Happy Juneteenth, the day we celebrate Republicans freeing the slaves!
This week: More Newsom graft, the Iran War maybe ends, he horrific extent of Muslim rape gang activity in the UK revealed, black rain in Moscow, two Supreme Court decisions (one Texas, one U.S.) with some interesting implications, and a famous cathedral is finally finished after a mere 144 years of construction.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Another weird week for me, as I had to have over $700 in car repairs done (bad battery, 120,000 mile maintenance stuff, odds and ends, etc.), and dealing with a welcome (but time consuming) order for over 50 paperback books. So a lot of things got pushed aside while I was dealing with that stuff.
Stephen Green: “How Deep Are the Newsoms in It? THIS Deep.”
It seems impossible — or just too revolting — to keep up with the financial hanky-panky of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner (gag) Jennifer Siebel Newsom. But thanks to a couple of investigative reporters with stronger stomachs than I have, let’s see if I can’t put everything you need to know into one easily digestible column.
I love it when other people do my dirty work for me, so let’s get started.
“Today, my wife & I joined Donald Trump’s hit list,” Newsom practically boasted on Monday. “He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us. They have not found a crime — they are simply trying to find one.”
Well, let’s see what Fox Business anchor Liz MacDonald and my old friend and Red State colleague Jen Van Laar have to say about that.
MacDonald said Tuesday that the DOJ probe “is about California Democrats’ modern-day machine politics,” which she described as a “feedback loop of Sacramento-corporate lobbyists-governor/wife nonprofit-behested nonprofit donations-lucrative state contracts-Sacramento.”
Don’t bother writing all this down — there won’t be a quiz at the end of today’s column. You’re welcome.
“The modern Sacramento machine trades corporate compliance and nonprofit funding/donations for policy access and state business,” MacDonald added, and then explained how that grift (allegedly!) worked for the Newsoms:
According to IRS Form 990 disclosures, her nonprofit frequently buys from Siebel Newsom’s for-profit film company—Girls Club Entertainment LLC—writer, producer and director services and the licensing and production rights for her documentaries. Then it sells the docs to the state and public schools.
IRS records show that her nonprofit has paid her Girls Club Entertainment LLC roughly $1.64 million for these production and licensing rights since 2012, which includes a steady annual contracting fee of $150,000 since 2018.
TL;DR: Siebel Newsom produced unwatchable propaganda videos for children, for which Democrat-dominated schools then paid her handsomely. Or as MacDonald summed it up, “Over the past decade, Siebel Newsom has collected over $3.7 million in combined personal salary and LLC payouts funded by the nonprofit.”
Then there are behested payments, which MacDonald explained are “a unique mechanism in California politics where an elected official asks a corporation, labor union, or wealthy individual to donate money to a specific charity, nonprofit, or government program.” Unlike campaign donations, there are no caps.
As governor, Newsom requested a record $226 million in behested payments in one year. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to the California Partners Project,” MacDonald wrote, “a nonprofit founded by his wife.”
“Many of the biggest donors were corporate giants (like health insurers and utility companies) actively bidding for lucrative state contracts or fighting state regulations.”
One hand washes the other with filthy lucre, if you’ll allow me to mix metaphors.
Which brings us to Jen Van Laar, and her hip-deep-in-the-muck wade through the Newsoms’ finances, going back years.
Way back in 2021, Jen asked, “Somebody Paid $3.7 Million Cash for CA Gov Newsom’s Estate – But Who?” But couldn’t come up with any satisfactory answers. That’s because the Newsoms alternately claimed that “the Newsoms’ cash was used to purchase the home but was done through an LLC managed by his first cousin,” or that “Newsoms obtained a loan… to purchase the home because the sale happened so quickly that they didn’t have time to obtain a mortgage.”
Then, California’s First Couple played similar LLC games, buying a second home for $9.1 million in ritzy Marin County. “Based on my examination of 15+ yrs of Newsom’s financial disclosures, tax returns, and real estate transactions,” Jenn explained in March, “they absolutely did not have $9.1M in cash.”
Clearly, somebody did.
The shenanigans were so egregious that — no matter what TDS nonsense Newsom’s social media team posts on X — the DOJ investigation began under the Biden administration. As I quipped on Instapundit this week, maybe Newsom needs to take a break from social media and lawyer up.
“U.S.-Iran MOU Language Released and Signed.” I haven’t read it yet, and a lot of people aren’t too happy with it. After I’ve had a chance to actually read it, I hope to have a far more extensive, informed write-up on it.
1) The number of raped and trafficked British girls is in the hundreds of thousands.
From the report:
The scale of the crimes committed is staggering. It has been previously established that, at the very least, 250,000 young white girls have been subjected to repeated rape, gang rape, trafficking, torture, pregnancy, forced Islamic conversion, and lifelong trauma. The true number is probably higher.
This number was reached by compiling reports from Rotherham and Telford over several decades, in addition to conversations and estimates from dozens of British cities, then looking at estimates of national distribution and underreporting (many women have never acknowledged that they were raped by these gangs).
Reviews that informed these estimates include the 2025 Baroness Casey National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, as well as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), a group established by the British government in 2015.
2) The attackers are overwhelmingly Muslim foreigners.
From the report:
In court records and official inquiries, around 87% of those convicted in these group-based child sexual exploitation (‘CSE’) cases bore distinctively Muslim names. The vast majority of men involved in these gangs were not convicted. Dr. Taj Hargey, an imam with the Oxford Islamic Congregation, believes the true proportion of gang members who are Muslims to be around 95%.
And:
Researcher Peter McLoughlin in Easy Meat (2016) compiled a comprehensive list of grooming gang convictions from 1997 to 2018 (with updates in subsequent analyses), drawing from published court outcomes. His examination of names indicated that approximately 87% of those convicted bore distinctively Muslim names, which was a figure echoed in related analyses far exceeding the Muslim proportion (around 6%) of the general population of Britain.
While the largest rape gangs were operated by Pakistani Muslims, “smaller groups from Somali, Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, and other Muslim origins were also involved.”
Snip.
The report goes on to say that these gangs were religiously motivated to carry out these rapes under the theological teaching of al-walā’ wa-l-barā’, which demands subjugation of the infidel, including sex slavery as a form of subjugation.
Muslim armies have used this teaching to justify rape across the world for 1,400 years.
Evidence for these numbers includes from a 2017 Quilliam Foundation analysis, Peter McLoughlin’s research, and “analysis of 264 convictions for group-based child sexual exploitation from 2005 – 2017.”
The report does not pull punches in its conclusion:
These figures indicate that the rape gangs are a specific ethnoreligious phenomenon, with Muslims – especially Pakistani Muslims – significantly overrepresented.
3) The problem is geographically widespread, affecting all corners of the nation.
From the report:
We found that the same unspeakable crimes occurred in at least 149 local authority districts – close to 40% of all such districts across the United Kingdom…
Here is a map showing where rape gangs have operated in the nation (these are only the known cases).
4) The rape gangs started more than 50 years ago.
From the report:
The independent chair of the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection Alexis Jay has identified the 1970s as the decade when immigrant rape gangs first began tormenting the girls of Britain. However, the British Newspaper Archive reveals that the first recorded case of specifically Pakistani rape gangs dates back to 1955, when four Bradford-based Pakistanis were charged with raping a 15-year-old girl from Middlesbrough.
This was soon after former colonial subjects, from the subcontinent as much as the Caribbean, became eligible to enter the United Kingdom in non-trivial numbers under the British Nationality Act 1948. What began as singular and small-scale instances became systematic and industrial over time.
These horrific crimes have only escalated in recent decades, especially following Tony Blair’s 1997 victory and the start of orchestrated mass immigration. With greater numbers came greater opportunities for abuse. Perpetrators built organised networks that transported victims between towns and cities and passed girls between multiple adult men.
5) Authorities purposefully and willfully ignored the mass abuse.
From the report:
Police forces ignored repeated reports, criminalised victims instead of perpetrators, destroyed evidence, and allowed known rapists to walk free on bail. Social care services undermined protective parents, placed children in trafficking hubs inside children’s homes, closed cases despite clear indicators of exploitation, and retaliated against whistleblowers.
The NHS [the UK’s health service] recorded genital injuries, multiple sexually transmitted infections in children as young as 13, pregnancies caused by rape, and suicide attempts, yet discharged victims back to their abusers without safeguarding referrals or trauma care. Schools observed older men collecting girls at the gates, heard disclosures of rape on school premises, and responded by excluding victims rather than protecting them.
Taxi licensing authorities renewed permits for drivers who formed the logistical backbone of the networks and collapsed in the face of organised protests when basic safety measures were proposed.
The report specifically blames the Labour Party for these government failures.
Much more at the link, including “Whistleblowers were silenced and threatened with seizure of their assets and careers.”
A final example that should make your blood boil: “But the report describes one particular occasion in which a vulnerable young girl was returned by the authorities to a house where she was being sexually abused. According to the account, the police officer who brought her back reportedly told the men inside to ‘have fun with her.'” Plus this pick of the rapists Labour policy let into the country:
Nor is it limited to the UK. In France, they’re threatening to send a rape survivor to prisoner for daring to point out the rapes are being carried out by black and Muslim men:
The announcement of the European Parliament’s final vote on the Return Directive was met with a burst of jubilation in the chamber, where energetic cries of “Send them back” rang out, reflecting the MEPs’ enthusiasm at having succeeded in passing the first genuine measure to seriously restrict immigration at the European level. On the opposite side of the chamber, MEPs responded to these exclamations with vigorous—though minority—cries of “Shame on you.”
The choice of words is not insignificant; some even see it as a foreshadowing—still a fantasy at this stage—of remigration.
Through a number of key measures, the directive drastically changes the landscape for the management of illegal immigration. Previously, an obligation to leave the territory remained a national decision. From now on, thanks to the Return Regulation, these decisions may be converted into a ‘European Return Order’—an obligation to leave European territory.
The maximum detention period for irregular migrants is quadrupled, up to 24 months, with the possibility of a further six-month extension.
The Return Regulation lists a number of other measures that may be taken: body searches, property searches, the obligation to remain contactable during the procedure, the recording of biometric data, house arrest, and the obligation to report regularly… Finally, the Return Regulation establishes a framework for EU member states to sign agreements with third countries that agree to receive individuals subject to a return decision.
This outpouring of enthusiasm did not go down well with everyone. Fabienne Keller, a French Renaissance MEP, made a fool of herself in the European Parliament by denouncing the right-wing “celebratory evening” organised by a few MEPs on the terrace of one of the parliament’s buildings, following the vote on the Return Regulation for rejected illegal migrants—a measure which, Keller argued, “will send families with children to camps.” Her statement, in which she lambasted a “political drinking spree,” was met with boos and prompted a call to order from the chair on the grounds that no breach of conduct had taken place.
On the Left as well as in the centre, the prevailing mood was one of exaggeration and dramatisation. Abir Al-Sahlani, a left-wing MEP from the Renew group, said she had never felt “as unsafe in Parliament as she did after the vote.”
It is true that the MEPs’ symbolic reaction marks a real turning point in the mindset of the political class at the European level. For a long time, the EU has been a brake on the implementation of more selective migration policies. This remains the case on many issues, particularly asylum. But we are witnessing a major shift, one that is being openly acknowledged. From a political standpoint, as a result of this vote, the European Union can no longer be invoked as a convenient excuse for inaction that satisfies the imperatives of political correctness.
The man accused of coordinating a failed scheme to attack the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House over the weekend is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) under the Obama administration, Department of Homeland Security officials said Thursday.
FBI agents arrested Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez in Omaha, Neb., on Sunday for his alleged connection with a plan to attack the recent UFC event on the south lawn of the White House, which was attended by numerous government officials and others. Alvarez is believed to be the ringleader of the group that planned the attack, according to officials, while four other co-conspirators were also arrested over the weekend in Ohio, Missouri, and California.
The FBI alleges Alvarez was responsible for organizing the thwarted attack, which involved a multi-part plan to target buildings near the event with explosive-laden drones in an attempt to force a mass evacuation that would send crowds toward a pre-staged sniper team. The would-be attackers then allegedly planned to storm the White House gate.
Alvarez, who operated under the name “Shepherd” online, allegedly “used a Signal chat to direct staging locations, sniper and drone positions, escape routes and communications protocols,” according to court documents. He instructed the others involved in the plot — police say as many as 23 people were involved in the chat planning the attack — to obtain explosive-capable drones, specifically instructing them to get their hands on “as many and as deadly as we can get.”
Now DHS says Alvarez, who is facing federal charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds, entered the United States on a B2 visitor visa and failed to depart before it expired in December 2001. He was later granted DACA status by the Obama administration in 2014.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer for Alvarez.
“This illegal alien from Mexico should never have been allowed in our country. He was the ringleader of a failed terror attack targeting UFC Freedom 250 at the White House,” acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement. “He and his co-conspirators now face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds. He will face justice and swiftly be removed from our country.”
“Moscow Refinery Hit Again! With Oil Tank Toss (Lid Lifted on Fireball!)” But see the next item about that dramatic lid toss…
“Russia Destroyed Their OWN Oil Tank With Missile: Plus MORE Air Defence Failures in Moscow!” Russian air defense is like those scenes in Sleeper where a crew repeatedly sets up a gun, only to have it misfire every time…
U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents busted a stash house used for human smuggling in El Paso, Texas, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) exclusively told The Epoch Times on Monday.
The joint investigation, which resulted in the arrests of 11 illegal immigrant adults and one unaccompanied child found in the house on May 27, highlights the need for strict enforcement efforts at the border to dissuade individuals from entering the country unlawfully through human smugglers, CBP officials said.
“This operation, in partnership with U.S. Border Patrol, reflects our mission to safeguard the homeland and uphold the integrity of our immigration system,” HSI El Paso Special Agent in Charge Ryan McRae said. “We remain committed to ensuring the safety and security of El Paso and beyond.”
Of the 12 illegal aliens arrested, 10 were from Mexico and two from Guatemala.
The 11 adults were processed and charged with violations of Title 8 of the U.S. Code, CBP said, which encompasses immigration offenses including unlawful entry, unlawful reentry, alien harboring or smuggling, and more.
The unaccompanied minor was “administratively processed,” CBP told The Epoch Times.
The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that state agencies cannot invoke sovereign immunity to block former landowners from reclaiming property taken through eminent domain and later deemed unnecessary for public use.
Snip.
In 2013, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) sent an offer to Joyce Hutcherson, Rudolph Pusok, and Jimmie Pusok—the owners of 19502 Mueschke Road in Tomball—to purchase their property. TxDOT planned to construct a new road along the Grand Parkway (State Highway 99).
After receiving pushback from the landowners, the state filed an eminent domain lawsuit to acquire the property in 2014. The suit was dismissed when the owners ultimately agreed to sell at $1.05 per square foot.
Years later, TxDOT stated in an email that approximately 20,000 square feet of the subject property constituted “surplus land,” as the decision to reroute Mueschke Road made the land no longer necessary for public use. When the landowners—now represented by JRJ Pusok Holdings—sought to buy it back, TxDOT denied the request.
Pusok then sued both the State of Texas and Kyle Madsen—director of TxDOT’s Right of Way Division—in a Harris County civil court, claiming a right to repurchase under the Texas Property Code Chapter 21.
The code states: “A person from whom a real property interest is acquired by an entity through eminent domain for a public use … is entitled to repurchase the property as provided by this subchapter if … the property becomes unnecessary for the public use for which the property was acquired.”
The State argued that the property was purchased from a settlement—even though the process began with the threat of eminent domain—rather than a final judgment in an eminent domain proceeding. According to the State’s logic, “the repurchase statutes therefore do not apply.”
Pusok rejected this logic, asserting that “all that is required for a property to be acquired through eminent domain is a transfer of land in exchange for compensation.”
Another argument made by the State was that Pusok sought to recover only a portion of the property, while the repurchase statutes allegedly require any repurchase to cover the entire parcel.
Snip.
On Friday, Texas’ Supreme Court sided with Pusok, affirming that the State has “no immunity from Chapter 21 claims to repurchase condemned property no longer necessary for public use.”
“Repurchase claims derive from constitutional limits placed on the State’s eminent domain power,” the opinion continued. “Further, Chapter 21 permits the repurchase of a portion of condemned property no longer necessary for public use.”
The ruling is significant as it clarifies that State actors may not eminent domain a property then claim immunity to block repurchase attempts when the property goes unused and unneeded.
Correctly decided, especially since “sovereign immunity” was never intended as a “Get Out Of Any Statute Free” card.
An interesting case. “SCOTUS Sides With Texas Man Over Second Amendment Rights for Drug Users.”
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has unanimously sided with a Texas man in ruling that the government cannot restrict gun rights for casual drug users.
The case involves a dual citizen of Pakistan and the United States, Ali Hemani. In 2019, Hemani, the subject of an FBI investigation that found he was connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was stopped at the Texas border. He was not arrested at the time.
The FBI had additional information that not only was Hemani connected to a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, but that he was dealing drugs.
In 2020, Hemani attended the funeral of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani after Soleimani’s assassination by the U.S. that year. Hemani’s mother was reportedly seen on Iranian television stating that she hoped her sons would follow in the footsteps of Soleimani and become martyrs themselves.
Over the next couple of years, his passport showed trips to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, and a July 2022 border search of Hemani upon return from Iran “found Defendant deleted all messaging applications and wiped communication data from his cellphone.”
Eventually, the FBI obtained a warrant to search the home he shared with his parents, at which time a handgun, cocaine, and marijuana were all discovered.
Hemani is clearly a Jihadi scumbag, but that’s not the focus of the decision.
Hemani was indicted by a grand jury, not for foreign terrorism charges, but under the federal statute that it is unlawful for a person addicted to or using a controlled substance to possess a firearm “in or affecting commerce.”
Hemani moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the statute violated his Second Amendment rights and conflicted with Second Amendment precedent. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Hemani’s argument.
However, the government sought SCOTUS’ review of the lower court’s decision, and on Thursday, the high court announced its decision, delivered by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Gorsuch stated, “Ali Hemani uses marijuana a few times a week. That fact alone, the government says, means he is automatically banned from possessing a firearm under federal law.”
“This case poses the question whether the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani is consistent with the Second Amendment.”
Gorsuch stated that the government’s argument, which attempted to draw a parallel between “present regulations and historical laws addressing habitual drunkards,” did not hold against Second Amendment violation claims by Hemani.
Other justices also rebutted the government’s comparison of chronic alcoholism to casual marijuana use by Hemani. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “marijuana use today is like alcohol use at the founding. It is widespread and increasingly considered socially acceptable in many quarters.”
“And from a practical standpoint, law enforcement widely tolerates the use of marijuana.”
This is a case of “bad defendant, good decision.” If Second Amendment rights are “fundamental” and “deeply rooted” in American history, as per Heller and Bruen, then they can’t be tossed aside for misdemeanor offenses. Now I’m waiting for the Supremes to apply the originalist jurisprudence test of Bruen to interpretation of the commerce clause…
Public school closures are increasing across Texas as districts face historic enrollment declines and mounting financial pressure.
Despite Texas’ continued population growth, public schools lost 76,000 students in the past school year—the first nonpandemic decline in nearly four decades. Districts across the state are consolidating and shuttering campuses in response to the decline, setting the stage for major structural changes to Texas’ education infrastructure.
“There’s a lot of emotions and history tied to these schools,” said Monica Ryan, board president of Judson ISD, which voted to close four campuses amid a budget shortfall. Ryan is one of many district officials across the state citing enrollment declines and budget pressures as reasons for the closures.
The closures are widespread. Fort Worth ISD plans to close 18 campuses over the next four years, while Houston ISD will close 12 next year and Austin ISD 10. Arlington, McKinney, Aldine, and many other districts are pursuing similar plans.
In a May 2026 report, Texas 2036 pointed to parents increasingly choosing private or homeschooling options as a big reason for the decline. As families move away from traditional public schools, districts are shifting budgets and long-term planning.
“Parents are paying attention to the weekly barrage of failures across the education system,” Mandy Drogin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told Texas Scorecard. She pointed to schools’ failures to adequately serve students, especially those with special needs, to shield classrooms from political agendas, and to protect students from predators.
Lower birth rates have further accelerated enrollment losses. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told lawmakers, “a lot of this is a decline in birth rates that has happened that is working its way through the system as students age up.”
While elementary schools absorbed the majority of the losses, the empty desks are expected to ripple upward through higher grades.
School choice programs could also affect future trends.
Beginning next year, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program (TEFA) created through Senate Bill 2 will provide $1 billion in education savings accounts for eligible families seeking alternatives to public schools. Around 102,000 families have been approved, though it remains to be seen how many will use the funds.
Strangely, given that it’s Texas Scorecard, no mention is given to the deportation and self-deportation of illegal aliens that were previously overloading the system.
A national trade association for higher education administrators held a conference last week in downtown Austin that demonstrates the continued presence of diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology in higher education.
Texas Scorecard was present at the conference, which highlighted a series of less politically charged terms that expressed similar goals to DEI.
The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) describes itself as “the leading association for the advancement, health, and sustainability of the student affairs profession.”
The organization has a membership of over 15,000 professionals at 2,100 institutions across the globe.
While the conference was not exclusively dedicated to DEI, many panel discussions across the three-day event explicitly discussed DEI themes. Examples include:
Servingness and Beyond: An Equity Minded Leadership Playbook for Institutional Transformation.
First Gen Latinas Leading First-Gen Strategy.
Black First Gen Collective.
Operational Equity: Creating STEM Circles of Belonging.
Building a Neuro-Inclusive Campus.
Eternal vigilance…
TPPF: “Why Can’t We Get Rid of Drag Queen Story Hour?”
Americans have pushed back. Many, even on the left, believe that a big factor in President Donald Trump’s re-election is because he is for “us,” and his opponent, Kamala Harris, was for “they/them.”
Polling consistently shows that most Americans oppose allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and support maintaining sex-specific spaces, such as locker rooms and restrooms for women.
Pride celebrations in many cities can’t find sponsors anymore as corporations reconsider whether it’s worth alienating customers to add their brand to a “pride” event.
Americans delivered a resounding “no thanks” to Bud Light after it featured Dylan Mulvaney, a man pretending to be a woman, in its advertising. Customers also turned their back on Target after it marketed a line of cross-dressing clothing.
So why has there been so little progress in eliminating drag shows for children, most commonly manifested in what has become known as Drag Queen Story Hours?
Texas has spent several legislative sessions attempting ban drag shows that target kids. Senate Bill 12, which passed in 2023, prohibited sexually oriented performances in the presence of minors and on public property. Texas has gotten leave to enforce the law, but court challenges continue.
Some educational leaders, including Texas public school librarians, believe it is important that children see drag shows. They insist drag queen performances are part of the mainstream, so they belong in public schools.
Unspoken by TPPF: Because the leftwing groups pushing it want to destroy the nuclear family because it represents a separate power center apart from the all-powerful stateand they view it as a celebration of their power in the culture wars.
The TDCJ administration emphasized that impartiality is a non-negotiable requirement for state parole employees. A department spokeswoman released an official statement defining the agency’s position.
“These statements are incompatible with TDCJ policy and values. They demonstrate bias and a lack of the impartiality essential to the fair administration of justice in Texas. Discriminatory or inflammatory conduct that erodes public confidence in the criminal justice system will not be tolerated,” the spokeswoman added.
Obama the Deadbeat. “Obama Presidential Center subcontractors claim they’re owed millions and facing financial ruin ahead of grand opening.”
Several [contractors] also described what they viewed as a wall of silence surrounding the project, with some declining to speak publicly or requesting anonymity because of confidentiality agreements or fears of professional retaliation.
The allegations emerge days after a Fox News Digital investigation reported that the Obama Foundation’s reserve fund — originally promoted as a $470 million financial safeguard intended to help protect taxpayers if the project encountered financial trouble — remains funded at roughly $1 million.
Standing outside the center on a gloomy Friday afternoon, Owen flipped through spreadsheets and financial records that he said documented millions of dollars in losses tied to the project.
Owen said the project stretched on for years longer than anticipated, forcing his company to absorb millions of dollars in labor and overhead costs as work demands changed and expanded.
He said the losses have drained the company’s reserves, created uncertainty for employees and could ultimately force layoffs.
Debts are for the little people…
Nick Freitas doesn’t think China can take Taiwan. It was looking pretty difficult before Russia invaded Ukraine, and the recent leaps and bounds in development of military drones make it look all but impossible.
Missed this last week: After 144 years, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia cathedral, designed by Antonio Gaudi, was finally completed.
Joshua Baer, godfather of Austin’s startup scene, dies in plane crash. A dramatic video shows bystanders rushing to the plane with tools and implements of destruction to extract the other passengers.
Everyone else survived.
Rick Beato says he was right about AI. He also mentions Flock AI cameras mysteriously popping up everywhere. Maybe he and Louis Rossmann should compare notes…
The bright side of the Google-pocalypse: “What’s left of Vox Media has been sold (likely on the cheap) to Penske Media, and this is after Buzzfeed imploded and MSNBC got spun off from Comcast because it was such a failure.”
It used to be that Fifth Columnists funded by foreign interests operated from the shadows, holding clandestine meetings while trying to undermine the nation. Today, however, Islamist organizations linked to both communist China and global Jihad networks openly proclaim their hatred for the United States right here in Texas.
A Texas Islamist network working to radicalize Shia Muslim students at educational institutions across the state, including Texas public universities, is made up of agents and proxies for the murderous Iranian regime.
In March, the Iranian regime and its proxies across the world organized “Al-Quds Day,” a global annual event to celebrate Hezbollah and Iranian revolutionary ideals. Several Western governments expressed alarm, with British minister Sarah Sackman, a Labour Party politician, describing Al Quds as a dangerous expression of support for the “malign regime in Iran and the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] and its proxies.”
Al Quds Day events have taken place across Texas for many years, relying on a network of Shia student organizations and their backers.
In Dallas, Shia Islamist students and youth activists protested in support of the Iranian regime on the Grassy Knoll, coordinated by two North Texas Khomeinist organizations: DFW Shias for Justice and the Ahlul-Bayt Student Association (ABSA) at the University of Texas Dallas.
It’s a good thing communist-backed individuals never committed heinous crimes in that part of Dallas before…
In a direct response to U.S. conflict with Iran, the Ahlul-Bayt Student Association has published calls for the “ummah [Muslims across the globe] to unify against our common enemy … the United States.”
Are any of those participating naturalized American citizens? If so, declaring that the United States is “your enemy” should be cause for denaturalization. After all, didn’t they swear to “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen”?
DFW Shias for Justice has, in response to a slideshow of designated terrorists from Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), expressed hope that “the blood of the martyrs … will be avenged. The Zionist entity will be no more by next Eid.”
The North Texas Al Quds Day protests also received the backing of domestic far-Left activists tied to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the Texas branch of a Sunni Islamist organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which the governor of Texas has designated as a terrorist organization.
CAIR used to show up regularly back when I was doing a regular This Week In Jihad roundup.
In Houston, the Al Quds Day protest was spearheaded by RISE Against Oppression, a Houston-based “collective of Muslim grassroots activists” involved in pro-Hamas student encampment protests in 2024.
RISE calls on Muslims to “awaken,” “impose Islamic laws,” and warns that “Islam and the teachings of the Quran should prevail in all countries. … it should advance on all regions of the world.”
The Al Quds event was also promoted by the University of Houston’s Ahlul Bayt Student Organization, along with far-Left China-linked organizations such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Footage from the Houston rally revealed Iranian regime rhetoric and praise for Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who earlier this year ordered the murder of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters, and was responsible for the murder of many hundreds of Americans.
One speaker at the 2026 Houston Al-Quds Day, Muzzamil Zaidi, is a prominent regime advocate, who in in 2020 was the subject of a federal investigation in which the Department of Justice stated that Zaidi and his coconspirators “have considerable operational links to the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps],” a U.S-designated terrorist organization. In 2024, Zaidi and the other defendants pleaded guilty “for their roles in an illicit scheme to collect tens of thousands of dollars from the United States to Iran, including in the name of Ayatollah Ali Husseini Khamenei.”
Given the conflict with Iran, shouldn’t we be reviewing all jihad-friendly NGOs and suspending or dissolving those with ties to the IRGC?
RISE, the University of Houston Ahlul Bayt Student Organization, and Muslim Congress (a Khomeinist organization which assists with the organization of Al Quds Day events across the United States) all operate out of the Islamic Education Center of Houston, a leading radical Shia mosque in the city.
While the Islamic Education Center serves as an important base for Shia students in Houston, the mosque’s imam is reportedly “directly appointed by the office of [Iran’s] Supreme Leader.” And in 2022, the mosque filmed a performance by school-age children at the mosque, in which they pledged allegiance to Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, singing: “[Khamenei] is calling on his children, his soldiers… In spite of my age, I will be your army’s commander…May my father and mother be sacrificed for you, I will sacrifice everything for you…”
Shouldn’t pledging allegiance to a foreign leader count as cause for losing your religious tax-exempt status?
Several national Khomeinist organizations partner with student members of the Ahlul Bayt network. The Texas-registered Camp Arafah, for instance, organizes retreats for student activists across the country. In a possible violation of U.S. Treasury sanctions, Camp Arafah claims to collect khums [a Shia tithe] on behalf of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, an act for which it must have expressly secured an ijazah [license] from Khamenei’s office. Camp Arafah instructors include Iranian-trained operatives and clerics, such as Samira Rizvi, a University of Houston graduate who moved to the regime’s clerical base in Qom in 2012.
Other Shia student graduates in Texas have founded new mosques in the state, including the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association mosque in Austin. The Austin mosque’s imam, Jafar Muhibullah, studied at the Iranian regime’s flagship seminary in Qom, later receiving a doctorate from the University of Tehran. In a presentation for a regime-controlled media outlet in Iran, Muhibullah praises the “victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.” In sermons, Muhibullah refers to “our leader [Iranian Supreme Leader] Ayatollah Khamenei.”
That’s the mosque that’s less than a mile from my house.
All NGOs with communist and jihadist ties should be enjoying deep forensic audits to ensure they have no ties to international terrorist and jihadist organizations. And those that do should be sued and dissolved for breaking the law.
And while natural born American citizens have the First Amendment right to spout off stupid political opinions, it doesn’t mean that people here on visas or green cards have the same right.
Texas authorities arrested six Chinese nationals dressed in camouflage who were allegedly attempting to evade capture after crossing the border illegally into the United States, officials said, describing them as “special interest aliens.”
Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), said on May 27 that the Chinese nationals were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents on a private ranch in Maverick County near the Texas-Mexico border.
The six Chinese nationals were among a group of 12 illegal immigrants apprehended during the late-night operation, Olivarez said in a post on X. All six were dressed in camouflage clothing.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines a special interest alien as someone “who, based on an analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests.”
The apprehension was the second operation carried out in Maverick County on the night of May 26 involving illegal immigrants allegedly attempting to avoid detection.
Olivarez said that tracking K-9 Bona and her handler assisted Border Patrol agents in tracking and apprehending seven illegal immigrants on another private ranch in the county. The group included nationals from Mexico, Guatemala, India, Ecuador, and Cuba.
“These apprehensions highlight the ongoing efforts in deterring criminal activity along the southern border and the critical partnership between Texas DPS and our federal partners under Operation Lone Star,” Olivarez said in a statement. “Border security is national security.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a post on X that “Operation Lone Star continues nonstop to arrest illegal immigrants along our border.”
Operation Lone Star, launched in 2021, is a Texas-led border security initiative involving multiple law enforcement agencies aimed at curbing illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and other cross-border criminal activity.
Texas authorities have reported several similar incidents in recent months involving Chinese nationals apprehended after illegally crossing the southern border, with some also allegedly wearing camouflage clothing.
In February, Texas DPS said troopers stopped a vehicle in Maverick County and discovered four people smuggled inside, all dressed in camouflage. One of the passengers was identified as Beibei Liu, 34, a Chinese national classified as a special interest alien.
In another case earlier this month, a DPS Brush Team working alongside U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended six people during multiple encounters near Roma in Starr County. Olivarez later said one of the individuals was a Chinese national designated as a special interest alien.
Authorities said all six individuals arrested in the Starr County operation were wearing colored wristbands commonly used by transnational criminal organizations to indicate payment status and coordinate movement along cartel-controlled smuggling routes.
This seems like the sort of thing we should be paying closer attention to. How many military-age Chinese national men are already here, and how much of the anti-border control networks funded by Shanghai-based Neville Roy Singham are designed to to keep ICE from deporting them?
Occasionally when wasting time on YouTube searching for content to post here, I come across videos that make an obvious pairing. Today’s topic: Death Rays!
First up: Simon Whistler on the U.S. military’s Songbow Laser Cannon:
“Lasers are not just a sci-fi prop anymore. They are at the heart of a global race to develop the most powerful and precise directed energy weapons. China, Russia, Israel, and the UK are all in on the game. But with Songbow, the US Navy’s new laser cannon, America probably thinks it’s won.”
“Songbow will feature a 400 kilowatt laser. That is a major step up from its older sibling, the 60 kilowatt Helios. This extra energy will allow it to hit bigger, tougher targets faster and from further away. As modern warfare evolves, it’s the weapons surface vessels need to counter serious aerial threats like drone swarms and incoming missiles. And where traditional interceptors can cost millions, a shot from a song bow could be as cheap as a dollar.”
“There’s been mounting concern in recent years about the survivability of the US Navy’s vessels. Countries like China are now armed with large numbers of drones and anti-ship missiles. The modernizing of China’s navy has been steadily underway for decades with the result that it’s now a formidable foe.” Sort of. They have a lot of ships, but they still don’t have a deep water navy, and none of their current aircraft carriers are nuclear powered.
“There’s been debate over whether America’s surface vessels might need to stay beyond the range of these weapons in future conflicts. And of course, China is no longer the only threat.”
“Up until now, there have been two key limitations affecting the US Navy in this arena. First, there’s the finite depth of its magazines. In response to airborne threats, surface ships are limited to how many surface-to-air missiles they can carry. And secondly, there’s the wildly disproportionate cost to kill. An unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a drone, can be made very little, but it can cost literally a fortune to take it down.”
“Needless to say, these problems are not unique to the US Navy, and the solution to them isn’t either. It’s the same solution being explored by governments the world over: Lasers. Or to give them their full designation, high-powered directed energy weapons.”
“The US Navy has been investing in laser technology for a while now. Its interest goes right back to the days of Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative. Publicly launched in 1983, this was the plan to pioneer a space-based missile defense system which would include a network of lasers to protect America from nuclear attack. The press nicknamed it Star Wars.”
“It was the start of a long flirtation with the possibilities of laser weapons. In the late 1990s, the US and Israel came up with the tactical high energy laser for military use, also known as Nautilus. This used a chemical laser, one that takes its energy from a chemical reaction.” That didn’t work.
“A much better solution seemed to lie in electricity. A beam would instead be generated and amplified through thin glass fibers. As an alternative to chemicals, fiber lasers are smaller, safer, and better suited to mobile applications. They might not have the raw power of chemical lasers, but in theory, they’re much easier to deploy. Think less death ray, and more laser pointer kind of. The main challenge was generating enough power with a fiber laser. So, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, researchers began creating combined beams and array systems using the collective power of several smaller lasers.”
“And this is where the technological leaps are now being made. But whatever has gone before, Songbow has the potential to eclipse its predecessors. It’s been designed in direct response to increasing aerial threats like drones, projectiles, and hypersonic missiles. It follows on from the Navy’s Helios, a high energy laser weapon that’s now been deployed on the Arleigh Burke class destroyer. But where Helios can fire at around 60 kW, Songbow will pack a much stronger punch at around 400 KW. It does this by combining multiple 50 kW fiber laser modules to form one beam.”
“It’s hoped that the power density of a 400 kW class beam will be able to do this to bigger targets at longer ranges. Songbow’s key function will be as a drone and missile defense system, but its pulseed fiber lasers will also assist with remote sensing and target illumination.”
“It’s expected to be installed on naval surface vessels, but could also be deployed on land, making it really rather versatile.”
“The Pentagon is directing billions of dollars into directed energy weapons. The US Navy, Army, Air Force, and Missile Defense Agency are all channeling money into high energy lasers, microwave systems, and battlefield power systems. In April this year, the Department of Defense unveiled a $ 1.5 trillion budget proposal for the fiscal year 2027, described as the most expensive military outlay in modern history. Because as more and more US adversaries and potential adversaries invest in their own capabilities, maintaining dominance is now a spending priority. Jules Hurst III, President Trump’s Under Secretary for War and chief financial officer, has hailed it as a generational investment in the United States military.”
“The US Navy has invested almost $30 million into the [Songbow] project, with funding coming from the US Office of Naval Research. In June 2025, it announced that the contract had been awarded to Coherent Aerospace and Defense in Moretta, California. Not long after, the division was sold to the private investor Advent International. Now renamed Atalon, the company is focused on this growing industry, precision optics and laser systems for aerospace and defense.”
“Beyond all the marketing speak, there are some real advantages to Songbow compared to other solutions. Let’s look at what makes the list of pros. We’ve already talked about that 400 kW beam. Achieving this higher power would mean a drastically increased range and destructive capability. It could even have the ability to eliminate threats that other systems can’t. These might include hypersonic glide vehicles, which move too quickly for traditional interceptors, and hardened cruise missiles, which can’t be beaten by less powerful lasers. It’s estimated that at least 300 kW are needed to burn through the structure of a cruise missile in flight, making a Songbow laser comfortably capable. Now, this is yet to be proved. It’s all aspirational, but it’s what we’ve got to go on.”
“Next up, there’s its cost effectiveness. Wars are cripplingly expensive, as you probably know…The Navy spent an estimated $2 billion in munitions while countering Houthi missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aiden. Most galling of all of this is that the threats they’re countering can be really cheap. In the Russia Ukraine war, drones costing a few hundred dollars have successfully taken out multi-million dollar combat systems. Even the more expensive drone options require a huge spend to neutralize. An Iranian one-way attack drone like the Shahead can cost between $20,000 and $50,000. But the interceptor missiles needed to take it down will set the US back millions. And it’s here that the Songbow and other laser weapons could make all the difference. Directed energy is much much cheaper per shot compared to traditional interceptors. Songbow costs somewhere between $1 and $10 for every shot because it’s only ammo is electricity.”
“This energy source also lends it another advantage. As long as a ship’s power supply lasts, it can keep going. With an unlimited magazine depth, there’s no fear of missile stocks running low. Logistically, it’s a lot easier. In contrast, a Patriot missile battery, for instance, typically contains between six and eight launching stations, each capable of holding 16 PAC3 missiles or four PAC2s. At most, it’s got 128 missiles ready to fire, depending on its configuration.”
“And of course, at sea, space is at a premium. A surface vessel can only carry so many interceptors. Running low on ammunition is also known as ‘going Winchester.’ Ships equipped with the Aegis combat system, the US Navy’s long-standing shield of the fleet, typically carry up to 96 missiles. This might sound like a lot, but it’s a known limitation. When they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“And there’s another thing in Songbow’s favor, too. In the face of threats, laser weapons are fast. Where missiles or bullets take seconds to reach their targets, the Songbow is instantaneous. As soon as it’s fired, it’s arrived. And unlike conventional weapons, you can go again and again. No reloading, no waiting around. This is obviously very handy if you’ve got multiple incoming projectiles and want to move straight onto the next one.”
“Modern warfare is often dictated by quantity rather than quality. Launching a large swarm of drones, decoys, or projectiles is an effective way of completely overwhelming defenses. These are what strategists call saturation attacks. There are just too many targets to handle all at once. There’s not enough time to reload and refocus, and missile stocks simply run out. But in theory, as long as electrical power lasts, directed energy weapons could keep going.”
“We need to be very wary of overhyping this, though. A high energy laser still needs time to disable a target and move on. So, there’s still a limit to what could be achieved in a large enough saturation attack. But with more than one laser weapon, the advantage would be pretty sizable.”
“Directed energy weapons can also stay on target continuously. They can follow a threat and maintain their beam while it’s maneuvering.”
“It’s even rumored that Songbow will be able to defeat hypersonic missiles. These, you see, are a real fly in the ointment for defenders like the US. Hypersonic missiles are able to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5 and change course unpredictably, making them notoriously tricky to take down. Contrast this with an inbound ballistic missile. In this case, conventional air defense systems can track it and calculate its future flight path. It tends to be fairly predictable. They’ll then launch an interceptor to meet it where it’s likely to end up. Hypersonic missiles, though, don’t play by these rules. They’re faster and they change course mid-flight, making it much harder to calculate their flight path. In theory, Songbow’s winning combination of high power, speed of light engagement, and capacity for continuous firing could see it win the day.” Set aside for a moment that Russia and China’s “hypersonic” missiles are more hype than sonic.
“However cool and futuristic it sounds, Songbow still has its limitations and its critics.”
“One of the main obstacles to any laser weapon is nature herself. Atmospheric conditions like mist, fog, and rain can all absorb and scatter light, diffusing a laser’s beam. And the same goes for things like smoke, salt particles, and if it’s used on land, dust and sand. So, this is not an all-weather solution. And in time, seaborne enemy craft could even be fitted with devices that create smoke or other obscurants to protect themselves. This would be a very easy way to counter a laser. Extreme sea conditions will also pose a problem. Lasers follow a straight line of sight, which isn’t always possible on a constantly shifting terrain like water. Rough seas and swells can easily disrupt a beam, especially over longer distances.” With modern gyro-stabilization, I suspect this is largely a solved problem.
“Even a ship’s vibration can cause difficulties. High energy lasers rely on precision, but the general operation of a ship is pretty unstable. As well as waves and the motion of the ocean, you’ve got the vibrations from engines and onboard machinery. Maintaining a stable lock while taking all of these things into account is going to be really quite hard.”
“And in practical terms, the sky, or rather the horizon line, is the limit here. A laser is clever, but it can’t magically arc over the horizon. It’s a definite physical limitation compared to a combat system like Aegis.”
“Another downside to high-energy laser systems comes in the form of thermal blooming. This is basically when a continuously firing laser beam heats up the air around it, causing it to defocus and become less effective. It’s a bigger issue when the targets are coming head-on in a straight line, known as a down-throat shot. At times like this, the beam has to sustain itself in one direction for a long time. The more powerful a laser weapon, the more troublesome this is. So, it could be a real problem for the 400 kW Songbow.”
“Operationally, all that power is something of a double-edged sword. We talked about the advantages of a weapon that can run from a ship’s electrical supply. Said earlier, as long as a ship’s power supply lasts, it can keep going. High power lasers, you see, need a hefty electrical supply and advanced cooling capabilities. A large amount of the energy they generate is just lost as heat, which needs to be dissipated. If it isn’t, the weapon will ultimately become damaged and will stop working.”
“Managing the temperature of a directed energy weapon is crucial. This means a specialized cooling system, and this is asking a lot of shipboard power systems, especially when they’re already prioritizing output for things like radar and propulsion. As journalist Charles Mitchell has written, quote, ‘The challenge is to cause a warship to act as a stable power plant and a heatsink at the same time as it is operating high demand sensors, combat systems, hotel loads, and other auxiliaries.” End quote. He argues that the laser fight won’t so much be limited by a ship’s fuel tank, but by its electrical and thermal headroom. If a laser is continuously being shot, its effectiveness is going to come down to how quickly its ongoing heat buildup can be carried off. But according to one naval industry report, even the Navy believes the Arleigh Burke class fleet of destroyers has quote reached the limits of its growth capacity. This raises serious questions about how easily older ships like these would be able to take on the Songbow’s enormous electrical and cooling demands. And this seems to be a challenge the US Navy is well aware of.”
“Already next generation surface vessels are in the works with designs for expanded power generation that will accommodate directed energy weapons. In December 2025, Donald Trump announced the Navy’s plan to develop a new class of ‘largest we have ever built’ battleships. It’s hoped that the first, the USS Defiant, will be ready in the early 2030s. According to plans, the Defiant will be nuclear powered to provide the Navy’s fleet with quote a significant increase in combat power by longer endurance, higher speed, and advanced weapon systems required for modern wars.” This is also the reason the Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft carriers is powered by two nuclear reactors.
“Among these same plans, the Trump class battleship seems to include two 300 or 600 kW shipborne lasers and other laser systems for optical dazzling and sensor disruption.”
“Commentators have described directed energy weapons as central to the Trump class ship’s design, but this form of weaponry has always had its hurdles. Hurdles that have plagued the development of laser weapons since the 1980s. Even a Congressional Research Service report acknowledges the old saying, quoting again, “Lasers are X years in the future and always will be.”
“Only last year, one of the Navy’s top fleet commanders, Admiral Daryl Caudle, said the service should be embarrassed by its slow progress with the technology. Because although the theory behind their application carries weight, he believes the US still isn’t ready for prime time. Lasers might promise a lot, but they’re not yet a viable way to take out a missile. And at a symposium in 2024, Rear Admiral Fred Pyle told attendees the Navy had quote a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver.”
Skipping over the failure of the Army’s 300 kW Valkyrie laser system, which seemingly couldn’t hit milestones and was mothballed. “The Army decided the prototype would not be fielded to units. Instead, it’ll be used to inform the new joint laser weapon system. This laser initiative is a collaboration between the US Army and the US Navy. In theory, it’ll allow them to pull their research from past efforts to create a 150 kW system that could potentially be scaled up.”
“Similarly, in 2024, the US Air Force shut down its much vaunted SHIELD program, which had set out to introduce pod-mounted high energy lasers to fighter aircraft.”
“SHIELD had apparently been hit by many of these issues that we’ve already talked about. Technical difficulties, heat generation, harsh environments, all leading to claims that the technology still wasn’t developed enough for real world use. Of course, this doesn’t mean the whole concept of laser weaponry is being scrapped.”
“Despite the troublesome quirks of laser weapons, they’re in motion all over the world. The United States definitely isn’t the only global power taking part in this futuristic race.”
“You might remember our video about the UK’s Dragonfire laser. Like Songbow, Dragonfire has been designed to counter drones, missiles, and projectiles. And also like Songbow, it uses solid state fiber laser technology. The development of Dragonfire has been funded to the tune of million pounds.”
“In 2024, it successfully engaged an airborne target during an exercise. There at the Hebrides range in Scotland, the weapon took drones flying at 650 km/h down. Dragonfire is due to be fitted to a Royal Navy type 45 destroyer in 2027. Because of this, its exact range is still classified, but we do know that according to the official descriptions, the level of precision it offers is the equivalent of hitting a one pound coin that’s about the same size as a euro or a US quarter from a kilometer away. It’s capable of manifesting 50 kW of power.”
“And it’s a similar story with Israel’s Iron Beam, otherwise known as the laser dome, pioneered by the defense technology company Raphael. This is a 100 kilowatt high energy laser system. In Raphael’s glossy marketing, it claims that Iron Beam redefines modern warfare. And I mean, yeah, maybe it does. Reportedly, the Iron Beam is able to overcome the atmospheric challenges faced by other laser weapons. With lasers, the larger the beam, the more atmospheric interference you’re likely to face. The Iron Beam gets around this by shooting hundreds of small coinsized beams instead of one. These all converge on a target until it’s damaged or destroyed. It claims almost zero cost per interception, whatever that is. And significantly, it’s now up and running. In December 2025, the Iron Beam was officially deployed to the IDF after more than a decade in development. And in March 2026, social media footage seemed to show it in action intercepting a Hezbollah drone.”
“Israel may be the first, but it won’t be the last. Also hot on their heels are South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, India, and Japan. All are developing variations on the theme. And last year, China unveiled its own shipbourne weapon, the LY-1, a high energy laser weapon said to be an advanced testing.” China’s weapon systems seem to be long on hype and short on performance.
“Reading about high energy lasers, the term layered defense comes up a lot. At least for the time being, and probably for a long time to come, laser weaponry can’t be a one-stop shop solution. There’s simply too much to it and too many limitations to consider. And so, it will literally become just one weapon in a country’s arsenal. Systems like Songbow will sit alongside more proven interceptors so that if, for instance, sea conditions become rough, there’s still something a crew can do to deal with that pesky incoming drone.”
“Traditional projectiles might be fishily expensive, but they’re probably here to stay in some capacity.”
“As well as working alongside other defensive weapons, Songbow will also sit within the Navy’s laser family. If it’s successfully deployed, it’ll act as the big gun. But there are other smaller siblings there, too. Take ODIN, for example. It stands for Optical Dazzling Interdictor Navy. And at the time we’re writing this, there are seven ODIN systems on Navy ships. They’re there specifically to emit an infrared light that will scramble the optical sensors of a drone. Rather than shooting it down, they can effectively make it lose its way and crash.”
Helios, another laser defense system already deployed on the Arleigh Burke-class USS Prebel, successfully shot down Iranian drones this year.
“The global race to field directed energy systems is well and truly on, leading some to call this the age of laser weapons. It echoes past scrambles around stealth aircraft and precision missiles. Now, the question isn’t so much whether lasers will reach the maritime sphere, but how quickly countries can overcome the many hurdles to making this a success.”
Now the second death ray video. In my Black Friday/Prepper roundups, I’ve been including links for the IMALENT MS18, an insanely powerful flashlight that I don’t have a use case for, but which some people (say, ranchers or security guards for large complexes) might. Well, someone took its big brother, the IMALENT MS32, put a magnifier on it, and turned it into a death ray.
Now, as a death ray it’s inferior to a gun as a self-defense weapon, and about 1/100th as cost effective for lighting a fire than a cheap electric lighter. But it’s still pretty cool. Err, pretty hot, that is…
TX-35 Democratic candidate Maureen Galindo says she will convert ICE detention center in Karnes County into an internment camp for “American Zionists.”
“It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists,” she added.
If you’re an American and you support Israel, well, it’s the Texas concentration camp for you.
A much better use of resources than deporting illegal immigrants, for sure.
Here’s the San Antonio Current:
‘She’ll turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking,’ Galindo wrote in an Instagram post over the weekend, referring to herself in the third person. ‘It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists.’
Johnny Garcia is her primary opponent. The 35th used to be an Austin-San Antonio district, but redistricting changed to stretch from southeast San Antonio all the way down to just short of Goliad.
One $500,000 donation by the casino advocacy group funded by the Las Vegas Sands Corp. has made it the single largest donor in the runoff election for the Texas Railroad Commission, the department largely responsible for regulating the oil and gas industry.
Texas voters heading to the polls in the Republican Primary Runoff Election for the Texas Railroad Commission are getting a fresh look at how big-money players from the gambling world are trying to shape even the most obscure corners of state government.
Incumbent Commissioner Jim Wright just reported a $500,000 contribution from Texas Sands PAC, the latest in what has become a pattern of heavy spending by casino-backed groups and predatory gambling interests in Texas elections.1
Right off the bat, the donation looks out of place. The Railroad Commission’s core job is regulating oil and gas production, pipelines, and mining. It has nothing to do with gambling or casino bills and legalization. Yet a PAC funded directly by Las Vegas Sands, the Chinese-centered casino giant, has decided half a million dollars is a smart investment in Wright’s reelection.
I wonder how Chinese gambling interests think they can benefit from having their man on the Railroad Commission.
In the last week, Chip Roy finally started dropping flyers in his runoff against Mayes Middleton, something Middleton has been doing for months. So behold this tale of two flyers:
The problem for Roy is that Middleton has already been painting him as the the “non-MAGA” candidate for months. Any low-information voters that could be persuaded by a flyer have probably already been persuaded that Middleton is the MAGA candidate. Roy let himself be outMAGAed early in the race and I don’t see him catching up now.
I already voted early for:
Texas Senate race: Ken Paxton over John Cornyn
Texas Attorney General race: Mayes Middleton over Chip Roy
Texas Railroad Commission: Bo French over Jim Wright
Court of Criminal Appeals Place 3: Thomas Smith over Alison Fox
Democrats get called on their Medicaid fraud and steal firefighter pensions, the awful atrocities Hamas committed against Israeli civilians, more details of the plot against America, another Democrat spying for the Chinese, a look at Finland’s deep civil defense infrastructure, and Uncle Rick discovers that Ivy League grads working for the New York Times are ignorant dumbasses.
ice President J.D. Vance certainly has been busy as America’s “Fraud Czar.”
Medicaid fraud in California is rampant, and as my colleague Mary Chastain noted in March, Vance’s anti-fraud task force suspended 70 hospice and home health care businesses in Los Angeles.
The move came shortly after investigations by CBS News and Nick Shirley revealed a fraud scheme in California involving hospices.
Vance’s task has then suspended over 400 more.
Now the Vice President has announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration is withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California and is threatening to suspend federal funding to all states if they don’t aggressively prosecute fraud in their Medicaid programs.
“There are California taxpayers and American taxpayers who are being defrauded because California isn’t taking its program seriously, but also you have people who have been prescribed medications that they don’t even need. They’ve had drugs put into their bodies that they don’t need because fraudsters have actually encouraged false prescriptions and false administration of medications,” Vance said at the White House.
The move is similar to the one the administration took in February suspending Medicaid payments to Minnesota.
Vance said that the administration is also notifying all 50 states that it could freeze funding to their Medicaid Fraud Control Units “if they do not aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud.” The units, which exist in each state, investigate and prosecute Medicaid provider fraud. “We are going to turn off the money that goes to these anti-fraud units,” he said, if they fail to do their job.
This is a good start, but people need to go to prison.
Washington just became the first state in U.S. history to terminate a public employee pension plan.
The plan belongs to retired police officers and firefighters. LEOFF Plan 1 was 160% funded as of June 2024 per the state’s own actuarial valuation. It had not required a single contribution in 25 years. By 2029 it was projected to reach 200% funded with a $4.3 billion surplus.
The legislature terminated the plan, swept $3.9 billion, and is using $880 million of it to refill a rainy day fund it already drained to cover a deficit it created.
Days ago, retired first responders including former Congressman Dave Reichert sued the state to stop it. The bill passed the House 55-39 and was advanced out of Appropriations without a public hearing. Every yes vote was a Democrat. The governor signed it in April.
“Missouri Supreme Court Upholds New Congressional Map.” “The Missouri Supreme Court once again upheld the state’s new Congressional map, which would break-up the Kansas City Democratic seat and give Republicans a 7-1 advantage.”
They’ve got themselves into a position — which began with Barack Obama’s hollowing out of the party over a decade ago — in which they can’t afford to lose the next couple of elections, even as their position erodes.
Due to an “accidental error” in the 2020 census, blue states got more seats in the House — and more electoral votes — than they were entitled to. When that “error” is fixed, the situation will be worse for them. Then there’s the flood of refugees from blue states to red, further expanding their Congressional majorities. (But beware of the refugees who continue to vote blue. Where’s my “welcome wagon” proposal?)
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration is choking off the flood of taxpayer money that has kept leftist organizations and institutions afloat, buying votes with taxpayer dollars. And the federal workforce has shrunk 10% with more “draconian cuts” on the way.
It’s a bit like Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan” to choke off the Confederacy — which worked once it was actually employed. (And Trump is doing something similar with Iran, choking it off gradually rather than going for a swift coup de main, which is disappointing some people but which will work at a much-reduced cost in lives. But that’s another essay.)
This is why the Democrats, and the left, but I repeat myself, are unhappy. They feel it happening.
Click through to hear the lamentations of their women.
Right after the ceasefire expired: “FP-2 Drones Swarm Russian Positions: Multiple Hits on Multiple Targets–Ammo Dumps, Training Centre.”
Finland officially became NATO’s newest member on April 4, 2023, becoming the 31st member of the alliance, about one month after neighboring Sweden joined.
One of the so-called “justifications” for Vladimir Putin’s utterly unjustifiable full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was that he didn’t want NATO expanding to his borders. Not counting Kaliningrad, that stretch of Russian territory between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, at the start of 2022, Russia had 446 miles of shared border with NATO members Norway, Estonia, and Latvia.
Finland shares 883 miles of border with Russia, so now that Finland is in NATO, Russia has 1,279 miles of shared border with NATO members, almost three times as much as before the invasion. It is a beautiful thing to see military territorial aggression backfire so thoroughly.
Considering Finland’s long and tense history with Russia, some might have expected the country to end up in the NATO alliance sooner. Once a territory of Sweden, then of Russia, Finland declared its independence in 1917. In August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which relegated Finland to a Soviet sphere of influence. By November, Finland and the Soviets were fighting the three-month Winter War; this was when Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, nicknamed the “White Death,” believed to have killed more than 500 enemy soldiers during the conflict, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war, and considered one of the deadliest snipers in history. (I suspect he is the only Finn to be featured in a video of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, taking on the Red Baron.) Finland resisted bravely against overwhelming Russian forces, but at the war’s end it was forced to cede about 9 percent of its territory. In June 1941, Finland and the Soviet Union returned to conflict in the Continuation War, with Finland a cobelligerent of Nazi Germany.
Finland argued that it was fighting a parallel but separate “continuation war” against the Soviet Union and had no formal treaty of alliance with Germany. While the U.S. ended diplomatic relations for a period, it never declared war against Finland.
When World War II ended, Finland retained its independence, but Soviet troops remained at its doorstep. In 1948, the Finnish government announced the “Treaty of Friendship,” declaring that Finland was committed to staying out of international conflicts between the great powers and limiting Finnish defense cooperation with third parties. “Finlandization” became a term to describe a state of technical independence and sovereignty, but heavy influence by the Kremlin.
The Finns’ preferred public stance of neutrality remained after the Cold War ended, and if not for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland might have remained a “NATO partner,” but not a member. In January 2022, public opinion polling found 30 percent of Finns supported Finland applying for NATO membership. Forty-three percent of respondents opposed applying for membership, and 27 percent were unsure of their position. About one month later, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, and by April, 68 percent of Finns supported applying for NATO membership.
You may have noticed that the Russian “special military operation” that was supposed to last four days has now lasted more than four years, the Russian military couldn’t spare any tanks for the Victory Day parades in Red Square this year, and a new estimate calculates that about 352,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025. That is about six times the American in-theater deaths in the Vietnam War. Throw in the wounded and missing, and the Russian military has lost an estimated 1.4 million men.
The terrorists shot their eyes, their faces and their breasts, and even targeted their most intimate parts, to destroy their beauty and rob their loved ones of a final goodbye.
Women were stripped, bound, stabbed, shot and burned. They were executed both during and after rape amid an orgy of violence in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.
Heads were decapitated. Pelvic bones shattered. Even after death, sexual assault continued.
…
At Kibbutz Be’eri, nails, sharp objects, and pieces of metal and plastic were similarly embedded in a woman whose body was discovered naked and bound. On another victim, grenades were used.
…
Those taken hostage were assaulted in front of loved ones and young relatives forced to commit sex acts on each other, an intentional, premeditated strategy of kinocide to destroy family units even after release from captivity.
…
There was a recurring pattern of rape and gang rape; sexual torture; mutilation; targeted shooting to the face, head and genital area; forced nudity; binding and restraint; genital burning; objects inserted into intimate areas; post-mortem sexual humiliation; and execution during or after sexual assault.
Indeed, when Hamas led other terror groups into Israel they carried Arabic-to-Hebrew phrase lists commanding victims to ‘take off your pants’, ‘lie down’, and ‘spread your legs’.
This is the group the ideological core of the Democratic Party will do almost anything to back.
🧵🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: International actors are involved in the State Department led color revolution 🚨🚨
This is not speculation; it’s straight from a recorded call.
Ex-USAID employees describe how, before January 20, they moved internal groups off government systems and into encrypted Signal chats, then quickly linked with foreign partners and NGOs after the inauguration. This attempt at creating a color revolution isn’t new news; this part was already reported in NOTUS earlier this year.
But what’s not reported is the international aspect. One participant explicitly frames it as “a global anti-authoritarian movement,” connecting U.S. officials with “colleagues from around the world who have dealt with this directly.”
They reference coordination with Johns Hopkins, “international democracy and conflict mitigation spaces,” and efforts to mobilize across borders against what they perceive as domestic authoritarianism.
🧵🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: Inside The New Pluralists: how billionaires weaponized the Biden Administration, targeted Charlie Kirk, and are quietly financing America’s color revolution 🚨🚨
In 2017, a quiet meeting brought representatives of Soros, Koch, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations together for one purpose: to rethink how philanthropy influences politics.
Out of that meeting came the “New Pluralists,” a coalition that would go on to shape the Biden White House’s United We Stand summit, fund censorship-adjacent projects, and eventually intersect with investigations into Turning Point USA … and the color revolution that’s brewing in the United States now.
“Legal group exposes heavy use of Minnesota’s ‘vouching’ system to override voting ID rules. The records, which were obtained through a public records request, showed that Minnesota’s Election Day Registration process allows registered voters or certain residential facility employees to verify another voter’s residency in place of standard identification or proof-of-address documents.” “According to the data released by AFL, almost 18,900 Election Day registrations in 2024 involved the use of vouching. Of those, 13,441 were updates to existing voter registrations, while 5,457 involved new voter registrations.”
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
One of Britain’s ‘first gay dads’ and his husband have both been charged with rape, sexual assault and modern slavery trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 57, also the UK’s first openly gay football club owner, and his husband Scott Hutchison, 32, will appear at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court today …
Drewitt-Barlow and his ex-husband Tony made headlines in 1999 when they became one of the first gay couples in the UK to have children through a surrogate mother.
An Essex Police statement said today: ‘Detectives have secured charges against two men in connection with an investigation into human trafficking for sexual exploitation, rape and other sexual offences.
‘Officers from the Serious Crime Directorate at Essex Police carried co-ordinated searches at premises in Danbury, Maldon, and Braintree on Wednesday and arrested two men. Since then we have been liaising with the Crown Prosecution Service.
‘We can now confirm that 57 year-old Barrie Drewitt-Barlow and 32 year-old Scott Drewitt-Barlow, both of Danbury, have both been charged with multiple offences including rape, sexual assault, and modern slavery trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman has reiterated that he is done with the insanity gripping his party. In a series of raw appearances on Bill Maher’s show and a new Washington Post op-ed, Fetterman is torching the reflexive anti-Trump obsession, the normalization of radical left ideas once dismissed as smears, and the sloppy 24-hour news cycle that turns opinions into “news.”
Fetterman made clear he refuses to play along with the extremes. “My colleagues and people that are running, whether for the Senate where the House, they are literally running on f*ck Trump,” he said.
“I mean, that’s literally—they have campaign commercials with that. It’s absurd,” he noted, adding “And we are getting to that point and I refuse to engage in that extreme, those terms. And we have to find a better way forward.”
Fetterman repeated the sentiments in an op-ed in The Washington Post, titled “I Haven’t Changed. Here’s What Has,” writing “My party cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says.”
He stresses, “Working across the aisle is the only way forward” and calls “pointless pile-ons and attacks” unproductive. Fetterman highlights once-mainstream Democratic positions on border security, support for Israel, and avoiding government shutdowns that have now become “toxic” to the party’s fringe base.
He declares, “Someone who comes here illegally and commits a violent crime should be deported. Full stop.”
This week’s Democrat acting as a spy for the communist Chinese is the mayor of Arcadia.
A California mayor admitted to acting as an illegal foreign agent of China, resigning from her position in a shocking federal plea deal unsealed on Monday.
Democrat Eileen Wang agreed with prosecutors that she worked with the People’s Republic of China to boost propaganda with a fake news website on US soil between 2020 and 2022. She was elected to the city council in Arcadia — a city in the San Gabriel Valley within LA County — in November 2022.
Wang, 58, worked with her then-fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, on a website called “U.S. News Center,” which claimed to be a news source for Chinese Americans, according to court documents.
But in reality, the pair were carrying out Beijing’s orders through the site.
Wang and Sun “executed directives” from the Chinese government, posting propaganda designed to boost China, all while reporting back to their masters with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, according to the plea agreement.
“Harris County Treasurer Arrested for Second DWI in Office, After Burglary Charge Dismissed. Carla Wyatt was arrested in Galveston County last weekend.”
Harris County Treasurer Carla Wyatt has been arrested for a third time since taking office in 2023, while county commissioners consider abolishing the treasurer’s office altogether.
Galveston County law enforcement arrested Wyatt on Saturday for allegedly driving while intoxicated (DWI) and she was being held on a $3,000 bond with an addendum hold.
Wyatt was arrested for DWI in Harris County in December 2023 after testing indicated she had a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent, which is nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
Court records indicate Wyatt did not comply with the terms of her bond conditions on at least two occasions, including one in which she failed a blood alcohol blow test in March 2024. She reportedly completed a pretrial diversion program, however, and her DWI charge was dismissed in August of that year.
In December 2025, Wyatt was arrested again in Harris County and charged with breaking into a vehicle with intent to commit theft, but a grand jury declined to indict her and the charge was dropped last month.
Wyatt’s attorney Christopher Downey has argued that Wyatt struggles with medical issues, including alleged cerebrovascular disease, which affects the flow of blood to the brain.
So the excuse for her lawbreaking is literally “Her brain don’t work right.”
An Orange County Democrat’s struggling campaign is fighting back after ex-staffers accused the candidate of turning a discussion about her fake boobs into an all-hands meeting.
Janet Keo Conklin, a real estate agent and La Palma council member who is seeking to become Orange County’s next assessor, has denied allegations that she forced staff to feel her breasts while claiming she had no feeling in her nipples.
On Friday, LAist reported that Conklin — who is also accused of misusing campaign money on personal expenses — allegedly told two staffers that “she has no feeling in her nipples” and placed their hands on her chest to “give it a squeeze.”
I wonder if adding a “nipples” tag would help or hurt my page ranks…
A problem not just in Texas, but nationally: “Finals Week for Texas Schools, Universities Delayed by Hack of Education Service Canvas. Some students’ screens showed a message from the hacking group ShinyHunters.”
A cyberattack on Canvas, a system used by schools and universities throughout the nation, disrupted finals week for thousands of students in Texas, though it is now back online.
According to Baylor University, on Thursday, May 7, several universities reported that access to the Canvas system was blocked by a ransom notice. Canvas, which is owned by the company Instructure, is utilized by 41 percent of higher education institutions in the U.S. According to Instructure, Canvas has over 30 million active users.
Canvas is a cloud-based management system that houses grade books, submissions, teaching materials, and classroom communications.
The data breach was traced to “Free for Teacher” accounts within the Canvas system. The free parts of the site, which were particularly susceptible to a data breach, are now disabled according to Instructure. As of Saturday, Canvas is available for most users, but parts of the cloud system remain under maintenance.
Consider this yet another reason to implement rolling offsite backup for all mission critical data.
Tyler Brown, the man who allegedly opened fire on passing cars on a Boston highway on Monday, was previously convicted of the attempted murder of a police officer and released after serving just five years in prison.
Brown, 46, is accused of firing 50 to 60 rounds at random passersby on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, hitting dozens of cars. Two people were hit and remain in critical condition in a nearby hospital. Video of the incident taken by an eyewitness shows Brown running back and forth in the traffic lanes, firing at random.
A State Police trooper and Marine veteran caught in the traffic jam that resulted from the incident shot Brown, who is now in custody at a Boston-area ICU.
Troopers found witnesses hiding under their cars, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said during a press conference Monday.
Brown is from Boston and has been under the supervision of either the Massachusetts Probation Department or Department of Parole, Ryan said.
In May 2020, Brown opened fire on a pair of police officers who were responding to a 911 call, firing 13 rounds, one of which was fired at “close range.” The two cops returned fire, but no one was hit.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called the nuclear phaseout a “serious strategic mistake” that left Germany short of firm power that turned the Energiewende into the most expensive energy transition on the planet. This is an early marker for a developing worldwide retreat from policies that sidelined nuclear power and demonized coal, oil, and natural gas.
Germany stubbornly closed its last three functioning nuclear reactors in April 2023 right in the middle of a crippling energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine. As pragmatists predicted, German citizens now suffer under punishingly high electricity prices and remain heavily dependent on imported energy.
The green dream was sold as a route to “cheap” renewables, yet the reality for German households and factories has been record‑high electricity prices, complex subsidies for favored businesses and individuals who conform to the climate narrative, and a grid that struggles on windless days or under gray skies.
Japan made a remarkably similar error but is finally correcting course. After the Fukushima disaster, the government panicked and shut down all 54 of its nuclear reactors. Today, Japan is slowly restarting those idle units.
The pattern is plain to see. Countries abandon dependable power sources under political pressure, then spend years rebuilding what they had demonized and dismantled.
Jim Geraghty has a pretty cool look inside Finland’s civil defense infrastructure.
Perhaps no other city in the world has done more to prepare for being bombed than Helsinki. What started as a response to hard lessons from the bombing of Finland’s cities in World War II by the Soviets accelerated through the era of nuclear fears of the Cold War, and continues to this day and demonstrates a particularly Finnish approach to how you protect your citizens from aerial bombardment. Join me for a walk through one of the largest and most complex underground structures in the world.
Helsinki, Finland — In the downtown of this capital city, just off Hakaniemi Market Square, the entrance to Arena Center Hakaniemi could easily be mistaken for an elevator and stairway to an underground parking garage. In fact, the underground complex does include a parking garage — alongside a gym, several youth soccer courts, and a whole lot else.
But the stairs go deep — eight flights, and each landing of each flight is made of metal grates, creating the unnerving sense that you can see all the way down, beneath your shoes.
But there’s a purpose to this flooring, even if it’s no friend to any user unnerved by looking down from a great height. If some sort of terrible explosion occurred at the entrance to the stairs, some of the concussive force from the blast would pass through the flooring of the stairway landings, hopefully keeping the stairway intact.
Arena Center Hakaniemi is part of a vast network of underground civil defense shelters.
Snip.
After [World War II], the Finns decided that if bombs ever fell on their cities again, everyone in the country would have access to an underground shelter.
The result is more than 50,000 civil defense shelters across the country, with space for 4.8 million people, which is almost sufficient for the population of 5.5 million people. The shelters underneath Helsinki collectively have room for 940,000 people; the city has about 700,000 residents.
As Atlas Obscura puts it, “No Finnish government official would ever mention Russia as the reason for such defensive preparations, but they don’t have to.”)
While many of these bunkers were built during the Cold War, the construction of mandatory shelters in new buildings is still a standard requirement in Finland. Residences or workplaces, or any building above 1,200 square meters that is permanently occupied, must have a shelter, as must any industrial building more than 1,500 square meters. The construction cost is not subsidized and must be covered by the owner of the building.
Once you get to the bottom of Arena Center Hakaniemi, you are greeted by two large doors. Our guide, Civil Defense Planning Officer Jukka-Pekka Schroderus, explains that the first massive and thick steel door is to protect anyone inside the shelter from any explosive blast wave; the second is to protect those inside from chemicals, potential biological weapons or toxins, gases, or radiation.
Snip.
The underground shelters are built with ventilation, autonomous water supply, and air filtration systems. The shelters do not have stored food; Finns are expected to have a “go bag” with proof of identity (although it’s not required to enter the shelter), food, personal medication, and hygienic supplies for up to three days. Finnish civil defense authorities also recommend sleeping bags, flashlights and batteries, and iodine tablets. Alcohol is not permitted, which is probably wise but disappointing. In any circumstance where I would need to hastily evacuate to a vast underground shelter, I could probably use a drink.
It’s hard to imagine Finns not drinking.
Here’s what makes the Helsinki shelters particularly surreal: They’re used all the time for other non-emergency activities. As mentioned above, Arena Center Hakaniemi has gyms and indoor soccer fields, as well as a kids’ bounce house and a snack bar. Other underground shelters have pools. The Finnish authorities hope that they will have 72 hours to prepare the shelters for emergency protective use — draining the pools, removing extraneous equipment, etc.
Schroderus explained that it was important that civilians use the shelters for non-emergency purposes on a regular basis for several reasons. First, regular use exposes maintenance issues — leaks in the ceiling, lights that have burned out, etc. Second, in case of an emergency, Finns will already be familiar with the nearby underground complexes.
Off topic from civil defense, but of interest to those following anti-drone technology:
Later in the day, my group of American journalists visited the Finnish technology firm Sensofusion, which manufactures anti-drone weapons — jammers, as well as smaller, faster drones that deploy in small groups and intercept and down incoming drones. Sensofusion’s CEO and founder, Tuomas Rasila, told us his company wanted to develop the best anti-drone defense systems but had no interest in building weapons to kill human beings.
One of Sensofusion’s ideas in the works is a “Tactical Drone Factory,” which the company touts as a “fully self-contained drone manufacturing facility built inside a standard shipping container. Equipped with industrial 3D printers, an electronics assembly station, and a complete parts inventory, a single Drone Factory can produce approximately 50 interceptor drones per day. The factory can be operated by a small team and deployed anywhere in the world.”
Read the whole thing.
WTF? “School district kicks out Christian student ministry because founder opposes tax increase.”
Student ministries that provide “released-time” Bible instruction during public school hours and opponents of tax increases have separately clashed with school districts over their constitutional rights to equal treatment with secular groups and free speech, respectively.
The Rev. Gady Youmans endured a double whammy when Georgia’s Vidalia City Schools retaliated against his Sweet Onion Christian Learning Center for Youmans’ Facebook posts criticizing the school board’s proposal to raise property taxes in light of its top-heavy administrative structure, a new lawsuit alleges.
Superintendent Sandy Reid explicitly told Youmans that she and the board were ending Vidalia High School’s 11-year relationship with Sweet Onion because of his posts on the “tax issue,” but when Youmans protested, Reid also vaguely referred to parents who pulled their children from his program because of how it was taught, according to the suit.
History Matters has a video up covering why Germany didn’t stop in 1939 after having annexed so much land.
Hasan Piker attacks Shoe0nHead for daring to criticize Hasan Piker. He does not come out well in the exchange.
Artificial intelligence platforms may be just as susceptible to social engineering as human beings, but they are proving remarkably good at finding security vulnerabilities in human-made computer code. That reality is on full display this month with some of the more widely-used software makers — including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Oracle — fixing near record volumes of security bugs, and/or quickening the tempo of their patch releases.
As it does on the second Tuesday of every month, Microsoft today released software updates to address at least 118 security vulnerabilities in its various Windows operating systems and other products. Remarkably, this is the first Patch Tuesday in nearly two years that Microsoft is not shipping any fixes to deal with emergency zero-day flaws that are already being exploited. Nor have any of the flaws fixed today been previously disclosed (potentially giving attackers a heads up in how to exploit the weakness).
Sixteen of the vulnerabilities earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” label, meaning malware or miscreants could abuse these bugs to seize remote control over a vulnerable Windows device with little or no help from the user.
Snip.
May’s Patch Tuesday is a welcome respite from April, which saw Microsoft fix a near-record 167 security flaws. Microsoft was among a few dozen tech giants given access to a “Project Glasswing,” a much-hyped AI capability developed by Anthropic that appears quite effective at unearthing security vulnerabilities in code.
Apple, another early participant in Project Glasswing, typically fixes an average of 20 vulnerabilities each time it ships a security update for iOS devices, said Chris Goettl, vice president of product management at Ivanti. On May 11, Apple shipped updates to address at least 52 vulnerabilities and backported the changes all the way to iPhone 6s and iOS 15.
Last month, Mozilla released Firefox 150, which resolved a whopping 271 vulnerabilities that were reportedly discovered during the Glasswing evaluation.
“Since Firefox 150.0.0 released, they have been on a more aggressive weekly cadence for security updates including the release of Firefox 150.0.3 on May Patch Tuesday resolving between three to five CVEs in each release,” Goettl said.
Rick Beato delves deeper into the New York Times ridiculous Top 30 Living Songwriters list and discovers ignorant, pretentious, social justice-infected Ivy League grads who have no idea what they’re talking about. “Here’s four Ivy League educated people. You’ve got two from Yale, one from Princeton, and Mr. Harvard there, that are the most pretentious, cork sniffing, smug people that are all music critics with no background in music. Exactly what you would expect from a New York Times music critic.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed suit against a North Texas businessman and his company, alleging they operated fake childcare businesses in order to fraudulently sponsor foreign workers through the H-1B visa program.
The lawsuit, filed in Collin County, names Yuan Yao and Golden Qi Holdings, LLC as defendants. The state alleges Yao, identified in the petition as “a citizen of the People’s Republic of China,” operated websites advertising childcare services that “do not exist.”
Why the hell are foreign nationals even eligible for such subsidies? Shouldn’t they be limited to American citizens?
Convict him, seize all his money and property and deport him.
According to the lawsuit, examples of the alleged sham businesses include Allen Infant Care Center and DFW ABA Center, both tied to an address at 600 S. Jupiter Road in Allen.
The state alleges the businesses falsely claimed to provide legitimate childcare services “in part to fraudulently sponsor H-1B visas for employees.”
There needs to be a crackdown at the national level on par with what Paxton is doing in Texas.
The filing heavily references recent reporting by Blaze TV and Texas Scorecard personality Sara Gonzales, who visited the Allen address and “did not find any child-care at all.” Instead, according to the petition, she found “an empty building and a playground overgrown with vegetation.”
The lawsuit also cites Gonzales’ interview with an individual familiar with the property who allegedly claimed Yao “sells visas” and sponsors workers who are then paid “next to nothing.”
According to the petition, the defendants filed visa petitions and labor condition applications for positions including software developers, business intelligence analysts, financial analysts, web developers, and market research analysts.
The state alleges those filings were tied to childcare facilities “which were not in operation.”
Texas also alleges neither Allen Infant Care Center nor DFW ABA Center is licensed to operate as a childcare facility.
How do you even obtain government subsidies to run a child care if you’re not licensed to run a child care? Is that not a step in the process? Does no one check?
It’s like the entire system was designed from the ground up to enable fraud.
The attorney general’s office is seeking temporary and permanent injunctions blocking the defendants from advertising or operating childcare facilities in Texas without licenses, along with civil penalties under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and Human Resources Code.
“Let this be a warning to anyone considering trying to scam the H-1B visa program,” Paxton said. “I will continue fighting to ensure that the H-1B program serves the interests of Americans, not Chinese nationals, and that those who abuse the program are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Yao had enough red flags that it shouldn’t have taken an investigative reporter interviewing him to put him on the government’s radar. Is it too much to ask that various federal agencies to least start with combing their database for non-citizens collecting big subsidy checks?
*Feel free to sprinkle the word “allegedly” into that headline if you’re so inclined…
Here’s a story that has a little bit of everything: Welfare state fraud, visa abuse, and ties to communist China.
A North Texas daycare operator is facing scrutiny after a video surfaced showing a journalist confronting the business owner over dozens of H-1B visa filings tied to his companies, including for positions that appear unrelated to child care operations.
In the video, BlazeTV and Texas Scorecard personality Sara Gonzales visits Allen Infant Care Center, formerly known as Golden Acorn Academy, which she says is connected to Golden Qi Holdings LLC and DFW ABA Center, an autism behavioral therapy provider. According to Gonzales, the entities have collectively sponsored at least 37 H-1B visa workers and filed more than 50 labor condition applications with the federal government.
Those filings include positions such as market research analysts and supply chain analysts—jobs atypical of a daycare.
When confronted, the owner Yuan Yao declined to answer detailed questions and struggled to respond in English. When approached on camera, he told Gonzales, “I only can tell you, everything is legal,” while repeatedly directing her to contact his attorney.
Gonzales also pressed for access to required H-1B records which the Department of Labor requires to be made available to the public. Yao did not provide the documents during the interaction and again referred her to legal counsel.
The video further includes allegations from an individual whistleblower identified as familiar with the business, who claimed, “He sells visas,” alleging that foreign nationals paid as much as $20,000 for sponsorship.
The individual also alleged that workers were underpaid after arriving, saying the owner “gets them to work for him for next to nothing.”
Gonzales also raised questions about whether the facilities tied to the businesses were actively operating, noting during her visit that “this day care just closed” and appeared to be undergoing changes.
According to Gonzales, the businesses have also received government funds in the past, including Paycheck Protection Program loans totaling more than $100,000 that were later forgiven.
So far, so scummy, just another case of welfare state fraud being perpetrated by foreigners like the numerous Minnesota Somali day care cases. But take a look at the video:
In it the whistleblower says “He’s getting his money from somewhere and I think he’s getting it from his dad. His dad’s high up in the [communist Chinese] government.”
But what really attracts my attention is his car. “Isn’t it interesting that he’s got this amazing nice car? It’s so crazy. How is he earning his money when he has a crap hole like this and a crap hole like that?”
With scissor doors and a rear-engine profile, you might be forgiven for thinking this reflective rose-painted (wrapped?) monstrosity is a million-dollar hypercar like a Lamborghini. What it actually appears to be is a BMW i8 Roadster. With a starting price around $135,000 and hybrid powertrain putting out some 369 horsepower, the BMW i8 Roadster was a pricey sports car, but still falls well short of hypercar territory. (A Lamborghini Aventador, sold at the same time as the i8, came in at 690-740 horsepower, and sold for over half a million dollars.)
You know, if I were a communist-connected foreign national committing welfare and H1-B visa fraud, I would think you would want to keep a low-profile and drive something like a Honda Accord, a Toyota Camry or a Ford F-150. What you don’t want to do is drive a reflective rose-colored European sports car that yells “Look at me.”
I suspect that state and national law enforcement are now going to look very closely indeed at Mr. Yao…
Trump’s Iran blockade twists Iran’s arm into opening the Strait of Hormuz, Ukraine blows up a bunch more Russian oil and gas infrastructure, leftists try to remove more rights from their political opponents, and this weekend in Austin you can get a dog for $5!
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
I got my taxes done and mailed off. (I owed nothing because I made so little money last year.)
Trump wins again. “Iran, U.S. Announce Strait of Hormuz ‘Completely Open’ for Commercial Ships.”
The Strait of Hormuz is “completely open” for all commercial ships, the U.S. and Iran said Friday, after the agreement of a cease-fire in Lebanon.
“IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!” President Trump said in a post on Truth Social, appearing to refer to the Strait of Hormuz.
The president also said that Iran would begin working to remove all of the sea mines from the strait, with the help of the U.S.
He said in a second post that the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports “WILL REMAIN IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT” until peace negotiations with Iranian leaders are “100% COMPLETE.”
The blockade was first put into effect on Monday, with U.S. forces looking to stop Iranian and Iran-linked ships. The blockade came after negotiations in Pakistan to end the Iran war collapsed.
The president said at the time that the blockade would be enforced in an effort to stop Iran from policing the strait to its economic benefit while other countries suffer.
Iran had imposed a toll on vessels passing through the strait and has limited oil exports. It had allowed only a handful of countries, including China and India, to pass through the strait.
“Iran promised to open the Strait of Hormuz, and they knowingly failed to do so…as they promised, they better begin the process of getting this INTERNATIONAL WATERWAY OPEN AND FAST!” Trump said earlier this week.
Days before Saturday’s failed negotiations in Pakistan, Trump announced a two-week cease-fire, contingent upon Iran agreeing to the “complete, immediate, and safe opening” of the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday announced that Israel has agreed to a ten-day cease-fire in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had an “opportunity to forge a historic peace agreement with Lebanon” but said Israeli forces would remain inside Lebanese territory in a “reinforced security buffer zone.”
How is an open Strait but the U.S. keeps the blockade anything but a complete win for Trump?
All ships can sail through the Strait of Hormuz but this needs to be coordinated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a senior Iranian official told Reuters, adding that unfreezing Iranian funds was part of the deal.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi wrote on X that the strait was open after a ceasefire accord was agreed in Lebanon, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed a deal to end the Iran war would come “soon”, although the timing remains unclear.
Hundreds of ships and 20,000 seafarers have remained stranded inside the Gulf waiting to pass through the key waterway, which handles about 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
It’s still unclear who is actually calling the shots in Tehran these days.
It looks like Iran’s rulers have finally blinked — but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to weasel out of every promise they’re now making.
Tehran announced Friday that it’s opening the Strait of Hormuz, and supposedly even cooperating with US forces to sweep out all mines.
President Donald Trump says the regime has even agreed to end its quest for nuclear weapons and hand over its “nuclear dust” — nearly 1,000 pounds of highly-refined uranium now buried below various bunkers destroyed by American bombing last year.
But Trump knows Tehran has a long history of breaking its word — and it’s not even certain that the figures we’re negotiating with are the ultimate decision-makers.
Nor if Iran’s current leaders will be in charge next month: Regime factions will be a while realigning after US and Israel attacks slaughtered most of the top ranks — no one there or here knows how it’ll play out.
Snip.
Remember: Even the Islamic Republic’s so-called moderates are still Islamic fundamentalists who despise America and the West and believe that lying to non-Muslim leaders is entirely moral.
Meanwhile, a lasting peace deal that ensures Iran can’t go nuclear requires a reliable process for monitoring compliance, including “inspect anywhere, anytime” rules.
Also a must-monitor: Bans on acquisition of new missiles and missile tech, lest Tehran again threaten the entire region.
Plus financial controls to prevent the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force from again fostering and commanding terrorists far outside Iran.
If the regime doesn’t agree to these terms, and institutionalize enforcement, its oil exports must remain blocked as the bombing resumes.
For the past five weeks, opponents of the Trump administration have repeatedly called this “a war of choice,” a conflict the president launched without cause or coherent purpose. “[W]hen we ask, What is the administration doing? they can’t answer that question because they don’t know why they’re there in the first place,” Jake Sullivan told progressive talk-show host Jon Stewart. “They haven’t been able to give us an answer as to what this is all about.”
The administration has, in fact, made a clear and compelling case. It reduces to two interlocking imperatives. The first is Trump’s long-standing red line. As the president has stated repeatedly for years, “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple.” The second is the enabling condition that made this red line urgent: overmatch. Iran’s drones and ballistic missiles can overwhelm the air and missile defenses of Israel, the United States, and their Gulf allies.
In the June 2025 “12-Day War,” Iran absorbed heavy losses to its ballistic arsenal, which fell to roughly 1,500 missiles, and to key production sites. President Trump hoped that those losses would moderate Iranian behavior and bring Tehran to the negotiating table. That hope proved unfounded.
The IRGC moved immediately to rebuild. Work resumed at production plants, and stockpiles in hardened underground missile cities grew. IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Majid Mousavi stated in January 2026 that the arsenal had grown since the June war and that output across multiple sectors had already exceeded prewar levels. Israeli intelligence assessed that Iran was on track for a stockpile of roughly 8,000 ballistic missiles by 2027.
At the outset of the war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described overmatch as the factor that drove America to act. “The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets,” he said at a March 2 press conference. He then quantified the threat. “They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month.”
The arithmetic spoke for itself and posed two interlocking threats. The first was conventional. Iran would soon have enough missiles and drones to overwhelm the defenses of Israel and every American base in the region. The second was nuclear. The huge conventional arsenal would serve as a shield behind which Iran could pursue a nuclear weapon without fear of retaliation—directly violating the president’s red line. If Iran were left unchecked, Rubio explained, it would soon “have so many conventional missiles, so many drones, and can inflict so much damage, that no one can do anything about their nuclear program.” Once Iran crossed that threshold, which Rubio called the “point of immunity,” the window for action would close permanently.
America therefore had three choices: to do nothing, in which case Iran would soon enter a zone of immunity guaranteed by overmatch; to let Israel attack alone, in which case Iran would attack American forces and cause significant casualties; or to work together with Israel to eliminate an intolerable threat to both countries.
Myth 2: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action had moderated Iran and stabilized the Middle East before Trump broke it.
While arguing about the war, former Obama and Biden staffers are attempting to justify Obama’s nuclear deal and the strategy that produced it. The JCPOA, Sullivan tells Stewart, worked. Iran was “complying with the deal. Even the Israeli intelligence were saying they were complying with the agreement.” Trump’s 2018 unilateral withdrawal, Sullivan suggests, discarded this successful state of affairs.
This story fails to comport with reality in three crucial ways. First, the timeline doesn’t work. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018. Tehran did not begin enriching its uranium to 60%, a major threshold that dramatically shortens the path to a nuclear weapon, until April 2021. In other words, Tehran made this crucial leap toward weaponization on Biden’s watch, not Trump’s.
And how did Biden respond? With conciliation. The administration stopped enforcing sanctions, especially against Chinese buyers. Iranian oil exports surged, and with them regime revenues. As Iran’s breakout time shrank to a matter of weeks, Biden and his team painted the increasing threat it had created as Trump’s fault. Every Iranian nuclear advance became, in their telling, not only a consequence of the 2018 withdrawal but also a justification for further conciliation. Then National Security Adviser Sullivan said so explicitly in April 2022, when Iran was racing forward under Biden’s presidency, that its progress “is a direct impact of [Trump’s] pulling out of the nuclear deal, making us less safe, giving us less visibility. And it’s one of the reasons we pursued a diplomatic path, again, when the president took office.”
Biden restored the core logic of the JCPOA unilaterally. Sanctions relief flowed while nuclear constraints collapsed. Tehran blew past the restrictions on the size of its uranium stockpiles and levels of enrichment while Washington relaxed pressure and pursued diplomacy on Iran’s terms. What Sullivan presents as the collapse of the deal was its continuation on asymmetric terms, slavish compliance in Washington without reciprocity in Tehran.
As sanctions enforcement weakened and oil revenue from China flowed, the regime did not moderate. Iran accelerated its missile and drone programs, deepened its support for proxies, and hardened the capabilities that now define the battlefield. Sanctions relief generated revenue. Revenue funded missiles, drones, and proxies. Those capabilities produced the overmatch that eroded deterrence.
The JCPOA and Biden’s de facto implementation of it financed and enabled the capabilities that drove the region toward large-scale conflict. Under Biden, Iran reached 60% enrichment and expanded its missile and drone programs. The Oct. 7 massacre in Israel was a direct result of Iran’s increasingly advantageous strategic posture.
The United States faced the same strategic choice at the end of the JCPOA process as it did at the beginning, but under worse conditions and against a stronger adversary. The policy, that is to say, ensured that the confrontation would come after Iran had advanced closer to immunity.
If ever we had a president who believes that “bigger is better,” it’s Donald Trump, and his administration just embiggened the blockade against Iran to include sanctioned ships from anywhere.
“In addition to enforcing the blockade, all Iranian vessels, vessels with active OFAC sanctions, and vessels suspected of carrying contraband, are subject to belligerent right to visit and search,” U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) announced on Thursday. But here’s where it gets really interesting: “These vessels, regardless of location, are subject to visit, board, search, and seizure.”
Emphasis added because that’s serious.
Regardless of location? If I’m reading that right, the “Persian Gulf blockade” just went global.
Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Dan Caine confirmed the expanded scope this morning during a presser with War Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Under the command of Adm. Paparo, we’ll actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran,” Caine said. “This includes dark fleet vessels carrying Iranian oil. As most of you know, dark fleet vessels are those illicit or illegal ships evading international regulations, sanctions, or insurance requirements.”
Baltimore can’t decide who gets to ladle out the fraud. “Baltimore Reparations Fund Plagued by Infighting and Struggles for Control. ‘The City Hall says the mayor has final say, while commissioners maintain the body was created to independently manage the funds.'”
When the state of Maryland legalized marijuana for personal use a few years ago, it designated a percentage of sales to be put in a special fund, which would be used in part to pay reparations for slavery and to fund various social programs.
The fund now contains upwards of $35 million, but almost none of the money has been paid out because of an ongoing power struggle to control it between pretty much everyone involved in the program. Who could have predicted such a thing?
FOX News reports:
$35 million in reparations money remains unused as Baltimore officials battle over who gets control: report
Millions in reparations money remain unused as Baltimore officials battle over who gets control, according to a local report.
The Baltimore Beat reported that the $35 million in revenue from the recreational cannabis tax has not reached residents yet due to infighting between City Hall and the Community Reinvestment and Reparations Commission, a 17-member body established in November 2024 to oversee how the funds are distributed.
Since Maryland legalized recreational cannabis three years ago, “not a single dollar has reached the people it was meant to help, and the first round of funding may still be a year away,” the report said.
Why, it’s almost like that was the design…
“Huge Drone Strike on Tuapse Port! Oil Storage Hit,” an oil export terminal on the Black Sea Ukraine has hit before.
“German bill would ban home purchases for people with the wrong political views.” Germans banning rights for being an enemy of the ruling party? I think I’ve seen this movie before…
A Carrollton candidate who confessed to committing voter fraud in a past election is back on the mayoral ballot this May. While the situation is unusual, it’s not unlawful.
In 2024, Zul Mohamed pleaded guilty to more than 100 felony counts of voter fraud in his failed 2020 campaign for Carrollton mayor. A jury sentenced him to four years in state prison while agreeing with his attorney that Mohamed is mentally ill.
But Mohamed is appealing parts of his conviction and sentencing, arguing that the sting operation used to trace a mail-ballot fraud scheme back to him was constitutionally suspect, as is the court’s condition of probation that bars Mohamed from engaging in election-related activities.
Under Texas election law, a person is ineligible to be a candidate if they have been “finally convicted of a felony” or determined by a court to be “mentally incapacitated.”
(Previously.) Seems like the average 7-11 has more stringent vetting than Carrollton…
Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced an investigation into Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies at the University of North Texas.
“The DEI ideology has been a calamitous way that radical leftists have pushed a woke agenda in our educational institutions,” Paxton stated.
As part of the investigation, Paxton sent a letter to Nicole Dash, Dean of the College of Public Affairs and Human Sciences, asking UNT to detail their compliance with state law. While Dash’s academic writing primarily focuses on disaster recovery, she has also written about racial issues.
Paxton is also seeking information about “DEI policies and guidance from the University, details regarding DEI in accreditation standards, and all correspondence between UNT leadership and staff regarding DEI.”
Paxton’s investigation stems from an undercover video that was released earlier this week by Accuracy in Media.
In the video, Paige Falco, a field education coordinator in social work at UNT’s College of Public Affairs and Health Sciences, told an investigator with a hidden camera that DEI is “definitely still a focus” at the institution.
Falco told the investigator that she removed DEI keyphrases from course titles and descriptions, while continuing to teach the concepts.
Later in the video, Falco discussed how “antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion” is a competency for the Council on Social Work Education, which accredits the school. The Steve Hicks School of Social Work at UT-Austin also requires so-called “antiracism” training as part of its accreditation with this organization.
Senate Bill 17, a law state lawmakers passed in 2023, prohibits DEI in university human resource policies. SB 17 contains explicit exemptions for accreditation and course content.
The Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG), alongside the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announced a settlement with three prominent advertising companies over alleged violations of antitrust laws.
The settlement comes after a multi-state complaint was filed to “combat unlawful media censorship.” The three companies involved are Dentsu US, Inc.; GroupM Worldwide LLC, now known as WPP Media; and Publicis, Inc.
The multi-state complaint also saw participation from Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia. The complaint alleges the companies violated the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, and calls the companies’ conduct “anticompetitive.”
The complaint alleges that the ad agencies, working through the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media and the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Advertiser Protection Bureau, blocked certain websites from being eligible for advertising revenue because they were labeled “misinformation.” The companies allegedly created “brand-safety” rules that made these “misinformation” websites ineligible for business.
The OAG’s announcement stated that the increase in online media coverage has led to large corporations “conspiring ways to suppress certain viewpoints,” favoring particular perspectives and “suppressing disfavored opinions as ‘misinformation.’”
The FTC stated that the defendants’ unlawful collusion “to impose common ‘brand safety’” standards across the industry weakened competitive behavior.
According to the FTC, upon approval by a federal judge, the order will prevent “the biggest U.S. advertising agencies” from restricting advertising based on ideological or political differences.
Although the settlement is subject to court approval, the advertising companies have agreed to several arrangements. The companies reportedly agreed to not enforce limitations on advertising spending based on ideological positions or diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments. They also agreed to not restrict business with any company based on “its news and political or social commentary content.”
Reading between the lines, this was part of the Democrat Media Complex’s attempt to keep anyone from advertising with any conservative media.
Ma Xingrui, a former high-flying technocrat and Xinjiang party secretary, is officially under investigation for corruption charges. That makes him the third member of the current Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo to fall amid President Xi Jinping’s latest purge, as well as the first civilian member.
There are two likely reasons for Ma’s targeting. The first is that Ma was exceptionally capable. He handled politically sensitive assignments in Xinjiang and earlier in Guangdong and the city of Shenzhen with skill and ruthlessness. As I noted in last week’s China Brief, Xi tends to find that kind of talent and ambition threatening.
Second, it’s possible that Ma’s background leading China’s space agencies connected him to the corruption being probed within the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. However, Ma left the aerospace sector in 2013, before the Second Artillery Corps was reorganized into the Rocket Force and received the surge of funding and authority that enabled such corruption.
Ma’s time in Xinjiang certainly offered opportunities for large-scale graft, from the expropriation of Uyghur property and businesses to the notoriously corrupt paramilitary organization that runs much of the region’s industry, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
This purges are sort of an under-reported story, and Xi has purged at least two other Politburo members in the last year.
“Wisconsin sheriff sues Pakistani-American woman who said ICE detained her for two days when she was actually at hotel spa.”
US citizen Sundas ‘Sunny’ Naqvi, 28, gained national attention last month when she and a band of supporters – including Cook County, Ill., Commissioner Kevin Morrison — publicly insisted she was unlawfully detained by ICE officers for roughly 43 hours.
Keep Morrison in mind, because we’re going to get back to him in a sec.
Naqvi claimed that after landing back in the US from a work trip to Turkey on the morning of March 5, she was detained for nearly 30 hours at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, then transferred to another ICE facility in Broadview, Ill., before winding up at Dodge County Jail in Wisconsin.
Snip.
Now Naqvi and Morrison are the subjects of a federal defamation lawsuit filed by Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt on Friday — as his office released new details of Naqvi’s actual actions during the alleged hoax period.
‘She checked into the Hampton Inn and Suites in Rosemont, Ill., for the entire duration of this alleged event,’ Schmidt said during a press conference, where he presented a hotel bill and text receipts to illustrate Naqvi’s time there.
The folio shows Naqvi checked in at the Hampton Inn — just a 10-minute drive from the airport — at 1:17 p.m. March 5, while text messages with an unidentified witness over the following days show she enjoyed free food, spa services, and trips to the gym.
Bonus: “Naqvi was previously convicted of making a false report in Cook County, Illinois, and was sentenced to probation.” Also, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that Kevin Morrison is a Democrat…
Former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself early Thursday in what the Fairfax County Police Department is calling a murder-suicide.
Police believe Fairfax shot his wife in the basement of their Annandale home, ran upstairs, and shot himself. The couple’s children were in the home at the time of the murders and called 911, according to Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis.
“This has been an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce,” Davis said. “I don’t think it’s a secret that there’s been a divorce proceedings that have been ongoing. From what I understand in this early stage, former Lieutenant Governor Fairfax was recently served some paperwork associated with an upcoming court proceeding that apparently led to this incident last night.”
The couple had been married 20 years, but was currently separated and still living together, according to authorities.
“Separated and still living together” seems like an oxymoron.
Cerina Fairfax filed for divorce in July, according to court records.
Fairfax served as the lieutenant governor under former Democratic Governor Ralph Northam from 2018 to 2022. While in office, the lieutenant governor was accused of sexually assaulting two women years earlier. He maintained the sexual encounters, one of which took place in 2000 and another in 2004, were consensual. He then launched an unsuccessful bid for Virginia governor in 2021, coming in fourth in the Democratic primary. Prior to his tenure as lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax served as a federal prosecutor.
Funny how many Democrats hyped as “the next big thing” (Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum) turned out to have dark secrets, though none quite as dark as a murder-suicide.
Phil Collins has been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Oasis, Billy Idol, Wu-Tang Clan, Luther Vandross, Sade, Joy Division/New Order and Iron Maiden. You can argue that Collins is more pop than rock in his solo career, but he’s certainly more rock than Vandross, Sade, and a lot of already-inducted artists.
An Iran ceasefire (sorta, kinda) holds, still more Californian welfare state fraud, Governor HairGel simply isn’t all there, Colorado steps up its war on the First Amendment, France’s aircraft carrier gets rumbled by a jogging ap, and William Shatner isn’t dying of cancer. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Personally, this has been a damn busy week. I’ve pretty much recovered from my bout of stomach flu, I’m in the home stretch for doing my taxes, and a bunch of other urgencies press.
Rather than provide a specific link, I’m just going to describe what I’m seeing of the ceasefire in the Iranian war. Like cannibalism in the the Royal Navy in that Monty Python skit, when Iran says they’re not lobbing any missiles, the mean that there is a certain amount. Just today, hostile drones were flying over Kuwait. And ships are free to transit the Strait of Hormuz, for values of “free” that include paying Iran protection money. Despite these violation of President Trump’s ceasefire terms, Iran is complaining that it’s no fair that Israel gets to continues kicking Hezbollah’s ass in Lebanon.
Speaking of Lebanon, three days ago the IDF reissued an evacuation notice for all Lebanese residents south of the Zahrani River. Note that the Zahrani is north of the Litani River, Israel’s previous line for evacuation. At this rate, IDF will enter Beirut in a few months…
Gladwin Gill, a 66-year-old psychologist, and his wife, Amelou Gill, a 70-year-old registered nurse, both of Covina, were arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging them with health care fraud.
According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, the Gills owned and operated the Glendale-based 626 Hospice Inc., which did business as St. Francis Palliative Care.
The Gills allegedly schemed to defraud Medicare by paying illegal kickbacks for the referral of patients who were not dying.
The Gills’ business had a 97% survival rate … for hospice.
The Gills also submitted more than $5.2 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for hospice services that either were not medically necessary or were not provided. Medicare paid the Gills more than $4 million on these fraudulent claims.
I’m sure the next part will be a huge surprise.
Gill is originally from Pakistan, and he’s served jail time before.
In 2008, he was sentenced to a year in prison for fraudulent political donations.
In 1995, he served two years in prison for real estate fraud.
He also fired a gun at gas company employees who came to his property to collect an unpaid bill.
Blue state officials can ignore any number of red flags as long as they expect to profit from the grift.
The insiders in Sacramento, Salem, and Olympia have been using social service non-profits, NGOs, and questionable charitable groups as passthroughs for their friends and pet constituencies for years. Billions have been gifted to insiders and friends. And now — at long last — actual taxpayers have gotten wise to the grift. You can thank independent journalists for highlighting these absurd expenses in a much simpler and understandable way than thick books or endless PDFs filled with intentionally confusing stats, opaquely written conclusions, and puffed-up executive summaries that don’t reflect the data can ever do.
And now people living on the West Coast, Messed Coast™ want to know one thing: Where’d all that money go?
It all starts with … Gavin
Because your longtime West Coast, Messed Coast™ correspondent has been highlighting this stupidity for years and chronicled it here and in my other writings, radio shows, and podcasts, I’m going to insist you stipulate that the Homeless Industrial Complex exists and began in earnest from about 2005-2010, when leftist leaders saw that a buck could be made by declaring and funding programs to “End Homelessness in 10 Years.” Obviously, it was a smashing success — for grifting, I mean.
In 2005, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom harrumphed and gesticulated that he would, by dint of his own signature on a proclamation, “end homelessness” by 2015. Other cities followed. Billions went down the toilet as a result. And by toilet, I mean the streets of the Tenderloin and other Skid Rows along the West Coast, Messed Coast™.
There then follows a chart of various attempts to “end homelessness.” I’m sure you’ll be shocked to find out none of them succeeded.
Sen. Tom Cotton: “The New York Times just confirmed what we’ve long suspected: ActBlue knowingly let in fraudulent foreign donations to help Democrats win. Yet another example of the left’s embrace of fraud. Everyone involved must face the full weight of the law.”
“The bombshell Times story comes after a law firm that formerly worked with ActBlue warned the group that they almost certainly lied to Congress about their process of vetting foreign donations.”
After interviewing Gavin Newsom, Adam Carolla thinks “Something’s wrong with him.” “He’s a sociopath. Like he doesn’t really understand anything.”
“Konkivskyi Bridge Destroyed in 60-Day Ukrainian Drone Operation Using Heavy-Lift Drones.” The weird thing is that this is in Oleshky, down from the already-destroyed Antonovsky Bridge, and evidently built up explosive material under the bridge over a period of time.
The moment I heard the smashing of glass, I knew exactly what it was. I had heard that sound dozens of times over the last month. Before I even looked up, I grabbed my phone, turned toward the noise, and started taking photos. Ten feet away, a black Expedition SUV sat with its rear window blown out. Within seconds, a man in a black shirt and backpack sprinted off carrying a laptop, a briefcase, and a gym bag. I ran over, saw the shattered glass, and knew exactly what I had just witnessed: a smash-and-grab. A smash-and-grab is a particular kind of burglary. A thief smashes a car window, grabs whatever looks valuable, and gets out fast. What defines it is not just the speed. It is the confidence. The noise, the alarms, the cameras, the witnesses, none of it matters anymore. The criminal is not trying to avoid attention because attention no longer means consequences.
Without thinking, I took off after him. Just moments earlier, I had been across the street in Portland’s Pearl District with a few dozen volunteers doing a trash cleanup. We were on the sidewalk with gloves and garbage bags, doing what functioning cities are supposed to do: maintain public space, clean up disorder, and take pride in where they live. Then, right across the street, someone did what a broken city has learned to tolerate: smash a car window and steal from strangers in broad daylight. The contrast could not have been clearer. On one side were citizens trying to restore their city. On the other was someone actively tearing it down. Maybe it was that stark line between right and wrong that lit the fuse in me. Maybe I was just tired of watching decent people get victimized while everyone else acted like this was now normal.
I caught up to him as he turned the corner at Northwest 14th and Couch and screamed, “Stop!” Then louder: “STOP!” He looked back, startled, and dropped the first bag. My friend grabbed it and held onto it while I kept running. We ended up in a full sprint. He was at least twenty years younger than me, but adrenaline kept me close. He weaved through traffic, jumped over a garbage can, and slid across the hood of a car like this was routine, like he had done it many times before. Several blocks later, he started to slow down. He ducked behind a parked car, and I chased him around it twice. He was breathing hard and begging me to stop chasing him. I finally caught him and cornered him in a doorway. He shoved me with his left arm. I grabbed his shirt and pushed him back into the door. “Leave me the f*ck alone, bro,” he screamed. I did not let go. I demanded everything back. He tried to pull away, then handed over what he had stolen while repeating, “I didn’t do anything,” over and over. He looked scared, but he also looked stunned. His expression said something I could not ignore: I think I was the first person who had ever chased him down.
My friend called 911. We gave the operator a detailed description, and she told us it would take at least twenty minutes and that we needed to let him go. So we did and he took off running again. But we kept following from a distance so we could continue updating 911 with his location. And once I was no longer right on top of him, the thief stopped sprinting and started operating. That is the part most people do not understand. People imagine smash-and-grabs as chaotic, impulsive crimes, one desperate guy, one reckless decision, one lucky escape. What I witnessed was not chaos. It was choreography. He took off his shoes. Took off his shirt. Cut his jeans into shorts. Within thirty seconds, he looked like a different person. That is not panic. That is a practiced move. That is someone who has done this enough times to have a system.
Then came protection. A middle-aged man in a “Just Do It” Nike hat rolled up on a beat-up bike and grabbed my shoulder. “Stop following,” he said. “I’ll make serious trouble for you.” A random passerby does not physically confront a stranger for following a thief. He does not show up at the perfect moment, get physical
immediately, and start threatening people. That was not random. That was an enforcer, someone whose role was to discourage interference, someone who knew the routine. I knocked his arm off and stood my ground. Once he realized I was not going to back down, he backed off. A moment later, I watched two homeless individuals throw a blanket over the thief as if they were concealing contraband, then casually walk away. If I had not seen it happen, I would have walked right past him.
We called 911 again and gave his updated description and location. Then chaos became a weapon. A woman in a black jacket and mini skirt lunged at me and tried to rip my phone out of my hands. She grabbed it hard, pulling like her life depended on it. Another man rolled up on a BMX bike and grabbed my arm. This was not about stealing my phone. It was about destroying the evidence. They were trying to remove the one thing that made them vulnerable: documentation.
Chinese propaganda outlets linked to the Singham Network have repeatedly sought to raise the profile of self-described “MAGA Communist” Jackson Hinkle as the social media influencer praises the Chinese Communist Party and critiques the Trump Administration and the West.
The China-based propaganda partners of the Singham Network — most notably the pro-CCP Guancha outlet as well as the China Academy and its Wave Media video ecosystem — have repeatedly sought to elevate Hinkle, including hosting him for conferences in Shanghai, giving him favorable interviews, promoting his comments and appearances, and generally pushing his idea of so-called “MAGA Communism.”
Hinkle is openly “Marxist-Leninist” and, despite his use of the “MAGA Communist” label, he has been a harsh critic of President Donald Trump, repeatedly labeling him a “war criminal” as Hinkle openly sides with U.S. adversaries such as Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the CCP, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, the Iranian regime, and terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
Hinkle has also been promoted in China by Chinese state media outlets, some of which are also linked to Singham’s influence efforts. Singham leads and funds a global financial and activist network that operates inside the U.S. and many other countries, and while he rarely grabs the spotlight for himself in public speeches, he did so in November through the Chinese release of a report that sought to denigrate U.S. and Allied Power contributions to WWII.
Gov. Greg Abbott said he does not expect Texas to legalize gambling in the next legislative session, signaling a continued roadblock for casino interests that have spent millions trying to influence state elections.
Abbott made the remarks during a press conference Tuesday focused on his property tax plan, held after Galveston County Commissioners Court joined the Lone Star Property Tax Reform Council in support of his proposal.
The governor was asked about gambling, as well as a so-called “fuzzy animal” or “fuzzy bear” exception in Texas law—a colloquial term for a narrow provision allowing certain amusement machines to award low-value, non-cash prizes, which some “game room” operators have cited to justify machines critics say function as illegal gambling devices.
“I don’t know how that works, and I’m not sure about fuzzy bears and things like that,” said Abbott. “We’ll look into the fuzzy bears. All I can tell you is what the law says, and that is, gambling is unconstitutional in the state of Texas, and I don’t see that changing in the next session.”
Abbott’s comments come as casino interests, including groups tied to Las Vegas Sands and the Texas Defense PAC, have poured millions into Texas primary elections in recent cycles. Those efforts failed to unseat lawmakers who opposed expanding gambling.
Colorado is now arguably the most anti-free speech state in the union, pushing an array of measures attacking those with opposing social and political views. The irony is that the state has proved a bonanza for free speech with spectacular legal failures that reaffirmed rather than restricted the First Amendment. Now, the Democratic legislature and governor are back with new unconstitutional measures, including a requirement that lawyers not share information with federal immigration officials as a condition for filing with state courts.
Colorado legislators and judges have spent years attacking core free speech and associational rights. In the last election, the state attempted to strip President Donald Trump from the ballot with the support of a majority of its Democratic-controlled state supreme court. (The effort was later declared unconstitutional in a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court. Colorado could not even get any of the liberal justices to support its actions).
The state is responsible for the efforts to force business owners to create products celebrating same-sex marriages. That effort led to the Masterpiece Cake Shop case and then the 303 Creative case. Even after losing earlier efforts against Masterpiece Cake Shop owner Jack Phillips, the targeting of its owner continued for years. That litigation proved to be a tremendous victory for free speech.
Colorado has also been leading the fight to limit the speech and associational rights of professionals and parents on “conversion therapy.” Recently, that effort led to another massive loss before the Supreme Court in Chiles v. Salazar, resulting in a resounding 8-1 rejection of Colorado’s position. It could only secure the vote of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
After that near-unanimous ruling against the state, Colorado responded by doubling down with legislation to expose any counselors engaged in conversion therapy to heightened legal liability, including waiving any statute of limitations. That case could also result in legal challenges as Colorado continues to spend a fortune on seeking to curtail free speech rights.
Now, the state is defending a new public accommodation law, HB 25-1312, that defines “gender expression” to include “chosen name” and “how an individual chooses to be addressed.”
As in past Colorado cases, the state secured favorable rulings from district court judges. President Biden-nominated U.S. District Judge Regina Rodriguez refused to grant a preliminary injunction against the Colorado public accommodation law.
The Alliance Defending Freedom is appealing the matter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on behalf of its clients, XX-XY Athletics and Born Again Used Books. Other appeals are also being brought in the matter.
At the same time, the state has moved forward on Senate Bill 25-276, which imposes a threshold condition for state e-filings that requires lawyers to certify annually “under penalty of perjury,” that they will not use “personal identifying information” from the system to help federal immigration enforcement.
California sheriff deputies try to serve an eviction notice, have the guy open fire on them for their troubles. Do they: A.) Taz him, B.) Shoot him, or C.) Roll over him in an armored vehicle? (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Speaking of Shatner, he’s been warning people about crazy “Shippers” (people who imagine relationships between fictional characters) for a while now. Even crazier? When a crazy anime shipper sends a death threat to a voice actress for not agreeing with them that an animated character is crazy shipper’s “soulmate.”
Follow-up: Remember Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, age 47, and her daughter, Sarinasdat Hosseiny, the niece and grandniece of dirtnapped Iranian revolutionary Guard scumbag Qasem Soleimani?
This cute dog is banned from the couch, so the moment its owner leaves the house it races straight onto it – but instantly drops to the floor the second it hears footsteps approaching. 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/WKcjPyr3u8
