Happy Good Friday! Yesterday was a very good Thursday for President Donald Trump, and a very bad one for the media outlets that lied about the Russian Collusion fantasy for two years.
For approximately 3 million people, nothing in the Mueller report could exonerate President Trump of “Russian collusion,” obstruction of justice, and various other high crimes and misdemeanors of which they are certain he is guilty. For those 3 million people (a number reflecting the combined average weekday primetime audience of CNN and MSNBC) Trump’s guilt is an indisputable fact, his presidency an ongoing crime against humanity, his 2016 election a fraud. In a nation of 325 million people, of course, 3 million is less than a single percentage point. However, that hard-core audience of obsessive Trump-haters includes every Democrat in Washington and the vast majority of our nation’s journalists, university faculty, and other such members of the intelligentsia. Therefore, their deranged idée fixehas enormous influence, calling into existence a sort of anti-Trump industry that manufactures a constant output of rage-inducing propaganda. The CNN/MSNBC bubble is the cable-TV equivalent of a cult compound, where dissent from their political religion is forbidden. For the past two years, the fanatics have been told every night by Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, et al. that the final destruction of Trump was at hand — “the walls are closing in!” — and the left-wing faithful awaited their deliverance from the evil man in the White House.
“Orange Man Bad” — that’s a shorthand label for the anti-Trump mentality, coined by an anonymous contributor on a Reddit forum in 2017, mocking the robotic mindlessness of the president’s enemies. No fact that might contradict their Trump-hating beliefs has any validity to them, because Orange Man Bad. By obverse principle, anything done to harm Trump or his supporters, including libel and violent assault, is considered legitimate, because Orange Man Bad. Living inside a media-generated echo chamber where everyone shares their simplistic worldview, the Trump-haters tune in nightly to their MSNBC/CNN religious revival and are catechized, so to speak, with the latest reiteration of the Orange Man Bad gospel.
What else can explain what happened Thursday, after Mueller finally delivered his 448-page “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.” The delivery of the special counsel’s report was preceded by a press conference at which Attorney General William Barr summarized the result of the investigation. Barr “made clear that, after two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and endless media speculation, the ‘Russian collusion’ story was, as some of us had noted all along, a story about nothing,” as Professor Glenn Reynolds observed. “No member of Trump’s campaign — and in fact, no American anywhere — colluded with the Russians to influence the campaign.” Contrary to what MSNBC and CNN viewers had been told night after night for month after month, Trump is not a Kremlin stooge and yet: “Orange Man Bad!”
Proven wrong on the matter of “Russian collusion,” the anti-Trump media sifted through the Mueller report in search of evidence of other wrongdoing by the president, who of course must be guilty of something. The Twitter feeds of media types filled up with excerpts of the report proving… what? Well, Trump was very angry about being falsely accused of “collusion,” and he didn’t enjoy watching his former associates being investigated and prosecuted as part of what he considered a partisan witch hunt, inspired in large measure by the phony Steele dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign. But we already knew that. Trump’s animus toward the Mueller investigation was certainly no secret, but being angry is not a crime and, however angry he was, nothing Trump did amounted to obstruction of justice. Because there was no “collusion,” and thus no crime to conceal, it would be hard to figure out how or why justice could be obstructed in such a case. The innocent don’t fear justice, and if Trump was innocent of “collusion” (as Mueller concluded) why should he engage in obstruction? Never mind basic logic, cried the Trump-haters, because Orange Man Bad!
“Their minds are made up, and mere facts cannot penetrate their ironclad certainty about Trump’s maliciousness.”
The American political and media elites that spent the first two years of the Trump administration promoting the Russian collusion hoax have some explaining to do. And not merely explaining: They owe the president an apology.
As Attorney General William Barr said on Thursday before releasing the Mueller report, “After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the special counsel confirmed that the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”
And yet nearly the entire complex of elite media was actively complicit in promoting the biggest political conspiracy theory in American history: that Hillary Clinton lost the election because Donald Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to — well, that was always a moving target — but to somehow deprive Mrs. Clinton of victory. What we now know definitively is that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and a team of very accomplished, mostly Clinton-supporting, prosecutors were unable to find evidence of a conspiracy that had been taken as an article of faith by Trump haters.
Journalists don’t like being called “fake news,” but too many of them uncritically accepted the Trump-Russia narrative, probably because of their strong distaste for Mr. Trump himself. But that lack of objectivity represents a major professional failure, and it’s Exhibit A in why Mr. Trump’s taunt resonates with so many Americans. Gallup polling shows that for 69 percent of Americans, trust in the media has fallen over the last decade. Among Republicans, it’s 94 percent; for independents, it’s 75 percent and for moderates it’s 66. Only among self-identified liberals and progressives does a majority continue to trust the media. They like what they hear.
Leftists express respectful disagreement with Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw over his criticism of Ilhan Omar. Ha, just kidding! They mocked him as “captain shithead, “Nazi,” and “eyeless fuck.”
What happens when the government turns your apartment building into public housing. “The SWAT team, the overdose, the complaints of pot smoke in the air and feces in the stairwell — it would be hard to pinpoint a moment when things took a turn for the worse at Sedgwick Gardens, a stately apartment building in Northwest Washington.” Bonus: they’re handing out vouchers for up to $2,648 a month, which is more than my mortgage payment. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
“The Trump administration on Wednesday imposed new sanctions and other punitive measures on Cuba and Venezuela, seeking to ratchet up U.S. pressure on Havana to end its support for Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro.” Good.
.WHY do people do people leave a poorly run, overtaxed state & then vote for liberals in Texas? Let Texas be Texas! Welcome to Texas. Don't vote for what you fled! Vote Republican this November. pic.twitter.com/O1lDuzOG5I
“Trump Gains 19 Points with Latino Voters During Border Wall Shutdown.” Via that well-known alt right cabal of NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist. Also: Trump popularity rating among Latinos at 50%. Gee, evidently Latinos like jobs and the rule of law too! Who knew? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“The Democratic National Committee is the latest organization to silently drop its partnership with the Women’s March. The DNC offered no explanation or condemnation of several march leaders’ well-documented history of anti-Semitism, yet the committee’s name is no longer listed as a “sponsor” on the Women’s March partner list.”
At least five Saudi citizens in Oregon facing serious charges (“two accused rapists, a pair of suspected hit-and-run drivers and one man with child porn on his computer”) disappeared after posting large bail and/or surrendering their passports.
Stupid news: “CNN analyst Areva Martin accused Sirius XM radio and Fox Nation host David Webb of benefiting from ‘white privilege‘ because of his views on race Tuesday morning.” There’s just one tiny problem…
Let’s not forget one of the stupidest pieces of stupid news this week: that Gillette “toxic masculinity” ad. Here’s everything wrong with it.
Not only should you stop buying Gillette razors, you should consider stop buying everything parent company Proctor & Gamble makes until they clean house:
Nick Clegg takes a job with .@facebook and a few weeks later one of the fastest growing Brexit groups .@Leavers_Britain gets shut down. Coincidence? Keep up the great work @Lugey6 solidarity from your comrades in @labourleave
“In a change designed to make their mission more transparent to Colorado citizens, the state’s Civil Rights Commission updated its mission statement Thursday to read simply “DESTROY JACK PHILLIPS.”
This is going to be a “glass half empty” kind of post, so let’s start out enumerating all the positives for Texas Republicans from the 2018 midterms:
Ted Cruz, arguably the face of conservatism in Texas, won his race despite a zillion fawning national profiles of an opponent that not only outspent him 2-1, but actually raised more money for a Senate race than any candidate in the history of the United States. All that, and Cruz still won.
Every statewide Republican, both executive and judicial, won their races.
Despite long being a target in a swing seat, Congressmen Will Hurd won reelection.
Republicans still hold majorities in the their U.S. congressional delegation, the Texas House and the Texas Senate.
By objective standards, this was a good election for Republicans. But by subjective standards, this was a serious warning shot across the bow of the party. After years of false starts and dead ends, Democrats finally succeeded in turning Texas slightly purple.
Next let’s list the objectively bad news:
Ted Cruz defeated Beto O’Rourke by less than three points, the worst showing of any topline Republican candidate since Republican Clayton Williams lost the Governor’s race to Democratic incumbent Ann Richards in 1990, and the worst senate result for a Texas Republican since Democratic incumbent Lloyd Bentsen beat Republican challenger Beau Boulter in 1988.
O’Rourke’s 4,024,777 votes was not only more than Hillary Clinton received in Texas in 2016, but was more than any Democrat has ever received in any statewide Texas race, ever. That’s also more than any Texas statewide candidate has received in a midterm election ever until this year. It’s also almost 2.5 times what 2014 Democratic senatorial candidate David Alameel picked up in 2014.
The O’Rourke campaign managed to crack long-held Republican strongholds in Tarrant (Ft. Worth), Williamson, and Hays counties, which had real down-ballot effects, and continue their recent success in Ft. Bend (Sugar Land) and Jefferson (Beaumont) counties.
Two Republican congressmen, Pete Sessions and John Culberson, lost to Democratic challengers. Part of that can be put down to sleepwalking incumbents toward the end of a redistricting cycle, but part is due to Betomania having raised the floor for Democrats across the state.
Two Republican incumbent state senators, Konni Burton of District 10 and Don Huffines of District 16, lost to Democratic challengers. Both were solid conservatives, and losing them is going to hurt.
Democrats picked up 12 seats in the Texas house, including two in Williamson County: John Bucy III beating Tony Dale (my representative) in a rematch of 2016’s race in House District 136, and James Talarico beating Cynthia Flores for Texas House District 52, the one being vacated by the retiring Larry Gonzalez.
Democratic State representative Ron Reynolds was reelected despite being in prison, because Republicans didn’t bother to run someone against him. This suggests the state Republican Party has really fallen down on the job when it comes to recruiting candidates.
In fact, by my count, that was 1 of 32 state house districts where Democrats faced no Republican challenger.
Down-ballot Republican judges were slaughtered in places like Harris and Dallas counties.
All of this happened with both the national and Texas economies humming along at the highest levels in recent memory.
There are multiple reasons for this, some that other commentators covered, and others they haven’t.
For years Republicans have feasted on the incompetence of the Texas Democratic Party and their failure to entice a topline candidate to enter any race since Bob Bullock retired. Instead they’ve run a long string of Victor Moraleses and Tony Sanchezes and seemed content to lose, shrug their shoulders and go “Oh well, it’s Texas!” Even candidates that should have been competative on paper, like Ron Kirk, weren’t. (And even those Democrats who haven’t forgotten about Bob Kreuger, who Ann Richards tapped to replace Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen when the latter resigned to become Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, getting creamed 2-1 by Kay Baily Hutchison in the 1993 special election, would sure like to.) Fortunately for Texas Republicans, none of the non-Beto names bandied about (like the Castro brother) seem capable of putting them over the top (but see the “celebrity” caveat below).
Likewise, Republicans have benefited greatly from a fundraising advantage that comes from their lock on incumbency. Democrats couldn’t raise money because they weren’t competitive, and weren’t competitive in part because they couldn’t raise money. All that money the likes of Battleground Texas threw in may finally be having an effect.
Under the hood, the damage was significant. There are no urban counties left in the state that support Republicans, thanks to O’Rourke winning there. The down-ballot situation in neighboring Dallas County was an electoral massacre, as was the situation in Harris County.
“This election was clearly about work and not the wave,” [Democratic donor Amber] Mostyn said. “We have been doing intense work in Harris County for five cycles and you can see the results. Texas is headed in the right direction and Beto outperformed and proved that we are on the right trajectory to flip the state.”
“Last night we saw the culmination of several years of concentrated effort by the left — and the impact of over $100 million spent — in their dream to turn Texas blue again. Thankfully, they failed to win a single statewide elected office,” Texas Republican Party chair James Dickey said in a statement. “While we recognize our victories, we know we have much work to do — particularly in the urban and suburban areas of the state.”
The idea that Trump has weakened Republican support in the suburbs seems to have some currency, based on the Sessions and Culberson losses.
That effect is especially magnified in Williamson and Hayes counties, given that they host bedroom communities for the ever-more-liberal Austin.
3. What if Beto had spent his money more wisely? All that money on yard signs and on poorly targeted online ads (Beto spent lots of money on impressions that I saw and it wasn’t all remnant ads) wasn’t cheap. If I recall correctly, Cruz actually spent more on TV in the final weeks, despite Beto raising multiples of Cruz’s money. Odd.
4. Getting crazy amounts of money from people who dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be the hard part. Getting crazy good coverage from the media who all dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be hard part.
Getting those things and then not believing your own hype…well if you are effing Beto O’Rourke, then that is the hard part.
5. Beto is probably the reason that some Dems won their elections. But let’s not forget that this is late in the redistricting cycle where districts are not demographically what they were when they were drawn nearly a decade ago.
For all the fawning profiles of O’Rourke, he was nothing special. He was younger than average, theoretically handsomer than average (not a high bar in American politics), and willing to do the hard work of statewide campaigning. He was not a bonafide superstar, the sort of personality like Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Donald Trump that can come in from the outside and completely reorder the political system. If one of those ran as a Democrat statewide in Texas, with the backing and resources O’Rourke had, they probably win.
A lack of Green Party candidates, due to them failing to meet the 5% vote threshold in 2016, may have also had a small positive effect on Democrat vote totals in the .5% to 1% range.
None of the controversies surrounding three statewide Republican candidates (Ken Paxton’s lingering securities indictment, Sid Miller’s BBQ controversy, or George P. Bush’s Alamo controversy) seemed to hurt them much. Paxton’s may have weighed him down the most, since he only won by 3.6%, while George P. Bush won with the second highest margin of victory behind Abbott. Hopefully this doesn’t set up a nightmare O’Rourke vs. Bush Senate race in 2020.
Texas Republicans just went through a near-death experience, but managed to survive. Is this level of voting the new norm for Democrats, or an aberration born of Beto-mania? My guess is probably somewhere in-between. It remains to be seen how it all shakes out during the sound and fury of a Presidential year. And the biggest factor is out of the Texas Republican Party’s control: a cyclical recession is inevitable at some point, the only question is when and how deep.
Step into the wayback machine for this one, as some of the stops go back decades.
First read this piece from Jim Schutze from way back in 2002 about how then-Democratic State Rep. Terri Hodge would bring in mysterious courier bundles of absentee ballots on primary day while her assistant was awaiting trial for absentee ballot fraud.
Now move forward to 2010 and this release from the U.S. Attorney General’s office from the FBI archives:
DALLAS—Gladys E. Hodge, also known as “Terri Hodge,” who was to go on trial early next month on charges outlined in a 31-count indictment charging 14 public officials and their associates with various offenses related to a bribery and extortion scheme involving affordable housing developments in the Dallas area, has pleaded guilty, announced U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. As a condition of her plea with the government, Hodge, who was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, District 100, in 1996, and re-elected to the same position in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008, has agreed to resign her office and never seek or hold future public office.
Hodge entered her guilty plea this morning, before U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn, to fraud and false statements on an income tax return. She faces a maximum statutory sentence of three years in prison, a $100,000 fine, and restitution to the IRS.
Now fast forward to 2017. Who do you think Dallas Democrats have running a session called “Building Better Vote-by-Mail Results?” That’s right: Convicted felon Terri Hodge.
Dallas Republicans are once again battling local Democrats to stop voter fraud. They were in court today seeking a temporary restraining order against Dallas County’s Democrat elections administrator Toni Pippins-Poole to delay opening of suspicious mail ballots, which was scheduled to begin at 7:00 a.m.
Lawyers for the Dallas County Republican Party asked a judge to sequester about 2,400 mail ballots submitted for the November election that GOP ballot board members identified as questionable. They also flagged 20 mail ballots signed by disgraced ex-state representative Terri Hodge as an “assistant.”
Hodge, a Democrat, pleaded guilty in 2010 to felony tax evasion in a Dallas bribery scandal and spent a year in prison. Hodge is prohibited from running for public office but continues to assist mail-ballot voters.
A Democratic judge is hearing the case.
For Dallas Democrats, not only is a felony conviction not enough to dissuade them from hiring someone to commit the same type of voting fraud they’ve been carrying out for over two decades, they actually hired the convicted felon to teach other activists her methods.
That’s why it’s so important to get out and vote. You not only have to win, you have to win beyond the margin of Democrat fraud…
A review of the presidential votes cast in Texas in 2008, 2012, and 2016 by the data analysis firm Votistics found a disturbing number of duplicate registrations and multiple votes. This means that inaccurate voter rolls are not harmless, forgivable mistakes.
According to Votistics, data provided by the Texas secretary of state indicate that 104,800 people appear to be registered more than once. That is, the list contains thousands of name/date of birth pairs. Of course, some cases could reflect unusual coincidences. But most are the same person. The State of Texas and county registrars have the information necessary to confirm duplicate registrations and remove the extra ones.
Votistics found that 2,159 of these “voting pairs” appeared to have cast ballots in the same election. The firm found another 272 cases of registrants who lacked fully matching middle names but also apparently voted more than once, as confirmed by data matching at various commercial sites that track personal information. While Votistics had no detailed information on these ballots, at least some of them were cast erroneously or fraudulently.
Moreover, 45,854 registrants appeared to have voted more than once in at least one general election according to the records provided by the Texas State Board of Elections.
Texas also has a problem of the dead, or presumed dead, voting. For instance, Votistics discovered that more than 3,000 of those who cast ballots apparently were older than the world’s oldest known person. Remarkable!
In 2016 alone, nearly 800 people above the age of 100 appear to have voted, most of them in person. Either the location of the Fountain of Youth is a few hundred miles off, or there’s a lot of voter impersonation going on. Regardless of whether these ballots were fraudulent, the secretary of state should lead a determined effort to fix election rolls across the state.
The problems are systemic. The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) has been reviewing the role of inaccurate registration lists across the country. In Texas, 39 counties have more people registered than the number eligible to vote. One of the worst offenders is Starr County, with roughly 16 percent more registrants than qualified residents.
In 2014, the ACRU secured a consent decree with Terrell County, Texas requiring officials to clean up their voter rolls by eliminating outdated and duplicate names. As a result, the analysis by Votistics showed the number of “surplus” registrants down markedly.
Members of an organized voter fraud ring have been arrested and indicted on charges they targeted and, in one case stole, the votes of elderly voters on Fort Worth’s north side.
Four people were arrested — Leticia Sanchez, Leticia Sanchez Tepichin, Maria Solis and Laura Parra — after being indicted on 30 felony counts of voter fraud, according to a statement from the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
These people allegedly were paid to target older voters on the north side “in a scheme to generate a large number of mail ballots and then harvest those ballots for specific candidates in 2016,” the statement read.
“Ballots by mail are intended to make it easier for Texas seniors to vote,” Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “My office is committed to ensuring that paid vote harvesters who fraudulently generate mail ballots, stealing votes from seniors, are held accountable for their despicable actions and for the damage they inflict on the electoral process.”
Vote harvesting typically happens in two stages. There’s seeding and then harvesting.
The AG’s office explains that applications for mail-in ballots are first sent to “targeted precincts.” Then, “harvesters attempt either to intercept the ballots outright or to ‘assist’ elderly voters in voting their ballots while ensuring that the votes are cast for the candidates of the harvesters’ choice.”
Let’s take a closer look at the accused fraud ring, shall we?
Leticia Sanchez, 57, of Haltom City, faces 17 counts. She is accused of marking a voter’s ballot without his consent in March 2016, and altering and submitting applications in January and February 2016 to request ballots by mail for the Democratic Party for 2016 elections for 13 people who had made no such requests. She is also accused of providing forged signatures for three people on applications. Sanchez remained in the Tarrant County Jail at noon Friday with bail set at $1,500.
Laura Parra, 24, of Fort Worth, faces one count. Parra is accused of providing a forged signature in January 2016 on an application for an early voting ballot. She was released from jail Thursday on a $1,500 bond.
Leticia Sanchez Tepichin, 39, of Haltom City, faces nine counts. Tepichin is accused of providing forged signatures on two applications for early voting ballots in January and February 2016. She is also accused in seven of the counts of soliciting, encouraging, directing, aiding, or attempting to aid others in altering and submitting false information on early voting ballot applications. The false information was submitted, according to the indictment, to request ballots by mail for the Democratic Party for 2016 elections by people who had made no such request. She was being held in the Tarrant County Jail Friday at noon with bail set at $1,500.
Maria Rosa Solis, 40, of Haltom City , faces two counts. Solis is accused of providing forged signatures in January 2016 on two applications for early voting ballots. She was released from jail on Friday on a $1,500 bond.
It’s a Class B misdemeanor under the Texas Election Code to make a false statement, or attempt to induce another person to make a false statement, on a voter registration application.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a non-profit law firm dedicated to election integrity, sent the alert to district attorneys in Hidalgo and Starr counties, Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
PILF explained that because it represents a sworn statement—and is the only verification of an applicant’s citizenship status required to register—“the voter must answer the important citizenship question on their own.”
It’s a state and federal crime for non-citizens to register to vote or cast ballots, and illegal registration or voting can prevent legal residents from becoming citizens.
The mailers were marked “URGENT!” and read, “Your voter registration application is inside. Complete, sign and return it today!” The TDP further urged recipients—which included already-registered voters, ineligible non-citizens, and deceased individuals—“Mail IMMEDIATELY to be registered to vote in the November 2018 Election!”
For the second time in two weeks, a South Texas woman has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of voter fraud.
Modesta Vela of Roma was arrested October 4 on four voter fraud charges relating to mail-in ballots. Vela is accused of approaching an elderly voter, taking the voter’s mail-in ballot for the November 2018 election, then filling it out herself and mailing it.
District Attorney Omar Escobar said his office began investigating Vela last month after the Starr County Elections Department notified him of the allegations. Vela was charged with felony counts of illegal voting, knowingly possessing a ballot or ballot envelope of another person with the intent to defraud, and election fraud, as well as a misdemeanor count of unlawful assistance of a voter.
Vela was arrested again Friday on four new voter fraud charges of tampering with a government record, namely voter registration applications. Starr County Special Crimes Unit made the arrest.
Snip.
Escobar said the AG’s office is advising local authorities on what evidence to collect in Vela’s case. Vela, a former Starr County Precinct 2 employee who was fired earlier this year, assisted over 200 mail ballot voters in Starr County’s March 2018 Democratic primary. She was also arrested in 2010 on a voter fraud charge involving improper mail ballot assistance during that year’s Democratic primary.
I know you’ll all be shocked at this revelation of the accused malefactor’s party.
But despite these setbacks, Democrats press on, trying to register one of their most reliable voting blocs: the dead. Including one woman who has been dead 29 years…
Trumpism is now the unregretted tattoo that altered the Republican coalition, making it edgier, more rugged, and more relentless in pursuing its policy objectives.
Confronted with a liberal self-styled “resistance” movement—whose very name reeks of the virtue-signaling that galls the right—Trump responded in kind. Left-wingers march in the streets and chase prominent conservatives out of restaurants; he bows his back and marches Kavanaugh onto the bench for a lifetime. Liberals feel better for a weekend; pragmatic conservatives get to feel vindicated for decades. Good trade.
Trump not only refused to rescind Kavanaugh’s nomination when the confirmation process got rocky—as both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush had done with flagging nominees—he barnstormed the country and held campaign rallies in jam-packed basketball arenas rallying his coalition behind Kavanaugh. After playing nice for a handful of surprisingly diplomatic days, enabling a judiciary committee hearing to fairly hear the allegations against Kavanaugh, Trump retrieved his megaphone from its holster and unleashed on the judge’s liberal Senate and media antagonists.
Conservatives who may have been privately uncertain on how to proceed in the face of the allegations found the light in the flames of Trump’s heat. The consensus on the right became clear: this was not a competition of memories between two middle-aged professionals who grew up privileged at boozy teen parties in suburban Maryland. By last Saturday’s confirmation vote, this episode was not even predominantly about Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford; it was a tectonic struggle between the voters’ chosen Republican government and the ruthless Democratic minority seeking to topple it by any means necessary.
Jay Cost, by way of Alexander Hamilton, explains why America won’t have a another civil war: “To put matters bluntly, we do not have to like one another, so long as we continue to make money off one another.” To which I would add: Only left-wing loudmouths on Twitter are really trying to provoke a civil war. Average people rarely mention the things that rage huge on the Internet in their day-to-day lives…
Rand Paul says media hid key detail about Democratic terrorist James Hodgkinson: "When he came on the field with a semi-automatic weapon firing probably close to 200 shots at us, shooting five people and almost killing Steve Scalise, he was yelling 'this is for healthcare!" pic.twitter.com/E9VQ8EDpHs
“Border agents in Texas arrested three sex offenders in two days, one of whom had been jailed in Dallas. All three men have been previously convicted of offenses involving a minor, according to officials with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.” (Hat tip: Governor Greg Abbott’s twitter feed.)
Least anyone think I’m reflexively pro-Trump, his idea to increase the amount of Ethanol in gasoline is an astonishingly bad idea for numerous reasons. And get ready for it to start destroying your lawnmower engines…
Around 150 gang members were arrested or validated with affiliations to the Simon City Royals, Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings, Vice Lords, and the Aryan Brotherhood.
Over 200 registered sex offenders living within the Northern District of Mississippi were checked for compliance in regards to sex offender registration requirements. Around 150 home visits were conducted on high- to moderate-risk offenders on probation with the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the United States Probation Service.
Overall, 255 violent offenders were picked up during Operation Triple Beam. They were wanted on charges including homicide, aggravated assault, sexual assault, illegal gun crimes, narcotics possession and distribution, robbery, arson, and sex offender registration violations.
Following a nine-day trial, a district court judge has voided the results of the City of Mission mayoral election after finding the winning campaign engaged in a conspiracy to bribe voters and harvest mail-in ballots.
Norberto “Beto” Salinas, the former mayor of Mission of 20 years, filed a lawsuit against current mayor Armando “Doc” O’Caña after several witnesses claimed bribery, mail-in ballot harvesting, and illegal voting during the June 9 runoff election. On Friday, 93rd District Court visiting Judge J. Bonner Dorsey agreed with Salinas and voided the results of the election. “I cannot ascertain the true outcome of the election,” Dorsey said.
Salinas’ camp had to prove 157 votes were illegally cast, the number the candidate lost by in the election. Dorsey ruled, “I hold or find, by clear and convincing evidence, that the number of illegal votes was in excess of 158.”
First, it conceded in August by removing U.S. oil imports from a list of possible duties. Two months earlier, China – perhaps trying to either intimate U.S. oil producers (who have been largely supportive of Trump’s policies thus far) who would in turn pressure President Trump, or either by pressuring Trump directly, indicated it would levy a 25 percent duty on U.S. oil imports.
Second, since China is the largest buyer of American crude, Beijing likely discarded one of its strongest bargaining chips in the trade war so far. Some reports claim that U.S. oil imports to China are worth $8 billion all by themselves, so erasing oil from the tariff list reduced the value of sanctioned goods by roughly one-third.
As far as Beijing’s LNG tariff threats are concerned, the reduction from an earlier 25 percent duty to 10 percent could also be considered another blink on China’s part. Beijing, though it does have a host of other gas and LNG suppliers, at the end of the day still needs American LNG as the country continues to pivot away from dirtier burning coal needed for power production in favor of cleaning burning natural gas. By 2020, per government mandate, gas is earmarked to make up at least 10 percent of China’s energy mix, with further earmarks by 2030.
NFL running back legend Jim Brown comes out against NFL players taking a knee:
Jim Brown speaks to media outside White House: "I don't think that we should take knees in protest instead of be standing up for our flag." pic.twitter.com/sZDTsfyinp
Cost for male student to defend himself from charges of sexual assault even though the girl admitted the sex was mutual: $12,000. (Hat tip: Charlie Martin.)
My son was born in 2002. I didn’t have an office job, so I was around a lot to get high and enjoy the cartoons. I opened a packet of Reefer’s peanut butter cups at his preschool fund-raiser and stunk up the place. But pot wasn’t just an occasional funny thing for me to do on weekends. I got stoned the day my son came home from the hospital and stayed that way, with few breaks, for a decade and a half. Of course I put him in danger because I couldn’t stop getting high. I was a drug addict.
Snip.
In March of 2017, my mother died. The hour before she passed, I was outside the hospital, getting a shipment of medical gummies from a friend. I was high when I watched her die, I was high at her funeral, and I was high every day for the next eight months. To say I was “self-medicating” to deal with grief would be too kind. My addicted self took grief as a no-limits license to get stoned.
A man was arrested Wednesday morning after crashing a truck into the side of the FOX4 building in downtown Dallas.
The man, after repeatedly crashing his vehicle into a side of the building with floor to ceiling windows, got out of his vehicle and began ranting.
FOX4 photojournalists were able to film him placing numerous boxes next to a sidedoor filled with stacks of paper. The papers were also strewn across the sidewalk and street adjacent to the building.
Caraway entered his plea Thursday morning before U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn on charges of tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wire fraud…The payments were taken from 2011 to 2017 from Robert Carl Leonard Jr., the president of Force Multiplier Solutions (FXS), a technology company that puts cameras on school buses, according to federal court documents.
Expect more guilty pleas from the Dallas County Schools criminals to follow…
A Dallas County bureaucracy brought down by official corruption, mismanagement, and debilitating debt has finally been dissolved. July 31 marked the end of Dallas County Schools, the school bus agency one state lawmaker called “the worst government bureaucracy in our state.”
But millions in debt piled up by corrupt officials, under the noses of inept bureaucrats, remains.
A years-long criminal money laundering conspiracy that went seemingly unnoticed by most DCS officials until the agency was on the verge of collapse left Dallas County taxpayers on the hook for over $125 million.
Dallas County residents voted to shut down the scandal-plagued bus bureaucracy last November. Since then, a dissolution committee has been working to wind down the agency, transfer buses and other assets to area school districts, and figure out how to pay off the mountain of debt left behind.
County taxpayers will continue to pay the one-cent ad valorem property tax dedicated to subsidizing the now-defunct agency until all its obligations are settled.
The dissolution committee also filed a civil racketeering lawsuit seeking to recoup taxpayer money that was illegally funneled to corrupt officials and others involved in the conspiracy. Under federal racketeering statutes, plaintiffs can recover triple damages.
“I’m hopeful that we will get some money back,” said Alan King, chief executive officer of the dissolution committee. “The amount of money that they’ve lost is just staggering.”
“It was a conspiracy of a number of defendants and individuals that involved bribes, kickbacks, real estate fees and commissions paid,” added Stephanie Curtis, an attorney for the DCS dissolution committee.
The lawsuit’s targets include former DCS Superintendent Rick Sorrells, former DCS President Larry Duncan, and current Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, along with Louisiana-based school bus camera company Force Multiplier Solutions and its CEO Robert Leonard. A failed stop-arm camera ticketing scheme hatched by Leonard and then-Superintendent Sorrells back in 2010 precipitated the agency’s financial collapse.
Dwaine Caraway is a Democrat who also served as interim Mayor of Dallas after Tom Leppert resigned to launch his unsuccessful U.S. Senate race. Larry Duncan is a Democrat who was also on the Dallas City Council. A look at his January 19, 2016 campaign finance report shows that Leonard was his only campaign contributor (to the tune of a hefty $25,000). Evidently no one was paying attention then, or this should have set off some alarm bells…
Leonard’s associate Slater Swartwood, Sr. is also named in the suit. He was the first to be indicted on criminal charges in the DCS case, late last year. He pleaded guilty to federal money laundering conspiracy charges and gave federal prosecutors details of the multi-year conspiracy. Swartwood was the middle man who helped funnel millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks from Leonard and Force Multiplier to Sorrells “in return for further agreements and camera-equipment orders.”
Sorrells repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, but once Swartwood confessed, Sorrells admitted he abused his position to swindle taxpayers out of millions of dollars. As superintendent, Sorrells awarded $70 million in contracts to Force Multiplier in exchange for $3 million in bribes and kickbacks. He used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle that featured luxury vacations, expensive sports cars, and fancy jewelry. Sorrells pleaded guilty in April to wire fraud and is set to be sentenced soon. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Duncan, who was president of the DCS board when then-Superintendent Sorrells and Leonard launched the stop-arm camera scheme, also denied wrongdoing. From 2012 to 2016, Duncan received nearly $250,000 in campaign contributions from Leonard and others connected with Force Multiplier that coincided with DCS board approvals of agreements with the company. Duncan claims the donations were legitimate, but it’s unclear why Louisiana residents would contribute to the campaign of a Dallas bureaucrat running unopposed. Duncan later gave some of that money to campaigns of other DCS board candidates, including Omar Narvaez, who’s now a Dallas City Council member.
Caraway is connected to DCS through Swartwood, who also brokered questionable real estate deals for DCS that cost taxpayers millions. Financial disclosures filed by Caraway in 2013 and 2014 show he was paid at least $50,000 to serve as a real estate “consultant” for Swartwood. Caraway also admits the money-launderer gave his family at least $20,000 in “loans” he was never asked to repay. In 2015, Caraway “passionately convinced the rest of city council” to vote in favor of DCS’s stop-arm camera ticketing scheme. Caraway is rumored to be eyeing a run for mayor in 2019, but his connection to the DCS scandal could derail those plans.
State Sen. Don Huffines (R–Dallas) led the legislative effort last year to abolish DCS.