegal aliens were given carte blanche to enter the country and feed like parasites. Not only that, but they were treated like heroes coming to save the US from “population decline” and “labor shortages”.

    They all participated in the game willfully and joyfully. They were ALL part of the problem. But, of course, none of them ever thought the party would end or that they might end up facing consequences for their behavior. They joined in the feeding frenzy without considering the inevitable clap-back.

    The primary argument that leftists would often use to defend the application of cancel culture was that there was “no such thing as cancel culture”, only the righteous utilization of “consequence culture”. This was, of course, a misdirection. The word “consequence” suggests that a person deserves punishment for wrongdoing and that the leftists canceling him (or her) have the right to do so.

    Cancel culture was never about justice or karma, it was about suppression of anyone who disagreed with the political left. A corrupt group of psychopathic people with no support from the majority is in no position to dole out consequences. They can dole out harassment and intimidation, but not justice.

    In recent months, however, I think these people are finally beginning to understand what “consequence culture” really is and clearly they don’t like it.

    We told them over, and over, and over again that the left wouldn’t like it when the “new rules” they were creating got applied to them. And here we are.

  • Annals of human depravity: “FBI, DOJ arrest ringleaders of dark web child porn exploitation networks with over 120,000 users.”

    The Justice Department has announced the results of Operation Grayskull, a sweeping joint investigation with the FBI that dismantled four dark web sites dedicated to child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The operation has so far resulted in 18 convictions across multiple federal districts and significant sentences for offenders involved in the distribution and advertisement of CSAM.

    One of the most notable sentences came last week, when Thomas Peter Katsampes, 52, of Eagan, Minnesota, was sentenced to 250 months in prison, lifetime supervised release, and ordered to pay $23,000 in restitution. Katsampes pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to advertise and distribute child pornography. According to court records, he joined one of the dark web sites in 2022, actively advertised and distributed CSAM, including material depicting prepubescent children, and eventually became a site moderator responsible for enforcing posting rules and advising others on sharing illegal content.

  • “Houston ICE Arrests Over 200 Illegal Aliens With Child Sex Offenses Over Six Months. The past six months resulted in more such arrests than Houston ICE had in the entire 2024 fiscal year.”

    The Houston branch of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 214 illegal aliens who have either been charged with or convicted of child sex offenses over the past six months — more than it arrested in all of Fiscal Year 2024.

    Among the five illegal aliens captured and highlighted in an ICE press release published on Monday, four were from Mexico and were deported back there following their arrests. Forty-eight-year-old Jorge Zebra received convictions for two counts of sexual assault of a minor as well as “sexual indecency” with a minor. He was returned to Mexico in March.

    Mexicans Sergio Rolando Galvan Guerrero and Jesus Gutierrez Mireles were convicted for “aggravated sexual assault of a child” as well as for Driving While Intoxicated.

    Jose Guadalupe Meza, who’s been deported four other times, was convicted of both sexual assault of a child and theft. Meza was deported to Mexico on June 25.

    The lone criminal from El Salvador was Manuel Antonio Castro-Juarez, who was convicted for both sexual assault of a child as well as illegal entry, twice. He’ll be sent back to El Salvador for the third time, but is in ICE custody until necessary proceedings are completed.

  • “Former Texas National Guardsman Convicted of Smuggling Aliens. Mario Sandoval now faces up to 10 years in federal prison.”

    A Houston-based former member of the Texas National Guard who once served on the front lines of Operation Lone Star is now facing up to 10 years in prison after a federal jury convicted him of human smuggling.

    Mario Sandoval, a 27-year-old Houston resident and former national guardsman, was deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of Operation Lone Star, the Texas-led initiative launched in 2021 to curb illegal immigration. The operation mobilized both the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety.

    Despite being released from his official orders, Sandoval remained in the Rio Grande Valley and, in July of last year, began smuggling illegal aliens north of the immigration checkpoint. Jurors were shown text messages confirming Sandoval’s coordination in the smuggling operation—including his role arranging drivers and alerting others to law enforcement locations. Surveillance footage also placed him near the checkpoint during the times those messages were sent.

    Sandoval was discharged from the Texas National Guard in October 2024. Although he claimed the texts were taken out of context and that no conspiracy existed, a jury found him guilty after a one-day trial and less than an hour of deliberation.

  • Nigel Farage warns of societal collapse in the UK.

    “We live increasingly in a lawless Britain… most people think that Britain has become lawless”, Farage remarked Monday at a press conference to launch a new law and order policy platform.

    “We’re actually facing, in many parts of our country, nothing short of societal collapse,” Farage warned, adding “People are scared to go out to the shops, scared to let their kids out. That is a society that is degraded, and it’s happening very, very rapidly.”

    Farage further suggested that Britain should leave the European Court of Human Rights in order to restore effective criminal deterrence.

    Farage maintains that the ECHR undermines the country’s ability to deport foreign criminals, terrorists, and illegal migrants, thereby weakening criminal deterrence.

    He contends that exiting the system would remove legal barriers imposed by foreign judges, and allow the UK to swiftly remove dangerous individuals, free up prison space, reduce taxpayer burdens, and send a strong message that crime by non-citizens will result in certain expulsion.

    This, in his view, would restore effective deterrence by ensuring consequences are enforced without interference, discouraging both criminal activity and illegal immigration.

    Among a range of policies he outlined to avoid a descent into societal collapse, Farage suggested outsourcing hardened criminals to foreign jails and a hard-line three-strikes and you’re out rule, meaning after three convictions there would be no more rehabilitation for offenders.

    He noted that one of the most egregious aspects of the collapse is that the government is obsessed with drilling it into the British people that everything is getting better when citizens can see the rampant degradation all around them.

    “Huge numbers of law-abiding, taxpaying Britons have also lost respect for the police but in a different way. The idea, the concept that we’re living in a system of two-tier policing and two-tier justice under two-tier Keir has really taken hold,” Farage urged.

    Farage noted that crimes such as shoplifting and drug taking have been allowed to become a part of everyday life in cities, and that one in three Londoners have now been victims of mobile phone theft.

    He vowed that his party will work to halve crime in five years if elected to parliament by becoming “the toughest party on law and order and on crime that this country has ever seen”, and instituting “zero tolerance policing.”

    Farage also floated the idea of Army run centres for repeat petty criminals to be held in and made to undergo a program of reform.

    He pointed to Rudy Giuliani’s tenure as Mayor of New York City as an example of how to restore law and order in a broken down society.

    The Tories could have been the party of border control and tough on crime policies, but their feckless wet leadership pissed the opportunity away.

  • Ukraine hits another fuel train.
  • And another rail hub.
  • Ukrainian troops also landed on the Tendrovo Spit, a long sandbar south of Kherson. I’m including this one because it includes a closer look at some of Russia’s drone jamming equipment.
  • Here’s some great outside-the-box thinking: A wounded Ukrainian soldier behind enemy lines was rescued by a drone lowering an E-bike to him.
  • 8.8 magnitude earthquake, tsunami hits Russian far east. No word on casualties, be the Rybachiy submarine base submarine was some 75 miles from the epicenter of the quake, and there’s some evidence the facilities were damaged.
  • It would take a heart of stone not to laugh: “‘Crisis’ at Media Matters, As It Cuts Staff, Struggles to Pay Legal Bills.” Golly, a whole lot of lefty outlets seem to be in trouble now that Trump47 is eliminating the graft at places like USAID… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • What too much winning looks like: “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down by September’s end, the private non-profit that is funded almost entirely by Congress announced on Friday.”

  • Kamala Harris has announced that she would prefer not to endure another excruciating campaign highlighting what a horrible politician she is, and will not be running for governor of California.
  • Soros-funded prosecutor = brothel boom in Fairfax County. “How did the state’s largest municipality, a wealthy and highly educated suburb of Washington, D.C., become a sanctuary county for pimps, madams, and whorehouse operators? All signs point to the Commonwealth’s attorney, self-styled progressive prosecutor Steve Descano.””County Supervisor Pat Herrity said that about 80 to 100 ‘illicit massage businesses’ are ‘operating in plain sight today’ in the county.”
  • The latest event that’s now too dangerous to attend: Jazz festivals, as a crowd of black people beat two white people unconscious. Then Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge tried to downplay the attack saying that the assault was taken “out of context.”
  • “‘Medicaid Millionaire’: Louisiana Woman Facing Fraud Charges After Buying Lamborghini While Illegally Collecting Benefits.”

    Candace Taylor, 35, of Slidell, was arrested Monday after investigators found she underreported her income to qualify for the program. The Louisiana Bureau of Investigation launched its probe after a complaint from the state health department.

    The Fox News report says court records say Taylor ran six businesses that brought in over $9.5 million between 2020 and 2024. Bank records show deposits of $480,994, including more than $325,000 linked to her businesses.

    “From 2021 through 2024, Ms. Taylor continued to transfer tens of thousands of dollars between her personal and business accounts, with personal inflows consistently exceeding the eligibility thresholds for Medicaid,” the affidavit states.

    Despite this, Taylor allegedly kept renewing her benefits—most recently claiming $4,000 in monthly income without disclosing she owned the business.

    Authorities say her spending included $45,086 in Audi vehicle payments, a $100,000 wire to an exotic car dealer, and $13,000 for a 2022 Lamborghini Urus. She also allegedly withdrew multiple six-figure cashier’s checks for property, cosmetic surgery, jewelry, and luxury services.

    Unless it was very hot or very crashed, there’s no way she paid $13,000 for a Lamborghini Urus, as those things go for over $200,000. Maybe that was a down payment…

  • Progress on civil rights: “California Law Requiring Background Checks for Ammo Declared Unconstitutional.”
  • But the Democrat Party’s desire to disarm law-abiding American citizens never rests. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy filed a bill to raise the National Firearms Act tax to $4,709. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Australian doctor found guilty of professional misconduct for sharing Babylon Bee jokes.”

  • Bugs Bunny trial of Benjamin Netanyahu drags on, despite no evidence of any identifiable corruption.
  • “Rubio Declares That Maduro Is NOT The President Of Venezuela.”
  • Entertainment economics: Stephen Colbert isn’t worth $20 million a year. but South Park is worth over $1 billion.
  • “Texas Democrat Candidate Flips Out During Hearing, Winds Up Getting Arrested.” “Isaiah Martin’s attempt to filibuster the redistricting hearing ended in cuffs as he was dragged away from the microphone by a capitol security official.” Martin is currently running in a special election for the 18th Congressional District following the death of Shelia Jackson Lee, and is currently polling at 3%.
  • A WNBA game experienced a brief moment of excitement when someone threw a lime green dildo onto the court.
  • Get woke, go broke. “Jaguar CEO Adrian Mardell Stepping Down Months After Auto Brand’s Disastrous Rebrand.”
  • Evidently even the dumbest automotive channel in all YouTube can’t afford a $14,500 monthly lease-to-own payment on a Bugatti Veyron.
  • Scott of Kentucky Ballistics reviews the much-reviled Taurus Curve.
  • Things no one asked for: A muppet episode of Star Trek.
  • Speaking of Star Trek, here’s some very old school Trek content: Tom Snyder interviewing half of the original cast of Star Trek, plus Harlan Ellison.
  • Ouch! “Carnival ride breaks in half on riders in Saudi Arabia.”
  • DO NOT WANT: “Brand launches 9-volt battery-flavored chips.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Democrats Announce 2028 Campaign Slogan: ‘We Hate Capitalism, Hot Chicks, And The Jews.'”
  • “Gaza Said To Be Starving But Not ‘Release The Hostages’ Starving.”
  • “Israel Botches Genocide With Millions In Food Aid.”
  • “Cincinnati Police Chief Asks Citizens Not To Film Crimes Next Time As It Makes Her Look Bad.”
  • “Kamala Announces She Will Step Away From Politics To Spend More Time With Vodka.”
  • “Federal Judge Orders Sydney Sweeney To Gain 100 Pounds And Get One Of Those Butch Haircuts.”
  • For this week’s dose of dog, just this delightful bat-eared pooch:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.