Posts Tagged ‘Astroturf’

Iran Strikes: Day 2

Sunday, March 1st, 2026

If it wasn’t clear from yesterday’s roundup, it appears that a whole lot of Islamic Republic of Iran leaders were physically meeting at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s bunker in Tehran when the successful decapitation strike was carried out as part of Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion. The operations are still ongoing, and here are some news updates.

  • “‘All’ of [Ali Khamenei’s] likely successors are ‘probably dead’ following US-Israeli strikes.”

    • Mick Mulvaney, former Trump OMB head and Chief of Staff: “A high risk, high reward type of operation.”
    • A “once in a lifetime opportunity” to both end the nuclear program and effect regime change. “All the [Iranian] senior leadership gathered together at one place at one time.”
    • The daylight attack must have meant we had really solid intel on the regime meeting. Most of our Middle East strikes happen at night during a new moon. “An opportunity they simply couldn’t pass up.”
    • “All of [Ali Khamenei’s] likely successors are probably dead as well.”
    • “The chances of getting a pro-Western, pro-American regime in Iran were as high as it ever was going to be.”
    • John Bolton was lamenting that these actions weren’t taken six or seven years ago, but the situation on the ground now is very different. “Everything has to come together at the same time for this to work.”
    • “This can’t be a forever war.”
    • Taking out the mullahs is “a step toward peace.”
  • New Guy steps into the leadership crosshairs. “Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref informed officials of plans to have him take charge of the nation during wartime, according to a report from the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) published on social media late Saturday night. There was no explicit note of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s ability to carry out presidential duties.”
  • Simon Whistler covers the strikes:

    Much of this covers information included here yesterday, but here are a few new tidbits.

    • Whistler states Iran is claiming they hit Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. LiveUAMap shows a strike against Prince Sultan Air Base, which is over a 100 miles from Riyadh. I mean, they’re both in central Saudi Arabia, but, eh.
    • In Yemen, Houthis threaten retaliation. Nothing yet.
    • The gulf states are plenty pissed at Iran tossing drones and missiles at them.
    • Russia issued a single proforma condemnation of U.S. attacks. China, on the other hand, hasn’t even done that.

  • A lot of Chinese MilTech deals were supposedly in the works when things kicked off, but it looks like very little (if any) actually made it to Iran.
  • Suchomimus video the first:

    • “It is quite telling that [Khamenei]’s death is being celebrated on the streets.”
    • Khamenei was likely killed in the opening strike. “A few sources are now saying it was Israel that hit this.”
    • “Iran isn’t showing any signs of giving up. Well, these could just be the last temper tantrum of the finished regime. The generals and remaining politicians lashing out knowing their time is over and that a surrender is inevitable and just trying to inflict damage.”
    • Suchomimus sees regime change as unlikely without “boots on the ground.”
  • Suchomimus video the second, which is all damage assessment:

    • One Iranian frigate hit, but two more showing no signs of damage.
    • Bandar Abbas radar site hit. Bandar Abbas is the port city directly north of the Strait of Hormuz.
    • Four MiG-29 fighters destroyed out of 30 in service.
    • Israel took out a Basij installation in northern Tehran, they being the hated Iranian religious police. The video shows four large buildings all exploding in a matter of seconds. “Iran’s air defense is completely ineffective here.”
    • Iran’s counterstrikes have had some limited success. In Kuwait “Ali al-Salim air base was hit.” The image shows smoke rising up from three different points, one evidently from a fuel storage strike. “One of Iran’s most successful strikes to date.” Plus a car park and a support facility.
    • Iran also hit Erbil air base in Iraq, where a large fire was seen burning. No information yet on what was hit.
    • Iran also hit Al-Udeid air base in Qatar. “This is the largest American base in the Middle East.” Videos show Patriot intercepting Iranian vehicles, but also one miss and one Patriot interceptor wandering off course and hitting the ground.
  • More IDF footage of the Basij strike:

  • The War Zone’s rolling coverage yesterday. Some highlights:

    I see Tomahawks, F-18s and F-35s, and a lot of Iranian targets going boom. And other American assets are poised to join the action:

  • Update: B-2s are already in-theater pounding Iranian ballistic missile facilities.
  • Here’s The War Zone’s day two coverage.

    Plus President Trump was stating that Iranian retaliation was less than expected.

    Also this: “Imagery circulating points to Iranian attacks in the vicinity of France’s naval base in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.” In other news, there’s a French naval base in Abu Dhabi…

  • Beware of Astroturf protesters. “CCP-Linked NGO Network Prepares “Emergency Protests” In US After Trump’s Iran Strikes Jeopardize Oil Flows To China.”

    Planned demonstrations branded “Hands Off Iran” or “Stop The War On Iran” are scheduled to take place this afternoon in major cities across the U.S. From New York to Los Angeles, left-wing organizers have circulated digital flyers, coordinated social media blasts, and activated email lists urging supporters to mobilize within hours of the announcement. This activation alert for the protest-industrial complex occurred shortly after the Department of War’s “Operation Epic Furry” began in Iran.

    To the average person, this afternoon’s protests may look like a groundswell of outrage over the U.S. strikes on Iran, especially given that the Trump administration campaigned on no new foreign wars. But the speed, uniform messaging, and coordinated national footprint suggest something highly more organized – and familiar for readers, as we’ve diligently followed the activities of the protest-industrial complex.

    This is the same mobilization network that has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to move tens of thousands of social justice warriors into the streets in under 12 hours.

    Earlier this year, that same protest infrastructure powered nationwide pro-Maduro demonstrations almost immediately after developments in Venezuela made national headlines. In the months prior, overlapping coalitions were instrumental in organizing the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University and other campuses, as well as anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles and other sanctuary cities. The causes shift. The slogans change. The logistical infrastructure – or the machine that makes this spark – remains the same.

    What we are witnessing is not a loose collection of anti-war activists or 1970s-style hippies responding independently to global events. It is a coordinated ecosystem of dark-money funded nonprofits, advocacy groups, campus organizations, and ideological networks that can rapidly repurpose whatever geopolitical flashpoint dominates the news cycle. From the George Floyd riots to pro-Palestine protests to anti-Tesla protests to anti-Trump protests and anti-Elon Musk protests to anti-DOGE protests to anti-ICE protests/riots, these movements are not dedicated to a single issue. They are part of omni-cause mobilizers, sowing chaos deep within the nation’s core.

    Whether the banner reads “Free Palestine,” “Hands Off Venezuela,” “Abolish ICE,” or now “Hands Off Iran,” the same names frequently appear on sponsorship lists. The same fiscal sponsors provide infrastructure. The same activist pipelines appear.

    This brings us to far-left billionaire Neville Roy Singham, whom The New York Times recently described as “known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes” and as someone who “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.”

    Singham’s network, shortly after Operation Epic Furry began, announced on X “New York City Emergency Protest” to “Stop The war On Iran.”

    “The U.S. and Israel are carrying out an unprovoked, illegal bombing campaign on Iran. This war serves no one but a tiny elite and oil executives and is a continuation of more than two years of genocide in Palestine and US-Israeli aggressions throught the region,” the People’s Forum, a Manhattan far-left non-profit also linked to Singham, wrote on X.

    Other left-wing groups on the flyer tied to Singham’s network include the ANSWER Coalition and CODEPINK. Also on the list are the Democratic Socialists of America, American Muslims for Palestine, the National Iranian American Council, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Alliance for Peace, and 50501.

  • After almost half a century, we’re finally cutting the head off the snake.

    November 4, 1979 — almost 47 years ago — Iran seized the American embassy in Tehran and held its staff hostage. Ever since then, American presidents have struggled with what to do.

    Jimmy Carter temporized for many months, even as ABC’s newly created Nightline — a nighttime news show created specially to cover the hostage crisis — opened every night with “America held hostage, day XXX.” His wife, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, finally prodded him to do something. The “something” turned out to be a shambolic rescue mission that ended in disaster.

    President Reagan intimidated the mullahs a bit, but never seriously retaliated for the Beirut barracks bombing that killed over 200 Marines along with over a score of other service personnel. George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq but left the mullahs largely alone. Bill Clinton did nothing of substance. George W. Bush had a chance to bring the Iranians to heel after the conquest of Iraq, but inexplicably failed to press his advantage. Barack Obama was, basically, complicit in their nuclear program, to the point of famously sending them pallets of cash totaling over a billion dollars.

    President Trump, on the other hand, killed General Soleimani and told other Iranian leaders that they could be next. And now they are next.

    So what have we learned, and what’s likely to happen in the future?

    Well, first, with the capture of Maduro and now this, we’ve learned that our military can do things no one else can. We seized a leader of a hostile nation from his largest military base and brought him to custody without losing a single American life. Now we’ve killed the single biggest threat to American interests in the Mideast, along with much of his senior leadership, again without losing a single American life.

    Why didn’t we do this before? And why could we do it now? The reason we can do it now is mostly leadership. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth quickly prioritized precision and lethality in the military; President Trump was willing to use the military in ways prior presidents were not.

    Why didn’t we do this before? Part of that is because the foreign policy establishment, like the domestic policy establishment, doesn’t exist to solve problems. It exists to manage those problems in ways that keep its members cushily employed. To, in Myres McDougal’s words, “maintain tensions at a level short of unacceptable violence.”

    Trump, on the other hand, wants to solve things, even if it involves inflicting unacceptable violence on the enemy. Also, he regards our enemies as actual enemies, not as “foreign colleagues” or “partners in peace.” To quote author Keith Laumer, “there’s nothing as peaceful as a dead troublemaker.” Khamenei is now peaceful.

    In fact, Trump’s approach across the board, which has brought him success after success in his first 13 months back in office, is to solve problems the way the guys in the bar say they would do it. Too much illegal immigration? Close the border and deport the illegals. Problems with Iran? Kill their leaders and encourage a revolution. Venezuela shipping drugs and gangs to the U.S.? Capture their leader and encourage his successor to cooperate or share his fate. You can just do things.

    The thing is, though, that there’s a subtlety in this approach. Just doing things turns out to work. But if you take a step back from these actions of Trump’s, the big picture shows a pretty coherent strategy. Trump wants to weaken China without going to war with China. He has now cut off two major suppliers of oil to the PRC, which produces hardly any oil of its own. (It’s worse than that, because China wasn’t paying for that oil with dollars, and now it will need dollars to buy oil elsewhere.) That applies a squeeze to an already squeezed CCP, and will make Xi’s position, domestically and internationally, weaker. Also the military excellence recently displayed has to inspire second, third, and fourth thoughts about invading Taiwan.

    Trump’s tactics typically have two characteristics: He goes after his opponents’ source of sustenance (usually that means money, but not always) and he accomplishes more than one thing at a time. In neutralizing Iran, Trump accomplishes a lot of things. First, of course, he neutralizes a major hostile regional threat.

    But second, he cuts the ground out from under what’s left of Hamas and Hezbollah. He also shuts off the pipeline of cash that was being used to bribe politicians and journalists in Europe (the Iranians have basically admitted that they do that) and support various NGOs and the like that serve anti-American and anti-Israeli ends. Iran has been a major sponsor of terrorism around the world; that will end.

    With Iran gone (and India, thanks to tariffs, eager to be on our team) the threat of the BRICS has been sharply reduced. Brazil under Lula isn’t friendly, but isn’t a power house. Russia and China don’t like us but China needs oil and Russia is broke and mired in an endless and ruinous war of its own devising.

    With Iranians free to say what they think of the mullahs’ regime, he also delegitimizes the left’s narrative that fundamentalist Islam somehow has some sort of anti-colonial virtue. In fact, the mullahs ran Iran as a Persian colony of an Arab ideology. The Iranian public is well aware of this, and will be saying that a lot.

    And if he’s able to see a new pro-American government in Iran (distinctly likely) we’ll have a regional ally that will encourage the Arab states, currently friendly to us and Israel out of fear of Iran, to remain friendly to us and Israel out of a different sort of fear of Iran.

    • As they say: Developing…

    Update Some tidbits of news from the Suchomimus discord:

  • Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claims he’s alive and in charge:

    Power struggle between him and Mohammad Reza Aref, or just confusion?

  • Iranian foreign minister is suggesting that no one is actually in charge, that the chain of command has broken down and the military is just sort of acting on general vibes:

    Which is not what you want to hear less than 48 hours into a shooting war…

  • Mojtaba Khamenei, Ayatollah heir apparent, is apparently dead as well.

  • That four building complex previously described as Basij headquarters is here described as “Sarallah Headquarters” or “security crisis management command center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran”:

    Now technically, the Basij is a subset of the IRGC, so that may be where the confusion comes in. Or the complex could be both. Google Maps isn’t helping me out here…

  • More of Iran’s classic aircraft destroyed:

  • Despite claims of not being involved, UK fighters are reportedly flying CAP over the Persian Gulf:

    • I’m dancing as fast as I can…

    Update 2: Another Suchomimus video. Did Iran just sink their own shadow fleet tanker?

    Update 3 via Instapundit:

  • Also dead: Iran’s ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  • More Iranian officials killed:

    “Gen. Abdol Rahim Mousavi and Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh were killed at the meeting alongside the head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and security adviser Ali Shamkhani.”

  • Why do feminists hate women’s freedom?

    • Update 4 via the Suchomimus Discord.

  • More dead regime bigwigs:

    “Iranian state media confirmed the killing of seven senior Armed Forces commanders in the US-Israeli strikes. Those killed include Supreme Leader’s office chief Mohammad Shirazi, his deputy Akbar Ebrahimzadeh, Armed Forces intelligence deputy Saleh Asadi, logistics deputy Mohsen Darreh Baghi, police intelligence chief Gholamreza Rezaeian, Armed Forces operations planning chief Bahram Hosseini Motlaq, and Armed Forces logistics chief Hasanali Tajik.”

  • More regime buildings go boom:

    • Update 5 Saw ships, sunk same.

    U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday that nine Iranian naval ships have been sunk as part of combat operations against Iran.

    “I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important,” Trump wrote in a post on X, adding that Iran’s naval headquarters has been “largely destroyed” in a different attack.

    “We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!” Trump wrote.

    U.S. Central Command officials said earlier Sunday that an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette was struck by U.S. forces at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

    “The ship is currently sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman at a Chah Bahar pier,” the statement reads. “As the president said, members of Iran’s armed forces, IRGC and police ‘must lay down your weapons.’ Abandon ship.”

    Update 6: The SUPERgeniuses controlling Iran’s missiles decided it was a swell idea to toss ballistic missiles at a UK base in Cyprus.

    Result: Craven jihad apologist Keir Starmer grows something vaguely resembling a spine and gives the U.S. permission to use Cyprus base for “defensive purposes.” With so many Middle East bases to chose from, I’m not sure the US actually has any assets they can usefully deploy there, but still.

    Clarification: Here Starmer makes clear that “defensive purposes” includes letting American assets use British bases, including those in the Persian Gulf, to hunt Iranian missile launch sites and storage facilities:

    “They say his spine grew three times as large that day…”

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military, video | 19 Comments »

    Lizard Queen Documents Lefty Influencer Pay-For-Play Scheme

    Friday, August 29th, 2025

    For those unaware of her, Taylor Lorenz is a crazy, left-wing social justice activist masquerading as a journalist, as well as an accused lizard person.

    She also just broke a major pay-for-play story about the terminally online left: “A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers.”

    In a private group chat in June, dozens of Democratic political influencers discussed whether to take advantage of an enticing opportunity. They were being offered $8,000 per month to take part in a secretive program aimed at bolstering Democratic messaging on the internet.

    But the contract sent to them from Chorus, the nonprofit arm of a liberal influencer marketing platform, came with some strings. Among other issues, it mandated extensive secrecy about disclosing their payments and had restrictions on what sort of political content the creators could produce.

    In their group chat, influencers debated the details.

    “Should we send a joint email (with all of our email addresses) … or, are we just going to send things separately and hope they change everything for everyone?”

    Laurenzo, a nonbinary creator in Columbus, Ohio, with over 884,000 TikTok followers, asked the group.

    Be forewarned that the entire article is infected with the usual lefty social justice jargon.

    Some joked about collective bargaining. “Any Newsies fans here?” Eliza Orlins, a public defender and reality TV star known for her appearances on Survivor, posted in the group. “‘We’re a union just by sayin’ so!’”

    The influencers in the chat collectively had at least 13 million followers across social platforms. They represented some of the most well-known voices online posting in support of Democrats, and they’re key to wherever the party moves next. But ultimately, the group didn’t make much progress.

    “Reading through this revised Chorus contract like: you win some, you lose some,” a reproductive justice influencer named Pari, who posts under the handle @womeninamerica, responded later in the thread. “I also think there’s at least 4 other things that should change 🤣but the vibe I got from their email was that there would be minimal, if any, changes.” (Laurenzo, Orlins, and Pari did not reply to requests for comment.)

    “I don’t feel strongly about pushing tbh,” Aaron Parnas, a Gen Z news influencer who has been called the Gen Z Walter Cronkite and has been lauded in legacy media outlets, posted to the chat. “They aren’t going to modify it anymore. Seems like a take it or leave it.” (Parnas declined to comment.)

    A search for “the Gen Z Walter Cronkite” only turns up links to the Lorenz piece, so let’s slap a big old [[citation needed]] on this claim.

    “I believe we are in Stage 5: Acceptance,” Pari responded. Creators began signing on to the deal.

    For years, Democrats have struggled to work with influencers. In 2024, President Joe Biden’s White House snubbed several prominent content creators after they lightly criticized the administration over its policies on climate change, Covid, Gaza, and the TikTok ban. Content creators who challenged Kamala Harris—including Hasan Piker, a well-known influencer on the left—were similarly unwelcome at campaign events.

    After the Democrats lost in November, they faced a reckoning. It was clear that the party had failed to successfully navigate the new media landscape. While Republicans spent decades building a powerful and robust independent media infrastructure, maximizing controversy to drive attention and maintaining tight relationships with creators despite their small disagreements with Trump, the Democrats have largely relied on outdated strategies and traditional media to get their message out.

    Mild correction: While there are some “independent media outlets” on the right that were born as “Republican” projects (National Review, Town Hall, etc.), the vast majority of “independent media outlets” were born of the efforts of a host of individuals with multitudes of individual agendas (or no agenda at all) that coalesced into a battleswarm (to not coin a phrase) to combat the disasterous direction the Democrats were taking the country. And they were later joined by a host of not-Republican figures (Joe Rogan, Bret Weinstein, etc.) who thought they were on the left but had to step up in reaction to the disasterous infection of social justice on the left.

    Just for the record, I am unaware of any similar program on the right, and I have never received a dime from any Republican group or program, only PayPal donations from individual readers.

    Now, Democrats hope that the secretive Chorus Creator Incubator Program, funded by a powerful liberal dark money group called The Sixteen Thirty Fund, might tip the scales. The program kicked off last month, and creators involved were told by Chorus that over 90 influencers were set to take part. Creators told WIRED that the contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program. Some creators also raised concerns about a slew of restrictive clauses in the contract.

    You might remember that The Sixteen Thirty Fund is a tendril of Arabella Advisors, which has behind all sorts of lefty Astroturf.

    The goal of Chorus, according to a fundraising deck obtained by WIRED, is to “build new infrastructure to fund independent progressive voices online at scale.” The creators who joined the incubator are expected to attend regular advocacy trainings and daily messaging check-ins. Those messaging check-ins are led by Cohen on “rapid response days.” The creators also have to attend at least two Chorus “newsroom” events per month, which are events Chorus plans, often with lawmakers.

    Elizabeth Dubois, an assistant professor and university research chair in politics, communication, and technology at the University of Ottawa who has researched the ways influencers are reshaping the US political system, says that “we are seeing influencers being pulled into these dark campaigns or shadow campaigns, where the legal aspect is murky at best.”

    “Sometimes it is actually clear that influencers are being used to, for example, evade spending limits,” she says. “I think that we need to remember that for democracy to thrive, we do need transparency around who is paying for political messages.”

    Snip.

    In 2018, The Sixteen Thirty Fund provided $141 million to more than 100 left-leaning causes in order to bolster Democratic support during the midterms, according to a tax filing obtained by Politico. In 2020, the fund distributed more than $400 million, according to the organization’s public tax filing, which Politico said was used in “efforts to unseat then-president Donald Trump and Republicans’ Senate majority.” In 2022, The Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $196 million backing state ballot measures on abortion rights heading into the midterms, according to NBC. Just four donors accounted for close to two-thirds of the fund’s revenue in 2023, according to its tax filing. The largest donor gave the group $50.5 million, with others donating $31.4 million, $21.8 million, and $13.6 million.

    “The Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is not required to disclose its contributors, has for years been a major funding source for liberal and progressive causes and groups, including those that spend in elections,” says Walker Davis, a research director for the open-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Though their recent tax returns indicate that they have pulled back from the eye-popping sums they raised and spent in 2020, the organization is still one of the top-spending politically oriented nonprofits in the country.”

    Chorus, which is described in contracts reviewed by WIRED as a “project of” The Sixteen Thirty Fund that handles operations for the creator program, launched in November 2024 as a nonprofit arm of Good Influence, a for-profit influencer marketing agency aimed at helping content creators connect with social-good campaigns. Good Influence was founded in October 2020 by Stuart Perelmuter, the former communications director for representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky. Seeing an opportunity after Kamala Harris’ loss last November, Perelmuter cofounded Chorus with Democratic influencer Brian Tyler Cohen, who has over 4.6 million subscribers on YouTube and leads messaging check-ins for the creator cohort on “rapid response days.” According to records reviewed by WIRED, Chorus claims that its initial creator cohort has a collective audience of more than 40 million followers with more than 100 million weekly viewers and that the organization has “hundreds of creators signed up” and “ready to amplify” messaging.

    Why come up with your own opinions when shadowy dark money groups are willing to secretly slip you cash to become another mouthpiece to do The Will Of The Party?

    And now you know that a whole lot of “independent” leftwing “influencers” can be bought for the low, low price of $8000.

    So good reporting from the Lizard Queen for once…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for December 20, 2019

    Friday, December 20th, 2019

    Although I know much of the Midwest has already been blessed with several feet of global warming, winter doesn’t officially start until tomorrow. In the meantime, finish up your Christmas shopping (if you haven’t already) and enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Brexit bill passes by huge majority. Britain is set to leave the EU by January 31, 2020. I’m putting this first because Brexit is far more important in the long run than the impeachment farce.
  • The amazing psychic powers of Instapundit. From 2017: “Trump knows that the press isn’t trusted very much, and that the less it’s trusted, the less it can hurt him. So he’s prodding reporters to do things that will make them less trusted, and they’re constantly taking the bait. They’re taking the bait because they think he’s dumb, and impulsive, and lacking self-control — but he’s the one causing them to act in ways that are dumb and impulsive, and demonstrate lack of self-control.”
  • Speaking of which: Washington Post reporters celebrate “Merry Impeachmas.” Brave firefighter, running toward fires…with buckets of gasoline.
  • “Unbiased Washington Post launches celebratory fireworks as Trump impeached.”
  • Is the whole impeachment sham battlespace preparation for the next Supreme Court nomination fight? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • But is it even a real impeachment if Nancy Pelosi refuses to transmit the articles of impeachment to the senate? “After denying Trump any due process, Pelosi is now denying him a speedy trial.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Related:

  • Is Trump the only adult in the room?

    But then again, no president in modern memory has been on the receiving end of such overwhelmingly negative media coverage and a three-year effort to abort his presidency, beginning the day after his election.

    Do we remember the effort to subvert the Electoral College to prevent Trump from assuming office?

    The first impeachment try during his initial week in office?

    Attempts to remove Trump using the ossified Logan Act or the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution?

    The idea of declaring Trump unhinged, subject to removal by invoking the 25th Amendment?

    Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month, $35 million investigation, which failed to find Trump guilty of collusion with Russia in the 2016 election and failed to find actionable obstruction of justice pertaining to the non-crime of collusion?

    The constant endeavors to subpoena Trump’s tax returns and to investigate his family, lawyers and friends?

    Now, frustrated Democrats plan to impeach Trump, even as they are scrambling to find the exact reasons why and how.

    Most presidents might seem angry after three years of that. Yet in paradoxical fashion, Trump suddenly appears more composed than at any other time in his volatile presidency.

    Ironically, Trump’s opponents and enemies are the ones who have become publicly unhinged.

  • If you want to know how it’s playing out in America, check out this tweet from PolitiBunny, who was so hardcore #NeverTrump she voted for Egg McMuffin in 2016:

  • “Millions Of Voices Cry Out In Terror As Liberals Wake Up And Realize Trump Is Still President.”
  • “Political scientist makes surprising claim: Trump impeachment would guarantee his re-election in 2020.”
  • The House passes the USMCA free trade deal, and I expect senate approval to be quick. USMCA will have longer and more lasting consequences than the silly theater the Democrats put on Wednesday.
  • Of the 65 deadliest cities in America, over 90% have Democratic mayors, and over 70% have not had Republican mayors in a long, long time. The last Republican mayor of New Orleans left office in 1872… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Schlichter: “TIME’s Commie Nag Can Go Pound Sand“:

    Clearly Greta Thunberg is being exploited by her cynical puppetmasters, but equally clearly she’s a tiresome, bizarre Marxist scold whose exploitation of the hapless dummies who buy into the climate change hoax is part of what is an increasingly violent plot to undermine capitalism and freedom. Recently, the cretins at TIME, which shockingly still exists in 2019, named her “Person of the Year.” That’s appropriate, since 2019 has been a very annoying year.

    In 2029, after the world hasn’t ended but her usefulness has, she’ll be a Jeopardy question and probably shacked up with an unemployed performance artist named Björn in an Oslo suburb. Fun fact: “Greta Thunberg” is Swedish for “Cindy Sheenhan.”

    But today, we’re all supposed to fall over ourselves over Pippi Longnagging – at least that’s what our betters command – yet it’s unclear why. Teenagers are notoriously ignorant, and ones spewing recycled Marxism are the worst of all. But the idea is not that this tiresome truant is some visionary thinker. The idea is to leverage her youth and awkwardness to keep you from speaking the indisputable truth that she’s a weird brat who presses for an ideology that butchered 100 million people in the last century. And now, she is hinting she wants to run up that score.

    Snip.

    The other day, this malignant muppet “told cheering protesters … ‘we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall’ if they fail to take urgent action on climate change.” Now, maybe her English is bad, or maybe she’s just ignorant, but then again the murder of opponents is the Marxist way. Marxist? St. Greta? Well, let’s take a look at what was carved on the tablets she recently brought down from Mount Socialism:

    “Schoolchildren, young people, and adults all over the world will stand together, demanding that our leaders take action, not because we want them to, but because the science demands it,” she said. “That action must be powerful and wide-ranging. After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities.”

    Wait, “the science demands” that we “dismantle” all our “[c]olonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression?” Now, what science exactly is that? Is it geology? Physics? Phrenology maybe?

    How stupid do they think people are? Very. And to judge by the judges at TIME, they’re often right. Maybe Greta never heard of Siberia or Cambodia, but we have. Screw that – if she wants to impose her masters’ Marxist fantasies on us, she’ll need to be packing something deadlier than “How dare you!”

  • “Poll Finds Most People Would Rather Be Annihilated By Giant Tidal Wave Than Continue To Be Lectured By Climate Change Activists.”
  • Indian Muslims Outraged Over Law Granting Citizenship to Refugees Fleeing Islamist Persecution:

    Muslims across India staged angry protests over new legislation that grants citizenship rights for refugees fleeing Islamist persecution in the neighboring countries.

    The Citizenship Amendment Bill, passed by the Lower House of the Indian parliament by 293 to 82 votes, opens the path to naturalization for the followers of six faiths, including Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians, but excludes Muslims.

    Muslim mobs took to streets in several Indian cities, setting fire to vehicles, throwing stones, and hurling home-made bombs at security forces called in to restore order, Indian newspapers report. Left-wing student groups joined the protesters. They blockaded campuses in India’s capital New Delhi.

    On the one hand, 95% of the time it is in fact Muslims who are persecuting the members of other religions. On the other, the trend in India under Modi has been toward a Hindu religious-ethno state, and things there could turn very bad, very quickly for the Muslim minority there. Muslims constitute only 14% or so of India’s population, but 14% of 1.3 billion is still some 182 million people. And by “very bad” I mean “possibly Rwanda-level bad,” only at 10 times the scale…

  • French strike lengthens, including power cuts.
  • “Poland may have to leave EU, Supreme Court warns.” Hey, I bet I know at least a couple of countries who would be happy to sign free trade deals if they did…
  • The astroturf funding behind the “transsexual rights” campaign.
  • MomsDemand never demands facts:

  • Minimum wage hikes killing jobs in California and Washington state.
  • Speaking of which: Vox sports writer complains that he’s being let go thanks to new California law after “1,304 articles.”

    I do not think it is a secret that Vox Media’s employment model has long been unsustainable. They use “contractor” designations to avoid all sorts of labor laws, including providing minimum wage and benefits — and they well exceed the intended use of “contractor.” I’ve published 1,304 articles in 8 years at Clips Nation. That’s not contract work. When I am on the site every day and have day-to-day oversight from corporate, that’s not contract work. Everyone, including SB Nation, has known that this model is unsustainable. While I won’t publicly disclose the numbers, and SB Nation limits our access to a lot of data, I am certain that Clips Nation generates enough revenue to support multiple employees, even when you account for the money that needs to support other aspects of the site (marketing, software, etc).

    The state of California is cracking down on companies like SB Nation who are exploiting the “contractor” loophole, as it well should. Unfortunately, Vox Media is predictably unwilling to cease being greedy. In order to attempt to protect their disproportionate and exploitative revenue share from team sites, Vox has decided to eliminate about 200 of these contractor positions — every contractor in California, including myself, Robert, and our staff writers, editors, and podcasters in paid roles — and replace them with a handful of full-time employees who are going to work as a team to run SB Nation’s 25 team sites in California.

    I doubt he knows how profitable Vox is. It’s entirely possible it loses money, like many online “media empires.” But I sincerely doubt Vox held a gun to his head those eight years. If he feels exploited for work he voluntarily agreed to do at the wages offered, he only has himself to blame. This is not to say that Vox doesn’t suck; it does. But this situation sucks not due to Vox, but due to the California state laws of which this freelancer so obviously approves.

  • Where is all the world’s cash disappearing to?
  • Google engineer fired for using a security hole to push political popup out as emergency message to the entire company. Trust me: Anyone who pulled such a trick at any other company would be fired toot quick, no matter the message. Hell, just pushing out a non-QAed emergency patch to production without C-level authority is a firing offense all on its own…
  • The SJW mob comes for J. K. Rowling for daring to suggest that biological sex is real and immutable.
  • Bad cop sentenced.
  • Here’s an interview with Burt Ward, Robin on the 1960’s Batman TV show, about some of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Nowadays he and his wife run a dog rescue center, where they’ve eventuality saved the lives of more than 15,000. Good on you, Burt.
  • Merry Christmas!

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    Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for October 12, 2018

    Friday, October 12th, 2018

    Trying to edit this last night brought up a repeated 502 error, since fixed. So enjoy this LinkSwarm as a triumph of persistence over technology:

  • How the Kavanaugh fight united the right around President Donald Trump:

    Trumpism is now the unregretted tattoo that altered the Republican coalition, making it edgier, more rugged, and more relentless in pursuing its policy objectives.

    Confronted with a liberal self-styled “resistance” movement—whose very name reeks of the virtue-signaling that galls the right—Trump responded in kind. Left-wingers march in the streets and chase prominent conservatives out of restaurants; he bows his back and marches Kavanaugh onto the bench for a lifetime. Liberals feel better for a weekend; pragmatic conservatives get to feel vindicated for decades. Good trade.

    Trump not only refused to rescind Kavanaugh’s nomination when the confirmation process got rocky—as both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush had done with flagging nominees—he barnstormed the country and held campaign rallies in jam-packed basketball arenas rallying his coalition behind Kavanaugh. After playing nice for a handful of surprisingly diplomatic days, enabling a judiciary committee hearing to fairly hear the allegations against Kavanaugh, Trump retrieved his megaphone from its holster and unleashed on the judge’s liberal Senate and media antagonists.

    Conservatives who may have been privately uncertain on how to proceed in the face of the allegations found the light in the flames of Trump’s heat. The consensus on the right became clear: this was not a competition of memories between two middle-aged professionals who grew up privileged at boozy teen parties in suburban Maryland. By last Saturday’s confirmation vote, this episode was not even predominantly about Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford; it was a tectonic struggle between the voters’ chosen Republican government and the ruthless Democratic minority seeking to topple it by any means necessary.

  • Republicans quintuple fundraising in wake of Kavanaugh hearings.
  • “There Is No Such Thing As A Moderate Democrat In 2018.” Focused on the Tennessee senate race, but applicable everywhere. “Dianne Feinstein picks your judges, Bernie Sanders runs the budget and Chuck Schumer runs everything.” I’ve been making the same point since 2010. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Jay Cost, by way of Alexander Hamilton, explains why America won’t have a another civil war: “To put matters bluntly, we do not have to like one another, so long as we continue to make money off one another.” To which I would add: Only left-wing loudmouths on Twitter are really trying to provoke a civil war. Average people rarely mention the things that rage huge on the Internet in their day-to-day lives…
  • Remember, it’s only a “mob” if it’s made up of Republicans. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of mob violence:

  • Some anti-Kavanaugh protestors were indeed paid Astroturf. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Border agents in Texas arrested three sex offenders in two days, one of whom had been jailed in Dallas. All three men have been previously convicted of offenses involving a minor, according to officials with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.” (Hat tip: Governor Greg Abbott’s twitter feed.)
  • Hurricane Michael leaves at least six dead.
  • Video of the aftermath:

  • Speaking of devastating: Holy moly!

  • Least anyone think I’m reflexively pro-Trump, his idea to increase the amount of Ethanol in gasoline is an astonishingly bad idea for numerous reasons. And get ready for it to start destroying your lawnmower engines…
  • How Soviet Communism tried to kill weekends. (Hat tip: Charles Martin on Twitter.)
  • The Navy is slowly working its way back to actual readiness. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Army to add WindGuard active radar defense systems to work with Trophy active defense systems on M1 tanks.
  • Mass criminal roundup in northern Mississippi.

    Around 150 gang members were arrested or validated with affiliations to the Simon City Royals, Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings, Vice Lords, and the Aryan Brotherhood.

    Over 200 registered sex offenders living within the Northern District of Mississippi were checked for compliance in regards to sex offender registration requirements. Around 150 home visits were conducted on high- to moderate-risk offenders on probation with the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the United States Probation Service.

    Overall, 255 violent offenders were picked up during Operation Triple Beam. They were wanted on charges including homicide, aggravated assault, sexual assault, illegal gun crimes, narcotics possession and distribution, robbery, arson, and sex offender registration violations.

  • More voting fraud down in the Rio Grande Valley:

    Following a nine-day trial, a district court judge has voided the results of the City of Mission mayoral election after finding the winning campaign engaged in a conspiracy to bribe voters and harvest mail-in ballots.

    Norberto “Beto” Salinas, the former mayor of Mission of 20 years, filed a lawsuit against current mayor Armando “Doc” O’Caña after several witnesses claimed bribery, mail-in ballot harvesting, and illegal voting during the June 9 runoff election. On Friday, 93rd District Court visiting Judge J. Bonner Dorsey agreed with Salinas and voided the results of the election. “I cannot ascertain the true outcome of the election,” Dorsey said.

    Salinas’ camp had to prove 157 votes were illegally cast, the number the candidate lost by in the election. Dorsey ruled, “I hold or find, by clear and convincing evidence, that the number of illegal votes was in excess of 158.”

  • China blinks thrice over the trade war:

    First, it conceded in August by removing U.S. oil imports from a list of possible duties. Two months earlier, China – perhaps trying to either intimate U.S. oil producers (who have been largely supportive of Trump’s policies thus far) who would in turn pressure President Trump, or either by pressuring Trump directly, indicated it would levy a 25 percent duty on U.S. oil imports.

    Second, since China is the largest buyer of American crude, Beijing likely discarded one of its strongest bargaining chips in the trade war so far. Some reports claim that U.S. oil imports to China are worth $8 billion all by themselves, so erasing oil from the tariff list reduced the value of sanctioned goods by roughly one-third.

    As far as Beijing’s LNG tariff threats are concerned, the reduction from an earlier 25 percent duty to 10 percent could also be considered another blink on China’s part. Beijing, though it does have a host of other gas and LNG suppliers, at the end of the day still needs American LNG as the country continues to pivot away from dirtier burning coal needed for power production in favor of cleaning burning natural gas. By 2020, per government mandate, gas is earmarked to make up at least 10 percent of China’s energy mix, with further earmarks by 2030.

  • Creepy porn lawyer endorses Beto.
  • NFL running back legend Jim Brown comes out against NFL players taking a knee:

    “I am an American. That flag is my flag, and I want to represent it that day.”

    How many tweets it takes before a white liberal calls him “Uncle Tom”: One.

  • Speaking of Twitter, they’ve banned conservative GayPatriot again.
  • “Cant find a Nazi to punch? Make one!” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Cost for male student to defend himself from charges of sexual assault even though the girl admitted the sex was mutual: $12,000. (Hat tip: Charlie Martin.)
  • Austin writer decides that maybe he shouldn’t spend every waking moment of his life high on weed:

    My son was born in 2002. I didn’t have an office job, so I was around a lot to get high and enjoy the cartoons. I opened a packet of Reefer’s peanut butter cups at his preschool fund-raiser and stunk up the place. But pot wasn’t just an occasional funny thing for me to do on weekends. I got stoned the day my son came home from the hospital and stayed that way, with few breaks, for a decade and a half. Of course I put him in danger because I couldn’t stop getting high. I was a drug addict.

    Snip.

    In March of 2017, my mother died. The hour before she passed, I was outside the hospital, getting a shipment of medical gummies from a friend. I was high when I watched her die, I was high at her funeral, and I was high every day for the next eight months. To say I was “self-medicating” to deal with grief would be too kind. My addicted self took grief as a no-limits license to get stoned.

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • “Facebook Engineer Quits Over Company’s Mob-Like Attacks On Anyone Opposed To ‘Left-Leaning Ideology.’”
  • Carlos Danger is eligable for early release.
  • Dallas City Council lives in fear that the state legislature may actually allow voters to turn down tax increases.
  • “Amazon Raises Minimum Wage For Workers Building Their Own Robotic Replacements.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Uncategorized, video | 1 Comment »

    Scenes From The Hillary Clinton Dirty Tricks Shop

    Friday, April 29th, 2016

    Hillary Clinton, with her slender elected delegate and huge superdelegates leads over Bernie Sanders, is the presumptive Democratic nominee. She got there in large measure with the fundraising infrastructure her husband built for his successful presidential run, a veritable stranglehold over the DNC apparatus and a naked willingness to pander to just about every faction in the Democratic Party’s coalition.

    But there’s also growing evidence that Clinton had another advantage over Sanders: Her willingness to use dirty tricks and outright fraud to secure the nomination.

    Here are just a few examples:

  • A Clinton super PAC is spending $1 million on social media Astroturf trolls to “correct” Bernie Sanders supporters. (Now every time someone posts a pro-Hillary message, you should ask “How much are you getting paid to troll for Hillary?”)
  • I wonder if that Astroturf army were among the ones who got numerous pro-Sanders Facebook groups taken down by posting porn? “According to eyewitness reports, the pages were flooded with pornographic images in coordinated fashion and then flagged for obscene content, prompting Facebook to remove them.” Sort of like Nixon’s old “Ratfucking” tactics against George McGovern updated for the Internet age.
  • The Sanders campaign has argued that the “Hillary Victory Fund, a joint-fundraising committee for the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and 32 state Democratic Parties, may have committed ‘breaking campaign finance laws serious apparent violations’ of campaign-finance laws.”
  • There’s at least some circumstantial evidence Democratic Party operatives have been manipulating actual vote totals in various venues to put Hillary on top. Take, for example, these screen shots that show Sanders leading certain counties in this week’s primaries in early returns, with subsequent updates that not only show Hillary leading, but actually show fewer Sanders votes than the last update. Just glitches? Maybe. But it’s mighty strange that every single election night “glitch” in Democratic primaries has seemed to favor Hillary.
  • There are unconfirmed reports that the Clinton campaign is calling up Sanders supporters to tell them Sanders has dropped out. For what it’s worth, these kind of reports seem to surface in every recent presidential election.
  • Don’t think that Hillary’s dirty tricks campaign will end at the primary. Clinton toady and current Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe issued an executive order giving over 200,000 ex-felons the right to vote in a naked attempt to deliver Virginia to Clinton in November.

    • The fact that Clinton would resort to dirty tricks, even going in as they heavy favorite, should surprise absolutely no one who has paid attention to career over the years.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections | No Comments »

    UT Scandal May Pull Down President Bill Powers

    Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

    Evidently the slow-burning University of Texas admissions scandal will finally cost President Bill Powers his job. “UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa has told Powers, 68, to resign before Thursday’s meeting of the Board of Regents or be fired during it.”

    I doubt Powers counteroffer to step down in 2015 will be accepted. (I do wonder what makes Houston Chronicle writer Benjamin Wermund proclaim that Powers is “widely supported by students”? Has he seen polls on Powers popularity on students? (Online petitions don’t count) I would think they would be more concerned with lowering tuition costs than support a President resisting calls to lower them.)

    Which is not to say that Powers backers are giving up. Instead, they’re lashing out at the board of regents:

    The more angry and indignant among the petition signers seem to think some organized debate about UT and its president is going forth, and that their champion is, unfairly, of course, getting the worst of it. It would be an odd thing to think. There isn’t anything like a public debate about Bill Powers going forward. There’s rancor and division — nearly all of it coming from the side that professes to despise rancor and division, the Powers side.

    The admissions scandal has been building for some time on Powers’ watch. (Nor is it the only problem under Powers.) Instead of investigating it and fixing the problem, Powers decided the best move was to have his political friends attempt to impeach regent Wallace Hall in order to quash his investigation while Powers’ supporters launched an Astroturf campaign on his behalf that’s included no end of MSM editorials praising Powers while attacking Hall and Governor Perry for daring to hold him accountable.

    The university academic complex evidently believe that they’re a special kind of hothouse flower that should be immune to all political pressure, with a right to public funding but not to public accountability. Powers has constantly resisted calls to make college more affordable, and to be more accountable to the Board of Regents who oversee his work and the state government that pays his bills.

    It seems that Powers will be the latest official to learn that pride goeth before a fall.

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    Posted in Austin, Texas | No Comments »

    Gun News Update For August 7, 2013

    Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

    I don’t cover the gun scene nearly as much as I should, but there are several stories percolating throughout the gun community this week I thought were worth taking a look at:

  • In Virginia: More guns, less crime.
  • Want to read the gun-grabbers messaging playbook? Here it is. Additional commentary from Shall Not Be Questioned and The Gunmag.
  • This week in Astroturf liberal groups pretending they’re gun groups: The American Rifle and Pistol Association, The Sporting Rifle Association of America, and the American Hunters and Shooters Association.
  • Alphecca: “If Zimmerman had been pulled over in NY, NJ, MD, CA, or almost anywhere other than the great state of Texas, he’d be in jail on some trumped-up charges. Fortunately, it was Texas.”
  • Translating anti-gun gibberish into plain English. (Also via Alphecca.)
  • Maryland joins the parade of stupid (and unconstitutional) gun law states.
  • When a criminal assailant is beating your brains out, it’s no time to fret over being better armed. (Hat tip: Stuff from Hsoi.)
  • Borepatch covers a session on the Defense Distributed Liberator pistol at DEFCON.
  • Reporter talks to people firing AR-15s, forgets to write usual anti-gun claptrap. “It’s just a tool.”

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    Posted in Democrats, Guns, Texas | No Comments »