When last we checked on this story, Texas Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw was threatening to sue YouTuber Shawn Ryan over comments Ryan had made about Crenshaw, and Crenshaw had agreed to come on Ryan’s show to address the issues.
Guess what? Rep. Crenshaw appears to be pussing out by refusing to sign Ryan’s standard release form.
“I need to talk to you about the Dan Crenshaw situation. As many of you know, he sent me a cease and desist, threatened to sue me. I made a rebuttal. I invited him on the show. Then he challenged me. I accepted. I said, ‘Okay, perfect. January 2nd to come on this show, you have to sign a release form.'”
“Everybody that’s been on this show since around episode 10 has signed a release form. President Trump, J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Kent, lots of very important people, much more important than a congressman have signed that release form. Everybody that has been interviewed in the new studio has signed the exact same release form.”
“Dan and his attorneys, they don’t want to sign the release form. They want special concessions. We sent them that release form on December 26th. They then sent a bunch of red lines. We said we’re not making any special circumstances or modifying our release form for the congressman. I’m sorry, that’s not going to happen.”
“But we will make some special concessions for his protection on another document and send that over.” You know, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Rep. Crenshaw doesn’t need more protections than Donald Trump.
“Well, they have yet to sign either one of those documents. I have to have those documents signed to interview somebody. Everybody’s done it.”
“I talked to my attorney. I said, ‘I think this is what’s going to happen. They are going to wait until close of business on New Year’s Eve to send some type of a communication in hopes that we don’t get it because who the hell is checking their email at 10:00 at night on New Year’s Eve?’ Well, guess what?”
“We get an email at 10 o’clock at night from Dan’s campaign manager on New Year’s Eve, where the next day is a national holiday and nobody’s behind their decks. And the next day it’s game day. It’s interview time.”
“They said, ‘We’re booked. We’ve booked the hotel that you’ve recommended. Will somebody be there to pick us up?’ There was no mention of the release forms.”
“So, here’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to come here and they’re going to make a big stink on how I didn’t interview them and how I was scared to interview them or whatever, but they’re hiding behind the paperwork.”
“Dan, I am now redacting my invitation for you to come on my show. I gave you the opportunity to be a man. You didn’t take it.”
“I gave you the opportunity to speak to five and a half million people and prove to them that you are not insider trading. That’s a fucking gift. I might add, a gift that not very many people get, and you turned it down.”
“I’m not going to interview you now. I don’t play games.”
“This is what you do, Dan. You’re a bully. You bully people into submission. Anybody that scrutinizes you, you send them a nasty gram and you threaten to sue them. And that works. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on me.”
Assuming all this is true (and right now I have no reason not to believe it’s true), Rep. Crenshaw comes off looking even worse than he did before threatening to sue Ryan.
If Crenshaw doesn’t have anything to hide about his finances, he’s sure acting like someone who has something to hide…
An interesting Second Amendment case may be making its way to the Supreme Court soon involving reciprocity and post-Bruen state resistance to Second Amendment rights.
“The case is Gardner v. Maryland. It is a challenge to Maryland’s concealed carry laws, as it dealt with out of state residents as it was pre-Bruen. It has an amazing fact pattern, one that a plaintiff’s attorney, a petitioning attorney, would love nothing more to have.
A lot of people missed it because it was a “pro se petition,” i.e. filed by the person involved rather than a lawyer.
“Now it’s sitting on petition to the United States Supreme Court.”
“Our good friend Kostas Moros over at the Second Amendment Foundation is geeking out on the video.”
“And he also comes to the conclusion, number one, Miss Gardner had gotten completely effed by Maryland law. And number two, you really could not ask for a better fact pattern.”
“So he convinces the Second Amendment Foundation to actually do an amicus brief in support of her petition, and also starts using his platforms to publicize this case which then leads to Miss Gardner no longer being a pro se petitioner. She now has counsel. In fact, she has very, very competent counsel representing her.”
“But that’s only the beginning of the cool news.”
“What once started as a pro se petition by a woman who absolutely got completely hosed by an unconstitutional licensing scheme now has amicus briefs in support of her petition from the following groups.”
“There’s an amicus brief from the Second Amendment Foundation, co-authored with the NRA, Second Amendment Law Center, California Rifle and Pistol Association, the Citizens Committee on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus.
“But that’s just the beginning of the good news, because guess who else has filed amicus briefs in support of Ava Marie Gardner’s petition? the Cato Institute, the Heller Foundation, 24 attorneys general, spearheaded by the states of Virginia and New Hampshire,” including Texas AG Ken Paxton.
“And an amicus brief from Senators Ted Cruz, and all of these other members of the United States Senate.”
“Ava Marie Gardner is a lawful and responsible gun owner residing in the state of Virginia. And yes, she has a valid Virginia concealed carry license.”
“She’s traveling through Montgomery County, Maryland, specifically on Interstate 270. A road rager intentionally strikes Miss Gardner’s car and forces her off the road. Now, after both cars come to a stop, the other driver gets out of his car and starts rushing towards Miss Gardner’s car.”
“She initially screams at him to stop, but that doesn’t seem to work. So, then she displays her firearm and stops the threat. And I want
you to understand that she merely displayed it, did not discharge it. There was no allegation of her pointing it at it. It was just the display of the firearm.”
But then, well, after police arrived, the only person arrested was Miss Gardner.”
“For unlawful display of a firearm? Nope. For assault? Nope. No. In fact, the only thing that Miss Gardner was arrested for fell under Maryland Code of Criminal Law Section 4-203A, which says that you cannot have a firearm on your person or in your vehicle unless you are properly licensed by the state of Maryland.”
This case goes back and the law that Maryland was using for their concealed carry license at the time made it actually impossible. So that even had Miss Gardner wanted to try to get a Maryland license, she in all likelihood would have never obtained one.”
“At the time, in order to get a Maryland concealed carry license,
one had to one show good and substantial reason. That’s right. they were still operating under the “may issue” standard. So you actually had to prove up a reason as they saw fit for you to actually be able to carry a firearm.”
“And then in addition to that too, you had to have 16 hours of instruction which of course was only available in Maryland.”:
“And then let us remember that also at the time the state of Maryland offered absolutely no reciprocity whatsoever. So she would have never been able to obtain a Maryland license because she was an out of state resident even if they offered some kind of semblance to an out of state resident.”
“So it was basically impossible for Miss Gardner to get a Maryland license.”
So Maryland arrested Gardner for not possessing a license that they never would have allowed her to obtain.
Hopefully the Supreme Court will take up the case and remind deep blue states that Second Amendment rights are not optional.
Another day, another Ken Paxton lawsuit, this time against smart TV manufacturers he accuses of illegally spying on Texans.
“Smart TVs are watching you back.”
That’s how Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opens a series of new lawsuits accusing major television manufacturers of secretly surveilling Texans inside their own homes.
Paxton has filed suit against five major television companies—Samsung, Sony, LG, Hisense, and TCL—alleging they unlawfully collected and monetized detailed viewing data from consumers without meaningful knowledge or consent. Two of the companies named in the lawsuit, Hisense and TCL, are based in China, a fact Paxton says raises additional concerns about data security under China’s National Security Law.
According to the lawsuit, the companies embedded Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology into their smart televisions. The software allegedly captures screenshots of what appears on a user’s television screen as frequently as every 500 milliseconds, allowing companies to monitor what consumers watch across streaming platforms, cable television, and even external devices connected by HDMI, such as gaming consoles or laptops.
Taking a picture every half-second and uploading it sounds something that would definitely show up in your router logs, assuming you have things set up to keep an eye on it. And I rather doubt Samsung or LG have much use for that data clogging up their servers.
But the Chinese manufacturers? Yeah, I can see them intermittently sampling everything until they find a nice juicy target to turn on and aim the full spyware capabilities at.
The attorney general’s office alleges that the data is transmitted back to the companies in real time, used to build detailed consumer profiles, and then sold or shared for targeted advertising purposes—often without consumers understanding what they agreed to or how the technology works.
“Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton said in a statement. “This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries.”
I wonder if the spyware capabilities Paxton alleges are present in these TVs can be easily demonstrated. I wouldn’t put it past China to include some capabilities, but demonstrating that they’re actually present in something like a court of law might prove difficult.
Maybe LG and Samsung are spying on you to sell you ads:
Kneon at Clownfish TV reports that LG TVs are automatically installing Microsoft Co-Pilot AI, and that it listens to your conversations are serves you ads based on it…
If you have a primary care physician, chances are you have MyChart, which seems to have a monopoly on the online medical records portal business. Oddly enough, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has noticed that monopoly as well.
Texas is suing the electronic medical records conglomerate that owns the MyChart system, Epic Systems, alleging that it both has a monopoly on the industry and makes it difficult for parents to access their children’s medical records.
The antitrust lawsuit was filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on December 10 in Tarrant County district court. It accused Epic of “inserting” itself as the “gatekeeper” of patient data, by “locking up” hospitals into its electronic health records (EHR) systems, then dictating when and which individuals can access said data.
As described on the Epic Systems website, the company has “more than 325 million patients” with electronic records. Both major Texas medical networks and hospitals — such as Texas Children’s Hospital and Memorial Hermann — and smaller clinics use Epic’s various services, including MyChart.
It represents more than 90 percent of all U.S. citizens, court documents note.
The suit similarly highlights that Epic houses more than 325 million patients’ medical records within its databases, stating that its “strategy” has been “inordinately successful” and has operated as a monopoly in the EHR industry.
My health provider uses MyChart, but I’ve never consented for them to use it for me. Call me paranoid, but I believe that ObamaCare incentivized newly cartelized medical providers to centralize record keeping so the federal government could suck in all that information for themselves, because that’s the sort of thing socialists love to have on file as a weapon to use against the proles. Naturally, I’m agin it…
Podcaster/YouTuber Shawn Ryan is one of those people that lies at the edge of the Mil-blogger/YouTubers I already watch, but never enough to have a tag for him before now. I recognize him from a Joe Rogan interview thumbnail and the disasterous interview Gavin Newsom had with him, but I’m not really familiar with his work. But it definitely got my attention that Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw is threatening to sue him, a clash that probably has an added intensity since both are ex-Navy SEALS.
“On December 9th, 2025, I received a legal demand letter from lawyers representing Congressman Dan Crenshaw. They are threatening to sue me for defamation because of comments I made on my podcast about a message that he sent me.”
“They want me to remove content, issue a public apology, and stop talking about him. I’m not going to do any of that.”
“What I originally said a while back, I commented on my show about Congressman Crenshaw throwing an extremely expensive party and the fact that he seems to have become quite wealthy during his time in Congress.”
“I raised questions about how a congressman making $174,000 a year can afford that kind of a lifestyle. These are legitimate questions. And to be honest, I didn’t even mention Dan Crenshaw’s name in that initial conversation.”
“I just brought up the fact that he was having Steve Aoki, a major DJ spin at his party.” I honestly have no idea how much “top DJs” make.
“Multiple news outlets have reported on concerns about congressional insider trading and members of Congress, including Congressman Crenshaw, actively trading stocks while having access to non-public information that affects those very stocks. I’m not the only person asking these questions, but apparently I’m the one that got under Dan’s skin.”
Crenshaw then sent Ryan an Instagram that Ryan perceived to be threatening:
Hey Sean, you have the ability to contact your fellow team guy if you’ve got a problem with me or have questions about how I’m getting rich. Some of my boys at six told me about your indirect swipe at me. From the comment you made, it sounds like you have some beliefs that are based on trendy narratives instead of facts.
Eh, I think Ryan may be over-reacting here. To me the not read more like “What the hell?” than “I’m going to break your kneecaps.”
Ryan then plays a clip of Crenshaw talking about how he’ll kill Tucker Carlson if he meets him. Definitely injudicious on Crenshaw’s part, but not an actionable threat.
“Now his lawyers are claiming that my interpretation of his message is defamation. They say I accused him of threatening me with assault, which is a crime, and that I need to publicly apologize and remove the content from my show.” And here’s where Crenshaw screwed up. The congressman seems unaware of The Streisand Effect. This video already has three million views, so millions of people who previously unaware of the accusations against him have now heard them.
“Here’s my response. No, I’m publishing their full demand letter, along with my lawyer’s response, so that you can read both and decide for yourself whether my interpretation was unreasonable.”
“This is about whether a sitting member of Congress can use the threat of an expensive litigation to silence criticism. I asked questions about Congressman Crenshaw’s wealth. Those questions are fair game. He is a public official. He makes decisions that affect all of us. He trades stocks while having access to classified and non-public information.”
“If Congressman Crenshaw wants to sue me, he can. My lawyers are ready. And if he does, we’re going to use the discovery process to get answers to all the questions I originally asked, questions about his finances and how he affords the lifestyle he’s living on a congressional salary. I suspect that’s the last thing Dan actually wants.”
The upshot of all this is that Crenshaw is going to appear on Ryan’s podcast for an interview.
I should make it clear that I have no idea whether Crenshaw is crooked or not. His official reports don’t show vast wealth. He has two houses, one valued at $1 million, but that price may just be a side effect of the vast inflation of housing prices in the late Biden Administration. (At one point, my house, which I bought when I was making $46,000 a year in 2004, was theoretically worth around $800,000, but the market has cooled quite a bit since then.) I assume the other house is a rental income property.
I have heard accusations of Crenshaw accumulating wealth, but they came from 2nd Congressional District primary opponent Steve Toth, who said “While Dan Crenshaw votes with Democrats and threatens conservatives, he’s also somehow gotten rich off his government salary. I had no idea he’s actually a better trader than Warren Buffett. But not quite as good as Hillary Clinton.”
I sent the following questions to the Toth campaign:
I want to follow this race for my blog, but I asked two questions that I haven’t received an answer to:
1. Can you cite examples of Dan Crenshaw benefiting financially from his office?
2. Can you cite, say, ten bills where Crenshaw’s voting pattern was insufficiently conservative?
I sent those questions off twice, and have yet to get an answer…but did get put on his campaigns mailing list for block walking notifications.
There’s certainly some dissatisfaction with Crenshaw among conservative ranks, as exhibited by the nasty “Eyepatch McCain” nickname bestowed on him. But right now, I have to judge the corruption accusations against him “unproven.”
That said, threatening to sue a podcaster who merely referenced the rumors (and not even by name) is a foolish move that’s going to raise eyebrows.
Communist China is always looking to steal technology from the West through its “Thousand Talents” espionage program, and this week brought two more instances from Texas.
Federal officials say a Houston-based smuggling ring funneled some of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence technology to China, marking one of the largest known violations of U.S. export-control laws in recent years.
The case, outlined in a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, centers on Hao Global LLC and its owner, 43-year-old Missouri City resident Alan Hao Hsu.
According to prosecutors, Hsu and a network of partners moved tens of thousands of restricted Nvidia H100 and H200 GPUs out of the country between late 2024 and early 2025. These are the same high-end chips that drive large-scale AI development, from national security research to sophisticated military systems.
Hsu pleaded guilty earlier this fall after admitting he knowingly exported or attempted to export more than 160 million dollars’ worth of controlled GPUs to the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, and other destinations where federal law bars their shipment.
According to investigators, the group disguised the nature of the products, falsified shipping records, and routed more than 50 million dollars in wire transfers originating from China to finance the operation. Hsu is the first person ever charged and convicted in an AI diversion case.
Court documents describe mislabeled cargo, falsified customer identities, and a steady flow of high-value chips moved through U.S. warehouses before being pushed overseas. Prosecutors say the conspirators relied on a network of intermediaries to hide the ultimate destination of the technology, which the U.S. considers critical to maintaining its strategic advantage in artificial intelligence.
While Hsu pleaded guilty, the case did not end with him. Two others now face federal charges: 43-year-old Fanyue “Tom” Gong, a Chinese national living in New York, and 58-year-old Canadian citizen Benlin Yuan of Mississauga, Ontario. Both men were arrested in recent weeks.
Gong, who owns a New York tech company, is accused of using straw purchasers and overseas partners to obtain GPUs, strip their Nvidia labels, rebrand them with a fake company name, and ship them overseas as generic computer parts. Prosecutors say he coordinated with employees at a Hong Kong logistics firm and a China-based AI company to move the technology into restricted jurisdictions.
Yuan, meanwhile, allegedly helped organize teams to inspect mislabeled shipments and coached associates on how to provide false information to federal agents. Court filings indicate he discussed fabricating a cover story after authorities detained some of the hardware. He also faces accusations that he assisted with handling and storing additional restricted GPU shipments tied to the same Hong Kong firm.
Hsu faces up to 10 years in federal prison at his sentencing in February. Gong could receive up to 10 years if convicted, while Yuan faces as many as 20 years on conspiracy charges. Hsu remains free on bond. Gong and Yuan are being held pending further proceedings.
Federal officials framed the case as a direct threat to national security.
U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei said the smuggling network undermined the country’s technological edge at a time when AI capability is tightly linked to military strength. Ganjei noted, “These chips are the building blocks of AI superiority and are integral to modern military applications. The country that controls these chips will control AI technology; the country that controls AI technology will control the future. The Southern District of Texas will aggressively prosecute anyone who attempts to compromise America’s technological edge.”
Eh, the “country that controls these chips will control AI technology” is an overstatement. Nvidia’s Tensor Cores are highly efficient at performing matrix operations, but they’re not magic. There’s no calculation they do you can’t perform on a CPU or GPU, albeit it more slowly and at a much higher cost per watt.
The second case of Chinese espionage comes from Texas A&M:
Texas A&M’s associate head of graduate studies of chemistry resigned and returned to his homeland to work at a Chinese government-funded laboratory. A research security specialist called this a security failure on the university’s part.
In October 2025, Yongjiang Laboratory in Ningbo, China, announced that Dr. Lei Fang had taken a leadership position at the lab. Up to that time, he had worked at Texas A&M since 2013 before resigning this spring.
Research security specialist Allen Phelps of IPTalons identified Yongjiang as a Chinese government-funded nonprofit, and part of China’s network of state-backed labs. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence identified China as a national security threat in its 2025 Annual Threat Assessment.
“From the day I set foot outside the country, I knew I was coming back,” Dr. Fang said, according to a Google translation of the Yongjiang press release. Born in 1983 in Poyang, China, Dr. Fang’s loyalty to his homeland appears to have never left his mind. Despite studying and working in multiple American universities since 2006, Phelps’ research showed Dr. Fang “extensively traveled” to China to attend conferences and give lectures between 2014 to 2020.
In a report he provided to Texas Scorecard, Phelps’ analysis of open source information found a “clear, documented pattern of foreign engagement” that he believes should have alarmed Texas A&M because of his work while employed by them.
For example, Phelps reported that Dr. Fang licensed a Texas A&M-owned U.S. patent to Ningbo Kunpeng Environmental Sci-Tech Co., Ltd., a company Dr. Fang co-founded in 2017. Phelps called this a “stunning conflict of interest.” He added that “this not only raises questions about the proprietary nature of the research but also about whether his primary commitment was to the American taxpayer who funded the underlying science, or to his foreign commercial and academic partners.”
Beyond just Texas A&M, there are national security concerns. “Dr. Fang was not just a professor; he was a recipient of prestigious, sensitive federal grants … that were active up to or beyond his 2025 departure,” Phelps wrote the report.
Dr. Fang was a panelist at the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship in 2016 and 2017, and was a technical reviewer for American research proposals. Phelps wrote this gave Dr. Fang “privileged, non-public access to the cutting-edge research” of competing scientists in America. Phelps wrote that Dr. Fang took this “sensitive information” back with him to help run Yongjiang Lab.
Phelps also noted Dr. Fang’s public resume showed that during the same time he received U.S. federal funding, he had a “Flexible Joint Visiting Professor” position with Nanchang Hangkong University’s Key Laboratory of Jiangxi Province—a Chinese lab known to engage in national defense research.
Dr. Fang joining Yongjiang is another red flag. Phelps reported this lab seems to serve as a central hub for Chinese talent recruitment programs. Such efforts have long been part of China’s infiltration operation of American universities. A February 2020 report from the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee sounded the alarm on China’s talent recruitment efforts as a means “to supercharge Chinese innovation at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.”
At this point, we should ban Chinese nationals from holding any position at any U.S. research university, laboratory or institute that takes federal money. China will always demand their citizens steal from the west if put into a position to do so.
The Democratic side of the 2026 Texas Senate got a shake-up just five hours before the filing deadline, when U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett filed for the race right after Colin Allred dropped out.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX-30) has made official her long-awaited run for U.S. Senate — entering the mix with several other high-profile Republican and Democratic challengers to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), about five hours before the filing deadline.
Her filing on Monday afternoon followed several campaign shifts as the filing deadline on Monday night approached, including former Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX-32), who dropped his bid for U.S. Senate despite having been last year’s nominee for the same position the morning prior to Crockett’s campaign launch.
You may remember Allred from such hits as “I lost to Ted Cruz by over 900,000 votes“; which, being only 8.5% of the vote, was actually quite respectable by post-Betomania standards.
Crockett is a regular in national news headlines, often highlighted for sparring with other similarly-robust GOP members and for her unfiltered rhetoric typically targeted at the Republican Party’s leadership.
She flirted with a potential run for the U.S. Senate as various candidates jumped into the race, including Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38), and Democratic candidates Allred and state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin). Crockett indicated on numerous occasions that she’d only consider jumping into the ring for U.S. Senate if she was shown general election polling that proved she has a path to victory, and teased the possibility on various media hits leading up to Monday night.
I suspect that people outside of the state haven’t heard of Talarico, who fills the Beto O’Rourke mold as a white guy with a vaguely Hispanic name. But he’s clearly the anointed choice of Texas Democratic Party insiders, to the point that he has been out-fundraising Allred (the man who raised over $94 million in his futile attempt to oust Ted Cruz last year) by more than $1 million, which was probably a contributing factor in Allred dropping out.
Among the polls in the field measuring Crockett’s potential success in the race was one released in early October, conducted by both the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. It found that in a four-way primary matchup between Crockett, Talarico, O’Rourke, and the now-null Allred, Crockett led the Democratic field with 31 percent, with Talarico and O’Rourke tied behind her.
It also showed her as a viable general election candidate when placed against Republicans Cornyn, Paxton, and Hunt — ranging from a six-point deficit to as low as a two-point deficit when placed in a hypothetical November 2026 general election against each of the three. Her best shot at winning the general appeared to be against Paxton, who held only a two-percent lead against her. Hunt led against her at five percent, while Cornyn proved to be the most difficult at six percent.
Usual poll caveats this far out apply.
Per reporting from CNN over the weekend, Allred, Talarico, Beto O’Rourke, and Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX-20) conducted a meeting to plan a statewide slate of Democratic candidates — to which Crockett was not invited — but it yielded no concrete plan and concluded with no set U.S. Senate candidate.
Does rather suggest that Crockett is on the outside looking in, doesn’t it?
The reaction from inside the Democratic tent was twofold. First came cheers about her stardom and visions of her being the one to flip the seat. Second came frustration about her high negatives and potential to crash and burn on the general election ballot in an R-58% state, per The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, reactions to her candidacy only took one form: elation.
Republicans now have their foil in Texas, serving much the same purpose as Zohran Mamdani does nationwide going into next year. The National Republican Congressional Committee instantly put out messaging hitting border Congressman Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-34) as Crockett’s “best friend.”
The Crockett-Talarico winner will face either U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Attorney General Ken Paxton, or Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38), who are currently bloodying each other up over in the GOP primary.
Republicans in Texas — who are staring down the barrel of a very difficult midterm cycle — would be overjoyed for Crockett to be the Democratic name at the top of the ticket in November.
Indeed.
Someone who believes that 80% of crime comes from white supremacists suggests a candidate way out of touch with the Texas electorate, and a hothouse flower more suited to the confines of her overwelmingly Democratic black majority south Dallas district than someone suited to run statewide.
The Texas Democrat political establishment fears a wipeout of down-ballot candidates if they nominate a “terminally online” lefty candidate like Crockett at the top of the ticket. Long before she jumped into the race, they had already picked Talarico as their designated candidate. A Texas state rep who’s checklist positions aren’t a world away from Crockett’s, he still presents quite a different cultural profile as a “Presbyterian seminarian.” The “Christian nationalists” he rails against may be as thin on the ground as Crockett’s white supremacists, but someone who actually speaks the language of Christian belief is quite a different profile than the social justice warriors the national party has been lionizing.
Can he win in November? Barring a Great Depression-level economic crisis, no. Neither can Crockett. It’s simply a matter of protecting down ballot races, as Crockett is so far to the left of the Texas electorate that she might face a Wendy Davis style wipeout against whichever Republican captures the nomination.
Crockett’s has also jumped into the race very, very late. When O’Rourke ran against Ted Cruz, he jumped into the race April of the year before, not December. It will be very hard to build out a statewide campaign organization in a mere three and half months. It will also be hard to hire the best staffers, as the vast majority will already have signed on with other candidates in other races. And it’s likely most of the big in-state Democrat money was already betting on Talarico, and that seems unlikely to change.
She may be able to tap out-of-state lefty donors. But, then again, they may be tired of sending their money to Texas to die without noticeable effect. Also, unlike O’Rourke, there’s not enough time to write a million fawning magazine profiles of her, assuming half the magazines that fluffed O’Rourke are even still publishing.
Also, say what you want about O’Rourke, he did the work, “campaigning hard all across the state with a grueling personal appearance schedule that rivaled similar hard work put in by Cruz in his winning 2012 race. He also built out a competent campaign infrastructure and a national fund-raising apparatus to channel in the huge sums of cash national Democrats were throwing into the race.” I have my doubts that Crockett will prove overly capable in either of these areas.
I’ve long assumed that Talarico was the state Democratic Party’s favored` candidate based on the highly unscientific but usually accurate metric that a few yard signs had popped up in my neighborhood for him and no one else. Thus far, I see no reason Crockett’s entry into the race should change that assumption.
I’ve often commented that EPIC City, the supposed “Islamic City” looks a whole lot like a traditional real estate swindle. It seems that Ken Paxton agrees, as he’s filing a lawsuit on that basis.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), Community Capital Partners (CCP), and several of their leaders, alleging that they engaged in an illegal land development scheme that violated Texas securities laws.
EPIC City, recently rebranded as The Meadow, is a proposed Islamic housing development in North Texas that has drawn controversy throughout the year.
According to the lawsuit, CCP—formed by EPIC as a vehicle to purchase and develop more than 400 acres in Hunt and Collin counties—engaged in fraudulent practices while soliciting investments for the EPIC City project. Promotional materials allegedly described the development as the “epicenter of Islam in North America” and implied it would be reserved for Muslims, despite assurances to the contrary.
“The leaders behind EPIC City have engaged in a radical plot to destroy hundreds of acres of beautiful Texas land and line their own pockets,” said Paxton. “I will relentlessly bring the full force of the law against anyone who thinks they can ignore the rules and hurt Texans. The unlawful land project known as EPIC City will be stopped, and those responsible will be barred from ever creating another fraudulent operation like this again.”
Paxton’s office also claims that CCP funneled investor funds for personal enrichment and failed to verify whether more than 10 percent of investors qualified as “accredited investors,” as required by law.
The lawsuit follows months of state investigations into the project. In March, Paxton announced an investigation into EPIC City and later requested a referral from the Texas State Securities Board after uncovering what his office described as “flagrant” violations of federal and state securities law.
I’m sure the founders of EPIC City thought they were going to claim a part of Texas in the name of Islam, but it looks like they’re going to be buried in so many lawsuits that their speculative land development is never going to see the light of day.
Following hot on the heels of Thanksgiving travel and the final push to put out a new Lame Excuse Books catalog next week, this is going to be a somewhat briefer LinkSwarm.
This week: The Supreme Court greenlights the Texas redistricting map, a whole lot of support behind Trump Accounts, more Tim Walz corruption in Minnesota, the January 6 pipeline bomber turns out to be a black anti-Trump radical, more Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on Russian infrastructure, another pedo teacher exposed, Netflix buys Warner Brothers, and a tsunami of horrifying sequels barrels towards movie screens. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Texas’ newly redistricted congressional map will remain in effect for the 2026 primary after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday approved a stay of a lower court panel’s ruling against the new lines.
The State of Texas had applied for a stay of that ruling by the El Paso-based federal judicial panel that came down last month, which declared that legislators illegally considered racial factors in the redraw. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) then appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing many of the fiery arguments made by the panel’s lone dissenter, Judge Jerry Smith.
Before Thanksgiving, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay of the ruling, pending further consideration by the full court.
Now that stay has been made permanent, pending a full appeal later on, in a 6 to 3 ruling by the court along ideological lines. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch penned a concurring opinion.
“First, the dissent does not dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” the trio wrote.
“Thus, when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. Id., at 34; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 234, 258 (2001). Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.”
They concluded, “Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.”
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
The one-party rule of ‘Democratic Kings’ in Maryland continues to reveal an optically displeasing truth about these leftist activists masquerading as competent politicians, who are anything but, and their epic mismanagement of state finances has only occurred because of limited oversight into their radical agendas.
Fox Baltimore reports that a state legislative audit uncovered major concerns about the oversight of billions of dollars spent by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and his rudderless leftist allies in Annapolis, who champion everything from failed climate-crisis policies to wokeism to gender identity agendas to social justice and criminal justice reforms, as well as protecting illegal aliens (new voter base) – this is anything but ‘Maryland First’…
“Most recently, a state audit revealed 42 state offices spent a total of $8.5 billion last year with minimal oversight. That audit came on the heels of a State Highway Administration audit detailing $360 million in unauthorized spending for federal projects, and a separate Social Services Administration audit revealing a lack of protections for foster care children in Maryland,” Fox Baltimore wrote in a report.
Taxpayers Protection Alliance president David Williams told Fox Baltimore journalist Jeff Abell, “It’s a problem that almost $9 billion is going to these entities and we just don’t know where the money is going.”
Williams expressed serious concerns over the findings, pointing out, “This is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. We know the checks have gone out but there are no balances to be sure the money is being spent wisely.”
He called for increased oversight, saying, “If you’re receiving taxpayer money, there has to be full accountability, and this is billions of dollars we’re talking about.”
The lack of oversight in Maryland comes as no surprise, given that the state suffers from a disastrous one-party rule of far-left Democrats who care more about upholding the globalist framework of climate-crisis and illegal alien policies.
Moore’s photo next to dark-money-funded NGO emperor Alex Soros makes it all the more clear why he and Maryland Democrats operate with a globalist framework in the first place.
The result of one-party rule has been a ballooning deficit, soaring taxes, a credit rating downgrade, and a continued large-scale exodus of residents fleeing to red states as Maryland quickly loses its charm and is on track to transform into the next “Illinois 2.0.” On top of the financial failures, power grid mismanagement has collided with surging data center demand, sending power bills through the roof.
It’s not a mystery where it went. It disappeared into the pockets of radical leftwing activists and NGOs.
An unlikely bipartisan Senate duo is spearheading a push for employers to donate to the new “Trump accounts” created under the GOP’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation package last summer.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., teamed up on a letter sent to Fortune 1000 CEOs on Monday encouraging their companies to contribute to the new investment accounts created for young children. Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged a $6.25 billion donation to the accounts Tuesday that earned them a White House appearance with President Donald Trump.
The savings accounts, which are funded with after-tax contributions, were dubbed “Trump accounts” under the budget reconciliation law. The government will contribute $1,000 to the accounts for babies born this year through the end of Trump’s term.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the provision would cost $15 billion over 10 years. The Dell donation would expand the program to reach children who wouldn’t qualify for the federal contribution.
“These tax-advantaged accounts ensure that every American child is an immediate shareholder in America’s largest companies and will experience the miracle of compound growth through their lifetime,” Cruz and Booker wrote in their letter seeking corporate contributions.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick “Backs Trump’s Baby Investment Plan, Wants To Double It in Texas. Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Texas should create its own version of President Donald Trump’s new child investment accounts, announcing that the state should provide every Texas newborn with an additional $1,000 in publicly funded, long-term savings beginning in 2027.
The initiative mirrors and expands upon the federal Trump Accounts program created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which seeds every American newborn’s account with $1,000 that cannot be accessed until adulthood and grows through investment in a broad U.S. stock-market index. The accounts are intended to accumulate wealth from birth and teach families and children long-term financial planning.
In a post on X, Patrick said he “loves” Trump’s idea to invest $1,000 at birth that “cannot be spent until age 18 and must be used for education or other qualifying expenses,” and he applauded Texans Michael and Susan Dell for contributing $6.25 billion to help launch the federal program.
“If I see a great idea from the President that helps Texans, my first question is always, ‘why not do it in Texas, too?’” wrote Patrick.
He noted that about 400,000 babies are born each year in Texas and said that one of his top priorities for the 2027 legislative session will be passing what he calls the “New Little Texan Savings Fund.” Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth, invested in the S&P 500 in alignment with the federal program. Combined with Trump Accounts, Patrick says Texas children would receive a total of $2,000 in initial investment capital, not including voluntary family contributions.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he’ll withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota, after a review found nearly one-third of driver’s licenses in the state were issued illegally.
In a letter on Monday, Duffy warned Minnesota officials that more than $30 million in federal highway funds may be withheld unless the state revokes any commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) that should not have been issued and addresses deficiencies in the state’s commercial driver’s license program.
According to KTSP TV, Secretary Duffy alleged that one-third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) were issued illegally.
Minnesota will have 30 days to revoke the illegally-issued licenses or face the loss of funding.
Secretary Duffy noted that, “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens — endangering American families on the road. That abuse stops now under the Trump Administration.”
“The Department will withhold funding if Minnesota continues this reckless behavior that puts non-citizens gaming the system ahead of the safety of Americans,” Duffy added.
Over 400 employees of the Minnesota Department of Human Services are accusing Governor Tim Walz (D) of failing to act on warnings of widespread fraud and of retaliating against whistleblowers.
The accusations come as federal probes are examining the theft of more than a billion dollars from programs like child nutrition, Medicaid, and housing aid and as federal prosecutors announced charges against a 78th defendant in the theft of $250 million from Feeding Our Future child nutrition program.
In a post on X, the Minnesota DHS group called out Walz for ignoring what the group called “a pattern of ignored warnings, threats to whistleblowers, and unqualified appointees prioritizing image over fixes.”
In their post, the Minnesota DHS group explains that, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t a political group but have been continually disappointed in the lack of response they’ve received as well as the governor’s response to those who have pointed out the fraud.
“We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the group wrote.
In addition to retaliating against whistleblowers, the group claims, “Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.”
Snip.
In their post on X, the group states that Walz is “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota” and calls for taking the next step of bringing in “external auditors and new leadership.”
– a young black guy – radical anti-Trump activist – sued Trump & ICE & DHS – extreme racial justice advocate – works at his family bail bonds company that frees criminal aliens from ICE custody
Ukraine drone struck FSB headquarters in Chechnya and Livny oil depot in Oryol. The simmering resentment of Russia in Chechnya never went away, so killing a whole bunch of FSB goons isn’t going to help Russia keep a lid on the place.
“Reports say that four military-type quadcopter drones buzzed the flightpath of President Zelensky’s aircraft as it arrived at Dublin Airport on Monday and then went to buzz an Irish Navy ship. This is likely Russian drones and suggests an intelligence leak.” They also buzzed an Irish naval ship, which did jack squat about them because “the ship didn’t have air radar capabilities,” which suggests that either the ship was really small, or the Irish Navy is absolutely useless in a real shooting war. (They also say that the ship was only armed with machine guns, when they’re also supposed to carry 20mm Rheinmetall autocannons.)
“Caleb Elliott was initially arrested on October 3 and is currently in custody on charges of recording and photographing students nude in the locker room at Moore Middle School. The victim count is currently around 40 students. There have been allegations that Elliott was transferred to Moore Middle School following inappropriate behavior at a previous school, had a relationship with a student, and placed cameras inside of the locker room.”
“2025: The Year Late-Night TV Collapsed.”
As Hollywood continues to contract on several fronts, late-night shows are not as sustainable as in the past.
Colbert found that out the hard way in July. CBS announced Colbert’s “Late Show” gig will end in May of 2026. Even more dramatic? No one is slated to replace him. “The Late Show” will end as Colbert signs off.
The shocking part? Reports said the show was costing CBS roughly $40 million a year. Why would any business take that kind of a fiscal drubbing in the first place?
That came on the heels of “The Tonight Show” shrinking from five nights a week to four, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” losing his house band and several late-nighters losing their gigs.
Period.
Think Samantha Bee, Desus & Mero, Trevor Noah, James Corden and Amber Ruffin.
That, plus news that late-night TV revenues have plunged in recent years (along with their audiences), suggested Jimmy Kimmel’s prediction might come true faster than he anticipated.
Late-night TV has much less than 10 years left. This year proved it.
Kimmel nearly took his own show down. The far-Left host suggested Charlie Kirk’s killer was part of the MAGA movement without evidence or a shred of logic.
ABC/Disney sent him the bench for a week before he returned sans apology. He cried, again, but not for misleading viewers.
The Hollywood Left and the media rallied on Kimmel’s behalf, and he returned to the show to spread more misinformation.
Meanwhile, Fox News’ “Gutfeld” continued to out perform the competition on a smaller budget (and, admittedly, an earlier time schedule). That proves there’s a market for a right-leaning audiences ignored, or insulted, by the current late-night landscape.
The future doesn’t look bright for the late-night survivors. Kimmel’s contract ends in May, but he’ll likely sign a new deal before then. ABC proved it couldn’t force Kimmel to apologize for spewing misinformation, and Hollywood would rise up, en masse, anew if ABC/Disney let Kimmel walk.
Does it matter if “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” might be losing money a la Colbert? It’s clear money isn’t the deciding factor anymore given what CBS endured for far too long.
It doesn’t ultimately matter. The late-night talkers showed their cards in 2025. They’re all parts of the DNC at this point, sometimes literally.
Netflix is buying Warner Brothers for $87 billion. To quote the press release:
This acquisition brings together two pioneering entertainment businesses, combining Netflix’s innovation, global reach and best-in-class streaming service with Warner Bros.’ century-long legacy of world-class storytelling. Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wizard of Oz and the DC Universe will join Netflix’s extensive portfolio including Wednesday, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Adolescence and Extraction, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide.
“Our mission has always been to entertain the world,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “By combining Warner Bros.’ incredible library of shows and movies—from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends—with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.”
I’m sure the Bugs Bunney-KPop Demon Hunters crossover will be lit…
A company that provides a controversial surveillance technology to both private and public entities throughout Texas was found to have been operating under an expired state license, amid state and federal lawmakers calling for greater scrutiny of the company over privacy and security concerns.
Flock Safety, Inc. installs automatic license plate readers (ALPR) that capture the license plate number and location of each vehicle that passes by. Police can then compare the data in relation to stolen vehicles, missing persons, or other crimes, and law enforcement has successfully used the technology to solve cases.
Flock’s high-resolution cameras create a detailed file that includes other markers on each vehicle, including bumper stickers. The company’s cloud-based system also connects with ALPR data from jurisdictions across the nation in real time, allowing users to map vehicle movement.
After receiving complaints last year that Flock had been installing and operating ALPR cameras on private properties without a license since 2021, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) sent the company a cease and desist order in September 2024. Despite documented violations, DPS granted Flock a license for private operations, but that license expired on September 30, 2025.
More AI vulnerabilities to worry about. “Researchers at Icaro Lab, a collaboration between Sapienza University in Rome and the DexAI think tank, have discovered that AI models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic can leak illicit content across various subjects when instructions are given in poetic form. The illegal content ranges from making nuclear weapons, creating child exploitation material, and developing malware.”
Shall I compare thee to a Teller-Ulam Implosion Core?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
Critical Drinker tours Estonia. Consider this your periodic reminder that communism sucks and that just about everything they build looks soul-crushingly ugly.
Science, not settled. A whole lot of cracks in what was thought to be settled cosmology have recently appeared, and the uncertainty may result in a revolution in our understanding of the universe, but no one knows what it is yet.
Architect Frank Gehry dead at 96. Never cared for his work, so this is just an excuse to haul out this classic Onion bit from back when they were funny: “Frank Gehry No Longer Allowed To Make Sandwiches For Grandkids.”
Adam Savage geeks out over Paramount archive storage, including a ton of weird dead media formats.
Red Letter Media has a terrifying look at all the sequels, prequels and expanded universe movies coming down the pike. The frightening thing is that some are fake, but I’m not sure any are actually off the table for Hollywood. Honestly, I think I could write Bag of Sugar: The Movie. See, first we change the name to Too Sweet. An evil corporate executive wants to destroy the magic bag of sugar that’s been in the family-owned sugar business for generations…
Though Trump47 has been a powerhouse of a Republican President, unleashing vast amounts of good and doing everything he can to roll back the leftwing madness of the Biden Administration, every now and then he does something that leaves me scratching my head. The 50-year mortgage and “hey, let’s import tons of Chinese students” trial balloons are two examples. Well, he just dropped another, pardoning indicted Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife in advance of his bribery trial.
President Donald Trump has pardoned embattled U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28) following an ongoing legal battle involving the congressman, his wife, political consultants, and a number of foreign governments.
In a social media post, Trump alleged the Biden administration “weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents” like Cuellar.
“Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH,” Trump wrote.
The president said that Cuellar “spoke out against Open Borders” and that the previous administration would “attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda, an Agenda that, if left unchecked, will obliterate our magnificent Country.”
My working assumption has been that these political calculations may indeed be why the Biden Administration charged Cuellar…but that he was probably guilty as well.
“Because of these facts, and others,” Trump explains, “I am hereby announcing my full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda.”
Snip.
Their case stems from allegations of payments received from foreign entities, including an oil and gas company controlled by the government of Azerbaijan and a bank based in Mexico. The bribes are alleged to total approximately $600,000.
Cuellar has represented Texas’ 28th Congressional District since 2005. But in 2022, allegations of misconduct involving him gained prominence following raids on his residence and campaign office by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The couple was accused of allegedly laundering the money through “sham consulting contracts,” using “front companies and middlemen to funnel it into shell companies” owned by Cuellar’s wife.
It was reported in July that the U.S. Department of Justice was planning on going forward with its case against the congressman. But earlier in the year, Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued directives that limited the extent of enforcement of foreign bribery and lobbying laws.
I can’t say that I see limiting “enforcement of foreign bribery and lobbying laws” as a good thing.
Trump usually has reasons for doing something, even when it’s not apparent at first. Some possibilities,
Trump actually believes Cuellar to be innocent. Maybe he has access to exonerating evidence that I don’t.
Maybe Trump feels (probably correctly) that politically Cuellar is toast anyway, since his district was one of the ones recently redistricted in the special session. Maybe the pardon will allow Cuellar to dish dirt on just how Democrats decided to flood the country with illegal aliens, or how they use them to commit voter fraud. The private email and memo possibilities are endless…
Maybe the pardon taints Cuellar with the Democrat base far more than the bribery charges did. According to Ballotpedia, he already has two primary challengers in Ryan Trevino and Ricardo Villarreal. Maybe the calculation is that the pardon actually weakens Cuellar, making the district flip just that much more likely.
Maybe he expects Cuellar to change parties, balancing out the loss of Marjorie Taylor Greene, to add a little margin for the GOP-led House.
Maybe he’s just doing it for the lulz, or to make Democrats even more paranoid than they are.
This is all speculation. But just because it’s something I wouldn’t have done doesn’t mean President Trump doesn’t have his reasons…
