Austin’s cooperatively-owned grocery store and market Wheatsville Food Co-op is going to be closing its original North Campus location eventually. The last day for the 3101 Guadalupe Street shop will be on December 31, 2026.
A press release noted that Wheatsville board of directors and management decided to not renew the West Campus store’s lease, which ends at the end of 2026. A major reason for this decision was the city’s light rail plan Project Connect, which would run through Guadalupe Street. “While this project is in the public interest, it will also curtail our ability to operate in this location,” says general manager Bill Bickford via a statement. The train would take up the major street’s middle lane, so then it would be “impossible for the large trucks our primary suppliers use to access the delivery area,” he writes. Therefore, “if we cannot receive product, we cannot operate a grocery store.
Rita Daily, Wheatsville’s marketing director, noted through email that the shutter was announced to the owners — its website boasts over 28,000 members — this morning. The company is going to se if they can reopen or operate what they describe was “small-format stores” instead.
There’s a south Austin location that will evidently remain open, though one wonders how long the south location can survive without a steady influx of dewey-eyed leftwing college saps the Guadalupe location’s proximity to UT provided.
A kangaroo trial reaches its kangaroo conclusion, Biden’s ludicrous Gaza pier floats away and sinks, ESG lawsuits get the green light, the Libertarians nominate a hard left social justice warrior, and the NRA picks up a Supreme Court win. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The kangaroo trial where they tried Trump on supposed violation of a federal offense in a state courtroom and the judge decreed that the jury didn’t need to come to a unanimous opinion to find Trump guilty found Trump guilty. I expect this to result in expedited appeal and equally expedited overturning.
Result? “Today, the Trump campaign announced a record-shattering small-dollar fundraising haul following the sham Biden Trial verdict totaling $34.8 million – nearly double the biggest day ever recorded for the Trump campaign on the WinRed platform.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
While the CIA is strictly prohibited from spying on or running clandestine operations against American citizens on US soil, a bombshell new “Twitter Files” report reveals that a member of the Board of Trustees of InQtel – the CIA’s mission-driving venture capital firm, along with “former” intelligence community (IC) and CIA analysts, were involved in a massive effort in 2021-2022 to take over Twitter’s content management system, as Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag report over at Shellenberger’s Public (subscribers can check out the extensive 6,800 word report here).
According to “thousands of pages of Twitter Files and documents,” these efforts were part of a broader strategy to manage how information is disseminated and consumed on social media under the guise of combating ‘misinformation’ and foreign propaganda efforts – as this complex of government-linked individuals and organizations has gone to great lengths to suggest that narrative control is a national security issue.
According to the report, the effort also involved;
a long-time IC contractor and senior Department of Defense R&D official who spent years developing technologies to detect whistleblowers (“insider threats”) like Edward Snowden and Wikileaks’ leakers;
the proposed head of the DHS’ aborted Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, who aided US military and NATO “hybrid war” operations in Europe;
Jim Baker, who, as FBI General Counsel, helped start the Russiagate hoax, and, as Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, urged Twitter executives to censor The New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
Jankowicz (aka ‘Scary Poppins’), previously tipped to lead the DHS’s now-aborted Disinformation Governance Board, has been a vocal advocate for more stringent regulation of online speech to counteract ‘rampant disinformation.’ Jim Baker, in his capacity as FBI General Counsel and later as Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, advocated for and implemented policies that would restrict certain types of speech on the platform, including decisions that affected the visibility of politically sensitive content.
Furthermore, companies like PayPal, Amazon Web Services, and GoDaddy were mentioned as part of a concerted effort to de-platform and financially de-incentivize individuals and organizations deemed threats by the IC. This approach represents a significant escalation in the use of corporate cooperation to achieve what might essentially be considered censorship under the guise of national security.
Nina Jankowicz And The Alethea Group
Remember Nina? A huge fan of Christopher Steele – architect of the infamous Clinton-funded Dossier which underpinned the Trump-Russia hoax, and who joined the chorus of disinformation agents that downplayed the Hunter Biden laptop bombshell, Jankowicz previously served as a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, and advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship. She also oversaw the Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute.
Jankowicz compares the lack of regulation of speech on social media to the lack of government regulation of automobiles in the 1960s. She calls for a “cross-platform” and public-private approach, so whatever actions are taken are taken by Google, Facebook, and Twitter, simultaneously.
Jankowicz points to Europe as the model for regulating speech. “Germany’s NetzDG law requires social media companies and other content hosts to remove ‘obviously illegal’ speech within twenty-four hours,” she says, “or face a fine of up to $50 million.”
By contrast, in the US, she laments, “Congress has yet to pass a bill imposing even the most basic of regulations related to social media and election advertising.” -Public
In a 2020 book, How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict, Jankowicz praises a NATO cyber security expert for having created a “Center of Excellence,” a concept promoted by Renée Diresta of the Stanford Internet Observatory, in which she made the case for the (now failed) Disinformation Governance Board that Jankowicz would briefly head up.
One year later, Jankowicz began working with ‘anti-disinformation’ consulting firm, Althea Group, staffed by “former” IC analysts.
Lots more at the link.
Remember when fast food was cheap food you bought to treat kids or didn’t feel like cooking? Now 78% of Americans surveyed think it’s a luxury good they can’t afford. Thanks, Joe Biden!
Also, one of Putin’s dachas burned down, though it’s so far from the theater of operations that it may be unrelated.
“Biden’s Gaza ‘Pier to Nowhere’ a Disaster and National Embarrassment, Breaks Apart.” Evidently the pier can only work in seas with waves smaller than three feet, and 4.5′ chop and 20 MPH gusts KO’d it. Also, no less than four U.S. vessels have run aground in the process of trying to build and move this thing. That’s some mighty fine pier-building, Lou.
The Supreme Court unanimously handed the National Rifle Association a win Thursday in the gun rights group’s effort to revive a 2018 First Amendment lawsuit accusing a New York official of causing damage to the NRA’s relationships with banks and insurers.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a unanimous opinion that found the NRA “plausibly alleged” that Maria Vullo, a former superintendent of New York‘s Department of Financial Services, illegally retaliated against the pro-Second Amendment group after the Parkland, Florida, high school mass shooting that left 17 people dead.
The question before the justices was whether Vullo used her regulatory power to force state financial institutions to cut off ties with the NRA in violation of constitutional First Amendment protections.
Vullo, who worked in former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration, said her regulations targeted an insurance product that is illegal in New York, which is dubbed by critics as “murder insurance.” In essence, such insurances are third-party policies sold via the NRA that cover personal injury and criminal defense costs after the use of a firearm.
“Here, the NRA plausibly alleged that Vullo violated the First Amendment by coercing DFS-regulated entities into disassociating with the NRA in order to punish or suppress gun-promotion advocacy,” Sotomayor, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in her decision.
A mysterious shooting in North Carolina north of Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, not far from where some of America’s most elite U.S. Special Operations forces live and train is under investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Division as well as local police. The shooting in Carthage, North Carolina occurred May 3 at 8:15 p.m. following a phone call about a suspected trespasser near a Special Forces soldier’s property.
Two Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the soldier’s home. The family alleges the suspected intruder, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev of Chicago was taking photos of their children. When confronted near a power line in a wooded part of the property, an altercation ensued and Daraev was shot several times at close range. A second man, Dzhankutov Adsalan, was in a vehicle some distance from the incident and was questioned by authorities and then released. The Moore County Sheriff’s office is leading the investigation.
The FBI told Fox News, “Our law enforcement partners at the Moore County Sheriff’s Office contacted the FBI after a shooting death in Carthage. A special agent met with investigators and provided a linguist to assist with a language barrier for interviews.”
A district judge has granted a pilot’s request for a class-action lawsuit against American Airlines for allegedly investing pension funds into environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds.
The case revolves around the allegation that American Airlines—headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas—violated its fiduciary obligation to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) “by investing millions of dollars of American Airlines employees’ retirement savings with investment managers and investment funds that pursue political agendas” through ESG initiatives.
“By pursuing ESG goals, Defendants gave Plan assets to fund managers, such as BlackRock, who allegedly ignored financial returns as the exclusive purpose and lowered the value of Plan participants’ investments,” the order states.
In addition to being disloyal to the employees, the plaintiff, Bryan Spence, argues that American Airlines’ investments were “imprudent because it is well known that ESG funds are associated with poor performance given the detrimental effects of such activism on stock prices.”
“To remedy these alleged ERISA violations, Plaintiff filed this lawsuit individually and on behalf of a proposed class of Plan participants and beneficiaries,” the order says. “ERISA authorized participants in a qualifying plan to bring an action on behalf of other participants to enforce the statute’s fiduciary obligations and remedial provisions, as well as recover all losses to a plan caused by a breach of a fiduciary duty.”
Two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a large, mysterious new Internet hosting firm called Stark Industries Solutions materialized and quickly became the epicenter of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on government and commercial targets in Ukraine and Europe. An investigation into Stark Industries reveals it is being used as a global proxy network that conceals the true source of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns against enemies of Russia.
At least a dozen patriotic Russian hacking groups have been launching DDoS attacks since the start of the war at a variety of targets seen as opposed to Moscow. But by all accounts, few attacks from those gangs have come close to the amount of firepower wielded by a pro-Russia group calling itself “NoName057(16).”
As detailed by researchers at Radware, NoName has effectively gamified DDoS attacks, recruiting hacktivists via its Telegram channel and offering to pay people who agree to install a piece of software called DDoSia. That program allows NoName to commandeer the host computers and their Internet connections in coordinated DDoS campaigns, and DDoSia users with the most attacks can win cash prizes.
Microsoft’s announcement of the new AI-powered Windows 11 Recall feature has sparked a lot of concern, with many thinking that it has created massive privacy risks and a new attack vector that threat actors can exploit to steal data.
Revealed during a Monday AI event, the feature is designed to help “recall” information you have looked at in the past, making it easily accessible via a simple search.
While it’s currently only available on Copilot+ PCs running Snapdragon X ARM processors, Microsoft says they are working with Intel and AMD to create compatible CPUs.
Recall works by taking a screenshot of your active window every few seconds, recording everything you do in Windows for up to three months by default.
These snapshots will be analyzed by the on-device Neural Processing Unit (NPU) and an AI model to extract data from the screenshot. The data will be saved in a semantic index, allowing Windows users to browse through the snapshot history or search using human language queries.
Who wouldn’t want AI recording and monitoring their every move? Yet another reason never to turn on Windows Copilot+…or use a Windows machine at all.
Time for an update to this old classic
Though Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan survived by the skin of his teeth, a majority of Republican Texas House members say they won’t vote for him for speaker.
A majority of the 2025 Republican House caucus opposes Democratic committee chairs, and effectively will not support another term for Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont), the group said in a letter released on Friday.
“In a collective effort to respond to Republican voters and reform the Texas House, we will only vote for a candidate for speaker pursuant to the Platform and the Caucus By-Laws who will only appoint Republicans as committee chairs,” the brief letter and joint statement reads.
It adds, “The absence of a member’s or nominee’s name from this statement does not necessarily mean the individual is opposed to this statement. All members and nominees are invited to sign on to this statement.”
Forty six current or presumptive members signed the letter, including 23 members who voted for Phelan’s speakership last year.
One of those signatories, GOP nominee in House District 70 Steve Kinard, has a difficult general election fight against state Rep. Mihaela Plesa (D-Dallas) in a D-52% district.
The letter includes signatures from each of the 21 “Contract with Texas” signatories, most of whom campaigned specifically against Phelan’s speakership. That contract also includes a ban on Democratic committee chairs, though has 11 other planks to its demands as well.
Last session, a parliamentary maneuver precluded a vote on the question of banning Democratic chair appointments, though the idea had gained steam among GOP House members and was included in the party’s list of legislative priorities. It is likely to be featured again.
In a March interview after being pushed to a runoff and state Rep. Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress) announcing his challenge for the gavel, Phelan said he would not back down on the appointment of Democrats as committee chairs.
Snip.
This release makes Phelan’s path toward a third term as speaker much more difficult. Should this group hold, ostensibly opposed to Phelan, it will be impossible for him to win the Texas House Republican Caucus endorsement. However, the speaker could give in on some concessions, such as Democratic chair appointments, and win back this group’s support.
GOP caucus rules require members to vote for the body’s nominee, presumably enforced by the bylaws, though no section exists in that portion of the document laying out penalties for voting differently than the caucus has chosen. It’s happened before, for example last year when three members — state Reps. Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington) and Nate Schatzline (R-Fort Worth), and now-former member Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) — voted against the caucus nominee, Phelan, and for Tinderholt.
Article IX of the Texas Republican House Caucus bylaws lays out the procedure for selecting a speaker candidate. It requires the selection process to be conducted by secret ballot until a member receives two-thirds support from the body, currently 58 votes; if no candidate reaches that line, the last-placed candidate will be eliminated from the contest and that will be repeated until one candidate reaches 58.
Should the vote reach a third round, the threshold needed will drop to three-fifths support — currently at 52 votes. Should nobody reach that line, after a fourth round of voting, all nominations will be withdrawn and the floor reopened.
Depending on what happens in November with potential flips, those 58- and 52-lines may shift.
This intra-caucus vote will occur in early December, per the rules.
Libertarians nominate a social justice warrior Chase Oliver for their Presidential candidate. A fair number of Libertarians are saying they’ll vote for Trump now…
“I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump. I know that I’ll lose friends for this. Some will refuse to do business with me. The media will probably demonize me, as they have so many others before me. But despite this, I still believe it’s the right thing to do.”
The physics PhD said that he refuses to live in a society where people are afraid to speak their minds.
Red Lobster followup: Turns out Red Lobster is privately owned by seafood supplier Thai Union. And just who did Red Lobster buy all that “endless shrimp” from? No prizes for guessing…
“George Miller’s Furiosa is projected to take in only $31 million at the box office. When adjusted for inflation, that’s the worst Memorial Day box-office haul in 43 years.”
Will wokeness and the Biden recession kill off comic shops? Also, is Disney looking to outsource comics from Marvel?
World’s largest Buc-ee’s to open. “The new center is located in Luling, Texas, and will open its doors to the public the morning of June 10, according to a news release from the company. The new 75,000-square-foot center is symbolic for the Luling community, as it will replace the city’s current Buc-ee’s store, which was the first Buc-ee’s travel center built in 2003.” (Hat tip: Dave.)
“Donald Trump Found Guilty Of Being Donald Trump.” “‘It was an open and shut case,’ said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass. ‘There wasn’t any way he could sit there being Donald Trump and just get away with it. We were given strict orders to hold him accountable for being Donald Trump, and that’s what we’ve done.'”
More worrying signs of inflation, more evidence of Biden family corruption, more creepy child sex offenders, F-35s are stacking up, and an infamous movie may finally have a premiere. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
This is Memorial Day weekend, and in Texas there’s a runoff election on May 28, so be sure to vote if you have a runoff in your area. (There are no Republican runoffs in Williamson County.)
House Democrats’ reelection campaigns have accepted $6.5 million from three major political families, which have helped bankroll several student groups participating in the protests. The family members cut most of those checks over the last two years, although some of the donations to longstanding House members came over the last decade.
The names are well-known among Democratic funding circles: Soros, Rockefeller, and Pritzker. Yet before the anti-Jewish protests swept college campuses over the last few months, their financial ties to the student groups were not widely known. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a member of the same wealthy Pritzker family, is not among the donors.
Several investigative media reports over the last month have uncovered the extensive financial ties between these families and student groups involved in organizing anti-Israel protests and activism across the country predating the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and in its aftermath and during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The donors to student groups include George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and Democratic campaign contributor who helms the Open Society Foundation and his family members; the Pritzkers, the owners of Hyatt Hotels Corporation; and members of the famed Rockefeller family, including relatives of the wealthy American Banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller. The donations have either gone directly to student groups involved in campus demonstrations or to umbrella foundations and organizations, which have, in turn, channeled the funds to the protestors.
The House Democratic Congressional Committee and the House Majority PAC, which was founded by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and is directly affiliated with the House Democratic leadership, collected most of those funds, nearly $5.5 million by those two Democratic campaign entities alone, FEC records show.
Meanwhile, 30 House Democrats, including Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of the leadership, received a combined total of $856,858 from the Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller families, while a dozen Democratic candidates in competitive races received a total of $139,000. RCP did not examine Senate recipients.
The House members in competitive races who received funds from at least one of the three families include Reps. Mary Peltola of Alaska, Mike Levin of California, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Johana Hayes of Connecticut, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, Frank Mrvan of Indiana, Sharice Davids, Jared Golden, Hillary Scholten, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Don Davis, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, Susie Lee of Nevada, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Paty Ryan of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Andrea Salinas of Oregon, Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, and Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania.
Craig’s campaigns have received the most of any other House member from the three families: $96,490 since 2018. Lee’s campaign received the second most: $75,000 since 2017.
The Democratic candidates who accepted donations from at least one of the three families include Kirsten Engel in Arizona; Adam Gray, Rudy Salas, George Whitesides, and Will Rollins in California; Lanon Baccam in Iowa; Tony Vargas in Nebraska; Lauren Gillen, Mondaire Jones, and Josh Riley in New York; Ashley Ehasz in Pennsylvania; and Michelle Vallejo in Texas.
American households gained net worth under Trump. Under Biden, adjusted for inflation, it’s gone negative.
Inflation isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. “In fact, the progressive political class does have a plan to deal with the national debt. Their plan is to perpetuate inflation and thereby to engineer a slow-motion stealth default on the debt that will enable them to continue to enjoy without disruption the political benefits that flow to them from their irresponsible debt-funded vote buying.”
A trove of new whistleblower documents provided to House GOP investigators reveal, among other things, that the CIA prevented federal investigators from pursuing Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris as a witness in their investigation of Hunter Biden.
Morris, a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who has ‘long supported’ Hunter (and why?) has loaned the First Son more than $6.5 million, according to a January letter to the House oversight committee.
We’ve known about the CIA connection since March, when the Chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) said that a whistleblower has brought them information that ‘seems to corroborate our concerns’ that the CIA directly interfered with DOJ and IRS investigations of Hunter Biden.
According to a whistleblower, the CIA “intervened in the investigation of Hunter biden to prevent the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from interviewing a witness,” the letter, addressed to CIA Director William Burns, reads.
Specifically, the Committees were concerned at how “the DOJ deviated from its standard processes to afford preferential treatment to Hunter Biden,” which they learned “after two brave whistleblowers testified to Congress” that the Justice Department had done just that.
According to Hunter Biden’s business associate, Devon Archer, he and Hunter Biden were equal owners of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and that entity was used by both individuals. According to evidence provided by the IRS whistleblowers, Hunter Biden was the beneficial owner of the entity’s associated bank account, which was used to receive Hunter’s salary from Burisma and to receive foreign wires, such as funds allegedly transferred from a Kazakhstani individual through an entity that were then used to purchase a Porsche for Hunter Biden. Congressional investigators questioned Hunter Biden during his February 28th deposition regarding his connection to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, as well as bank accounts associated with the entity.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu dishes the truth on fellow governors. Andrew Cuomo? “Complete jackass. No one like him.” Gavin Newsom? “Just a prick.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Bill Maher Scolds Pearl-Clutching Lefties Over Harrison Butker Tradwife Speech.” For feminists, evidently being a traditional wife and mother isn’t an allowable “choice.”
Hmmmm: “Lockheed Running Out Of Parking Space For F-35s Pentagon Refuses To Accept.” “Last summer, the DOD put a complete freeze on accepting the stealth fighters until Lockheed fixed huge hardware and software problems associated with ‘Technology Refresh-3′ (TR-3), a $1.8 billion package intended to expand the planes’ capabilities.”
Media Matters for America, the group that thinks American journalists just aren’t leftwing enough, just had a massive layoff, thanks in part to a defamation lawsuit from Elon Musk. Thanks, Elon! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy and is closing 87 locations, none in Austin. Evidently an “Endless Shrimp” promotion was a big contributing factor, which suggests executive learned nothing from the losses they incurred in a similar endless crab promotion in 2003…
Could the infamous, uncompleted Jerry Lewis movie The Day the Clown Cried finally be screened this year? Maybe. Lewis gave the footage to the Library of Congress in 2014, specifying it couldn’t be seen for ten years, which puts it next month. But evidently there are a lot of editing required before that debacle could be seen in anything close to final form.
You may have heard something about a remake of Time Bandits and thought “that sounds like a bade idea.” An even worse idea? Making it without dwarves*.
“Yet another Hollywood reboot that seems to be kicking actors with dwarfism to the curb. So why does Hollywood hate people with dwarfism?”
“I mean, if you were a ginger person with dwarfism, then you’d really be fucked.”
“Time Bandits is getting a reboot, uh, continuation, reimagining, whatever on Apple TV+ and this is the cast.” Not a dwarf in sight.
“Actors with dwarfism who are like, hey, it’s hard enough to get roles right now, so why you keep replacing us with CGI creatures? Hugh Grant was an Oompa Loompa.”
“In their quest to not be offensive, they’re actually making sure that some people are not getting work.”
The same thing happened with Disney’s live-action Snow White before Disney did a 180.
No one (or at least no one rational) was offended when Terry Gilliam used actual dwarves in the original.
“Paradoxically fantasy films such as Time Bandits have often been the one genre in which filmmakers have liberated actors with dwarfism to be fully human.”
“Every character now has to be a black lesbian, because that’s this year’s flavor.”
The Willow reboot was such a massive failure they purged it from Disney+.
I’m far from a fanatic that actor X must share characteristic Y with the person they’re portraying, but when it comes to dwarves in films about dwarves, come on. Plus it’s cheaper, better and more convincing that CGI. Also, I’m pretty sure that every dwarf/midget/little person in Hollywood save Peter Dinklage needs the work more than Lisa Kudrow…
*I know my spellchecker wants me to spell it “dwarfs.” I’m going with Tolkien and D&D on this one.
In the tradition of “something lite for the weekend,” here’s The Babylon Bee’s Satan asking Democrats to tone it down a notch:
“I love the homicidal thing that you got going on there. I really dig it. OK, but maybe market it just a little bit differently. Like the serial killer that everyone thinks is such a sweet guy. You know, he’s got 27 bodies in the basement, but he’s like, you know, coaching Little League. That’s what I want.”
More Biden corruption unearthed, the Biden Recession has canaries dying left and right, yet another Katy ISD teacher involved in child sex crimes, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is being given another tomb raider to destroy. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Thursday as part of a probe into whether the Biden DOJ coordinated with Trump prosecutors.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Thursday as part of a probe into whether the Biden DOJ coordinated with Trump prosecutors.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer dropped a bombshell on Thursday, revealing that his panel had unearthed new financial accounts tied to the Biden family investigation. Adding to the drama, Comer announced a fresh subpoena aimed at an undisclosed bank, ramping up the pressure in this ongoing probe.
“This morning, I issued a subpoena for targeted financial information from a certain financial institution related to Jim Biden, Sarah Biden and Hunter Biden. This is a result of many of the documents that Devon Archer turned over,” Comer told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business.
The Oversight Committee began investigating the Biden family’s alleged shady business dealings over two years ago. In March, they called for Biden to testify before Congress, stating that “the committee has accounted for over $24 million that has flowed from foreign sources to you, your family, and their business associates.”
“It is unbelievable,” Comer continued. “I don’t think you would find very many people that have a billion-dollar net worth that have as many different bank accounts as this Biden family had. Many of these were shell companies.”
Those were “companies [whose] sole purpose was to launder the money that the Bidens were receiving from China, from Romania, from Russia,” Comer added. “And never one time through the course of this entire investigation, even during the depositions with Hunter Biden and the transcribed interview with Jim Biden, were they able to answer exactly what the family did to receive this money.”
Gov. Greg Abbott has pardoned U.S. Army Sergeant Daniel Perry following a recommendation of pardon and restoration of his firearm rights by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
The board voted unanimously on the recommendation.
Shortly after the recommendation was made, Abbott officially pardoned Perry.
“The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles conducted an exhaustive review of U.S. Army Sergeant Daniel Perry’s personal history and the facts surrounding the July 2020 incident and recommended a Full Pardon and Restoration of Full Civil Rights of Citizenship,” Abbott wrote in a press release.
“Among the voluminous files reviewed by the Board, they considered information provided by the Travis County District Attorney, the full investigative report on Daniel Perry, plus a review of all the testimony provided at trial. Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws on self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney. I thank the Board for its thorough investigation, and I approve their pardon recommendation.”
Perry was convicted of murdering Air Force veteran and Black Lives Matter protester Garrett Foster in 2023. A Travis County jury deliberated for 17 hours before finding Perry guilty of murder but not aggravated assault of Foster at the intersection of 4th Street and Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, as well as threatening a crowd with his car during the 2020 protest.
Perry, who was working as an Uber driver, shot and killed Foster with a .357 Magnum revolver after Foster approached the driver door of his Hyundai Ioniq.
This dispassionate description hides the fact that Perry’s car was surrounded by a crowd of rioters, including the one who aimed a gun at Perry. This was a clear case of self defense that never would have gone to trial if Travis County’s far left Soros backed DA Jose Garza weren’t so in favor of radical left wing rioters and hostile the right of self defense.
The Department of Justice recently argued that a whistleblower lawsuit against Pfizer, filed by Brook Jackson, should be dismissed.
Jackson, a 20-year veteran in clinical trial administration employed by a third-party vendor (Ventavia Research Group), worked on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trials in 2020. Alarmed by what she witnessed, Jackson raised concerns to her superiors, Pfizer, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2020.
She claimed the trial was being run, documented, and reported in a manner that violated Federal law and was potentially dangerous.
Hours after contacting the FDA on September 25, 2020, Jackson was fired. Her sealed whistleblower complaint seemed to stall, with the FDA not investigating her claims. Faced with inaction, Jackson filed a lawsuit.
As the case progressed towards discovery, the DOJ intervened, asking the judge to dismiss the case. Jackson argues that the government failed to articulate a legitimate reason for dismissal and did not demonstrate why the burdens of continued litigation outweigh its benefits.
Disturbingly, a former FDA lawyer who worked at the agency when Jackson’s complaint was filed has moved to the DOJ and is now representing the government in its attempt to shut down the suit, raising concerns about regulatory capture and the use of government to shield companies from accountability.
In 2021, the British Medical Journal published an article investigating Jackson’s claims and found them credible. The journal’s investigation concluded that Jackson’s account was supported by documentation and raised serious questions about the integrity of Pfizer’s vaccine trials and the FDA’s oversight.
Other former Ventavia employees vouched for Jackson’s complaint, describing a “helter-skelter” work environment and lack of oversight.
Despite evidence and corroboration, the FDA did not inspect Ventavia after Jackson’s complaint, and Pfizer did not mention any problems at Ventavia in its FDA submission for emergency use authorization.
BMJ’s findings lend significant credibility to Jackson’s claims and raise serious questions about the integrity of Pfizer’s vaccine trial data, the adequacy of regulatory oversight, and, ultimately, the approved emergency use authorization.
Follow the money…
Court throws DEI amendment to NY constitution, off November’s ballot. “The NY State Supreme Court (trial court) in Livingston County (near Rochester), granted summary judgment throwing the ERA off the November ballot, on the ground that the proponents of the legislation did not follow the constitutionally required procedure for advancing a ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment.”
A Tompkins High School teacher has been arrested on nine counts of possession of child pornography.
James Paul Stone was booked into the Fort Bend County Jail Monday.
According to the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable’s office, thousands of images of child pornography were recovered from Stone’s residence, including several images that Stone admitted to producing himself.
Ah, not this crap again. “Venezuela Moves ‘Substantial Quantities’ Of Troops To Guyana Border.”
People like to feel like they’re appreciated and make a difference. In crime-friendly California, police don’t, so they’re headed to Texas.
Hundreds of California cops are fleeing to Texas to escape ‘soft-on-crime’ policies they say have made their jobs ‘pointless’, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Rank-and-file officers up to department chiefs have hit out at state legislators, claiming a succession of ‘anti-law enforcement’ policies have made their work impossible.
Overworked and unsupported, they have instead taken up jobs in Texas and other states that are seen as tough on crime.
Evan Leona, 38, who ditched his job as a detective in a multi-agency gang unit in Fresno, California, to work for Denton Police in Texas, in 2022, said he had met ‘more than a hundred officers’ in the Dallas / Fort Worth area who had fled California.
‘There are five officers who have come from various agencies in California on my shift alone in Denton,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘The justice system just works a lot better here.’
At least in Texas, we don’t have a one-party state that’s institutionally hostile to police and the rule of law. Some locales in Texas have suffered spiking crime rates thanks to stupid policies and Soros-backed DAs (I’m looking at you, Austin), but Democrat-run California is hostile to law enforcement from top to bottom, wants to put felons back on the streets and wants to tax lawful gun owners out of existence.
Leona said the majority of those who leave headed to Texas, with others finding work in states such as Montana and Arizona.
It comes as the Golden State is hemorrhaging thousands of police every year, with numbers down by more than 5,000 since 2019.
There are now fears that high-crime Californian cities are suffering a brain drain in law enforcement, leaving the public unprotected as criminals run riot.
Just like Republicans said would happen. What are the odds?
Ray Bottenfield, a former Santa Monica College Police Captain who retired to Hewitt, Texas, admitted it had become increasingly difficult to retain or recruit officers due to the lack of support from the state.
‘When you’re getting beaten up constantly, your cost of living is getting worse and you’re dealing with all this political stuff, it is overwhelming,’ he told DailyMail.com.
Many in law enforcement blame controversial legislation including Proposition 47 and 57 for turning prisons into ‘revolving doors’ and putting their lives at risk.
Gina Miller, a former deputy at San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, told DailyMail.com that California’s legal system had left officers feeling ‘like whatever they did was pointless’.
The 37-year-old moved to Texas in 2021 and now works for Lewisville Police Department, around 25 miles north of Dallas.
She said her work now had a purpose again, adding: ‘If I take someone to jail they’re actually going to stay in jail until they see a judge.’
Officer Miller said some of her former California colleagues had quit to take up desk jobs tackling welfare fraud because they no longer felt safe patrolling the streets.
In particular, she hit out at Proposition 57, which she claims has let violent offenders onto the streets.
Put forward by then-Governor Jerry Brown and passed by voters in 2016, the law was designed to reduce prison overcrowding by offering the possibility of early parole for non-violent offenders.
But critics highlighted a loophole that meant offenses such as domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon were not included under a list of violent offenses.
It came under the spotlight after it was revealed that Smiley Martin, a suspect in a 2022 mass shooting in Sacramento that left six dead, was released early from a ten-year sentence for domestic violence and assault under provisions set out in Proposition 57.
Miller claims the law has also put officers’ lives at risk by opening the door for violent criminals.
The officer, whose last assignment during her 11-year stint at San Bernadino was in the relatively safe and affluent city of Rancho Cucamonga, said four of her colleagues at the Sheriff’s Department were shot during her final six months.
One of them, Sergeant Dominic Vaca, 43, was killed after he was shot pursuing a motorcycle without a license plate in 2021.
There is no indication that the suspect, Bilal Winston Shabazz, had been released early under Proposition 57.
But Miller said such policies had created a general lawlessness within the state, leaving officers and the public feeling unsafe.
She recalled a time she took a man to jail for putting a loaded gun to his wife’s head, only for him to be released the same day.
‘I got into this job to try to help people and make a difference,’ she said. ‘It was heartbreaking to be telling this victim, “I know your husband just tried to kill you, but he’s already out of jail, so just call us if he comes back”.
‘To see their faces, it wears you down. You’re like: “This is stupid, because I can’t do anything for anybody”.’
Officer Leona, 38, who spent five years in Tulare County before serving in Fresno County Sheriff’s Office for a decade, said he was hospitalized following an assault by a violent criminal.
He said the suspect, who was ‘presumably high on narcotics’, had been chasing school children before running into a stranger’s garden.
A standoff with police ensued.
‘At one point, he hit me over the head with a board,’ he recounted. ‘I hit him with my baton. He picked me up and threw me through a sliding glass window into the kitchen of this lady’s house.
‘I was bleeding all over the place. He was bleeding. We’re rolling around in the kitchen.
‘It took eight officers to finally subdue him. I broke my hand. I had to get sutures on my face.
‘Another officer broke his wrist and a third officer had to get sutures or stitches with it.
‘He was only in custody for a couple months. And then he got released.’
Miller also claimed Proposition 47 had turned California’s prisons into ‘revolving doors’.
The measure, passed by voters in 2014, reclassified some nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors, including shoplifting where the value of the stolen property does not exceed $950.
It has been blamed by some, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and California retail head Rachel Michelin for a rise in thefts after scores of stores in the state suffered brazen heists.
Sounds like there’s a grand bargain to be had: California sends Texas all its good law enforcement officers, and in return Texas sends California all the homeless drug addicts and illegal aliens so beloved by the Democratic Party over ordinary, law-abiding citizens. Then we’ll see which state prospers more. (Except we’re already seeing it. People have been leaving California for Texas for over a decade.)
Decline is a choice, and California voters have decided that they side with the Democratic Party and George Soros in embracing high crime rates and treating police and Republicans as the villains.
Now they get to live with the consequences of their choices.
From California comes an amazing profile in pettiness. A school superintendent threatened action against members of a softball team and their parent over not clapping loudly enough for her own daughter.
Marian Phelps was superintendent of the Powey Unified School District north of San Diego.
“As you see, everyone clapped, but Phelps was upset because she said the claps weren’t loud enough.” Never be the first one to stop clapping for Stalin’s daughter, comrade…
“Phelps accused Doe and her friends on the softball team of not clapping loud enough when her daughter received the most valuable player award…the lawsuit says Phelps ordered school personnel to investigate the incident as a case of bullying.”
“One of the softball coaches said he was concerned about being fired. ‘The other coach who stood up to this has been fired. and so I’m in the same predicament.'”
“After meeting in a closed door session, school board members for the Poway Unified School District have voted to unanimously terminate superintendent Marian Phelps.” It seems like lying to the board finally did Phelps in.
There’s a line in the Christopher Durang play Beyond Therapy, where someone recounts going to see a production of Peter Pan, where Peter says “You didn’t clap loud enough! Tinkerbell’s dead!” It’s hard to imagine the level of pettiness it takes for a school district superintendent to kill their own career over people not clapping loudly enough. I suppose this is the inevitable consequence of entitlement thinking and obsessing over “microaggressions”…
The Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) issued a new Title IX rule that includes changes to how federal civil rights law protects “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
A key provision in the rule change now “Recognizes that preventing a person from participating in a recipient’s education program or activity consistent with their gender identity subjects that person to more than de minimis harm.”
The Human Rights Campaign said the new rule will “protect LGBTQ+ students” in addition to reversing “Trump-era changes to Title IX that limited federal funded educational institutions’ obligation to address sexual harassment and assault and clarifies protections for pregnant and parenting students.”
“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.”
Title IX is a federal program that instructs educational institutions that receive federal funds from the DOE to carry out their educational programs “in a nondiscriminatory manner free of discrimination based on sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity.” Included in the issue areas of Title IX are athletics, financial assistance programs, admissions, recruitment, and sex-based harassment investigations.
The actual text of Title IX as passed in 1972 said nothing about “sexual orientation or gender identity,” rather stating “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Not “orientation,” not “gender identity,” sex. As in the biological kind, where those with XX chromosomes are female and those with XY chromosomes are male.
Gov. Greg Abbott issued a letter Monday to President Biden, saying, “Texas will not adhere to the new rules.”
“I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore your illegal dictate.”
Following the Title IX rule changes, Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) penned a letter to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath.
“As Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, I am calling on you to promptly direct all superintendents in Texas to ignore the proposed changes to Title IX,” wrote Cain.
“Additionally, I am calling on all Texas superintendents to publicly commit to disregarding this directive from the Biden Administration.”
The Texas Freedom Caucus followed with its own letter to Morath expressing similar concerns, stating they “urge” him to “instruct all Texas superintendents to disregard these proposed alterations.”
Other state governors and education chiefs in Florida, Louisiana, Montana, and South Carolina have issued similar disregard directives.
Florida rejects Joe Biden’s attempts to rewrite Title IX. We will not comply. And we will fight back. We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities. We are not going to let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents. And we are not going to let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida…
Attorney General Ken Paxton has also sued the Biden administration and the DOE over the Title IX rule change.
“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” wrote Paxton in a press release.
“This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk.”
The complaint argues the DOE “has attempted to effect radical social change in our Nation’s schools” and that the new Title IX rule “walks back many of the constitutional safeguards issued by the Trump Administration to ensure that students accused of harassment have access to a fair hearing.”
Snip.
“This rule violates existing federal law, ignores the Constitution, and denies women the protections that Title IX was intended to afford them,” AFL stated in a press release. “The Biden Administration has exceeded its authority and radically distorted the meaning intended by Congress when the law was made.
The radical transexism the Biden Administration is trying to shove down America’s throats may be popular with the hard left social justice warriors who now man the levers of the Democratic Party’s political machinery, but it’s deeply unpopular with ordinary Americans of both sexes and all races, creeds, and colors. It’s an alien, anti-reality ideology being imposed from without with no basis in any law passed by congress, and resistance to its irrational dictates is both widely popular and a constitutional necessity.
The Biden Recession bites deeper, Soros’ hands are all over the pro-Hamas protests, California fast food wage hikes hurt workers (but help robotics companies), and some Harris County legal followups. Plus some Zack Snyder bashing. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
For the first time in our history, a 30-year-old man or woman isn’t doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That is the social compact breaking down.
People aged 30-34, 60% of them in 1990 had one child. Now it’s 27%. People are opting out of America, they’re not optimistic about it, they’re not having kids. Young people aren’t having sex. They’re not meeting, they’re not mating. The pool of emotionally and economically viable men shrinks every day. Which lessens household formation.
They (millennials and Gen Z) look up, they see wealth, exceptional wealth, across my generation and people in certain industries, and they are really struggling. Their purchasing power is really going down…
We get very concerned with housing and traffic once we own the housing. Housing permits are sequestered from young people, housing prices have gone from $290,000 to $420,000 in the last 4 years.
So a young person, a house, stocks that I don’t own, skyrocket in value, let’s have Covid relief and flush the markets and take assets way up because a million people dying would be bad, would be tragic if I got less wealthy, and we’re doing it on their credit card.
Bill Maher is, if anything, clever about his timing like most comedians. His rebellion against the woke mob has been carefully crafted in a way that has allowed him to avoid outright cancellation. It’s not as impressive a revolt as Gina Carano’s because the risk today is far less, but at least he’s willing to address the obvious hypocrisy within the social justice crowd and admit that maybe, just maybe, conservatives had it right all along.
His latest surprising monologue covers an issue everyone has known about for years but almost no one in the media has been willing to address seriously because it involves many of their friends in the entertainment industry. Hollywood was quick to jump on the feminist bandwagon at the helm of the “Me Too Movement”, but this only exposed a small part of Hollywood’s degeneracy. Actresses trading sex for favors from producers and executives is hardly that shocking a revelation. The thing they really don’t want to talk about is the industry’s penchant for pedophilia…
The money quote from that video that’s not in the ZeroHedge article: “The left will overlook child-fucking if a guy from the wrong party points it out.”
One of the deepest darkest secrets of film, television and music media is that the business has long been used as a vehicle for child abusers to target kids in an environment where parental supervision is limited (and lots of money can be gained). This reminds us of yet another environment where parental supervision is limited: Public schools. The political left has also targeted these institutions as ample ground for grooming. Why? As Bill Maher notes, the groomers are naturally gravitating to where the children are.
“Leave the kids alone” is a mantra that the woke movement simply refuses to understand or accept. The reason is relatively transparent – Leftists are less inclined to have children of their own, and so, in order to increase their numbers and power they are required to indoctrinate your kids instead. This is all done under the guise of “inclusion” and the “greater good” but the results of this kind of activism are becoming deeply disturbing. Even moderate liberals are noticing that woke behavior is destroying what remains of their image.
Newly unsealed documents in Donald Trump’s classified documents case reveal that the Biden White House colluded with the National Archives (NARA) and the FBI to concoct a case against the former president.
What’s more, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to conceal this – telling Judge Eileen Cannon in February that Trump’s counsel isn’t entitled to discovery on documents between the White House and NARA, that the court should toss requests for evidence of the alleged coordination, and that the court should deny Trump’s request for evidence related to secure facilities at his residences. Further, Trump’s request for unredacted discovery of materials should be denied.
Seems like a substantial due process rights violation, doesn’t it?
Immediately after Biden’s signature, the Pentagon announced $1 billion of military assistance to Ukraine from the Presidential Drawdown Authority.
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, ammunition for HIMARS rocket systems, 155mm artillery rounds, 60mm mortary rounds, and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, are among the U.S. capabilities being provided to Ukraine, the Pentagon said.
The foreign-aid legislation will send roughly $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, with $23 billion being used to replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles and $11 billion to fund U.S. military operations in the surrounding area.
Israel will receive $26 billion including $4.4 billion to fund its Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defenses. Over $9 billion of the Israel aid will go towards humanitarian relief.
While I support military aid to Ukraine, Republicans should not have dropped their demand that border security be addressed first, nor should we be raising the national debt to do it. And if we’re going to be paying for David’s Sling and Iron Dome, then we better damn well be getting the tech back to use in our own weapons.
At three colleges, the protests are being encouraged by paid radicals who are “fellows” of a Soros-funded group called the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).
USCPR provides up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based “fellows” in return for spending eight hours a week organizing “campaigns led by Palestinian organizations.”
They are trained to “rise up, to revolution.”
The radical group received at least $300,000 from Soros’ Open Society Foundations since 2017 and also took in $355,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund since 2019.
More on that theme:
TERROR: The occupation of college campuses across the US is a well organized and funded operation led by Soros-backed groups including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). The Soros-backed NGOs pay outside agitators $7800 and… pic.twitter.com/6wzpjBksBs
A lot of Jewish friends, especially those who are finally awake after 10/7, say things like "how is this America?" or "It's so scary that this Jew-hatred is happening everywhere." But it's very much NOT "America" and it absolutely is NOT happening "everywhere." In south Florida,…
A lot of Jewish friends, especially those who are finally awake after 10/7, say things like “how is this America?” or “It’s so scary that this Jew-hatred is happening everywhere.” But it’s very much NOT “America” and it absolutely is NOT happening “everywhere.” In south Florida, Jews wear the dinner plate Magen Davids and no one says one word. In rural Michigan, churches put “pray for Israel” on the signs outside. I’m not naive, obviously Jew-haters can and do live anywhere. But they’re only thriving, open, proud, in blue areas and I’m not going to let people ignore that. A lot of liberal Jews are trying to parse things right now. They imagine they are still of the left but just on this one tiny little thing, their right to exist, they disagree. No, my friends. It’s a house of cards and you’re pulling the one from the very bottom. The whole left ideology is corrupt and you’re going to have to face it. You can’t spread the blame around. The hatred, the rage, the violence, the dehumanization is all coming from one side: yours.
When Democrat judges go rogue. “Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
The state of California seems hellbent on making life a living hell for middle-class residents, as evidenced not just by their soft-on-crime policies but by the minimum wage increase that went into effect at the beginning of April.
Though the $20/hour wage was ostensibly designed to help minimum wage workers, it has had the opposite effect, with fast food restaurants in the Democrat-run state slashing jobs and hours, implementing hiring freezes, and/or bringing in self-serve kiosks to ease the financial burden.
Something else they’ve had to do is raise prices on the food they serve, with prices going up as much as eight percent at some locations.
While the fast-food industry was founded on utilizing technology to increase efficiency, the robot revolution seems to be speeding up.
Last year, Sweetgreen, a Los Angeles-based fast-casual salad chain, debuted its fully automated Infinite Kitchen at a restaurant in Illinois. Like Mezli, the Infinite Kitchen moves bowls down a conveyor belt where its system automatically portions out ingredients. The technology is “expected to cut labor costs in half while boosting throughput,” according to a trade magazine.
Similarly, the founder of Chipotle recently launched a new fast-casual chain, Kernel, that utilizes robots to heat and assemble vegetarian meals.
In December, a CaliExpress burger joint opened in Pasadena, complete with robot arms that cook burgers and fries, and AI-powered kiosks that allow customers to order and pay (and tip, of course), with their faces. Leaders at Miso Robotics, one of the companies behind CaliExpress, have said it is the first restaurant where all the ordering and cooking is fully automated.
The robots “don’t call in sick, they don’t get drunk the night before work and come in with a hangover,” one CaliExpress leader told a local TV station. “They’re a little bit more reliable.”
Other restaurants, including Cajun Crack’n in Concord, Calif., are experimenting with robots that can deliver food, bus tables, and may soon be taking orders. Robot bartenders and baristas are also in the works.
While restaurant sales are forecasted to increase this year and the restaurant workforce is expected to grow, owners are continuing to struggle with slim margins, in part due to food inflation and rising labor costs. According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry report, 98 percent of restaurant operators are struggling with higher labor costs, and 38 percent say they weren’t profitable last year.
Biden Recession + union-backed wage hikes = boom times for robots
El Paso Democratic judge: Eh, there’s not enough evidence to put these illegal aliens on trial for assaulting state troopers. Just let them go. Grand jury: Nope! We’re indicting 141 of them for that riot.
Another Harris County follow-up: DA Kim Ogg announced that the legal cases against Lina Hidalgo staffers will now be prosecuted by the Texas Attorney General’s office because Democratic DA nominee Sean Teare, who defeated Ogg in the March primary, “works for the Cogdell Law Firm, which is defending Hidalgo’s former Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis in the case, and that he had sought and received Hidalgo’s endorsement.”
The Biden Administration wants to waste taxpayer money pushing radical transgenderism in other countries. “The Biden administration wants to train at least 200 activists to advocate for transgender rights in India as part of a program ostensibly designed to advance America’s ‘national interests,’ according to a federal grant posting.”
More Biden Administration madness: “A popular US convenience store chain has been hit with a civil rights lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against minority job seekers because it requires applicants to have no criminal record.”
A dust storm of political madness is brewing in Phoenix as Grand Canyon University faces the continued threats of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
Christians have watched as the Biden administration attacks biblical views left and right, with a particularly vehement disregard for the sanctity of life and marriage. As such, it can’t be too surprising that Cardona, a part of this leftist administration, has vowed to shut down America’s largest Christian university.
In late October, Grand Canyon University was hit with “a $37.7 million fine brought by the federal government over allegations that it lied to students about the cost of its programs,” The Associated Press reported—an accusation that GCU President Brian Mueller described as “ridiculous.”
Around the same time, Liberty University, America’s second-largest Christian university, also was fined $37 million “over alleged underreporting of crimes.”
Grand Canyon University appealed its fine in November even though a hearing is not expected until January 2025. But the question Mueller has is one of integrity. Is this genuine consideration for the well-being of students, or is this a targeted attack against religious institutions?
“It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the two largest Christian universities in the country, this one and Liberty University, are both being fined almost the identical amount at almost the identical time?” GCU’s president speculated in a speech. “Now is there a cause and effect there? I don’t know. But it’s a fact.”
Trader Joe’s organic basil has an extra organic ingredient: salmonella.
Critical Drinker wasn’t impressed with Rebel Moon 2: “Comically inept…boring and tedious..derivative cliched and unoriginal. It takes a special kind of cinematic anti-genius to bring all these things together into one movie. You have to actively work to make a film this bad”
The Biden Recession hits boardgaming. This is not a field I have much experience with, as the last boardgame I bought was the Kickstarter for the Designer Edition of Ogre. But I have noticed a similar decline in what science fiction book collectors are spending. Still, the idea that boardgames manufacturers are close to $1 billion in debt is pretty staggering.
The Onion sold. “The Onion has a new owner: a company called ‘Global Tetrahedron,’ which is a real thing based on a fake entity invented by the satire site more than two decades ago….The Onion’s new owner is Jeff Lawson, co-founder and former CEO of Twilio, a customer-service software company, he announced Thursday on X (formerly Twitter).” When last we read about Jeff Lawson, he was dumping money on the Dem side in the 2020 Texas Senate race, to no effect. Now people are wondering whether they’ll shut down zombie SJW gaming site Kotaku…
Live in Florida? Ron DeSantis would like you to adopt this cute border dog:
Essentia is a lab/shepherd mix who was rescued from the southern border, where the border crisis affects everyone—even our canine friends. Please consider giving Essentia a great home by adopting her from Big Dog Ranch Rescue.https://t.co/2ATqP5DPQNpic.twitter.com/qMO8JD1zUw
