Posts Tagged ‘Crime’

Venezuelan Gang Takes Over El Paso Hotel

Thursday, September 12th, 2024

Remember the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang that took over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado? That same gang has taken over a hotel in El Paso.

A hotel in El Paso and its owner face a temporary injunction and restraining order from the El Paso County Attorney for alleged criminal activity and suspicions of housing Tren de Aragua gang members.

El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez filed an original petition for abatement of a common nuisance, an application for a temporary restraining order, a temporary injunction, and a permanent injunction against the Gateway Hotel.

“The Gateway Hotel’s reputation is as a business that does not properly document the guests that stay at the hotel, has narcotics trafficking, disorderly conduct, and violent crime,” read the lawsuit.

The Gateway is also appears on Google maps as the “Salih El-Amin Falke Motel.” But there’s no DBA under that name and all DBAs for the Gateway Hotel show up as inactive.

The first documented instance of a possible gang member was in June when police were called after a suspect shot a handgun in the air and made threats of violence.

Police later noted tattoos consistent with the gang Tren de Aragua on inhabitants of the hotel on several occasions while investigating calls of disorderly conduct and fire code violations.

In addition to criminal activity, the hotel has operated without a valid certificate of occupancy for the past six years and has failed three inspections by the El Paso Fire Department. The fire department noted holes in walls and ceilings throughout the entire building and sprinkler heads taped over.

One video cited in the suit shows individuals “partying” on the third floor with one gun being shot, men holding knives, and another holding a hatchet he allegedly used to assault individuals and cause damage to the hotel.

Additional police calls to the Gateway Hotel include failures to comply with sex offender registration, theft, aggravated assault, and narcotics—including marijuana and methamphetamines.

“Management does not attempt ‘to control the conduct of the guests and is negligently allowing gang activity to infiltrate the area,’” remarked a police officer in the suit.

Here’s a local media video:

  • “The El Paso County Attorney [is] filing a lawsuit for a temporary and permanent injunction against the hotel.”
  • There have been 700 police calls to the hotel in the last two years.
  • The hotel failed at least three inspections by the El Paso fire department.
  • The Biden Administration’s insistence on flooding the country with illegal aliens is the gift that keeps on giving. And Kamala Harris’ support for an illegal alien amnesty will insure that all the rapists, felons, thugs and murderers they brought in get to stay permanently.

    Harris County Justice Cancels All Warrants

    Tuesday, September 10th, 2024

    Harris County Democrat Justice of the Peace Steve Duble takes his party’s love of criminal behavior to the next level by recalling all warrants in Precinct One.

    A Harris County justice of the peace has recalled all warrants issued through his court thwarting law enforcement efforts in his jurisdiction to enforce traffic laws, pursue fraudulent check writers, and detain individuals who had failed to appear in court.

    Judge Steve Duble, justice of the peace for Harris County’s Precinct 1, sent a letter on August 22, 2024, to staff working for Constable Alan Rosen notifying them that he had recalled the warrants.

    “Please accept this official notification that after extensive research and thoughtful consideration, I have decided to recall each and every outstanding warrant issued from this court, Justice of the Peace Court, Precinct 1, Place 2,” wrote Duble.

    Duble noted that the recalled warrants included those for bad checks and capias warrants which require police to detain an individual until they appear in court. Warrants may also be issued to individuals who have failed to appear in court.

    Justice of the peace courts in Texas handle some civil matters and class c misdemeanors that are punishable by fine. Cases may include traffic violations, disorderly conduct, and misdemeanor assaults.

    Texas law gives magistrates some authority to recall warrants, but Duble’s blanket recall may conflict with the Texas Criminal Code of Procedures, which states that “If an accused fails to appear as required by [an] order, the judge of the court in which the accused is required to appear shall issue a warrant for the arrest of the accused.” The law also states that magistrates must issue warrants for suspects who fail to appear in court for certain citations.

    Elected in 2022, Duble campaigned on establishing eviction diversion programs and promised to bring a “social justice lens” to his courtroom.

    Indeed, his campaign website states “I am deeply embedded in Houston’s progressive community through my work to advance social justice and Democratic values.” Which, these days, means opposition to actual law enforcement.

    The Harris County District Attorney’s Office (HCDAO) told The Texan that they had only recently been made aware of the blanket warrant recall.

    “We only recently were made aware of Judge Duble’s inexplicable decision to grant fugitives a free pass in his courtroom,” said an HCDAO spokesperson. “This decision can endanger the lives of the public and of our law-enforcement officers. Accountability is fundamental to justice, and without it, the public loses faith in our entire judicial system.”

    By law a Justice of the Peace is generally handling non-felony cases. “Justice of the peace courts have original jurisdiction in misdemeanor criminal cases when punishment is by fine only. They have exclusive jurisdiction over civil cases where the amount in controversy is $200 or less and concurrent jurisdiction with both the county and district courts in civil matters in which exclusive jurisdiction is not in the district or county court and the amount in controversy is $5000 or less. By statute, they are granted jurisdiction over forcible entry and detainer actions. A justice of the peace may issue warrants of search and arrest, conduct preliminary hearings…” Etc. So at least he isn’t canceling warrants for rapists and murderers.

    But Duble’s actions are precisely aligned with a Democratic Party that backed #DefundThePolice. Some Democrats may now be pretending they didn’t really mean it, but Duble, and his fellow travelers in his party’s ideological core, clearly did.

    Warrants are a fundamental necessity for running an effective, impartial system of justice. Canceling every warrant is essentially a declaration of war against a functioning judicial system. Social Justice Warriors like Duble are at war with the very foundations of America’s constitutional order. If possible, the State of Texas should pursue removing Dable from the the bench. If not, Harris County voters need to remember that woke judges like Duble are a direct threat to the rule of law and their life, liberty and property.

    More On Venezuelan Gangs

    Saturday, September 7th, 2024

    Yesterday’s LinkSwarm talked about Venezuelan gangs ripping off Permian Basin oilfields, but that was hardly the only activity by the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang to make the news this week. That gang evidently took over at least one Aurora, Colorado apartment complex:

  • “The evidence we have reviewed indicates that gang members are engaging in flagrant trespass violations, assaults and battery, human traffic trafficking, sexual abuse of minors, unlawful firearms possession, extortion and other criminal activities.” Human trafficking? Where’s that “see something say something?” And sexual abuse or minors recalls the Rotherham Muslim rape gang scandal in the UK. Evidently “raping children” is just one of those jobs natives won’t do.
  • “According to the law firm’s report, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has threatened to kill and, in certain instances, has apparently actively attempted to kill, members of Whispering Pines management.” Is “attempted murder” just not a serious enough charge for the police to get involved?
  • “A consultant for the property management company was severely beaten and stomped by gang members and was hospitalized the alleged incident recorded by building cameras with screenshots attached to the letter.” I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the property management company in question were derelict in their fundamental duties.
  • “The takeover began last November.” So this has been going on for over three-quarters of a year. Again, where were the police?
  • “The report recounts that this summer, the gang approached the property manager and told him they would help him out in exchange for half of all the rent that he collected.”
  • “The gang members then allegedly took over vacant apartments, and according to the document, moved families into those units and started collecting rent.”
  • The gang obviously didn’t fear property management or the police.
  • Here’s footage of that same gang operating openly in another apartment complex called The Edge:

    Another video, which I am unable to relocate right now, showed a reporter on a street near an apartment complex where gangs had left stolen and stripped cars all down the sides of the street.

    The question is how was the problem allowed to get so bad? How was the problem allowed to fester more that nine months?

    In increasingly Democrat-controlled Colorado, are the police being told not to arrest illegal alien gang members?

    Hunter Biden To Plead Guilty Rather Than Face Trial

    Thursday, September 5th, 2024

    It turns out that if you were crackhead bagman for your father’s multi-million dollar influence peddling operation, you’re none to eager to stand trial for tax evasion.

    Hunter Biden intends to plead guilty to criminal tax charges to avoid a potentially damaging trial that would have brought his lucrative foreign business dealings and lavish lifestyle back into the spotlight.

    Defense attorney Abbe Lowell announced Thursday morning that the younger Biden will be reversing his not-guilty plea on the first day of jury selection for the tax trial. He will be entering an “Alford plea” agreement where he maintains his innocence but accepts a sentence from federal judge Mark Scarsi, who has yet to sign off on the arrangement, CNN reported. The tax charges, three felonies and six misdemeanors, carry a maximum of 17 years in prison.

    Special counsel David Weiss is prosecuting Hunter Biden on nine federal tax charges based on his alleged failure to pay more than $1.4 million of taxes in a timely manner over a four-year period last decade. Along with tax-evasion, Biden was charged with filing false tax returns for attempting to deduct expenses incurred from his drug-fueled escapades.

    Most of Biden’s income from that time period came from foreign business dealings with individuals and entities in Ukraine, Romania, and China. Those business dealings and his messy divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle were laid out in a searing indictment last year that gave a detailed look into the exorbitant amounts of money Biden spent on his lavish lifestyle and sexual deviancy.

    Leading up to the trial, federal prosecutors spotlighted Hunter Biden’s Romanian dealings in court papers laying out how he his business partners agreed to lobby U.S. officials on behalf of a Romanian oligarch accused of corruption. Biden’s attorneys disputed the Justice Department’s characterization of the agreement and suggested that the court papers were meant to generate headlines.

    In June, Weiss’s team won a conviction against Hunter Biden on three federal gun charges for lying about his crack-cocaine addiction on gun paperwork and possessing a firearm while he was addicted to crack almost six years ago. Biden’s sentencing for the gun charges is scheduled to take place in November. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on the gun charges, but will likely receive a lesser sentence as a first-time, non-violent offender.

    The tax trial was expected to be politically damaging for Hunter’s father, President Joe Biden, until he dropped out of the presidential race in July following a public Democratic Party revolt over his apparent mental decline.

    Given their shady dealings in Russia, Ukraine and China, I can certainly see why the Biden Crime Family wouldn’t want the bright sunlight of a high profile trial directed at their dealings, so a plea deal was always going to be the smart way to go. After all, Joe Biden isn’t going to be able to get the memory care he obviously needs if he’s behind bars.

    The question is just how much of a sweetheart deal can the DOJ get away with offering Hunter. The average jail time for federal tax evasion is evidently 3-5 years, so I’m guessing Hunter gets 1-3 years, and that probably at a relatively cushy minimum security prison. If it’s merely probation, then the fix is truly in…

    Update: Actually, it appears that the prosecutors in the case are calling for the judge to reject the please deal.

    It would appear that Hunter Biden doesn’t have a nicely arranged plea deal with the DOJ after all – as prosecutors have urged the judge in the case to reject his proposal to plead guilty.

    Of note, Hunter is attempting to plead guilty via an “Alford plea,” which would have to be approved by the prosecution and higher-ups at the DOJ.

    It appears they were caught off guard.

    So it’s not a done deal, just something Hunter’s side has floated. Developing…

    LinkSwarm For August 30, 2024

    Friday, August 30th, 2024

    More bad Biden Recession news, Kamala Harris wants a $5 trillion tax increase, a power-mad Brazilian judge wants to punish Elon Musk for refusing to censor his political enemies, more Texans sue the Biden Administration for failing to secure the border, Texas trims the voter roles, Harris County gets closer election supervision, two DEI-infected video games tank hard upon release, and the Navy runs put of pants.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • More Biden Recession inflationpalooza:

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • More flashing red signs: Home sales crash to record lows.

    After tumbling in April, and rebounding modestly in June, analysts expected a continued gain in pending home sales in July, but it wasn’t meant to be: moments ago the NAR reported that in July, Pending Home Sales tumbled 5.5% MoM, a huge miss to the 0.2% expected gain (and down from a 4.8% increase in June), and also slumped 4.6% YoY, a modest improvement from the 7.8% plunged in June but also missing expectations of a -2.0% drop.

    That dragged the Pending home sales index to 70.2%, a fresh record low.

    The Pending Home Sales Index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.

    “A sales recovery did not occur in midsummer. The positive impact of job growth and higher inventory could not overcome affordability challenges and some degree of wait-and-see related to the upcoming U.S. presidential election,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.

    Sales decreased in all four US regions, especially in the Midwest and South.

  • $5 Trillion List of Tax Hikes Kamala Harris Just Endorsed.

    Vice President Kamala Harris wants to extract a $5 trillion tax increase from American households and businesses, her campaign confirmed on Monday.

    The Harris campaign officially endorsed the laundry list of new and higher taxes included in the Biden-Harris administration’s fiscal year 2025 budget, a plan that would increase taxes by $5 trillion over ten years.

    The burden of Harris’s tax increases will hit households in the form of diminished wage growth and higher costs of goods and services. These Harris tax increases will make the U.S. less competitive vs. our adversaries.

    Harris also endorsed further increasing the size and power of the already-supersized IRS and erode taxpayer rights by watering down procedures designed to protect taxpayers from abusive and dishonest IRS agents (details below.)

    Kamala Harris’s tax increases include:

    Small business tax rate hike to 39.6%

    Small business owners pay business taxes on their individual tax return. The Harris endorsed budget raises the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from the current 37%.

    Corporate tax rate higher than the EU and communist China.

    Kamala Harris wants to hike the current 21% federal corporate income tax rate to 28%, higher than communist China’s 25% and the EU average of 21%, her campaign said Monday.

    The Kamala Harris federal 28% rate is higher than the Asia average corporate tax rate of 19.8%, the EU average of 21%, the world average of 23.5%, and the OECD average of 23.7%. (See the Tax Foundation’s comprehensive listing here.)

    The Harris federal 28% rate is also higher than Canada (26.2%), the UK (25%) Sweden (20.6%), and even Russia (20%), Afghanistan (20%), and Iraq (15%).

    After adding state corporate income taxes, the combined federal-state tax burden in most states will easily exceed 30% under the Harris plan.

    The Harris rate hurts the USA vs. China with its 25% rate. And note: Industry sectors of strategic use to the Chinese government pay an even lower rate of 15%.

    American workers will bear the brunt of Harris’s corporate tax increase.

    The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation affirmed in congressional testimony that corporate tax rate hikes hit “labor, laborers.” A study compiled by the Tax Foundation found that “labor bears between 50 percent and 100 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax, with 70 percent or higher the most likely outcome.”

    Capital gains and dividends tax more than twice as high as communist China

    Here is a direct quote from the Biden-Harris budget: “Together, the proposals would increase the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to 44.6 percent.“

    Yes, you read that correctly: A Kamala Harris capital gains and dividends tax rate of 44.6%

    China’s capital gains tax rate is 20%. Is it wise to have higher taxes than China?

    Under the Harris plan, the combined federal-state capital gains tax exceeds 50% in many states. California will face a combined federal-state rate of 57.8%, New Jersey 55.3%, Oregon at 54.5%, Minnesota at 54.4%, and New York state at 53.4%.

    Unconstitutional wealth tax on unrealized gains

    The Harris-endorsed budget calls for an annual 25 percent minimum tax on the unrealized gains of individuals with income and assets exceeding $100 million. Once in place, it won’t be long before the threshold is lowered to hit more and more Americans.

    Americans overwhelmingly oppose taxes on unrealized gains, by a factor of three to one, including 76% of independents. Americans know that a “gain” isn’t “real” until it is actually realized, in hand.

    This Harris tax is similar to the wealth taxes pushed by radical progressives such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

    Capital gains taxes should only be paid when a gain is realized. Harris’s wealth tax would break with current tax policy and impose tax Americans based on the value of an asset on a particular arbitrary date.

    This unprecedented tax would give even more power to the IRS, encourage taxpayers to move assets overseas, and will only expand to hit millions of Americans over time.

    And more at the link. (Hat tip: TPPF.)

  • I don’t agree with every single item on this new RFK, Jr. hit job on Democrats, but it is pretty brutal, and the perfect thing to post to really annoy your facebook friends the next time they post an anti-Trump meme:

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “What’s Kamala Harris’ greatest accomplishment?” Harris voters: “Uhhhh….”
  • A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit against leftwing pressure group Media Matters can go forward.

    X, formerly known as Twitter, filed the suit in November after Musk threatened to bring a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the left-leaning nonprofit and “all those who colluded” for “completely misrepresenting” the real user experience on X.”

    According to the lawsuit, Media Matters – founded by Democratic operative David Brock, who left the organization in 2022, used manipulative and deceptive tactics to convince advertisers like Apple, IBM and Disney that ‘hateful’ content was being displayed next to their brands – leading them to pause their X advertising campaigns.

    X claims Media Matters fabricated the results. From the original complaint:

    Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.

    Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed.

    First, Media Matters accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users. Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.

    But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and content that Media Matters aimed to produce.

    Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts.

  • Pretty much everyone saw this coming. “Elon’s SpaceX To Rescue Stranded Astronauts After NASA Dumps Boeing.”
  • Speaking of Elon Musk, a Brazilian Supreme Court Judge has declared that Twitter/X must censor the accounts of political enemies he specifies, and Musk, citing the Brazilian constitution, is having none of it.

    On Thursday night, X’s Global Government Affairs account posted a dire warning over service availability in Brazil, after dictatorial Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes punished them for not complying “with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” according to the post.

    More:

    When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.

    We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.

    In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency.

    Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders.

    To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to protecting your freedom of speech.

    Meanwhile, Musk says that SpaceX is going to continue to provide Starlink in Brazil to schools and hospitals for free…

    * * *

    One day after Brazillian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes threatened to suspend social media platform X unless Elon Musk appoints a new legal representative in 24 hours, the judge – dubbed “Brazil’s Darth Vader” by Musk – issued a subpoena against the company.

    Today, he blocked the financial accounts of Musk-owned Starlink Holdings, due to the absence of an attorney.

  • More context on de Moraes’ abuses of power.

    Alexandre de Moraes might be the second-most powerful person in Brazil.

    He does not quite have the reach of the president. But as a judge on the Supreme Court, until recently the president of the Electoral Court, and especially as head of two sprawling investigations against groups spreading disinformation, Moraes has wielded a rare combination of judicial powers. He has unilaterally handed out fines, ordered arrests, social media bans and other sanctions, and even acted as investigator and judge at once.

    Moraes, 55, has used those powers prolifically, including against several members of the right-wing opposition to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government.

    Brazilian conservatives have long contended he is abusing his power. But “Xandão” (“Big Alex”), as he is semi-jokingly called by supporters and detractors alike, earned the gratitude of many members of Brazil’s political establishment who believed his actions were fundamental to defending democracy during and after Jair Bolsonaro’s tumultuous 2018-22 presidency.

    Now, that goodwill is being put to the test. As international voices add to a swelling domestic chorus, criticism of Moraes is starting to break through into the mainstream of Brazilian discourse.

    The most public clash has been between Moraes and the South African billionaire Elon Musk, who has vigorously resisted the judge’s efforts to control speech on his X platform and other social media. Late Wednesday, Moraes used X itself to send Musk an ultimatum to appoint a new legal representative for his company in Brazil, and threatened a total ban of the platform in Latin America’s largest country unless he complied. Several Brazilian legal experts told Estado de S.Paulo newspaper that Moraes was overstepping his powers—that his use of social media to deliver the order was invalid, and that any suspension would be illegal.

    Also recently, reporting by Fabio Serapião and Glenn Greenwald, the well-known American journalist who lives in Brazil, in Folha de S.Paulo newspaper indicated that Moraes and his lieutenants skirted official procedure in preparing sanctions for targets of his investigations.

    These controversies have put renewed focus on several questions: Is Moraes censoring the opposition, or guarding Brazilian democracy? What should be the balance between allowing political speech on social media—and fighting back against disinformation and other threats? And finally: Has Moraes’ power outlived its usefulness, placing due process and the rule of law under threat in a different but also harmful way?

    “It’s clear he’s pushing the limits,” said Conrado Hübner, a professor of constitutional law at the University of São Paulo and columnist at Folha. “There’s no precedent, nothing remotely similar to having a minister leading … investigations that almost become permanent institutions.”

    “It’s been a year and a half since the 2022 election and the departure of a president who threatened institutions,” wrote the editorial board of Folha on August 26. “But for minister Alexandre de Moraes and his colleagues at the Supreme Court, it’s as if it was still that time—at least as a pretext for maintaining the anomalous concentration of power in this magistrate and his court.”

    Snip.

    Moraes banned the social media accounts of right-wing influencers Rodrigo Constantino and Paulo Figueiredo, for allegedly spreading Covid-19 misinformation and casting doubt on the Brazilian electoral system. He also banned the accounts of department store chain owner and right-wing influencer Luciano Hang, allegedly for agitating for a coup in a pro-Bolsonaro message group. Blogger Allan dos Santos, in self-imposed exile in Florida, had his passport revoked after calling for the dissolution of the STF, and being accused of involvement in an “organized crime network” that operates through monetized videos online. The U.S. refused an extradition request—reportedly because it determined Santos’s actions aren’t considered a crime in the U.S.

    “It’s persecution, pure and simple,” Santos said.

    The political temperature has moderated in Brazil over the past year, as a degree of institutional harmony has returned under Lula’s watch. But Moraes has remained on the offensive, threatening earlier this year to block Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, for refusing to comply with his orders. (Pavel Durov, the service’s founder, was arrested in France earlier this week for failing to prevent illegal activity on the platform.)

    As part of the reporting on leaked documents from Moraes’ office in August, Greenwald wrote that former Bolsonaro advisor Filipe Martins had been detained under an order by Moraes for almost six months without charges, based on evidence that (Greenwald wrote) had been disproven. Less than a week later, Moraes ordered him released.

    In reporting over the last several weeks, Greenwald and a co-author have used leaked messages to level accusations that Moraes directed his aides to compile reports on individuals, setting them up for social-media bans and other sanctions, and pass off the reports as having come from other legal organs or as anonymous complaints. The reports exacerbated concerns that Moraes was blurring the lines between legal roles—and so did his response, which was to order an inquiry into the source of the leaks.

    Some of those actions sound familiar… (Hat tip: Glenn Greenwald.)

  • “Hamas Official: 10/7 Was Needed To Undermine Israeli Ties With Arabs; Jews ‘Must Be Finished’, No ‘Two-State Solution.’”

    Hamas terrorist official Ghazi Hamad said during a recent interview that the terror group views its October 7 massacre as an enormous success because it damaged attempts to establish diplomatic ties between Israel and the Arab states.

    Hamad, who previously said that the terror group aims to repeatedly carry out October 7-style attacks, said during an interview earlier this summer that was only translated this week that the terrorist attack — in which 1,200 were murdered, 5,300+ wounded, and hundreds more taken hostage — was “able to slap at the progress of the normalization of effort, and this is, of course, a very important political success.”

    He said that the attack has also been successful in creating divisions among Israelis and uniting other Islamic terrorist organizations to attack Israel.

  • US Strike Eliminates Senior Al-Qaeda-Linked Terrorist Leader In Syria. A U.S. military drone strike has killed a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, a group in Syria aligned with the al-Qaeda terrorist group, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in an Aug. 23 statement. The strike targeted Abu-‘Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, a prominent figure within the group’s Shura Council, responsible for overseeing terrorist activities from Syria, according to the statement.”
  • Hostage held by Hamas in Gaza rescued by IDF.
  • Are you an senior citizen living in Communist Cuba? Good luck surviving on $10 a month.

    Cubans continue to flee a worsening economy in record numbers while the elderly have been left behind, fighting to survive on the communist regime’s $10 monthly pension and a critical lack of basic supplies.

    Food, power, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical shortages have ignited persistent protests this year and driven Cuba’s ongoing exodus of working-age adults.

    The result has been nothing short of devastating for the country’s retirees.

    “It’s a nightmare in every direction. This is an SOS. Cuba is about to collapse in a fatal way,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, a long-time anti-Cuban regime activist and president of the Democracy Movement in Miami.

    “People can’t really imagine, especially from outside, making elderly people live in such inhumane conditions,” Sanchez told The Epoch Times.

    “Because of the deterioration of the economy and the lack of interest of the Cuban regime, they aren’t helping those who need it,” he said. “Retirement pension maybe allows you to buy a dozen eggs a month. That’s it.”

  • Another lawsuit from Texas over the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border, but this one wasn’t from Ken Paxton. ” Border Counties, Residents Sue Biden Administration, Alleging Refusal to Enforce Immigration Laws.”

    A grim scene of death, destruction, and crime is described among the harms suffered by two Texas border counties in a lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging that the “willful and unconstitutional” refusal to enforce federal law has resulted in unprecedented harm inflicted upon the rural communities.

    Kinney and Atascosa counties, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe, and rancher Dr. Michael Vickers are the plaintiffs in the petition filed in the federal district court for the Southern District of Texas this past week naming President Joe Biden, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Majorkas, and other federal immigration officials as defendants.

    The plaintiffs raised unique arguments not yet seen in other legal disputes over the border crisis, including that the Biden administration violated the U.S. Constitution’s Take Care Clause and a law requiring environmental impact studies.

    The Take Care Clause in Article II, Section 3 states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

    “Immediately upon being sworn into office, the current Administration has pursued immigration policies that are not only at odds with Congress’s statutory scheme and directives but are objectively calculated to dismantle proven border security programs or craft novel administrative processing ‘pathways’ to permit inadmissible aliens to enter and remain inside the country,” the lawsuit alleges.

    Among the examples contained in the complaint, the Biden administration is accused of abusing prosecutorial discretion to effectively rewrite immigration law, paroling more illegal aliens into the nation in the past year than lawful aliens.

    The administration also adopted a policy allowing illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds to remain in the country, contrary to laws that require deportation.

    “Collectively, Defendants’ actions signaled to potential border crossers—and to the human trafficking and drug cartels that coordinate illegal border crossing—that the Administration is unwilling to secure our border,” the lawsuit states, adding, “Defendants have completely abdicated their statutory responsibilities, allowed or encouraged the southern border to be overrun, and are violating their duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

    The plaintiffs then described the harms they have suffered as a result of the alleged policies, with Vickers noting illegal aliens have caused $50,000 worth of damages on his ranch since 2021, not including trash the aliens have left behind that has harmed both livestock and the environment.

    Vickers said he must also constantly remain armed, noting that with the increased illegal immigration, numerous gang members are also coming to his ranch, including MS-13, Tango Blast, the Pistoleros, and the Mexican Mafia.

    Citing another shocking result of the policies, he said that since 2021 over 270 dead bodies have been found within 15 minutes of his home.

    The counties also described the unprecedented burden the crisis places on local government.

    The lawsuit explains that in 2020, before the Biden administration implemented its current border policies, Kinney County handled 134 criminal charges.

    From there, it skyrocketed within a year to 2,708 criminal cases and continued to climb to 6,800 in 2022. Most recently, it faced 5,826 cases in 2023.

    The crime has strained the rural communities’ limited financial resources.

    The lawsuit asks the court to enjoin the Biden administration’s policies that run contrary to federal law, citing causes for relief under both an administrative rule-making statute and the Take Care Clause.

  • Texas State Rep. Shawn Thierry Leaves Democratic Party, Joins GOP After Vote for Child Gender Modification Ban.”

    State Rep. Shawn Thierry (D-Houston) is switching parties to the GOP, she announced Friday at an event in Washington, D.C. held by Moms for Liberty.

    “The Democratic Party has veered so far left, so deep into the progressive abyss, that it now champions policies I cannot, in good conscience, support — policies like promoting sex changes for vulnerable children and dismantling Title IX protections for women in sports. That’s why I am leaving the left and joining the party of family, faith, and freedom,” Thierry said in a release.

    “I now stand with colleagues, friends, neighbors, women, and mothers in the Republican Party.”

    Thierry lost her primary runoff to Lauren Simmons, and the legislature is out of session, so no change in the legislative status quo.

  • That oil depot Ukraine hit was still burning ten days later.
  • Current rate per megawatt hour: $36. What New York pays for wind power $155 per megawatt hour.
  • Here’s an interesting ruling: “US judge tosses machine gun possession case, calls ban unconstitutional.”

    A federal judge has dismissed charges against a Kansas man for possessing a machine gun, saying prosecutors failed to establish that a federal ban on owning such weapons is constitutional.

    The decision, by U.S. District Judge John Broomes in Wichita on Wednesday appeared to mark the first time a court has held that banning machine guns is unconstitutional after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 issued a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights.

    In that ruling, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court established a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

    The Supreme Court clarified that standard in June as it upheld a ban on people subject to domestic violence restraining orders having guns, saying a modern firearms restriction needs only a “historical analogue,” not a “historical twin,” to be valid.

    Broomes, an appointee of Republican then-President Donald Trump, said prosecutors in Tamori Morgan’s case failed to identify such a historical analogue to support charging him with violating the machine gun ban.

  • Texas Secretary of State to Monitor Harris County’s 2024 Election After Audit Findings.”

    The Texas Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) will send multiple staff members to Harris County to inspect records and procedures and assist the elections division during the 2024 general election, citing multiple issues uncovered in a state audit of the county’s management of past elections.

    According to a press release from Secretary of State Jane Nelson, the SOS “will assign state inspectors to Harris County to perform checks on election records, including tapes and chain-of-custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media during the November 2024 election period.”

    SOS will also send staff to assist the county for the duration of the election period, from early voting to Election Day and through tabulation.

    The SOS announced the planned “enhanced presence” along with the final results of an audit of the 2022 elections, which included findings the county had not followed state law in maintaining voter registration rolls and in providing the required minimum amounts of ballot paper to all polling sites.

    Ballot paper shortages halted voting at multiple locations on Election Day 2022.

    According to state law, officials must provide each polling site with ballots equivalent to 125 percent of voter turnout in the last corresponding election. Under former Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum the county only provided 600 ballots to locations that had processed twice that many voters in 2018; a former county employee has been charged with six felonies in relation to the ballot paper allocation.

    SOS Elections Division auditors also found that the county had not provided adequate training to election workers, which contributed to widespread equipment failures across multiple elections, and had failed to comply with state paperwork requirements.

    During a Texas House Committee on Elections hearing on Monday, SOS Elections Director Christina Adkins briefed lawmakers on the results of the audit. She noted that after moving from a paperless system to paper ballots in May 2021, Harris County had not provided hands-on training for election judges and clerks.

    As a result, Adkins said voting ceased for an hour or more at multiple polling locations during the November 2021 elections, with 17 sites not processing any voters until more than an hour after the scheduled opening due to equipment problems. Despite the issues, then-County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria did not revise training procedures prior to the March 2022 primary election, which had similar problems.

    Adkins also noted that Harris County failed to include 10,000 ballots in preliminary counts after the March 2022 primaries, a discrepancy that was identified by a reconciliation report required by election reform legislation enacted in 2021. The ballots were kept on a thumb drive, but Adkins noted that counties develop their own tracking procedures for the devices.

    ”I don’t recall that they had a lot of paperwork to show us on tracking that process,” said Adkins.

    The county has also struggled to maintain voter registration rolls. Adkins told lawmakers that Harris is one of 33 counties that use a third-party vendor for management of voter rolls, leading to significant discrepancies between state and local databases.

    The final audit noted that while the discrepancies “may seem minor in comparison to the total number of registered voters, the inconsistencies make it difficult to validate election data.”

  • Speaking of which: “Abbott Announces Over One Million People Removed From Texas Voter Rolls.”

    In his stated effort to uphold election integrity in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that more than one million people have been removed from the state’s voter rolls.

    As part of the announcement, Abbott provided a chart that shows over 1.1 million voters in various categories are flagged as “removed,” including over 457,000 deceased individuals and over 463,000 voters on the “suspense list.”

    Additionally, over 134,000 voters failed to respond to an address confirmation notice, while over 6,500 are noncitizens and over 6,000 have felony convictions.

    Abbott highlighted Senate Bill (SB) 1, which was signed into law in 2021, that added provisions designed to prevent fraud by adding criminal statutes, prohibiting unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, and setting additional ground rules for early voting and voter registration.

    “Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” said Abbott in his recent press release.

    “I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crack down on illegal voting. These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state.”

    Abbott added that the Texas Secretary of State has “an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution.”

    “Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated.”

    In addition to SB 1, Abbott has signed multiple other bills to crack down on illegal voting. This includes House Bill (HB) 1243, which increases the penalty for illegal voting to a second-degree felony; SB 1113, which empowers the Secretary of State to withhold funds from counties that fail to remove noncitizens from voter rolls; and HB 574, which criminalizes knowingly counting invalid votes.

  • Democrat Colin Allred isn’t following Beto’s playbook in his senate run against Ted Cruz.

    Whereas O’Rourke spent much of his time on the road doing a glorified whistle-stop tour of the state, Allred’s camp has opted for carpet bombing the Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Beaumont, and Rio Grande Valley media markets with ads.

    According to the Cruz campaign, the television spend breakdown so far is $5.9 million for Allred and $265,000 for Cruz; Allred’s campaign declined to confirm any numbers. National political ad-tracking firm AdImpact put the Cruz deficit among all entities and groups at a much larger figure: $21.7 million to $2.2 million.

    I expect Cruz to win by more than he did in 2018, especially in a Presidential election year, but I’m sure Ted could use more money.

  • 5th Circuit Court finds geofencing warrants unconstitutional.

    A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit held that a novel type of search warrant used to collect digital record data is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

    The case arose from the robbery of a postal service worker in Mississippi, where surveillance video showed one of the robbers checking his cell phone during his escape after taking a mailbag containing $60,706 at gunpoint from the postman.

    After coming up short of other ways to identify the perpetrators, postal inspector agents obtained what are known as geofencing warrants, which ultimately led to Gilbert McThunel’s arrest and conviction for the crime.

    Geofencing warrants, the court explained, are different from normal search warrants that are based on probable cause and allow the police to search a known specific person or thing. Instead, law enforcement uses geofencing warrants when the identity of the suspect isn’t known, such as in this instance.

    The warrants work in reverse from traditional search warrants. Most commonly, as with this case, investigators ask Google to search a database containing data from every one of their users who has their location history enabled on their smartphones.

    Approximately one-third of Google’s 592 million users have their location history feature turned on, which silently tracks the location of the device through cell signals, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth every two minutes, uploading that location data to a “Sensorvault.”

    When Google receives a geofencing warrant, the company must search all records in the Sensorvault for location data that corresponds to the warrant — for all accounts that were within a certain geographic location at a certain time.

    I’m conflicted on this. I can see situations where a geofence warrant may be justified for serious crimes, but they also offer a real possibility of government abuse (such as January 6th defendants).

  • California continues to California: “Dems Pass Bill to Give Illegal Immigrants $150,000 Home Loans — but the Program Is Broke.”
  • The latest business slammed by the Biden Recession: RVs. Also, holy crap, have RVs gotten ridiculously expensive. I guess they’re pricing them against owning a home these days…
  • Dwight alerted me to this story last week, and I told him “I’m waiting for the followup when the police capture the man and it turns out his name is Abbas Mohammed Jihad.” Well: “3 people were killed and 6 others injured at a diversity festival in Solingen, Germany, when a man with a knife went on a rampage…According to reports from the scene, and according to a German newspaper, witnesses heard the unidentified attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” during what is being called a potential act of terrorism.” Sometimes it sucks to be so psychic…
  • Dispatches from Tim Walz’s Minnesota: CBS News was running a segment on car thefts and a car theft happened while they were filing.
  • Ford backing away from DEI. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Another day, another social justice warrior on the make.

    She dug deeper into the nonprofit’s bank records and found much more that concerned her. Mansion rentals. Vet bills. Luxury clothes. Finally, a stay at a Cancun resort. Ms. Banks scrolled back through Facebook to the week that resort bill was paid. She saw her boss, [Raheem AI president] Brandon D. Anderson, posing in a pool.

    The photo was tagged: “Cancun.”

    Snip.

    They investigated and questioned more than $250,000 in charges since 2021 alone, internal documents show.

    Among them: Mr. Anderson — who was paid a salary of $160,000 — had spent $1,500 of the charity’s money at a chiropractor; $5,000 on veterinary care; and an astounding $46,000 on ride-share services like Uber and Lyft. Most confoundingly, the nonprofit had paid $80,000 for luxury vacation rentals, including a service that let members stay in luxury mansions around the world, according to the board’s accounting.

    And since Raheem AI is an anti-police organization, no one wanted to go to the cops… (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Male Child Molester Housed in Women’s Prison under Investigation for Sexually Harassing Female Cellmate.” A sane society wouldn’t have headlines like that…
  • For all their talk of getting out of the culture wars, O’Keefe Media Group finds that Disney is funding puberty blockers for children.
  • “Round Rock Teacher Arrested for Child Sex Crimes.”

    A teacher in Round Rock Independent School District was arrested for sex crimes involving children.

    Domingo Perez Jr., also known as Dominic, was a science teacher at Stony Point High School through the 2023-2024 school year.

    Perez was arrested and booked into the Williamson County Jail on August 21.

    He is facing charges of indecency with a child by sexual contact—a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison—and possession of 50 or more images or videos of child pornography, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison.

  • Yes, they are trying to Trans your kids:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Loews becomes the latest company to scrap racist DEI policies.
  • “Rogue” Tarrant County College staff are still trying to mandate DEI in violation of state law. These unnamed “rogue” employee should get pink slips.
  • Concord and Dustborn were two AAA gaming title that had three things in common: they both cost a lot of money, they both pushed social justice, and they both tanked hard on release. Unlike Black Myth Wukong, which social justice game journalist sites criticized relentlessly and which sold 10 million copies…
  • Critical Drinker calls The Crow reboot the worst film of the year. “A violent, grimy and bleak exercise in stupidity.”
  • Wells Fargo worker dies at her desk. No one notices for four days.
  • The Navy runs out of pants. Insert your own joke here.
  • Did you even know college football had a mercy rule? Stephen F. Austin was beating NAIA school North American University by 70 at the half, so they shortened the third and fourth quarters to five minutes each.
  • Comedian Gary Gulman on how the states got their abbreviations. Conan O’Brien said this was one of the funniest bits ever on his show, and it’s pretty good.
  • “Trump Adds A Kennedy In Hopes He Will Draw All The Sniper Fire.”
  • “Kamala Explains 93% Of Staff Quit Because They Couldn’t Handle The Joy.”
  • “Reporter Who Asked Kamala A Question Charged With Hate Crime.”
  • Five Guys Down To Just Two Guys After California Minimum Wage Increase.”
  • Too sweet:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For August 23, 2024

    Friday, August 23rd, 2024

    Both unemployment and inflation numbers in the Biden Recession are lies, the DNC finishes up as bad as everyone thought it would be, why supporting Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression in Ukraine is not a conservative position, Canada goes on strike, crappy modern art prices collapse, and Disney ships The Acolyte to a farm in the country where it can run around all day.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Biden’s Labor Department admits that it overcounted new jobs created by 818,000.

    For the past few days, rumors and reports have indicated that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was going to downwardly revise their assessment of the number of jobs created from April 2023 to March 2024 “by up to 1 million. This means that all ‘beats’ recorded in the past year will have been misses and the US job market is in far worse shape than the admin[istration] would admit.”

    The revision is out, and while it’s not quite a million, it’s still really darn high — 818,000 fewer jobs were created in that yearlong period than were initially reported.

    In a normal presidential campaign, where the nominee and her running mate did interviews and press conferences, this would be a major headache. Luckily, Kamala Harris and her campaign have more or less unilaterally decided she doesn’t have to do them anymore, and figures like Michael Steele, Rick Wilson, and Leslie Gray Streeter have concurred that presidential candidates answering questions in interviews are an unneeded relic of a bygone era. The candidate will tell us all we need to know or deserve to know in her stump speech.

    The president and his team want to communicate the story of successful economic management. The vice president running for her own term doesn’t have the luxury of insisting the economy is doing gangbusters and that inflation is defeated when so many Americans, looking at empty storefronts and office spaces, are concluding otherwise.

  • The other half of the Misery index, inflation, is up higher than the official rate as well:

    (Hat tip: ZeroHedge.)

  • This is going to have a lot of Democrats going to Brown Alert: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Suspends Presidential Campaign, Endorses Trump.”

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “suspended” his presidential campaign Friday afternoon, explaining that he would remain on the ballot in many states to give his supporters a protest-vote option but that he would remove his name from the ballot in battleground states, where his presence might help Kamala Harris, the candidate he views as the most significant threat to his populist political project.

    Kennedy launched his quixotic run for America’s highest office after boosting his national profile during the Covid pandemic. Already a prominent vaccine skeptic and a scion of America’s most famous political dynasty, Kennedy emerged as a leader of the populist backlash against pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates, writing a bestselling book, The Real Anthony Fauci, which cast the face of the federal government’s Covid response as a power-hungry bureaucrat intent on using health emergencies as a pretext to control the public.

    After making a splash through his appearances in independent media and building a following among well-heeled Silicon Valley donors, Kennedy abandoned his effort to get on the Democratic primary ballot, accusing the party of sabotaging him. Having failed to gain traction as an independent candidate and with his campaign coffers near empty, Kennedy finally announced the suspension of his campaign in an upbeat speech from Phoenix, Arizona, in which he argued that he and his supporters succeeded in shaking up America’s political establishment.

    “We proved them wrong,” Kennedy said of the those who doubted his ability to mount a campaign as an independent. “We did it because, beneath the radar of mainstream media organs, we inspired a massive political movement.”

    Kennedy went on to attack Democrats for “disenfranchising American voters” by swapping in Kamala Harris for Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, casting the party he called home for decades as a corrupt cabal of elites who carefully stage manage the political process through their influence over the media.

    “The mainstream media was once the guardian of the First Amendment and democratic principles, and it’s joined this systemic attack on democracy,” Kennedy said. “The media justifies their censorship on the grounds of combatting misinformation, but governments and oppressors don’t censor lies, they don’t fear lies, they fear the truth and that’s what they censor.”

  • The DNC just finished up and it was “a parade of horribles“:

    The DNC was a parade of horribles, displaying every form of sin, debauchery, and malign political philosophy invented by mankind—all in one room. We’ve spent the last four days being hectored by screeching harridans who demand that we reject the values that made the United States the greatest country in history and replace them with a feminist nightmare.

    • We learned that a Harris-Walz administration would put abortion on demand, for any and every reason, at the top of its priority list because, in the Democrats’ view, we are not killing enough babies in this country. They’re going to squeeze every dead baby they can out of their four years in office if they make it to the White House.
    • We also learned that they’re going to drag us into more wars and conflicts and encourage more terror attacks with their flaccid foreign policy—as they hobnob with All the Right Globalists in Davos.
    • We’ll be looking at Soviet-style price controls, unbridled socialism, and more regulations on businesses.
    • Kamala and Co. believe that the economy is just humming along, choosing to ignore runaway inflation, rampant joblessness, and the inability of many people to purchase homes, so they’ll double down on the Biden-Harris economic policies.
    • They’ll destroy children and families by encouraging mental illnesses like transgenderism, using the schools as a vehicle to spread their destructive lies about gender.
    • And speaking of schools, never forget that Kamala wants to bring back school busing in the name of equity while destroying school choice, which actually results in equity by putting educational decisions in parents’ hands. In June 2019, busing was discussed in a Democratic debate when Harris was still in the race. Afterward, her campaign confirmed that she “supported busing as a method for school integration.” And God only knows what they’ll do to homeschooling if they win in November.
    • And, of course, the border will remain wide open, with rapists, child traffickers, fentanyl pushers, and drug cartels at liberty to walk into the United States almost unimpeded.
    • Pro-lifers and peaceful protesters will continue to be locked up while violent felons roam free under a Harris-Walz administration.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Man who says he went with Tim Walz to China says he’s Maoist to the core.

    A man who says he joined Tim Walz on a trip to communist China is speaking out about his experience of traveling to the country with the future vice-presidential candidate.

    “It was almost a daily revelation of how much he adores the communist regime,” the former student told Alpha News.

    For over a decade, Tim Walz traveled to and from China. First arriving in the country in 1989, Walz taught at a high school in partnership with a nonprofit program affiliated with Harvard University. During this first trip, Walz was visiting Hong Kong when the Tiananmen Square protests began in April. Those protests ended in June when the communist government massacred protestors on June 3-4, 1989.

    After the massacre, Walz later took a train to Beijing to visit the square, according to the New York Times.

    Upon returning to the United States after that first trip, Walz told local newspapers how much he enjoyed his time in China. On June 4, 1994, Walz married Gwen Whipple on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Gwen told a local newspaper that Walz “wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The couple spent their honeymoon in China, according to local reports from the time.
    The Star Herald/Newspapers.com

    After this first trip to China, Walz founded a company that took students on summer trips to China. Walz said in a 2016 interview that he has traveled to China “about 30 times” as a teacher and member of Congress. The New York Post recently reported that Walz was a visiting fellow at a state-run university in China as recently as 2007.

    Now, a former student who says he joined Walz on a 1995 trip to China is speaking to Alpha News about the experience. That student, Shad, asked that we not use his last name.

    For several weeks, Walz and his group of students explored China together in the summer of 1995, Shad said. They saw Tiananmen Square, walked along the Great Wall of China, and traversed the country. However, the former student says he was struck by Walz’s adoration for China and its communist ideology.

    “There was no doubt he was a true believer,” Shad said. “I’ve been trying to tell people this for 30 years. Nobody wanted to listen.

    “At night, we’d go out, we’d walk the street fairs. We’d be buying souvenirs and Tim was always buying the little red book. He said he gave them as gifts … I saw him buy at least a dozen on the trip,” he said.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Democrats admit what Republicans have known all along: they want to amnesty all the illegal aliens they’ve let in the country.
  • “Congressional Democrats in tight reelection bids skip Harris, party’s nominating convention.”

    Several congressional Democrats facing tight reelection bids, particularly those in tossup or GOP-leaning states or House districts, are skipping the party’s nominating convention in Chicago this week.

    Montana Sen. Jon Tester has not yet endorsed Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, and he was the red state’s only delegate to withhold a vote backing Harris, according to Montana Public Radio.

    Instead of attending the Democratic National Convention, Tester will hold a fundraiser, farm and campaign for his reelection, according to the Montana Free Press.

    Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen told The New York Times that she would be campaigning for her reelection this week and needed to be close to her home state.

    Tester, Brown and Rosen are three of the six Senate Democrats most vulnerable to losing reelection, according the the news outlet Roll Call.

    Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, declined to join the virtual vote to nominate Harris, the Bangor Daily News reported. He also wouldn’t say who he’s voting for in November.

    Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told CNN he rarely attends conventions, but he has attended each convention during his time in Congress, according to The Hill newspaper.

    New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich told Scripps News he has commitments that conflict with the convention.

    Plus Rep Yadira Caraveo (D-CO), Rep. Val Hoyle (D-OR), Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK), and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) also skipped the convention.

  • Don Lemon asks random about the 2024 election and finds out a lot are supporting Trump.

  • Van Jones admits that anti-Jewish bigotry is “marbled” into the Democratic Party.
  • So just where is ActBlue getting all their money?

    Paging Dr. Adrienne Young, M.D.

    The good doctor is listed online as an “internist” in McKees Rocks, a borough in western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, known locally as “the Rocks.”

    Campaign finance filings report Young’s practice is located on Heckel Road in McKees and list a 412 area code phone number. But her office does not appear to exist at this address and the number is not in service. Moreover, none of the receptionists attached to doctors’ offices located in close proximity to Young’s office address in McKees have ever heard of her. That’s peculiar in and of itself. But a search of campaign finance records only adds to the intrigue.

    Someone identified as Adrienne Young has been making substantial contributions to a left-of-center political action committee known as ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records.

    ActBlue was founded in 2009 to help Democratic Party candidates and allied “progressive” groups raise funds through a multiheaded hydra serving as a conduit for left-wing donors, with two more arms—ActBlue Charities and ActBlue Civics—funneling money to 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) clients, respectively.

    Restoration News is still attempting to contact the individual listed in campaign finance documents as Adrienne Young. Records list her residing on Leet Road in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. These records show that since 2017, Young has made 17,342 in contributions to ActBlue totaling $209,670.06—which averages seven contributions per day.

    However, there is no one named Adrienne Young residing at that or any other Leet Road address. Moreover, there is no one named Adrienne Young who could be described as a “mega-donor” in the same vein as say a George Soros, the source of the Open Society Foundations’ billions, or former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Moreover, mega-donors do not typically make multiple transactions over an extended period of time, but instead make lump sum donations.

    To add to the confusion, one online search for Young does suggest she has more than 44 years of experience in the medical field and graduated from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in 1979. It raises a key question: Such a credentialed person should not be so difficult to find. If she’s out there, Young could be the victim of identity theft. If she’s not, then she might be a fictitious person used to pump funds into ActBlue.

    “Smurfing” involves repackaging large sums of money into smaller, individual transactions to appear less suspicious and avoid scrutiny from law enforcement officials. Is “Adrienne Young” a cover for such an operation, benefiting Democrats?

    While it is indisputably the case that ActBlue is ringing the bell with hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions, it’s not evident the smaller contributions that translate over time into larger sums are coming from an individual donor.

    One of the more recent contributions to ActBlue leading back to the donor identified as Young came on March 16, 2023, in the amount of $1196.50. That’s not an unusual amount for an individual, but what is unusual is folding that amount into more than 17,000 contributions made over the span of several years. The donor identified as Young was actively contributing to ActBlue at least through part of this year with a donation of $429.00 made on April 30, 2024. If a smurfing operation is underway, it may not be limited to what’s flowing into ActBlue.

    There were also 991 donations made in Young’s name totaling $26,481 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 904 donations totaling $22,881.72 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and $16,190.56 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a left-of-center PAC based in Chicago.

    Once again, multiple small donations add up to large donations over time. Young is listed, for example, as making a $869 donation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on May 12, 2019, $1,776 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee on May 23, 2024, and $800.00 to the Progressive Turnout Project on April 12, 2024. Apparently, Young has been an active donor, at least up until a few months ago.

    Allegations involving multiple donations to ActBlue that might possibly involve identify and credit card theft have caught the attention of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares who is conducting his own investigation. The attorney general has sent a letter to ActBlue that is available on X. For its part, ActBlue has pushed back against Miyares in a statement describing the Republican attorney general’s actions as a partisan exercise.

    How expansive smurfing might be across the country isn’t certain. But the common denominator in these questionable transactions—ActBlue—certainly is.

    Restoration News has identified another potential fictional donor, Wendy Urbanowicz, residing in Vancouver, Washington. Campaign finance records show that since 2020 she has made 28,659 donations to ActBlue totaling $260,196—averaging 17 contributions per day.

    Urbanowicz supposedly made another 720 donations totaling $12,099 to the Democratic Congressional Committee; 609 donations totaling $12,365 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee; and 259 donations totaling $11,421 to Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

    But an online search for Urbanowicz is every bit as fruitless as a search for Adrienne Young. She’s listed in FEC filings as a 73-year-old residing in Vancouver, Washington, with a 360 area code phone number. Once again, there is no record of Urbanowicz in Vancouver and the number is not active.

    It’s always possible someone is deceased or moved away. But some of the contributions listed by the FEC for Urbanowicz are as recent as May 2024. Just to cite a few examples, a donation from Urbanowicz in the amount of $2,955 was made on March 22 and a $193 donation was made on May 12.

    Not all of the FEC records pop up in an online search. This one, for instance, for ActBlue produces an error message.

    But Urbanowicz and Young are both listed as donors to the far-left PAC EMILY’s List, which backs Democrats. In these filings, Urbanowicz is listed at a P.O. Box in Vancouver with the ZIP code 98668. We’re still attempting to track down Urbanowicz, but early indications are that no one with her name resides in Vancouver or nearby.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Chicago is living down to its reputation. “Texas Delegate Robbed at Gunpoint Near Democratic Convention in Downtown Chicago.”

    A member of the Texas Democratic delegation, who arrived in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention this week, was robbed at gunpoint while walking with a friend in the city early Wednesday morning.

    The delegate’s name is unknown at this time, CWBChicago reported. The outlet said it is “not identifying him by name because he is a crime victim.” No one is in custody and detectives are still investigating the crime, the Chicago Police Department confirmed in a statement obtained by National Review.

    The victim and his friend were walking near Allegro Royal Sonesta Hotel Chicago when a gunman in a ski mask pulled up in a black Range Rover and robbed them around 2 a.m. The robber stole a 25-year-old man’s wallet and hotel-room key in the same vicinity before turning his attention to the delegate and his associate. No injuries were reported in either incident.

    The prime suspects are described as two black men wearing all black clothing and ski masks. They are still believed to be at large.

    The Chicago police issued an alert warning the community about the robbers Thursday morning, saying they were linked to another robbery around the same time that the delegate and the two other victims were mugged. The pair are also responsible for two more robberies early Tuesday and Monday morning.

    Sounds like the sorts of career criminals that Democrats go out of their way to make sure remains on the streets to victimize people…

  • “D.C. Councilman Known for Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory Arrested on Bribery Charge.”

    Washington, D.C., councilman Trayon White (D.) was arrested Sunday on a bribery charge, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia announced, over allegations that he agreed to take cash payments in exchange for pressuring government employees to extend public-safety contracts with two firms.

    White, who chairs the D.C. Council’s Committee on Recreation, Libraries, and Youth Affairs and oversees the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, allegedly sought a sum of $156,000 — three percent of total contract value — for his work. In its press release, the office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves noted that White’s alleged corruption was caught on film.

    “According to the complaint, White’s agreement with a confidential human source (the owner of the companies) — including the source’s payments to White of $35,000 in cash on four separate occasions (June 26, July 17, July 25, and August 9, 2024_ and the source showing White a document reflecting how White’s three-percent cut was calculated based on those contracts — was captured on video,” the release reads.

    Graves wrote in a statement that the time-sensitive nature of the case led his office to act quickly.

    “Because the investigation into the alleged bribery scheme involved contracts that could soon be awarded and other potential official acts that could be taken, our Office took swift steps to address the alleged crimes we were investigating,” Graves said.

    White is perhaps best known for a 2018 video he published in which he accused Jewish financiers of controlling the weather.

    “Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man,” White said. “Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation. And D.C. keep talking about ‘we a resilient city.’ And that’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.”

  • Another day, another potential assassination attempt against Trump.
  • Here’s a good essay on why conservatives should be on Ukraine’s side in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

    It’s time to talk to some of the bizarrely non-conservative conservatives, who for unfathomable reasons are fans of Putin’s Russia. We call these people “Brosheviks.”

    The simple background is that Kiev is far older than Moscow, and various groups controlled both territories. Ukraine was independent as a nation, then captured by the USSR. The USSR spent seventy plus years abusing and starving Ukraine to the tune of more than 30 million people. After the USSR collapsed it became independent, and the poorest country in Europe, looted and raped by its occupiers.

    Ukraine had a lot of corruption because it was a former Soviet state. They all do. It has far less corruption than Russia. Remember the Clinton Foundation washing $650 mil through Russia? And Uranium deals? Etc? That’s just the stuff we know about large scale.
    ~~
    The USSR, though, and now Russia has the greatest propaganda organ the world has ever seen. Witness:

    Literally every Russian military development—tank, aircraft, everything, led to wails of, “Oooh! The Russians have got us this time! ZOMG! State of the art! We’ll be catching up for generations! Panic! Gloom, despair, and agony on me!”

    Then we’d capture or acquire one and it would be shit tier garbage. Every fucking time. The MiG25: Shit that couldn’t dogfight or maneuver and had no loiter time. The T72: Shit armor, shit fire control, overall shit. The T90: Such shit a Bradley can take it out with 25mm. The vaunted AK47: If you’ve ever shot one you understand it’s a weapon for illiterate peasants and yes, jams like you wouldn’t believe if you haven’t handled one. That long stroke gas piston loves corrosion, debris, and mud and turns into an unergonomic club.

    The USSR persuaded the Western world, especially the left, that they were some sort of victims, not a larger, less-effective murder machine as the Nazis, but still a mass murder machine with a higher body count. Hanging a Swastika banner will get you excoriated (and should), but hang up the Hammer and Sickle, and well, we have to be tolerant of divergent viewpoints.

    We really fucking don’t. Commies are just as much subhuman shit as the Nazis. But that propaganda.

    Snip.

    “Ukraine has corruption! Vlad is saving us from the New World Order!”

    Name a single nation we’ve ever assisted in war that wasn’t corrupt. Including our own.

    Also, if you’ve paid attention the last decade (you obviously haven’t paid attention the last decade), Ukraine was in the process of flushing the corrupt leaders, most of whom were…friends of Vladimir Sputum.
    ~~
    “Ukraine has Nazis!”

    Probably a few. So does the US. So does Russia, since the head of Wagner Group, named after Hitler’s favorite composer, LITERALLY HAS SS INSIGNIA TATTOOED ON HIS CHEST, COLLARS AND SHOULDERS. Are you that fucking gullible and retarded? Apparently.

    Also, the POWs from the alleged Nazi Azov Battalion were exchanged for Russian POWs, no issue. So no (alleged) Nazis were actually stopped or tried.

    Also, those “Nazis” are taking orders from a Jewish comedian. Vlad explains this as “They’re a special kind of Nazi that isn’t necessarily anti-semitic, but still Nazis.” So, National Socialists…like yourself, Vlad?

    Snip.

    “Russia warned Ukraine not to join NATO! They can’t be aggressive like that.”

    Ukraine has not joined NATO, and your ex doesn’t get to tell you who to date.
    ~~
    “Russia is rightfully afraid of NATO aggression!”

    THIS Cold War bullshit again? Are you liberal, or retarded?
    ~~
    “Why won’t anyone stand with Russia against the New World Order? Vlad is a hero!”

    Such a hero his allies are Lil Kim in North Korea, and the Assahola in Iran. That’s who you’re supporting here, dipshit.
    ~~
    “You’re going to find out that Ukraine is carefully making it look like they’re winning! There’s this huge push in March/April 2023/2024 that’s going to end it. After Ukraine is worn out fighting Russian garbage, the A-team is going to wreck them!”

    It’s been 2.5 years. The Russian Airborne died the first day. The vaunted Spaznutz met Ukrainian reservists and got slaughtered like the shit tier, third world, all-show-and-no-dick bitches they actually are. It’s getting worse. Russians have been seen on scooters (the step on kind that populate cities like cockroaches) and Chinese golf carts. They’re losing T54s on a recurring basis, having run out of modern (1960s) tanks. It’s become a joke at this point.

    Snip.

    FACT: Russia invaded Ukraine because it wanted to seize territory it’s not entitled to, and is getting its incompetent shit tier military ass kicked by a third world nation. Even if they “win” a few counties of utter wasteland that are wrecked more than No Man’s Land in WWI, they’ve lost their credibility and military footprint for decades to come.

    Now stop being their propaganda bitch.

    Much more at the link. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • Ukraine hit the only ferry working across the Kerch strait when it was loaded with fuel tanks.
  • Ukraine also hit Marinovka airbase in Volgograd, some 500km from the front lines, with drones using ball bearing warheads like on HIMARS tungsten rounds, hitting number of hangers and destroying at least three Su-34 and one Su-24 aircraft.
  • “Texas Children’s Whistleblower Fired After Alleging Child Gender Modification Medicaid Fraud.”

    Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) has fired a whistleblower following allegations that it was “unlawfully billing the state Medicaid program” for the purposes of child gender modification.

    The whistleblower, Vanessa Sivadge, provided a statement to the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo with details about how she was fired after revealing the “sex-change procedures ongoing at the hospital, but also the fraud and deception related to the illegal billing practices to Medicaid in having these procedures covered by taxpayers.”

    Sivadge stated that after her initial story went public, TCH put her “on leave.” She was then fired on Friday, August 16.

    Prior to Sivadge blowing the whistle, she stated that she submitted a religious accommodation request to transfer to another department. She said her role in the endocrinology clinic “was devastating” because her role as a nurse “primarily involved providing medication refills and working with physicians to answer questions from parents about treatment plans.”

    Sivadge added that she “would like to challenge this in court” and asked for donations for her legal defense.

    “No regrets,” wrote Sivadge on social media.

    Her story first became public back in June, following a previous TCH whistleblower, Eithan Haim, alleging that TCH had continued to provide “gender-affirming care” to minor children even after stating that it would stop doing so.

    Following Sivadge talking with Rufo, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sent agents to her home to “intimidate and threaten her,” in Rufo’s words.

    Haim has been visited by agents of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and has been indicted on four felony counts of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.

  • Harris County’s Lina Hidalgo still hasn’t given up on her socialist guaranteed income program, despite the Texas Supreme Court ruling it unconstitutional.

    The Harris County Commissioners Court voted along partisan lines last week to revive a guaranteed basic income (GBI) program for select residents with more restrictions and higher costs, although a previous version was halted by state courts earlier this year.

    Under the original version of the program, named Uplift Harris, the county planned to send “no-strings-attached” $500 monthly stipends to 1,928 recipients for 18 months, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the program last April. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) halted the plan indefinitely.

    Now Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo says the revised program, Uplift Harris 2.0, will provide preloaded cards with restrictions on how the funds may be spent.

    “That’s not the spirit of a guaranteed income program,” said Hidalgo. “If the state gets in the way of this and the program becomes stuck in court again then the funds will be reallocated to programs that already exist to support people living in poverty.”

    Hidalgo did not specify the restrictions on how recipients could spend funds but said the debit cards could be used for “medicine, groceries, et cetera.” The county has not yet published details of the revised GBI.

    Commissioners will cover the costs of Uplift Harris with nearly $21 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, of which $17,350,000 will be distributed to selected residents and $1 million will fund a study of the program’s effectiveness.

    Administrative costs charged by nonprofit GiveDirectly were originally $1,740,500, but under the revised GBI will rise another $400,000.

    All the better to rake off more social justice graft…

  • Both Canadian freight rail networks are hit by strikes.

  • If someone contacts you claiming to be a U.S. Marshall, but claims you need to pay your failure to appear fine in cash, then it’s a scam.

  • “Russian businesses are locked out of billions as payment issues reportedly pile up abroad.” The sanctions are leaky, but not entirely useless.
  • Why Japanese software lags so far behind western software.
  • The Baltics switch over to European electrical standards.
  • There can be only one.
  • Google to Invest $1 Billion in Texas Data, Cloud Center Infrastructure. Google plans to make another billion-dollar investment in Texas to support data center infrastructure.” I have no respect for woke Google, but better they spend money in Texas rather than California.
  • “Warner Bros Discovery pledges $8.5 billion on Nevada Studios pending tax credit approval.” Moving production out of California makes a lot of sense, though $8.5 billion is a lot of money for a company with a market cap of $19.5 billion.
  • Follow-up: Disney backtracks on forced arbitration for wrongful death lawsuit.
  • Critical Drinker watches the new Snow White trailer. “As for the dwarfs, [these] things are absolute nightmare fuel.” And it’s amusing to see Rachel Zegler go from calling the original “dated” to calling it “beloved” is an amusing turnabout.
  • And speaking of the Drinker, he gets to dance on The Acolyte grave.

    In life you reap what you sow, and if what you sow happens to be a $180 million vanity project made by a feminist activist promoted way beyond her abilities with practically no experience, only a vague understanding of the subject matter, and even less talent for actual storytelling, starring a blank-faced charisma-vacuum with all the acting talent of a comatose Steven Seagal, and incorporating some of the most cringe-inducing scenes ever committed to film, then, well, what you reap will be a big old dose of cancel.

    More: “Man, it’s got to be a bitter pill for Kathleen Kennedy to swallow. [The Acolyte] represented her ultimate vision for Star Wars: Female focused, female led, and female directed. And, funnily enough, it was rejected by absolutely everyone.” And: “The cold, harsh truth is that the mythical ‘modern audience’ that Lucasfilm have been chasing for 10 years now simply doesn’t exist, never has existed, and never will exist.”

  • Just a bit more on The Acolyte from How it Should have Ended:

  • This just in: Crappy modern art is now bringing in 1/10th of what it was. Still outperforming NFTs, though…
  • John Richardson of the No Lawyers – Only Guns And Money blog is running for the NRA Board of Directors. Since he has done such and admirable job of covering every twist and turn of the organization’s dysfunction during the terminal years of the LaPierre regime, I can only imagine that he’ll be an excellent addition to the board.
  • Rotten Tomatoes drops the audience score to hide how much viewers actually hate woke films. Sounds like they just made their site entirely useless.
  • Kotaku social justice warrior Alyssa Mercante threatens to sue the Internet. I’m sure that will work out well for her…
  • Jeremy Clarkson bans Labour PM Keir Starmer from Clarkson’s newly opened pub.
  • Hoovie spent more than three times as much renovating his farmhouse as I spent on my entire house in 2004.
  • Woman runs over her boyfriend on the way the couples therapy.
  • The vicious claw shrimp strikes again. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • I am proud to announced that I am the Grand Prize winner in this year’s Bulwer-Lytton contest.

  • “Kamala Harris Unveils New Economic Platform ‘We Must Seize The Means Of Production And Execute The Bourgeoisie.'”
  • David French Founds New Group ‘Evangelicals For Satan.'”
  • I’ve featured a dog bus video before, but not this particular one:

  • Still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Election Fraud Search Warrants Executed

    Thursday, August 22nd, 2024

    Remember how Donald Trump was ahead in several states election night only for tons of Biden ballots to be “found” at 4 AM? I hope all Republican officials in every state are working overtime to prevent similar occurrences this November.

    Texas Attorney Ken Paxton seems to be taking nothing for granted, as the Elections Integrity Unit just executed several warrants.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced that his office had carried out search operations as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged election fraud.

    A statement from Paxton’s office reads, “On August 20, 2024, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Election Integrity Unit executed multiple search warrants in Frio, Atascosa, and Bexar Counties as part of an ongoing election integrity investigation.”

    Bexar County is the big one here, being home to San Antonio, whereas Atascosa and Frio are directly south and southwest of San Antonio. The geographic clustering suggests the warrants may all be part of the same election fraud case.

    These searches are the result of a 2022 referral by 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Louis, who flagged concerns about alleged voter fraud and ballot harvesting in the 2022 elections.

    Remember that Democratic politiqueras illegally harvesting votes has been a concern in previous elections.

    “Secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic,” Paxton said. “We were glad to assist when the District Attorney referred this case to my office for investigation. We are completely committed to protecting the security of the ballot box and the integrity of every legal vote. This means ensuring accountability for anyone committing election crimes.”

    Paxton’s involvement in this case is made possible only through the referral by the local District Attorney. This follows a December 2021 ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeals—Texas’ highest court on criminal matters—that declared a state law granting the attorney general unilateral authority to prosecute election cases unconstitutional. The court argued that the Texas Constitution does not expressly provide the attorney general with such authority.

    Democrats have made no secret of their desire to have as many illegal aliens as possible vote in this election, and Paxton is investigating attempts to register illegal aliens to vote.

    Following reports of organizations potentially working in Texas to register illegal aliens to vote, Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced his office is launching an investigation.

    According to a release from Paxton’s office:

    Investigators from the Texas Attorney General’s Election Integrity Unit recently conducted undercover operations to identify potential voter registration of noncitizens in Texas. The investigation has already confirmed that various nonprofit organizations have been located outside Texas Department of Public Safety Driver License offices, operating booths offering to assist in voter registration for persons doing business at the driver’s license offices. But all citizens have already been presented an opportunity to register to vote as part of the process of renewing or being issued an identification card or driver’s license, so there is no obvious need to assist citizens to register to vote outside DPS offices—calling into question the motives of the nonprofit groups.

    I wonder if these unnamed organizations had “justice” or “tides” in their name.

    Paxton said the possibility of this activity is deeply troubling to Texans.

    “If eligible citizens can legally register to vote when conducting their business at a DPS office, why would they need a second opportunity to register with a booth outside? My office is investigating every credible report we receive regarding potential criminal activity that could compromise the integrity of our elections,” said Paxton.

    “The Biden-Harris Administration has intentionally flooded our country with illegal aliens, and without proper safeguards, foreign nationals can illegally influence elections at the local, state, and national level. It is a crime to vote—or to register to vote—if you are not a United States Citizen. Any wrongdoing will be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” he added.

    Gov. Greg Abbott expressed support for Paxton’s investigation on X.

    Fortunately, Texas has strong Voter ID laws that should prevent illegal aliens from voting in the 2024 election, but Paxton is obviously trying to close off all potential fraud vectors. Despite what your Facebook friends may post, Texas is in no danger of turning blue anytime soon, but voting could easily tip some down-ballot races. Best to nip it in the bud.

    Eternal vigilance is the price of free elections.

    Latest Microsoft Patch Fixes TEN Zero Day Exploits

    Wednesday, August 21st, 2024

    “Patch Tuesday” is when Microsoft (and other software companies) regularly release patches for their software on the second Tuesday of a month. A “zero day exploit” is a serious, previously undisclosed security flaw in a shipping piece of software. Not every Patch Tuesday includes a zero day fix, and sometimes the release only fixes one or two.

    The latest Microsoft Patch Tuesday fix, released last Tuesday, fixes ten zero day vulnerabilities, six of which were already being exploited in the wild.

    Attackers are actively exploiting as many as six of the 90 vulnerabilities that Microsoft disclosed in its security update for August, making them a top priority for administrators this Patch Tuesday.

    Another four CVEs in Microsoft’s update were publicly known before the Aug. 13 disclosure, which also make them zero-days of a sort, even though attackers have not yet begun exploiting them. Among them, an elevation of privilege (EoP) bug in Windows Update Stack, tracked as CVE-2024-38202, is particularly troubling because Microsoft does not yet have a patch for it.

    The unpatched flaw allows an attacker with “basic user privileges to reintroduce previously mitigated vulnerabilities or circumvent some features of Virtualization Based Security (VBS),” according to Microsoft. The company has assessed the bug as being only of moderate severity because an attacker would need to trick an administrator or user with delegated permissions into performing a system restore.

    However, Scott Caveza, staff research engineer at Tenable, says that if an attacker were to chain CVE-2024-38202 with CVE-2024-21302 (an EoP flaw in the current update that affects Windows Secure Kernel), they would be able to roll back software updates without the need for any interaction with a privileged user. “CVE-2024-38202 does require ‘additional interaction by a privileged user,’ according to Microsoft,” he says. “However, the chaining of CVE-2024-21302 allows an attacker to downgrade or roll back software versions without the need for interaction from a victim with elevated privileges.”

    Caveza says each vulnerability can be exploited separately, but when combined, they could potentially have a more significant impact.

    In all, seven of the bugs that Microsoft disclosed this week are rated as critical. The company rated 79 CVEs — including the zero-days that attackers are actively exploiting — as “Important,” or of medium severity, because they involve some level of user interaction or other requirement for an attacker to exploit. “While this isn’t the biggest release, it is unusual to see so many bugs listed as public or under active attack in a single release,” said Dustin Childs, head of threat awareness at Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), in a blog post.

    This is, to use a technical term, “bad.”

    I’m not an expert in Windows security, but ten zero day exploits sounds like a new record.

    And just who is exploiting this vulnerability in the wild? Well, in one case, North Korea.

    A Windows zero-day vulnerability recently patched by Microsoft was exploited by hackers working on behalf of the North Korean government so they could install custom malware that’s exceptionally stealthy and advanced, researchers reported Monday.

    Getting pwned by North Korea is like getting arrested for knocking over a liquor store because you posted a picture of yourself in front of the store holding up the stolen cash on Facebook.

    The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-38193, was one of six zero-days—meaning vulnerabilities known or actively exploited before the vendor has a patch—fixed in Microsoft’s monthly update release last Tuesday. Microsoft said the vulnerability—in a class known as a “use after free”—was located in AFD.sys, the binary file for what’s known as the ancillary function driver and the kernel entry point for the Winsock API. Microsoft warned that the zero-day could be exploited to give attackers system privileges, the maximum system rights available in Windows and a required status for executing untrusted code.

    Microsoft warned at the time that the vulnerability was being actively exploited but provided no details about who was behind the attacks or what their ultimate objective was. On Monday, researchers with Gen—the security firm that discovered the attacks and reported them privately to Microsoft—said the threat actors were part of Lazarus, the name researchers use to track a hacking outfit backed by the North Korean government.

    “The vulnerability allowed attackers to bypass normal security restrictions and access sensitive system areas that most users and administrators can’t reach,” Gen researchers reported. “This type of attack is both sophisticated and resourceful, potentially costing several hundred thousand dollars on the black market. This is concerning because it targets individuals in sensitive fields, such as those working in cryptocurrency engineering or aerospace to get access to their employer’s networks and steal cryptocurrencies to fund attackers’ operations.”

    Monday’s blog post said that Lazarus was using the exploit to install FudModule, a sophisticated piece of malware discovered and analyzed in 2022 by researchers from two separate security firms: AhnLab and ESET. Named after the FudModule.dll file that once was present in its export table, FudModule is a type of malware known as a rootkit. It stood out for its ability to operate robustly in the deep in the innermost recess of Windows, a realm that wasn’t widely understood then or now. That capability allowed FudModule to disable monitoring by both internal and external security defenses.

    Rootkits are pieces of malware that have the ability to hide their files, processes, and other inner workings from the operating system itself and, at the same time, control the deepest levels of the operating system. To work, rootkits must first gain system privileges and go on to directly interact with the kernel, the area of an operating system reserved for the most sensitive functions. The FudModule variants discovered by AhnLabs and ESET were installed using a technique called “bring your own vulnerable driver,” which involves installing a legitimate driver with known vulnerabilities to gain access to the kernel.

    Earlier this year, researchers from security firm Avast spotted a newer FudModule variant that bypassed key Windows defenses such as Endpoint Detection and Response, and Protected Process Light. Microsoft took six months after Avast privately reported the vulnerability to fix it, a delay that allowed Lazarus to continue exploiting it.

    Whereas Lazarus used “bring your own vulnerable driver” to install earlier versions of FudModule, group members installed the variant discovered by Avast by exploiting a bug in appid.sys, a driver enabling the Windows AppLocker service, which comes preinstalled in Windows. Avast researchers said at the time the Windows vulnerability exploited in those attacks represented a holy grail for hackers because it was baked directly into the OS rather than having to be installed from third-party sources.

    As I’ve noted before, Internet security is hard. Neither Mac nor Linux are entirely free of such exploits, but they seem to be a lot less frequent. Log4J wasn’t a Linux kernel exploit, but everyone (rightly) freaked out over it because Log4j was used everywhere and it let attackers install malicious code on your server.

    Microsoft patching ten zero day exploits suggests that there’s a big problem up in Redmond. You would think the zero day vulnerability numbers would be going down, not up. I wonder if we might be seeing that start of widespread AI use to find vulnerabilities in software.

    LinkSwarm For August 16, 2024

    Friday, August 16th, 2024

    Real inflation is running about 20%, Kamala parties like it’s 1971, the New York Times is shocked, shocked to discover Hunter Biden asking for state favors for foreign cronies, gold hits new highs, laughing at an old SNL skit is now a thoughtcrime, and an update on Intel’s woes.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • How do Democrats plan to win in November? But working overtime to magically turn illegal aliens into citizens so they can vote for Democrats.

    The New York Times reports that the federal government is accelerating the naturalization of immigrants in America as part of a process of “reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election,” according to one observer quoted in the piece.

    “The federal government is processing citizenship requests at the fastest clip in a decade, moving rapidly through a backlog that built up during the Trump administration and the coronavirus pandemic,” reports the newspaper.

    One Honduran woman marveled at the fact that authorities were able to process and approve her application in as little as six months.

    The story highlights how many of these new citizens will immediately become eligible to vote in key battleground states, including Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

    The piece includes a very revealing quote from Xiao Wang, chief executive of Boundless, a data analysis company.

    “The surge in naturalization efficiency isn’t just about clearing backlogs; it’s potentially reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election,” said Wang.

    “Every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency,” he added.

    In other words, knowing that immigrants are far likelier to vote Democrat, the Biden administration is importing them at breakneck speed in order to tip the scales for Kamala Harris.

    3.3 million immigrants have become citizens during Biden’s time in office, with data showing that more will vote Democrat than Republican.

    This has partly driven the Trump campaign’s efforts to appeal more to “Jamal” and “Enrique,” and not so much “Karen,” although the strategy has caused division amongst Trump’s base.

    The legacy media has consistently denounced the idea of mass migration being a deliberate ploy to increase the voter base for Democrats as part of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, while simultaneously admitting it’s happening.

    Democrats have declared that they have no confidence in the electorate and must create a new one…

  • Restaurant owner says that the real inflation rate is closer to 20% over six months:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • How does Kamala Harris plan to combat inflation? By channeling Richard Nixon from 1971 and imposing wage and price controls.

    After the unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris stole former President Trump’s proposed ‘no tax on tips’ policy, she’s at it again with yet another recycled idea. This time, she’s echoing President Biden’s actions and rhetoric to crack down on sky-high food prices by proposing the first-ever federal ban on “corporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries”—a move that reeks of socialism.

    “There’s a big difference between fair pricing in competitive markets, and excessive prices unrelated to the costs of doing business,” the Harris campaign wrote in a statement, adding, “Americans can see that difference in their grocery bills.”

    The Harris campaign said the vice president will unveil the new federal proposed ban on Friday at a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina as part of a broader economic policy platform. The proposal will ensure food companies can’t exploit consumers to increase profits, according to CBS News, citing Harris-Walz campaign officials.

    Harris’ policy speech will also call on the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys to examine corporations violating price-fixing rules. Her remarks are expected to echo Biden’s actions and rhetoric, especially with his war against meat processing companies that he alleges are responsible for higher burger prices at the supermarket.

    VP Harris’ campaign argues that lowering Americans’ costs is a function of socialist-style price controls. Yet this is the quickest way to understand that Harris’ economic team has no actual understanding of inflation.

    Heritage Foundation’s EJ Antoni explained, “Here’s your “price gouging” narrative: average costs paid by businesses have risen just as much as costs charged to consumers – if businesses are being “greedy,” they’re doing it all wrong…”

    Instead of curbing out-of-control government spending, which debt rises $1 trillion every 100 days, and understanding that monetary inflation driven by the Federal Reserve’s money creation is the root cause of inflation, Harris deflects the actual problem: The Fed. She instead goes after big corporations for ‘illegal price gouging.’

    Thus unable to understand the disasterous economic policies of the past are doomed to repeat it…

  • “Conversation Between Musk And Trump Generates Over A Billion Views.” You can see a transcript of the interview here.
  • Trump appears to be winning over Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

    In a post last month (“How The Democrats Los Silicon Valley”), I mentioned that top Silicon Valley venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz had endorsed Trump.

    Ben Horowitz, in particular, seemed like an unusual Trump supporter, coming from a liberal Jewish background. Now it looks like Trump has another, thanks to his X space with Elon Musk last night: Zynga founder Mark Pincus. During the first Trump administration, Pincus opposed Trump’s “Muslim ban”, but after the leftist celebrations following October 7th last year, he seemed to have some second thoughts about that.

  • Despite the fawning coverage, the Kamala Harris campaign must think it’s not fawning enough, as they’ve been using ads with altered media headlines.

    Despite corporate media’s unabashed u-turn to support Kamala Harris, her campaign has been busted creating made-up headlines next to the names of real news outlets to trick people into thinking they’ve stumbled upon the real thing, Axios reports.

    Upon hearing the news, The Guardian lost their shit, telling Axios: “While we understand why an organization might wish to align itself with the Guardian’s trusted brand, we need to ensure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We’ll be reaching out to Google for more information about this practice.”

    The ads include links to real articles from the outlets, however the headlines and supporting text were altered.

  • Democratic California State Lawmaker Switches To Republican Party…State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, who represents the state’s fourth Senate district, said she joined the Senate Republican Caucus and party after deep reflection and to help ‘in their fight to fix California.'”
  • Hunter Biden Asked State Department To Aid Burisma Deal While Father Was VP.” Because of course he did.

    While Joe Biden was vice president, his son Hunter attempted to obtain State Department assistance in securing a deal for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, of which Hunter was a highly-compensated board member despite having no experience in its industry, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. The revelation of the 2016 episode underscores allegations that Hunter sought to enrich himself by trading on his father’s influence.

    The Times report draws on newly-released government records pertaining to Hunter’s pushing of a Burisma deal in Italy. The Biden White House had resisted releasing the files for years, only to relent soon after Biden was pressured into abandoning his reelection bid.

    One wonders how long the New York Times would have waited to report this if Biden were still seeking reelection? My guess is never.

  • More on that thought.

    Go figure. It’s amazing what some actual reporting — and a withdrawal from a presidential election — can shake loose, no?

    Just four short years ago, we were all assured by the Protection Racket Media that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, and that allegations of influence-peddling by the Bidens were just political dirty tricks, right? Right? Wrong. The New York Times’ Ken Vogel reports that Hunter’s efforts to sell influence within the administration were well known during Joe Biden’s term as Vice President. It’s even about Burisma, the company that we were told paid Hunter a lot of money for his energy-industry expertise.

    Oh, and the records of it got “withheld” by the Biden administration for “years,” too:

    Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice president, according to newly released records and interviews.

    The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member.

    Well, we did have records in October 2020. Hunter Biden kept records of these dealings on his laptop, which he abandoned in a repair shop. When the New York Post reported on the contents of the laptop, including a number of emails that made clear he leveraged his fathers office to sell influence at Burisma and elsewhere, the media ignored it — even though one of Hunter’s partners (Tony Bobulinski) publicly authenticated the messages when asked.

    Nearly four years later, the NYT gets around to the truth. And if you’re questioning the timing, you have good company, because Vogel appears to be somewhat curious about it as well:

    The department’s release of documents to The New York Times came shortly after President Biden dropped out of the presidential race, and as his son prepares to stand trial next month on charges of evading taxes on millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses.

    Go figure again! It’s as if the cover-up extended as long as Joe Biden had electoral interests to protect. Now that Biden has pulled out of the race, there’s no need to keep covering up for Biden Inc.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • “California Sheriff Blasts Harris For Using His Image In “Misleading” Campaign Ad, Says He Supports Trump.” “In light of a recent political ad put out by Kamala Harris featuring Sheriff [Mike] Boudreaux, as well as other local law enforcement, the Sheriff wants to make it abundantly clear that his image is being used without his permission, and he does NOT endorse Harris for President or any other political office.”
  • The same Jew-haters who drove Columbia University’s president Minouche Shafik off are now coming for Kamala Harris.

    Only a short week ago, Harris was heckled by pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters, like those who has spilled out from college campuses after October 7. Protesters screamed out at her as she stood on stage repeating her stump speech. As they yelled, Harris tried to shame them. “I’m speaking,” she said, hearkening back to her VP debate against Mike Pence in 2020. “I’m speaking” in context means several things, including an attempt to grab control based on her identity factors: black, female. By identitarian logic, the vice president is oppressed, and by the logic of progressive discourse, that means that she gets to speak first, and that what she has to say carries all that much more weight. An event simply in favor of her candidacy was crashed in New York City on Wednesday night where agitators set off smoke bombs and held up signs saying “No Votes for Bombala’s Genocide.” 14 of them were arrested.

    The agitators wanted some kind of response, some kind of indication of what Harris’ policy on Israel and Gaza might be if she gets voted into the White House. And they haven’t gotten it. Meanwhile, there are clearly massive anti-Israel events planned for the Democratic National Convention next week. While Kamala is trying to keep the euphoria going, attempting to dance and sing her way into the White House, her base will be out in the street demanding answers. Will she be lenient like Magill? Bend over backwards like Gay? Or call in a bigger force, like Shafik, because she doesn’t know how to handle it on her own?

    The far left of Harris’ party hates Israel. They love Palestinians not for their culture or policies–which include anti-LGBTQ and anti-female regulations as in other strict, Muslim countries–but simply because they are “oppressed.” And Harris can’t handle them. Even at her speech, rarefied identity wasn’t enough to keep them in their place. The campus riots will likely start up again. As soon as the college-bound finish their orientations, they’ll be picking up their marching orders and protest signs to join their comrades on the quad.

    There is already noise that Harris would like to throw Israel under the bus, to eradicate funding and arms shipments. The same woman that waved the flag of Ukraine in Congress as she promised to send him endless weapons and aid, may think the aid packages and arms sales to Israel go too far. Harris may sympathize with the protesters.

  • “Ten Things to Know About Tim Walz and His Ties to Communist China.”

    before his honeymoon [in Communist China in 1994], Walz launched a company called Educational Travel Adventures, which specialized in bringing American students to China. An article in the local Chinese media reported that he and his bride brought 50 students from America. The company continued to send students to China until 2003. It is important to note that operating a business in China requires all kinds of permits—both official and unofficial—from Chinese authorities at the local, provincial, and central levels. These permits were typically obtained either by paying bribes or by securing endorsements, whether tacit or open, from government officials.

  • As Ukraine continues to take more Russian territory, they just destroyed the Glushkovo bridge in Kursk oblast.
  • Democratic Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg Backs Cruz in Senate Race.” The redpilling of Kin Ogg would make an interesting long-form essay, especially if she’s willing to tell what George Soros and his minions were asking for the first time they backed her…
  • How Houston-area HEBs keeps the lights during power outages. They contract a network of backup power generators fed by natural gas.
  • Followup: The EU is now saying that Thierry Breton got out over his skies when he demanded Elon Musk police Donald Trump for #Wrongthink. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • U.S. district judge Reed O’Connor bars the Biden Administration from trying to impose their tranny-pandering Title IX rewrite on school districts.
  • Army Sgt. Korbein Schultz just pled guilty to selling military secrets to China.
  • Gold breaks the $2,500 per ounce barrier.
  • Disney trying to get lawsuit filed by widow of man who died from allergy at Disney restaurant on the basis that he agreed to binding arbitration on all disputes when he signed up for Disney+.
  • Nothing says “protecting the taxpayers money” like California’s Democratic governor Governor Gavin Newsom hiring a state photographer to follow him around for $200,000.
  • Professional atheist Richard Dawkins posts that men and women are different and male boxers shouldn’t be competing with female boxers. Result: Facebook nuked his account.
  • So what do you do when your software problem brings a customers operations down hard? Well, if you’re Crowdstrike and the customer is Delta airlines, then you slam Delta for not recovering fast enough.
  • Python Development Foundation suspends developer for enjoying old “Jane, you ignorant slut” skit. I can only imagine the snowflake reactions to the Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor word association skit…
  • Flock of self-driving Waymo cars in San Francisco honk all night in their parking lot. As you might be able to guess, nearby residents are just thrilled at this development…
  • Speaking of electric cars, there’s concerning over letting them park in parking garages because of the possibility of them catching fire and the difficulty of extinguishing same.
  • Remember how Intel said the problem with their chips was microcode? Yeah. That may not be the case (or at least not the whole case), and it may actually be a process problem involving oxidation of vias (i.e., the connection between two metal layers).
  • My pants, my pants, my pants are on fire. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Also via Dwight: Fraud charges dropped against AISD Chief Financial Officer Eduardo Ramos. The charges were unrelated to his AISD work.
  • Chinese car has cryptographicly locked headlights so no one but the company can replace them..
  • Wow, Greenspoint Mall in Houston just shut down, but parts of it look like it’s been shut down for decades.
  • Interesting video essay on how changing street light technology informed the looks of several iconic films.
  • “Kamala Harris Suggests Americans Struggling To Make Ends Meet Just Try Sleeping With Their Boss.”
  • “Kamala Announces Plan To Hang ‘Joy’ Sign Above Bread Lines.”
  • “In Latest Bond Film, 007 Tasked With Taking Down 83-Year-Old British Grandma Who Shared Inaccurate Meme.”
  • Ambition:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Harris County Democratic Election Official Charged With Corruption

    Wednesday, August 14th, 2024

    Another indictment handed down for another Harris County Democratic official, this one for the election official who helped screw up the 2022 election.

    Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Tuesday that a data analyst with the now-defunct county Elections Administration Office (EAO) has been charged with six felonies in relation to the 2022 general election.

    Hired by the EAO in April 2021, Darryl Blackburn oversaw allocation of resources — including the number of paper ballots provided to polling sites — but investigators say he took another full-time job in the oil and gas industry in October 2021. While submitting time sheets to the county claiming he was working from home, Blackburn was working at his other job during an overlap period of about 15 months.

    Blackburn has been charged with five counts of tampering with a government document, and one charge of theft by a public official. According to Michael Levine, Chief Assistant District Attorney of Public Corruption, Blackburn earned $43 per hour for a total of $90,000 from the county while drawing a salary of more than $250,000 at his other job.

    I know the Biden Recession has been tough on a lot of people, but if you’re making $250,000 a year, you hardly need to be double-dipping to make ends meet.

    On Election Day 2022, Blackburn reported working 18 hours for Harris County but also claimed to work 8 hours for his other employer.

    His bond has been set at $65,000.

    The charges stem from the county’s fraught November 2022 elections that drew not only multiple election contests but also criminal complaints. While the county’s election problems included delayed openings, malfunctioning equipment, and missing staff, a Texas Secretary of State audit listed a ballot paper shortage as the reason voting came to a halt at multiple polling locations on Election Day.

    Remember that the lack of ballots was a big issue, with some charging that it was Republican precincts that got slighted.

    “We know there are some people in Harris County who did not get to vote. We know this was a failure in terms of an election that the government has a responsibility to run effectively, ethically, and most importantly, accurately,” said Ogg.

    Don’t forget that the last election coordinator before Blackburn, Isabel Longoria, screwed up so badly she had to resign. More:

    Harris County Commissioners Court created the EAO in July 2020, but the first appointed administrator Isabel Longoria was forced to resign after several botched elections. The second administrator Clifford Tatum presided over the 2022 election, but was ousted by a new state law returning elections to elected officials last year.

    “The Harris County Commissioners Court are the ones who placed themselves … in supervisory control because they created the Office of Elections Administration,” said Ogg. “So, they had control. The Elections Administrators Isabel Longoria and Clifford Tatum did not report to the public.”

    “It’s unclear to us whether they ever reported to anybody other than the statements that they made in commissioners court,” said Ogg, who noted that Tatum had come from out of state. “We see a lot of people from other places appointed here in this county.”

    While Ogg has been lambasted by her own Democratic Party for pursuing the investigation, she said that on receipt of two or more complaints the Harris County District Attorney’s Office (HCDAO) is required by law to investigate. In late 2022, the HCDAO turned the complaints over to the Texas Rangers.

    “It is extremely important to look at these crimes in a non-partisan way and go based on the evidence by applying the law, which is our oath in Texas as prosecutors,” said Ogg.

    Corruption and incompetence under the management of Democratic Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (including felony indictments for her aides) seems to be the rule rather than the exception.