Posts Tagged ‘LinkSwarm’

LinkSwarm for January 1, 2021

Friday, January 1st, 2021

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, 2020 didn’t manage to kill you! Happy New Year!

  • “Ukraine Press Conference Explicitly Ties Hunter & Joe Biden To Corruption“:

    A video from a press conference in Ukraine is going viral. It is the follow-up to a video press conference that Ukraine released over a year ago, in which Members of the Ukraine Parliament demanded that President Zelensky and President Trump investigate billions of dollars of corruption in Ukraine that is tied to the U.S. The newly released video is meant to provide documentary and eyewitness information about the corruption – and the Biden family figures prominently in the story.

    Snip.

    At one of the first press conferences about a year ago, we showed bank transactions for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the family of former US Vice President Joe Biden, namely to his son Robert Hunter Biden. The latter was a member of the board of directors of the infamous gas production company Burisma.

    Burisma belongs to the fugitive Yanukovych-era minister Mykola Zlochevsky.

    The inclusion of Biden in the Burisma leadership and payment for his services is nothing more than a political cover that protected Zlochevsky from the Ukrainian law, namely from the criminal code.

    Two foreign witnesses whose identities are protected – Witness 1 and Witness 2 – came forward to testify about the facts of the case. Konstantyn Kulyk, the Head of the Group of Prosecutors of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, explained what the witnesses offered:

    One quote from a statement by a Witness:

    “All the described financial transactions were fictitious. And a lot of money was paid in Ukraine so that the state authorities turned a blind eye to it.”

    [snip]

    In the period from November 2014 to October 2015, the Witnesses noticed strange recurring payments that, at the direction of Oleh Nelin (Zlochevsky’s assistant in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine), were sent from the account of BURISMA HOLDINGS LTD, which was opened for the personal needs of Mykola Zlochevsky, in the Latvian PrivatBank AS to the account of the American company ROSEMONT SENECA BONAI LLC.

    The witnesses drew attention to these payments since about 20 times the same uneven amount was recurring – $83,333.33 as payment for consulting services.

    [snip]

    In the period from November 2014 to October 2015, the money stolen from Ukrainians, located on account of BURISMA HOLDINGS LTD with the Latvian PrivatBank AS, was transferred to the account of ROSEMONT SENECA BONAI LLC in the American bank MORGAN STANLEY in payments in total amounting to $3.4 million for consulting services.

    And this handy chart:

    The broad outlines of this have already been covered here, but the conference filled in some details.

  • Why the Hunter Biden scandal isn’t going away. “That is the problem with a bunker press strategy of denial and isolation. Like water, truth has a way of coming out.”
  • Five great Trump victories in 2020. Including Amy Coney Barrett and peace in the Middle East. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Want some brutal truth? Well, sorry, but that’s what’s on the menu:

    So I guess there’s going to be a rally in Washington DC on Wednesday, organized by https://stopthesteal.us/. There’s also going to be rallies (protests?) in many state capitols on Sunday as well.

    My question is, why? What, exactly, is the point of these demonstrations?

    If the purpose is to just gather like-minded people together for one last good time rock and roll bash before the awful, awful Harris-Biden administration sets in, OK, I can see that. Just don’t delude yourself into thinking that something is going to change because of these rallies. No Democratic lawmaker is going to say “hey, look at all of those pro-Trump protestors out there. We’d better not certify the swing-state electors because maybe they’re right about election fraud.”

    They’re not afraid of us.

    Because we hold our rallies, listen to the scheduled speakers, clap politely, and march around carrying our protest signs in an orderly fashion, and then go home – after first cleaning up after ourselves.

    At these rallies, we don’t wear masks to hide our identity, we don’t slug it out with the police, we don’t assault random passers-by and shout at diners through bullhorns at outdoor restaurants, we don’t vandalize and loot small businesses, we don’t break windows and we don’t cover the place with graffiti. And we don’t walk away from 100 tons of trash, which is the amount the city of Seattle had to clean up when they finally got around to busting up the CHAZ sh*thole last summer.

    So why would they listen to us?

    I am by no means advocating we start doing any of those things. This is an advantage the other other side has over us that we have to live with: politicians and judges are afraid of their protests, but not ours. Because if a judge rules against them, they’ll show up at his house late at night and threaten him. Nobody wants to have to face that. And I wonder why many of Trump’s election lawsuits got dismissed without so much as looking at the evidence. Is it because of the fear of the consequences if they found in his favor?

    My point is, none of these rallies, and I don’t care if they get a million people, two million to show up on Jan. 6th, is going to move the needle in the slightest.

  • Kurt Schlichter has predictions for 2021:

    5. Woke Won’t Work

    Slowly but surely, I think people are getting tired of Woke. None of us signed up to be ruled by a bunch of lachrymose sophomores who burst into tears because we insist they use the right toilet. Even liberals are getting sick of constantly having to navigate a minefield of microaggressions – it’s tiresome to always be worried that someone is going to freak out by your perfectly reasonable behavior. Look for a major star of some sort who is too big to cancel to simply refuse to play along anymore, and that may open the door to others. The SJW emperor truly has no clothes, and the second someone points and laughs at his/her/their shriveled junk, the entire country will join in the well-deserved mockery.

    4. The Murder Turtle Will Be Even More Of A Hero Than Dick “The Savior of Saigon” Blumenthal

    He’s frustrating, sure, but Cocaine Mitch is the most skillful knife fighter/Senate Majority Leader in American history, and whether or not we win in Georgia next week (I think we will, but not enough to put money on it – just don’t be an idiot and refuse to vote if you dwell in the Peach State), he will be our bulwark against the Democrat onslaught. And by “bulwark,” I refer to a strong, implacable defensive fortification, and not that lame blog written by sexually inadequate sissies that is hoping that the end result of 2020’s election is that they can once again round up suckers to pay good money to take their insipid Conservative Inc. cruises.

    However, I doubt his number 1 prediction, that Biden won’t be president by next New Year’s Eve. As bad as Biden’s cognitive decline might be, I have a hunch that both Jill Biden and the DNC cabal that managed to install him will turn the reigns over to Kamala Harris anytime soon.
    

  • “Floodgates Opening? Student sues over Critical Race Training at Nevada public charter school”:

    A Nevada mother has followed through on her threat to file a civil rights lawsuit against her son’s charter school for refusing to let him opt out of a mandatory class that promotes hostility toward whites as a race.

    Democracy Prep at the Agassi Campus forced William Clark “to make professions about his racial, sexual, gender and religious identities in verbal class exercises and in graded, written homework assignments,” creating a hostile environment, the biracial high school student and Gabrielle Clark allege in their federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.

    The senior’s statements were “subject to the scrutiny, interrogation and derogatory labeling of students, teachers and school administrators,” who are “still are coercing him to accept and affirm politicized and discriminatory principles and statements that he cannot in conscience affirm.”

    The suit also names Democracy Prep Public Schools, the New York-based charter network, and several officials in the local school and network as defendants.

  • The top seven myths of 2020. Including “Lockdowns work” and “The Presidential election was fair and clean.”
  • Chicago murders up 55% this year. And it’s not like Chicago was an oasis of peace before this year, either…
  • “Chicago Teachers Union Big Shot Says Unsafe To Teach Live…From Her Pool Side In Puerto Rico.”
  • The Great Exodus:

    One of the earliest signals that 2020 would be a year of mass homeschooling appeared in an April survey of parents conducted by EdChoice. It asked a variety of questions about how families were coping with school shutdowns and revealed that more than half of the respondents had a more favorable view of homeschooling as a result of the school closures. I remember thinking at the time that if families thought homeschooling was tolerable during the springtime tumult and isolation, then they would find it far more fulfilling under ordinary circumstances when they could actually gather with others, visit libraries and museums, attend classes and so on.

    In May, a RealClear Opinion Research survey confirmed that many parents were more satisfied with at-home learning than expected, with 40 percent saying they were more likely to choose homeschooling or virtual learning even after lockdowns ended. Around the same time, a USA Today/Ipsos poll found that 60 percent of parents surveyed said they would likely choose at-home learning in the fall rather than send their children to school even if the schools reopened for in-person learning.

    As summer began, parent actions reflected pollster predictions. Many parents began pulling their children out of school and registering them as independent homeschoolers. During the first week of July, so many parents in North Carolina submitted their online intent to homeschool forms that it crashed the state’s nonpublic education website. Homeschool applications were up 21 percent in Nebraska in July, and 75 percent in Vermont, while grassroots homeschooling networks and local Facebook homeschooling groups reported record increases in new members.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Los Angeles County prosecutors sue Gascon for not enforcing the law.” George Gascon is, of course, another George Soros backed prosecutor. We need similar lawsuits against all the other Soros prosecutors. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “California Doctor Fired After Writing Letter Criticizing Lockdown Orders.”
  • Louisiana Republican congressman elect Luke Letlow dies from a heart attack during a Wuhan coronavirus procedure. Dang, he was only 41…
  • “Donald Trump Ends Obama’s 12-Year Run As Gallup’s ‘Most Admired Man.'”
  • Israel hits Gaza and Syria after Hamas rocket attack.
  • “Trump Administration Approves $290 Million Bomb Sale To Saudi Arabia.” That should about cover Cats and Dolittle…
  • Just when you think 2021 couldn’t possibly be worse than 2020, scientists invent Ice 9.
  • Hungary: Christmas 1, Commies 0.
  • “Former public radio reporter charged with torching cop cars during BLM protests.” This is my shocked face. (Hat tip: Steven F. Hayward.)
  • Joe Rogan on Cabo Steve Adler:

  • Man charged with throwing large concrete blocks off Congress overpass above Ben White.
  • Who is the super genius at Walmart who decided it was a good idea to let their social media person snipe at a sitting U.S. senator and piss off half of America?
  • “But only Gatsby knew…”
  • “How author Farley Mowat smuggled a V2 rocket into Canada.”
  • A wine guy reviews Everclear.
  • Speaking of booze, a cool milestone (or why he won’t be having a nice Chianti):

  • Interesting map:

  • If you haven’t already done so, now would be a good time to uninstall Flash.
  • Heh:

  • Heh: Dog Division:

  • LinkSwarm for December 25, 2020

    Friday, December 25th, 2020

    Welcome to a special Christmas day LinkSwarm! And by “special,” I mean “because Christmas falls on Friday.”

  • Explosion rocks downtown Nashville. “Around 6:30 a.m., police received a call for a suspicious RV with no tags parked across from the Davidson County courthouse. As officers arrived, the RV exploded, blowing out the windows of nearby buildings and leaving extensive damage.” They’re calling it an “intentional act.” Maybe, especially across the street from a courthouse. But it could still be a meth lab cooking off. As always, remember that much of the early reporting around such events are usually wrong.

    Update: Assuming the message in this video is real, it does appear to be a premeditated act of which authorities were warned:

  • The UK and the EU have reached a Brexit deal:

    The deal comes in just eight days short of the hard-Brexit deadline. Rather than erecting trade barriers to which some had resigned themselves, the two sides are looking toward a more cooperative than contentious relationship, reports the Wall Street Journal:

    Under the terms of the accord, both sides will continue to trade free of tariffs but there will be significant new bureaucracy for importers and exporters. The free flow of workers between the two economies will end and trade in services will be much reduced. London’s vast financial center will no longer have guaranteed access to European markets.

    The deal gives Britain significant freedom to depart from EU regulations and sign free-trade deals with countries like the U.S. But as the price for securing a deal without tariffs, the U.K. agreed that it wouldn’t seriously undercut EU standards on issues such as labor and the environment and would maintain similar constraints on the subsidizing of private industry.

    The agreement must formally be ratified by the European and U.K. parliaments and signed off by EU leaders before the end of the year. Capitals have insisted they need proper time to comb through the text before approving it. Though their approval is likely, France has warned it could veto a deal if some of its key concerns, including access to British waters for its fishing fleet, aren’t met.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • President Donald Trump is right to call the $900 billion stimulus package a disgrace.

    Here’s the short version: One main problem is that the 5,500-plus page legislative package was drafted behind closed doors by party leaders, then quickly unveiled hours before a vote.

    As voices as disparate as Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Libertarian Rep. Justin Amash have pointed out, this meant that most members of Congress had to vote for or against the package before actually getting to read the legislation.

    That’s right: Trillions of taxpayer dollars were doled out, and the members of Congress who voted for it don’t even know where much of it is going.

    This bill pours hundreds of billions of dollars into preexisting stimulus programs that were rife with waste, fraud, and abuse, without meaningfully addressing any of the problems. You can expect more stimulus checks sent to dead people and more runaway fraud to plague the expanded unemployment benefits.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • “Tables Turned: Detroit Sues Black Lives Matter Group for ‘Civil Conspiracy’ to Riot and Attack Police.” The group in question is Black Lives Matter umbrella group Detroit Will Breathe. Discovery should be extremely interesting… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Andrew Cuomo hates ordinary people and non-bankrupt restaurants so much that he’s barred patrons of outdoor dining from using a restaurants restroom. Who does he think he is, Werner Erhard?
  • Andrew Yang is running for mayor of New York City. It would be very difficult indeed for Yang not to be a vast improvement over the burning Porta-Potty stuffed with dead clowns that is the De Blasio administration. As a moderate Democrat, I would expect Yang to be a better mayor than de Blasio or David Dinkins, but not as good as Rudy Giuliani or Ed Koch. I would expect a Yang mayoralty to be about on par with Bloomberg’s, with maybe more upside if he’s willing to shake up the corrupt status quo and not push his disasterous pet guaranteed income idea.
  • Another thing President Trump disrupted: stale, self-serving conventional wisdom about peace in the Middle East:

    In an address to the UN Security Council on Monday during a monthly session on the Middle East, US Ambassador Kelly Craft asserted that President Donald Trump’s policies had “overturned” long-held views about diplomacy in the region.

    “For decades, the prevailing assumption was that the world would only see normalized international relations with Israel following a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,” Craft told the virtual meeting. “But we have proven this assumption wrong.”

    She touted the Trump administration’s pursuit of “economic and cultural ties” between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which has led to normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Similar deals with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman, among others, could also be in the offing.

    “All of us here should think long and hard about what else we may have missed or misinterpreted over the years.”

  • “UK: Muslim rape gang ringleader released back onto the streets 8 years into his 26-year term.”
  • “Demanding Silicon Valley Suppress ‘Hyper-Partisan Sites’ in Favor of ‘Mainstream News’ (The NYT) is a Fraud:

    The most prolific activism demanding more Silicon Valley censorship is found in the nation’s largest news outlets: the media reporters of CNN, the “disinformation” unit of NBC News, and especially the tech reporters of The New York Times. That is where the most aggressive and sustained pro-internet-censorship campaigns are waged.

    Due in part to a self-interested desire to re-establish their monopoly on discourse by crushing any independent or dissenting voices, and in part by a censorious and arrogant mindset which convinces them that only those of their worldview and pedigree have a right to be heard, they largely devote themselves to complaining that Facebook, Google and Twitter are not suppressing enough speech. It is hall-monitor tattletale whining masquerading as journalism: petulantly complaining that tech platforms are permitting speech that, in their view, ought instead be silenced.

    Snip.

    The conceit that outlets like The New York Times, CNN and NPR are the alternatives to “hyper-partisan pages” is one you would be eager to believe, or at least want to induce others to believe, if you were a tech reporter at The New York Times, furious and hurt that millions upon millions of people would rather hear other voices than your own, and simply do not trust what you tell them. Inducing Facebook to manipulate the algorithmic underbelly of social media to artificially force your content down the throats of citizens who prefer to avoid it, while rendering your critics’ speech invisible — all in the name of reducing “hyper-partisanship,” “divisiveness,” and “misinformation” — is of course a highly desirable outcome for mainstream outlets like the NYT.

    The problem with this claim is that it’s a complete and utter fraud, one that is easily demonstrated as such. There are few sites more “hyper-partisan” than the three outlets which the NYT applauded Facebook for promoting. In the 2020 election, over 70 million Americans — close to half of the voting population — voted for Donald Trump, yet not one of them is employed by the op-ed page of the “non-partisan” New York Times and are almost never heard on NPR or CNN. That’s because those news outlets, by design, are pro-Democratic-Party organs, who speak overwhelmingly to Democratic readers and viewers.

    It is hard to get more partisan than the news outlets which the NYT tech reporters, and apparently Facebook, consider to be the alternatives to “hyper-partisan” discourse. In April, Pew Research asked Americans which outlet is their primary source of news, and the polling firm found that the audiences of NPR, CNN and especially The New York Times are overwhelmingly Democrats, in some cases almost entirely so.

    As Pew put it: “about nine-in-ten of those who name The New York Times (91%) and NPR (87%) as their main political news source identify as Democrats, with CNN at about eight-in-ten (79%).” These outlets speak to Democrats, are built for Democrats, and produce news content designed to be pleasing and affirming to Democrats — so they keep watching and buying. One can say many things about these news outlets, but the idea that they are the alternatives to “hyper-partisan pages” is the exact opposite of the truth: it is difficult to find more hyper-partisan organs than these.

  • Kurt Schlichter on our stupid establishment:

    The Establishment decided that instead of having a vigorous debate and discussion over the safety and efficacy of these prophylactic potions, they would just short circuit the whole messy truth determination process that Western civilization has relied upon for a millennium – argument, debate, and eventually consensus after everything is fully and freely hashed-out – and move right to the Official Truth. All the smart set decided that the Official Truth would be that these vaccines were all perfect and necessary and that we needed to stamp out any hint of dissent lest people pause and think for themselves and thereby disrupt the plan by raising unapproved notions. And the tech overlords would do their part by ensuring that any info, ideas, or interplay that was not inline with the narrative would be suppressed.

    It’s so much more efficient, you know, to tell people what they think than to take the time to convince them and refute counter-arguments.

    Not everyone was foolish. It was very smart and good leadership for Mike Pence to take the shot in public in front of cameras. That a couple of tentacles didn’t sprout out of his clavicles was reassuring. That’s leadership, and that’s what our leaders should be doing. But most of our ruling class instead thinks that if they lie to us and suppress our debates and call us stupid enough, we’ll fall into line.

    When has that worked for long?

  • A roundup of climate predictions for 2020 that were horribly wrong. Remember how snowfall would be a thing of the past?
  • Israel hits Syria again.
  • “US Army Hits Target 43 Miles Away With Long-Range Cannon.”
  • Rush Limbaugh signs off, possibly for the last time.
  • Austin restaurants and bars under Stage 5 Wuhan coronavirus restrictions again. Thanks a lot, China. And Mayor Adler.
  • Rand Paul presents the airing of the Festivus grievances:

    Among Paul’s instances of waste were several health studies, including more than $36 million spent on studying why stress makes hair turn gray, more than $1 million spent studying whether people will eat ground-up bugs, and more than $3 million spent interviewing San Franciscans about their edible cannabis use.

    As far as taxpayer dollars spent aiding other countries, $8.62 billion was spent in Afghanistan on counternarcotics efforts, more than $37 million was spent helping deal with truant Filipino youth, and more than $3 million was spent on sending Russians to American community colleges for a “gap year.”

    Among funds spent on the environment, energy, and scientific research, more than $1 million was spent walking lizards on a treadmill, nearly $200,000 was spent studying how people cooperate while playing e-sport video games, and more than $2 million on developing a wearable headset to track eating behaviors.

    The military had several particularly high expenditures this year that Paul listed as waste, including repurposing $1 billion in coronavirus response funds for unrelated acquisitions, more than $ 715 million in lost equipment designated for Syrians fighting ISIS, and $174 million on drones that were lost over Afghanistan.

    Other eyebrow-raising expenses included more than $4 million spent on spraying alcoholic rats with bobcat urine, more than $10 million spent on would-be coronavirus test tubes that turned up as used soda bottles, and nearly $6 million spent building three bicycle storage facilities at Washington, D.C. Metro stations.

  • Titania McGrath, prophet of our times.
  • Man of the year: Jeffrey Toobin. “Toobin’s grip on the media was relentless. In 2002 he joined CNN and became the network’s chief legal analyst, a cocksure critic of Republicans…” (Hat tip: HashtagGriswold.)
  • Good idea:

  • Heh:

  • “Can I interest you in some propane? Or some propane explosions?”
  • How badly do you want a drink?
  • Oh the weather outside is frightful:

  • Christmas with the Sex Pistols.
  • Merry Christmas, everyone!

    LinkSwarm for December 18, 2020

    Friday, December 18th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! On a personal note, I was just laid off from my Senior Technical Writer job, so if you have any leads in the department (for either Austin or remote work), drop me a line in the comments.

  • Russian hackers penetrated Austin city government:

    State-sponsored hackers believed to be from Russia have breached the city network of Austin, Texas, The Intercept has learned. The breach, which appears to date from at least mid-October, adds to the stunning array of intrusions attributed to Russia over the past few months.

    The list of reported victims includes the departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, State, and the Treasury; the Pentagon; cybersecurity firm FireEye; IT software company SolarWinds; and assorted airports and local government networks across the United States, among others. The breach in Austin is another apparent victory for Russia’s hackers. By compromising the network of America’s 11th-most populous city, they could theoretically access sensitive information on policing, city governance, and elections, and, with additional effort, burrow inside water, energy, and airport networks. The hacking outfit believed to be behind the Austin breach, Berserk Bear, also appears to have used Austin’s network as infrastructure to stage additional attacks.

    While the attacks on SolarWinds, FireEye, and U.S. government agencies have been linked to a second Russian group — APT29, also known as Cozy Bear — the Austin breach represents another battlefront in a high-stakes cyber standoff between the United States and Russia. Both Berserk Bear and Cozy Bear are known for quietly lurking in networks, often for months, while they spy on their targets. Berserk Bear — which is also known as Energetic Bear, Dragonfly, TEMP.Isotope, Crouching Yeti, and BROMINE, among other names — is believed to be responsible for a series of breaches of critical U.S. infrastructure over the past year.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • “Illegal-immigrant caravans back on the way — and Joe Biden ‘invited’ them.” (Hat tip: TPPF.)
  • Alexandria Ocasio Cortez calls for Nancy Pelosi’s ouster as Speaker of the House.

    Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) called for new leadership to replace House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), in an interview with The Intercept aired on Wednesday.

    The remarks represent Ocasio-Cortez’s most direct challenge to current Democratic congressional leadership, and come a month after Michigan representative Elissa Slotkin vowed not to support Pelosi for another term as House Speaker. Pelosi is the only candidate for the position, but with Democrats projected to win at most 226 House seats, Pelosi can only lose eight Democratic votes to remain Speaker.

    I wonder: If enough of the hard left defects to keep Pelosi from one more term as speaker, might there be enough Democrats to vote for a moderate Republican as Speaker rather than being ruled by The Squad?

  • Another Obama-era crony green energy boondoggle goes bust:

    Move over, Solyndra. Another green boondoggle from the Obama era has failed, and taxpayers are out as much as $510 million. Late last week Judge Karen Owens approved a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization by Tonopah Solar Energy. Tonopah operated the Crescent Dunes solar plant in Nevada that received $737 million in guaranteed loans from the Obama Administration.

    The plan includes a settlement with the Department of Energy that leaves taxpayers liable for as much as $234.68 million in outstanding debt, but the total public cost is even higher. Crescent Dunes also received an investment-tax credit, and the 2009 stimulus legislation allowed it to receive a cash payment in lieu of credit. In 2017 the plant received more than $275.6 million from Treasury under the Section 1603 program, which it used to service its outstanding liabilities. So taxpayers already gave Crescent Dunes cash to pay off its taxpayer-backed loans.

    Snip.

    DOE expected Crescent Dunes to produce up to 482,000 megawatt hours every year, but the plant hasn’t produced that much energy in its lifetime. In 2019 Crescent Dunes’s hot salt tanks suffered what partial owner SolarReserve described as “a catastrophic failure” that has left the plant inoperable.

    Since molten salt is one of the key elements in many next generation nuclear plant designs, I searched online for pictures of what a catastrophic hot salt tank failure looks like, but I couldn’t find any.

  • Portland keeps letting Antifa run wild:

    Last week, Portland law ­enforcers raided a house that had for months been ­illegally occupied by trespassers affiliated with Black Lives Matter and Antifa. At the barricaded property, officers made arrests and found a stockpile of firearms.

    Under normal circumstances, the armed trespassers would be prosecuted, and that would be the end of the story. But in riot-plagued Portland, Oregon, things are very far from normal.

    The city’s “progressive” district attorney immediately dropped the charges against the occupiers, and their comrades soon sent in reinforcements to build a sprawling autonomous zone in the middle of a densely populated residential area.

    The militants called the place the Red House Autonomous Zone — named after the red-painted house occupied at the heart of the zone. In doing so, they took inspiration from the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle, Washington. During the summer, leftist extremists chased police out of a six-block area of the Emerald City and drew their own “borders,” complete with checkpoints manned by armed “security.” The three-week ­experiment in lawlessness ended in mass vandalism, ­attempted rape, multiple shootings and two homicides.

    Portland’s RHAZ is following in the same footsteps.

    The house at the center of the autonomous zone was occupied by members of the Kinney family and their allies. The Kinneys, who haven’t paid their mortgage since 2017, were evicted after a tortuous legal process. The fact that they own a second house nearby didn’t prevent the mixed-race Kinneys and their allies from claiming victimization by — you guessed it — “racism.”

    Soon after last week’s raid on the occupied house, some 100 Antifa comrades mobilized through social media to retake the space. “There is an active call for numbers, defensive gear and supplies and change of clothes,” tweeted Antifa group Youth Liberation Front.

    Within a few hours, the entire street was blocked off with stolen fencing, wood and junk taken from nearby homes. Some brought in power tools to reinforce the barriers. The militants laid out piles of rocks, metal spikes and glass bottles at strategic points to act as supply points for projectile weapons. They lined the road with impromptu “booby traps” — upward-facing nail strips, caltrops and more.

    Portland police officers tried to shut down the RHAZ early on, but they were attacked and chased away. Their police cruisers were smashed up; they didn’t return.

    “Those present at the barricades should leave it behind, put down your weapons and allow the neighborhood to return to peace and order,” Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell asked the militants, who ignored his polite request.

    Portland residents should file federal civil rights lawsuits against Portland officials for equal protection violations. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Plus Portland antifa are still the same scumbags:

    A serial sex offender and Black Lives Matter activist recently released from prison served a titular leadership role at the Antifa autonomous zone in north Portland.

    Micah Isaiah Rhodes, 27, was convicted of three counts of second-degree sexual abuse of minors in 2018. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after violating probation by being near children during an Antifa occupation of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • “Former [Andrew] Cuomo Aide Lindsey Boylan Alleges Governor Sexually Harassed Her For Years.” Hey, what do you want to bet that #BelieveAllWomen magically doesn’t apply to powerful Democrat yet again? For Reasons.
  • Rhode Island’s Democratic governor Gina Raimondo: “Don’t go out and wear a mask.” Four days later: Goes to a wine bar, doesn’t wear a mask. Laws are for the peasants, not the Democratic Party ruling class. (Hat tip: Andrew Malcolm.)
  • Dem. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard commits heresy against radical transgenderism, sponsers bill that would ban men from women’s sports.
  • Get woke, go broke. “Dismal NFL Ratings Force Networks To Renegotiate With Advertisers.”
  • Things look bad for movie theaters.
  • “Leader Of German Audit Watchdog Caught Trading In Wirecard Shares Before Collapse.”
  • If the MSM didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all:

  • Camille Paglia unloads on academic leftism:

  • Over at Borepatch, there’s a swell story about Air Force Brigadier General James Maitland Stewart.
  • Eating chili peppers can extend your life. I’m going to live forever…
  • Cyberpunk 2077 sucked so bad on PS4 that Sony pulled it from the store and is offering refunds.
  • Zodiac killer cipher broken. Also consider this a reminder that Zodiac is one f David Fincher’s best films.
  • Speaking of great films: Ann Reinking, RIP. She was awesome in All That Jazz, one of the all-time great American movies.
  • Welcome BadBlue (by the same folks behind Director Blue) to the blogroll.
  • A first edition of The Federalist Papers sold at auction for $226,800.
  • The Flu would like a word:

  • Funny dog video:

  • “Chinese Spy Assigned To Date Eric Swalwell Begs To Be Sent To Labor Camp Instead.”
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    LinkSwarm for December 11, 2020

    Friday, December 11th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Democrats dance to China’s tune, the media suddenly discover that Hunter Biden is covered in a thick coat of industrial-grade sleaze, California continues to destroy its economy, and Elon Musk moves to Texas.

  • Kurt Schlichter: The Democrats are literally in bed with the Chinese.

    The most shocking thing about the recent news story that flatulent Russiagate hoaxer and American-nuking enthusiast Rep. Eric Swalwell was caught intertwined with a Chinese honey pot is…well, actually nothing about it is shocking. This is totally on-brand for the Dems and especially this particular clown. It’s not clear how far he got with this Democrat-diddling doxie, but the best case for Swalwell is that he was a fool who couldn’t see how unlikely it was for a DC 8 (and real world 5) to want anything to do with him other than as a mark. The worst case is that he eagerly betrayed his country for a roll in the rice with this Beijing bimbo.

    Either way, he’s a disgrace.

    But this singularly unaccomplished punch-line, this aspiring Beto without the hype or substance (Swalwell’s status as a furry is unknown, but I have my suspicions), is all too representative of his garbage party. The fact is that Red China is delighted by the opportunity to get back to business as usual with a Democrat administration – and in the case of a potential President Biden*, that’s literally business as usual. The garbage media didn’t think his crack-huffing, loser spawn being owned by Chinese intel –you think they don’t have tape of him living out his X-rated video of David Bowie’s 80s hit?– was significant enough to tell us about. But then, like the rest of the establishment, the media’s corporate owners are all wrapped up with the Chi-Coms. When’s the last time you saw Hollywood take a stand against the Chinese commies? That would be about the last time you saw Richard Gere on the big screen, since his career died when he did a movie pointing out their oppression of Tibet. Go look on Netflix or wherever – there’s plenty of stupid woke trash about how America sucks, but nobody talks about the big Red Panda in the room. The corporations know who their real boss is.

    And, as Tucker pointed out in a great monologue, the Establishment is all-in on catering to the commies. It is bought and paid for, owned and happy, and dedicated to selling you out. And a President Biden*, in the event he is inaugurated, will happily continue the fire sale of American physical, intellectual, and moral assets to the reds.

  • “If Voters Had Known About 8 Stories Media Ignored, Trump Would Have Won.” Well, that’s why they ignored them…
  • Speaking of which, our media elites have suddenly discovered that the Hunter Biden corruption story was true. Of course they knew it was true all along, they just suppressed it until they could drag Joe Biden’s ambulatory corpse over the finish line. (And if you somehow missed the Hunter Biden story, here’s the archive.)
  • More on the same theme.
  • Illegal alien charged in Houston human trafficking case.
  • Lockdowns don’t work:

  • More on that subject:

  • Judge rules Los Angeles County acted arbitrarily with an outdoor dining ban. “By failing to weigh the benefits of an outdoor dining restriction against its costs, the county acted arbitrarily and its decision lacks a rational relationship to a legitimate end,” Superior Court Judge James Chalfant wrote in a tentative ruling.”
  • San Francisco residents really hate that golden goose:

    When Chirag Bhakta saw a headline recently that said tech workers were fleeing San Francisco, he had a quick reaction: “Good riddance.”

    Bhakta, a San Francisco native and tenant organizer for affordable housing nonprofit Mission Housing, is well-versed in the seismic impact that the growth of the tech industry has had on the city. As software companies expanded over the past decade, they drew thousands of well-off newcomers who bid up rents and remade the city’s economy and culture.

    He said the sudden departure of many tech workers and executives — often to less expensive, rural areas where they can telecommute during the coronavirus pandemic — reveals that their relationship with San Francisco was “transactional” all along.

    “They used their capital to radically shift the makeup of poor, working-class communities,” Bhakta said. “We’re left with ‘for sale’ signs and price points that are still out of reach for most people.”

    Many urban centers have seen residents move out in large numbers since the start of stay-at-home orders in March, but the shift has been especially dramatic for San Francisco, a city that was already experiencing rapid change because of the tech industry.

    Software engineers, CEOs and venture capitalists have chosen to jump from the Bay Area to places such as Denver, Miami and Austin, Texas, citing housing costs, California’s relatively high income tax and the Bay Area’s general resistance to rapid growth and change.

  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk has moved to Texas. “‘It’s worth noting that Tesla is the last car company still manufacturing cars in California,’ Musk said. ‘There used to be over a dozen car plants in California, and California used to be the center of aerospace manufacturing. My companies are the last two left.'”
  • “Immediately After Moving To Texas, Elon Musk Announces Tesla AR-15.

    The new firearm will look similar to a standard AR-15 but will in fact be a battery-powered railgun capable of firing 3 million rounds per minute. It will also feature a fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth capability, heat-seeking ammunition, and a chainsaw bayonet, to name a few.

    At 3 million rounds a minute, trips to the shooting range would get very expensive…

  • Black Republican congressmen elect Burgess Owens of Utah and Byron Donalds of Florida look to oppose socialism. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • 21st century money laundering:

    Virtually unheard of a decade ago, these Chinese players are moving vast sums quickly and quietly, authorities said. Their expertise: routing cartel drug profits from the United States to China then on to Mexico with a few clicks of a burner phone and Chinese banking apps – and without the bulky cash ever crossing borders. The launderers pay small Chinese-owned businesses in the United States and Mexico to help them move the funds. Most contact with the banking system happens in China, a veritable black hole for U.S. and Mexican authorities.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson tries yet again to get Texas to legalize casino gambling. “Adelson’s noteworthy lobbyist crew includes current and former high-ranking government officials, including former chiefs of staff to disgraced Speakers of the Texas House Joe Straus and Dennis Bonnen.” Of course.
    

  • OhNoNotThisShitAgain.jpg:

  • Iran’s Quds Force is sending weapons and troops to Venezuela.
  • Frederick Forsyth says that the reason the Brexit deal was scuttled at the last minute is that the EU was doing France’s bidding.

    After years covering France in Paris for the Reuters agency, and bilingual in French, I have a pretty good idea how the French system works. Basically, whoever appears to rule on the basis of elections, it is the graduates of the ENA who are really in charge. So what is it, this ultra-college?

    Founded under De Gaulle, it is a college designed to produce the true ruling class of the country, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration or ENA and its graduates are the ENArques. More than all our public schools and Oxbridge put together, the ENA is accessible only by the brightest and the best to start with.

    After three years there the graduates are the elite of the elite. They move seamlessly from industry to commerce to banking to civil service to politics, and always in the top slots. They do not oppose each other. President Macron and Michel Barnier are both ENArques.

    As in all politics, election-winning is the key and in elections there are powerful voting blocs which must not be affronted. In France the biggest is the agricultural vote. Hence the EU’s incredibly expensive and burdensome Common Agricultural Policy, a money tree paid for by others, to subsidise France’s mediaeval and uncompetitive farming sector and its attendant sub-professions. Offend them and you lose the election.

    Not far behind comes the fishing industry. Emmanuel Macron is facing an election. That is why last week at the very threshold of an agreement with the UK, Michel Barnier got new orders from Paris. No, you have conceded too much to the Anglo Saxons – we want all the fish and free access to all the waters.

    It is easy to blame Barnier but he had his orders. That is why a German, Dane or Dutchman would have been better as the EU team leader. Germany, Denmark and Holland fish those waters but their politicians do not lose elections because of their fishing industries and they are not run by an ENA.

    In other news, Frederick Forsyth is still alive. (Hat tip: @davidjacksmith.)

  • Feds sue to break up Facebook.
  • Speaking of which: “Facebook’s Fact-Checker ‘Lead Stories’ is Staffed by Exclusively Democrat Party Donors, CNN Staffers, And ‘Defeat Trump’ Activists.”
  • Grant Baker at American Thinker has an interesting (and infuriating) three-part series on Democratic Party megadoner and accused serial killer Ed Buck, the man whose fetish seems to be overdosing gay black teenagers with drugs. Part 2 is here, and Part 3 talks about some of his rich and powerful political supporters:

    What could have bought Ed Buck so many layers of protection?

    West Hollywood politics has a glimmering rainbow surface, but the authentic underlying powers are real estate interests. The City Council controls the fate of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development projects, a fact reflected in their campaign contributions. “Developers don’t drop tens of thousands of dollars in West Hollywood because they like the City’s position on gay marriage, says former West Hollywood Mayor Steve Martin.

    With a huge war chest supporting them, a small handful of politicians reduced the government of West Hollywood to a game of musical chairs. John Duran, John D`Amico, John Heilman, Jeffrey Prang, and Abbe Land would bounce back and forth between the Mayor’s Office and City Council for decades, winning eighteen out of the last twenty-one mayoral elections between them.

    Ed Buck played a variety of supporting roles in the political machinery, buoying the chosen few.

    D’Amico’s political career was launched on the back of Buck’s support, winning a seat on City Council after marching through West Hollywood with Buck promoting his “Fur Free WeHo” campaign. Buck’s donations and connections to other major donors, including billionaire Gary Michelson, brought tens of thousands of dollars to Buck’s friends on City Council through multiple entities sharing the name ANIMAL PAC.

    Buck’s money also bought him a position on the Steering Committee of the Stonewall Democratic Club, the kingmaker of West Hollywood politics. Buck used his position on the Steering Committee to influence Stonewall’s secretive endorsement process, one “designed to protect incumbents and well-financed, well-connected candidates,” says a former Steering Committee member. Stonewall rank and file must have wondered why the LGBTQ group was promoting candidates for County Tax Assessor and Board of Equalization. Buck was so useful, Abbe Land would open City Council meetings by calling him to recite the pledge of allegiance.

    Officially retired since his early thirties, Buck would not have had the money to sustain his prolific spending habits relating to drugs, escorts, and politics. His biggest payday was in the 1980s when he flipped his friend’s business, Gopher Courier, to profit just over a million dollars, after which he lost money investing into pay-phones and a restaurant.

    After moving to West Hollywood, Buck was suspiciously cash-rich and asset poor, driving a wreck of a car and living in a rent-controlled apartment. Journalists paint Buck as a wealthy social climber, but his finances and lifestyle suggest he was a dirty political operative.

    Data from California’s political contribution records is highly truncated, but campaign finance rules create patterns that highlight alliances.

    One can skirt contribution limits and obscure contribution origins by breaking up large donations into smaller payments and passing them through family members and political allies, so I looked for donors that matched Buck’s donations.

    He donated varying amounts to plenty of politicians and causes, but there were consistent primary beneficiaries such as Jeffrey Prang, John Duran, Scott Svonkin, Honesty PAC, and of course, his ANIMAL PACs. The highly incestuous top donors who also supported Prang, Duran, Svonkin, and Buck’s PACs were real estate interests, chief among them being Excel Property Management Services managed by CEO Arman Gabay. Arman Gabay and his company funded Jeffrey Prang’s successful 2014 Los Angeles County Assessor bid with the help of Ed Buck, Ed Buck’s future attorney Seymour Amster, ANIMAL PAC, John Duran, West Hollywood activists, and various real estate interests. The same donors also funded periphery candidates who endorsed Prang and Svonkin.

    As County Assessor, Jeffrey Prang controls property taxes on $1.7 trillion worth of property, explaining why his donors are real estate interests. The Tax Assessor is a notoriously corrupt office, both in Los Angeles and across the country. Jeffrey Prang’s predecessor was arrested by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office on bribery charges after selling tax breaks. Eighteen Tax Assessors in New York City were arrested on bribery charges after real estate developer Donald Trump realized he was paying more in taxes than his competitors.

    This is where Scott Svonkin’s role comes in. Funded by Ed Buck, Buck’s attorney Seymour Amster, and a small handful of real estate interests after Gemmel Moore’s death in Buck’s apartment, Honesty PAC was created solely to fund Scott Svonkin’s 2018 for Board of Equalization, an oversight position overseeing the County Tax Assessor Jeffrey Prang. The kicker: Scott Svonkin was an aide to Jeffrey Prang while he served on West Hollywood City Council.

    Scott Svonkin’s 2018 bid was unsuccessful, but the setback did not deter Jeffrey Prang. Whistleblowers filed suit against Prang for giving favorable tax treatment to West Hollywood real estate interests by intentionally losing legal cases, reversing property tax decisions, and reimbursing millions of dollars in back taxes for favored companies and individuals. Worse, Arman Gabay was arrested in May 2018 for allegedly soliciting preferable tax treatment from County Officials, soliciting public funds for his development projects, trading political donations in exchange for help on West Hollywood development projects, and other crimes involving political patronage. From a January 2020 prosecutor’s motion: “in another phone call agents intercepted on or about April 22, 2017, defendant made clear why he donates to public officials — he expects things in return.” When asked to contribute to reelect “Public Official 5,” he refused “because the last time he donated, defendant did not get anything from Public Official 5. Referring to Public Official 5, defendant said “f[*]ck him.”

    If Arman Gabay had helpful public officials on his payroll, he and others likely had Ed Buck on it, too, which would explain Buck’s mysterious revenue stream. Buck’s choice of Christopher Darden as his defense attorney shows he still has plenty of cash to play with and that investigators aren’t chasing down where it comes from. Prosecutors seem to know Buck’s income is off the books; they requested an order from the court to ensure “no portion of the proffered bail was feloniously obtained.” Even from jail, Buck still has cards to play, especially if his corruption touches politicians or some in the district attorney’s office.

  • Israel and Morocco strike normalize relations. Nothing to see here, just that idiot Trump helping facilitate another peace deal between Israel and the Muslim world…
  • “Goya CEO names AOC as employee of the month after her boycott call sends sales soaring.”
  • Oopsie!
  • J.C. Penny’s is back from corporate bankruptcy. Sort of. Kind of.
  • Snapshots of the continuing decline of Austin:

  • Austin decommissions shitty art. Of the “artworks,” two are garbage, one is already gone, one is so badly decayed it has to be torn down, and one is literally a circle of rocks. It’s fine as rock circles go, but a yard guy could probably put one together for you for less than 20 bucks.
  • Chuck Yeager, RIP.
  • Rehab for Vice bloggers:

  • Bob Dylan sells out.
  • All your Spidermen are belong to us.
  • “Hallmark Channel Announces 19 New Coronavirus-Themed Movies.”
  • LinkSwarm for December 4, 2020

    Friday, December 4th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! First up: The rest of the nation gets to see what an incompetent hypocrite Austin’s current mayor is:

  • Austin Mayor Steve Adler is the latest powerful democrat to prove they’re a complete hypocrite:

    In a November 9 Facebook video, Austin mayor Steve Adler advised the public to “stay at home” but failed to disclose he was broadcasting from a timeshare in Cabo San Lucas. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. But wait! It gets better (worse?)!

    Adler and 8 family members took a private jet to his Mexican getaway. All of this was the day after Adler reportedly hosted a small wedding for his daughter at a hotel in Austin.

    Is there a “consult with health authorities prior and undergo COVID-19 testing” exception to the lockdown rules? Of course not! Laws are for the little people…

  • Democrats finally dissect their horrible down-ballot performance.

    The complete absence of Joe Biden’s coattails is forcing the usually delusional Democrats to get perilously close to the truth during this self-examination. Whether the activists speaking the truth will be listened to by the Elders of the Village in the Democratic Party remains to be seen. It should also be noted that those elders are very elderly and may not be amenable to alterations in a narrative they’ve been crafting regarding themselves for decades.

    Some more hard truth:

    Some worry that the party, once rooted in the working class but now run and funded largely by college-educated liberals, may be losing its touch with blue-collar voters of all races outside major metro areas.

    “We’re such a Beltway party that we can’t even fathom that there are a lot of Mexicans in the [Rio Grande] Valley who love Donald Trump,” said Chuck Rocha, a Texas-raised Democratic strategist who runs Nuestro PAC, a super PAC focused on Latino outreach. “Biden won, and that’s great, but everything underneath Biden was a huge catastrophe.”

    The Democratic Party has been gleefully refashioning itself as a coastal elite party for quite a while now. They traded blue-collar workers in the heartland for celebrities. Who needs to worry about jobs in Ohio when you’re partying with Beyoncé, right?

    They didn’t get anything about why Donald Trump won in 2016, then they spent four years making up lies about why it happened because those lies allowed them to remain in their coastal bubbles and not get any hard glimpses at reality.

    Their sense of entitlement from 2016 never went away, and they think that they’ve been somewhat vindicated by the apparent Biden victory. That victory is illusory, however. It took four years of the mainstream media being more corrupt than ever before combined with an election year global pandemic and a healthy dose of voter…irregularities to bring about this result. It really didn’t have anything to do with the Democrats and their ideas being wildly popular.

    Because they aren’t.

    Democrats are so blinded by their hatred for President Trump that they are unlikely to learn anything from this election.

  • Suggesting Republicans not vote in Georgia’s senate runoff is sheer idiocy. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of the Georgia senate runoffs, “Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock has a history of anti-gun activism dating back to at least 2013.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Liberal idiots in Minneapolis keep making the same mistakes over and over again. “In case you didn’t do the math, that’s a 63% increase in the number of homicides, compared to 2019, and the year is not over yet. Just a few more holistic victims of community-based murders”
  • Valery Giscard d’Estaing, France’s president from 1974 to 1981, dead at age 94. He was a French conservative, which meant he was significantly to the left of Walter Mondale. He wasn’t the worst leader in France’s history, but was a big fan of a centralized EU, having helped craft a (rejected) constitution for it in 2004.
  • “Previously Deported Illegal Alien Sex Offender Arrested At Texas Border.”
  • Texas gun sales continue to soar.
  • Tesla gigafactory near Austin raises first pillar.
  • Spanish bank Banco Sabadell’s acquisition of UK’s TSB goes horribly wrong thanks to amazing IT stupidity:

    Experts at the time warned that Sabadell was significantly overpaying for TSB while underestimating the potential costs of integrating the new business into its existing IT platform. But Sabadell ignored the warnings and went ahead with the operation, believing that it would serve as a catapult onto the international scene as well as cement its place as a pioneer in Internet banking. In both cases, the exact opposite happened.

    Branded the “biggest IT disaster in British banking history,” the botched IT upgrade led to hundreds of thousands of customers being unable to access their online accounts for weeks on end. Standing orders, payrolls, mortgage instalments and other payments and transfers failed. Thousands of customers fell victim to fraud attacks. Even when the bank tried to apologize, it sent apologies out to the wrong people, in the process breaking the EU’s new data protection laws.

    At the root of all this chaos was Sabadell’s stubborn determination to get the new IT system up and running as swiftly as possible, in order to save millions of euros in monthly fees it was having to pay to TSB’s former parent company, Lloyds Bank plc, to use its old legacy IT system. Sabadell’s Proteo4UK system was not even close to being ready to roll out at TSB, as IBM consultants brought in to try to remedy the problems have since attested. But senior management went ahead anyway, adopting, as one insider put it, a hope-and-pray attitude.

    That “move fast and break things” paradigm might work fine if you’re a free social media startup, but not if you’re a bank and your buggy, incomplete code handles people’s money.

  • “Democratic mayor arrested after allegedly driving drunk and falling asleep in White Castle drive-thru before crashing into pole.” That would be Shively, Kentucky Mayor Beverly Chester-Burton.
  • #BlackLivesMatter rioter charged with murder.
  • Judge puts temporary halt to Carroll ISD social justice warrior Cultural Competence Action Plan (CCAP).
  • Thomas Sowell remembers Walter E. Williams. “He was my best friend for half a century. There was no one I trusted more or whose integrity I respected more.”
  • Arecibo, when the cables fell.
  • This sounds cool:

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Warner Brothers might have sounded the death knell for movie theaters, plans to release entire 2021 movie lineup on simultaneously on HBO Max.
  • Adolf Hitler wins election in Namibia.
  • Chihuahua bites bear.
  • I laughed:

  • “Gretchen Whitmer Casts Spell On Michigan So It Is Always Winter And Never Christmas.”
  • “Texas Passes Law Banning Californians From Voting After They Move There.”
  • LinkSwarm for November 27, 2020

    Thursday, November 26th, 2020

    This Black Friday LinkSwarm is coming to you absolutely free!

  • President Donald Trump pardons former National Security advisor Michael Flynn. Good. He was railroaded and then held prisoner by a rogue judge long after the Department of Justice ordered him released.
  • The thing that really bothers the establishment about Trump is all his supporters they prefer to pretend don’t exist:

    Election Day definitively confirmed the existence of hidden Trump voters. Undetected by polls and long denied by the establishment media, Trump’s surprising surge had to come from somewhere. Either these supporters were hiding from pollsters or pollsters were hiding them. Regardless, their existence raises disturbing questions about the role played by the establishment media and pollsters in influencing this election.

    Election Day provided the startling revelation that a contest that supposedly had been over for months, actually would not be decided for days, and perhaps longer. In reality, the “blowout” proved a nail-biter. More unsettling is the fact that the race probably had been this close all along and that the false impression likely influenced the outcome.

    As recently as October 12 the RealClearPolitics average of national polling had Biden at 52.3 percent and Trump at 41.7 percent. The average on Election Day was 51.2 percent to 44 percent. As of November 18, the actual popular vote figures are Biden at 51 percent and Trump at 47.2 percent.

    From his October 12 level, Trump’s support increased over 13 percent. How could an error of such magnitude occur? Clearly a lot of hidden Trump voters came from somewhere. The question is whether they were hiding or were hidden.

    Whether this was a sin of omission or one of commission has enormous implications for America’s elections. After years’ worth of concern about whether there had been Russian interference in our elections, it bears considering whether America has just fallen victim to internal tampering to a far greater degree.

    The establishment media’s preferred answer to how the polls failed to detect millions of Trump voters is that the error was stupid, not sinister. “Whoops, we just missed them” — despite this being pollsters’ business, their assurance that they had “fixed” their polls’ problems from 2016, and the mistake being of incredible size. As results show, 2020’s error is greater than 2016’s.

    The establishment media has readily blamed the pollsters, essentially exonerating itself by saying that it was just reporting what it was told. Yet neglected is the fact that the polls’ results were confirming the establishment media’s own bias. This bias has been repeatedly cited for decades and has never been clearer than over the last four years. As testament to the miraculous coincidence of pro-Biden polls and establishment media’s pro-Biden bias, consider the reverse: Would the establishment media have so readily regurgitated polling data showing the race as close as it turned out to be?

  • An obituary for the Trump-era press:

    We say goodbye, then, to journalists elevating as worthy of public notice obvious liars and lunatics, including convicted felon Michael Avenatti, gossip columnist Michael Wolff, mental health quack Bandy Lee, and conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch — all because they oppose the administration.

    Goodbye to weekly “bombshells” that land with a “splat!” instead of a “boom!”

    Goodbye to near-daily input from presidential historians turned political assassins.

    Goodbye to members of the press acting as if the cover artwork of the latest edition of a prestige news magazine is in some way provocative, stunning, or even particularly interesting.

    Goodbye to White House correspondents pretending as if they are reporting from an active war zone or claiming they feel safer covering authoritarian regimes.

    Goodbye to the Holocaust being invoked against the administration on a near-daily basis.

    Etc. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • If Biden makes it to the White House, get ready for more green crony graft. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Governor Abbott sends the Texas Rangers to Dallas.

    Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the Texas Rangers and other officials to help the City of Dallas respond to a spike in murders and other violent crimes that has gripped the city.

    Abbott directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to send help to the Dallas Police Department (DPD) which will include special agents, state troopers, two helicopters, and two patrol planes.

    “The rise in violent crime in the City of Dallas is unacceptable, and the Texas Department of Public Safety will assist the Dallas Police Department in their efforts to protect the community and reduce this surge in crime.”

  • Fifth circuit to judge to Planned Parenthood: No, you don’t have a right to Texas taxpayer money. Not yours.
  • “Six MS-13 Gang Members Indicted in Houston for Murder Could Face Death Penalty.” Good.
  • Why does the media keep trying to make a saint of commie Angela Davis?
  • Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell fined $1,000 for violating his own stay at home order to visit his grandson’s birthday party. Not quite a lobbyist-funded trip to The French Laundry, but still not a good look…
  • Austin leftwing journalists go after (checks notes) moms and sex trafficking victims for daring to oppose police budget cuts. Next up: The cishetronormative oppression of apple pie.
  • What real hope and change looks like in the Middle East:

  • More on the same theme:

  • Social Justice Warriors have to get rid of meritocracy because it doesn’t let them discriminate against Asians.
  • How Erdogan’s Turkey destroyed the value of the Lira.
  • “Google, Facebook and Twitter threaten to leave Pakistan over crackdown on speech offensive to Islam.”
  • The modern welfare state in action: “Dutch Doctors Can Now Drug Dementia Patients Before Killing Them to Prevent Resistance.”
  • “Walmart-exclusive router and others sold on Amazon & eBay contain hidden backdoors to control devices.”
  • Over at Penguin books, the inmates are trying to run the asylum with staffers in “revolt” over publishing Jordan Peterson’s new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
  • Fleas from rescued squirrels bit Johnny Rotten’s sex pistol. (Hat tip: Daddy Warpig.)
  • Florida man who wrestled puppy from an alligator speaks.

  • Dancing Weasel.
  • Like a boss:

  • Most Shocking fodder.
  • I don’t know how I missed this rare actually funny Funny or Die bit when it came out in 2013. “Try parodying one of my songs now, you stupid bastard!”
  • “State Governor Frees All Drug Dealers To Provide Prison Space For Families Celebrating Thanksgiving.”
  • “Never Trumpers To Be Granted Special VIP Section Of Gulags When Dems Take Over.”
  • “Just Hours After Being Placed In Cuomo’s Possession, Emmy Statue Dies Of COVID.”
  • “Joseph Stalin To Receive International Emmy For His Outstanding Hunger Relief Efforts.”
  • Not news: Dog reunited with owner thanks to microchip. News: After seven years.
  • Nice one, Muttly:

  • LinkSwarm for November 20, 2020

    Friday, November 20th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Coronavirus is up around the world again, Democrats keep behaving badly (talk about your evergreen themes), some fun dog links, and it’s time to celebrate Life Day again!

  • Good news, everyone! No more lockdowns in Texas! It took him long enough, but Governor Greg Abbott realizes what Democratic governors haven’t: all the Wuhan coronavirus infection curves seem the same, lockdowns don’t seem to work, masks don’t seem to work, the survival rate for the non-elderly, non-immune-compromised is well over 99%.
  • Speaking of which: Sweden, after having seemed to beat the bug through a strategy of herd immunity, now sees cases rising.
  • Indeed, all of Europe seems to be getting hit again. Nobody knows nuthin.
  • For liberals who still can’t understand President Trump’s appeal: “US Household Incomes Increased More in 2018 Than in the Previous 20 Years—Combined.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Hundreds of Companies That Got Stimulus Aid Have Failed.” Government can’t pick winners, but it can sure create losers. (Hat tip: Holly Hansen.)
  • Defunding the police and the damage done. “Homicides in Minneapolis are up 50 percent.”
  • Andy Ngo on all the politicians who have turned Portland into a shithole:

    This week brought news that Portland City Commissioner (as councilmembers are known) Jo Ann Hardesty called the cops over an argument with a Lyft driver days before the city council was scheduled to vote on her proposal to slash millions from the police budget.

    The hypocrisy is glaring, but the bigger lesson is about the damage an activist political class can do to cities all over America if they follow in Portland’s foolish footsteps.

    Hardesty has been a vocal advocate of Black Lives Matter and defunding the ­police. During a ride home, she allegedly belittled and berated her driver over a partially open window, a COVID-19 recommendation from the ride-sharing service itself. After the driver had enough of the abuse and canceled the ride, Hardesty refused to get out and called 911.

    Portland politics have become the subject of national scrutiny by both the media and President Trump following more than 120 days of riots this year. While much attention has ­focused on the city’s feckless mayor, Ted Wheeler, others on the council have equally enabled a rapid descent into disorder.

    Since Hardesty was elected to the council in 2018, her staunch hostility to police has earned her the approval of Black Lives Matter and ­antifa activists in Portland. Ordinary Portlanders have paid the price for that approval.

    Days after her abuse of emergency services, the council took up Hardesy’s proposal to slash $18 million from the police budget. Already in June, she had spearheaded a successful effort to cut $15 million. Her newest proposal narrowly failed, however. Dan Ryan, the commissioner who was the swing vote, had his home vandalized that night by a mob of antifa militants.

    Portlanders have suffered immensely this year from the grandstanding of left-wing politicians who run the city. Mayor Wheeler oversaw six months of anti-police riots that have turned downtown into an empty shell of itself. When the federal government sent in reinforcements in July to protect a federal courthouse under siege, the city council passed a resolution banning Portland Police from communicating with federal agencies.
    see also

    Hardesty’s initial police-defunding package has had deadly consequences. As part of the cuts, police units that investigate gun ­violence, work in schools and patrol the transit system were disbanded. The result? In just the first month, shootings increased by almost 200 percent compared to the previous year. In the months since, homicides and shootings have continued to soar.

  • Ding-dong, the witch is… still Speaker of the House. I foresee two more years of robust NRCC fundraising.
  • “Biden to Continue Obama Tradition of Packing White House with Corporate Lobbyists:

    With Joe Biden poised to take office in 2021, reports suggest he plans to follow in Obama’s footsteps by hiring a bunch of corporate lobbyists in senior roles.

    At least two former lobbyists who will assume top roles in the Biden administration previously served on Biden’s staff during the Obama administration. Steve Ricchetti, who served as then-Vice President Biden’s chief of staff, will join the White House as counselor to the president. Ricchetti founded his own lobbying firm in 2001 and worked on behalf of corporate clients such as AT&T, Eli Lily, and the American Bankers Association.

    Ron Klain, who also served as then-Vice President Biden’s chief of staff, will take on the role of White House chief of staff in the Biden administration. Klain is a veteran of the K Street lobbying firm O’Melveny & Myers. His clients included U.S. Airways, AOL Time Warner, and ImClone, a pharmaceutical company whose CEO was convicted for fraud. Klain also lobbied on behalf of mortgage giant Fannie Mae in an effort to fight off stricter oversight from Congress.

    Rep. Cedric Richmond (D., La.) will also join the Biden administration in a senior advisory role. The move was blasted by environmental groups that pointed out Richmond’s close ties to Big Oil. During his 10 years in Congress, for example, Richmond received more than $340,000 in donations from the oil and gas industry and frequently joined Republicans in voting against legislation opposed by the industry.

    Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, will join the incoming administration as a deputy chief of staff. She is a cofounder of Precision Strategies, an “integrated strategy and marketing agency” that was recently hired by the American Investment Council, a lobbying group for private equity firms.

    If the election fraud isn’t overturned…

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Just because California’s peasants are locked down due to the cornavirus and can’t have Thanksgiving with the family doesn’t mean that Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom can’t have a maskless dinner with high-rolling lobbyists at swanky restaurant The French Laundry. Rules are for the little people, not for your betters in the ruling class…
  • Speaking of Newsom: Courts don’t seem to agree with his rule by fiat:

    The judge ruled that Newsom violated the state constitution by unilaterally ordering that all registered voters be sent mail-in ballots. More importantly, she found good cause for a permanent injunction restraining Newsom from issuing any further unconstitutional orders that make “new statutory law or legislative policy.”

    The court rejected Newsom’s extraordinary claim that a state of emergency centralizes the state’s powers in the hands of the governor, thus turning California into an autocracy. This is the unlawful basis on which Newsom has collapsed our system of checks and balances, issuing 58 executive orders and changing over 400 laws unilaterally.

    Specifically, the judge rejected Newsom’s argument that Section 8627 of the Emergency Services Act gives him autocratic powers. At least 24 of his executive orders rely on that section.

    As far as the most damaging order, Newsom’s arbitrary and unscientific lockdown scheme, that too is newly vulnerable. The Pacific Legal Foundation’s new lawsuit uses the same separation-of-powers argument our victory established as a successful legal theory.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Speaking of some pigs being more equal than others: “As America locks down, 20 lawmakers from 3 states really just flew to Maui to mingle with a bunch of lobbyists at a posh resort for 4 days.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • So the largest city in the state that voted to removed pedophiles from the sex offender registry is considering eliminating the sex crimes unit due to budget cuts.

    (Hat tip: Ian Miles Chong.)

  • Michigan’s Speaker of the House throws cold water on the idea of impeaching Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
  • Evidently being a horrible anti-Semite means you get suspended from the Labour Party for all of three weeks.
  • Another day, another hate crime hoax. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Cincinnati Democratic city councilman P.G. Sittenfeld indicted on bribery. Bonus: Sittenfeld was the third Cincinnati city council critter indicted this year.
  • Is actor Matthew McConnaughey going to run for governor of Texas? Eh. I like Hugh Hewitt, but the governor suggestion is just sort of tossed out there by him.
  • Another male feminist/anti-#GamerGater turns out to be a creeper. What are the odds?
  • I’m an unabashed partisan, but I’m getting pretty tired of politicians filling up my phone with text messages begging for money. Yeah, the Georgia runoff is important, I get it. But multiple text message begs a day just piss me off.
  • You know what’s worse than getting accidentally ejected from a fighter plane? Getting partially ejected.
  • IThoughtThisWasAmerica.jpg.
  • Heh:

  • “Disney Capitalizes On Success Of Baby Yoda With Baby Jar Jar.” To be fair, Baby Jar Jar is probably more tolerable than the original…
  • Speaking of Star Wars remakes being more tolerable than the original, the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special is now out on Disney+.
  • Speaking of Disney, science fiction author Alan Dean Foster claims Disney is screwing him out of royalties. Not cool, mouse. Not cool.
  • 8-Bit version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” Stumbled on this again after posting it many years ago, and it provides great background music to work by…
  • Man finds shelter for 300 dogs ahead of hurricane. In his own house.

  • High Golden Retriever.
  • Doggy fashion-plate:

  • LinkSwarm for November 6, 2020

    Friday, November 6th, 2020

    All that calm wore off and now I’m just pissed about a variety of things: The stolen election, Amazon being irrational (“No, we can’t split orders just because one item won’t be in stock until February 2021, we don’t have that power. No, there’s nobody you can escalate to.”), and BlueHost refuses to say anything but “You’re not optimized enough” when the blog craters during and Istalanche. And other things I can’t talk about

    So enjoy a (shorter than usual) Friday LinkSwarm dominated by news of Democratic election fraud.

  • Yes, Democrats are trying to steal the election. Mostly what I’ve covered here before.
  • Documented evidence of fraud: “Wagons, Suitcases, and Coolers Roll Into Detroit Voting Center at 4 AM.”
  • “23,277 Ballots ‘Found’ In Pennsylvania, All Mysteriously For Biden.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Brazen:

  • Another lawsuit:

    Pennsylvania’s Democratic election leaders violated state code on Monday when they authorized county election officials to provide information about rejected mail ballots to political party operatives, according to a Republican lawsuit filed in state court and obtained by National Review.

    The lawsuit cites an email sent to county election directors at 8:38 p.m. on Monday by Jonathan Marks, Pennsylvania’s deputy elections secretary.

    In the email, Marks wrote that “county boards of elections should provide information to party and candidate representatives during the pre-canvass that identifies the voters whose ballots have been rejected” so they could be offered a provisional ballot.

    Democrats have been winning mail-in voting handily in Pennsylvania and mail votes are key to Joe Biden’s chances of overtaking President Donald Trump’s dwindling lead in the state.

    Republicans argue the direction from Marks violates the state’s election code, which states “no person observing, attending or participating in a pre-canvass meeting may disclose the results of any portion of any pre-canvass meeting prior to the close of polls.”

  • Larry Correia has thoughts:

    I am more offended by how ham fisted, clumsy, and audacious the fraud to elect him is than the idea of Joe Biden being president. I think Joe Biden is a corrupt idiot, however, I think America would survive him like we’ve survived previous idiot administrations. However, what is potentially fatal for America is half the populace believing that their elections are hopelessly rigged and they’re eternally fucked. And now, however this shakes out in court, that’s exactly what half the country is going to think.

    People are pissed off, and rightfully so.

    Before I became a novelist I was an accountant. In auditing you look for red flags. That’s weird bits in the data that suggest something shifty is going on. You flag those weird things so you can delve into them further. One flag doesn’t necessarily mean there’s fraud. Weird things happen. A few flags mean stupidity or dishonesty. But a giant pile of red flags means that there’s bad shit going on and people should be in jail.

    Except for in politics, where apparently all you have to do to dismiss a bunch of red flag is be a democrat and mumble something about “fascist voter suppression” then you can do all sorts of blatant crime and get off.

    I’ve been trying to keep up with the firehose of information about what’s going on during this clusterfuck of an election. Last night I was on Facebook talking about the crazy high, 3rd world dictatorship level voter turnout levels in the deep blue areas of these swing states was very suspicious. Somebody gas lighted me about how “I’d have to do better than that”, so this was my quick reply, listing off the questionable bullshit I could think of off the top of my head:

    The massive turn out alone is a red flag.

    But as for doing better…

    The late night spikes that were enough to close all the Trump leads are a red flag.

    The statistically impossible breakdown of the ratios of these vote dumps is a red flag.

    The ratios of these dumps being far better than the percentages in the bluest of blue cities, even though the historical data does not match, red flag.

    The ratios of these vote dumps favoring Biden more in these few battlegrounds than the ratio for the rest of the country (even the bluest of the blue) red flag.

    Biden outperforming Obama among these few urban vote dumps, even though Trump picked up points in every demographic group in the rest of the country, red flag.

    The poll observers being removed. Red flag.

    The counters cheering as GOP observers are removed, red flag.

    The fact that the dem observers outnumber the GOP observers 3 to 1, red flag (and basis of the first lawsuit filed)

    The electioneering at the polls (on video), red flag.

    The willful violation of the court order requiring the separation of ballots by type, red flag.

    USPS whistleblower reporting to the Inspector General that today they were ordered to backdate ballots to yesterday, red flag.

    The video of 2 AM deliveries of what appear to be boxes of ballots with no chain of custody or other observers right before the late night miracle spikes, red flag.

    Any of those things would be enough to trigger an audit in the normal world. This many flags and I’d be giggling in anticipation of catching some thieves.

    (Hat tip: Crossover Queen’s Creative Chaos.)

  • “How Senate Republicans averted catastrophe. With a late cash infusion and misses in the polls, the GOP looks likely to hold its majority.” Unfortunately, this was written two days ago, before Democratic Party election fraud manufactured enough votes to steal John James victory in Michigan and force both Georgia senate races into runoffs that Democrats could again try to steal.
  • Pollsters learned nothing from 2016. Or didn’t want to learn anything:

    A CNN poll had Trump down 12 percentage points nationally entering the final week before the election. An ABC News/Washington Post poll in late October claimed Biden was leading in Wisconsin by 17 points. That state’s voting ended up nearly even. YouGov’s election model showed Biden prevailing with a landslide win in the Electoral College. Progressive statistics guru Nate Silver had for weeks issued pseudo-scientific analyses of a Trump wipeout.

    Pollsters were widely wrong in 2016. Yet they learned nothing about their flawed methodologies. So how do they remain credible after 2020, when most were wildly off again?

    A cynic might answer that polling no longer aims to offer scientific assessments of voter intentions.

    Pollsters, the vast majority of them progressives, have become political operatives. They see their task as ginning up political support for their candidates and demoralizing the opposition. Some are profiteering as internal pollsters for political campaigns and special interests.

    Never again will Americans believe these “mainstream” pollsters’ predictions because they have been exposed as rank propagandists.

    That bleak assessment won’t make much difference to pollsters. They privately understand what their real mission has become and why they are no longer scientific prognosticators.

    Big liberal donors sent cash infusions totaling some $500 million into Senate races across the country to destroy Republican incumbents and take back the Senate. In the end, they may have failed to change many of the outcomes.

    But did they really fail?

    Democrats dispelled the fossilized notion that “dark money” is dangerous to politics. They are now the party of the ultra-rich, at war with the middle classes, whom they write off as clingers, deplorables, dregs, and chumps.

    In that context, the staggering amounts of money were a valuable marker. The liberal mega-rich are warning politicians that from now on, they will try to bury populist conservatives with so much oppositional cash that they would be wise to keep a low profile.

    Winning is not the only aim of lavish liberal campaign funding. Deterring future opponents by warning them to be moderate or go bankrupt is another motivation.

    Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey seemed unapologetic that his company was systematically censoring and de-platforming conservative users. In a recent hearing he talked to members of the Senate as if he were a 19th-century railroad baron.

    Google has been accused of massaging its search results to favor progressive agendas. During the final weeks of the campaign, social-media platforms shut down accounts and censored ads and messages, providing an enormously valuable gift to Joe Biden.

    Silicon Valley, like the 19th-century oil, rail, and sugar trusts, sees no reason to hide its partisanship and clout.

    The media coverage of the election was unsavory. Journalists confirmed the findings of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center, which in an assessment of news coverage of Trump’s first 100 days in office found that 80 percent of the coverage was negative.

    As in the fashion of the Russian collusion hoax, the media for weeks on end revved up their engines for a seemingly certain Biden landslide victory. They rarely cross-examined Biden on the issues. And they certainly stayed clear of the Biden family influence-peddling scandal.

    What do all these power players — big polling, big money, big tech, and big media — have in common other than their partisanship and their powerful reach?

    One, they stereotypically represent a virtue-signaling coastal elite that feels its own moral superiority allows it to destroy its own professional standards.

    Two, they worry little about popular pushback because they assume that their money, loaded surveys, and Internet and media cartels create, rather than reflect, public opinion.

    Three, while these elite cadres have enormous resources, they still are relatively unpopular. Despite being outspent 2 to 1, pronounced doomed by pollsters, often censored on social media, and demonized in print and on television, Trump was neck and neck with Biden — a fact that a few days ago was deemed impossible.

  • “Election night showed why Trump voters don’t trust the media“:

    The wall-to-wall promises of a blue wave were delivered with all the certainty of prophecy. Joe Biden and Democrats would sweep the White House and all of Congress from sea to shining sea. Even a large voter survey that Fox News did with the Associated Press suggested as much.

    Some 24 hours after the polls closed, President Trump still has a fighting chance to get 270 electoral votes, the GOP is holding on to a slim majority in the Senate and actually gained five House seats, narrowing the Dems’ majority to 12 seats.

    We all make mistakes, and most of us try to avoid them. The problem with the unholy news-polling-social media-industrial complex is that the mistakes are so numerous and predictable that they begin to feel intentional.

    He’s wrong on that: They’ve felt intentional for a long time now.

  • “Facebook Shuts Down Massive ‘Stop the Steal’ Group. The pro-Trump group attracted 300,000 members in just two days.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.”
  • Kurt Schlichter on the other election winners and losers:

    LOSER: The Pollsters

    You know, in the world we normal people dwell in, when you consistently fail, you get fired. But, as in so many of our garbage establishment institutions, when you’re a pollster there is no accountability. You keep failing and failing and failing and your dumb clients and the dumb media keep citing your garbage surveys. It’s really remarkable. You would think they would have a little pride in themselves and not want to look like idiots, but no. Instead, it’s, “Our weighting gives us Biden +15 in Texas. Gee, that sounds right. Let’s go with that!” Except for a few outlets, always the ones that take conservatives seriously enough to reach out to them, it’s been a disaster. But next time, we’ll hear once again about how, “Ackshuuuuuallly, the polls were very accurate in 2020” as if we have the same memory issues as the guy they were trying to help. The nice thing is that even the least woke Republican is woke to the poll scam now.

    WINNER: The Republican Party’s Populist Wing

    The battle for the soul of the Republican Party is over and we won. This is now the party of people who work for a living, people who have little companies, people who want their kids to grow up in a world of regular pronouns and where going to church isn’t a hate crime. It is also a party that cares nothing about where your grandfather came from – we are winning black and Hispanic voters to our cause not by condescending “outreach” but by offering an agenda of good jobs and their kids not being sent off to fight idiotic wars. It is not the party of the Chamber of Commerce – hey geniuses, how’s that pivot to the Dems working out for ya? It is not the party of the bow tie dorks who snicker with their lib buddies over pumpkin-infused IPAs in Georgetown restaurant about those Walmart-shopping, Jesus-liking hicks who make up the base. It is not the party of Wall Street. We are a party that happily includes both the Amish and Lil’ Pump. And the Democrats are the party of hedge funders, college professors, Antifa bums, and people who think “The Handmaid’s Tale” is nonfiction.

  • Tucker Carlson blasts the media for its racist assumptions:

    Elections tell you what the parties actually look like, not what you imagine they look like … so the coalitions become really clear. And in Florida, the population center, of course, Miami-Dade County, the biggest county in the state, Hillary Clinton [got] 334,000 votes there. An hour ago, with 84 percent reporting, Donald Trump had already outstripped that by more than 100,000 votes,” Carlson said on Tuesday evening.

    Miami-Dade is 70 percent Hispanic,” he continued. “That’s not what you would have expected if you’ve been watching for the past six months this attempt to racialize everything to make Trump the greatest racist in the world’s history. Whether you buy that or not, you would expect that to depress the votes for Trump in Miami-Dade County but the opposite happened. He’s doing better there with non-White voters than he did four years ago.”

    Clearly, the media was completely wrong.

  • Why the left is enraged at Amy Coney Barret’s confirmation:

    The fundamental source of this agitation is that the Left was convinced the Court would always be on its side, becoming its personal tool for achieving desired outcomes outside the electoral process.

    A fuller understanding requires looking back at recent history. And it requires looking at it more honestly than do the recent laments that, for example, Republican presidents over the past several decades have disproportionately appointed more justices to the Supreme Court than they deserve. For conservatives of a few decades’ past — and still, even, to some extent now — this is not a sign of success but of a particularly cruel kind of failure, if not even their preferred appointees could be trusted once on the Court. The modern conservative legal movement, animated primarily by a renewed commitment to understanding the Constitution as it was understood by those who drafted it (known as originalism), didn’t just come out of nowhere with the 1982 birth of the Federalist Society or the 1985 originalist stirrings of Reagan attorney general Edwin Meese. These and other stirrings came in response to a recognition on the right that the Left had either welcomed or been actively complicit in the transformation of the Supreme Court into a super-legislature, a way for liberals to achieve judicially what they could not electorally.

    To conservatives, this fact alone comported ill with the Constitution, never mind that many of the decisions achieved by the Court — most notoriously Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973 — proceeded to do further violence to the constitutional order. Their response was not merely to capitulate to this state of affairs, but to work, slowly yet surely, to change it. The Federalist Society helped these efforts greatly, bringing originalist-inclined law students together, connecting them to like-minded professors, helping to seed law schools and courts nationwide with trustworthy exponents of its philosophy, broadly speaking, and more. And this was done despite significant resistance from the left, which treasured the Court and wished to keep it under its control. Liberals aghast at McConnell’s hardball today shouldn’t just look back at the 2018 treatment of Brett Kavanaugh, but also to the infamous Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings, the treatment of lower-court nominee Miguel Estrada, and more.

    And yet, for all of the Right’s successes on the Court, it must still witness what it views as fairly spectacular failures. The first Court with majority Republican appointees essentially affirmed Roe; in 2012 a Republican-appointed chief justice rewrote the Affordable Care Act to uphold it as constitutional; in 2015 the Court found a right to same-sex marriage in the 14th Amendment; and just this past summer, Neil Gorsuch, an apparent textualist, divined protection from transgender discrimination in legislation penned within living memory that originally contained no such protections. To be sure, the Right has had its triumphs — often though not always corresponding to defeats for the Left, only inasmuch as the Left was defying or hoping to defy the Constitution — such that it remains interested in the game. And so it is likely to remain, while still wary of the Court’s ability to uphold the Constitution, even with an ostensible 6–3 majority.

    Yet this complicated history, full of the kind of back-and-forth one would expect from the political process, helps to explain the depth of the Left’s anger about the Court’s current status. They are mad that conservatives discovered their thinly veiled attempts at transforming the judiciary and decided to try to recapture it with the help of a philosophy that emphasized a renewed commitment to the Constitution. Now that, after decades of patience and persistence, conservatives have established a beachhead on a Court liberals thought would always be theirs, they are infuriated. Some, such as Sheldon Whitehouse, see evidence of a nefarious conspiracy in what has been accomplished openly yet at great difficulty. But the true root of this remains a frustration that, in at least one area, the Right has refused to go along with the Left’s capture of an institution, that it has not consented to the triumphalist narrative the Left imagines culminates with it forever in charge of everything, never dealing with anything more than token opposition.

  • More on that theme:

    There is also one particular aspect of conservative success in filling the federal courts that contributes to the tone of hysteria that creeps into these reactions. The federal appellate courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, are elite institutions — indeed, the most elite institutions in all of American government and the legal profession. They are populated by highly educated professionals. They work with ideas. They are one of the few institutions of government that actually consumes the work of academics and sometimes translates it into policy. Their output is expected to be scholarly in character and taught in law schools. To see such institutions in the hands of conservatives, particularly social and religious conservatives, is intolerable to people whose worldview depends so heavily on sneering at the inferior intellect of anyone who holds to socially conservative views. That sneering is especially apparent any time a conservative is described as intelligent; the gag reflex you see in response is visceral.

    Elite or wannabe-elite institutions in our culture these days tend to be dominated by social liberals and progressives, who in turn seek to drive out all dissenters. To be a conservative on a university faculty is to be, at a minimum, badly outnumbered. Often there are more-or-less open efforts to stamp out any remaining vestiges of disagreement. We see the same thing with big newspapers, magazines, and other journalistic institutions; with the arts and entertainment; increasingly in large corporations as well. The tribunes of the legal profession itself — the bar associations, the journals covering the legal industry, the people who hand out awards — are dominated by the same groups, and rarely even engage with the possibility that their values might not be the only good ones. But no amount of desire for social ostracism can change the fact that the Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts sit atop the legal food chain, where the bar’s disapproval must remain comparatively muted, if through clenched teeth. To a certain sort of progressive, this itself serves as a kind of standing rebuke, a nagging reminder that gets in the way of simply scorning the idea that conservatives could be capable of doing such a job.

  • “My kid has cancer and ObamaCare is making everything worse.”
  • Governor Abbott welcomes a new resident:

  • Under other circumstances this might be amusing:

  • “Miracle: Ballot Counter Turns 5 Biden Votes Into 5,000.”
  • “Florida Recount Finally Wraps Up, Al Gore Declared President.”
  • Mike the Musicologist sends an emergency puppy:

  • Special Election Day LinkSwarm

    Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to a special Election Day LinkSwarm!

  • Late breaking polls have Trump up in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Democrats are freaking out about Pennsylvania.
  • Which is why Democrats may try to steal the state through vote fraud.
  • Biden-Harris goes full Godwin.
  • People are evidently worried that “mostly peaceful protestors” will burn parts of the country down.
  • Trump is doing better with blacks and Hispanics than four years ago:

    In 2016, Donald Trump got a lower share of the white vote than the previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, and white turnout was stagnant as compared to 2012. Trump was able to win nonetheless because he got a higher share of Black and Hispanic voters than his predecessor — up roughly 3 percentage points with African Americans and 2 percentage points with Hispanics — helping tilt pivotal races in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania toward Trump.

    That is, it was minorities, not whites, who proved more decisive for Trump’s victory.

    Going into Election Day in 2020, Trump seems poised to do even better with minority voters. His gains in the polling have been highly consistent and broad-based among Blacks and Hispanics — with male voters and female voters, the young and the old, educated and uneducated. Overall, Trump is polling about 10 percentage points higher with African Americans than he did in 2016, and 14 percentage points higher with Hispanics.

    It may be that many minority voters simply do not view some of his controversial comments and policies as racist. Too often, scholars try to test whether something is racist by looking exclusively at whether the rhetoric or proposals they disagree with resonate with whites. They frequently don’t even bother to test whether they might appeal to minorities, as well.

    Yet when they do, the results tend to be surprising. For instance, one recent study presented white, Black and Hispanic voters with messages the researchers considered to be racial “dog whistles,” or coded language that signals commitment to white supremacy. It turned out that the messages resonated just as strongly with Blacks as they did with whites. Hispanics responded even more warmly to the rhetoric about crime and immigration than other racial groups.

  • It seems that everyone in the country except polling companies expect a big Trump victory today:

  • In South Carolina, Jaime Harrison is this year’s Beto O’Rourke. “Harrison has raised, and spent, more than any other Senate candidate in U.S. history — ‘as of Oct. 14, Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison had raised more than $108 million and spent more than $105 million in his quest to unseat U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’ with another $13 million in outside spending hitting Graham.” And he’s still behind Graham in the polls.
  • Biden wants to disarm working class gun owners.
  • “Hillary Clinton, who thinks the Electoral College should be eliminated, will be an Electoral College elector for this election.”
  • Now go vote, if you haven’t already!

  • Williamson County Voting Locations.
  • Travis County Voting Locations.
  • Also, I intend to be live-blogging/live-tweeting election returns starting about 7 PM tonight. Tune in for what promises to be a host of ridiculous typos.

    LinkSwarm for October 30, 2020

    Friday, October 30th, 2020

    Welcome to the last LinkSwarm before the election! Halloween is tomorrow, and I will actually be handing out candy in the time-honored traditional manner.

  • The economy grew at a white hot 33.1% rate during the third quarter, which is what happens when you lift the counterproductive economic lockdowns Democrats want to keep in place. We’ve still got recovering to do (something that’s not going to happen under a Harris-Biden Administration’s huge tax hikes), but it looks like we’re enjoying the V-shaped recovery that so many economists assured us was impossible.
  • Kurt Schlichter says not to fall for the Psy-Op:

    The next few days will be a Cat 5 hurricane of mainstream media spin and Democrat bullSchiff designed to make you think that you’ve already lost this election. They want your morale shattered, your spirit broken, and you to put a lid on your participation in saving your country from leftist tyranny.

    It’s all a lie.

    It’s a psychological operation designed to keep you on the sidelines.

    We got this.

    All you need to do is vote.

    People reach out to me all the time looking for hope, and I’ve got plenty, because things are breaking our way. You have structural factors like the fact that incumbents tend to win, particularly when the economy is improving and we’re not in some idiotic new war. You have factors like how the Democrat candidate is a desiccated old weirdo who pretty much called a lid on his campaign back in July and whose corruption is being shown to be more corrupting every single day. You have manifest enthusiasm for our guy and tumbleweeds for theirs. You have people moving from Hillary to Trump, but nobody moving from Trump to Grandpa Badfinger. Trump dominated the debate where Oldfinger doubled down on his deeply unpopular program of destroying millions of oil industry jobs, single payer, and Matlock for All. On the inside, the insiders almost unanimously think Trump will win – that’s the real talk behind the scenes among people whose names you know. Early voting numbers are GOP-friendly, and many polls now show Trump moving up or taking the lead.

    We have the heat, we have the momentum, we have this to lose.

    (Hat tip: Kurt Schlichter.)

  • “Wisconsin Republican Party Says Hackers Stole $2.3 Million from Trump Reelection Account.”
  • Another rapper endorses Trump and slams Biden’s tax plan. I do not believe I’ve heard a single song by “Lil Pump,” but that’s because I’m old in and in the way, and Mr. Pump (real name Gazzy Garcia) evidently has some 17 million followers. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of rappers endorsing Trump, Lil Wayne (who I have actually heard of) all but did that as well:

  • “5 Charts That Show Sweden’s Strategy Worked. The Lockdowns Failed.”
  • “Russian Airstrikes Obliterate Turkish-Backed ‘Rebel’ Camp In Idlib, Killing Over 60.” Remind me why S.E. Cupp thinks we should be over there bombing things, again…
  • AMD buys Xilinx for $35 billion in an all-stock transaction. Xilinx dominates Field Programable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and has fingers into a lot of weird verticals I don’t have any visibility into. Like AMD they’re fabless, and like AMD they use TSMC as their foundry. Assuming all the usual merger hurdles (both regulatory and cultural) can be overcome, this is probably a good move for both sides.
  • Leftwingers are really butt-hurt that Joe Rogan interviewed Alex Jones.
  • The owners of a bunch of famous Austin businesses come out against the tax-hiking rail bond. “‘We are not open, we are not going to be open for a long time so no money coming in paying an extra $3000,’ said Shannon Sedwick with Esther’s Follies.” Also opposing the huge tax hike for the bond: Former Democratic State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, who will never be mistaken for a fire-breathing conservative.
  • The Texas House Speaker’s race heats up.

    What GOP insiders hoped would be a quiet race for Speaker of the Texas House got suddenly heated on Thursday, with four establishment Republicans officially in the hunt – and at least one other poised to jump in. Most Texans have never heard of none of them.

    Officially filing declaring their candidacy today are Republican State Reps. Chris Paddie of Marshall, Trent Ashby of Lufkin, John Cyrier of Bastrop, and Geanie Morrison of Victoria joining Democrats Senfronia Thompson of Houston and Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio

    Republican Dade Phelan of Beaumont was also reportedly considering jumping into the race as the “Team Bonnen” candidate.

  • Is Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush considering running against Ken Paxton for Attorney General in 2022?
  • Remember how the New York Times hyped an op-ed by “Anonymous” slamming Trump? Honestly, I barely do, because all the fake “anonymous” #JustTrustMeBro “sources” “familiar with” Trump just blur together in my mind. Well, turns out the “Senior Trump Official” was a minor official turned CNN staffer, so they, and most of the liberal media complex that trusted them, just straight lied to us to smear Trump. You know, just like all their other anti-Trump “bombshells.”
  • “Hospitals gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo a campaign booster shot“:

    It’s bad enough that Gov. Cuomo presided over the needless COVID-19 deaths of thousands of vulnerable people in New York nursing homes.

    It’s bad enough that he wrote a shameful book praising himself for his pandemic response and now is doing a victory lap of self-congratulation in the worst-hit state in the nation.

    It’s bad enough that he is mounting a pre-election scare campaign on COVID vaccines to stir up anti-vax sentiment for political purposes.

    But now we discover that Cuomo got campaign funds from the hospital organizations that lobbied for his lethal policy for the elderly and which then bought TV ads whitewashing his culpability.

    An exclusive audit of campaign donations to Cuomo by OpenTheBooks.com shows disturbing links with industry bodies which demanded the disastrous order forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-infected patients hospitals didn’t want.

  • “Jeremy Corbyn suspended from Labour Party over response to antisemitism report.” Wow, that’s not closing the barn door after the cows have escaped, that’s closing the barn door after the cows have escaped, run off to a different region, been captured, fattened, slaughtered, made into hamburgers, and consumed at a St. Swithun’s Day feast in Wessex.
  • 46 arrested in massive human trafficking bust in Fort Bend County.
  • Commies vandalize Austin Public Library polling place. Because that’s the sort of garbage commies pull.
  • Some uncomfortable facts for #BlackLivesMatter:

  • “$150 MILLION worth of illegal cannabis, weapons, and 3 kangaroos seized by York Police.” That’s York, Ontario, a locale for which I’m reliably informed kangaroos do not constitute native fauna.
  • Old and Busted: The monster in your daughter’s closet. The New Hotness: The pedophile in your daughter’s closet.
  • “More APD officers resigning recently, former officer and Austin Police Association say.” #ThanksMayorAdler
  • Jake Tapper still isn’t over Mucho Grande.
  • Deaderheads. (Hat tip: Ace.)
  • James “The Amazing” Randi, RIP.”
  • “Psychic Already Sick Of Spectral James Randi Ragging On Her From Afterlife.”
  • Huge Trump parade…in Beverly Hills:

  • What. The. Hell.

  • “State That Just Voted To Reduce Penalties For Pedophiles Not Sure Why God Keeps Lighting Them On Fire.”
  • “CNN Mourns ACB Confirmation By Flying Chinese Flag At Half-Mast.”
  • Swing, you sinners!
  • I sort of like this one: