Posts Tagged ‘Disney’

LinkSwarm for October 4, 2024

Friday, October 4th, 2024

A crippling dock strike gets the can kicked past election day, Hurricane Helene wrecks havoc on the highlands, illegal alien crime flourishes, two bombing plots aimed at “diversity” are thwarted, Texas A&M ditches woke classes, more Diddy dirt, and Japanese gamers aren’t onboard with Ubisoft’s “black samurai.”

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Striking Dockworkers Agree to Take a Measly 62 Percent Raise and Not Spoil the Election for Democrats.” How convenient.
  • “America Last: After Spending $640 Million On Migrants And Billions Abroad, FEMA Suddenly ‘Broke.'”

    The Biden-Harris administration’s ‘America Last’ policies have left the country vulnerable. Between draining the strategic petroleum reserve, sending hundreds of billions in cash and equipment to Ukraine (such as electrical transformers that are now needed for Hurricane Helene), and FEMA spending $640 million to help migrants, the agency tasked with emergency preparedness is now ‘broke,’ and doesn’t have enough money to get through hurricane season which typically lasts through November.

    The agency is being stretched as it works with states to assess damage from Hurricane Helene and delivers meals, water, generators and other critical supplies. The storm struck Florida last week, then plowed through several states in the Southeast, flooding towns and killing more than 160 people.

    Mayorkas was not specific about how much additional money the agency may need, but his remarks on Air Force One underscored concerns voiced by President Joe Biden and some lawmakers earlier this week that Congress may need to pass a supplemental spending bill this fall to help states with recovery efforts.

  • “This woman blasted Joe Biden live on NBC – she has family that has been trapped in NC for days and says FEMA is nowhere in sight. Why haven’t President Biden or Vice President Harris called a major press conference and/or landed on the ground in towns that were wiped off the map by last week’s flooding?”
  • Indeed, there are a lot of reports that some government agencies are actively hindering private rescue and relief efforts in North Carolina. “Let’s begin with this terrible report of a man who used his own helicopter to rescue stranded people above Asheville, N.C., and who was told if he continued, he would be placed under arrest.”

    Also: “We have medical teams trying to access Burnsville (elevation 2,700ft) and Black Mountain. Authorities are threatening arrest. I’m gonna keep this short & simple; something is very wrong here.”

    Also: “NEW – Federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has shut down aid flights into Western North Carolina. A NOTAM has been issued by the FAA that won’t allow anyone not approved by the state to fly aid missions.”

    Plus a slate of 18-wheeler tire slashings in multiple locations that’s hopefully not government sanctioned. Hopefully…

  • Trump announces that Elon Musk is providing free Starlink terminals to areas affected by hurricane Helene.
  • Musk will also be a Trump’s October 5 rally in Butler, PA, the same site as the attempted assassination attempt against Trump.
  • One pollster thinks Trump could win swing states by a landslide.

    The Trafalgar Group released a poll on Wednesday showing Trump has increased his lead in the vital swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

    The recent poll shows Trump beating Harris by 2.2 points in Michigan, with Trump scoring 47.5% of the votes to Harris’s 45.3%.

    On August 31, the Trafalgar Group had Trump beating Harris 47% to 46.6%, a lead of only 0.4%.

    Trump is winning in Wisconsin as well, topping the Kackler by 47.1% to 46%. The poll had Trump at 47.3% to Harris’s 46.2%.

    “These numbers are the best we’ve seen for Trump in this election cycle. If this momentum holds, he could easily win by a significant margin,” a polling source stated.

    In Pennsylvania, which many pundits believe Harris needs to win, Trump is up, with 47.5% of the vote, compared to Harris’s 45.3%.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Texas Congressman Confirms Thousands of Murderers, Rapists Entered the Country Illegally.”

    The Biden-Harris administration has allowed well over half a million illegal aliens with criminal histories to enter the United States.

    U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-23) published the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data on social media platform X.

    According to the newly released information, 662,566 noncitizens on ICE’s national docket have criminal histories. These numbers include 13,099 murder convicts, 15,811 sexual assault convicts, and 13,423 weapon offense convicts.

    “We’ve known for far too long that the Biden-Harris border crisis poses a direct threat to Americans,” Gonzales said in a press release. “The truth is clear—illegal immigrants with a criminal record are coming into our country.”

    The Texas congressman asserted that beyond the disturbing new data, it should also serve as a “wake-up call” for the federal government and cities across the United States that keep sanctuary policies in place.

    Gonzales first requested the data on March 13 when he penned a letter requesting answers to several illegal immigration questions to President Joe Biden and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    Of the seven million reported cases on ICE’s docket, the letter requested information on how many noncitizens were charged with a crime by a municipality. Additionally, the letter asked how many were noncitizens convicted of a crime and released into U.S. communities.

    Over six months later, Gonzales has finally received a response.

    Sure seems like Gonzales has been a lot more active on this issue since Brandon Herrera primaried him…

  • Another side effect of Biden-Harris open borders policy: An explosion of illegal alien prostitution networks.

    As ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris visited the southern border for a photo-op on Friday, alarming new revelations also emerged showing that far-left Democrats in the White House rolled out the red carpet to 650,000 migrants with criminal records. This has already fueled chaos nationwide, including a new report of an “explosion in migrant prostitution” networks across America.

    A newly leaked law enforcement document obtained by New York Post journalists shows that the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua has exploited desperate migrant women into sex trafficking networks across eight states.

    At least eight states have seen an explosion in migrant prostitution since the gang laid down roots in the US, with authorities in Texas, Nevada, Illinois, California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey and New York now fighting to curtail the sex trade, the memo shows. -NYPost

    The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been linked to sex trafficking in eight states including New York.

    In New York City, police sources told the NYPost that Tren de Aragua gangsters are recruiting their members and victims straight out of city-run migrant shelters.

    In the Big Apple, Tren de Aragua is trying to recruit foot soldiers to force women into sex trafficking — in the hopes that it will become a main source of income for the gang, according to the leaked memo.

    Funny how we didn’t see or hear a single story about Tren de Aragua prior to the Biden Administration, and now they seem to be everywhere.

  • Speaking of sexual slavery, a Yazidi woman captured by the Islamic State was just rescued…in Gaza. From the river to the sea/No sex slave shall be free…
  • “A paralegal at a New York City district attorney’s office has been arrested after he attempted to make an explosive to bomb a migrant shelter located across from his apartment, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.” See, here in Texas, we just want to deport illegal aliens, not blow them up…
  • “Philadelphia: Muslim teen hoped to make bombs for terror group, planned LGBTQ parade jihad massacre….Muhyyee-ud-din Abdul-Rahman, 18, of West Philadelphia, not only had bomb-making materials, that were found in the trash at his home, he had tested bombs in the woods behind his home and had likely considered an attack on Philly’s LGBTQ community.” Funny how some of the Democratic Party’s vibrant diversity wants to blow up other parts of the Democratic Party’s vibrant diversity…
  • John Kerry admits that the First Amendment is a huge barrier to forcing leftist views down people’s throats. “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. What we need is to win…the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.” If anyone you know is committing #Wrongthink, be sure to report them to the Ministry of Love…
  • Iran hit mostly Jack and Squat in its missile attack on israel, though it did evidently hit one airbase hanger.
  • Hamas Commander Killed in Israeli Strike Led U.N. Refugee Agency Teachers’ Union.” [Fateh Sherif] was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives, as well as Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.”
  • MSM media outlets fell all over themselves to praise dead terrorist scumbag Hassan Nasrallah.
  • Israel hits a Russian airbase in Syria. One wonders what Russian’s adventures in Syria have gotten them other than some dead mercenaries and weapons sales.
  • Russia Captures Vuhledar: After Over 800 Vehicle Losses and Over Two Years of Trying.”
  • The Babylon Bee filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Monday after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of “deepfake” laws that target outlets that publish satire and parody.”
  • Virginia high school teacher fired for refusing to use tranny pronouns awarded $575,000. Make them pay.
  • Albania wants to createa microstate in their own capital for “Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order” for the moderate Sufi Muslim sect. “His hoped-for Muslim state in Tirana, the capital of Albania, will be a Vatican-style sovereign enclave that will control territory the size of five New York City blocks and will allow alcohol, allow women to wear what they want and not impose lifestyle rules.” Not the worst idea I’ve heard this year. At least they could sell postage stamps…
  • A&M to Deactivate ‘LGBTQ’ Studies Minor and Social Justice Certificate.”

    A Texas A&M spokesperson has confirmed that the university will deactivate 38 certificates and 14 minors, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor.

    The A&M spokesperson told The Battalion that the official list of deactivated programs will not be public until it appears before the Faculty Senate on October 14. A university statement cited low enrollment as the reason for deactivating the programs.

    However, Theresa Morris, the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, said that the LGBTQ Studies minor was among those ending.

    An official in the Department of Communication & Journalism also confirmed that certificates for both Communication, Diversity and Social Justice and Communication & Global Media are being deactivated.

    Additionally, the director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Performance confirmed that the certificates for popular culture and performing social activism were also in the deactivation process.

    This comes after State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) repeatedly called DEI courses and the LGBTQ studies minor an “outrageous abuse of tax money” and examples of “taxpayer-funded indoctrination.”

    Good. Maybe students will be forced to choose a major that adds to the world rather than tearing it down with social justice.

  • “Lawsuit Accuses Democrat State House Candidate of Not Paying Vendors. House District 80 Democrat candidate Cecilia Castellano is already under investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton in a separate voter fraud case.”

    A lawsuit filed in Tarrant County is accusing a Democrat running for the Texas House of Representatives of failing to pay her vendors and subcontractors in the business she operates.

    House District 80 candidate Cecilia Castellano, who operates Azteca Designs and Construction, allegedly failed to provide proper compensation for work done by one of Azteca’s subcontractors, the Glass Doctor of North Texas, according to the suit.

    Glass Doctor had entered an agreement to work on a project with Azteca in November 2023, where the subcontractor was slated to earn $49,643.36, according to the filing. Later, Glass Doctor was tasked with replacing damaged glass installed by another subcontractor for an additional $18,487.77.

    However, Glass Doctor says the payments never arrived.

    Plaintiffs instead painted a picture of Azteca going out of their way to avoid providing the payments, claiming the project was “not built pursuant to written plans” and back-charging Glass Doctor to fix work done by a third party.

  • “Fort Bend County Judge KP George Indicted Over Fake Racist Messages. Warrants indicate George may have attempted to conceal evidence.”

    Fort Bend County Judge KP George has been indicted on misdemeanor charges related to faked racist messages on social media but could face felony charges over an alleged attempt to hide evidence.

    A grand jury indicted George last Thursday in relation to a scheme in collaboration with Taral Patel, his former chief of staff and now Democratic candidate for county commissioner. Patel was indicted on four felony and four misdemeanor charges after investigators tied him to fake social media and email accounts used to make offensive posts and circulate falsified polls.

  • “Netflix Cancellations Skyrocketed After Founder Donated, Endorsed Harris. Netflix cancellations went through the roof after co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings endorsed and donated to VP Kamala Harris.”
  • Following up on last week’s Diddy arrest story, the accusations just keep piling on, with 120 more sexual abuse claims, including 25 from minors. If even 10% of these claims are true, how did he get away with such massive abuse for so long? Who does he have dirt on?
  • “[German] Green Party co-chairs Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour are stepping down. The move could make things even harder for Germany’s fractious coalition government. Germany’s Green Party is going from crisis to crisis. Three days after regional elections in the eastern state of Brandenburg delivered a stinging defeat to the party, its entire leadership has resigned. Now, the party will have to choose a replacement at its party conference in November.”
  • My my, hey hey/Disney cancels the movie about Rei.
  • Who could possibly be pissed off about a historical game starring a black samurai? Well, for starters, Japanese gamers.
  • “Kamala Announces Construction Of ‘Murderers Only’ Express Lane At Southern Border.”
  • School Shooters Distance Themselves From Tim Walz.”
  • “Hezbollah Reaches Out To U.S. For Advice On How To Govern With A Dead Leader.”
  • “Young Hezbollah Recruit Can’t Believe He’s Already Made Regional Manager.”
  • OK, I’m awake!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Also, a hearty thanks to everyone who has already donated.

    LinkSwarm For September 20, 2024

    Friday, September 20th, 2024

    More Trump assassination details emerge, the Israel-Hezbollah front remains spicy, a huge Russian ammo dump blew up real good, more open borders shenanigans from the Biden-Harris junta, more woke Tolkien garbage, and China tries to pass off the most adorable fake pandas.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • “Hawley Releases Damning Report on Security Failures Leading Up to First Attempt on Trump’s Life.”

    Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) released a whistleblower report Monday on the law-enforcement failures leading up to the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump two months ago. The report was released one day after a suspect was apprehended in Florida for trying to kill Trump on his golf course in Florida.

    The Secret Service’s failures to secure Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13 were extensive and constituted one of the most consequential security debacles in U.S. history. Chief among them was law enforcement’s apparent choice to leave the rooftop of the American Glass Research (AGR) building unguarded, allegedly because of heat, before gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed atop the building to carry out the attack, Hawley’s report states.

    The report is based on whistleblower allegations brought to his office in the wake of Crooks’s rampage. Before the report was published, Hawley sent multiple letters to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, questioning him about the most shocking details from the whistleblowers who contacted his office.

    Overseeing the Secret Service’s security operations at the rally was an unnamed lead agent who apparently has a history of incompetence and who directed the placement of certain items around the stage of the Trump rally that impaired visibility. The individual is allegedly known to be a low-quality agent and failed an examination on the way to becoming a Secret Service agent.

    Secret Service intelligence units were not at the Butler rally. If they had been there, they could have prevented or mitigated the communication breakdown between federal and local law enforcement, Hawley’s report says, a major allegation that he has not previously publicized.

    Ahead of the rally, the Secret Service’s counter-surveillance division did not conduct its typical inspection of the site and did not have a presence at the Butler campaign rally. A whistleblower told Hawley’s office that the counter-surveillance division would have arrested Crooks for carrying a rangefinder. The same whistleblower alleges that acting director Ron Rowe personally requested cuts to the counter-surveillance division, a claim Rowe has denied.

    At a congressional hearing in July, Rowe admitted to the Secret Service’s mistakes on the day of the Trump rally, including a decision to reject an offer from local law enforcement for drone support after the Secret Service was unable to fly its own. Hours before the shooting, Crooks flew a drone around the perimeter of the Trump rally for roughly 11 minutes, the FBI has determined.

    According to the report, a whistleblower with direct knowledge of the Butler planning process said that the rally was not slated to receive any additional security because Trump is not a sitting president or vice president. These additional resources would have included counter-snipers and counter-surveillance personnel.

    The Trump rally was considered to be a “loose” security environment, meaning that Department of Homeland Security personnel failed to police the area immediately surrounding the stage and were not placed at intervals around the perimeter, Hawley’s report asserts. Extra DHS personnel without the necessary training to work campaigns were pulled away from the department’s investigative team and reassigned to the Trump rally, a whistleblower told Hawley’s office.

    Up to this point, Hawley says, the Secret Service and DHS have not answered questions about the lead agent overseeing the Trump campaign rally, resources allocated to the Trump campaign, and the Secret Service’s lack of counter-sniper coverage on the AGR building.

    I think we need to know the name of this unnamed lead agent, and how many ties he has to the Obama regime…

  • What we know about the latest would-be Trump assassin.

    On Sunday, September 15th, 58-year-old Ryan Routh of Hawaii showed up to Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, where former President Donald Trump was golfing.

    Routh reportedly shoved the barrel of a scoped polymer SKS-style rifle through the fence with the intent to fire at President Trump, who was several hundred yards away.

    Nothing says “accuracy” quite like an old Soviet design they dropped for the AK-47.

    Authorities say Routh also had a GoPro camera, as well as two backpacks containing ceramic tile that he had hung on the fence (a type of ballistics armor is made of ceramic tile).

    Secret Service agents saw Routh and fired at him. He escaped in a black Nissan before getting arrested by local police on I-95 thanks to a photograph taken by a bystander.

    USA Today says Routh has a “complex history,” which is code for “the man was foaming at the mouth for leftist causes.”

    A profile for Ryan Routh on X dates to January 2020, where he posted a range of passionate opinions on issues including Black Lives Matter, Taiwanese sovereignty and supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia.

    Obviously he supported Palestinians and hated Israel.

    According to Fox News, Routh spent the majority of his life in North Carolina, where he owned a company called United Roofing.

    You won’t be surprised that Routh was in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) in the 2020 election.

    In 2020, during the presidential primary, the X account said: ‘I was not supporting Bernie, but now I am; as sleepy Joe stands for nothing; no plans, no ideas, just as limp as hillary. Bernie…….give them hell…..fight to the death…’

    Routh reportedly donated to ActBlue, a major Democratic campaign fund, at least 19 times.

  • A lot of reports said would-be Trump assassin Routh fought for Ukraine and against Russia. Ukraine says they rejected him as a “Call of Duty Warrior.”

    Ukrainian military recruiters appear to have spotted almost immediately that Mr Routh, who had a long criminal record, was not promising material.

    According to an interview that he later gave to the Financial Times, he was rejected for service when he first reported to a Legion office on the Polish border at the war’s outset.

    “They said: ‘You’re 56, you’re old and you have no experience’,” he told the paper. “So why don’t you recruit and coordinate?”

    If that is what they told him, they probably intended him doing so having returned himself safely back to the US. Undeterred, however, Mr Routh continued on to Kyiv, where he became a familiar – if less than welcome – face on the Legion’s fringes.

    There were many such cranks in Kyiv at the time, latching on to the war to pose as international men of action and boasting of high-level contacts in the Pentagon or CIA.

    Regular Legionnaires did their best to avoid them, referring to them variously as “Call of Duty Warriors”, “Volun-tourists” and “Screamers” – the latter a reference to their reaction if coming under fire.

    But there was little to stop them promoting themselves on social media, as Mr Routh did prolifically, claiming to be an active recruiter for the Legion ranks.

    “Any gender, any age, any skill level to no skill level,” he claimed to Newsweek in 2022. “Yeah, if you wanna fight, come and see me and I’ll put you in a unit so you can go fight.”

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Kamala Harris: “As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world for the first time this century.” U.S. active duty soldiers in a combat zone: “Say what?
  • CBS polls restaurant patrons in Nevada and finds precisely one Harris supporter. Everyone else was for Trump. Presumably illegal aliens don’t eat out much…
  • “Oregon DMV admits that they’ve registered hundreds of illegal immigrants to vote since 2021.”
  • “PA Supreme Court rules that misdated ballots must not be counted.”

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has determined that the two biggest counties in the state do not have to count mail-in ballots that have either the wrong date or no date where indicated on the outer envelope. The ruling was 4 to 3, with those 3 justices writing a dissent in the case.

    The order from the court found that the lower court, which had ruled that those ballots must be counted even with the errors, lacked jurisdiction in the case because only Allegheny and Philadelphia Counties were mentioned in the case and not all of the state’s 67 counties.

    The order reads: “AND NOW, this 13th day of September, 2024, the order of the Commonwealth Court is VACATED. The Commonwealth Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the matter given the failure to name the county boards of elections of all 67 counties, and because the joinder of Al Schmidt, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, did not suffice to invoke the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction.”

    In practice, this means that in the coming presidential election, officials will not count any ballots that are either misdated or undated ballots. The jurisdiction issue could be addressed by the plaintiffs in the case before the election. The plaintiffs are listed as Black Political Empowerment Project, Power Interfaith, Make the Road Pennsylvania, OnePA Activists, New PA Project Education Fund, Casa San Jose, Pittsburgh United, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Common Cause Pennsylvania.

    But don’t think for a minute this will keep Pennsylvania Democrats from trying to steal the election just like they did in 2020, as they won’t start “counting” absentee ballots until election day.

  • And speaking of Pennsylvania voting fraud: “Pennsylvania[‘s Luzerne County] bans drop boxes after woman caught with multiple ballots.”
  • “Ex-Border Patrol Chief Says He Was Instructed By Biden-Harris Admin To Hide Terrorist Encounters.”

    In a scathing revelation before Congress, former San Diego Sector Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke accused the Biden-Harris administration of covering up a sharp rise in encounters with suspected terrorists at the U.S.-Mexico border.

    During a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing titled “A Country Without Borders: How Biden-Harris’ Open-Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security,” Heitke said he was muzzled from releasing critical information on the number of Special Interest Aliens (SIAs) — individuals with known or suspected ties to terrorism — apprehended in California.

    “I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke testified. “The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”

    According to Heitke, arrests of individuals with terror ties skyrocketed under President Joe Biden’s watch. The former Border Patrol chief revealed that before 2021, his sector had apprehended between 10 to 15 SIAs annually. By 2022, that number had shot up to over 100, with even more recorded in 2023.

    “Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year. These are only the ones we caught,”

  • Scott Adams lays down some truth bombs:

    You’ll need to click on that to expand it. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “US Secures Convictions, Guilty Pleas As CCP-Directed Spying Exposed.”

    For years, Beijing has been deepening its hold on America, drawing intelligence from the U.S. government while silencing critics with the help of agents embedded in U.S. society.

    The United States is now hitting back—and seeing results, according to experts.

    In early September, prosecutors arrested Linda Sun, former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, accusing her of acting on behalf of Beijing in exchange for gifts and payouts valued in millions of dollars to her family.

    There has also been a marked increase in the rate of convictions or pleas in recent months. The Justice Department has brought forth dozens of CCP-directed espionage and foreign agent cases in the past four years, resulting in at least 13 convictions or pleas, with more than half of those taking place this year—including three in the past month. an Epoch Times review of the court records show.

    On Aug. 6, a Chinese American scholar posing as a pro-democracy activist was convicted by a jury for spying on dissidents for the CCP.

    On Aug. 13, a U.S. army intelligence analyst from Texas pleaded guilty to selling military secrets to the CCP.

    On Aug. 23, a software engineer who worked two decades at Verizon pleaded guilty to gathering intelligence on countless dissidents and organizations targeted by the CCP since 2012.

    Case documents reveal a broad range of criminal actions taken by agents, often different from what most may imagine to be spying. Beyond industrial espionage and covert influence campaigns, the regime has directed hacker rings, including a group that was charged and sanctioned this year for waging a 14-year campaign on the United States.

    “I feel that our nation must take every opportunity to stop these threats,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), chair of the cybersecurity subcommittee for the House Armed Services Committee, told The Epoch Times, noting that the U.S. intelligence community has identified Beijing as the number one threat to the United States.

    Bacon has experienced Chinese espionage attempts firsthand. Last year, he was hacked by CCP-linked hackers who also broke into email systems of State and Commerce department officials and dozens of other groups.

    “Can we ever say that whatever actions we are taking are enough? I don’t believe so as the threats are increasing in frequency, sophistication, and national security impact,” Bacon said.

    The CCP has long targeted people of Chinese descent—of whom there are more than 60 million people outside China—as potential assets in its intelligence operations.

    Among those charged by the DOJ in the foreign agent cases are officials of the CCP’s top intelligence gathering agency Ministry of State Security (MSS), Chinese citizens traveling to the United States under false pretenses, hackers residing in Asian countries; as well as asylees, permanent residents, and U.S. citizens of Chinese descent.

    Some reside in the United States while dozens of others charged are known to reside in China, and will now face arrest if they ever set foot on American soil.

    There are also many who are U.S. citizens that aren’t of Chinese descent. They include active military members, former law enforcement, and experts in competitive fields.

  • “Israeli Strike Kills Hezbollah Commander behind 1983 U.S. Embassy Bombing.”

    An Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed senior Hezbollah military official Ibrahim Akil on Friday, Israeli Defense Forces announced. Although Hezbollah has not confirmed the reports, Lebanese officials said earlier in the day that the strike killed at least eight and wounded 59.

    Israeli Defense Forces reportedly targeted two residential buildings in southern Beirut. Akil is the head of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force and Jihad Council, and is sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State for playing a role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, in which a suicide bomber murdered 63 people, including 52 embassy employees. The State Department designated Akil a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019, and offered a reward of “up to $7 million for information” about the Hezbollah leader.

    Good. Burn in Hell, terrorist scumbag.

  • Despite Israel’s recent successes against Hezbollah’s command and control, Hezbollah was still able to launch multiple missile attacks against northern Israel today. Indeed, the whole theater is quite spicy:

  • A few thoughts on Operation Grim Beeper.
  • “Two chiefs with the New York Fire Department have been arrested on bribery charges.” Those are Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, the same ones the FBI raided.
  • Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary says that New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California those states are now “uninvestable.” The taxes are too high and “the regulatory environment is punitive.”
  • American Transit Insurance Company [is] insolvent.” They insure hire cars, cabs, Uber, etc. “As in, ‘can’t pay their bills’ insolvent. As in ‘can’t pay claims’ insolvent.”
  • Ukraine just blew up a Russian ammo dump in Toropets so large that the explosion was visible from space. (More.) (And still more.)
  • Remember Thierry Breton, the eurocrat who got in a slapfight with Elon Musk over Twitter refusing the censor people and knuckle-under? He just resigned. “France’s European Union commissioner Thierry Breton abruptly resigned on Monday amid an ongoing dispute with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. He was slated to serve a second term after being re-appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron, The Guardian reports.” Evidently von der Leyen wants the Commission to be “gender balanced.” Social justice will oft social justice mar…
  • “The mayor of Atlantic City, Marty Small Sr., and his wife [La’Quetta Small] (the superintendent of schools) have both been officially indicted.” Despite both being Democrats, they weren’t indicted for fraud, but for brutally beating their own teenage daughter. Bonus: The daughter told principal Constance Days-Chapman of the abuse, and instead of telling the police, she told the abusive parents. She’s being charged, too.
  • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Harris County’s revamped version of their unconstitutional socialist guaranteed income program.
  • Has technology killed bands?
  • Both North Carolina and parts of Europe got hit with some near-Biblical floods this week.
  • New Hobbit game obviously more woke bullshitAfter swearing for months they wouldn’t add AI to D&D, Hasbro to add AI to D&D.
  • “23andMe’s board quits en masse: A former tech darling is in turmoil after all seven of its independent board members resigned. 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki is now the sole remaining member following a disagreement over taking the company private.”
  • ESPN’s NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski retires. He was at the top of his profession, and reportedly walked away from a $30 million contract. But given Disney’s ongoing debacles, it’s quite possible they asked him to take a haircut or let him retire in advance of a layoff.
  • Jane says/Can you taste my fist today? Also, the tour’s been cancelled on the basis of chin music. A shame, really, since Jane’s Addition has a fairly unheralded role as the musical bridge between LA’s “hair metal” scene and the harder alt rock edge of acts like Nirvana.
  • “FBI Tries To Distract From Old Trump Assassination Attempt With New Trump Assassination Attempt.”
  • “FBI Says We May Never Know The Motivation Of The Would-Be Trump Assassin Who Was A Biden-Harris Supporter And Donated To Democrats 20 Times.”
  • “Biden Promises Next Trump Assassin Will Be A Woman Of Color.”
  • “DOJ Warns If Trump Is Elected He Will Do To Them All The Stuff They’re Doing To Him.”
  • “Media Assures Americans The Real Threat Is The Side That Keeps Getting Shot At.”
  • “Kamala Safe And In Stable Condition After Attempted Interview.”
  • “Rashida Tlaib Uninjured After Her Pager Mysteriously Explodes.”
  • “BREAKING: Israel Kills Thousands More Terrorists With Exploding ‘200 Free Hours of AOL’ CDs.”
  • It’s a LinkSwarm tradition to end with an amusing dog clip or story. So here are some pretty Chow Chows…painted up to look like Pandas in a Chinese zoo:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • I’ve now been unemployed for one year, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    LinkSwarm For August 30, 2024

    Friday, August 30th, 2024

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

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • More Biden Recession inflationpalooza:

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Kamala Harris’s tax increases include:

    Small business tax rate hike to 39.6%

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

    Corporate tax rate higher than the EU and communist China.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Unconstitutional wealth tax on unrealized gains

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    More:

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

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

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

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

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

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

    * * *

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

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

  • More context on de Moraes’ abuses of power.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated.”

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

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

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

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

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

  • 5th Circuit Court finds geofencing warrants unconstitutional.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The photo was tagged: “Cancun.”

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Yes, they are trying to Trans your kids:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

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

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    LinkSwarm For August 23, 2024

    Friday, August 23rd, 2024

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

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: ZeroHedge.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Paging Dr. Adrienne Young, M.D.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

    Now stop being their propaganda bitch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    “No regrets,” wrote Sivadge on social media.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    All the better to rake off more social justice graft…

  • Both Canadian freight rail networks are hit by strikes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





    LinkSwarm For August 16, 2024

    Friday, August 16th, 2024

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

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • More on that thought.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    Biden Recession + Wokeness + Streaming + Strikes = Extinction Event For Hollywood

    Thursday, August 15th, 2024

    Right now Hollywood is taking it on the chin, the gut, the head, and just about every other metaphorical body part that can be punched.

    Thanks to the Biden Recession and its resultant inflation, people are cutting back severely on their entertainment budgets to concentrate on such luxuries as “food” and “rent.” At the same time that started to kick in, Hollywood fully embraced wokeness, resulting in movies and TV shows that alienated large segments of their existing customer base. From 2015 to 2019, Hollywood brought in more than $11 billion in domestic box office, thanks largely to once-juggernaut franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar (a studio that used to function like a franchise) and Jurassic Park, and even throwing out Flu Manchu-wrecked 2020, they have yet to return to that level of ticket income. Note that the first three of those franchises all belonged to Disney, which came down with one of the worst cases of Social Justice, from which hasn’t entirely recovered, and Disney stock has been on a mostly steadily downward trend since 2021.

    On top of that, the last five years saw most major studios jump headlong into the streaming wars. The result? Everyone lost except Netflix. Everyone lost money launching their streaming services, and the huge need for new content, plus the mind virus of wokeism, meant garbage like Rings of Power, Velma and She-Hulk got green-lit. For Disney, the need for content not only radically increased costs, but also helped cheapen the previous powerhouse brands of Marvel and Star Wars with too much mediocre-to-bad content.

    But the jump into streaming didn’t just increase costs, it decreased the income from existing revenue streams like broadcast and cable TV (now referred to as “linear” TV). With so much premium content moving to Internet-based services, a whole lot more people cut the cord for cable TV.

    While all this was happening, Hollywood’s actors and writers unions looked at the money being shoveled into streaming and went “Hey, we want a bigger cut of that,” and went on strike, some even losing their houses (which honestly for a four month strike, seems like really poor financial planning) in the process. As a result, they won pay increases and additional “seats” in writer’s rooms right before everything started to collapse.

    The results? Layoffs. “During the 2023 Hollywood strikes, the Los Angeles region’s share of national Film and TV employment fell to 27%, compared to 35% just the year before.” More: “Employment is down 9.1% (12,900 jobs) from 2013 to 2024 for the traditional entertainment industries of Film and TV, Sound, Print Media and Broadcasting.” I don’t think anyone thinks of 2013 as any kind of “golden age.” (Well, except maybe for the finale of Breaking Bad.) More: “Employment in ‘motion picture and sound recording’ has grown nationwide, but the share of workers in LA or New York went from just under half at the beginning of 2023 to just one-third earlier this year.”

    This is why Deadline has a regular Hollywood Contraction section. Things are so bad that they’re even laying off executives (I know, world’s smallest violin), and many don’t expect to ever be employed in the industry again. “If you’re a middle-age white man, you’re feeling really struggling to see if you’re going to be hired again.”

    Let’s list a few of Hollywood’s litany of woes, some of which we’ve covered here before.

  • Warner Brothers Discovery took $9.1 billion write-down on it’s network TV assets.
  • The Cartoon Network and MTV are two Warner properties that could be sold or shut down entirely.
  • Paramount was pretty much forced to merge with Skydance, resulting in massive layoffs.
  • Including: “Paramount Television Studios Shut Down by Paramount Global Cost Cuts. Paramount Television Studios, a production facility originally aimed at getting Paramount Pictures back into the business of making TV series, will shut down, the latest bout of cost cutting by parent corporation Paramount Global as it seeks to eliminate $500 million amid a chaotic shift in the entertainment industry.” They were the ones producing the Time Bandits TV show for Apple+ that pretty much no one thought was a good idea.
  • Speaking of Apple (not strictly speaking a Hollywood company, but one that plunged into the streaming wars), they’ve throttled back the money hose after being one of the more profligate streaming spenders. “Shaw also points out some examples of runaway spending at Apple, including bloat on ‘Severance,’ its glum, well-regarded dystopian/workplace series. The new season of that show will cost $20 million an episode — a staggering sum for a series that doesn’t have any digital dragons.” $20 million an episode. Season 2 had ten episodes. At $20 a month for an Apple+ subscription, you would need to pull in nearly a million new viewers, subscribing for an entire year, to break even. Apple+’s entire subscriber base is evidently 18 million, so that seems…unlikely.
  • There are reports that Marvel Studios (a division of Disney) has actually purged woke producers from its ranks, but that Lucasfilms (another division of Disney) has retained head Kathleen Kennedy, whose woke girlboss storylines have run both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises into the ground.
  • Disney reportedly moved all hand-drawn animation work to other countries.
  • And then, as this contraction runs its course, all of Hollywood has to worry about the looming threat of AI. AI is not good enough for Joe Schmo to make movies that rival Hollywood from his PC, but given enough computing power, we may live to see it. But in the meantime, a whole lot of technical jobs are probably going to disappear into AI expert systems. Instead of five lighting techs, there will be one lighting tech overseeing the AI automatically adjusting the networked smart lights.

    It’s possible that 2019, the year when Avengers: Endgame was setting box office records, may be looked back on as the pinnacle of Hollywood’s 21st Century Golden Age…

    Has Marvel Purged The Woke?

    Wednesday, August 7th, 2024

    On Critical Drinker’s Open Bar, Chris Gore of Film Threat dropped some big news: Marvel Studio has laid off all their woke producers.

  • Chris Gore: “I do know people who work at Marvel. They have cleaned house. They quietly, months ago, fired all the producers that would could be labeled ‘activist.'”
  • CG: “Unlike Lucasfilm, that is. Lucasfilm is lost. They’re lost, that’s it. They are doubling down on all the nonsense. You will never get anything good out of out of Lucasfilm and Star Wars.” So expect more lesbian space witches.
  • CG: “Kevin Feige recognizes it. [He] said that we tried it, it didn’t work. He’s talking about [MCU] Phase Four. That’s it. We tried it, it didn’t work.”
  • CG: “If Deadpool and Wolverine proves anything. You’ve heard that phrase ‘male and pale is stale?’ That was that was spoken aloud across studios. But if you look at box office this year, I would say male and pale is money.”
  • Critical Drinker: “It seems that Marvel are getting a bit tired of losing billions of dollars and turning their own fans against them by trying to inject ‘The Message’ into what used to be crowd-pleasing general purpose entertainment and are quietly changing course and the first step down that path is to clean house behind the scenes, getting rid of the activists and the idiots that have derailed so many projects since [Avengers] Endgame. I mean it only took them like five years to to recognize a problem that people like me have been pointing out since 2019. But hey, better late than never.”
  • This is all good and welcome news. However, because I want it to be true, I would like a source other than Gore to confirm that it’s actually happened. Like the names of those handed pink slips and confirmation via Twitter or Linked-In.

    Also, even if it proves to be true, the rest of Disney shows no signs of purging the woke. Disney may have settled its lawsuit against Florida governor Ron DeSantis, but there’s no indication that those who decided Disney needed to take point on turning kids trans have been demoted or let go. Disney employees still donate overwhelmingly to Democrats.

    I’m still going to refrain from buying tickets to any Disney studio movie (including Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, etc.) until until I see more conclusive evidence that Disney has actually abandoned its woke agenda.

    LinkSwarm For July 26, 2024

    Friday, July 26th, 2024

    More dirt comes out about the (intentionally?) shoddy security at Trump’s Butler rally, Netanyahu addresses congress, China bribes some Democrats, Israel hits the Houthis, Redbox users are screwed, and Sanrio upends the world with a shocking revelation. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Security at Trump’s Bitler rally was even worse than we thought.

    More whistleblowers are coming forward with damning allegations about the law-enforcement failures surrounding the failed assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.

    Whistleblowers with “direct knowledge” of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) handling of the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., last weekend came forward to Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) alleging that the rally was a “loose” security event featuring personnel drawn from a different wing of DHS who were not trained for such an event.

    “Whistleblowers who have direct knowledge of the event have approached my office. According to the allegations, the July 13 rally was considered to be a ‘loose’ security event. For example, detection canines were not used to monitor entry and detect threats in the usual manner. Individuals without proper designations were able to gain access to backstage areas. Department personnel did not appropriately police the security buffer around the podium and were also not stationed at regular intervals around the event’s security perimeter,” Hawley wrote in a letter sent Friday to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    “In addition, whistleblower allegations suggest the majority of DHS officials were not in fact USSS agents but instead drawn from the department’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). This is especially concerning given that HSI agents were unfamiliar with standard protocols typically used at these types of events, according to the allegations.”

  • After disastrously failing at her one job, Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle resigns.

    Embattled Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday after her refusal to answer basic questions in front of a congressional committee drew bipartisan calls for her resignation.

    Cheatle stepped down ten days after the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump, one of the most significant law-enforcement failures in American history, and the defining moment of her law-enforcement career.

    Snip.

    At a hearing with the House Oversight Committee Monday, Cheatle brought Republicans and Democrats together in calling for her resignation. She repeatedly failed to answer basic questions about what went wrong at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., instead deflecting to the Secret Service’s ongoing investigation and the FBI’s separate investigation.

    Cheatle admitted the assassination attempt was the Secret Service’s most consequential failure in decades, but did not disclose much information, despite being under subpoena.

    She did not have a specific timeline of what law enforcement did after the shooter was first discovered, failed to explain why agents were not deployed onto the rooftop the gunman equipped, declined to comment on specific personnel assignments for the Trump rally, did not elaborate on why the rooftop was outside of the Secret Service’s perimeter, would not commit to firing anyone involved with the Trump rally, and deflected each time Trump’s requests for enhanced security came up.

    She did tell lawmakers that she had not visited the crime scene, nine days after Trump was wounded when a bullet grazed his right ear. After the attack, Cheatle said she called Trump to apologize.

    The Secret Service will have an internal report on what went wrong at the Trump rally in 60 days, a timeline multiple lawmakers told Cheatle is unacceptable given the intensity of the presidential campaign and America’s political climate.

  • Cheatle also helped hide Biden’s cognitive decline.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Which party threatens Democracy? It’s not the Republicans.

    Never in modern presidential history has a political party staged a veritable inside coup to remove their current president from his ongoing candidacy for his party’s nomination and reelection.

    Stranger still, the very elites and grandees, who now are using every imaginable means of deposing Biden as their nominee, are the very public voices that just weeks ago insisted that candidate Biden was “sharp as a tack” and “fit as a fiddle.” And they damned any who thought otherwise!

    They are also the identical operators whose machinations ensured that there would not be an open Democratic primary. They demonized the few on the Left who weakly challenged Biden in the primaries. Yet now they will select a replacement candidate who likely never received a single primary vote.

    Note further: Biden’s impending forced abdication is not because he is non compos mentis.

    Rather, the inside move is due to Biden’s disastrous debate exposure that confirmed his dementia could no longer be disguised by a conspiracy of leftist politicos and media.

    But far more importantly, the impetus for removal is driven by the admission that the cognitively Biden is headed for a climactic November defeat.

    Were Biden now ahead in the polls by five points, these same backroom machinists would be insisting that he was still Pericles.

    Yet now Biden is being un-personed and Trotskyized, as we prepare the new groupthink narrative of his likely surrogate—a soon to be praised eloquent, mellifluous, and articulate Cicero-Harris.

    That Biden will likely remain as president until January 20, 2025, should remind the country the Left is more worried about its own next four-year continuance in power than the fate of the country that now admittedly will be guided in the next six months by a president judged unfit by his own supporters to run for the very office that he will still keep holding.

    Further irony arises when those who, as supposedly guardians of democratic norms, pontificated to the country the last nine years about the Trump-Hitlerian threat to democracy. Yet now they so cavalierly work overtime on how:

    a) to pull off the removal of their candidate from the November ballot on grounds of senility,
    b) but not the removal of the same president from office (their own fate is more precious than our collective fate as a nation),
    c) while trying to select, rather than elect, a replace candidate,
    d) without ever offering any explanation, much less an apology, how a Democrat president from January 20, 2021, was daily declared vibrant, dynamic, and engaged but suddenly one day after June 27, 2024, was remanufactured as not?

  • This is quite a spicy accusation about the Trump assassination attempt.

    In this report on cell phone location (presumably from publicly-sourced advertising data, which should terrify you), the Heritage Foundation claims one device that regularly visited the Crooks home was tracked to DC near an FBI office.

    Also strange was the fact that a device linked to the Crooks home had visited Butler twice in the week or so before the shooting (an hour and twenty minute drive).

    Another device repeatedly visited Plymouth, Massachusetts, although how that connects to the Trump shooting is unknown.

    Going back to last August, one device visited a local gun shop (again, not suspicious for an American to visit a gun shop unless this was the visit where the AR was purchased).

    If this proves to be true link between the FBI and Crooks, the implications here are pretty frightening…

  • While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was addressing congress, the pro-Hamas Useful Idiot Brigade was busy vandalizing national monuments.

    Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of downtown D.C. carrying signs with messages like “arrest Netanyahu” and “end all U.S. aid to Israel.” Groups waving Palestinian flags, and chanting “Free, free Palestine,” marched toward the U.S. Capitol.

    Outside Union Station, protesters removed American flags and hoisted Palestinian ones in their place. The Columbus Memorial Fountain in the circle outside the station was defaced with the words, “Hamas Is Coming,” written in red paint. Other monuments, like the Freedom Bell and various statues, also suffered damage. FOX 5’s Stephanie Ramirez says law enforcement is preparing for more possible protests Thursday.

    U.S. Capitol Police officers deployed pepper spray after they said some protesters became “violent” and “failed to obey” orders to move back from the police line.

  • Netanyahu won’t bend an inch for terrorist apologists.

    Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had harsh words for anti-Israel protesters in his Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress, slamming the activists as “useful idiots” for Iran and other bad actors even as they congregated outside the Capitol.

    “Defeating our brutal enemies requires both courage and clarity,” he said. “Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet, incredibly, many anti-Israel protesters choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers. They stand with people who come into the kibbutzim — into the home — with the parents and the children, the two babies in the secret attic, and murder the parents, find the secret latch to the attic, find the babies, and they murder them. These protesters stand with them. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

    Netanyahu referenced the claims from many anti-Israel protesters that Hamas terrorism constitutes legitimate resistance while Israel’s retaliatory war is out of bounds.

    “They refuse to make the simple distinction between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians — between the democratic state of Israel and the terrorist thugs of Hamas,” he told the chamber.

    The prime minister stressed in his speech that anti-Israel protesters are not just opposed to the existence of the Jewish state but are anti-American as well.

    “These protesters burn American flags even on the Fourth of July.”

  • Dispatches from The Land of “Duh”: “Study Reveals That Giving Americans $1,000 Per Month Has Negative Consequences.”

    According to the 3,000-participant, three-year study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, giving people $1,000 per month increased leisure time, as recipients spent less time on sleeping, child care, community engagement, caring for others, and self-improvement.

    The study also found that recipients’ income, not including the free money, reduced their incomes significantly, as “for every one dollar received, total household income excluding the transfers fell by at least 21 cents, and total individual income fell by at least 12 cents.”

    “The takeaway from the best study done so far about UBI in the United States is that handing out money isn’t the solution to all our problems,” Daniel Di Martino, a economics researcher and graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Center Square. “In fact, sometimes it makes things worse.”

    Or they could have read pages 150-152 of Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 for his summary of the results of the SIME/DIME experiments, which were similarly bleak.

  • After letting camps of drug-addicted transients overrun his state for years, California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom decides that he can finally start clearing out those camps, now that he has the cover of a Supreme Court ruling.

    California governor Gavin Newsom directed state officials to remove homeless encampments across the Golden State on Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled in June that local governments have a right to ban public camping and impose fines for violators.

    Newsom announced the guidance in an executive order, advising cities to crack down on encampments on public property while providing social services and housing alternatives. The order, first reported by the New York Times, represents a sharp departure from the accommodative homelessness policies adopted by progressive state governments over the last decade.

    Note that “providing social services” means that the Homeless Industrial Complex will still be able to rake off the graft…

  • Food for thought:

    (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)

  • CBS said nearly half of Americans can’t afford healthcare, but for some reason didn’t mention ObamaCare.

    Americans spend more money on health care on a per capita basis than people in any other developed nation, yet almost half say they’ve struggled recently to pay for medical treatment or prescription drugs, according to a new study from Gallup and West Health.

    About 45% of those polled by the organizations said they’d recently had to skip treatment or medicine either because of cost or lack of easy access. Of those, about 8% said they also wouldn’t have access to affordable care if they required it today, a group that Gallup and West Health termed ‘cost desperate.’

    Snip.

    The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, became law back in 2010, and President Obama promised Americans that his legislation would “reduce the costs of health care” and that “families will save on premiums.” He said Americans could even keep their doctors and health plans – over and over again, in fact.

    Instead, here’s what Obamacare did, according to America First Policy Institute:

    • Premiums have increased by 80%.
    • From 2010 to 2023, the average premium for family coverage increased 80%, from just over $13,000 to nearly $24,000.
    • Total healthcare costs for a family of four now exceed $30,000 per year — increasing from $18,000 per year when Obamacare was passed.
    • Deductibles have increased over 50% since Obamacare was implemented in 2013.
  • Speaking of Obama, he officially endorsed Harris, which presumably puts a surprise Michelle Obama nomination at the convention off the table.
  • “US Subsidiary Of Chinese EV Manufacturer BYD Donated Hundreds Of Thousands To Democrats.” Because of course they did.

    Well you can add this to a list of reasons Democrats just can’t seem to stomach Elon Musk any more.

    The U.S. subsidiary of Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD and its top executive, Stella Li, have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and organizations over the past decade.

    A review of federal and state political spending records by the Daily Caller News Foundation reveals these contributions.

    They found that between 2020 and 2023, BYD and Stella Li contributed over $40,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

    Additionally, they have invested more than $30,000 into organizations supporting President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign.

    BYD, the world’s largest EV producer, was recently banned by Congress from selling batteries to the Pentagon due to security concerns, according to Bloomberg News.

    The report says that between 2018 and 2023, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom received about $60,000 from Li and BYD USA. Newsom faced criticism for awarding BYD a $1 billion no-bid contract for protective equipment during the pandemic and later test-drove a BYD vehicle in China in 2023.

    Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa received over $10,000 from Li for his unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial campaign, while the California Democratic Party got about $19,000 from Li and BYD USA between 2018 and 2020.

    In 2015 and 2016, BYD USA and its executives donated over $11,000 to Michael Antonovich, former Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, who often supported BYD-friendly initiatives.

    Additionally, BYD USA contributed $25,000 in 2018 to Californians For Safe, Reliable Infrastructure, a group opposing Proposition 6, which aimed to repeal a gas tax.

    In 2017 and 2018, BYD USA and Stella Li donated over $19,000 to Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de Leon. De Leon, then President pro Tempore of the California Senate, praised BYD at a 2017 ribbon-cutting for its Lancaster manufacturing facility, emphasizing the company’s role in job creation.

  • “Why the Democrats can’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together.”

    There’s an old saying in politics that “personnel is policy” which refers to a lot more than just having someone competent in the job. It’s a reflection that politics is about coalitions – building them and maintaining them. The coalition members get their cut of the government largess, and pay for it with loyalty to the guy at the top. If they’re not loyal, he gives them their pick slip and they lose the largess.

    This was actually Trump’s biggest mistake when he was president, not filling the Federal Government with his coalition. In his defense, he was in the middle of a Republican civil war, where there were multiple factions and multiple coalitions.

    That’s exactly what the Democrats face now, and why they can’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together. Because there are multiple coalitions, whoever emerges on top won’t know if he (she?) can trust these coalitions because they aren’t his coalitions. They might be able to be integrated into his coalition, given time, but time is exactly what the Democrats do not have right now.

    It takes time to forge a governing coalition – just look at any parliamentary system: when the government is stable it is because the governing coalition is solid. Ministers can issue policy with a reasonable expectation that it will be supported and carried out by the coalition members. When the governing coalition is unstable, chaos results. Orders get ignored or slow walked or subverted because the Minister no longer has the loyalty of the coalition members.

    Eventually a leader emerges who can attract key talent from outside coalitions and integrate it into his. This will involve rewards like positions in the bureaucracy or some such – featherbedding is the name of this game. But until this all gets sorted out and the new coalition is filled with people who think they’re better off with the new leader than without, nothing is going anywhere.

    Even worse, there will always be serious back stabbing between different coalitions. Trust is not a virtue most politicians hew to, and quite frankly until they are in a position to remove perks as well as give them, they would be a fool to trust just about anybody.

    Some day a leader will emerge to stitch together the various coalitions that make up the Democratic party. It won’t happen in the next 100 days, sure as God made little green apples.

    The biggest implication of this is that it will be much more difficult for the Democrats to “fortify” the upcoming election via 2020-style shenanigans. Sure, the party bosses will want to, but how much do they trust the other coalitions to support them? Would other coalitions even go so far as to rat them out (with plausible deniability, of course) – leading to various party elders behind bars. That certainly would make it easier for other party elders to construct a winning coalition once they’ve taken out some of the competition.

  • Althouse: “Joe Biden seems bereft of the ordinary tools of human interchange.”
  • “Visibly Angry Kamala Harris Lashes Out At Israel After Netanyahu Meeting.” Of course she did. How dare Israel defend itself when she needs to suck up to all those pro-Hamas voters Democrats insisted on importing to Michigan?
  • Dispatches from the Biden Recession: Commercial real estate bond default rates hit “8.7% in 2024, nearly three times higher than two years ago.”
  • More shenanigans in Democrat-controlled Fulton County, Georgia: Nearly all of Fulton County Housing Authority board resigns over “accusations of money mismanagement, sexual harassment, and other issues.”
  • “Judge Rules for Musk’s SpaceX in Lawsuit Against National Labor Relations Board.” “Members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and administrative law judges (ALJ) employed by the board, are likely unconstitutionally protected from removal by the president, according to U.S. District Judge Alan Albright.”
  • Israel hits the Houthis. Looks like Israel is kicking just about all Iran’s catspaws in the nuts…
  • Ukrainian drones hit Tuapse oil refinery and Morozovsk air base.
  • They also hit Millerovo air base.
  • Some 200 dead in Bangladesh over government attempts to impose a hiring quota system.
  • France’s rail network paralyzed by coordinated arson attacks just as the Olympics begin.
  • Instagram Censors Team USA Rifle Shooter Ahead Of Paris Paralympics.”
  • Pro-Hamas organizer runs Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter account.
  • “Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and local law enforcement officers arrested 50 Houston-area residents Wednesday in relation to a fraudulent bail bond scheme that allowed suspects accused of violent crimes to remain on the streets of the city. The arrests reignited criticism of Harris County’s criminal justice practices and prompted calls for closer scrutiny of bail bond providers.”

    According to an indictment filed with the federal court, beginning in 2021 defendants working for or with AABLE Bonds of Houston created or co-signed fraudulent bond agreements that allowed non-qualifying suspects to obtain pre-trial release.

    “An integral part of the criminal justice system, as old as the system itself, is the bail bond – a device that allows defendants temporary release while awaiting trial by guaranteeing future court appearances,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani in a statement. “Honesty in the underwriting of those bail bonds is essential to ensuring compliance and protecting the community. However, this indictment alleges employees of AABLE Bonds and many others conspired to violate that trust.”

    In addition to the 50 arrested, officials are seeking three fugitives: Tawana Jones, 44, Pamela Yoder, 60, and Amir Khan, 60.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that co-conspirators allegedly emailed or submitted falsified co-signer financial reports via electronic communications. The office noted that the government and insurance agencies rely on these financial reports to enter into third-party agreements known as surety bonds.

    Most of the 53 co-conspirators are charged in connection to alleged conspiracy to commit wire fraud, while AABLE Bonds CEO Sheba Muharib is charged with affecting persons engaged in the business of insurance.

    The 11 named criminal defendants who obtained release under the allegedly fraudulent enterprise include Curtis Holliday, who has pleaded guilty to killing his wife and stuffing her body in a freezer. Another is the man who shot to death 17-year-old David Castro as the teen rode in a car with his family after an Astros baseball game in 2021.

    David’s father Paul Castro noted on social media that Muharib had bonded out his son’s killer on a discount bond, but he also pointed to the role played by Harris County Justice of the Peace Angela Rodriguez.

    “Remember that Judge Angela Rodriguez voted to renew Muharib’s bond license after Muharib showed herself to be a danger to our community,” wrote Castro.

    Muharib has been the focus of investigations for several years. Her brother Wisam Muharib provided bail to a murder suspect who was later charged in the murder of Harris County Constable Deputy Omar Ursin.

    Andy Kahan, Victim’s Advocate for Crime Stoppers of Houston, emphasized during a press conference Thursday that there were victims impacted by the fraudulent releases of suspects.

    During the press event, resident April Aguirre said that after the man charged in the shooting death of her nine-year-old niece Arlene Alvarez was released on a bond by AABLE Bonds, her family became suspicious of some local bail bond companies.

    Aguirre, Castro, and others worked with elected officials to change Harris County’s rules in 2022 to require that suspects charged with violent offenses pay at least 10 percent themselves to ensure release from jail, but during a press conference with Crime Stoppers of Houston, she said they suspected fraud was continuing.

    “Murderers were still getting out on discounted bonds,” said Aguirre. “So, we started making complaints to the bail bond board and to our federal partners asking for help. We didn’t know what we were dealing with, and we could never have imagined how large this is.”

    “But I can say one thing, we need to stop making money off dead children and we need to stop making money off of homicide victims. This should not be a lucrative business, it’s sick.”

    Mario Garza, President of the Professional Bondsman of Harris County, said that there were bondsmen who followed the rules and helped support the criminal justice system but lamented that what was supposed to be a partnership between bondsmen and elected judges had broken down.

    “Judges used to take that discretion seriously,” said Garza. “What we have is what’s morphed out a soft-on-crime criminal justice system that’s allowed a company like this to do what they’ve done.”

    Kahan expressed concern that bail bond companies elsewhere may be operating similar schemes.

  • Cann’s files for Chapter 11 and will be closing 9 Texas stores, including one in Austin. When I was getting ready to move into my house in 2004, they were one of the stores I thought about buying appliances from, but people told me they hated dealing with Conn’s, so I ended up buying them from Lowes.
  • “Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley who was blocked from the Twitter account of the University of Oregon’s Division of Equity and Inclusion after tweeting ‘All men are created equal.'”
  • Unclear on the concept: “California judge says school was justified in punishing 7-year-old who said all lives matter because ‘she’s too young to have First Amendment rights.'”

  • Southwest Airlines avoided the CrowdStrike outage because it runs Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

  • Intel says it’s software, not hardware that is causing its latest generation of chips to fail. “Our analysis of returned processors confirms that the elevated operating voltage is stemming from a microcode algorithm resulting in incorrect voltage requests to the processor.” OK, microcode is embedded in the heart of the chip, but can be updated, which means that it doesn’t require expensive mask fixes.
  • The CDC is trying to keep people from importing dogs into the U.S.. This is going to impair the efforts of many dog rescue groups. A bipartisan group of senators is opposing. “The unprecedented requirements included in the final rule, such as the six-month minimum age requirement for dogs to enter the United States and the need for a microchip before a rabies vaccination and additional documentation and certification would create significant barriers to low-risk entry from Canada into the United States and have a disproportionate effect on border communities in our states.”
  • Everyone who “purchased” a movie from Redbox is now screwed because now that Redbox is bankrupt it turns out they’ve got nada.
  • If I’m reading between the lines here, Social Justice Warriors seized control of the Romance Writers of America, blew it up when they got caught, and left the organization $3 million in debt.
  • “Judge Refuses To Dismiss Trump Defamation Lawsuit Against ABC, Stephanopoulos. On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a motion by ABC News and George Stephanopoulos to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed against them by former President Donald Trump.”
  • Gina Carano’s lawsuit against Disney moves forward.
  • Hello Kitty is not a cat and doesn’t live in Japan.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • It begins.
  • If you have a spare $40,000 lying around, you can bid on the Necronomicon from Evil Dead II.
  • “Secret Service Director Resigns In Disgrace For Failing To Assassinate Trump.”
  • America Just Kinda Curious If President Alive.”
  • “Aides Struggling To Figure Out How To Break The News To Biden That He Dropped Out.”
  • Party Cheating In Primary Election Promises They Will Definitely Not Cheat In General Election.”
  • “Entire Microsoft Network Goes Down After Greg Removes USB Device Without Clicking ‘Eject’ First.
  • No one expects…spinning Ninja dog!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    LinkSwarm for June 21, 2024

    Friday, June 21st, 2024

    More evidence of the Biden Recession, California’s welfare state goes extra crazy, Chicago has to spend mad money to produce illiterate children, an Assistant DA resigns, a cyberattack hits car dealers nationwide, a Brazilian thief gets ventilated, and God unites the entire world in hatred of the New York Yankees. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Statistics show that the economy is contracting. Just like we already knew. Thanks, Joe Biden.
  • California’s tax dollars and welfare state at work:

    Taxpayers are funding a new high-rise building in Los Angeles where homeless people will enjoy skyline views, a cafe, a gym, and an art studio, not to mention the free rent.

    The fancy new building is 19 stories high and has 278 units, each costing about $600,000. The total cost was $165 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. It is the first of three new high-rise buildings that will soon house homeless people.

    Snip.

    This modern tower for the homeless includes a TV in each apartment, a gym, an art room, a soundproofed music room, a computer room with a library, a TV lounge, a courtyard, and a cafe that will host movie nights. There are also six common balconies, four of which have dog runs.

    Where are politicians getting all the money for this project? The buildings are funded by the city’s supportive housing loan program, Proposition HHH, which was approved by city voters in 2016, as well as state housing funds and $56 million in state tax credits.

    The three apartment buildings will be located around the headquarters of the Weingart Center, a nonprofit that assists homeless people. Kevin Murray, a former California state senator, is the man behind the project. He serves as the chief executive of the nonprofit.

    I’m sure all the Homeless Industrial Complex members involved got generously paid for their efforts. Once again, the message of the Democratic Party is: You’re suckers for working for a living.

  • “Chicago Doubles Education Spending, Tragedy Ensues.”

    Illinois Policy just issued a report showing that while CPS has doubled spending per student since 2012, grades are down by 60-80%, depending on the subject. “Just 1-in-4 CPS students can read or perform math at grade level,” the report says. “The percent of students enrolling in college after high school graduation is decreasing. And for those who do enroll, another study found many are struggling to finish college in four years – just 30% get their bachelor’s in four years compared to 47% nationally.”

    By every other measure… there’s no other way to put this… CPS is falling apart.

    • In 2023, 26% of students in grades 3 through 8 across all of CPS could read at grade level and about 18% could do math proficiently. For 11th grade CPS students, only 22% could read at grade level and 19% do math proficiently.
    • CPS’ failure to engage students shows in the chronic absenteeism rate. Chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed.
    • According to ISBE data, 86.3% of teachers in CPS were rated as proficient or excellent in 2023, down from 91.4% in 2019. Yet many students in CPS are struggling to reach proficiency in core subjects.

    There’s much more at the link, all of it tragic. An entire generation of Chicago students is failing — and being failed by their schools and, let’s be brutally honest, by their families.

    If you’re thinking that CPS must be seriously underfunded to achieve such dismal results, you must have been living in a cave for the last 40 or 50 years. CPS will spend a jaw-dropping $29,028 per student this year. My family lives in a lovely exurb of Colorado Springs and our district spends roughly one-third of what CPS does — $10,214 per student — and we get much better results. It isn’t about the money. It rarely is.

  • Turtle tank captured.
  • Another week, another series of Ukrainian strikes on Russia oil depots. First in Platanovka, Tambov region, some 500km from Ukraine…
  • …then the Lukoil Depot in Krasnodar, where fuel trucks were apparently targeted…
  • …and an oil export depot in Rostov-on-Don.
  • MS-13 Gang Leader Arrested in Texas. Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios will be handed over to a New York court to face terrorism charges.”
  • Loper Bright Enterprises V. Raimondo offers the Supreme Court a way to roll back the Administrative State.

    The case began in November 2022, when Loper Bright Enterprises, a fishery based out of Cape May, New Jersey, appealed a district court opinion to the Supreme Court. The conflict between Loper Bright and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) started after the agency decided to require private fisheries like Loper Bright to pay their regulatory inspectors for their time observing fishery practices.

    While the law doesn’t explicitly allow this practice, the Fishery Service cites the Chevron Deference, a precedent set by a 1984 Supreme Court case, which states that an ambiguous law can be interpreted by government agencies as they see fit. In short, the Fishery Service wants private companies to pay their salaries and found a legal loophole to justify it.

    While this may seem like an isolated incident, it is just one example of a long history of government agencies infringing on individual liberty. The outcome of this case holds supreme importance for the future of our republic and the preservation of our financial and civil freedoms.

    Since 1950, the federal government has steadily grown in size. Today, it has over 2.9 million civilian employees, more than Walmart has worldwide. This growth has paved the way for the creation of a governmental pseudo-branch denoted the “administrative state.” The administrative state contains government employees who have a significant impact on people’s everyday lives but yet aren’t held accountable to citizens in the form of elections. These unelected bureaucrats undermine the central ethos of a republic, where elected officials are supposed to seek the good of their constituents or risk not being re-elected.

    The problem with this system was made evident during the pandemic. During the COVID shutdown, hundreds of millions of Americans were sentenced to lockdowns, impacting their schools, churches, and families. Many of the people behind this policy were members of the CDC, one of the government agencies that comprise the administrative state. The decisions they made were not subject to the traditional checks and balances which typically constrain the US government. Instead, America found itself under a tyranny of the unelected.

    This overreach extends beyond individual liberty into private business. When businesses can be encroached upon at a whim by unelected authorities, long-term investment becomes a much riskier endeavor. When the COVID shutdown occurred, many small businesses, with their small profit margins and high overhead, were unable to weather the storm. For the companies that survived, the blatant government intervention and the severe consequences that followed left a sour taste in their mouth for future capital investments. You’re not going to build a new business if a bureaucrat can shut it down the next day. All of these factors contribute to government agencies having a negative impact on financial markets and investor portfolios.

    The Chevron Deference precedent, which is at the center of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, gives even more power to these governmental agencies. When ambiguity exists, this precedent allows courts to simply defer to agencies’ interpretations, even if those interpretations favor the agencies’ own interests. It also allows courts to seek out ambiguity in order to give near-unbridled power to these agencies.

    If the Supreme Court upholds Chevron, it will further entrench the power of unelected bureaucrats and make it increasingly difficult for individuals and businesses to challenge agency overreach. However, if the Court rules against Chevron, it would represent a shift toward increased restraint of the administrative state, leading to a reevaluation of the scope and authority of federal agencies.

  • Israeli arms exports hit record sales. Funny how having products that actually work stimulates sales. I’m betting Russia is enjoying the opposite right now…
  • Baseball game announcer: We will not be singing the national anthem. Crowd: The hell we won’t! Patriotism ensues.
  • Soros-backed Manhattan DA Alvin Braggs drops all charges against the pro-Hamas protestors who smashed up offices at Columbia. Because of course he did.
  • Speaking of DA’s behaving badly, a followup: Assistant Travis County DA Joseph Frederick, who was charged with aggravated assault, has resigned before he could be fired, his lawyer saying this was to maintain his health benefits, because he has Parkinson’s. Which is strange, because COBRA covers involuntary termination as well.
  • Argentine President Javier Milei has a glorious rant about how you can’t negotiate with leftists.
  • Brazilian thief pulls a gun in a phone store, instantly gets lit up like the 4th of July.
  • No surprise: San Francisco named America’s worst run city.
  • This week’s California restaurant chain closing due to the minimum wage hike: Arby’s. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “CDK Global, a major software provider to auto dealerships in the U.S., has been hacked, forcing the company to shut down most of its systems temporarily. This cyberattack effectively halted sales operations at approximately 15,000 car dealerships, including those under General Motors, Group 1 Automotive, and Holman.” Without this software, there’s essential dead in the water. (More details.)
  • Man finds a GPS tracker his Toyota dealership installed in his car without telling him, despite him declining that option and despite not financing the car.
  • “MacKenzie Scott Gives Millions to Philly Nonprofit Tied to Anti-Israel Penn Encampment.” Scott is the woman who divorced Jeff Bezos.
  • Another week, another catch and release illegal alien child rapist.
  • Black San Francisco firefighter attacks Asian firefighter with a wrench. So San Francisco fires the Asian guy who was attacked.
  • CNN drops down to 396,000 Total Viewers. Why would any company still buy advertising on such a small platform? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of money-losing MSM outlets, the incoming editor of the Washington Post says thanks but no thanks after the staff there preemptively published a hit piece on him. How’s that letting the inmates run the asylum working out for you, Jeff Bezos?
  • Ecomorons spread paint on Stonehenge.

  • George R. Nethercutt Jr., the Republican who ousted Democratic Speaker Thomas S. Foley in the Newt Gingrich Contract with America wave of 1994, dead at 79 (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Because tranny pandering is more important than actually healing people, Oregon moves to make reporting microaggressions mandatory for doctors.
  • Tubi, which is free, drew in more viewers than Disney+.
  • Morgan Freeman hates black history month. “My history is American history.”
  • Employees at small Philadelphia chain of three coffee shops unionize, and the owner immediately shuts them down because they’re no longer profitable.
  • Is olive oil good for your brain? I hope so, since it’s an Atkins-compliant dressing for my salad, so I generally get more than the recommended teaspoon a day.
  • Himmler’s top 10 pistols. Some went for pretty breathtaking sums at auction.
  • Another Metal Ball Studios monster height comparison video, but this one is first person.
  • “New Debate Rule Allows Moderators To Zap Trump With Giant Cattle Prods Anytime They Feel Like It.”
  • “Tropical Storm Alberto Crosses Into Texas, Immediately Registered To Vote As A Democrat.”
  • “God Confirms Heaven Will Bring All Nations, Tribes, And Tongues Together In Hatred Of The New York Yankees.”
  • Mine!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    LinkSwarm for June 7, 2024

    Friday, June 7th, 2024

    All those “new jobs” created in the Biden Recession have gone to illegal aliens, two Trump court cases appear to be in the process of derailment, more Hunter Biden shenanigans come to light, a whole lot of anniversaries this week, and a chance to own the Ark of the Covenant! It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • This should make even more people with Joe Biden’s illegal open border policy: “All Jobs In The Past Year Have Gone To Illegal Aliens.”

    The first Wall Street analyst daring to point out that the employment emperor is naked, is Standard Chartered’s global head of macro, Steve Englander who in a note titled simply enough “Immigration leading to labor-market surge” [writes] that according to his estimates “undocumented immigrants account for half of job growth in FY24 so far” (the actual number is far higher but we understand his initial conservatism), and adds that “asylum seekers and humanitarian parolees explain the surge in undocumented immigrants” before concluding that the continued rise in EAD approvals likely will extend strong employment growth in 2024. In other words, “strong employment growth” for American citizens, always was and remains a fabulation, and the only job growth in the US is for illegals, who will work for below minimum wage, which also explains why inflation hasn’t spiked in the past year as millions of illegals were hired.

  • Does a mistrial loom in the Trump kangaroo court case? Seems like a juror celebrating a guilty verdict before the trial was over on Facebook is yet another reason to throw out the conviction…
  • Speaking kangaroo Trump prosecutions, the Georgia Court of Appeals has ordered that case halted until the Fani Willis conflict of interest issue is resolved.
  • In other court news, in Hunter Biden’s defense just blew up.

    Hunter’s defense, carefully crafted by attorney Abbe Lowell during his opening statement on Tuesday, was blown up by the testimony of an ex-girlfriend and ex-wife who described the extent of Hunter’s crack-cocaine usage around the time he purchased a firearm in October 2018 — and by the salesman who sold Hunter the gun he allegedly lied in order to purchase.

    Hunter is facing two federal charges related to his allegedly lying about his drug addiction on a gun-purchase background-check form and he faces a third charge for allegedly possessing the firearm while addicted to crack cocaine. Hunter pleaded not guilty to the charges last year and faces up to 25 years in prison.

    Most of the day was taken up by testimony from Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, a woman who dated Biden from roughly December 2017 to November 2018, despite being half his age at the time.

    Prosector Leo Wise conducted a lengthy direct examination of Kestan accompanied by pictures from her cellphone to corroborate her recollection of events.

    Wise and Kestan seemed to get into a rhythm throughout the direct examination, as Kestan recalled large events and small details from her time with Hunter Biden. Kestan remembered exact dates and named the various hotels they stayed at during their time together.

    Each time Kestan described an experience with Hunter Biden, Wise asked her if Hunter Biden smoked crack at their hotel or Airbnb, and Kestan always replied affirmatively.

    “Every 20 minutes or so,” Kestan said of Hunter Biden’s crack habit during one of the hotel stays. She noted that he smoked crack less frequently in public, and she never noticed a change in his demeanor when he smoked.

    Wise shared photos from Kestan’s cellphone showing drug paraphernalia scatted around the bathrooms and tables of their lodgings. One of the images appeared to show Biden in a hotel bathtub holding a crack pipe in the wee hours of the morning. When Wise showed the images, Kestan easily pointed out the drug paraphernalia and explained to the courtroom how the various materials were used to cook and consume crack.

    Biden allowed Kestan to withdraw cash from his account when he needed to spend it on drugs, she recounted. Kestan stated the names of drug dealers and described the drug transactions she saw at the hotels and other locations.

    Kestan’s testimony and the images allowed Wise to establish that Hunter was smoking crack in September 2018, following his late August rehab stint in Malibu, Calif. She said Biden smoked crack every 20 minutes at a Malibu house he rented, and she did not remember Biden discussing his rehab stint during her time at the house in September 2018.

    Wise closed the direct examination by introducing a lengthy text message Biden sent her in December 2018 lamenting how he would always be a drug addict and his attempts to get sober failed.

    And this is “the smartest guy” Joe Biden knows…

  • Also from Hunter’s weapons case, he was caught on tape bragging about how he could score crack in Timbuktu. Which is a neat trick, since it’s an Islamic majority city in Mali, Africa, and is currently under siege by Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, a jihadist organization which has incorporated elements formally loyal to both al Qaeda and the Islamic State. To be fair to the crackhead, he apparently said this before the siege was imposed last year…
  • Also, I would like to apologize to readers for not knowing about the siege and doing at least a LinkSwarm post to it. So much news, so little time..
  • Seven Indicted in Houston Public Corruption Scheme.”

    On Friday, Mayor John Whitmire and outgoing Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced seven people have been indicted for 14 public corruption felonies ranging from abuse of official capacity to tampering with evidence. The charges are related to a scheme surrounding the City of Houston’s water repair contracts.

    Patrece Lee, the lead defendant, and a former city employee, had access to $80 million of city funds for emergency waterline repair.

    In the Summer and Fall of 2022, Lee was in a position to recommend vendors for contracts with the City of Houston public works department to repair the water lines. Lee allegedly made agreements with companies to have them hire her as a “consultant” to receive a kickback in exchange for expedited payments and bigger contracts. She also targeted less experienced companies and offered her services to help them “get paid faster, or to get bigger and better contracts in the future” as well.

    Lee allegedly received roughly $320,000 in payments from that scheme and then steered contracts to a company owned by her brother, allowing them to be paid more than $400,000 of which she immediately transferred $380,000 to her own company. The total amount she stole from the city was $700,000.

    “The cooperation that we’ve received from this administration stands in stark contrast to the last seven years,” said Ogg.

    The issue was uncovered during Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration. However, he planned to have it handled as an internal civil or administrative matter rather than refer it to the district attorney for criminal prosecution.

    If Kim Ogg would actually go after government corruption (and real criminals) while she’s a lame duck DA, that would be a nice silver lining to the clouds of Houston/Harris County’s soft on crime Democratic leadership.

  • Methodist Church loses one million congregants in a single day.
  • The Houston conman who pretended to be a rabbi. “The man accused of spending $15,000 on a dead woman’s credit card has a long history of fraud, according to police, court records and his family. Police say Dustin Mitchell, who goes by Dustin Cohen, posed as a Rabbi, lawyer and possibly a cop to defraud people. They also say they think he spray-painted anti-semitic vandalism on his own truck.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Ukrainian drone hits Novoshakhtinsk Oil Refinery. Again. And this time they hit the distillation tower.
  • Modi’s BJP party loses an absolute majority in Indian elections.
  • Evidently the Chinese are paying the Houthis protection money for safe passage.
  • “Anti-Israel Protesters Arrested at Stanford after Breaking into President’s Office, Injuring Officer.” Throw the book at them.
  • ConocoPhillips purchases Marathon Oil for $22.5 billion.
  • “California fish taco chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill files for bankruptcy after minimum wage law cripples business.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Closer to home, it looks like central Texas locations for Red Lobster are now in danger of closing. (Hat tip: Also Dwight.)
  • Thieves in California are planting hidden cameras to case homes.
  • Swatter sentenced.
  • Beware of “Title Pirates” selling land they don’t own.”
  • Some Texas locales are using automatic license plate readers. Seems like there are some big privacy and due process concerns.
  • Complain about Hamas sexual violence in Canada? Enjoy your pink slip.
  • Critical Drinker confirms that The Acolyte is the idiotic woke garbage we all knew it would be.
  • More signs of Hollywood’s severe downturn: five Alamo Drafthouse location in north Texas have closed and the franchise partner has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
  • Everyone Draw Mohammed winner Bosch Fawstin was let go from his position at the Freedom Center, so if you ever wanted to buy any of his stuff, now would be a good time.
  • A lot of notable anniversaries this week. It was the 80th anniversary of D-Day
  • …the 82nd anniversary of the Battle of Midway
  • …the 50th anniversary of 10 Cent Beer Night
  • …and the 20th anniversary of Killdozer. The event, not the great Theodore Sturgeon short story or the medicore TV movie made from it.
  • Speaking of D-Day, Biden just plagiarized Reagan’s speech.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • And did Biden drop a load in his pants at the Normandy commemoration?
  • Yotta: “Oh, did we say we’re a savings app? Actually, we’ve decided to become a casino app.”
  • China’s tallest waterfall is fed by pipes.
  • Crazy British inventor Colin Furze has ridden on a wall of death and built a drift trike. So now he’s riding a drift trike on a wall of death.
  • How Hitler’s cloak ended up being worn by a housewife in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
  • Who wouldn’t like to own the actual Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark? Though it might have brought more money before Disney decided to ruin the franchise…
  • “No Foul Called After Caitlin Clark Crushed By Anvil.”
  • 10 New ‘Star Wars’ Characters Coming To Disney+. Including C-3PLGBTQ, Admiral Allahu Akbar and Jar Jar Kinks…

    The Internet was way ahead of the curve on this one.

  • Surrogate Mom Level: Grand Master.