Posts Tagged ‘Brandon Herrera’

LinkSwarm For May 2, 2024

Friday, May 2nd, 2025

Trump’s first hundred days, a Ukraine mineral deal at last, Democrats choose rapists over women (again), employment numbers are up (unexpectedly!), Josh Hawley names and shames PELOSI, Reform UK wins big, Spain blacks out (and not from Sangria), a sneaky local Williamson County election tomorrow, and the return of the Worst Gun of All Time.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Larry Kudlow celebrates Trump47’s first 100 days in office.

    After President Trump’s first 100 days, what stands out to me is his straightforward trademark phrase — “promises made, promises kept.”

    He was elected on November 5 to transform the country in a completely different direction from the failed presidency of Joe Biden.

    And that is precisely what Mr. Trump has done.

    He is a disruptor. He is a change agent. He is fighting the entrenched elites and their institutions. He’s not afraid to use shock and awe. He is also a master dealmaker. He is also a man chockful of common sense.

    None of this is going to be easy, nor will it come without glitches. But the political reality of his first 100 days is that Mr. Trump has kept his word to the American people.

    So, 142 executive orders later, Mr. Trump has secured the border, restored safety, and is making great progress on the deportation of criminal illegal aliens.

    For every one new regulation, Mr. Trump is abolishing ten others.

    He is cutting taxes across the board to launch a blue-collar boom, while reducing prices with the production of more goods.

    He has reopened the energy spigots, and will profitably deploy America’s abundant resources.

    He is eliminating federal waste, fraud, and abuse. He is shrinking the size of the federal government.

    And he has launched a reciprocal fair-trade initiative.

    So, pulling all of this together, in his first 100 days Mr. Trump has fundamentally restored hope for faster growth and greater affordability.

    And, as tough as it may be, he is working to restore peace in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran.

    Culturally, he has stopped the Democratic woke march to DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion.

    He has fought hard for religious freedom, an end to government censorship, and has stopped the weaponization of justice.

    Mr. Trump has gone after the elite universities for their failure to stop antisemitism.

    And, indeed, for all of Mr. Trump’s pro-growth economic initiatives, and his ‘peace through strength’ foreign policy, his determination to restore a more traditional, cultural, and spiritual country is one of his greatest accomplishments in the first 100 days.

    #Winning.

  • Finally: “U.S., Ukraine Sign Minerals Deal in Major Breakthrough for Peace Talks.”

    U.S. and Ukrainian officials have signed a long-anticipated deal that gives the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in exchange for a promised security guarantee to protect Kyiv from future Russian aggression, signaling President Donald Trump’s commitment to ending the war.

    The deal was signed Wednesday afternoon on Trump’s 100th day in office by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, as the latter visited Washington, D.C., to finalize the details. The Treasury Department confirmed the signed deal, called the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.

    “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine,” Bessent said in a statement. “And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

    The minerals deal grants the U.S. access to Ukraine’s natural resources, including aluminum, graphite, oil, and natural gas, according to Bloomberg. It also lays out details about the economic partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine.

    With that deal finally done, Trump finally has the excuse he needs to keep supporting Ukraine, especially if Russia refuses Trump’s demands to come to the negotiating table.

  • U.S. payroll growth totals 177,000 in April, defying expectations.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • More proof that the Democrat Party is objectively pro-rape: ‘California Dems Vote To Keep Male Sex Offenders In Female Prisons.”

    Democrats on the California Senate Public Safety Committee shot down a bill on Tuesday that would have kept male sex criminals out of female prisons.

    The committee, which includes far-Left Senator Scott Wiener, voted down a proposal from Republican Senator Shannon Grove to protect women from males who are registered sex offenders from being able to be housed in women’s prisons. The bill also would have given women privacy in sleeping arrangements and showers, meaning that they would be protected from males who have taken advantage of California’s lax laws that allow men to be placed in women’s prisons.

    “Today I am here on behalf of incarcerated women in California prisons who are dealing with the unintended consequences of allowing transgender inmates to be housed in women’s correction facilities,” Grove said at the committee hearing. “Everyone agrees that we need to keep inmates safe and provide additional protections.”

    She noted that she had received a letter from a female inmate discussing how males were being housed in her prison. The letter included a condom that had been distributed by prison staff.

    “Why is the state of California paying for condoms in women’s prisons?” Grove asked the committee.

    The only lawmaker to support the bill was Senator Kelly Seyarto, the lone Republican on the committee.

    Grove’s bill is seeking to address problems created by SB 132, a bill sponsored by Wiener that said that inmates should be housed according to their “gender identity.” Her legislation would “establish a secure facility at each women’s prison to house transgender women, in order to protect the security needs of biological women at birth in sleeping and other intimate areas” and prohibit male sex offenders from being eligible to be assigned to female prisons.

    “SB 132 created a preference for transgender individuals. If you are a woman serving in the women’s prison and a transgender self-identified check-the-box person comes in and goes, ‘I want to house with you,’ the woman in that cell has no recourse. They can’t say no because that’s considered discriminatory,” Grove told The Daily Wire on Monday.

    Grove said that she was told before the hearing that the committee planned to kill the bill. She said that the California Democrat supermajority had a “preference for predators versus victims.”

    Democrats are at war with biology, reality, and basic human decency.

  • Along the same lines, Maine Democrats have censured state Republican Rep. Laurel Libby for standing against men in women’s athletics, including stripping her right to vote on bills. Boy, Democrats sure seem unclear on this whole “democracy” thing…
  • “Trump signs order ending taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS.” Good. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • He also moved to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status. Also good.
  • Dwight reports on some New York state shenanigans.

    Up until yesterday, Matthew Bruderman was the chairman of Nassau University Medical Center. A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Bruderman announced he was cooperating with the FBI and Department of Justice in an investigation. Specifically, Mr. Bruderman claims that New York state and Long Island have stolen at least $1 billion from the organization.

    Bruderman said he believes the officials’ ultimate goal was to financially strangle the public hospital, paving the way for state and local leaders to shut it down, take over the land currently owned by the public-benefit corporation that runs it and have it redeveloped for profit.

    Wednesday night, Mr. Bruderman’s house was burglarized. However, the only thing allegedly taken was…documents tied to the investigation.

    Bruderman wasn’t home at the time of the robbery and only found out after police called to inform him they had recovered a binder with his name on it in a car driven by an unidentified couple, he said.

    “I was confused because that was the binder I had on my desk when I left,” he said.

    Bruderman said he later found his backdoor pried wide open.

    The binder, he said, contained “sensitive” materials related to the ongoing federal investigation, including documents and records tied to the financial misconduct he claims to have uncovered while reviewing hospital finances and state reimbursements.

    Snip.

    At the heart of the alleged scheme is a little-known federal program called the Disproportionate Share Hospital Fund — meant to help keep afloat struggling hospitals such as NUMC, which treat large numbers of low-income patients on Medicaid and Medicare.

    Under the program, the federal government agrees to give hospitals tens of millions of dollars in funding as long as their state matches the investment.

    According to [Bruderman’s] review of internal financial records, previous hospital leadership allegedly “borrowed” what was supposed to be the state’s matching share from an offshore account tied to a Cayman Islands trust, originally set up to cover the medical center’s legal bills.

    That money would be temporarily transferred into the hospital’s general fund just long enough to fool the feds into thinking New York had paid its share — unlocking the federal portion of the funding, he claimed.

    But once the federal funds cleared, the state’s contribution would allegedly be moved right back offshore.

    That would mean those matching funds vanished into the shadows in a conspiracy that could’ve included top officials.

    Seems plausible to me. Oh, also: “Mr. Bruderman was fired on Thursday.”

  • Blue state governance in action: “Washington state now gives $120,000 ‘forgivable loans’ for new homebuyers. But only if they’re not white.”

    As part of the covenant homeownership program, the department shall contract with the commission to design, develop, implement and evaluate one or more special purpose credit programs to reduce racial disparities in ownership in the state by providing down payment and closing cost assistance… The contract must authorize the commission to use up to one percent of the contract to provide targeted education, homeownership counseling, and outreach about special purpose credit programs created under this section to black, indigenous, and people of color and other historically marginalized communities in Washington state.

    Forgivable means they’re giving your tax dollars to other people to buy a home based on their skin color. I think this violates all sorts of civil rights and equal protection causes, and Pam Bondi’s DOJ should sue.

  • “Sen. Josh Hawley Introduces PELOSI Act to Stop Insider Trading.”

    Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has reintroduced the “Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments” (PELOSI) Act that would prohibit members of Congress and their families from trading stocks while in office.

    The name of the act is a direct nod in the direction of 20 term Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) whose net worth has soared from $160,000 when she was first elected in 1987 to more than $140 million in 2024.

  • 12 of 100 ‘Worst of the Worst’ Criminal Illegal Aliens Arrested by Texas ICE.”

    A dozen of the White House’s (WH) newly-published list of 100 of “the worst of the worst criminal illegal immigrants” arrested since President Donald Trump took office in January were apprehended by Texas branches of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

    In a news release titled “In the First 100 Days, the Trump Administration Has Taken Killers Rapists Off Our Streets,” images of the 100 detainees were listed online in chronological order by the date of their arrests — as well as displayed on the White House lawn — prior to a press conference held by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Border Czar Tom Homan.

    Six of the illegal immigrants included in the “worst of the worst” list were arrested by Houston ICE authorities, five by Dallas ICE, and one by Austin ICE.

    One of the arrests made by Houston ICE was of a 70-year-old Indian national, Raju Varughese Vayechaparampil, convicted of “aggravated sexual assault of a child” in Harris County. With a similar conviction also in Harris County for “indecency with child sexual contact,” Che Xol Norberto was arrested on March 18. Osvaldo Diaz, a Cuban national, was arrested by the same ICE branch for convictions of “Trespassing and Sexual Assault Child/Battery Child” while in Florida.

    Another arrest made by ICE Houston was a 64-year-old citizen of Honduras, Eduardo Garcia-Cortez, convicted of murder in California.

    “God bless the men and women of ICE who strap a gun to their hip every day … To not only secure our border and protect our national security but … they’re removing public safety threats and national security threats every day,” Homan said during the presser.

    “While you’re all sleeping, at two or three in the morning, there are men and women out there, enforcing the law, making this country safe again. And we’re going to keep doing that, full speed ahead,” he addressed the WH press pool.

    ICE Austin’s arrest was of Humberto Ruiz-Zapata, who has convictions of murder and Driving While Intoxicated. He is a citizen of Mexico, with a prior “final removal date” of May 12, 2017.

    ICE Dallas arrested Tay Myint, a citizen of Burma, on March 3. Myint was sentenced to prison for 12 years due to “aggravated sexual assault of a child” in the City of Cactus.

  • Check out this “Denver Dad” deported by ICE.

  • The Trump Administration is crowing about Mercedes and several other car manufacturers announcing plans to shift manufacturing to the U.S..
  • “6 Days After Celebrating ‘100% Renewable Power’, Spain Blames “Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon” For Nation’s Largest Blackout In History.

    As Michael Shellenberger writes at PUBLIC, this wasn’t just a Spanish blackout. It shook the entire European grid.

    …none of this should have been a surprise. The underlying physics had been understood for years, and the specific vulnerabilities had been spelled out repeatedly in technical warnings that policymakers ignored.

    As countries replaced heavy, spinning plants with lightweight, inverter-based generation, the grid became faster, lighter, and far more sensitive to disruptions. That basic physical reality was spelled out in public warnings as far back as 2017.

    Although political leaders promised that renewable energy would provide stable, affordable power, in practice, Spain grew more reliant on the remaining nuclear and natural gas plants to sustain inertia — even as the government pushes them to close.

    Despite all these warnings, political and regulatory energy in Europe remained focused on accelerating renewable deployment, not upgrading the grid’s basic stability. In Spain, solar generation continued to climb rapidly through 2023 and early 2024.

    Coal plants closed. Nuclear units retired.

    On many spring days by 2025, Spain’s midday solar generation exceeded its total afternoon demand, leading to frequent negative electricity prices.

    The system was being pushed to the limit.

    And today, at 12:35 pm, it broke.

    Spain’s blackout wasn’t just a technical failure. It was a political and strategic failure.

    Unless Spain rapidly invests in synthetic inertia, maintains and expands its nuclear fleet, or adds some other new form of heavy rotating generation, the risk of future blackouts will only grow worse.

  • Nigel Farage’s Reform Party racked up big gains in UK local elections.
    It has won over 630 council seats from around 1,500 declared so far, with results from a further 100 or so still to come in. Reform has seized control of six authorities from the Conservatives after elections on Thursday, including Tory heartlands such as Kent and Staffordshire. The party has also won control of Doncaster council from Labour, and taken control in Durham, where Labour was the largest party.

  • At least the UK isn’t trying to ban a suddenly popular, outsider party. Unlike Germany. ” Germany’s Intel Agency Designates AfD Party as ‘Extremist,’ Paves Way for Possible Ban. AfD officials made “xenophobic, anti-minority, Islamophobic and anti-Muslim statements,” spy agency cites as reason for the ‘extremist’ designation.” Eveidently the powers that be in Germany feel that notcing the baleful effects of unlimited, unassimilated Muslim immigration is “extremism.”

    Germany has designated the country’s leading opposition party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), as ‘extremist,’ paving the way for a possible ban. The decision to classify the party was taken by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency Verfassungschutz, which operates under the country’s Interior Ministry.

    “Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has designated the Alternative for Germany, the country’s second-largest political party, as a right-wing extremist group, a controversial step that could lead to the organisation being banned altogether,” the Belgian news website Euroactiv reported.

    Good thing Germany banning political parties has never had any negative effects in the past…

  • California’s government in action:

    Palmdale to Gilroy is about 300 miles. In 20 years. Or about 15 miles of track a year. Or, counting 260 work days a year, that’s an astonishing .0587 miles of track a day, or a whopping 300 feet a day. By the way, the 1,911 mile transcontinental railroad was built in six years, largely by hand. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • You know the Wisconsin judge arrested for helping an illegal alien evade deportation? The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended them.
  • “USDA Secures Water Delivery Agreement With Mexico for Texas Farmers. Mexico has failed to meet the demands of a water treaty with the U.S. for the past few years.”
  • Not good news: The Texas House approved Dade Phelan’s stupid anti-meme bill. Hopefully this unconstituional idiocy dies in the senate.
  • This was unexpected: “Donald Trump Endorses Speaker Dustin Burrows, All Pro-School Choice Texas House Republicans
    The endorsement was relayed by Abbott in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday.”

    President Donald Trump has endorsed Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) and every House Republican who voted for education savings account legislation earlier this month, according to Gov. Greg Abbott.

    Abbott relayed the news to a meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday morning before the chamber gaveled in for the day’s business, The Texan reported.

    The endorsement goes to the 86 House Republicans who voted for Senate Bill (SB) 2 on April 16. It comes for the 2026 midterms, and for Burrows himself, it’s also an endorsement for re-election as speaker. Trump told the caucus the morning of April 16 in a closed-door meeting that he would endorse them if they voted for SB 2. All but two Republicans, former Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) and state Rep. Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston), voted for it.

    Passing school choice was indeed an accomplishment, but Burrows is still the latest in the Straus-Bonnin-Phelan cabal who have kept Democrats in a power-sharing agreement and thwarted conservative priorities for over a decade. burrows himself has presided over a House that has slow-walked conservative bills long after they sailed through the senate. This may be case of President Trump seeing things at a very high level and not being aware of the details. And speaking of Republican dissatisfaction with the Burrows Speakership…

  • “Conservative Lawmakers Warn Texas House Is Running Out of Time To Pass GOP Priorities.

    With just over a month remaining in the 2025 legislative session, a group of conservative Texas House members gathered for a press conference to issue a stark warning to their leadership: time is almost up to deliver on Republican priorities.

    “Today is day 107 of our 140-day legislative session,” said State Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R–Arlington). “In 12 days, every House bill that is going to pass must be reported by its committee. The clock is ticking, and our Republican voters are looking for the Republican majority they elected to the Texas House to deliver.”

    Immigration and Border Security

    State Rep. Mike Olcott (R–Aledo) said border security remains the number one priority for both the Texas GOP and voters across the state. He outlined four key policy targets: mandatory use of E-Verify, ending in-state tuition for illegal aliens, requiring local law enforcement cooperation with ICE, and addressing Colony Ridge.

    On E-Verify, Olcott noted that “Senate Bill 324 was approved on second reading just yesterday, and we anticipate it will pass over to the House this week.” But in the House, he warned, progress has been sluggish.

    “So far in the Texas House, the only legislation that’s been heard in committee on E-Verify is House Bill 323 … which only requires E-Verify for new local government employees, which is noble, but does not come close to turning off the employment magnet driving illegal immigration into this state.”

    Snip.

    Banning Social Transitioning of Minors

    State Rep. Steve Toth (R–Conroe) focused on protecting children from social transitioning in schools. He said that while Texas banned gender mutilation surgeries in the last session, the House still hasn’t acted on legislation to prevent social transitioning.

    “The good news is that we now have a great bill, House Bill 2258, to protect these kids,” Toth said. “Even better news is, it’s on its way to the governor’s desk … Bad news is, it’s not the governor of Texas. It’s the governor of Arkansas.”

    Despite support from some members in the State Affairs Committee, the bill remains stuck.

    “Chairman King won’t give it a hearing,” Toth said. “Texans will not forgive our massive Republican majority if we fail to protect children from groomers.”

  • Former Abilene Preschool Teacher Sentenced to 30 Years for Producing Child Porn. Mark Eichorn admitted to paying two boys to produce child sexual abuse material.”
  • “The female Army [helicopter] pilot who crashed into the American Airlines jet ignored warnings from her male co-pilot.”
  • Polygon lays off almost the entire staff following a sale.

  • Williamson County has local elections tomorrow. I’m not in a locale that’s having an election, but Michelle Evans of the Wilco GOP wrote to say they’re endorsing Mike Snyder for Hutto Mayor, Shannon Quicksall for Taylor City Council District 4, Cyndi Hauser for Liberty Hill ISD Trustee Place 7 and Ben Butler for Georgetown City Council District 3.
  • Bad news for Floridians: Alligators learn to ring doorbells. (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)
  • BeardMeatsFood meets his nemesis: Bagels.
  • Critical Drinker thought that Thunderbolts would be merely mediocre, but found it “surprisingly shit.”
  • Brandon Herrera fires the worst gun of all time: The Zip 22. (Previously.)
  • And speaking of Things that Are The Worst, here’s some YouTube bad movie reviewers enduring the pain that is After Last Season. (Previously.)
  • “Bad Timing: Kilmar Abrego Garcia Honored With MS-13 ‘Employee Of The Month’ Award.”
  • Shedeur Sanders Drafted By McDonald’s In 3rd Round.”
  • “Player Drafted By Cleveland Browns Decides To Just Retire Instead.”
  • “Man From Pennsylvania Under Impression He Has Eaten Mexican Food.”
  • I laughed:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    “Big Moves At The ATF”

    Saturday, April 19th, 2025

    Brandon Herrara has a roundup of exciting changes sweeping the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, AKA ATF, AKA BATFE:

  • “Today we’re talking about some major shakeups that are happening at the ATF right now.”
  • “A lot of shit’s on the chopping block right now, and heads are rolling at the ATF.”
  • “The ATF under Kash Patel [Amusingly, YouTube autotranscript renders his name as “Cash Pat Mattel.” -LP] has just reversed a huge pain in the ass in the gun industry and the gun community. He’s doing great things. I hope he sticks around. We’ll get to that.”
  • “The zero tolerance policy is one of the most egregious ways that the Biden administration weaponized the ATF.”
  • “They realized they couldn’t go after the individual right to keep and bear arms (I know, crazy. It’s almost like it’s in the fucking constitution). They would go after the people who were selling and manufacturing the guns, which is where they started weaponizing audits on mom and pop FFLs.”
  • “The ATF had a history of doing audits on FFLs, where basically they’ll they’ll come in they’ll make sure that you’ve got all the guns on the books that you’re supposed to have. And basically, they’re just making sure that you’re not hawking guns out the back of your gun store to the fucking cartel, because only the ATF can do that.”
  • “But instead of using these audits to actually catch people who are committing real crimes and selling to people they’re legally not supposed to, they started going after every little minor clerical error they possibly could. People who weren’t dotting their “i”s, crossing their “T”s. Maybe you use the acronym for the state that you live in instead of the full name of the state written out. Any little thing to say that paperwork wasn’t filled out correctly, so that they could revoke your FFL.”
  • “So instead of going after people who were actually committing real crimes and selling to people that they weren’t supposed to, they were going after every little clerical error that they could to shut down local gun stores. Mom and pop places. Anybody who basically couldn’t afford to fight the federal government in court.”
  • “In the first few months, when the Biden administration rolled this out: FFL revocations, people losing their business, losing their livelihood; FFL revocation was up over 500%. They couldn’t ban the guns, so they got fucking shady about it.”
  • His congressional testimony covering the same ground snipped.
  • “But now if you have an FFL, you can breathe a small sigh of relief, because the zero tolerance policy has now been removed, which is huge.”
  • “Local small businesses no longer have to live in fear of the big green weenie of the federal government casting a mushroom-shaped shadow over their entire existence.”
  • “I am super stoked that under Kash Patel’s leadership the ATF has been making moves to reverse stupid rules.”
  • “I am very excited to see under Kash Patel’s leadership where the ATF is going to go on, and he’s gone. Yeah, Kash got fired.”
  • “Kash Patel was wearing two hats, where he was the acting director of the ATF while also being the confirmed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.”
  • “We do have a new acting director. Ladies and gentlemen welcome stage left, Dan Driscoll the new acting director of the ATF. Once again we have another guy who is wearing two hats. He is the current US Secretary of the Army, as well as the newly appointed acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives.”
  • “He was a combat veteran in Iraq, but aside from that, he was also a Republican candidate for congress, specifically in North Carolina’s 11th district, where he lost in the Republican primary. I get it. Aside from that his actual stance on gun policy and things like that, I really wish I had better news. I don’t know.”
  • “If you have some concerns, don’t worry, because I’m about to give you some weapons-grade copium.”
  • “I have reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland that the ATF is still gaining momentum in the right direction, because just recently the deputy director of the ATF has been fired. Shit-canned. Excommunicado. Fuckaty bye-bye. Marvin Richardson was the deputy director of the ATF, but he was also a long-standing ATF employee, having a career spanning 35 years. He was the deputy director since 2019, and was also the acting director from 2021 to 2022. Let’s go back to that 35 years at the ATF bit. Do the mental math. What happened in the last 35 years at the ATF? Yeah, Old Marvin was awarded medals for his involvement at the siege of Waco. Fucker had the burning women and children alive merit badge.”
  • “On top of that, he was largely toted as the father of the arm brace restrictions, as well as a whole host of other unconstitutional shit that the ATF has been pushing for the last 10 years or so, and he is fucking out of there. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Fuck you. I hope you have a hangail every day for the rest of your life.”
  • “This guy had bragged in the past about how much they’ve been able to do at the ATF to circumvent having to get laws passed by Congress.”
  • “He’s talking about how many extra rules they’re able to put on law-abiding citizens without using the legal system, circumventing Schoolhouse Rock and just putting in whatever he thinks should be the rules, not what the Constitution says has to happen. Fucker bragged about it.”
  • “Rest in piss, you won’t be missed.”
  • “Some big moves happening in the ATF. I don’t know how this is all going to shake out, but I’m liking what I’m seeing so far.”
  • “So the deputy director of the ATF got fired. That’s fucking great. We’ve now been informed on who the new one will be. Introducing your new deputy director Robert Robert Cekada.”
  • “Now I have been pretty optimistic of all of the changes over at the ATF since Trump took office. This is the first one, I’ll be honest with you, throws up a little bit of a yellow flag for me. I do not know much about this man’s views on the Second Amendment. However, I do know he’s a career ATF guy. Nothing in his resume that I’ve been able to find is particularly egregious, but being a lifelong Fed naturally makes the hair in the back of my neck stand up.”
  • “Is there anything obvious that means he will be bad. No. Am I worried he might be a speed bump to the dismantlement of the bullshit regulations of the ATF in the future? Absolutely. Only time will tell.”
  • “A lot of shit’s happening very quickly.”
  • So there’s your ATF update. Mostly good news, mostly things moving in the right direction.

    It’s great to have a President keeping his campaign promises…

    Tank Cannon Vs. Head

    Saturday, April 5th, 2025

    Brandon Herrera and the Ballistic High-Speed guys get together to answer the question: What happens when you fire a tank cannon at someone’s torso and head?

    Well, not to answer it. We all know what the answer is. But they went out to demonstrate the answer in glorious ballistic gel color.

    “It just turned him into a jelly-filled doughnut.”

    LinkSwarm For March 21, 2025

    Friday, March 21st, 2025

    More DOGE revelations, more leftwing violence, more pervert school teachers arrested, Baltimore builds a ghost city, astronauts get rescued, DVDs rot, and a bunch of fierce togers with a gentle mom.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Hamas-linked CAIR was given over $7,200,000 in taxpayer money, and that money is unaccounted for.

    Muslim charity with links to Hamas was awarded more than $7.2 million in taxpayer cash, which has now disappeared, according to a watchdog group.

    An “immediate investigation” needs to be launched into The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) California chapter’s use of funds, according to the watchdog, who sent a complaint to the Department of Justice Thursday.

    According to the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a California-based, non-partisan advocacy group, the money was given to the chapter to help re-settle impoverished immigrants in California between 2022 and 2024.

    In what appears to be a sleight of hand, the money – $7,217,968.44 — was sent to CAIR-Greater Los Angeles and not to CAIR-CA, which was the only group eligible to receive it, according to the complaint.

    The Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Muslim organization, which is not a registered non-profit and not eligible to handle charitable donations, received the entire pot of money according to the complaint, viewed by The Post.

    I think we all know where that money went: Leftwing pockets and murdering Jews.

  • Trump Signs Executive Order Dismantling Department of Education.”

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday shuttering the Department of Education, fulfilling a long-standing conservative wish to do away with the agency.

    Trump’s order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take the “necessary steps” to close the $268 billion agency and transfer its authority back to the states. The order does not immediately shutter the agency, and it will require programs and services to continue uninterrupted.

    “Everybody knows it’s right,” Trump said moments before signing the order, which he said was 45 years in the making. “We have to get our children educated.”

    The long-expected executive order will likely face significant legal challenges over whether Trump has the authority to dismantle the agency. Fully closing down the Department of Education will require congressional approval.

    Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, Republicans have sought to eliminate the Department of Education, created in 1979 under former President Jimmy Carter, for its role in promoting left-wing ideology and encroaching on state authority. The Education Department’s responsibilities primarily consist of allocating grant money, administering student loans, and enforcing federal civil rights laws

    Trump has long promised to terminate the agency and empower states to run their own education systems without federal interference. Shuttering the Education Department was a bullet point on the 2024 GOP platform.

    National Review seems to think Trump’s plan is more flawed than the previous Republican Presidential attempts to shutter the Department of Education by not doing a goddamn thing…

  • Republican Congresswoman Harriet Hageman explains exactly what the Department of Education does with your money.

    The Department of Education has a budget of about $280 billion dollars per year. Less than 25% goes to educating our students.

    It goes to a bureaucracy. It goes to a consultant. And that consultant then donates money back to the Democrats. And then it goes to a different consultant. And then it goes to an NGO. It is money laundering and money churning at its absolute best.

    It appears that the entire point of both the Biden and Obama Administrations was to turn the entirety of the federal government into a giant graft machine for the radical left.

  • “Paxton Opinion States District Courts Cannot Order Sex Changes on Government ID.” State district courts can no longer direct state agencies to change a person’s sex on government documents.”
  • “Trump Administration Pauses $175 Million in Funding to UPenn over Refusal to Bar Men from Women’s Sports.” Defunding will continue until sanity improves.
  • Victor Davis Hanson: The left knew they were lying to us.

    For years, the left has advanced utter untruths for cheap partisan purposes that it knew at the time were all false. And now when caught, they just shrug and say they were lying all along.

    Once it was known that the first COVID-19 case originated in or near a Chinese communist virology lab engineering gain-in-function deadly viruses—with help from Western agencies—the left went into full persecution mode.

    They damned as incompetent, racist, and conspiratorial any who dared follow logic and evidence to point out that the Chinese government and its military were both culpable for the virus and lying.

    A million Americans died of COVID. Millions more suffered long-term injuries. Still, the left-wing media and Biden administration demonized any who dared speak the truth about a lab origin of the deadly virus.

    The lies were designed to protect the guilty who had helped fund the virus’s origins, such as Doctors Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins.

    The Biden government also tried to use the lab theory to ridicule a supposedly pro-Trump “conspiracy.”

    Western corporate interests deeply invested in China did not want their partner held responsible for veritably killing and maiming hundreds of millions worldwide.

    Almost as soon as Joe Biden was inaugurated, the left knew that he was physically and mentally unable to serve as president.

    Indeed, that was the point.

    Biden’s role was designed as a waxen figurine for hard-left agendas that, without the “old Joe Biden from Scranton” pseudo-moderate veneer, could never have been advanced.

    His handlers operated a nightmare administration: the destruction of deterrence abroad, two theater wars, 12 million illegal aliens, a weaponized justice system, hyperinflation, and $7 trillion more in debt.

    By 2017, the public knew three truths about the so-called Christopher Steele dossier.

    One, it was completely fallacious—fabricated by a has-been, ex-British spy Christopher Steele. He childishly had cobbled together lurid sex stories, James Bond spy fictions, and Russian-fed disinformation to destroy the Trump candidacy and later presidency.

    Two, it was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. She hid her checks behind the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Fusion GSP paywalls.

    Three, the FBI under James Comey hired Steele as an informant. It helped disseminate his concocted files and was also instrumental in trying to subvert the Trump campaign and later administration.

    No sane person ever believed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was the work of “Russian disinformation.” Its contents a year before the 2020 election were verified by the FBI, but it kept mum about its confirmation.

    The pornographic pictures, the evidence of prostitution and drug use, the electronic communications implicating Joe Biden in his family’s illicit shake-down operation of foreign governments—all were never challenged by anyone who was associated with the laptop’s contents.

    Yet future Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, along with former interim CIA Director Mike Morrell, sought to fabricate a colossal lie to arm their candidate, Joe Biden, with plausible denial in the last presidential debate before the 2020 election.

    They rounded up a rogue’s gallery of 51 now utterly discredited former intelligence authorities to lie to the nation that the laptop was likely fake.

    All knew the FBI had verified the laptop. But they also knew that their titles would empower their lies that the Russians likely invented the laptop to aid the sinister Trump.

  • Fort Worth Teacher Arrested for Online Solicitation of a Minor. Christopher Rhodes was placed on leave from Young Men’s Leadership Academy during the investigation.”
  • Austin Elementary Teacher Jailed for Possessing ‘Large Quantity’ of Child Sex Abuse Material. Carl Innmon taught sign language at Baranoff Elementary School in Austin ISD.”
  • The question of whether federal judges can review alien deportation orders under the Alien Enemy Act has already been decided in Ludecke v. Watkins. “The Alien Enemy Act precludes judicial review of the removal order.” Pp. 163-166. (Hat tip: Grim’s Hall.)
  • Sanity: ” New York’s Highest Court Blocks NYC Law Allowing Noncitizens to Vote. ‘Instead, it is plain from the language and restrictions contained in Article II that “citizen” is not meant as a floor, but as a condition of voter eligibility.'”
  • You may not have heard in another packed news week, but once again Recep Tayyip Erdogan is doing Erdogan things in Turkey.

    Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul’s mayor and a high-profile member of the opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was arrested along with dozens of others Wednesday, state-run media reported, in what critics said was a significant escalation of the government’s crackdown on dissent.
    Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.

    The chief public prosecutor’s office ordered the arrest of about 100 people Wednesday, saying Imamoglu and others faced allegations including membership in criminal organization, bribery, aggravated fraud and unlawful acquisition of personal data. More than 80 people had been detained so far, according to local media reports.

    Imamoglu, a popular politician and member of the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, became mayor of Turkey’s largest city in 2019 and won reelection last year in high-profile races where he defeated candidates from Erdogan’s ruling party. He was expected to be selected as the CHP’s candidate for president in the party’s primary elections scheduled for this weekend. The mayorship of Istanbul is seen as a political stepping stone: Erdogan once held the role.

    Over two decades in power, Erdogan has tightened his control over state institutions and deepened restrictions on speech and expression, including within the judiciary, bringing charges against and imprisoning opponents. He has also exerted widespread control over the media, universities and other institutions.

  • Lefties suffering from Musk Derangement Syndrome are attacking Tesla centers.

    US Attorney General Pam Bondi released a statement overnight, calling the “violent attacks” on Tesla showrooms, service centers, Supercharger networks, and vehicles “nothing short of domestic terrorism.”

    “The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences,” Bondi stated in a press release.

    She continued: “We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”

    The latest domestic terrorism attack on Tesla occurred at a service center in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning.

  • And of course a Soros-funded NGO is paying for the campaign of terror.

    ver the next few days you’re going to see an organized progressional protest effort at Tesla stores put together by a group called Indivisible.

    George Soros foundation has given Indivisible nearly $8 million dollars for their “activism”.

    They’re calling these “Tesla takedown” events and they’re doing it in the midst of a domestic terror spree targeting Tesla and Tesla owners. They have these planned across the entire country. These images are just six examples.

    How can this not be seen as encouraging more violence and terrorism? I personally think that any violence occurring near locations they’ve chosen should result in Soros, his foundation, Indivisible and their founders being held criminally accountable as co-conspirators.

    The indivisible founders are Ezra Levin and his wife Leah Greenberg. They became “resistance” figures during Trump’s first term and their work is celebrated by elected Democrats. So yeah, it’s clear to me that the Democrats and their typical thugs are organizing this insanity.

    There’s reportedly even a form protest leaders can fill out to receive “reimbursement” payments for their protests.

  • “So the way you fight Nazis in 2025 is paint swastikas on Jewish people’s cars.”
  • Naturally, the Daily Show audience cheered at the news.
  • Meanwhile, Musk’s SpaceX Dragon crew compartment was busy returning stranded astronauts to earth, a path I’m assuming the Biden Administration didn’t pursue because there was no way to rake off leftwing graft from the rescue mission…
  • Plus Trump says they’ll get overtime, even if has pay it out of his own pocket:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • People called up North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ office to express polite disagreement with his policies. Ha, just kidding! They threatened to kill him and his family.
  • “Two Texas Universities Investigated by U.S. Department of Education for ‘Race-Exclusionary Practices.'” That would be Rice University and North Texas University.
  • Trump releases the JFK files and they raise more questions.
  • New York Times is now saying that lab leak theory is now plausible, after years of attacking anyone who mentioned it as “conspiracy theorists.” And yes, Not The Bee used the Hot Dog Guy meme.

  • “Federal Prosecutors Secure Convictions for 2022 Human Smuggling Event that Killed 53.”

    Federal prosecutors announced the convictions of two of the human smugglers responsible for the horrific 2022 mass casualty event wherein 53 people were killed and 11 injured after being locked into a tractor-trailer and left in the Texas heat.

    The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) described the tragedy as the single deadliest human smuggling case in U.S. history at the time. Four men, all Mexican nationals, were charged in connection with the crime: 30-year-old Riley Covarrubias-Ponce, 28-year-old Felipe Orduna-Torres, 37-year-old Luis Rivera-Leal, and 53-year-old Armando Gonzales-Ortega.

    Fast forward, and the DOJ confirmed in a press statement that Orduna-Torres and Gonzalez-Ortega were convicted for their roles in the alien smuggling conspiracy that led to the deaths.

  • In Mexico: There’s a big difference between “screwing up” and accidentally killing three of your fellow guardsman in a negligent discharge. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Speaking of negligent discharges, Brandon Herrera did not appreciate Sig Saur’s media team trying to gaslight people over the P320’s well-documented issues .
  • Japan’s “evaporated people,” who completely abandon their previous life, family and friends to move to slums anonymously. Some similarities with American homeless or China’s “lie flat” movement, but I get the impression a big difference is that evaporated people are primarily motivated by shame of failure.
  • Baltimore offers tax incentives to inner harbor development project, only to create a ghost city.
  • Kotaku gets a defamation lawsuit by former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. Some people are calling it “Gawker 2.0.”
  • Another day, another indicted rap mogul.

    A music bigwig who helped launch Nipsey Hussle’s career and was lauded as rap’s “godfather” has been accused of running a “Mafia-like” criminal enterprise involving murder, human trafficking, robbery and extortion on the streets of Los Angeles.

    Eugene Henley Jr. — known as “Big U” in the entertainment world — was one of 18 members of the Rollin’ 60s Neighborhood Crips street gang charged in a sprawling federal racketeering complaint, the US Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.

    Henley has “maintained the image of an entertainment industry entrepreneur running a music label and of somebody who gives back to the community here in Los Angeles,” US Attorney Joseph T. McNally said while announcing the indictment.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Carl Erik Rinsch, the guy who $55 million from Netflix to make an SF miniseries and instead bought stocks and Dogecoin has finally been indicted.
  • Amazon driver goes ballistic, cussing out woman’s doorbell camera for “buying all this shit.” Turns out the woman is in a wheelchair. Pink slip ensues.
  • New Yorker art critic Jackson Arn fired for “making ‘inappropriate overtures’ at some of the party guests and appeared to be drunk.” I hold no water for Arn (a lefty who used to write for The Nation) or Conde Naste (Teen Vogue), but “getting drunk and making a pass” at a holiday party used to be a forgivable sin in corporate American, but the woke religion of social justice is incapable of offering forgiveness or redemption. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Looks like I’m one of the authors that Meta ripped off to train their AI on without permission.
  • Warner Brothers DVD bit rot is a real problem.
  • A simplified description of how your brain actually operates. I wouldn’t take it as gospel, but I’m regretting that I never actually read Marvin Minsky’s The Society of Mind
  • Rick Beato interviews Hans Zimmer. “The job is not to listen to the director telling you what the music is he wants, because if if he knows what music he wants, then he can do it himself. My job is to sort of listen to him tell me the story and then do the thing that he can’t even imagine.”
  • “Federal Judge Orders Astronauts Be Returned To Space Station.”
  • “Democrats Say Fire At Tesla Facility Likely Caused By Climate Change.”
  • “Single Woman Constantly Stressed With No Man Around To Tell Her To Relax.”
  • Pack of tigers has Golden mom:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    How Bulletproof Is The Cybertruck?

    Sunday, January 26th, 2025

    As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have a use case for owning a Cybertruck (or any electric car or truck), but for a supposedly unpopular vehicle, I actually see a lot of them on the road. (Of course, I’m only a mile from a Tesla sales office, so your mileage may vary.) But one of the the Cybertruck’s selling features is that it’s bulletproof. Well, Brandon Herrera (who owns a Cybertruck) decided to see how bullet-proof, though he’s using a detached Cybertruck door rather than his own vehicle.

    Spoilers: It seems pretty bulletproof to handgun ammo up the .45 ACP, but once he stepped up to the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle (“the Cybertruck’s only known natural predator”) and the bigger rifle rounds (including 5.5.6 NATO and even, for grins, a .50 BMG round out of his very own AK-50), it was bulletproof no more.

    Bonus! Remember when WhistlinDieseltorture tested a Cybertruck?

    Now there’s a Part 2:

    Preppers will not doubt be aghast at Mr. Diesel’s profligate waste of rice in drying out a water-logged F-150 engine…

    LinkSwarm For June 14, 2024

    Friday, June 14th, 2024

    Greetings, and welcome to a LinkSwarm so large I had to start working on it Wednesday! Unemployment rises too much to rig it away, home sales crash to Carter levels, Europe’s voters rise up to throw out the left, Hunter is guilty guilty guilty, another blow to the Biden Administration’s tranny Title IX rewrite, Israel rescues some hostages and smokes a Hezbolli terror master, and California continues to do California things.

  • The Biden Administration has been lying about how high unemployment is. Says who? The Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

    Every so-called “strong” jobs report has been a disaster if one puts in even a little work to dig below the pristine, if fake, surface. And while we expected this charade to continue indefinitely, and certainly at least until the November election, at which point suddenly all the truth about the ugly labor market would be revealed to usher in the new president amid an economic crisis, we were shocked when none other than the Fed chair admitted today that the Biden admin was rigging jobs data.

    In response to a question from a Bloomberg journalist during the post-FOMC presser, asking the Fed chair to comment on the state of the labor market, the Fed Chair said that two years ago the labor market was “overheated” and has since gotten back to “normal”, largely thanks to “supply from to immigration” – translation: illegal aliens have been the main reasons for the increase in employment and the drop in wages and thus, overall inflation, which as we discussed recently, is the narrative that is being pushed out to mitigate demands by most Americans to halt illegal immigration.

    Where things got very interesting, however, is when Powell was discussing the demand-side of the labor market: here, he addressed the dropping quits level, the decline in job openings and wages, but more importantly, the rising unemployment rate – from 3.4% to 4.0% which clearly goes against the narrative of red hot payrolls – all of which the Fed chair summarized as strong job creation, yet caveated by saying that “there is an argument that [payrolls] may be a bit overstated.”

    Note: he didn’t say “understated” because the “-stating” always goes in just one direction: the one that makes the resident of the White House look good.

    In other words, the jobs – like so many things about this Potemkin economy – are a lie, and while Powell immediately realized what he had said, and tried to couch it by adding that payrolls are “still strong”, suddenly the entire narrative of a strong labor market imploded in front of our eyes, because if the Biden admin will lie about a “bit” of the jobs report, it will lie about any part of it.

    And, as we have shown above and every month this year, lie is precisely what the Biden administration has been doing, month after month, year after year.

    And the biggest stunner, as Edward Snowden put it so eloquently, is that he’s “not sure I’ve ever seen the chairman of the Federal Reserve publicly accuse the White House of cooking the books on employment numbers, but here we are.”

  • Speaking of which: “Initial Claims Surge To 10-Month Highs As California Joblessness Soars.” “Did we suddenly get a peek at economic reality? The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the first time surged last week to 242k (up from 229k and well above the 225k exp). That is the highest since August 2023.” And California, which just happened to implement a minimum wage hike, led far and away with the most claims…
  • Home sales have dropped so far during the Biden Recession that they’re now back to 1978 levels.

    The recession in the U.S. existing home sales market has been so deep that we’re back to late ‘70s levels—despite us now living in a much bigger country:

    April 1978: 4.09 million U.S. existing home sales print

    April 2024: 4.14 million U.S. existing home sales print*

    1978: 223 million U.S. population

    2024: 341 million U.S. population

    The reason, of course, is that housing affordability has deteriorated so much that many buyers and sellers alike have pulled back from the market. Many homeowners who would otherwise like to sell and buy something else are staying put rather than trading in their 3% mortgage rate for a 7% mortgage rate.

    The bad news?

    According to a forecast published this week by Goldman Sachs, the recovery for existing home sales could be a slog.

    1978: Jimmy Carter was still President, the Bee Gees dominated the music charts thanks to Saturday Night Fever, and a brand new comic strip about a lasagna-loving cat named Garfield debuted. And the average price of a home was somewhere around $56,000. (Yet, somehow, home sales were still stronger during the 1981-82 interest rate hikes than under Carter in 1978…)

  • Hunter Biden found guilty on all counts in his gun trial.

    A jury of Hunter Biden’s peers found him guilty on all three felony charges on Tuesday after a six-day trial that demonstrated that the first son lied on a federal gun-purchase background-check form when he claimed not to be a drug addict.

    The verdict was reached after the jury deliberated for three hours, beginning Monday afternoon with the conclusion of closing arguments. Hunter was surrounded by family members, including wife Melissa Cohen Biden and his uncle James Biden, as the verdict was read. First lady Jill Biden missed the verdict announcement and rushed to greet Hunter afterward.

    Hunter was found guilty on two charges for lying about his crack-cocaine addiction on federal gun paperwork when he bought a Colt Cobra revolver at a sporting-goods store in Wilmington in October 2018. He was also found guilty on a third charge for possessing the firearm while he was using crack cocaine.

    The first son faces up to 25 years in prison, though he’ll likely receive a lighter sentence as a first-time, nonviolent offender. Judge Noreika, who presided over the trial, said that a sentencing hearing will be held in September.

    Though Hunter Biden still has a pending tax trial, don’t hold your breath about him going to trial for his role as the Biden crime family’s bagman…

  • “Court Confirms: Weiss’s ‘Special Counsel’ Appointment Is a Sham.”

    I’ve pointed out time and again (including yesterday) that Biden Justice Department AG Merrick Garland’s “special counsel” appointment of Biden Justice Department Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss in the Hunter Biden case is a fraud on the public.

    In a pretrial ruling denying the younger Biden’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Maryellen Noreika has confirmed that Garland’s appointment of Weiss did not comply with federal regulations for appointing special counsels. That, however, was not a basis to dismiss the case — particularly with Garland and Weiss quietly citing the last special-counsel regulation, §600.10 (of Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations), which provides that no one may hold the Justice Department accountable for flouting its own regulations.

    To be clear, I have never contended that Garland lacked the authority to assign Weiss, or whoever he wanted to assign, to investigate the Biden case. As Judge Noreika correctly explained, federal statutory law — in particular, §§509, 510, 515, and 533 — vest attorneys general with sweeping power to run the Justice Department as they see fit, including power to designate any DOJ lawyers they choose to run investigations anywhere in the country.

    Weiss, for example, is now prosecuting Hunter Biden in Los Angeles, on the tax case scheduled to begin trial on September 5, in addition to the gun case in Weiss’s own Delaware district. That’s because Garland doubled-down in assigning the investigation of the president’s son to the same prosecutor — Weiss — who had just schemed with defense lawyers on a failed sweetheart plea deal that was designed to make all conceivable cases against said son disappear (and only after Weiss had consciously dithered as the statute of limitations steadily eviscerated serious criminal offenses).

    Garland is the attorney general, and he has that power. It is power he wields with no fear that Congress will slash the DOJ’s budget, censure him, impeach him, or do anything else but caterwaul over how he abuses it. My point is that Garland has been engaged in a nearly four-year fraud — trying to con the country into believing the Justice Department is neither protecting its boss nor trying, to the extent politically feasible, to protect the president’s son.

    The AG refused to appoint a special counsel for the Biden investigation, despite the president’s (and other Biden family members’) being implicated in Hunter’s malfeasance, particularly crimes arising out of his peddling of his father’s political influence for huge pay days from agents of corrupt and anti-American regimes.

  • Europe’s ruling center left just got smashed in European elections.

    Early projections of the EU-election results show that the continent’s right-wing parties have made significant advances as voters signal their dissatisfaction with illegal immigration and inflation. Formerly powerful left-wing parties seem to have been routed, while centrists stayed the course.

    This antiestablishment sentiment was expressed most strongly in Germany and France, two of the European bloc’s most powerful countries.

    The French results prompted President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the French parliament in preparation for snap elections on June 30 and July 7, as his party lost badly to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which is part of the Identity and Democracy coalition in the European Parliament.

    Before crowds in Paris, Le Pen responded to Macron’s announcement: “This historic vote shows that when people vote, people win. . . . We are ready to exercise power, to end mass migration, to prioritize purchasing power, ready to make France live again.”

    In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats were trounced by a combination of support for the right-wing CDU/CSU and Alternative for Germany (AfD). The left-wing Social Democratic Party (14.6 percent) and the Greens (12 percent) underperformed. Katarina Barley, speaking for the Social Democrats, called it “a bitter evening.” “I am very disappointed.” The AfD, having won 14 percent as of this reporting, is intent on carrying its EU wins to the national elections in October 2025.

    Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni was the only leader of a European power to see success, with the right-wing politician’s allied faction, European Conservatives and Reformists, placing first in Italy.

    In Spain, the conservative People’s Party took 34.2 percent of the vote, a rejection of socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Workers’ Party, which received 30.2 percent. Two other right-wing parties, Vox and Se Acabó La Fiesta (The Party’s Over), received another 14.2 percent between them.

    The Greens ceded more ground than any other party in the EU, losing more than a quarter of their seats.

    For decades, the ruling Euroelite have insisted that there is no alternative to their high tax, high spending, high debt, high regulation, high immigration, environmental leftist EU superstate. Voters seem to have finally grown tired enough of it that they’re willing to embrace Marine Le Pen if that’s what it takes to make their voices heard.

  • “Biden Asks Why Europe Didn’t Just Arrest Conservative Candidates Before Election.”
  • Good news! The Supreme Court has struck down the bump stock ban.

    In his opinion, Thomas wrote that, though a bump stock does increase a rifle’s rate of fire, it does not turn it into an automatic weapon.

    “A bump stock does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun any more than a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does,” Thomas wrote. “Even with a bump stock, a semiautomatic rifle will only fire one shot for every ‘function of the trigger.’”

    Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his concurrence that, while the ATF’s interpretation of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act was an incorrect reading of the statute, there are legislative remedies for the issue of bump stocks.

    “The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning,” Alito wrote. “That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b). But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning.”

  • The Lies and Fall of Ibram X. Kendi.” “This man gave America the simplest, most easily applicable binary solution to all of our racial problems. It didn’t matter that it was stupid, at least not from the perspective of his personal enrichment. For a while, it sold…What we lived through in 2020, during the Floyd meltdown and its aftermath, was a onetime necrotic bloom during which the first carrion-feeders on the scene were able to fatten themselves up to spectacular proportions on the collapsed body of American progressive racial and political angst.”
  • Alas, I fear the idea that the woke poison of social justice is really on the wane may be too optimistic, as Michigan State still has 140+ employees working to implement DEI. Let a thousand pink slips bloom.
  • Five of seven convicted in Feeding Our Future Covid funds fraud trial in Minnesota. The convicted included Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, and Hayat Mohamed Nur. If only we could figure out what they have in common…
  • Ukraine takes out Russia’s latest and greatest Su-57 “stealth” fighter.
  • The US has expanded economic sanctions on Russia.

    The US has broadened its sanctions on Russia, including a fresh crackdown on banks dealing with sanctioned entities.

    It expands a December programme to target foreign banks deemed to be aiding Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

    The US also placed sanctions on the Moscow stock exchange, leading to it halting trading in dollars and euros.

    It also moved to try to restrict Russia’s use of technology, including chips and software.

    US President Joe Biden signed an executive order in December that imposed sanctions on banks dealing with about 1,200 individuals and companies deemed to be helping Russia’s war machine.

    Those measures, which expose banks to the risk of being cut off from the US financial system, have now been expanded to about 4,500 entities.

    The US will also target gold-laundering.

    Peter Harrell, a former White House senior director for international economics, told the Reuters news agency that the US “is shifting towards something that begins to look like an effort to set up a global financial embargo on Russia”.

    As part of this effort, the US Treasury announced that it would impose sanctions on parts of Russia’s financial system, including the Moscow Exchange, which is one of Russia’s main stock exchanges.

    The stock exchange, which is Russia’s largest foreign exchange market, said the sanctions had forced it to stop trading in dollars and euros.

    The US also focused on technology. Chips and other technology made in the US have been found in downed Russian equipment on Ukraine battlefields, including drones, radios, missiles and armoured vehicles.

    The sanctions aim to make it more difficult for companies to supply that tech.

    The US will target shell firms in Hong Kong selling chips to Russia.

    There are YouTubers saying “Russian economy is crippled” etc., but I remain skeptical. The chips going into Russian drones aren’t anything special, they’re COTS stuff and EPROMs you can get almost anywhere.

  • “Israeli Military Rescues Four Hostages from Gaza.” Naturally this is good news for decent human beings everywhere and a tragedy for the radical left.
  • “Lebanon: Israeli Airstrike Kills One Of Hezbollah’s Most Senior Terror Commanders. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday night eliminated one of Hezbollah’s senior-most terror commanders operating in Lebanon. Sami Taleb Abdullah, who headed Hezbollah’s Nasr terrorist force, and three other Hezbollah commanders were killed in an Israeli airstrikes on a terrorist base located in southern Lebanon.” Good. Remember how commentators have repeatedly opined on the possibility of Hezbollah opening up a “second front” while Israel settles Hamas’ hash? They seem to have done very little but the usual pinprick terror attacks. With all the terror money Iran is sloshing around to Hamas and the Houthi’s, one wonders if they’re stretched to thin to send much Hezbollah’s way…
  • Bill Maher Calls Out Campus Protesters for Ignoring the Oppression of Women in Muslim Countries.” “Today, right now, hundreds of millions of women are treated worse than second-class citizens. When you mandate that one category of human beings don’t even have the right to show their face, that’s apartheid.”
  • An end to the petrodollar? Peter Zeihan asserts that there’s still no real alternative to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Let’s hope he’s right. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The American College of Pediatricians releases statement calling for an immediate halt to puberty blockers and gender surgery for minors.
  • Another day, another federal judge slapping down the Biden Administrations unilateral tranny rewrite of Title IX.

    Western District of Louisiana Chief Judge Terry Doughty in an order Thursday declared that Title IX, a federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination, “was written and intended to protect biological women from discrimination.”

    “Such purpose makes it difficult to sincerely argue that, at the time of enactment, ‘discrimination on the basis of sex’ included gender identity, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics,” Doughty, a Trump appointee, wrote. “Enacting the changes in the Final Rule would subvert the original purpose of Title IX.”

    (Previously.)

  • Still, the Biden Administration continues its tranny push, going so far as to indict the whistleblowing surgeon who exposed lawbreaking transgender procedures at Texas Children’s Hospital.
  • Brandon Herrera reflects on his narrow election loss.
  • “Congressman Henry Cuellar’s Bribery, Money Laundering Trial Date Moved to 2025.” Hopefully Jay Furman, the Republican candidate for the Texas 28th Congressional District can retire him in November so he can concentrate on his trial…
  • Be a cop working a gun buyback program for the San Antonio Police. 2. Take choicest guns for yourself. 3. Profit! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Old and Busted: LA thieves stealing anything not bolted down. The New Hotness: Actually, they’re stealing fire hydrants now.
  • Another week, another California chain leaving California. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Seattle’s $26 minimum wage hike = people just stopped ordering food delivery.
  • Of course the U.S. Women’s basketball has left Caitlyn Clark off the team. Because we all know queer identity trumps winning a medal for your country…
  • On the upside, also not competing: “Lia” Thomas. Turns out the Olympics don’t want men competing in women’s swimming. Who could have possibly seen that coming?
  • Tesla is now officially a Texas company. And Elon Musk’s big payday was approved by Tesla shareholders.
  • AI music gets good enough. “It’s going to replace people.”
  • For a brief period after World War II, homes were made of enameled steel. I bet Lustron would offer a pretty high degree of bullet resistance…
  • “Why the US Drops 14.7 Million Worms On Panama Every Week.” Raccoona Sheldon should write a story…
  • The ecology of stray dogs in east Austin.
  • Star Wars, RIP.
  • Old and Busted: Top Gear presenters offering their own brand of gin. The New Hotness: Tiger tanks offering their own brand of gin.
  • How 12 Japanese Kanji “ghost characters got into unicode.
  • “Pfizer Assures Public They Are Preparing For Next Pandemic By Developing An All-New Ineffective Vaccine With Fatal Side Effects.”
  • “In Hindsight Fans Realize They Were Too Quick To Call The Holiday Special The Worst Star Wars Project Ever…After watching the latest Disney Star Wars offering The Acolyte, however, many fans admit they might have been too harsh to call the holiday show the worst thing to come out of the franchise.”
  • Texas Runoff Results: Phelan Survives, Most Followers Don’t

    Wednesday, May 29th, 2024

    We have the results of yesterdays runoff election, and it’s a mixed bag. Sitting Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan survived Dave Covey’s challenge by less than 400 votes. Evidently a ton of gambling special interest money an encouraging Democrats to vote Republican pulled him over the line. However, almost all Phelan’s political allies pulled into a runoff went down:

  • Former Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson defeated incumbent Justin Holland in the Texas House District 33 runoff.
  • Challenger Alan Schoolcraft beat incumbent John Kuempel in the Texas House District 44 runoff.
  • Helen Kerwin whomped incumbent DeWayne Burns in the Texas House District 58 runoff by 15 points.
  • Challenger Keresa Richardson knocked out Frederick Frazier in the Texas House District 61 runoff with 67.6% of the vote.

  • Challenger Andy Hopper defeated incumbent Lynn Stuckey in the Texas House District 64 runoff by just shy of 4,500 votes.
  • Challenger David Lowe went into the Texas House District 91 runoff behind Stephanie Klick, but beat her by over 1,000 votes.
  • Texas Governor Greg Abbott is cheering the results a vindication for school choice.

    “While we did not win every race we fought in, the overall message from this year’s primaries is clear: Texans want school choice,” Abbott said. “Opponents can no loner ignore the will of the people.”

    The governor’s electoral crusade for school choice came to a head this week, as eleven out of the 15 Republican challengers Abbott backed this cycle defeated House incumbents in their primaries. Abbott also worked to boot seven anti-voucher Republicans off the ballot in the state’s March Republican primaries.

    Voucher bills have failed in Texas, most notably, last year, when 21 House Republicans voted against expanding school choice as part of an education-funding bill. Abbott’s push to oust school-choice dissidents was backed by major Republican donors and groups, such as Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children Victory Fund, which spent $4.5 million on the races altogether, Club for Growth, which poured $4 million into targeting anti-voucher runoff candidates, and Jeff Yass, an investor and mega-donor, who made about $12 million in contributions to both Abbott and the AFC Victory Fund. Abbott spent an unprecedented $8 million of his own campaign funds to support pro-voucher candidates.

    Not every incumbent went down. Incumbent Gary VanDeaver beat challenger Chris Spencer by some 1,500 votes. But backing Phelan, opposing school choice and voting to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton has proven so toxic for incumbents used to romping to easy primary victories that it’s hard to imagine Phelan being able to get reelected as speaker.

    Brandon Herrera entered the runoff 21 points behind Tony Gonzalez for U.S. District 23. Ultimately that gap was too large to make up, but he only lost 50.7% to 49.3%. That a sitting congressman with a huge name and money advantage only managed to beat a YouTuber by one and a half points shows that Republican incumbents ignore gun rights at their peril.

    Other Republican U.S. congressional race runoff results:

  • Caroline Kane edged Kenneth Omoruyi by less than 50 votes for the Houston-based U.S. District 7. Democratic incumbent and pro-abortion favorite Lizzie Fletcher got 2/3rds of the vote in 2022, so Kane has quite an uphill slog ahead. Still, a Republican blowout like 1994 or 2010 could theoretically put it within reach.
  • Craig Goldman pulled in 62.9% against John O’Shea for Fort Worth-based U.S. District 12, which retiring Republican incumbent Kay Granger won by 64.3% in 2022. He’ll face Democratic nominee Trey Hunt in November.
  • Jay Furman beat Lazaro Garza, Jr. by just shy of 2/3rds of the vote for the right to face indicted Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar in San Antonio to the border U.S. District 28 in November. Cuellar beat Cassy Garcia 56.7% to 43.3% in 2022, but Cuellar’s indictment and widespread dissatisfaction with Biden’s open borders policies make this a prime Republican pickup target in November.
  • In a very low turnout runoff, Alan Garza defeated Christian Garcia, 419 to 361 votes in the heavily Democratic Houston-based U.S. District 29. As Democratic incumbent Sylvia Garcia pulled in 71.4% in 2022, it would take a Democratic wipeout of Biblical proportions to make this race competitive, but you can’t win if you don’t play.
  • In Dallas-Richardson-Garland based U.S. District 32, another heavily Democratic district, Darrell Day beat David Blewett to take on Democrat Julie Johnson. Incumbent Democrat Colin Allred is taking on Ted Cruz in the Senate race.
  • Finally, in Austin-based U.S. District 35, Steven Wright edged Michael Rodriguez by 11 votes for the right to take on commie twerp Greg Casar, who garnered 72.6% in 2022.

  • Roundup For Today’s Texas Runoff

    Tuesday, May 28th, 2024

    If you live in Texas, today is primary runoff election day. In particular, Dade Phelan and a whole lot of his coalition cronies are fighting to stay in power, and voters can slam the door shut on them today.

    Brad Johnson at The Texan has an overview of what’s a stake in today’s runoff.

    House District (HD) 21 is the largest chip on the table and the warring sides in this raging intra-GOP trench war have gone all-in.

    Including third-party groups, more than $12 million is likely to be spent on both sides of the clash between Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) and David Covey. The challenger beat the incumbent by 3 points in the primary, but this round is winner-take-all.

    Not only is a legislative seat on the line, but so is a speakership, one that comes with lots of influence for the area — a fact that’s been fashioned into an argument by Phelan and team.

    The last time a speaker lost re-election was in 1972, though it was a substantially different circumstance.

    Legislative hopes for next session are on the line — both in terms of what Phelan himself hopes to accomplish in 2025 and for everything that may end up on the chopping block should he and other incumbents survive, opening the door for a kind of revenge tour against Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

    Patrick’s legacy as one of the most influential and powerful politicians in Texas history is already cemented. But he never likes losing a fight; he wouldn’t be where he is if he did. To that end, Patrick wants to ensure the speaker with whom he’s feuded so prolifically and publicly meets his political end on Tuesday…and Phelan hopes to deny Patrick what he wants yet again.

    The lieutenant governor has likened the speaker to everything under the sun except the first over the wall at the Alamo. And the speaker has returned fire in-kind. Fences can always be mended, but this fence is more like the Great Wall of China or the Trump border wall that was never finished.

    Should the speaker escape his political doom tonight, it’s more likely than not that slings and arrows will again be lobbed as the Legislature is eventually brought to a grinding halt.

    Whether they’ll admit it publicly or not, more members than one might believe think Phelan will retain the speakership in that scenario; pour one out for all the “the King is dead”-type of columns written right after the primary.

    And if Phelan loses tonight, that’ll mark the true beginning of the 2025 House speaker race. Jockeying for position behind the scenes has been going on since November, but at that point it would significantly ramp up.

    The bomb-throwing contingent on the right of the House GOP caucus is bigger than it’s ever been and will have a legitimate run at pushing for various reforms. And after their faction won the Texas GOP chairmanship, the political relevance that waxed last year and during the primary waxed further.

    Instead of “bomb thrower” I’d call them “the Republican wing of the Republican Party,” the one that actually wants to enact conservative policies and the one that doesn’t want to rule at the head of a Democrat-dominated coalition. Unlike Phelan.

    Given widespread Republican dissatisfaction with Phelan’s faction, who is throwing money to keep Phelan’s toadies in office? Gambling interests.

    Special interest casino gambling is spending big to protect incumbents who have carried their water in the Texas legislature.

    According to campaign finance reports filed on Monday, Sands PAC donated nearly $650,000 in a mixture of races, including returning incumbents, failed candidates, and those taking part in primary runoff elections,

    Already defeated incumbent Kronda Thimesch (R-Lewisville) received $54,000 from the PAC following her loss to attorney Mitch Little in the March primary. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo), who notched an unimpressive primary victory in March, received $25,000.

    Embattled House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) received $100,000 in direct contributions from the Sands PAC and $512,163 in-kind spending, which the Speaker and other candidates obtained from a newly formed and well-funded vehicle for Sands and its owner.

    Earlier this week, Texas Scorecard reported on the political spending of the “Texas Defense” PAC, a newly established committee funded by Miriam Adelson, the owner of Sands Casino.

    Along with Phelan, the Texas Defense PAC supports embattled incumbents Frederick Frazier, Justin Holland, John Kuempel, and John McQueeney, a candidate for the open seat vacated by State Rep. Craig Goldman.

    Frederick Frazier’s felony-plagued candidacy received $496,000 from the Defense PAC and $50,000 from Sands, as did Holland.

    Seguin-based State Rep. John Kuempel also received $50,000 from Sands. Kuempel’s father, the late John Kuempel, was a proponent of expanded gambling and authored measures during his time in the legislature to that end.

    Alan Schoolcraft, a former lawmaker, is challenging Kuempel and has the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott after Kuempel voted to strip school choice from an omnibus education bill in 2023.

    All incumbent lawmakers forced into runoffs (Frazier, Holland, Kuempel) voted to expand gambling in Texas during the 2023 legislative session, despite the issue not being a priority for Texas voters. The only incumbent who missed out on funding and voted likewise was Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston).

    Democrats Jarvis Johnson and Nathan Johnson (no relation) received $50,000 and $9,000 in funding from Sands, respectively.

    Today will also decided the runoff between gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera and incumbent Tony Gonzales for the 23rd Congressional District.

    LinkSwarm For May 10, 2024

    Friday, May 10th, 2024

    Details on the people and organizations dedicated to burning America down, more Biden corruption, more of his censorship regime, a few Russo-Ukrainian War updates, and a pedophile gets ventilated. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Park MacDougald at Tablet has a really in-depth look at the radical network setting America on fire.

    Have America’s college students suddenly converted en masse to anarcho-communist-jihadism? Not quite. Many are far left and anti-Israel. Some are foreigners, or the children of foreigners, who have imported the conspiracies and hatreds of their homelands. More, admitted under relaxed pandemic-era admissions standards and proudly ignorant of both American and world history, are taking the “decolonial” half-knowledge pushed by their elders to its logical conclusion.

    But students are not the only, and perhaps not even the most important, faction active in the campus protests. As in the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, “outside agitators”—professional radicals and organizers, black bloc antifa thugs, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, and Palestinian and Islamist radicals—have played a central role in organizing and escalating the campus protests, just as they have organized and escalated the wider anti-Israel protest campaign that began almost immediately after Oct. 7. This largely decentralized network of agitators is, in turn, politically and financially supported by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups ultimately backed by big-money donors aligned with the Democratic Party.

    The first hint that the protests are not entirely organic is their striking resemblance to previous rounds of organized far-left agitation, from the “uprising” of summer 2020 to the rolling antifa vs. Proud Boys brawls of 2016-17. The creation of “liberated” or “autonomous” zones on campus, for instance, is a hallmark of anarchist organizing familiar from Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and New York’s City Hall Autonomous Zone four summers ago. Familiar, too, is the governance of these zones, with masked security details prohibiting filming from outsiders and directing reporters to trained media representatives. During clashes with police or with counterprotesters, students and their allies have deployed classic “bloc” tactics, covering their faces and dressing in matching outfits to promote anonymity, linking arms to interfere with police attempts to conduct arrests, and attempting “de-arrests”—i.e., the coordinated swarming of police officers—to rescue apprehended comrades. At Yale, student activists doxxed the police officers sent to clear them out of the encampment—another harassment tactic frequently deployed by antifa.

    These resemblances are no accident. All of these tactics require a degree of instruction and training. Footage from Columbia showed the professional “protest consultant” Lisa Fithian, a veteran of Occupy, BLM, Standing Rock, and Stop Cop City, teaching students at Columbia how to barricade themselves into Hamilton Hall. Recent video from inside the protest encampment at UCLA, meanwhile, showed masked men leading a hand-to-hand combat training. When police cleared out encampments at the University of Texas-Austin and Columbia and the City University of New York last week, roughly half of those arrested—45 of the 79 in Texas, 134 of the 282 in New York—had no connection with the university at which they were arrested. Some, like the 40-year-old anarchist heir James Carlson, arrested at Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, had protest related rap sheets going back two decades.

    “What you’re seeing is a real witches’ brew of revolutionary content interacting on campuses,” says Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and an expert on far-left domestic extremism. “On the left-wing side, you have a broad variety of revolutionary leftists, who serve as rent-a-mobs, providing the warm bodies for whatever the leftist cause of the day is. And on the other side you have the Islamist and Palestinian networks: American Muslims for Palestine and their subsidiary Students for Justice in Palestine, CAIR, the Palestinian Youth Movement. We’re seeing a real mixture of different kinds of radical foment, and it’s all being activated at the same time.”

    The far-left groups active in the protests include antifa and other anarchists: Anarchist literature has been distributed in the encampments, and antifa websites have published dispatches from “comrades” on the inside. They also include various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition, a PSL front group that worked with several Muslim groups to organize the Jan. 13 March on Washington for Gaza, at which protesters flew the black jihadist flag. On April 29, for instance, shortly before masked assailants stormed Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves inside, The People’s Forum—a Manhattan event space affiliated with the PSL and funded by Neville Roy Singham, a wealthy businessman who “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide,” according to an August profile in The New York Times—urged its activists to rush up to Columbia to “support our students.” Similar calls for an “emergency action” were distributed throughout radical networks in New York City.

    Snip.

    The “movement,” in turn, while it recruits from among students and other self-motivated radicals willing to put their bodies on the line, relies heavily on the funding of progressive donors and nonprofits connected to the upper reaches of the Democratic Party. Take the epicenter of the nationwide protest movement, Columbia University. According to reporting in the New York Post, the Columbia encampment was principally organized by three groups: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime (WOL). Let’s take each in turn.

    JVP is, in essence, the “Jewish”-branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, backed by the usual big-money progressive donors—including some, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, that were instrumental in selling Obama’s Iran Deal to the public. JVP and its affiliated political action arm, JVP Action, have received at least $650,000 from various branches of George Soros’ philanthropic empire since 2017, $441,510 from the Kaphan Foundation (founded by early Amazon employee Sheldon Kaphan), $340,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and smaller amounts from progressive donors such as the Quitiplas Foundation, according to reporting from the New York Post and NGO Monitor, a pro-Israel research institute. JVP has also received nearly $1.5 million from various donor-advised funds—which allow wealthy clients to give anonymously through their financial institutions—run through the charitable giving arms of Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, Vanguard, and TIAA, according to NGO Monitor’s review of those institutions’ tax documents.

    SJP, by contrast, is an outgrowth of the Islamist networks dissolved during the U.S. government’s prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and related charities for fundraising for Hamas. SJP is a subsidiary of an organization called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP); SJP in fact has no “formal corporate structure of its own but operates as AMP’s campus brand,” according to a lawsuit filed last week against AJP Educational Fund, the parent nonprofit of AMP. Both AMP and SJP were founded by the same man, Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian academic who formerly fundraised for KindHearts, an Islamic charity dissolved in 2012 pursuant to a settlement with the U.S. Treasury, which froze the group’s assets for fundraising for Hamas (KindHearts did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement). And several of AMP’s senior leaders are former fundraisers for HLF and related charities, according to November congressional testimony from former U.S. Treasury official Jonathan Schanzer. An ongoing federal lawsuit by the family of David Boim, an American teenager killed in a Hamas terrorist attack in 1996, goes so far as to allege that AMP is a “disguised continuance” and “legal alter-ego” of the Islamic Association for Palestine, was founded with startup money from current Hamas official Musa Abu Marzook and dissolved alongside HLF. AMP has denied it is a continuation of IAP.

    Today, however, National SJP is legally a “fiscal sponsorship” of another nonprofit: a White Plains, New York, 501(c)(3) called the WESPAC Foundation. A fiscal sponsorship is a legal arrangement in which a larger nonprofit “sponsors” a smaller group, essentially lending it the sponsor’s tax-exempt status and providing back-office support in exchange for fees and influence over the sponsorship’s operations. For legal and tax purposes, the sponsor and the sponsorship are the same entity, meaning that the sponsorship is relieved of the requirement to independently disclose its donors or file a Form 990 with the IRS. This makes fiscal sponsorships a “convenient way to mask links between donors and controversial causes,” according to the Capital Research Center. Donors, in other words, can effectively use nonprofits such as WESPAC to obscure their direct connections to controversial causes.

    Something of the sort appears to be happening with WESPAC. Run by the market researcher Howard Horowitz, WESPAC reveals very little about its donors, although scattered reporting and public disclosures suggest that the group is used as a pass-through between larger institutions and pro-Palestinian radicals. Since 2006, for instance, WESPAC has received more than half a million in donations from the Elias Foundation, a family foundation run by the private equity investor James Mann and his wife. WESPAC has also received smaller amounts from Grassroots International (an “environmental” group heavily funded by Thousand Currents), the Sparkplug Foundation (a far-left group funded by the Wall Street fortune of Felice and Yoram Gelman), and the Bafrayung Fund, run by Rachel Gelman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune. (A self-described “abolitionist,” Gelman was featured in a 2020 New York Times feature on “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism.”) In 2022, WESPAC also received $97,000 from the Tides Foundation, the grant-making arm of the Tides Nexus.

    WESPAC, however, is not merely the fiscal sponsor of the Hamas-linked SJP but also the fiscal sponsor of the third group involved in organizing the Columbia protests, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), formerly known as New York City SJP. Founded by the Palestinian American lawyer Nerdeen Kiswani, a former activist with the Hunter College and CUNY chapters of SJP, WOL has emerged over the past seven months as perhaps the most notorious antisemitic group in the country, and has been banned from Facebook and Instagram for glorifying Hamas. A full list of the group’s provocations would take thousands of words, but it has been the central organizing force in the series of “Flood”-themed protests in New York City since Oct. 7, including multiple bridge and highway blockades, a November riot at Grand Central Station, the vandalism of the New York Public Library, and protests at the Rockefeller Center Christmas-tree lighting.

    More info on the people backing the Stop Cop City protestors:

    Where did the money come from? From donations solicited through left-wing fundraising and organizing networks. One of those networks was the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), an umbrella group for more than 80 “community organizations,” including the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, which organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested. CJA’s website promotes a grab bag of far-left causes, and includes a “Free Palestine” page proclaiming that “the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” To this day—eight months after the Georgia RICO indictment alleged that the Forest Justice Defense Fund was a fraudulent charity paying for ammunition purchases in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy—CJA maintains a Stop Cop City page urging readers to donate to the Forest Justice Defense Fund and the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. CJA also endorsed a “statement of solidarity” with Stop Cop City, which claimed, by the inexorable logic of intersectionality, the fight against “gentrification and police violence” in Atlanta as part of the fight against climate change.

    CJA is a subsidiary of the Movement Strategy Center, a California-based 501(c)(3) that has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and various branches of the Open Society network. But it has another financial supporter, one that may come as a surprise: You, the American taxpayer. In November, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was entrusting $50 million in federal grant money under the Inflation Reduction Act to the CJA, to be distributed in sub-grants to fund “environmental justice” projects by “community-based nonprofit organizations.”

    Read the whole thing.

  • More on the same subject: “Pro-Palestinian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors.” Surprising to people who haven’t been paying attention, maybe.

    The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker, according to a POLITICO analysis.

    Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change.

    Soros declined to comment, but a spokesperson with the Open Society Foundations, of which Soros is the founder and chairman, said in a statement that it “has funded a broad spectrum of US groups that have advocated for the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and for peaceful resolution to the conflict in Israel.” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has previously funded the Tides Foundation and other groups, said it no longer has active grants to Tides. It also does not support Jewish Voice for Peace or IfNotNow.

    Covers some of the same ground as the Tablet piece, but still worth reading the whole thing. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • MIT bans diversity statements. Good. Such racist dross only hinders real engineering.
  • Something resembling justice? “Judge Indefinitely Postpones Trump’s Classified Documents Trial.”

    Former president Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents is being postponed indefinitely.

    Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon ordered a new pretrial schedule for motions and discovery Tuesday afternoon after the classified documents case was originally scheduled to go to trial later this month.

    “The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming — would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury,” Cannon said in her order.

    The trial will likely be pushed until after the 2024 presidential election this November.

  • “The Only Problem Joe Biden Has Is That People Think He’s a Bad President.”

    It’s hard to exaggerate how abysmal Biden’s polling has been lately.

    No incumbent president should ever want to be near 43 percent in a head-to-head ballot test. Yet here is Joe Biden at 43 percent in the latest CNN poll, 43 percent in the latest Morning Consult poll, 43 percent in the latest Economist/YouGov poll, and 43 percent in the latest Harvard/Harris poll. (NB: Biden ticked up to 48 when Harvard/Harris pushed respondents to choose between Trump and Biden, and the Economist/YouGov poll had RFK Jr. in the mix.)

    Detect a trend? (There are other polls that have Biden a little higher.)

    It’s no mystery why Biden’s polling is at crisis levels.

    An incumbent president’s level of support in a reelection bid is typically tethered closely to his job approval. It’s hard to get much more than a couple of points above it. Biden’s job approval is at 40 percent in the RealClearPolitics polling average and at 39.3 in the 538 polling average.

  • How Hamas Bought Joe Biden.

    Desperate for cash, James Biden traveled to Qatar with the aim of personally presenting to Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi who was later arrested and charged with bribery and laundering over $5 billion and sentenced to 20 years in prison. While little is known about the details behind the internal power struggle in the corrupt terror state, Al Emadi had been accused of “channeling Qatari support to various Islamist groups over the years” as well as subverting American and European institutions with sizable infusions of Qatari money.

    As the American end of the deal fell apart in recriminations and lawsuits, one of the litigants received “blood-stained currency” and a “torture ticket” after suing James Biden and his partners. The blood money came from a Middle Eastern country known to be associated with terrorists. But the FBI refused to name the country and insisted the media also hide its identity.

  • In one of the world’s least anticipated sequel, a Chinese lab has spliced snippets of Ebola to create a deadly new virus.

  • More details on the Biden Administration’s censorship regime.

    Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an 800-page report that reads like Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

    Take a look:

    • In March 2021, an Amazon employee emailed others within the company about the reason for the Amazon bookstore’s new content moderation policy change: “[T]he impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden Administration about sensitive books we’re giving prominent placement to.”
    • In March 2021, just one day prior to a scheduled call with the White House, an Amazon employee explained how changes to Amazon’s bookstore policies were being applied “due to criticism from the Biden people.”
    • In July 2021, when Facebook executive Nick Clegg asked a Facebook employee why the company censored the man-made theory of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the employee responded: “Because we were under pressure from the [Biden] administration and others to do more. . . . We shouldn’t have done it.”
  • There’s chutzpah, and then there’s chutzpah: “Denver Illegals Make Demands, Include ‘Culturally Appropriate’ Food, Lawyers, Unlimited Showers And Warnings Before Evictions.”
  • It was fun seeing Ukraine’s Bradley’s take out Russian tanks with their Bushmaster, but they just took out a T-80 from a mile away with their TOW missile, which is the recommended method of a Bradley killing a Russian tank.
  • Ukrainian drone hits Bashkiria Oil Refinery some 1,500km from Ukraine’s border.
  • In addition to using high tech weapons against Russia, Ukraine is also using caltrops to shred their tires, a weapon first deployed by the Roman empire.
  • “Pedophile Surprised By Seattle Police Takes The Hallway Temperature Challenge.” Purp pulls a gun and gets multiple mags dumped into him. (Hat tip: Active response via KR Training.)
  • I have heard the Social Justice Warrior suing, each to each. I do not think that they will sue for me… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • The most gun-friendly states of 2024. Texas ranks 8th.

  • So the City of Pasadena, Texas was hassling Azael Sepulveda’s Oz Mechanics car repair shop over parking for no apparent reason, came to an agreement to settle his lawsuit, and now says, get this, they don’t have to follow the agreement because they claim the city enjoys “immunity” from lawsuits. “The property he purchased had housed another auto mechanic shop for more than 30 years and included five parking spaces, but under revised ordinances, the city demanded that Sepulveda provide 28 parking spots.” Somebody in the Pasadena city government deserves a dick punching…
  • Brandon Herrera finally produces an AK-50 that doesn’t jam or spontaneously disassemble.
  • The Jerry Seinfeld Pop-Tart Movie Is The Least Funny And, Quite Possibly, Worst Movie Ever Made.” I rather doubt the latter, but the trailer I saw of it did look pretty dire.
  • Hamas Celebrates Proposed Ceasefire With Rocket Barrage.”
  • “Uighur Slaves Struggling To Keep Up With Demand For Palestinian Headscarves.”
  • Save the puppies!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm for May 3, 2024

    Friday, May 3rd, 2024

    More corruption from the Biden family (plus a Texas Democratic congressman), more bad news from the Biden Recession, more pedophile sex offenders, more college madness, and virtue signaling, Third Reich style. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    And remember: If you’re in a large Texas county, there’s a tax appraisal district election tomorrow, so be sure to get out and vote if you haven’t already voted early.

  • Another week, another corrupt Biden family scheme exposed. “Joe Biden’s Brother Embroiled In High-Ranking Qatari Scheme To ‘Provide Wealth Of Introductions’ Through ‘My Family.'”

    Qatar has had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. While we knew about the EU’s ‘Qatargate,’ investments with the Kushner family, and of course Sen. Bob Menendez advancing Qatar’s interests, Politico reports that the Biden family’s ties to Qatar “would constitute some of the closest known financial links between a relative of President Joe Biden and a foreign government,” if courtroom testimony about Jim Biden’s foreign fundraising efforts is substantiated.

    In June 2017, Qatar’s neighbors – led by Saudi Arabia, banded together and cut diplomatic ties with the country, citing its alleged support for terrorism. As a result, the country was thrown into a sustained crisis.

    To dig themselves out, Qatari rulers began showering well-connected Westerners with gifts and financial benefits, according to Politico, “sometimes in the form of investment funding.”

    Around this time, Jim Biden was trying to raise $30 million for embattled hospital chain Americore – teaming up with Florida businessman Amer Rustom, CEO of the Platinum Group, who boasted of his ties to officials in the Middle East, as well as fund manager Michael Lewitt. Together, the three sought investment funding from various Middle Eastern sources for Americore and other ventures – “which came to focus largely on Qatar,” according to a former Americore executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    According to public records obtained by the outlet, Jim Biden leveraged ties to his older brother and “sought workarounds to restrictions on international money movements,” including one discussion about trying to move money across a Middle Eastern border in the form of gold bars that may or may not have happened.

    Let ye who has never smuggled gold across the border of an Arab country cast the first stone.

    “My family could provide a wealth of introductions and business opportunities at the highest levels that I believe would be worthy of the interest of His Excellency,” Jim Biden and Rustom wrote in a draft letter to an official at the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. “On behalf of the Biden family, I welcome your interest here,” the draft continues.

    Corrupt to the core.

  • More evidence from the Biden recession: “Job Openings Tumble, Quits Plunge, Hires Unexpectedly Crater To January 2018 Levels.”

    After several months of relatively boring JOLTS prints, this morning Janet Yellen’s favorite labor market indicator once again got exciting, and not in a good way.

    Starting at the top, according to the March JOLTS reported, job openings unexpectedly tumbled by 325K – the biggest drop since October 2023 – from an upward revised 8.813 million in February to just 8.488 million, far below the 8.690 million expected – and the lowest number since February 2021 when it last printed below 8 million.

    “Unexpectedly.”

  • “Chinese Nationals Charged With Conspiracy to Export US Technology.”

    The Department of Justice has arrested two Chinese nationals who allegedly plotted to export U.S. technology to advance the People’s Republic of China’s military operations.

    Han Li, 44, and Lin Chen, 64, have been charged with several counts of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), in addition to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), for attempting to export a machine used to process silicon microchips….

    “Specifically, the defendants sought to illegally obtain for CGTC a DTX-150 Automatic Diamond Scriber Breaker machine from Dynatex International, a Santa Rosa, California company.”

    That’s a backend semiconductor machine for slicing finished individual computer chips off a processed wafer.

  • “Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar Indicted on Bribery, Money-Laundering Charges.”

    Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife were indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery, foreign influence, and money-laundering charges, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday afternoon.

    The Texas Democrat and his wife are accused of accepting roughly $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities starting in December 2014 and continuing through 2021. The foreign entities are a Mexican bank and an oil and gas company linked to the government of Azerbaijan, according to the Justice Department.

    In exchange for the bribes, Cuellar agreed to use his office for promoting favorable U.S. foreign policy towards Azarbaijan and pushing legislative and executive branch officials to adopt policy measures beneficial to the bank, authorities said.

    In 2022, Cuellar’s home and office were searched during a federal investigation into Azerbaijan and American businessmen linked to the Middle Eastern nation. Cuellar formerly co-chaired the congressional Azerbaijan caucus.

    Cuellar represents TX28. Republicans Jay Furman and Lazaro Garza Jr. are competing in the runoff to challenge Cuellar this fall.

  • Columbia shows some semblance of a spine, threatens to expel students occupying administrative buildings.
  • Related: “Columbia Student Who Said ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve To Live’ Reportedly ‘Thrown Out Of School.'”
  • Also: “Police Begin Detaining UCLA Protesters Occupying Campus.”
  • “Tucked away in the $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan is a $3.5 billion slush fund to open new processing centers for Muslim migrants, in what Sen. Eric Schmitt described as a bid to “supercharge mass migration from the Middle East.” Republicans in congress asleep at the switch again.
  • Ukraine hits two more oil refineries.
  • It’s not just China that the CCP’s crazy policies are ruining. There are over 500 abandoned, unfinished buildings in Cambodia. A crackdown on online gambling also hastened the demise of many real estate ventures there.
  • Tranny sex offender tries to snatch a child from an elementary playground in broad daylight. “Trans-identifying male Solomon Galligan [simply] walked on campus last Friday afternoon during recess at Black Forest Hills Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado, and straight-up tried to steal a kid.”

    The suspect, who is identified as male in the arrest affidavit, shared news of his transition on Facebook back in 2011.

    ‘So im starting my hormone shots and i relly cant wait im on my hormone pills ive been on them for almost 4 months i wake up all depressed and crying but in the end its gonna be totally worth it you know what io mean im really excited my measurements are already changing and im super thrilled,’ he wrote.

    Galligan was put on the sex offender registry and was convicted that same year of non-consent sexual contact, according to his latest arrest affidavit.

  • Another week, three more Texas teachers arrested for having sex with students.

    Ernest Herrera, 56, was arrested Monday after he admitted to sexual contact with a 13-year-old student, claiming they had “developed a relationship.”

    Herrera taught social studies at Southside Independent School District’s Losoya Middle School in San Antonio.

    He was charged with improper relationship between educator and student, a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison.

    Herrera was booked into Bexar County Jail and held on a $75,000 bond.

    The district superintendent stated that Herrera was fired “effective immediately.”

    Andrew McCown, 27, was arrested Wednesday and charged with having an “improper relationship” with a 17-year-old female student.

    McCown is a math teacher and football coach at Roosevelt High School in San Antonio’s North East ISD.

    He was reportedly placed on leave in March and will be terminated.

    McCown, who is related to former NFL quarterbacks Josh and Luke McCown, was arrested in 2022 for drunk driving while he was a teacher and coach at Robinson ISD.

    According to a statement to MySA, the district “conducted a background check on April 25, 2023, and at that time, it was clear and McCown was hired.”

    Another football coach, Perryton ISD athletic director Cole Underwood, was arrested Wednesday and charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony.

    The alleged victim is a Perryton High School student, reportedly a 14-year-old girl.

    Underwood was released from Ochiltree County Jail on Thursday after posting a $125,000 bond.

    According to a statement from Perryton ISD, Underwood resigned.

  • The new York case against Trump isn’t going so well for the prosecution. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • In a poll of Texas voters, Trump leads Biden by 9%, and Ted Cruz leads Democratic challenger Colin Allred by 13%. Usual “polls this far out are meaningless” caveats apply.
  • Four reform candidates elected to NRA board. Now they just need to replace all of Wayne’s cronies on the board for me to rejoin.

  • Democrats passing a “living wage” law for Seattle ensures that they can’t make a living wage.
  • Second Boeing whistleblower dies suddenly.

  • Chinese officials are asking villagers to take out fake business licenses. Is that for their own business scams, or to artificially pump up Chinese economic statistics?

  • Profiles in Cowardice: “PEN America, a leading nonprofit dedicated to free expression, canceled its 2024 World Voices Festival late last week under pressure from pro-Palestinian activists. Many writers affiliated with the organization either threatened to boycott the event unless PEN acceded to certain demands, including labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘genocide,’ or distanced themselves from the free-speech group in response to online pressure from pro-Palestinian activists.”
  • Monroe County, New York, Democratic District Attorney Sandra Doorley wants you to know that she’s simply better than you and doesn’t have to pull over for police.
  • Virtue signaling: Third Reich Edition.
  • Brandon Herrera has both a meme review and an update on his runoff against Tony Gonzalez for TX23.
  • OnlyFans camgirl paid to propagandize for the Biden Administration. It’s a shame she wasn’t paid for sex, since then American taxpayers could see the Biden administration paying money to screw someone other than themselves…
  • Sale of books from the library of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg results in $187,740 loss.
  • “Missionaries Travel From Africa To Bring The Gospel To United Methodist Church.”
  • History Repeats Itself As Communists Run Out Of Food.
  • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.