Posts Tagged ‘Immigration and Customs Enforcement’
Friday, February 21st, 2020
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm!
“Chinese Intel Officers Indicted for Stealing Personal Data of 145 Million Americans in Equifax Hack.”
The Justice Department charged four Chinese intelligence officers on Monday with a 2017 hack of credit-reporting giant Equifax, which compromised the personal data of nearly 150 million Americans.
“This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” Attorney General William Barr said in a press conference on the announcement.
Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke, and Liu Lei, members of the People’s Liberation Army’s 54th Research Institute, are charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as well as two counts of unauthorized access and intentional damage to a protected computer, one count of economic espionage, and three counts of wire fraud.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Atlanta last week, alleges that the soldiers used a vulnerability in Equifax’s online dispute portal to access its secure servers over several weeks. The group ran approximately 9,000 queries while routing traffic through 34 servers to secretly obtain names, birth dates, and social security numbers for nearly half of all American citizens, before compressing and exporting the data.
The Guardian reveals that the Sulemani strike was an even bigger blow to Iran’s terror network and regional ambitions than previously thought:
“There were 11 bodies pulled from the wreckage,” said one official privy to the panicked conversations that swirled through the corridors of power that morning. “We are talking about the entire inner sanctum of the Quds Force. This wasn’t just Hajj Qassem [Suleimani] and Abu Mahdi [al-Muhandis]. This was everyone who mattered to them in Iraq and beyond.”
Another source, a western intelligence agency, was more circumspect, suggesting that those killed may have been less decisive in the Iranian nexus than the Iraqis believed. “However, the [assassinations] may have significant repercussions for the relationship between the [Quds Force] and Iran-aligned groups in Iraq in the near term,” an official said.
In the 40-day mourning period to mark the Iranian general’s death, which ended last Thursday, the fallout in Iraq has barely subsided. If anything, its impact has become more acute there, as well as in Suleimani’s homeland of Iran, and elsewhere in a region he had come to dominate like no other figure.
From the bunkers of south Beirut to the battlefields of northern Syria and the combustible streets of Iraq, the loss of Suleimani and his entourage has derailed much of Iran’s momentum in the region and exposed to rare vulnerability the opaque Quds Force it has used to project its influence over two decades.
The assassination has also shone a light on the complicated relationship between the Iranian leadership and the Iraqi government, senior members of which have scrambled ever since to resurrect Suleimani’s core regional projects located as far away as the Lebanese capital and Damascus. The reckoning started as soon as the dead were buried.
Plus attempts by Iran to get Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to help fill the void.
“It’s Looking More and More Like Nevada Will Be Another Democratic Clusterfark.”
In interviews, three caucus volunteers described serious concerns about rushed preparations for the Feb. 22 election, including insufficient training for a newly-adopted electronic vote-tally system and confusing instructions on how to administer the caucuses. There are also unanswered questions about the security of Internet connections at some 2,000 precinct sites that will transmit results to a central “war room” set up by the Nevada Democratic Party.
Margaret Thatcher warned about the perils of European integration:
In a major speech about the future of Europe, delivered in Bruges on September 20th, 1988, she “began with a grand historical sweep, taking in the Romans, Magna Carta, the Glorious revolution and much more, all designed to show that Britain was part of European civilization.” Thatcher also made it clear that “Britain wanted no ‘cosy, isolated existence’ on the fringes: ‘Our destiny is in Europe, as part of the Community.’”
What Thatcher did oppose was the project of “ever-closer union,” and the resulting weakening of the influence of nation states. She believed that Europe should not be a centralizing power that incubated supranational institutions—particularly as this model of centralization was just then in the throes of spectacular failure within the Soviet Union. Instead, as she outlined in a speech at The Hague on May 15th, 1992, she favored a looser form of European co-operation, by which states retained their sovereign freedoms—including control of their borders. This, she believed, would accommodate the political and cultural diversity of Europe, including the eastern European countries that, she hoped, would be offered full EC membership. As Moore notes, in fact, she was one of the few prominent European politicians of the 1980s who had recognized that cities such as Warsaw, Prague and Budapest were very much European cities that had been cut off from their historical and cultural roots.
In her speech at The Hague, as Moore summarizes it, “she prophesied that large-scale immigration caused by free movement would cause ‘ethnic conflict,’ and bring about the rise of extremist parties, that there would be ‘national resentment’ because of one-size-fits-all financial and economic policies under a single currency, and that a more centralized EC would not be able to work with the influx of new member states from the former Eastern Bloc.”
Washington Post is really concerned that elites don’t have enough say in choosing presidential candidates.
ICE isn’t having any of California’s nullification:
ICE said in a statement that California’s law doesn’t supersede federal law and “will not govern the conduct of federal officers acting pursuant to duly enacted laws passed by Congress that provide the authority to make administrative arrests of removable aliens inside the United States.”
“Our officers will not have their hands tied by sanctuary rules when enforcing immigration laws to remove criminal aliens from our communities,” David Jennings, ICE’s field office director in San Francisco, said in the statement.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Mexico is now the wall.
Clayton Williams, RIP. He was that close to beating Ann Richards for Texas governor in 1990 before he shot his mouth off, not realizing that you can never trusts journalists to keep something that hurts a Republican quiet. Had he won, it’s extremely doubtful that George W. Bush gets elected governor in 1994, and the modern history of America turns out very differently…
“The 25-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing a library security officer to death had been released without bail after being accused of trying to rape a woman at Montefiore Nyack Hospital in November.” Thanks to Democratic “reforms,” attempting to rape a woman in a hospital in New York is now effectively a misdemeanor.
“Ilhan Omar DID marry her brother, reveals Somali community leader, who says both she and her husband told him Ahmed Elmi was her sibling and she would do what she had to do to get him ‘papers’ to keep him in US.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
See you in Hell. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
FATALITY!
One step closer to autonomous heroin-vending robots.
“Under financial stress, Oberlin College seeks to end unionized custodial and dining hall services.” Point and laugh, children…
Speaking of pointing and laughing: How #NeverTrumpers are the waterboys of the D.C. elite. “All of their predictions are based on the conventional wisdom and assumptions of an insulted and excluded D.C. intelligentsia, and all are wrong.”
White Bernie bro attacks black man wearing pro-gun T-shirt.
Trump plays the race card.
NASCAR driver Ryan Newman complained about safety so much that they added the “Newman bar” to their cars, which may have just saved his life.
Faster, Klingon! Kill! Kill!
How two different programmers made the same error in their code a decade apart, with the result that you can’t run two different programs if the other is running.
The pro-wrestling “heel” who helped desegregate Memphis.
Noble but sad dog tweet:
Funny dog tweet:
Tags:#NeverTrump, 1994 Texas Gubernatorial Race, 2020 Presidential Race, Ann Richards, Bernie Sanders, Border Controls, border fence, China, Clayton Williams, Crime, Democrats, dogs, Equifax, EU, Foreign Policy, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iran, Jihad, Lebanon, LinkSwarm, Liu Lei, Margaret Thatcher, Media Watch, Memphis, Mexico, NASCAR, Nevada, New York, Oberlin College, Qassem Suleimani, Somalia, spying, Tennessee, Texas, unions, Wang Qian, Wu Zhiyong, Xu Ke
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 15th, 2019
Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm filled with news from the impeachment farce:
Summary of George Kent’s testimony:
Kent is not a first-hand witness and much of his testimony is based off of second-hand knowledge. [Page 206-207]
Kevin Bacon has fewer degrees of separation to the Trump Zelensky call than George Kent.
That being said, his closed-door testimony revealed far more devastating pushback on the Democrat narrative than anything else.
Kent testified that it is appropriate for the State Department to look at the level of corruption in a country when evaluating foreign aid. [Page 103]
(Reminder: The Trump administration sent Ukraine lethal aid.)
Kent also testified that Hunter Biden being on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma while Joe Biden was VP was a conflict of interest. [Page 226-227]
And according to his testimony, when he raised corruption concerns with the Obama White House, he was rebuffed and was told “There was no further bandwidth to deal” with Hunter. [Page 226-227]
Summary of Bill Taylor’s Testimony:
Reminder: Chargé d’affaires for Ukraine, Bill Taylor, is not a fact witness to the Trump Ukraine call.
Taylor was not on the July 25th call and he did not read the transcript until it was publically released for the world to see.
Furthermore, Taylor doesn’t have relationships with any of the players involved. He has previously testified that he did not have direct communication with President Trump, Rudy Giuliani or Mick Mulvaney. [Pages 107-108]
Yet even worse for Democrats’, Taylor’s closed door testimony has undermined their phony narrative.
Taylor testified that at the time of President Trump’s call with Ukraine, the Ukrainians were unaware of the hold on the U.S. aid. [Page 119]
Taylor also testified that combatting corruption in Ukraine is a “constant theme” of U.S. foreign policy. [Pages 86-88]
(Preceding two links both from Director Blue.)
Even some Democrats are getting tired of the impeachment sham:
Surprisingly, McDaniel reports that opposition to the hearings among Democrats is up 6 points. Could it be that there are still some sane members left in the Democratic Party who see this spectacle for what it is? Regardless of what new information is learned, no matter how favorably it may reflect on President Trump, there are a large number of Democrats who will not be swayed. Most Democrats hate Trump so much that, even though they’re well aware of how unfairly he’s been treated, they’re willing to go along with anything that will remove him from office. A six point shift doesn’t seem like much, but even a small move can swing an election.
This shift also makes sense in light of the recent rally data released by Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale…He reported that 27% of those who attended Trump’s Tupelo, MS rally on November 1st identified themselves as Democrats. At an October 17th rally held in Dallas, TX, 21.4% identified as Democrats. These figures are stunning.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Ten signs the impeachment farce is actually a coup:
1) Impeachment 24/7. The “inquiry,” supposedly prompted by President Trump’s Ukrainian call, is only the most recent coup seeking to overturn the 2016 election.
Usually, the serial futile attempts — with the exception of the Mueller debacle — were characterized by about a month of media hysteria. We remember the voting-machines-fraud hoax, the Logan Act, the Emoluments Clause, the 25th Amendment, the McCabe-Rosenstein faux coup and various Michael Avenatti-Stormy Daniels-Michael Cohen psychodramas. Ukraine, then, isn’t unique, but simply another mini-coup.
2) False whistleblowers. The “whistleblower” is no whistleblower by any common definition of the noun. He has no incriminating documents, no information at all. He doesn’t even have firsthand evidence of wrongdoing.
Instead, the whistleblower relied on secondhand water-cooler gossip about a leaked presidential call. Even his mangled version of the call didn’t match that of official transcribers.
He wasn’t disinterested but had a long history of partisanship. He was a protégé of many of Trump’s most adamant opponents, including Susan Rice, John Brennan and Joe Biden. He did not follow protocol by going first to the inspector general but instead caucused with the staff of Rep. Adam Schiff’s impeachment inquiry. Neither the whistleblower nor his doppelganger, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, was bothered by the activities of the Bidens or by the Obama decision not to arm Ukraine. Their outrage, in other words, was not about Ukraine but over Trump.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Rep. Jim Jordan rips apart the sham witnesses. None of them have any first-hand knowledge of anything.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez admits that the entire point of the impeachment hearings is to unite the Democratic Party. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“Whistleblower Revealed To Be Recently Hired White House Janitor Hillarita Clintonez.”
A transnational elite racing its way to a revolution.
“Capitol Building To Be Decorated As Giant Circus Tent For Duration Of Impeachment Hearings.”
TPPF looks in-depth at firearms and crime in Texas:
At publication, Texas’ crime rate is the lowest it has been since 1965. Similarly, violent crime in Texas is at a 40-year generational low with 410.8 incidents per 100,000 residents, a rate not seen since 1977. This trend follows a decades-long aggregate decrease in both violent and property crime rates. As illustrated in Figure 1, murder—the most heinous crime that can be committed using a firearm—has mimicked the decline as well with the drop in constituent subcategories of homicide. (Note that the rifle and shotgun homicide rates are reflected on the secondary vertical axis on the right in order to display the drop in these rare incidents.)
Further, the percentage of total homicides committed with a firearm in Texas has been trending downward as well. Similar to Figure 1, Figure 2 shows declines across all major categories of firearm homicide, with rifles and shotguns being displayed on the right-hand vertical axis. During the preceding two decades, a handgun has been used in an average of 46.53 percent of all homicides, while rifles and shotguns were used in 3.57 percent and 4.10 percent, respectively. For handguns, the highest use was 54.55 percent in 2005; the lowest was the most recent year, 2018, at 40.12 percent.
Also: “These trends persist in tandem with a proliferation in concealed carry permits being issued. Between 1998 and 2018, the number of concealed handgun licenses issued have increased 568 percent.”
Writer Derek Cohen examines possible solutions to violence involving guns, and finds all of them but one wanting:
The Legislature should consider implementing and funding a Texas program similar to federal initiatives, which uses a multi-pronged strategy of policing and prosecution, agency integration, and identification of violent crime hot spots. The focus would be on criminals with guns, not law-abiding Texans (Governor’s Texas Safety Action Report).
Of all the recommendations made in this report, this enjoys the strongest scholarly backing. This essentially describes what is known as “focused deterrence,” a holistic public safety strategy that includes law enforcement, prosecutors, social services, and analysts. The process begins when on-the-street law enforcement describes gang conditions in the area they patrol, both in terms of geography (what is the gang’s “territory”) and identifying key members. The analysts then create a gang map as well as a relational network of the gang. Those in the gang are notified that they have been identified as such and invited to a “call-in.” During this meeting, attendees are informed of the strategy and, should violence persist associated with the gang, not only will state and federal prosecutors seek the maximum punishment for all potential criminal charges, but gang members stand to face these charges should others within the network be responsible for furthering violence. Conversely, attendees are offered the option of enrolling in relevant social services to ease the transition to a more law-abiding life.
These programs have gone by multiple names during their ascendency: Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV), Operation: Ceasefire, and the like. Their efficacy has been demonstrated in individual and meta- analyses, suggesting “that focused deterrence strategies are associated with an overall statistically significant, medium-sized crime reduction effect.”
After protecting Jeffrey Epstein, ABC is still looking for the whistleblower who revealed that fact.
“New Emmy Category Announced: Best Covering For A Pedophile.”
Speaking of child sex predators, ICE arrested over 3,700 of them in FY2019. They’re just molesting the children native Americans won’t…
Denver business owner fined by government for not cleaning up the feces left by homeless people attracted by local government policies. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Probably should have included a link to this in my Austin homeless roundup, but there’s a YouTube channel dedicated to drunken brawls on Sixth Street, which seems to have gotten much worse in the last year or so. (Hat tip: Paul Martin of KR Training.)
Nine deaths at USC since August? That starts to seem like a startlingly high number. And, accord to feminists, there must have also been thousands of student rapes in the same period…
“Chinese Communists Infiltrate British Universities, Confiscating Papers and Cancelling Events.” All universities outside China should close any “Confucius Institutes” they’ve allowed to operate.
Related: “South Korean, Chinese students face off over Hong Kong protests.” Note that this was in Seoul.
Venice floods (even worse than usual, due to high tides and rain). (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Bolivia’s socialist president Evo Morales resigns over voter fraud.
Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton became the first the secure his reelection in 2020. How? Within hours of the filing deadline closing, his legal team challenged false statements by his only Democratic opponent, who promptly withdrew.
ProTip: Try not to drop your four baggies filled with cocaine. Especially at the airport. Especially if you’re Democratic state representative. Texas Democratic State Representative Poncho Nevarez evidently had to learn that the hard way, and now he’s not running for reelection.
Massachusetts to seize cars of people caught with untaxed vaping products. Even by the standards of Massachusetts crazy that’s Massachusetts crazy, and likely both and Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual) and a Ninth Amendment (neither necessary nor proper) violation.
Michael Chabon on Star Trek and his dying father. It’s a really good essay and you should read it. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Japan’s (mostly) failed attempts to firebomb the U.S. via balloon. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Classic Onion piece relinked by Instapundit: “Marxists’ Apartment A Microcosm Of Why Marxism Doesn’t Work.”
Despite the roommates’ optimism, the system began to break down soon after its establishment. To settle disputes, the roommates held weekly meetings of the “Committee of Three.”
“I brought up that I thought it was total bullshit that I’m, like, the only one who ever cooks around here, yet I have to do the dishes, too,” said Foyle, unaware of just how much the apartment underscores the infeasibility of scientific socialism as outlined in Das Kapital. “So we decided that if I cook, someone else has to do the dishes. We were going to rotate bathroom-cleaning duty, but then Kirk kept skipping his week, so we had to give him the duty of taking out the garbage instead. But now he has a class on Tuesday nights, so we switched that with the mopping.”
After weeks of complaining that he was the only one who knew how to clean “halfway decent,” Foyle began scaling back his efforts, mirroring the sort of production problems experienced in the USSR and other Soviet bloc nations.
At an Oct. 7 meeting of the Committee of Three, more duties and a point system were added. Two months later, however, the duty chart is all but forgotten and the shopping list is several pages long.
The roommates have also tried to implement a food-sharing system, with similarly poor results. The dream of equal distribution of shared goods quickly gave way to pilferage, misallocation, and hoarding.
“I bought the peanut butter the first four times, and this Organic Farms shit isn’t cheap,” Eaves said. “So ever since, I’ve been keeping it in my dresser drawer. If Kirk wants to make himself a sandwich, he can run to the corner store and buy some Jif.”
Narwhale the Unipuppy. Which was trending over the impeachment hearings two days ago…
In keeping with all that global warming, Austin had an unseasonably early hard freeze this week. Stay warm out there…
Tags:2020 Election, ABC, Adam Schiff, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Arkansas, Austin, Bill Taylor, Bolivia, Border Controls, Burisma, China, Colorado, Communism, Confucius Institutes, Crime, Democrats, Denver, Derek Cohen, Foreign Policy, George Kent, Hunter Biden, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, impeachment, Jeffrey Epstein, Jim Jordan, Joe Biden, Massachusetts, Media Watch, Michael Chabon, pedophilia, Poncho Nevarez, Regulation, Republicans, South Korea, Texas, Tom Cotton, Ukraine, USC
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Regulation, Texas | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 19th, 2019
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Lots of Analysis of “The Squad” along with the usual absurdities…
ICE raids begin. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
The Trump Administration is trying a novel plan to thwart “asylum seekers” at the border:
A rule published Monday bars migrants from seeking asylum in the United States if they’ve traveled through another country first.
Tens of thousands of migrant families from Central America travel through Mexico to the U.S. each month, many claiming asylum. The Trump administration claims families are taking advantage of legal loopholes it says allow migrants a free pass to the country while they wait out phony asylum requests.
Mexico and other central American countries are not so hot on the idea.
Mother Jones admits that Democrats are actually for open borders.
Nineteen illegal alien MS-13 members arrested for crimes from racketeering to murder.
The DOJ’s statement documents one particularly horrifying murder that some of the gang members are charged with where a rival gang member “was abducted, choked, and driven to a remote location in the Angeles National Forest” where he was “dismembered, and his body parts were thrown into a canyon after one of the defendants allegedly cut the heart out of the victim’s body.”
“Majority of Mexicans Supports Deportation of Central American Migrants.”
President Donald Trump, Grandmaster Troll:
I didn’t initially buy into this business about how Trump’s often-unorthodox tweets and actions are part of a political 3D chess game he’s playing while the rest of the country is playing checkers.
But I do now.
I could go through a lengthy punchlist of examples of Trump statements and moves that prove the 3D chess theory, but that would dramatically overtake the space this column has to offer. Instead, let’s just talk about this weekend’s flare-up over the president’s Twitter outburst aimed at The Squad — the four idiot freshman Democrat congresswomen, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, who have spent their time as elected officials offering one inappropriate and stupid anti-American outburst after another.
Trump didn’t initially name any of the four. He didn’t talk about Omar or Ocasio-Cortez, and he didn’t talk about Ayana Pressley or Rashida Tlaib.
Instead he referred to “Progressive” Democratic congresswomen, and then noted that they “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
This was decried by all the Usual Suspects as an abjectly racist statement, a response that Trump certainly anticipated and couldn’t care less about. Even some weak-kneed Republicans thrashed about in paroxysms of self-righteousness about how Trump could possibly be so bigoted and insensitive in calling out The Squad. After all, three of the four were born in this country!
But Omar wasn’t.
Omar is from Somalia. Omar is quite possibly here in this country after having committed immigration fraud. There has been a quite credible, perhaps even convincing, case made that Ilhan Omar married her biological brother in furtherance of that immigration fraud. And Ilhan Omar has not stopped making incendiary anti-American and pro-Muslim Brotherhood statements since she entered public life.
Absolutely everything Trump said in his tweets applies perfectly and without stipulation to Ilhan Omar.
The fact that he didn’t use her name meant that our political betters immediately assumed he was also talking about Pressley, Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez.
Which bothered Trump not one bit.
Paragraphs on the unpopularity of Omar and Ocasio Cortez with actual voters (which I covered here) snipped.
So what do you do if you want to ensure Omar and AOC poison those so-called moderate Democrats who won those swing House districts last year?
You force Pelosi into bed with them.
Which is precisely what Trump has done.
The Democrat leadership immediately, reflexively, lined up behind The Squad after an entire week of slapping them down. Al Green, a Democratic congressman from the slums of Houston, is now attempting to use Trump’s tweets as a fresh justification for impeachment, which is all Al Green does in Congress. There will be a House resolution condemning the president’s comments as racist, on which Pelosi has put her stamp of approval, and another seeking to formally censure Trump.
All of this is precisely what Trump wanted. And he proved it by doubling and then tripling down on his statements Monday, first unleashing a new set of tweets mostly quoting Lindsey Graham, who had partially rebuked the president for getting too personal about The Squad in his complaints, and then popping off in a Rose Garden press avail with comments directly eviscerating Omar in a way I can’t remember ever having seen a president do to a member of Congress. Which was glorious, by the way, and if you haven’t seen the video you owe it to yourself to watch it.
Don’t think for one second that Trump doesn’t absolutely love this fight. He is a pig in slop at this point. Trump will continue forcing Pelosi and her leadership team into bed with The Squad from here all the way to Election Day, and when he’s through he won’t just win reelection in a landslide but he’ll also take away every single one of those swing districts.
How calling out The Squad benefits both President Trump and The Squad:
The four — AOC, Tlaib, Pressley, Omar — have no clout in the Democratic caucus. But because of the confrontations they have caused and the controversy they have created, they have a massive media following.
Paradoxically, their interests in winning cheers as the fighting arm of the Democratic Party coincide with the interests of Donald Trump. He entertains and energizes his base by answering in kind their attacks on him and by adopting incendiary rhetoric of his own. He is now assuming the old “America! Love it or Leave it!” stance in going after the four women as anti-American ingrates.
They, by calling Trump a criminal, racist and fascist for whom impeachment proceedings should have begun months ago, elate and energize the outraged left of their party.
Among the presidential candidates, some have begun to side with the four, with Bernie Sanders saying Pelosi has been “a little” too tough on them.
On “Meet the Press,” Bernie added: “You cannot ignore the young people of this country who are passionate about economic and racial and social and environmental justice. You’ve got to bring them in, not alienate them.”
Trump’s Sunday attack forced Pelosi to stand with her severest critics, and she re-elevated the race issue with this tweet: “When Trump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again.”
Do Democrats believe that refighting the racial battles of the 1960s that were thought to have been resolved is a winning hand in 2020?
Does Pelosi think that demeaning white America is going to rally white or minority Americans to Democratic banners?
(Caveat: Patrick Buchanan.)
Democrats tell Jake Tapper off the record that Trump snookered them into embracing The Squad. “And they have to pretend that their party is unified because of their fear of being challenged in primaries by radicals with the support of Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s Svengali chief of staff and the brains behind the Justice Democrats.”
Speaking of which: “Meet AOC’s Brain: Saikat Chakrabarti.”
Chakrabarti’s previous HQ was a Knoxville address out of which the Justice Democrats and another PAC operated side by side with a dozen congressional campaign committees. This arrangement flouted a variety of campaign finance laws and prompted several Federal Election Commission complaints, including one alleging that Chakrabarti set up a $1 million slush fund. But this sort of skullduggery is standard practice among Democrats. What exacerbated the already tense atmosphere in their House caucus was Chakrabarti’s response to the $4.6 billion border aid package passed by Congress last month. On June 27, he took to Twitter and berated the Democratic leadership for its shortcomings:
As usual, Dem leadership tried to create a pre-watered down border bill because of a mistaken idea that it’s more “viable.” And they lost to McConnell anyway. This is the entire theory of change that never works. Why not start from your strongest negotiating stance?
Predictably, this presumptuous tweet drew a number of angry responses from various Democrats who had voted for the measure, whereupon Chakrabarti once again betook himself to Twitter and proceeded to accuse his critics of racism:
Instead of “fiscally conservative but socially liberal,” let’s call the New Democrats and Blue Dog Caucus the “New Southern Democrats.” They certainly seem hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s.
Chakrabarti later deleted that tweet, but not before it had clearly signaled who actually calls the shots in AOC’s office.
Snip.
Chakrabarti’s Justice Democrats PAC is also taking fire from the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The Hill reports, “Congressional Black Caucus members are furious at Justice Democrats, accusing the outside progressive group … of trying to oust lawmakers of color, specifically African American lawmakers.” The PAC evidently plans to primary at least six CBC members who occupy safe Democratic seats simply because they don’t lean far enough to the left. Chakrabarti is clearly using his position as AOC’s chief of staff to engineer a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party. He said as much during an extensive profile for The Washington Post Magazine:
To me, there wasn’t a difference between working for her and working for the movement … The whole theory of change for the current Democratic Party is that to win this country we need to tack to the hypothetical middle … you don’t take unnecessary risks, which translates to: You don’t really do anything.
Chakrabarti doesn’t see himself as a mere staffer in some congresswoman’s office. He sees AOC as someone who provides him with a headquarters from which he can “fundamentally change” the Democratic Party.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Speaking of The Squad, The Minneapolis Star Tribune actually reports on allegations against Omar: “New investigative documents released by a state agency have given fresh life to lingering questions about the marital history of Rep. Ilhan Omar and whether she once married a man — possibly her own brother — to skirt immigration laws.”
Powerline, which has been following the story the media wouldn’t, has still more:
In 1995, Ilhan entered the United States as a fraudulent member of the “Omar” family.
That is not her family. The Omar family is a second, unrelated family which was being granted asylum by the United States. The Omars allowed Ilhan, her genetic sister Sahra, and her genetic father Nur Said to use false names to apply for asylum as members of the Omar family.
Ilhan’s genetic family split up at this time. The above three received asylum in the United States, while Ilhan’s three other siblings — using their real names — managed to get asylum in the United Kingdom.
Ilhan Abdullahi Omar’s name, before applying for asylum, was Ilhan Nur Said Elmi.
Her father’s name before applying for asylum was Nur Said Elmi Mohamed. Her sister Sahra Noor’s name before applying for asylum was Sahra Nur Said Elmi. Her three siblings who were granted asylum by the United Kingdom are Leila Nur Said Elmi, Mohamed Nur Said Elmi, and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
Ilhan and Ahmed married in 2009, presumably to benefit in some way from a fraudulent marriage. They did not divorce until 2017.
With lots of official documentary evidence.
Omar happened because the media chose to lie to you. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Democrats have defined racism down yet again. “Thirty-two percent (32%) of Democrats, however, say it’s racist for any white politician to criticize the political views of a politician of color. So being a ‘politician of color’ means that your views are immune to disagreement. Unless–once again–you are a Republican.”
Indeed, they insist that merely to criticize them is tantamount to exposing them to death threats.
Democratic strategist says that Democrats should stop worrying about all those rubes in flyover country. Ann Althouse:
The point is, apparently, Democrats are sick of thinking about that guy, the “guy in a diner in rural” whatever. Once they were safely stowed in a basket — a basket of deplorables — and that worked out so disastrously that the reaction could be to obsess over these imaginary people. Are Democratic Party candidates expected to actually venture into the hinterlands? No, they’ll just worry about those people, and then they come to Madison (where I live) or Milwaukee to try to score enough votes to outnumber those diner people. That’s what Democrats do to win Wisconsin.
US downs Iranian drone.
BBC caves, gives Iran veto power over their Iranian reporting.
Say goodbye to those F-35s, Turkey. (Previously.)
Planned Parenthood head ousted over refusal to back transsexual abortions. Tranny madness is going to take out the entire leftwing establishment by insisting that every member must forthrightly declare that 2+2=5.
Amazon starts pulling out of Seattle:
The Amazon pullout of Seattle continues. The corporate giant announced on Tuesday that it is going to build a 43-story tower in Bellevue.
It will be Amazon’s tallest building anywhere in the world, and it will be the tallest building in Bellevue, which has more than a few skyscrapers. Several thousand employees will be able to work there. So it looks like this is another part in the saga of Amazon leaving Seattle. All of this is because we have a city council and a mayor who have gone fanatic about socialism. They keep pushing anti-business policies.
What this means for the downtown Seattle real estate market is that when the economy inevitably starts to turn, it will be cataclysmic. When you have one company that takes up so many thousands of square feet of downtown real estate, and that company moves out, real estate prices will fall.
I don’t know when this is going to happen, but I am very confident in my analysis; Seattle will fall harder than any other city in the country. This is because Seattle has been the craziest in its Leftist run-up during this boom economy that we’re enjoying right now.
We already have so many businesses on the brink of survival because of the minimum wage because of all of the controlling policies the city government keeps imposing. When the businesses start toppling, you’re going to see all the support industry in downtown Seattle — the food service, etc. — fall hard, too.
The Amazon pullout of Seattle is another dramatic sign that when the people who drive our economy, our tax revenue, our job creation are out because of our politics, it’s time to change our politics.
Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s world:
In addition to his sexual predation with “tweens and teens,” Epstein pursued ambitious, beautiful New York City women in their 20s in the early 2000s, some of them ex-models seeking a professional afterlife. To this woman, and others, Epstein introduced himself as the owner of a hedge fund with clients investing $1 billion or more. He kept his child molestation secret, and came off as a gentle, erudite recluse. He was often at movie premieres, sometimes with a blonde on each arm—a blonde of legal age, but still, as noted this week by David Boies, usually under 25 years old. His predation had not been reported to the police yet, but there were indications that he was somewhat different than most mature men his age. Eleanora Kennedy, the elegant wife of powerhouse lawyer Michael Kennedy, recalls asking Epstein to underwrite a premiere party at the Metropolitan Club for The White Countess, a Merchant Ivory film released in 2005. “I got him on the phone and explained that the event was also a benefit for a women’s medical center conducting a study about menopause,” says Kennedy. “As soon as I said ‘menopause,’ he said, ‘Ms. Kennedy, if you don’t say that word again, I’ll send you a check for $10,000.’”
Like most of the older men who date young women, Epstein seemed to take great pride in his behavior. He seemed to desperately want other important men to perceive him as a great lothario, Genghis Khan in a monogrammed sweatshirt. A former model who was on Epstein’s 727 shortly after she graduated college recalls him taking her and some older men on a tour to show off his custom-designed, padded floors. “When I saw that I thought, Wow, rich people are weird,” she says. “I was so stupid and naïve—Why are padded floors cool? I was too young to get it.” The men simply laughed and winked, joking with each other that Epstein padded his floors so that he could have sex on the floor at 10,000 feet.
Also: He liked to keep his bedroom at 54°F when slept.
“Inside the Victoria’s Secret pipeline to Jeffrey Epstein.” I liked the part where the model threw the vibrator at his head…
“Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch linked to investigation.”
Media unveils bombshell report of Trump hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein…in 1992.
Yes, that’d be 27 years ago, before Epstein was even known to have done anything illicit. So apparently, Trump is guilty by association because he couldn’t see into the future and know that Epstein would abuse women some years later. In fact, Epstein did not even own his “pedophile island” in 1992, nor are there currently any victims dating back to that time.
The sexual assault charges against Kevin Spacey have been dismissed. The case, which involved Spacey allegedly groping an 18-year old man, evidently had multiple problems and fell apart when the accuser refused to testify. This is the only one of some fifteen accusers (one as young as 14) who alleged Spacey did something sleazy with them.
CNN ratings sink to new lows.
Related: CNN reporter asks a panel of women to comment on President Trump’s “racist” tweets. Their reply: “It’s not racist.” Including a legal immigrant.
“Billionaire investor Peter Thiel says one reason for Google aiding in the transfer of AI technology to the Chinese military in favor of America is that “woke” Google employees are anti-American and prefer China to the U.S.”
In addition to being a corrupt scumbag, the Governor of Puerto Rico is also a bit of an asshole. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Car thief steals car with three kids inside, father beats him to death.
Today’s stupid ecoscam headline: “Streaming Online Pornography Produces as Much CO2 as Belgium.” From the comments: “If we had a global referendum on whether we’d rather have porn or Belgium, I wouldn’t bet on Belgium.”
#TeamCocaineMitch is already throwing down on Democratic opponent Amy McGrath:
Nancy Pelosi to fundraising event for Wendy Davis. Davis is running against Chip Roy for the Texas 21st Congressional District in 2020, and Roy is already fundraising off it.
The late Ross Perot was always willing to use his money to help disabled veterans in need.
Condolences to James Lileks on the loss of his father.
Houston road vote bungled.
Once again, the New York Times puts its thumb on the scale to keep a conservative bestseller from reaching the top of the list. That book is Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court.
Wes Pruden, editor of the Washington Times, RIP. I like the cut of his jib:
He was the last of the old-time newspapermen, and the word “journalist” was prohibited from appearing in the pages of the Times during his tenure as editor-in-chief.
That rule was one of several variations from the AP Stylebook known as “Prudenisms,” reflecting Mr. Pruden’s preference for plain English and his hostility to euphemism, jargon and lazy writing. For example, “controversial” was prohibited, as were “alleged,” “allegation” and “allegedly.” If someone was accused of wrongdoing, then you had to cite a source making that charge, rather than just saying the person allegedly did whatever it was. Also, under Mr. Pruden’s rules, “gay” was not an acceptable synonym for homosexual, which meant that, as an assistant editor on the national desk, I had to change this in AP wire stories.
The Times used courtesy titles, so the President would be “Mr. Trump” and the Speaker of the House “Mrs. Pelosi” on second reference, and we were not allowed to use “Ms.,” so that on second reference a certain New York Democrat would be Miss Ocasio-Cortez. Also, we did not use “Dr.” as the honorific for a Ph.D., but only for an M.D. This was because doctorate degrees were a dime a dozen in D.C., and even many high-school principals could demand a “Dr.” if we ever let that get started. This particular Prudenism really ruffled the feathers of James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who had a Ph.D. in psychology and always insisted on being called Doctor Dobson, but the editor’s rule was unbending and on second reference he was always “Mr. Dobson.” I seem to recall Ralph Z. Hallow on the phone with Dobson’s people, getting an earful of complaints about this, as the “Doctor” thing was part of Dobson’s brand, as it were, but it was Mr. Pruden’s paper, and complaints were useless.
Some of my colleagues at the paper grumbled about Mr. Pruden’s curmudgeonly ways, but having an old-fashioned editor was in many ways a great blessing, because he was utterly invulnerable to any kind of political correctness or manufactured “controversy.” Of course, every liberal on the planet hated the Washington Times, so there was never any shortage of “activist” types indignant about our coverage, but there was no pressure they could bring to bear on Mr. Pruden that would make him flinch. A reporter whose story touched off a firestorm of outrage knew that, as long as he had the facts right, Mr. Pruden had his back. As long as the Old Man was happy with your work, it didn’t matter who else might be angry about it. He had courage, and a sense of honor.
Bird, an electric scooter sharing startup, lost $100 million over three months. On behalf of every Austinite who’s driven downtown recently, I’d just like to say:
A reminder from 50 years ago: Don’t drink and drive. And if you do, don’t leave the scene of the crash to flee. Especially if there was another passenger in the car. Especially if it’s underwater…
“Trump Finally Loses Baptist Support After Video Emerges Of Him Dancing.”
All aboard the Uncanny Valley Express:
Tags:2020 Election, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Amazon, Amy McGrath, Ayanna Pressley, BBC, Bird (scooter company), Border Controls, China, Chip Roy, CNN, Crime, Democrats, F-35, Foreign Policy, Holly Hansen, Houston, Ilhan Omar, Illegal Aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iran, James Lileks, Jeffrey Epstein, Jihad, Justice Democrats, Kevin Spacey, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Mexico, Military, Minneapolis, Mitch McConnell, MS-13, Nancy Pelosi, Patrick Buchanan, Planned Parenthood, Rashida Tlaib, Ross Perot, Saikat Chakrabarti, Seattle, Somalia, Ted Kennedy, Texas, Texas 21st Congressional District, The Squad, transexual, Turkey, Victoria's Secret, Wendy Davis, Wes Pruden
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »
Saturday, July 13th, 2019
The Trump Administration won a small victory Friday when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled they can withhold federal grants from sanctuary cities:
The ruling, a split 2-1 decision, said the Department of Justice (DOJ) was within its rights to withhold Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants from sanctuary cities and states over their refusal to work with federal immigration enforcement authorities and instead prioritize agencies that focused on unauthorized immigration and agreed to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to jail records and immigrants in custody.
The city of Los Angeles first sued the administration after it was denied a $3 million grant on the grounds that it did not receive the money because it did not focus on immigration for its community policing grant application. The decision reversed a district court’s ruling.
“The panel rejected Los Angeles’s argument that DOJ’s practice of giving additional consideration to applicants that choose to further the two specified federal goals violated the Constitution’s Spending Clause,” wrote Judge Sandra Ikuta, joined by Judge Jay Bybee.
Ikuta and Bybee are both George W. Bush appointees. Judge Kim Wardlaw, who dissented, is a Clinton appointee.
The Ninth Circuit, of course, was the most notoriously liberal of the circuit courts, though Trump appointees have been slowly changing the balance of the court. It is possible that a majority of active circuit judges could grant a petition to order an en banc rehearing of the ruling before an eleven judge panel, but “en banc hearing or rehearing is not favored and ordinarily will not be ordered.” Though one of the exceptions is for cases of “exceptional importance,” so who knows? Neither an en banc rehearing nor a Supreme Court appeal would be a slam-dunk to overturn the decision.
Slowly but surely, the Trump Administration is making headway in actually enforcing federal border control laws.
Tags:9th Circuit Court, Border Controls, California, Democrats, George W. Bush, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jay Bybee, Kim Wardlaw, Los Angeles, sanctuary cities, Sandra Ikuta
Posted in Border Control, Democrats | No Comments »
Saturday, July 6th, 2019
Those immigration raids that were off are on again:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month said operations would target recently-arrived undocumented migrants in a bid to discourage a surge of Central American families at the southwest border.
ICE said in a statement its focus was arresting people with criminal histories but any immigrant found in violation of U.S. laws was subject to arrest. -Reuters
The new sweep comes after migrant apprehensions on the southwest border hit a 13-year high in May, only to dramatically drop in June after Mexico deployed their National Guard stem the flow of mostly Central American migrants into the United States.
One thing announcing and then calling-off the raid earlier did was get the word out to illegal aliens and encourage them to self-deport. Once actual raids start, a whole lot of illegal aliens may think it best to pack up their belongings and decamp back to their home countries under their own power.
President Trump seems to have a pretty firm conviction that Democratic presidential contenders have gotten out of step with the country with their “free medical care for illegal aliens” promises. While Democrats are busy pandering to their far left base with stunts like escorting illegal aliens across the border, Trump seems to be think that their stand on illegal aliens hurts them, just like in 2016, and that the issue will help peel moderate voters away from the Democrats in 2020. The speed with which House Democrats caved on border funding suggests they realize it as well. So too does how loudly they focus on the very narrow issue of conditions at immigrant detention centers, which suggests that every other immigration issue polls negatively for Democrats.
Democrats want open borders because they view every illegal alien as a potential Democratic voter. For the clear majority of American voters, that’s not a good reason to open our borders to anyone who walks across.
Tags:2020 Election, 2020 Presidential Race, Border Controls, Democrats, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Posted in Border Control, Democrats | No Comments »
Friday, August 31st, 2018
Just when I think the Catholic Church can’t make itself look any worse in the wake of the burgeoning child rape scandal, they prove me wrong:
Papal spokesman on the Catholic Church’s spiraling child rape scandal:
In an NBC News interview yesterday, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago insisted that it was more than acceptable for Pope Francis to refuse to discuss Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s shocking testimony, which implicates a host of Catholic Church leaders — including the pope — in covering up sexual abuse and immorality.
“The pope has a bigger agenda,” Cupich told interviewer Mary Anne Ahern when asked about the pope’s refusal to discuss Viganò’s claims. “He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church.
Evidently Pope Francis and company were doing their darnedest to imitate the Babylon Bee.
Related: “Pope Starting To Suspect He Might Be Antichrist.”
How ObamaCare was designed to force independent doctors out of business. (Hat tip: Ian Murray at Instapundit.)
ICE arrests over 100 illegal alien workers at Load Trail LLC in Sumner, north Texas.
The U.S. share of mass shootings is actually lower than the global average.
President Trump’s Iran sanctions are working.
“There’s a widespread consensus that at no time in the past 40 years, since Saddam Hussein acquired absolute power and led Iraq into a series of ruinous wars, has Baghdad been as free and as fun as it is now.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Remember Russia’s new T-14 Armata tank? They were going to build 2,300 of them. Now? 132. And that number is split between the T-14 and the T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicle, which shares the same chassis. Which means Russia will have to continue to rely on older T-72 and T-90 tanks as the mainstays of their armored forces for the foreseeable future. By comparison the United States has over 1,500 M1A2s and over 4,000 M1A1s, both of which proved capable of taking out T-72s in the Gulf War. As Stalin once put it, “Quantity has a quality all it’s own.” And the essential brokeness of Russia is why I’m not worried about their costly adventurism in Syria. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
John McCain was admired by liberals; that is, when they weren’t calling him a senile plutocrat warmonger.
How Chicago 68 destroyed the Democratic Party:
Humphrey would be the last Democratic presidential nominee to represent the values of Truman and JFK: compassionate big government at home, and resolute anti-Communism abroad. Instead, a new Democratic party was born, one that increasingly reflected the radical views of the Chicago protesters: that America, not Communism, was the real force for evil that needed to be contained and transformed. That Democratic party would nominate George McGovern in its 1972 convention and become a party obsessed with social justice, identity politics, and America’s past sins — essentially the party it is today. Meanwhile mainstream Democratic voters began their flight to the Republican party, “Reagan Democrats” who would enable the GOP to win four of the next five presidential elections and who later became the foot soldiers of the Trump insurgency.
(Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
The Missouri Democratic Party does not need any of you stinking moderates. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Biased liberal news sites hate being called biased liberal news sites. (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)
Philadelphia is bankrupt. So naturally the liberal mayor is trying to ignore the obvious. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Cahnman looks at gang rape in the Baylor football program. Add to this the news that Baylor planted moles in sexual assault survivor groups to report back on cases involving student athletes, and you start to wonder whether the NCAA out not to revive the “Death Penalty” for Baylor’s football program…or maybe their entire athletic department.
CNN lied, they know they lied, and they can’t stop lying.
Washington Post: “Russia hacked the election!” Also Washington Post: “We’re going to court to fight election transparency advertising law!” (Hat tip: Ace of Spaces HQ.)
Speaking of liberal mouthpiece newspapers, both the editor and the publisher for the Austin American Statesman are retiring.
This just in: Greece is still boned.
“If he’s cute, it’s flirting. If he’s ugly, it’s sexual harassment.”
“Abbas to close banks in Gaza, cut off all salaries.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Lancaster Independent School District violates state law with illegal electioneering.
Dick’s Sporting Goods move away from guns hurt their bottom line. “The anti-gun crowd must not buy a lot of sporting goods.”
ESPN finally seems to understand that they should get out of politics and stick to sports. Took them long enough…
Chicanery at the Llano police department. Bad cop! No ribs!
“Eat Steak and Live Longer.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Snowflake Kansas professor cancels office hours because concealed carry is no legal. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
There can be only one…going to prison. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
How ballpoint pens killed cursive.
Tags:Baylor, Blase Cupich, Border Controls, Catholics, Chicago, CNN, college, Crime, Democrats, Dick's Sporting Goods, ESPN, Foreign Policy, Guns, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John McCain, Kansas, Lancaster ISD, Llano, M1A2, Mahmoud Abbas, Media Watch, Military, ObamaCare, Palestinians, Philadelphia, Pope, Pope Francis, Russia, T-14 Armata, tanks, Texas, Waco
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Military, ObamaCare, Texas | 2 Comments »
Thursday, August 16th, 2018
Here’s a basket of Texas and local news of note:
Back in the dim mists of time, Democrats used to nominate swing district candidates who could at least pretend to be moderates. This year? Not so much.
Today, I’m highlighting another extremist Democrat in Texas, Gina Ortiz Jones, who finished first in a five-way primary, with 42% of the vote and then defeated Rick Trevino in the May runoff, to challenge Republican Rep. Will Hurd in the 23rd District.
This is one of the most competitive districts in the country, and has changed hands five times between Republicans and Democrats in the past 25 years. Hurd, a former CIA officer and the only black Republican member of Congress from Texas, won the seat in 2014 with only a 2,500-vote margin over the Democrat incumbent, and was re-elected in 2016 with a margin of only 3,000 votes. In a mid-term where Democrats are energized by anti-Trump mania, Hurd faces a tough fight, and Democrats have poured more than $1 million into the Jones campaign.
Fortunately for Republicans, however, Jones is way out of step with the values of this largely rural district, which stretches all the way from the suburbs of San Antonio in the east to El Paso in the west. The district is 55% Hispanic, and Jones has made a point of using her mother’s maiden name, with the slogan “One of Us, Fighting For Us” in her campaign.
Except she’s not Hispanic. Her mother immigrated from the Philippines and her father (who never married her mother) was a white drug addict. While she’s using “Ortiz” to play the identity-politics game with Texas voters, however, she’s using a lesbian-feminist message to solicit support nationally from Trump-haters, promising to become the “first Filipina-American and first out-lesbian to represent Texas in Congress, and she’ll be the first woman to represent her district.“ She has been endorsed by all the usual suspects of left-wing extremism, including pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List, pro-homosexual groups like Equality PAC, Human Rights Campaign and the LGBT Victory Fund, and the anti-Israel JStreetPAC, as well as the Feminist Majority, People for the American Way and the AFL-CIO. Her agenda includes socialized medicine, taxpayer funding for abortion, gun control, amnesty for illegal aliens, and every other issue you might expect from someone who attended elite Boston University.
Missed this earlier: San Antonio Dr. Jorge Zamora-Quezada was arrested for committing over $240 million in Medicare and other government fraud in a scheme that stretched back over two decades.
“ICE arrests 45 in Houston area during 5-day operation targeting criminal aliens, immigration fugitives.”
There were also 110 illegal aliens arrested in the Rio Grande valley over two days.
“In what appears to have been a last-ditch move to sway a tax ratification election in their favor, South San Antonio ISD officials likely violated state law on Tuesday by paying district employees to go vote for the tax increase. But for those at home wondering, crime doesn’t pay. Despite their fourth-quarter efforts, voters defeated the tax hike by a 57–43 margin.”
The University of Texas “diversity coordinator” thinks that “The Eyes of Texas” is racist. (Hat tip: Mark Pulliam, on Twitter.)
How well did your local public school rank? TPPF has more on how to read the scores. (But also keep in mind Iowahawk’s illuminating essay on how demographics affect test scores.)
Muslim immigrant from Jordan sentenced to death for two honor killings.
The Idiots on the Austin City Council voted to subsidize a professional soccer team on city land. Because subsidizing a sport Texans actually like just wasn’t insulting enough. (More background here.)
“100% Renewable Isn’t Doable.” No matter what Georgetown says…
When is an interest rate swap a secret stealth tax increase? This piece walks you through how tiny Azle ISD’s machinations amount to a form of regulatory arbitrage to do just that.
“Woman shoots masturbating bicyclist trying to break into her SE Houston home.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tags:2018 Election, Austin, Azle ISD, Border Controls, Crime, Democrats, education, Elections, fraud, Georgetown, Gina Ortiz Jones, Hispanics, Houston, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jorge Zamora-Quezada, Medicare, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, soccer, South San Antonio ISD, sports subsidies, Taxes, University of Texas, Will Hurd
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Friday, July 27th, 2018
Good economic news tops today’s LinkSwarm. Meanwhile, a passel of Middle East conflict news will have to wait until tomorrow…
The U.S. economy grew at 4.1% in Q2. Remember how Paul Krugman said the economy would “never” recover from Donald Trump being elected President?
Vice reports what I’ve been covering for quite a while: Twitter shadowbans mainstream conservatives and Republicans.
“Say anything you want about this president – I get it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights.”
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan has thrown his hate into the ring to replace Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“New UAW Corruption Scandal Details Implicate Union at Highest Level.” And not just the union:
Remember the multi-million dollar corruption scandal involving UAW officials? Apparently, it was even more corrupt than previously reported. While the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center is suing both Fiat Chrysler and the union members involved, recent developments point to the money scheme being greenlit by former UAW President Dennis Williams.
As part of a plea agreement filed this week, ex-labor official Nancy Adams Johnson told investigators that Williams specifically directed union members to use funds from Detroit’s automakers, funneled through training centers, to pay for union travel, meals, entertainment, and more. If true, the accusation not only implicates the UAW of corruption at the highest level but also the potential involvement of staff from both Ford and General Motors — something the FBI is already looking into.
I believe the official industry term for something like this is a “shit show.”
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Attention everyone: They’re called “illegal aliens,” not “undocumented immigrants.” Deal with it…
Is the Trump Administration preparing to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities? A report worth taking with several grains of salt.
Alt-right protestors call black police officers “f**king n****r” in Portland protest. Oh, wait, did I say “alt-right”? I meant “anti-ICE.” (Hat tip: Derek Hunter on Twitter.)
Retired Sgt. Maj. John Canley received a phone call from President Donald Trump telling him he was receiving the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Battle of Hue in 1968.
“Man Indicted for Threatening to Kill Rep. Diane Black, Tennessee Republican in high-profile governor race.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Masculine fathers raise strong daughters. Plus this: “A glance at the public figures felled in the #MeToo purges—not to mention Bill Clinton —should cure us of the idea that progressive politics incline men to better treatment of women.”
“Sexual inequality makes marriage work.” Marriages work better when the husband earns more. Also: “The more traditional the division of labor, meaning the greater the husband’s share of masculine chores compared with feminine ones, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction.”
“Challenger Tracy Booker Gray won the Republican nomination for Kaufman County Court at Law No. 1 over incumbent Dennis Jones in a July 21 do-over election. A judge ordered a new election after finding voter fraud and other irregularities tainted the outcome of the March 6 primary.”
Houston ISD spends almost $1 million on a school with no students.
UK father who raped and fathered three children with his own daughter sentenced to only four years in jail. Guess the ethnicity of the rapist. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Texas lawn mowing company owner prints cards stating his company is an alternative to illegal alien labor. Good for him.
American semiconductor company Qualcomm’s merger with Dutch company NXP collapses after regulatory approval withheld…by China. Earlier this year, Qualcomm’s attempted merger with Broadcomm was blocked by the Trump Administration.
Meanwhile, the merger between Disney and 1st Century Fox was approved, which means we might finally get a Fantastic Four movie that doesn’t suck.
Facebook just lost $120 billion in market cap. How about they stop worrying about censoring the news and stop switching the view from “Most Recent” to “Top Stories”?
Allegations of vote fraud in Mission mayoral runoff in Hidalgo County.
“Confused Mueller Reminds Nation Russia Investigation Wrapped Up Months Ago.” (Hat tip: American Digest.)
The Magic Power of Socialism:
(Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
Trump Trolling: Master Class:
Every book I bought in the first half of this year.
Finally, the Hello Kitty Exorcism Kit.
Tags:21st Century Fox, Border Controls, China, Congressional Medal of Honor, Crime, Democrats, Dennis Williams, Disney, Facebook, Hidalgo County, Houston, Houston Independent School District, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iran, Jihad, Jim Jordan, John Canley, LinkSwarm, Military, Portland, Qualcomm, rape, Republicans, Russia, Semiconductors, shadowban, Tennessee, Texas, Twitter, UAW, unions, Vietnam War
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions | No Comments »
Thursday, July 19th, 2018
According to this Gallup poll, immigration is now the top national issue, probably because Democrats took a temporary break from their Russian collusion fantasy to splash “OMG! Look at these heart-rending pictures of illegal alien children!” across the nightly news for a month.
The 22% of Americans in July who say immigration is the top problem is up from 14% in June and is the highest percentage naming that issue in Gallup’s history of asking the “most important problem” question. The previous high had been 19%.
There’s just on tiny little problem for Democrats:
The YouGov poll shows that registered votes prefer stricter immigration policies by roughly two-to-one. Forty-seven percent of the registered voters in the poll of 1,000 adults said they want stricter policies, while only 25 percent said they want less strict policies.
Seventy-three percent of GOP-identified adults want stricter policies, as do 45 percent of independents, and 19 percent of Democrats. Thirty-one percent of Hispanics want stricter policies, while 30 percent want looser policies, said the poll.
So they spent a month hyping an issue that plays directly into President Donald Trump’s hands.
Also note that there’s no guarantee that a majority of that minority of 25% believe in the most extreme open borders position of abolishing ICE.
I see no sign that their chants of “No ban. No wall. No borders at all.” have even the tiniest shred of popularity with American voters at large. Border Control is President Trump’s signature issue, one that pries far more voters from the Democrat’s coalition (blue collar works, blacks, etc.) than it does from Republicans.
If the Democrats keep letting the lunatic nutroots tail wag the rest of the party, expect them to experience the same electoral joy they enjoyed in 2010, 2014 and 2016.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Tags:Border Controls, Democrats, Gallup, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, polls
Posted in Border Control, Democrats | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 16th, 2018
Incumbent U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein was snubbed by the California Democratic Party’s executive board, who opted to endorse state Sen. Kevin de Leon (real name: Kevin Alexander Leon) for the seat instead. As John Fund notes, de Leon is “running on abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, promoting national health insurance, and impeaching President Trump.” For outflanking Feinstein on her far left, he garnered “a stunning 65 percent of party activists, and Feinstein got just 7 percent.”
In practical terms this matters very little for California’s jungle election in November, since both Feinstein and de Leon’s names will be on the ballot.
Keep in mind that Feinstein is an impeccable lifetime liberal on issues, with 100% liberal ratings on everything from abortion to gun control. She’s a “moderate” only by the standards of the 2018 California loony left.
And yet that still wasn’t enough for the cadres of the California Democratic Party.
If Democratic Party activists insist on a level of far-left ideological purity that paints Dianne Feinstein as “right wing,” they’re heading for an electoral debacle that will make 2010 look like a cakewalk.
Tags:2018 Election, California, Democrats, Dianne Feinstein, Elections, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »