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Cornyn’s Slaughter: A Postmortem

Thursday, May 28th, 2026

It’s pretty rare that a four term incumbent senator gets primaried out of office. Indeed, I think you’d have to go back to Alfonse D’Amato defeating Jacob Javits in 1980 for the last time it happened, back when New York was still capable of electing Republicans statewide. So it’s worth taking a deeper look at why John Cornyn got slaughtered by Ken Paxton in Tuesday’s runoff.

And a slaughter it was. Cornyn lost by 384,000 votes, or 27% of people voting. Nor was it a geographical narrow victory for Paxton. Cornyn lost everywhere:

Cornyn won two counties: Liberal, politics-obsessed Travis County, where Cornyn won by just over 2,000 votes, and (as commenter FM noted) rural coastal Kenedy County, the third least populous county in the state with 350 people, where Cornyn won by all of 6 votes to 2. If there’s ever been such a geographically dominant statewide victory in a runoff, I can’t remember it. (Dan Patrick walloped David Dewhurst by a slightly larger margin in the 2014 Lt. Governor runoff, but Dewhurst still won more counties than Cornyn did.)

Some national media has gotten a key fact about the race wrong. No, it was not a dead heat until President Trump endorsed Paxton; polls throughout the runoff constantly showed Paxton ahead by substantial margins. Indeed, between Paxton, Wesley Hunt, and longshot Sara Canady, fully 58% of Republican primary voters cast their ballots against longtime incumbent Cornyn, which should have been a big warning sign.

And if money was truly the only thing that mattered in politics, Cronyn should have mopped the floor with Paxton. Cornyn’s own campaign and allied Super PACs poured more than $100 million into Cornyn’s campaign to no visible effect.

No, the reason that Cornyn lost was because Texas Republicans were finally well and truly tired of him. Cornyn’s playing footsie with illegal alien amnesty while claiming he was against amnesty was one of the biggest reasons voters rejected him.

There’s being rejected by voters, then there’s being absolutely embarrassed.

That’s what we saw in Texas last night. John Cornyn, who outspent his opponent Texas AG Ken Paxton 10-1, was absolutely wrecked at the polls.

No incumbent senator has done worse than Cornyn in half a century, and no other election in U.S. history has seen two incumbent senators voted out in the same election.

Cornyn’s holdout on the SAVE Act, his pro-amnesty leanings, and his refusal to push Trump’s agenda, along with Ken Paxton’s statewide popularity and effectiveness totally sealed the deal.

Funny, Cornyn is a co-sponsor of the SAVE Act, but didn’t make himself conspicuous by trying to get the senate to actually pass it.

The GOP is WILDLY out of step with its voters, who keep trying to send the establishment a message.

Moreover, Paxton did better among Hispanic than white voters.

The population of Hidalgo County, Texas, is almost 100% Hispanic. Like many other similar counties, it had heavy support for Paxton.

While the number of Hispanics who voted in this primary was only in the tens of thousands, the fact that they supported the pro-deportation candidate even more than white voters is an important data point.

If you spend any time with Hispanic Americans, you will know that they hate people who cheat the system with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. I am told this makes them racist.

John Cornyn has become the poster boy for someone who votes right the overwhelming majority of the time, but still manages to be out of touch with the base on their biggest priorities.

In a not-so different time and age, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) would still be considered one of the good guys: As a pro-life conservative who voted with President Donald Trump 99.2% of the time, just a generation earlier, he would’ve been lauded as one of our most staunchly conservative, reliably Republican senators.

And not just reliably Republican: He’s reliably a winner, too. Sen. Cornyn hadn’t lost an election in 42 years.

Yet last night, this four-term senator with a 42-year winning streak was smooshed like a bug, winning just 36% of the vote in his Republican primary runoff. Nearly two-thirds of his constituents rejected him!

Just like that, his political career is over. No second acts, no chance for redemption.

GOP politicians beware: The rules for Republican Party membership ain’t what they once were. Violate the new rules at your own peril.

But don’t look to the mainstream media to explain the new rules. Reductive, knee-jerk journalists can’t see beyond the Great Orange Monster, interpreting Cornyn’s fate — as well as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and a slew of Indiana state senators — as the umpteenth sign that Trump is a dictator/fascist/authoritarian.

Examples snipped.

The mainstream media defines “bipartisanship” as Republicans crossing the aisle to help Democrats. But when Democrats cross the aisle to help Republicans, they’re sellouts and traitors.

Case in point: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.). Because he’ll occasionally side with Republicans, he’s a Judas to the Donkeys.

Snip.

Today, we expect a Republican district will send a loyal, dependable Republican representative to Washington. Helping our GOP “team” is considered part of the job. And given how narrow the margins are, we’re unwilling to sacrifice a roster spot for someone who refuses to play ball.

It’s a luxury we can no longer afford.

Congressmen and senators aren’t simply judged by how much pork they can peddle. Not anymore — that’s as out-of-fashion as parachute pants, Wham! records, and the mullet. Instead, they’re judged by how effectively they help their “team” advance the national football.

That’s because the Democratic Party has changed. Until the Obama years, it was a coalition party: liberals, unions, Catholics, environmentalists, blue-collar workers, minorities, and women. Post-Obama, it became a vehicle for left-wing radicalism — and this alone became its North Star.

Not compromise. Not meeting in the middle. Its stated goal was “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Which made conservative compromise an impossibility.

The Republican Party and the Democratic Party have evolved to address each other’s deficiencies. It was probably inevitable: The political marketplace demanded it, because they’re competing products.

So, when one party changes, so must the other:

As the Democrats have embraced socialism, Wokeism, and trans/LGBTQ policies, Republican voters have recoiled in horror. We want our party to protect us from their madness.

And that’s an all-hands-on-deck challenge.

The Democratic Party nationalized state elections in 2008 with Barack Obama. It ceased to consist of free-wheeling, locally attuned legislators who represented different segments of the Democratic coalition and became a unified, unapologetic, left-wing movement that placed ideology first.

The Democrats’ goal wasn’t compromise. It was victory.

And during the Obama years, the Democrats won a lot.

The MAGA movement responded by nationalizing elections on the Republican side, too. It’s one of Donald Trump’s most significant legacies, because pre-Trump, we were a party of John Fettermans — always ready to swing a deal and compromise — and the best we could hope for was electing the occasional John Cornyn, who’d sway his GOP colleagues a little to the right.

It was an age when the Republican Party AND the Democratic Party were moving to the left. The only difference was, the Republicans moved slightly slower than the Democrats.

The Trump revolution wasn’t just a response to Democratic Party excesses. It was also a stinging rebuke to the GOP establishment — and to Republican politicians who’d cosplay as senior statesmen, earning mainstream media “kudos” for (repeatedly) bending their knee before their Democratic masters.

Snip.

Under the old rules, “conservative” senators like John Cornyn were incentivized to move to the middle, because their Republican seats were safe. Nobody dared primary a sitting GOP senator; therefore, his only real threat was being too “extreme” and angering the left.

As such, many conservative states and conservative districts had wishy-washy RINOs representing them in Congress. (Many were there for decades at a time.)

It was inefficient. We were squandering precious resources.

Not anymore. Now, on a national level, we expect more from conservative states and conservative districts — not less — and we’ll vote you out of office if you don’t deliver.

Like it or not, there are no local federal elections anymore. Everything is national. For better or worse, politics has become the ultimate team sport.

And the team that maximizes its resources is the one that will win.

If you want a bright future in today’s Republican Party, the path is clear: Be an asset to your team. Become indispensable. Listen to your coach, know your role, and do it well.

And let’s score some frickin’ points!

(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

Finally, it wasn’t all about Cornyn’s manifest deficiencies. Ken Paxton, despite being grossly outspent, was simply the more conservative candidate. Hell, Paxton even tried to unseat Joe Straus for speaker back when he was in the Texas House. He was the most conservative candidate when he first ran for Attorney General. He started fighting the radical dictates of the Obama administration and social justice initiatives here in the state in his first term. As I’ve said many a time before, I say about Paxton what Abraham Lincoln said about Ulysses S. Grant: “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

For all the money backing him, Cornyn was a weak candidate who’d grown out of touch with the base and state he represented. But Ken Paxton got the nod to be the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator from Texas the old fashioned way: He earned it.

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Posted in Austin, Border Control, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 21 Comments »

The Democrat Party’s Existential Crises

Sunday, May 10th, 2026

Jeff Childers has an interesting piece on the Democrat Party’s self-inflicted “polycrisis,” when all the Party’s myriad bad decisions and extremist positions all come home to roost at the same time.

If you listen closely to the wind blowing through Washington, D.C., you might hear a faint, high-pitched whining sound. That is not the sound of cicadas fluttering through the cherry blossoms. That is the sound of the Democrat Party realizing that the check has finally arrived, and their credit card was declined. Last month, the Washington Post broke a story that perfectly captures the Democrat Party’s woebegone state:

The DNC expected big money after big Democratic wins. It never came.

The Democratic National Committee has scaled back some of its plans as donors remain reluctant to give, despite candidates’ recent victories.

Ruh-roh.

For the last few years, despite occasional bouts of truth bursting through the costume’s seams, corporate media has generally assured everyone that the Democratic Party is in fine fettle. Sharp as a tack. It is, they say, like a double-decker bus packed with a coalition of highly educated coastal elites, powerful unions, a motivated gang of highly diverse grievance groups, plus legions of narcissistic white boomers who somehow still believe that NPR is the best way to learn what’s going on in the world.

But underneath the hood, the engine was smoking, the transmission was held together by duct tape, and the bus driver was staring blankly at the dashboard trying to remember what to do when it makes that weird noise. The passengers argued about whether the bus should be renamed to something more trans-inclusive, whether to start with a land acknowledgment, and whether that weird noise was actually a microaggression.

Now, the bus has completely stalled out, parked on the side of the highway, and the passengers are sitting inside waiting for someone else to come fix it.

Corporate media is desperately trying to conceal what historians and political scientists call a “polycrisis.” As defined by historian Adam Tooze (and the World Economic Forum, which considered it an opportunity instead of a problem), a polycrisis happens “where disparate crises interact such that the overall impact far exceeds the sum of each part.” It describes where the political ground is destabilized from so many different directions at once that policymakers ultimately become paralyzed, usually while forming another gold-star committee to consider funding a new study on the destabilization.

Tooze explained, “In the polycrisis, the shocks are disparate, but they interact so that the whole is even more overwhelming than the sum of the parts.”

Snip.

But amid all those examples, the modern Democratic polycrisis stands out as uniquely spectacular. It’s experiencing the political equivalent of getting audited by the IRS on the same day your Pekinese chews through your internet cable and then your roof caves in right after you opened the insurance cancellation notice.

All the insiders know it. Trad-media is doing its level best to distract and obfuscate, but some recent headlines are flashing red: On April 9th, Bloomberg warned that “Michigan Shows Democrats’ Identity Crisis Up Close.” On March 15th, Axios reported that “Democrats face a post-Trump identity crisis for 2028.” On March 30th, the NDSMC Observer simply called it “The Democratic party’s identity crisis.”

“The Democratic Party has an aura of ineffectiveness,” NDSMC wrote. “This is an existential threat.” The main problem, according to the author, is that the party is now only about opposing Trump— which manifestly is not working. So, the author argued, “with that opposition, there needs to be an alternative message. Something that voters can get behind. An idea. A value. Not the lack of values. Not just anti-MAGA.”

Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, agreed. “You can’t win a presidential election on opposition alone,” he told Axios. Democrats (not MAGA) are fractured. “Democrats are deeply divided over what they’d do if they returned to power,” Axios said. They intend to run against Trump in the 2026 midterms, but realize that won’t work in 2028, when Trump is terming out.

Democrats must “build a message predicated on values rather than reactions,” the NDSMC author fretted, “lest they doom themselves to a future of perpetual minority status, forever living in the shadow of the MAGA right.” But what screamed from the pages was that the author had no suggestions for a message. Not one.

The reason he didn’t is the same reason the Democrats cannot fix this problem. It’s a structural problem broken beyond repair.

Identity crises are the worst. A person or group questioning their very identity is a sinkhole of potential disaster. It’s like the Democrat Party is bored with being a stay-at-home dad named Benjamin, and yearns to move to Las Vegas, change its name to Mercedes, get that special surgery, and become a stripper.

It would be bad enough if identity were the only crisis Democrats were facing. Let’s dissect the anatomy of this rapidly approaching fast-motion disaster.

A polycrisis isn’t just a regular old run of bad luck. It is a structural failure. In any normal political cycle, a party could lose an election, suffer a fundraising dip, or deal with pushback against an unpopular leader. Or even all three. Those problems are manageable. You just replace the leader, change the messaging, and pretend you never actually supported the things you supported yesterday.

But in a polycrisis, the mechanisms for fixing the problems also break. The disease and the cure become indistinguishable. That’s what Democrats face. They are currently trapped in a perfect storm of intersecting, overlapping, cannibalistic calamities, each feeding and feeding off the others.

Democrats core problem is that their party has become an “odd coalition” of wildly divergent interest groups united by only one thing: opposition to Donald Trump. The so-called “No Kings” movement is the problem’s purest expression. No Kings is a hot mess of a tire fire, a janky collection of unrelated grievance groups, united only by deliberately vague policy positions— because articulating any specific proposal would immediately expose that half the coalition actively despises the other half.

When a political party has no articulable platform besides “we are not the other guy,” a polycrisis is not just possible. It becomes mandatory.

Snip.

The 2024 election exposed the fracture for all to see. Kamala Harris won 80% of the Black vote— solid, but a massive 10-point drop from Joe Biden’s 90% in 2020. President Trump secured 20% of the Black vote, the highest level of support from that demographic since George W. Bush in 2000. The shift was even more extreme among Hispanic voters, where Trump narrowed the gap to a mere 3 points, as compared to Biden’s 25-point margin four years earlier.

The shift among young men is particularly stark. Men under 50 split evenly (49% to 48%) between Trump and Harris, erasing a 10-point Democrat advantage from 2020.

Instead of addressing these defecting voters’ concerns, factions within the Democrat party are doubling down on purity tests, which I’ve previously labeled as the “purity spiral.” In Michigan, for instance, progressive Democrats punished the Harris campaign over the administration’s handling of Gaza, proving that for some factions, “wallowing in the illusion of purity” was more important than building a winning coalition. (That’s from last month’s Detroit News.)

The Detroit News wrung its bony hands over the fruits of the state’s recent Democrat primary nomination results, which produced far-left candidates whose views “raise serious questions about their electability.”

Recent polling by the Manhattan Institute confirmed the disconnect. The Democrat party is essentially three blocs: Moderates (47%), Progressive Liberals (37%), and a “Woke Fringe” (11%). The median Democrat actually wants border security and safe streets, but the party is held hostage by the 11% who think math is racist, there’s an infinite number of genders, and Karl Marx was on the right track but just didn’t try hard enough.

The problem is even worse than Childers makes it out to be. Where are the “Progressive Liberals” willing to call out the radical woke left on their insane agenda? Nowhere, that’s where. They’re scared to death of being called racist and dragged on Twitter. To deviate even slightly on, say, transing children or letting ICE deport illegal alien rapists, is to invite brutal reprisals ranging from ostracism to termination of employment.

Or being shot by a woke lunatic because you’re a “fascist.”

Moreover, after their long march through the institutions of the left, the levers of power for the Democrat Party apparatus and their Academic/Media Complex/NGO fellow travelers are all in the hands of social justice warriors. Any “Progressive Liberals” with any sort of power are in their 70s or older, and how many of those supposed “47% Moderates” are actually speaking up against the radical agenda? John Fetterman? Bill Maher? Stephen A. Smith? They’re so few and so far outside what today’s Democrat Party considers “acceptable discourse” that we can name them individually. Indeed, the online woke left is already calling all three “fascists.”

Snipping over Childers’ talk of the Democrat “gerontocracy,” since so many are part of those “moderates” losing their grip on power within the Party.

Perhaps the most under-appreciated aspect of the polycrisis is the perplexing psychological condition of the Democrat base. Studies consistently show that liberals report significantly lower levels of happiness and psychological well-being compared to conservatives. Maybe building an identity out of imminent global climate destruction and looming, ever-present fascism was a bad idea.

Progressivism is literally driving them insane.

According to the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, conservatives outnumber liberals 51% to 20% among those reporting “excellent” mental health, while liberals outnumber conservatives 45% to 19% among those reporting “poor” mental health. Read that again— nearly half of liberals self-report having poor mental health. Shocker.

On a 100-point happiness scale, even childless conservatives scored a 63; while childless liberals scored a dismaying 48. So weird.

Perhaps the most under-appreciated aspect of the polycrisis is the perplexing psychological condition of the Democrat base. Studies consistently show that liberals report significantly lower levels of happiness and psychological well-being compared to conservatives. Maybe building an identity out of imminent global climate destruction and looming, ever-present fascism was a bad idea.

Progressivism is literally driving them insane.

According to the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, conservatives outnumber liberals 51% to 20% among those reporting “excellent” mental health, while liberals outnumber conservatives 45% to 19% among those reporting “poor” mental health. Read that again— nearly half of liberals self-report having poor mental health. Shocker.

On a 100-point happiness scale, even childless conservatives scored a 63; while childless liberals scored a dismaying 48. So weird.

Childers is right on the insanity but outdated on some of the components. We’re already seeing an abandonment of global warming talking points among the woke. Trump is their apocalypse. There are too many intersectionality shibboleths to keep straight for woke brains to keep green catechisms in mind. Another possibility is that blacks, Hispanics, and all those Muslim illegal aliens they’ve imported obviously don’t give a rat’s ass about any of it.

Running a modern political campaign requires astronomical amounts of money. For years, Democrats relied on two massive funding streams: small-dollar digital donations via ActBlue, and a sprawling network of government-funded NGOs. Both are now collapsing.

I wonder how much of ActBlue was ever real and not simply foreign and NGO money laundering.

Last month, the Washington Post reported that the Democratic National Committee is facing a massive cash crunch as “top donors have been slow to open their wallets.” The DNC had assured party officials that their resounding 15-point victory in the Virginia governor’s race would open the floodgates. “But big checks did not flood back,” leaving DNC Chairman Ken Martin presiding over a financial and leadership crisis.

Left unsaid: Wealthy Jews in New York used to make up a significant fraction of the Democrats’ fundraising network, but they’ve all been tossed overboard in the name of demonizing “the 1%” and pandering to all the Muslims Democrats (not to mention political parties in Europe) have insisted on importing.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has taken a sledgehammer to the NGO complex. DOGE first targeted USAID, leading to the elimination of over 5,000 programs. These programs were rife with fraud and political grift, with taxpayer money flowing through dizzying arrays of cut-out corporations to Democrat coffers. Musk bluntly explained, “This is one of the biggest sources of fraud in the world— government-funded NGOs.”

The broader recent crackdowns on Medicare fraud, autism services, and daycare funding are systematically cutting off the federal spigot that has long nourished progressive advocacy groups and political operatives. The “blue laundromat” is being condemned, and the DNC is suddenly discovering that running a political party requires actual money and real fundraising, which tends to be harder than making backroom deals with Somalian cartels.

Section on lawfare blowback and indicting Dem corruption skipped, since there seem to be plenty of examples in every LinkSwarm.

An entirely separate problem for Democrats is the collapse of the legacy media infrastructure that has for decades carried water for the progressive platform. Trust in mass media has hit a record low of 28 percent. Viewers are migrating to alternative media, mostly conservative or conservative-adjacent podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience.

Corporate media is shifting rightwards. Within the last six months or so, conservative billionaires Larry and David Ellison acquired Warner Brothers (which owns CNN), independent commentator Bari Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief at CBS News, Jeff Bezos’ new head of the Washington Post fired 13 “climate reporters,” and the list goes on. Furthermore, as you well know, X (formerly Twitter) under Musk’s ownership allows uncensored conservative content…

The Democratic Party’s traditional megaphone is on the fritz. The batteries are running out. Which means they can no longer just scream “racist!” at their political problems and expect them to go away. They can no longer rely on corporate media to promote their narratives and psyops.

They are going to have to work harder to earn audience attention— but their problems are multiplied since they can’t enunciate clear policy positions anyway. They must feel like an aggressive drunk who dominated the barroom conversation through brute force until new management made him take it outside. Now nobody listens, and everybody feels better. And it’s much quieter inside.

Most of the argument on how the contradictions of slavery destroyed the Whig Party snipped.

Like the Whigs, today’s Democrat Party faces a similar irreconcilable fracture line. Not just one. Several of them. Immigration, police funding, and trans “rights” are all solid examples. All of them are potentially slavery questions for the loose Democrat coalition. If the DNC takes a strong position on any of those issues, it will forever fracture the coalition. That’s why they can’t commit.

Take immigration, for example. The progressive wing views open borders and amnesty as a moral imperative rooted in anti-racism. But Democrats’ working-class wing —especially unions, black, and hispanic voters, who are currently all defecting to the GOP— views unrestricted immigration as direct economic competition that drives down wages and overwhelms local resources.

The immigration question cleaves the coalition along lines that cannot be papered over with vague language about “comprehensive reform.” Every time the party tries to stake out a middle position, it simultaneously enrages multiple factions.

Progressives accuse leadership of fascism; the working class accuses leadership of abandonment.

The Whigs were destroyed not by a single catastrophic defeat, but by a slow accumulation of contradictions that ultimately made the coalition mathematically impossible to maintain. Then, snap. That is precisely the dynamic of a polycrisis, and it is precisely what the Democrats are facing now.

In complex systems theory, a polycrisis does not resolve itself gradually. It builds pressure until it reaches a tipping point— a threshold where a final small change —the proverbial camel’s straw— triggers an abrupt, potentially irreversible transformation or collapse.

For the Democratic Party, the 2026 midterms represent that tipping point. They face a brutal structural map, needing four seats to retake the Senate. Midcycle redistricting, wildly exacerbated by the Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana v. Callais decision striking down minority-majority districts, has scrambled the House battlefield more thoroughly than eggs on a Waffle House grill.

But the most profound implication of where the polycrisis is going, and what it will make politically possible, can best be understood through the Hegelian dialectic: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

The thesis is the current, chaotic, decentralized election system with late counting, mail-in ballots, harvesting, permissive voter rolls, and weak ID requirements. Democrats’ viability depends on that system, and they will fight to the political death to preserve it.

The Hegelian antithesis is the current crisis— the ongoing federal investigations in Georgia, Arizona, and elsewhere, combined with aggressive crackdowns on non-citizen voting and the stalled SAVE America Act, which would mandate ID, citizenship, and strict voter purges.

If the DOJ’s investigations produce credible convictions of election workers or political figures, it will shatter whatever remaining trust exists in the system. The synthesis is the solution that comes next, having been made politically possible by the thesis/antithesis dynamic. In this case, it will probably take the shape of a comprehensive federal elections bill. Maybe the SAVE Act. Maybe something bigger.

Here I think Childers is probably wrong. I think most Democrats have internalized the understanding that their Party is cheating nine ways to Sunday (even if they’d never admit it), and they simply don’t care. Trump is The Devil, and The Devil must be fought by any means necessary. Never mind that the idea that Trump (and by extension all Republicans) is some sort of racist monster is a laughable delusion engendered by the Southern Poverty Law Center literally subsidizing Nazis and the KKK. The idea that Republicans are Evil Racists and that Democrats are The Good People forms a bedrock in their political identities, and they’ll cling to it with religious fervor. Reason had nothing to do with them adopting the social justice worldview and reason cannot talk them out of it.

Thus Democrats will never support the SAVE Act or anything like it as long as the woke mind virus runs the Party. (A much bigger and thornier question is why old-line congressional Republicans refuse to support any strategy that threatens to implement it.)

No, the only path for Democrats out of the social justice wilderness is for their own Trump-like figure to come from outside the Party to cleanse the Augean stables of Obamaism entirely. Right now, Democrats don’t have such a Trump, and their entire SJW-ruled party apparatus stands ready to ensure their hands are never removed from the Party levers of power they’ve dedicated their entire adult life to controlling. The hard left is willing to lose an infinite number of elections rather than relinquish control. Just look to the lengths they took to keep Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. entirely off the 2024 Presidential ballot, and for a Democrat Trump to appear, he would need to be at least a hundred times better known than RFK Jr.

So I think Childers’ idea of how Democrats might solve the polycrisis is misguided, but his description of that crisis has admirable breadth.

(Hat tip: Director Blue.)

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Posted in Border Control, Communism, Democrats, Elections, Global Warming, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Waste and Fraud | 10 Comments »

LinkSwarm For May 1, 2026

Friday, May 1st, 2026

Iran is beyond broke, more Trump assassination repercussions, FBI finally raids some fraudsters, racial carve-out congressional districts are unconstitutional, Russia loses more ships and planes, Cornyn amnesty pander unearthed, an oil theft ring busted, DEI earns some college pink slips, and a brand spanking new Microsoft Zero Day exploit.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Remember that today is Victims of Communism Day.

  • Iran’s economy is toast.

    The Wall Street Journal offers a deep dive into the state of Iran’s wartime economy. And it turns out that the mullahs are, effectively, broke:

    Government revenue has dried up just as the needs of its population are rising.

    The war has thrown around one million people out of work directly and another million indirectly, according to early estimates cited by Gholamhossein Mohammadi, an official at Iran’s Labor and Social-Affairs ministry. That is a significant portion of the roughly 25 million people who are normally employed in Iran.

    The cost of living has soared, with the annual inflation rate reaching 67 percent in the month through mid-April from the same period a year earlier, according to Iran’s central bank. The subsidized price of red meat, which was mostly imported through sea routes, has gone up to the equivalent of around $3.60 a pound, beyond the reach of most in a country where the minimum wage is around $130 a month.

    “Living is not affordable anymore,” said Mahdi Ghodsi of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. “Iran is at its weakest point.”

    Businesses across the country — from manufacturers to retailers — are closing, residents said. The lack of steel and other raw materials is hampering production in various industries. Electronic goods, which are mostly imported, are in short supply and expensive.

    A 67 percent inflation rate? The worst we’ve experienced in recent memory was 9.1 percent in June 2022.

    Snip.

    “Iran’s rial weakened on Wednesday, with the dollar trading at around 1.8 million rials, according to market trackers. The rate reflects continued pressure on the local currency amid economic strains.” Back at the start of January, this newsletter informed you, “When Ruhollah Khomeini swept to power in 1979, one US dollar traded for 70 rials. Today, that same dollar commands a staggering 1,130,000 rials, more than 16,000-fold its price in 1979. In the last year alone, the rial has lost 50 percent of its value.” The Iran rial was the weakest currency in the world . . . back when one dollar could buy you 1.3 million rials.

    Plus the specter of hunger riots.

  • Our ridiculous media referred to the attempted Trump assassination as a “security incident” or “loud noise.”
  • The left is made up of horrible people. “Meet the teachers who decided to voice their displeasure that Trump wasn’t murdered over the weekend.”
  • The latest Trump assassination attempt and the left’s hate machine.

    The security establishment has promised and made better security arrangements after the two prior attempts on Trump’s life in 2024 in Butler, Pa., and West Palm Beach, Fla., the assassination of Charlie Kirk at an open-air Utah college campus in 2025, or the wounding of congressman practicing baseball at a suburban Washington field all the way back 2017.

    Those events – along with the BLM riots in summer 2020, the Antifa attacks on immigration agents, the execution of the United Health Care CEO and the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh near his personal home – have something more in common than just the exploitation of current security postures.

    They all, according to publicly released evidence, involved perpetrators influenced by a vast left-wing machinery that bombards social media, community protests and even establishment television with an unrelenting message of hatred and intolerance that can dehumanize the targets of violence and motivate armed actors to action, experts said.

    That machinery ranges from nonprofits like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which actually paid racist actors in the name of fighting extremism, to the organizers of the No Kings protests who unleashed hundreds of thousands of old and young protesters onto the streets on the false notion that America has somehow become a monarchy under Trump.

    In between, elitists and teachers have infused the nation with claims that America’s history is racist and unrighteous and that young Americans are predestined to fates determined as oppressors or the oppressed based on their skin color. And well-funded nonprofits consorting with America’s enemies in China and Cuba are openly fomenting a color revolution in hopes of securing a Marxist future on U.S. soil.

    Allen appears to have been influenced by some of that ideology, as well as Democrats’ incessant but unfounded claims that Trump was involved in the late Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.

    The manifesto police said Allen wrote suggested he was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” and that he subscribed to the Marxist paradigm of critical race theory that divides people into oppressors and the oppressed.

  • Who funded American Nazis and the KKK? You did, through USAID.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Finally: “FBI and DHS Raid Dozens of Minnesota Fraudsters, Including ‘Quality Learing Center.'”

    Federal officers are conducting raids of suspected fraudsters in Minneapolis on Tuesday, including the most infamous Somali-linked false front, the “Quality Learing Center.”

    The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are targeting more than 20 locations in their latest operation against the massive Minnesota fraud network, according to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, who said that he spoke with the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI’s parent agency. The size and scope of the Minnesota fraud scandal, which is heavily linked to the Somali community there, but also implicates multiple Democrat politicians, including Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, continues to astound patriotic Americans.

    Melugin posted on X April 28, “Sources tell FOX the locations are largely Somali linked businesses, including the infamous ‘Quality Learning Center’. I’m told these are court approved search warrants being served and they are tied to fraud, not immigration enforcement. Fox is told 22 search warrants were executed in Minnesota this morning.”

    He also shared a statement from a DOJ spokesperson: “Today the FBI with federal, state and local law enforcement is involved in court-authorized law enforcement activity as part of an ongoing fraud investigation.”

    While investigating apparent false fronts for taxpayer-funded daycares in Minnesota, journalist Nick Shirley found one that had even misspelled “learning” in its own name on its sign, calling the place a “Quality Learing Center.” Tikki Brown, the commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families, then asserted that the childcare facility in question closed down the previous week, explaining why Shirley didn’t see any children there. But on Dec. 29, the same location was “packed with kids.” Apparently, some fraudster panicked and summoned children to provide a veneer of legitimacy. It’s The Truman Show in real life.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Teacher’s unions are a huge funder of leftwing causes.

    A new pair of reports is shedding fresh light on how teachers unions across the country have quietly poured more than $1 billion into political causes over the past decade, with a top education watchdog warning the spending reflects a growing focus on activism rather than classroom priorities.

    According to research from Defending Education, national teachers unions alone have directed roughly $669 million toward left-wing political groups, advocacy organizations and campaigns since 2015. When state and local affiliates are included, that figure balloons to more than $1 billion in total political spending.

    The reports track spending from the two largest unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), as well as their state-level affiliates, using federal filings and campaign finance records.

  • The Supreme Court strikes down racial gerrymandering.

    The Supreme Court just handed down one of the most consequential redistricting decisions in a generation — and Democrats are not going to like it one bit.

    In a 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, the majority held that Louisiana’s congressional map — redrawn to include a second majority-black district — constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court stopped short of striking down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act entirely, but it dramatically narrowed the ways in which states may use race when drawing congressional maps.

    For Republicans eyeing the House in 2026, this is the kind of ruling that changes the math.

    I’m sure I don’t have to tell you which justices dissented.

    The ruling’s immediate implications are huge. As we’ve previously reported, Republicans could potentially pick up anywhere from 12 to 19 new House seats across the South, as states seize the opportunity to redraw maps that were previously constrained by Section 2 requirements.

    (Hat tip: Charlie Martin at Instapundit.)

  • “Southern Poverty Law Center donors include George Soros, JPMorgan, George Clooney — as nonprofit ‘funneled’ millions to hate group.”

    The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been funded by big name businesses and philanthropists including George Soros, JPMorgan, ex-Apple CEO Tim Cook and George Clooney.

    The group — indicted Tuesday for allegedly funneling millions to the hate groups it says it is ideologically against — also holds over $786 million in assets, yet still solicits donations.

    In fact, it took in $106 million in donated cash 2024, according to its latest available financial disclosures, yet still ran “urgent” appeals for “emergency” cash.

    Over the years, donations have been made by big name donors, many of whom pledged to the organization after clashes at a 2017 by “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Virginia, which resulted in the death of one protester.

  • Tuapse hammered again. “Ukraine seems to hammer this every day now.”
  • “Huge Strike on Russian Command Post: Nine Officers Eliminated. Another FSB Also Hit.” In Luhansk.
  • “Ukraine Advances 15km And Liberates Ternove Near Dnipro.”
  • “Three Russian Ships & MiG-31 Hit By FP-2 Drones in Crimea.”
  • “Iskander Storage Hit by FP-2 Drones in Crimea.” Not clear they penetrated the bunkers.
  • “Ukraine Hits Shadow Fleet Tanker Marquise with Marine Drones.” “The vessel was hit about 210 kilometers southeast of Tuapse, Russia” in the Black Sea.”
  • “A Su-57 stealth aircraft was destroyed by drones at Chelyabinsk, confirmed by satellite imagery with Ukraine reporting two destroyed and a Su-34.” This is some 1,600km away from Ukraine.
  • “After Al-Qaeda in Mali (JNIM) [Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin] & FLA [Azawad Liberation Front] took the city yesterday, the Russian Africa Corps & Malian soldiers fled to a military base outside town where they got surrounded…The Russians negotiated an exit from the [base] and fled. But the agreement didn’t include the Marian soldiers who were left behind. So, Russia once again abandoning its supposed allies as soon as the going gets tough.” Mali rebels also shot down a Russian helicopter.
  • Speaking of Mali: “Defense minister killed in united al-Qaeda and ISIS jihad attack, country on verge of collapse.”

    Mali was on the brink of collapse last year as al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) unleashed attacks on the country. Then came a report that Jihad Watch covered yesterday about renewed attacks that injured 16 people, as efforts to create an Islamic state in Mali escalated. The new siege rapidly spiraled into much worse, with JNIM, ISIS and Northern rebels coordinating attacks. Mali’s defense minister was killed.

    I’m guessing the ISIS here is the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

    Mali’s military government, which Gen. Assimi Goïta leads, broke ties with France in 2021-2022 and hired the Russian Wagner Group (known as the Africa Corps) to fight the rebels.

    Technically, Wagner Group and Africa Corps are different Russian mercenary groups, though I’m sure a lot of soldiers for the former ended up in the latter.

    The siege also served as “a major blow to Russia as the mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities.”

    Mali now faces an existential threat, which Kurdistan24 News characterized as “a profound failure for Mali’s Russian-backed military junta, signalling severe regional instability.”

    Governments in the Sahel have never been the most stable, but the Russian-backed coups there have made things measurably worse.

  • Dispatch from the Texas Senate Runoff: “Cornyn Touted Legalization for Illegal Aliens in 2020 Campaign Ad.”

    A resurfaced 2020 campaign ad shows U.S. Sen. John Cornyn promoting his support for the “legalization of Dreamers”—a message that has since been removed from his YouTube channel.

    In the Spanish-language ad, a narrator proclaims that, while Cornyn supports secure borders, he “firmly supports legalization of Dreamers.”

    The video, which was previously available on his official YouTube channel, was quickly removed after circulation on social media.

    Created by executive action under President Barack Obama in 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program allows certain individuals brought to the United States illegally as children, known as “Dreamers,” to remain in the country and shields them from deportation.

    The program was challenged by President Donald Trump and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who argued it was unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to end the program in a 5–4 ruling.

    The messaging aligns with comments Cornyn made on the Senate floor in 2020 regarding recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program following that Supreme Court ruling.

    “DACA recipients must have a permanent legislative solution. They deserve nothing less,” Cornyn said at the time. “We need to take action and pass legislation that will unequivocally allow these young men and women to stay in the only home, in the only country, they’ve known.”

    Cornyn also described the uncertainty surrounding their status as “terrifying” and said many recipients have built careers and families in the United States.

    “These young people deserve better,” he added.

    The senator further noted he had been working with advocacy groups and stakeholders—including the Texas Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, LULAC, and Catholic bishops—to find a long-term solution.

    Cornyn has long been known as a squish on amnesty, but no Republican should be seeking the approval of the hard-left LULAC.

  • “Former Fauci Adviser Indicted for Allegedly Concealing Covid-Related Records.”

    David Morens, 78, worked under Fauci while he served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The DOJ charged Morens with conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland.

    Morens, along with two unnamed co-conspirators, “concealed, removed, destroyed and caused the concealment, and removal of federal records to evade FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and FRA [Federal Records Act],” according to the indictment.

    During his time at NIH, which ran from 2006 to 2022, Morens used his personal email account to conduct government business, specifically discussing the origins of Covid-19 with Manhattan-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak. Morens deleted said emails after sending them.

    He also spoke with NIH’s FOIA liaison, asking for tips on how to evade FOIA requests.

    Sure acts like he’s guilty, doesn’t he?

  • “Despite state law, we’re secretly keeping DEI.” College: “All right, then, enjoy this pink slip.”
  • “Poll: Trump’s approval rating among Catholics INCREASED after his scuffle with Pope Leo.”
  • “Overwhelming Opposition in Spain to Giving Amnesty to 500,000 Illegal Immigrants.”
  • This war goes to 11.
  • More rank Biden Admin dishonesty: “Biden SBA hid $90 million in loans to Planned Parenthood by calling them ‘Benghazi’ in emails.”
  • The UAE leaves OPEC.
  • “Fourteen Indicted for Alleged Texas-New Mexico Permian Basin Oilfield Theft.”

    Fourteen defendants from Texas and New Mexico were federally indicted for large-scale oil theft in the Permian Basin.

    The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas announced on April 22 that the 14 conspirators were indicted for the alleged transport and theft of crude oil across the Texas-New Mexico border.

    The criminal activity allegedly took place in the Permian Basin, which is responsible for nearly 40 percent of all oil production in the U.S.

    Snip.

    The Texas defendants are Randell Wayne Reid, age 41, of Electra; his father, James Darrell Reid, 65, also of Electra; and Christopher Frederick Harris, 22, of Seminole. Randell Reid and James Reid are both owners of Reidco Enterprises, a Texas-based company.

    The defendants allegedly conspired to steal crude oil from the Permian Basin, “some of which was then stored on land that one of the conspirators leased from the United States government,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Stolen crude oil was then sold to the other conspirators well below the market value set by West Texas Intermediate (WTI) pricing. WTI is used as a benchmark to set crude oil prices in the region.

    The indictment of Randell and James Reid restates these claims, adding that the men conspired to trade oil across the state borders.

  • Spirit Airlines to cease operations tomorrow, thanks in part to Elizabeth Warren blocking a merger with JetBlue.
  • Sony will lock the games you’ve already paid for if you don’t log into the Internet every 30 days. (Update: Now Sony claims you only have to log in once.)
  • Another day, another another Microsoft zero day exploit, this one called BlueHammer.

    Not quite.

    The zero-day flaw combines a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition and path confusion in Windows Defender’s signature update system, according to an advisory from the Retail & Hospitality-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC). If exploited successfully, a local user can access the Security Account Manager (SAM) database, obtain password hashes, and eventually gain administrator rights using the pass-the-hash technique, which would give the attacker full system control.

    Local user rather than remote, so that mitigates the potential attacker pool. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)

  • Louis Rossmann, call your office. “Conroe residents say city is stonewalling their requests for information on Flock Safety cameras.”

    People in Conroe are asking city officials for answers about how Flock cameras are being used and where the collected information ends up.

    Residents say they feel like they are not getting straight answers.

    Residents are working to learn how these cameras operate and, on Thursday, spoke to ABC13 about their demands for city officials to be more transparent, as they feel their questions are being ignored.

    “Everybody in the community wants to feel safe. Everyone agrees this could help with kidnappings and hit-and-runs. To me, I just haven’t seen the data that proves that,” said concerned citizen, James Fletes.

    Officials have said in the past that Flock cameras read license plates and alert police if the plates are linked to any crimes.

    This technology has been used in the greater Houston area for years. In Conroe, some people say they are worried about the number of cameras and the lack of information about them.

    Fletes says this concern led him to file a public records request with the city of Conroe. He asked questions such as how many cameras there are, how they work, where the data goes, and who can access it.

    He says the city told him it would cost $1,200 to release the information, so he and others in the community joined forces to cover the cost.

    “This is no longer just my request. It’s the people of Conroe’s request. They funded it, and we’re tired of being stonewalled,” said Fletes.

    The original request was sent in March. Now, it’s almost May, and he says no information has been released yet.

    “They were quick to take the money and very slow to provide the documents,” said Fletes.

    There seems to be a whole lot suspicious about the ways cities have surreptitiously rolled out AI-enabled cameras and hoped people wouldn’t notice. (Hat tip: TPPF.)

  • Google co-founder Sergey Brin rejects California’s billionaires tax and is drifting towards the Republicans. “I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don’t want California to end up in the same place.”
  • Part 2 of that Robert Rodriguez interview with Quintin Tarantino.
  • “Media Still Stumped As To Motive Of Gunman With Manifesto Titled ‘Why I’m Going To Kill Donald J. Trump.'”
  • “‘This Is A Both Sides Issue,’ Says Side That Shot President Trump, Assassinated Charlie Kirk, Tried To Assassinate Kavanaugh, Tried To Shoot Trump Again, Shot Steve Scalise, Firebombed Governor Shapiro, Tried To Shoot Trump A Third Time, (cont’d).”
  • “After Failed Assassination, Democrats Observe Customary 5-Minute Pause On Calling Trump ‘Hitler.'”
  • “In Blow To Democrats, SCOTUS Rules They Have To Stop Being Racist.”
  • “SPLC Says Funding KKK Only 3% Of What They Do.”
  • “Vegan Crossfitter Cyclist Unsure What To Tell You About First.”

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





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    Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Technology, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 4 Comments »

    Texas Primary Election Day! Go Vote!

    Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026

    Today is Texas Primary Election Day! If you haven’t already voted early, go vote!

    Remember, due to redistricting, voting cards haven’t been sent out, so just use your driver’s license.

    Some election links:

  • Williamson County voting locations.
  • Travis County voting locations.
  • The Texan offers up election day resources for all 254 Texas counties.
  • General primary information and top of the ticket endorsements.
  • The Attorney General race.
  • The Comptroller and Railroad Commissioner races.
  • Texas Scorecard’s list of conservative group endorsements.
  • Gun Owners of America endorsements.
  • Texas Scorecard’s campaign finance tracker.
  • President Trump offers up his own endorsements in Texas races.

    Endorsements issued by President Donald Trump in recent days for Texas statewide races displayed a split between Gov. Greg Abbott and the president, as the two put support behind different candidates in a handful of contests.

    These include one of the more fiery Republican primaries — the race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner. President Donald Trump threw his support behind incumbent Sid Miller, breaking from Abbott’s selection of Nate Sheets as his favored candidate.

    Abbott endorsed Sheets in January, with strong words about his capability to lead the Texas Department of Agriculture and Miller’s alleged inability to do so. Abbott and Miller have repeatedly clashed over issues throughout both their tenures in office, spanning back to 2020 when Miller joined a lawsuit against the governor regarding the extension of the early voting period during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In Trump’s endorsement on Friday night, he described Miller as a “MAGA Warrior who has been with me from the very beginning,” and “is doing a terrific job as Agriculture Commissioner for the Great State of Texas…”

    “An Eighth Generation Farmer and Rancher, Sid is an incredibly effective Voice for Texas Agriculture, and our amazing Farmers and Ranchers,” Trump added.

    Leading up to this, Abbott has been traveling across the state alongside Sheets for several “Get Out The Vote” rallies, emphasizing his support for the challenger.

    Trump also endorsed former state senator Don Huffines for Texas Comptroller, over Abbott’s pick: former state Sen. Kelly Hancock and current Acting Comptroller, after he joined the agency as an employee to avoid a constitutional issue.

    Huffines has been a frequent critic of Abbott’s, particularly over his response to COVID-19, also challenging him in the GOP gubernatorial primary in 2022.

    Trump similarly described Huffines as a “MAGA warrior” in his endorsement issued via a Truth Social post, adding that “as a successful Businessman, Don knows the America First Policies required to Grow our Economy, Create GREAT Jobs, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., and Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE.”

    The President also issued a number of key congressional candidate endorsements earlier in the week, splitting from Abbott in two distinct primaries: one for Congressional District (CD) 9, and another in CD 35.

    Trump threw his support behind Republican candidate Alex Mealer in her bid for Congressional District (CD) 9, against state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park), who is endorsed by Abbott.

    Cain and Mealer are running in the district currently held by U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX-9), which was heavily impacted by the GOP-favored redistricting map that passed the Texas Legislature during the summer of 2025 — legislation initiated at the White House’s request and voted for by Cain in the Texas House.

    Trump also endorsed one of the Republican primary opponents to State Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) — Carlos De La Cruz, brother of Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz (R-TX-15), in his bid for CD 35. Lujan was endorsed by Abbott for CD 35 in January.

  • A Facebook/Meta PAC is pouring a lot of money into Texas races.

    Super PAC “Forge The Future,” founded by California-based tech giant Meta, reported $1.3 million in Texas expenditures ahead of the upcoming March 3 primary.

    Formed earlier this year, Forge The Future is one of four super PACs controlled by Meta. The PAC’s Texas site states an objective of supporting “conservative candidates” with favorable stances on tech policy issues.

    Three specific focuses listed are support for domestic tech companies, advocacy for an AI-friendly regulatory environment, and increased parental control over children’s online activities.

    Of Forge The Future’s Texas contributions, $800,000 went to a slate of three Texas Senate and eight Texas House candidates, including Rep. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin) and Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield) for Senate Districts 3 and 22, respectively.

    Those districts’ proximity to the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area makes them a key early target for placement of AI-friendly legislators, as the area has been a long-time hotbed of Texas technology interests and currently hosts several ongoing data center developments.

    The remaining $500,000 was spent on digital advertising campaigns supporting former state senator and now Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock’s bid for a full term as Texas comptroller. The ads focus on Hancock’s efforts to lower taxes and improve education, making no specific mention of tech-related issues.

    Forge The Future is one of two super PACs formed by Meta this year, alongside Making Our Tomorrow, which is dedicated to similar technology issues but instead supports Democratic candidates. Making Our Tomorrow has initially focused on contributing to candidates in Illinois, another key state for Meta’s infrastructure.

    Meta’s super PACs, all formed within the last year, represent an overall $65 million investment in political activity and mark a distinct shift from the company’s previous, mostly neutral stance on political spending. This new investment from the tech giant comes at a time of increased scrutiny from legislators and the general public alike on many tech policy issues, including social media, artificial intelligence, and data centers.

    Aside from AI, social media regulation could also pose a problem for Meta. The Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp parent company has been in and out of court in relation to child safety concerns on its platforms; CEO Mark Zuckerberg was most recently called to testify in a landmark tech addiction lawsuit in California court on February 18.

    Meta isn’t the only large tech company ramping up its political spending. Last August saw the formation of Leading The Future, an AI-focused super PAC boasting Silicon Valley backing, which includes names from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Palantir Technologies.

    • Lots of outside money is being poured into Texas races, but Texans are the ones with the power in their hands. Go vote!

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    Posted in Austin, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Texas 2026 Primary Election Roundup For February 17, 2026

    Tuesday, February 17th, 2026

    Texas early voting started today, so here’s a roundup of Texas primary links, along with something that might vaguely resemble endorsements in a “one-eyed man in the land of the blind” sort of way, since I haven’t been paying terribly close attention to this year’s primaries. But the top of the ticket endorsements are easy:

  • Ken Paxton for Senate. I’ve said about Paxton before what Abraham Lincoln said about Ulysses S. Grant: “I cannot spare this man. He fights.” Yesterday I talked to a lawyer who thinks Paxton is a crook, and he’s still going to vote for him over Cornyn.
  • Greg Abbott for Governor. National conservatives may not realize it, but for a long time inside Texas, Abbott was considered a bit of a squishy, consensus-driven Republican, more competent technocrat than conservative firebrand. But the school choice fight with seems to have screwed his courage to the sticking place, and he’s now rightly regarded as one of the country’s most conservative governors.
  • Dan Patrick for Lt. Governor. Patrick has proven to be a very competent, very conservative Lt. Governor who’s had Texas Senate Republicans passing conservative priorities like clockwork, only to see half of them die in the Texas House.
  • I already covered the narrow case for picking Mayes Middleton over the also acceptable Chip Roy.

    • Now some links:

  • Early voting locations for Williamson County.
  • Early voting locations for Travis County.
  • Here’s Texas Scorecard’s Campaign Finance Tracker. The fact that Gina Hinojosa has such a huge lead over Andrew White for the Democratic nomination for governor suggests that primary is already over, which is pretty much how I figured it.
  • NRA PVF ratings for Texas candidates. At least they had the decency not to endorse anyone in TX-23, instead of endorsing incumbent Tony Gonzales over Brandon Herrera…
  • The Agricultural Commissioner’s race is interesting, because Governor Greg Abbott has endorsed challenger Nate Sheets over incumbent Sid Miller, which is pretty rare for a statewide race.

    Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed Nate Sheets for Texas agriculture commissioner in the 2026 GOP primary against incumbent and fellow statewide elected Republican Sid Miller.

    Texans for Greg Abbott campaign manager Kim Snyder described Sheets as “the only candidate in the race who has the integrity to lead the Texas Department of Agriculture,” in a statement to the Texas Bullpen.

    “The current Texas Department of Agriculture commissioner has a history of corruption and, as a state legislator, he previously voted to grant in-state tuition for illegal immigrants,” Snyder said.

    Miller has a long history of public disagreements with Abbott, dating back to 2020 when he joined a lawsuit against the governor and then-Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs over the extension of the early voting period during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In April 2022, Miller condemned the governor’s directive for enhanced vehicle inspections at the border, saying, “You cannot solve a border crisis by creating another crisis at the border. These Level 1 inspections serve as a ‘clog in the drain’ and divert commerce and jobs to more western ports of entry.”

    Their endorsements are split in interesting ways as well, with Brandon Herrera and several U.S. Republican reps endorsing Miller, but Gun Owners of America, Texas Gun Rights, The Kingwood Tea Party, True Texas Project and Texas Eagle Forum. I think I may be leaning toward Sheets at this point, if only because he seems to be emphasizing border security over Miller.

  • If you hadn’t heard, incumbent liberal fossil congressman Lloyd Doggett retired rather than face commie twerp Greg Cesar in the newly redrawn Texas 37th congressional district. Doggett first entered the Texas Senate in 1973…
  • Also retiring: Texas Republican U.S. Congressman Troy Nehls of the 22nd Congressional District. The leading candidate to replace him: His brother Trever Nehls, who’s been endorsed by President Trump. So I’ve got to think that the chances of primary opponent Rebecca Clark are pretty slim.
  • Also retiring: Democratic State Rep. Bobby Guerra of McAllen from Texas House District 41. Tempting to write this off as another Democrat retiring due to Republican inroads into Rio Grande Valley, but the guy is 72.
  • Also retiring: Republican Texas House District 1 incumbent State Rep. Gary VanDeaver. “The East Texas Republican was one of only two Republican House members to vote against school choice legislation championed by Gov. Greg Abbott—the other being former Speaker Dade Phelan, who has also recently announced he won’t be returning.” VanDeaver barely survived a primary challenge in 2024, and Abbott-endorsed opponent Chris Spencer is running again.
  • In the same District 1 Republican primary, it turns out that Paris businessman Josh Bray previously voted for, and donated to, Democrats.
  • There’s a big scrum for newly redrawn Texas U.S. 32nd Congressional District, with no less than nine Republicans running in the primary.

    Nine Republicans are on the primary ballot for the newly redistricted Congressional District 32 that has been held by U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX-32) since 2025 and previously held by Colin Allred before his U.S. Senate bid.

    The district map has a portion in Dallas and then stretches out and widens into more eastern regions of the state. It includes portions of Dallas, Collin, and Rockwall counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, then extends east to take in parts of Hunt, Rains, Wood, Camp, and Upshur counties.

    Redrawn by the Texas Legislature in 2025, this district flipped from a Democratic-leaning district to a Republican-leaning one. According to The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index, it had a pre-redistricting rating of D-62% and is now rated R-60%.

    The field of nine Republicans vying to fill the seat are listed on the ballot in the following order: Jace Yarbrough, James Ussery, Darrell Day, Paul Bondar, Ryan Binkley, Gordon Heslop, Monty Montanez, Abteen Vaziri, and Aimee Carrasco.

    Yarbrough, who is endorsed by both President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott, is a U.S. Air Force veteran and constitutional law attorney. He emphasizes his fight as a member of the military against the mandate that he take the COVID-19 vaccine as a demonstration of his courage and willingness to “fight for constitutional freedoms and the America First Agenda in Washington.” He ran for Texas Senate District 30 in 2024, but lost in a runoff to now-state Sen. Brent Hagenbuch (R-Denton).

    Well, I guess the race already has an overwhelming favorite, then. Here are a few tidbits on the other candidates:

    Ussery points out that he is an East Texas native with a longtime career in the oil and gas industry. His campaign promises include protecting Social Security for seniors and fighting to protect the First and Second Amendments.

    Day is a small business owner who says he “understands real-world challenges.” He has previously served as a precinct chair, election judge, and Arlington City Council member. Day has been endorsed by groups such as Moms for Liberty, Collin County Patriots, and Red Wave Texas. He also has a list of community leader endorsements on his website.

    On his website, Bondar introduces himself as a former Division I football player and successful business leader, adding that the issues he cares about are “driven by real life”: secure borders, safe communities, economic opportunity, strong families, and a “government that respects our freedoms instead of controlling our lives.”

    Binkley, who formerly ran for president in 2024, is the pastor of Create Church and is also the CEO of mergers and acquisitions advisor Generational Group. He jumped in the race with a kickoff event in September. He is endorsed by leaders such as the First Liberty Institute’s Kelly Shackelford and Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, along with other pastors and community leaders.

    Former educator Heslop claims he wants to “Make America Normal Again” by strengthening the middle class and reducing the national debt. He said in a candidate survey that he would focus on government policies to help the “ordinary citizen.”

    Veteran and entrepreneur Montanez announced his candidacy for the seat in June before the maps were redrawn. His priorities include public safety, jobs and the economy, healthcare, and veterans’ affairs.

    Vaziri is a hedge fund manager, a real estate investor, and an attorney, who says his life represents the “American dream.” Born in Iran, Vaziri is a convert to Christianity who “vehemently opposes Sharia law.”

    Carrasco describes herself as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, a community leader, and a mental health advocate. Her top priorities are securing the border, strengthening the economy, and leading with integrity and compassion.

    • I want to timebox this post to keep it from sprawling all over the place, so I’m going to cut it off here and try to do a separate post on the Comptroller and Railroad Commissioner races.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Austin Voters Reject Odious Proposition Q

    Wednesday, November 5th, 2025

    On an election night that was pretty lousy for Republicans across the country, an unexpected ray of light shown out from a very unexpected spot.

    The People’s Republic of Austin, against all odds, defeated Proposition Q.

    The rubber match between the progressive Austin City Council and the collection of opposition organizations headlined by Save Austin Now (SAN) has gone the latter’s way.

    Proposition Q is a voter-approval tax rate election (VATRE) worth $110 million, intended to close the $33 million deficit gap in the City of Austin’s budget.

    The ballot language states the item is “for the purpose of funding or expanding programs intended to increase housing affordability and reduce homelessness; improve parks and recreation facilities and services; enhance public health services and public safety; ensure financial stability; and provide for other general fund maintenance and operation expenditures included in the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget as approved or amended by City Council.”

    Though it was not the only spending item within the proposition, the headliner was the homelessness response appropriation.

    This is the third time the two sides — the city’s dominant political establishment and the insurgent opposition made up of Austin’s few Republicans, Independents, and even Democrats — have grappled over a ballot proposition.

    The first was the May 2021 reinstatement of the public camping and lying ban, a rebuke of the progressive city council headlined by then-Mayor Steve Adler and then-Councilman Greg Casar; 57 percent of voters, including 40 percent of Democrats, voted to reinstate the camping ban.

    Playing into SAN’s favor at that time was the visceral nature of the council’s policy. Overnight, encampments cropped up on Austin’s boulevards, under its overpasses, and within its creekbeds.

    The next bout between the factions came on a November 2021 proposition from SAN that would have established a minimum staffing threshold for the city’s police department; a year earlier, the city council had cut and redirected $150 million from the Austin Police Department budget that included nixing financial authorization for 150 patrol positions.

    SAN’s progressive opponents came out on top in that instance, with nearly 70 percent of voters rejecting the proposition.

    It was a heavy blow to the group trying to build a bipartisan oppositional coalition in the city, but it set the table — along with other electoral skirmishes in the years since — for what came this year.

    When it came to reinstating the camping ban, the message for SAN, led by Matt Mackowiak, was provided for them in the form of unsightly encampments on many street corners and increased confrontations between homeless individuals and pedestrians. That didn’t take much creativity.

    But for the police staffing proposition, it was harder to fashion a winning message out of crime statistics that, while higher than the city’s historical levels, remained less tangible in what is still a historically low-crime city. The messaging cut the other way, too.

    Opponents of the minimum staffing item framed it as a mandatory spending increase — which it was — and it worked to a prolific degree.

    This November, the “spendthrift” theme fell squarely on the city council; SAN and its allies ran with it to a great effect.

    SAN, with donations from donors like attorney Adam Loewy, purchased billboards across the city that read, “Stop the largest property tax increase in Austin history.”

    Countermessaging by Proposition Q supporters focused heavily on President Donald Trump, including a mailer quote from City Councilwoman Vanessa Fuentes that read, “Passing Proposition Q tells Donald Trump and Greg Abbott they don’t call the shots in Austin. Our Community takes care of its own, and Proposition Q shows it.”

    In short, the messaging dynamic was one of bipartisan opposition to more increased spending, versus a partisan rebuke of the GOP and its faces at the federal and state levels; the former won out, a remarkable feat in a city that has generally approved ramping up spending levels.

    SAN’s $300,000, together with $120,000 from Ellen Wood’s Restore Leadership ATX, lapped the pro-Proposition Q Love Austin PAC’s $94,000 spent in the closing weeks of the campaign.

    Snip.

    With multiple elections of voter data to reference, SAN identified 70,000 likely supportive voters across both major parties and unaffiliated voters — and through early voting, that voter universe turned out at a rate of 2.3 times more than the rest of the voter universe.

    SAN’s money paid for mail to 140,000 households, 300,000 text messages to voters, radio ads on five stations, a digital ad blitz, and billboards and small-scale signs across the city, per data shared with The Texan. Get-out-the-vote robocalls and digital ads continued along with the radio spots through the close of polls on Tuesday.

    I didn’t cover Proposition Q because I live just outside the Austin city limits, I’ve had plenty of other stuff to blog about these past few months, and 40 years of experience has led me to believe that Austin voters will vote for pretty much any cockamamie spending increasing that comes down the line. So I didn’t have much hope they’d defeat Proposition Q, but I did see signs against it just about everywhere I went.

    Through early voting, SAN’s internal modeling put “No on Prop Q” ahead 57 percent to 43 percent, basically the final breakdown of the camping ban reinstatement election. SAN reached that conclusion by extrapolating their polling from a couple of weeks ago that put “No on Prop Q” at 40 percent among Democrats, the largest voter universe in bright blue Austin.

    More than 30 percent of the early vote turnout was modeled to be from SAN’s universe or a universe of strong Republican voters, all likely to be “Nos” on the proposition.

    After initial results, Proposition Q went down in flames with over 60 percent of votes against it.

    Maybe the lesson here is that bond issues are one thing, but tax increases are quite another. While the former almost inevitably leads to tax increases down the road, maybe even Austin’s notoriously left-wing voters have had enough of being taxed to death. Forcing governments to seek voter approval for tax increases means a whole lot less tax increases get enacted.

    Finally, Austin voters may simply be sick and tired of their hard-earned money keeping drug-addicted transients shuffling down their streets. There’s evidently no homeless scheme the Austin City Council won’t throw money at, but actual voters seem tired of shoveling taxpayer money into the insatiable maw of the homeless industrial complex.

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    Posted in Austin, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »

    Paxton Wants To Shut Beto PAC Down

    Monday, August 18th, 2025

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has stepped up pressure over Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s Powered by People PAC. Like Trump, he’s going after the left’s money when they misbehave, and now he’s asking for Powered by People to be shut down entirely.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton has escalated his legal fight against Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, filing an amended petition to strip the corporate charter of his group Powered by People.

    Paxton says the organization been deceptively fundraising and doling out “Beto Bribes” to Democrat lawmakers who fled the state to break quorum.

    “Robert and his unlawful influence scheme, Powered by People, have deceived donors, bought off Texas politicians, and unlawfully assisted runaway Democrats in avoiding arrest,” Paxton said Friday. “As much as Robert and the sell-out Democrats might wish to ignore them, we do have laws that must be followed. I have asked the court to enforce its previous TRO, throw Beto behind bars, and revoke Powered by People’s charter for its unlawful conduct. There must be consequences.”

    Paxton first sued O’Rourke and Powered by People last week, accusing them of misleading donors by soliciting money through ActBlue under the guise of supporting Democrats’ political fight, while using the funds for personal expenses such as private jets, luxury hotels, and dining. That same day, a Tarrant County court issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting such fundraising.

    According to Paxton, O’Rourke defied the order less than 24 hours later at a Fort Worth rally, telling the crowd, “there are no refs in this game, f*** the rules,” while directing them to donate via the same ActBlue link cited in the lawsuit. The attorney general responded with a motion for contempt, seeking fines and jail time.

    Declaring that the stakes are so high that you don’t need to obey the rules would seem to be a particularly foolish approach when dealing with an Attorney General as determined and tenacious as Ken Paxton.

    I can’t help but wonder if these actions haven’t handed state and national Republicans enough probable cause to take a deep dive into the structure and financing of ActBlue (which has been caught committing campaign financing fraud on numerous occasions) with the same digital forensic tools DOGE used so successfully to disentangle USAID graft conduits. That sort of discovery might turn up all sorts of shady financial shenanigans, of which illegal foreign contributions may only been the tip of the iceberg. Such a move could not only bring about a vast number of indictments, but also cripple already-lagging Democratic fundraising efforts into 2026 and beyond.

    The new filing adds a quo warranto claim, asking the court to terminate Powered by People’s authority to do business in Texas for violating criminal laws, including felony bribery and hindering the apprehension of a fugitive.

    A quo warranto claim is a fairly ancient legal revocation that basically says you done screwed up so bad that you no longer have the right to exist, hand over your charter.

    The final cherry of irony on Beto’s Screw-up Sundae is that Democrats have just given up on their quorum break (just like the last two times they pulled this maneuver) for the just-started second special session, and it’s a near certainty that Gov. Abbott’s redistricting initiative (and a lot of his other legislative priorities) will pass despite Democrat grandstanding.

    Good job all around, guys…

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For August 15, 2025

    Friday, August 15th, 2025

    There’s been a lot of media articles that the runaway Texas House Democrats are going to cave, but it hasn’t happened yet. The Trump Administration continues to rack up success after success at the border, Ukraine hits more Russian oil facilities, once again Adam is full of Schiff, more illegal alien sex traffickers nabbed, and China finally picks on someone its own size.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • DHS reports all-time border crossing lows.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that the U.S.-Mexico border is experiencing “all-time lows” of illegal immigrant crossings after President Donald Trump’s administration ramped up efforts to secure the southern border.

    On August 1, DHS released preliminary numbers for the month of July that report to show nationwide encounters are 90 percent lower than during the Biden administration, in addition to the “lowest single-day apprehensions in history” — on July 20, DHS reported just 88 apprehensions at the southern border and 116 across the country.

    “History made, again. The numbers don’t lie — this is the most secure the border has ever been,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. “President Trump didn’t just manage the crisis — he obliterated it. No more excuses. No more releases. We’ve put the cartels on defense and taken our border back.”

    The numbers released from DHS reflect previous assessments made by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which said in July that nationwide apprehensions have hit a “new historic low” following a “dramatic shift” in policy focus since President Donald Trump entered office.

    According to the Migration Policy Institute, encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped to levels not observed since the 1960s.

  • Progress. “Trump Purges 275,000 Illegal Aliens From Social Security.”

    Months after President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum targeting illegal aliens and other ineligible individuals from collecting Social Security Act benefits, the president told reporters at the White House on Thursday afternoon that nearly 300,000 illegals have been removed from the government program that provides financial benefits to eligible citizen taxpayers and/or lawful permanent residents (green card holders).

    “Last month, I signed the One Big Beautiful Bill, and allowed No Tax on Social Security for our great seniors … and to protect our benefits, we’ve already kicked nearly 275,000 illegal aliens off of the Social Security system,” Trump told reporters.

    Recall that on April 15, the president signed a memorandum directing federal agencies to take immediate action to purge the Social Security system of illegals and fraudsters.

    As Maureen Steele via American Greatness elegantly noted earlier this year, “We don’t need an executive order to bar illegals from Social Security – we need a government that obeys the law.”

    Let’s not forget that the Biden-Harris regime facilitated the invasion of illegal aliens, allowing millions of these third-worlders to siphon dollars and essential services from citizens and lawful permanent residents – in what some have described as a classic Cloward–Piven strategy.

    The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that taxpayers spend more than $182 billion annually to cover costs associated with 20 million illegal aliens and their children, which includes $66.4 billion in Federal expenses plus an additional $115.6 billion in state and local expenses.

    The free lunch for the Democratic Party’s illegals is coming to an end.

  • “President Trump brokers peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia after 35 years of conflict.” Neither Russia nor Iran can be happy with how President Trump has strengthened America’s position in their own backyards…
  • In deep Schiff over Russigate lies.

    A Democratic whistleblower told the FBI that Senator Adam Schiff authorized the leak of classified information related to the Russia collusion investigation in 2017 in an effort to discredit President Trump, newly-released documents show.

    The whistleblower, who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than ten years, first reported Schiff’s alleged behavior to the FBI in 2017, when Schiff was leading the committee’s Russian collusion investigation.

    FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed on Monday that he had handed over the documents, first obtained by Just the News, to Congress. “We found it. We declassified it. Now Congress can see how classified info was leaked to shape political narratives – and decide if our institutions were weaponized against the American people.”

    The FBI interviewed the whistleblower most recently in June 2023, at which point the unidentified intelligence officer said he had been part of an all-staff meeting called by Schiff in which the then-California representative “stated the group would leak classified information which was derogatory to President of the United States Donald J. TRUMP. SCHIFF stated the information would be used to Indict President TRUMP.”

    “[The whistleblower] stated this would be illegal and, upon hearing his concerns, unnamed members of the meeting reassured that they would not be caught leaking classified information,” the report added.

    The whistleblower expressed concerns that Schiff’s actions were “treasonous” and “illegal.”

    Indeed.

  • Remember how Alan Dershowitz said that two judges are holding up release of the Epstein files? Obama Judge Refuses To Release Ghislaine Maxwell Grand Jury Transcripts.”

    District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer (Obama) wrote in his order that the government’s premise that unsealing the records would shed light on meaningful new information was “demonstrably false,” and that “unsealing the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence.”

    “Contrary to the Government’s depiction, the Maxwell grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest. Far from it,” he wrote. “It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents. And the information it contains is already almost entirely a matter of longstanding public record.

    Translation: Either it implicates powerful Democrats, or else we need to keep the issue alive to try to dirty up President Trump.

  • Truth: “White House Deputy Chief of Staff on Redistricting Battle: ‘We all know Democrats cheat.”

    White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is blasting Democrats for complaining about the current redistricting uproar and accuses them of stealing dozens of House seats by counting illegal aliens in the last census.

    Miller told Newsmax that Democrats brought in tens of millions of “invaders” into the nation through their open borders policies to “rig the results of the census” and the apportionment of congressional seats.

    Miller pointed out that even though Republicans won a landslide in the House popular vote, they only picked up a 4-seat majority due to Democratic gerrymandering, manipulation and rigging of congressional districts.

    He contrasted the gains of this last election with the 2010 election, in which the Republicans won a much smaller majority in the popular vote, yet gained 63 seats in the House.

  • President Trump has put D.C. Police under Federal control and deployed the National Guard to the capital.

    President Trump on Monday announced plans to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and to deploy several hundred National Guard troops and more than 100 FBI agents to the streets of Washington, D.C., to assist local law enforcement in fighting crime.

    “I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, squalor and worse,” Trump said during a press conference on Monday. “This is liberation day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back.”

    “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people,” he said.

    Trump said the murder rate in D.C. is higher than some of the “worst places” in the world, including Bogota, Colombia.

    Trump has the authority to take over the Metropolitan Police Department under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which includes a provision that grants him the ability to take over the department when there are “special conditions of an emergency nature.” As part of the federal takeover, Attorney General Pam Bondi will lead the department, while Terry Cole, the new DEA Administrator, will be the interim federal commissioner of the department.

    On Friday, the Trump administration dispatched federal law enforcement officers to tourist hotspots around D.C. Trump has also threatened to federalize the district if crime rates do not fall and on Monday, he said he would send in the military, if needed.

  • One immediate effect: Cooperation with ICE in deporting illegal aliens.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded several DC police executive orders Thursday that restricted officers from arresting illegal migrants – vowing that the nation’s capital will not be a sanctuary jurisdiction under President Trump.

    “DC will not remain a sanctuary city. Actively shielding criminal aliens will not happen,” Bondi declared in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

    The attorney general’s comments came as she issued a new directive voiding commands issued – as recently as earlier Thursday – by DC Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith.

  • Smith is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. “DC police chief [Pamela Smith] asks what ‘chain of command’ means after question from reporter.”
  • A sampler of the rich life people enjoy in the District of Columbia. Human poop on the sidewalk and masturbating transients figure prominently..
  • Hilarious news this week: “Two Chinese ships collide while chasing Philippine Coast Guard boat.” A Chinese Coast Guard ship collided with a Chinese Navy ship. And yes, there is video:

  • A Ukrainian drone strike hit an oil depot in Ukhta, Komi Republic, a good 2,000km from Ukraine.
  • They also hit a Shahed drone assembly plant in Nizhnekamsk, 1,200km from Ukraine.
  • They also hit an electronics factory in Arzamas.
  • They also hit the JSC Monocystal plant, a maker of military optics systems.
  • They also hit the Saratov oil refinery.
  • And a big strike on a Volgograd oil refinery.
  • The Democrat decision to channel money to their green energy scam and ignore reliable fossil fuels is sending electric rates soaring across the northeast.

    A power bill crisis is gripping parts of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and is set to worsen, threatening to financially crush households as long-range forecasts point to a brutally cold winter. What began in Baltimore, Maryland – as first covered in our reporting one year ago- has now spread to New Jersey, where residents are furious over skyrocketing electricity costs.

    The common denominator in both states? A disastrous green energy agenda, pushed by radical leftist lawmakers, is dismantling reliable and cheap fossil fuel power generation in favor of unstable solar and wind. This has unleashed a power bill armageddon on working-class and middle-class households, as well as mom-and-pop businesses, all while baseload power demand surges in the era of AI data centers.

    Fox News is beginning to latch onto the power bill crisis theme, starting with coverage of New Jersey residents who are absolutely furious over exploding power bills. This new development could severely damage the state’s Democratic leaders in the upcoming elections.

    This all started when New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities approved a 17 to 20% rate hike for power bills in June. Many residents were shocked when they opened their bills at the end of last month.

    “$200 more, I know my electrical bill,” one Jersey woman told Fox News reporter CB Cotton, adding, “I was shocked. So to say the least, I’m very disappointed. This is killing us, and every time you turn around it’s something more. You only get little pleasures in life that you enjoy, and my air conditioner is one of them.”

    Perhaps Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to shutter the state’s nuclear and coal plants, without a one-to-one replacement for lost capacity on the grid, was a catastrophic error that is only now coming home to roost. He also prioritized offshore wind farms and other green energy projects, which have left the grid more fragile than ever.

    “Just like the old gypsy woman every Republican ever said!”

  • How bad is the Democratic Party sucking? The Teamsters Union is donating to Republicans.

    The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, disillusioned and even disavowed by Democratic leaders, is showing Republicans some love in the midterms. The union’s donations are evidence of a realignment that could outlast President Trump’s term unless Democrats embrace at least some union-friendly policies like tariffs.

    Prior to 2024, the Teamsters backed almost no Republicans. This year, the Democrat, Republican, Independent Voter Education PAC gave the maximum, $5,000, to each of 22 House Republicans and backed several Senate candidates, Politico reports. They also gave $50,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association.

  • Casino interests aren’t giving up on buying Texas.

    After dumping millions into the 2024 election cycle and coming up short, Las Vegas Sands appears ready to roll the dice again.

    New financial disclosures show that Texas Sands PAC, the Texas-based political arm of the casino giant, has more than $9 million in cash on hand heading into the upcoming election season. That money comes almost entirely from Miriam Adelson, the billionaire owner of Las Vegas Sands and majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Despite its name, Sands does not operate casinos in Las Vegas or anywhere in the United States; its operations are exclusively in China and Singapore.

    While the group has largely held off on spending in recent months, records show it contributed $1.8 million to members of the Texas House during the 2024 cycle—$1.34 million to Republicans and $457,500 to Democrats. That spending mirrors the strategy the group employed last time: pour money into protecting lawmakers who supported its push to legalize casino gambling in Texas.

    That effort didn’t go as planned.

    Despite getting casino legislation to the floor of the Texas House in 2023, Sands watched its momentum collapse in the primaries. Voters rejected the very lawmakers who had sided with the casino giant. Former House Speaker Dade Phelan, the top recipient of Sands money, was forced into a runoff. Meanwhile, 14 Republican House members who voted for casino legislation either lost re-election or chose not to seek it.

    Sands and Adelson attempted to salvage the cycle with a massive last-minute push. The Texas Defense PAC, funded entirely by Adelson, poured more than $7 million into runoff races in an effort to rescue Phelan’s allies. But again, the money didn’t translate into wins.

    Now, Sands is recalibrating.

    Although no major new contributions have been reported yet this cycle, those connected to the group have continued to work in some statewide campaigns.

    Former State Sen. Kelly Hancock, who is now running for state comptroller, has hired John Jackson to run his campaign.

    Until earlier this year, however, Jackson served as Sands’ head political consultant in Texas. He previously managed campaigns for Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

    Hancock did not respond to a request for comment on whether he supports the group’s efforts to bring government-monopoly casinos to Texas.

    Neither Don Huffines or Christi Craddick—the other two candidates currently in the race—have casino operatives leading their campaigns.

    Hancock is not the only one with senior staff tied to the casino operator.

    Jordan Berry, a recent registered lobbyist for Sands, also serves as a campaign consultant to numerous candidates in the state legislature, including State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R–Galveston) in his campaign for attorney general. Berry’s lobby registration with all his clients ended on June 23.

  • City-owned Kansas City grocery store closes despite because of millions of dollars in subsidies.
  • Not this shit again: “Judge Rules Against Little Sisters of the Poor in Obamacare Contraception Case.”

    A U.S. district court decided on Wednesday to strike down a 2017 federal regulation that exempted religious employers from the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for employer-sponsored health insurance to cover the cost of contraception.

    If the ruling holds, religious non-profit organizations such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, the defendants in the case, may now be required to file for an accommodation process with the government that still maintains employees’ access to contraception without the religious organization having to pay. For-profit employers would have access to no religious exemption from the mandate whatsoever.

    Judge Wendy Beetlestone, chief judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, found that the Trump administration’s 2017 rule expanding religious exemptions from the contraception mandate was “arbitrary and capricious,” thus violating statutory authority. Consequently, she declared the rule vacated.

    The left can’t stop attacking the Little Sisters of the Poor because it is intolerable to them that there is an legitimate source of moral authority apart from the state. Catholic nuns must be forced to pay for contraception (and abortions) as a token of their submission to social justice. Every. Knee. Must. Bend.

    I know you’ll be shocked to learn that Beetlestone is an Obama appointee…

  • “Man Says His Minneapolis Neighborhood Is Too Dangerous For Apartment Security Contractor.”

    So on Monday, I get a text from my property management company saying that they’ve retained an outside security company to address the numerous complaints about loitering and drug sales in the neighborhood.

    ‘Beginning today, you will see these security personnel around the properties and in the neighborhood, goes on and on about procedures.’

    Okay. Today’s Wednesday. It’s two days later, I get an email from my property management, and they said,

    ‘We’re disappointed to share that the security company that was hired has pulled out of the neighborhood. After a day and a half of doing recon and observing activity in the neighborhood, they decided the problems with crime exceed their resources to control. We will continue to work with organizations and neighborhood and explore other options to improve public safety and so on.’

    Funny what happens when a Democrat-run locale decides to “defund the police” because a random black drug user died…

  • “Commissioner Ramsey Seeks Removal of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Following a vote to censure Hidalgo, Ramsey said, ‘It is time to consider replacing Judge Hidalgo.'”

    Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo faced a historic 3-1 censure vote from the commissioners court after her proposed property tax increase was rejected. The vote followed accusations of disruptive behavior, prompting Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey to call for her removal.

    This is the first time a Harris County judge, the chief executive of the county, has been censured.

    Lots of candidates (Democrats and Republicans) are lining up to run against Hidalgo next year.

  • Sex trafficking ring broken up in Nebraska.

    United States Attorney Lesley A. Woods announced that five people were charged by complaint for a range of federal violations that center around their alleged conspiracy to engage in labor trafficking, sex trafficking, and harboring of aliens at several hotel locations across the Omaha metro area and into central Nebraska. The defendants own, operate and manage several hotels in the Omaha metro area located at the following locations where federal search warrants were executed in the early morning hours of August 12, 2025:

    • The AmericInn, 2920 S 13 Ct., Omaha;
    • The Inn (formerly Super 8), 9305 S 145th St., Omaha;
    • The New Victorian, 10728 L St., Omaha; and
    • Roadway Inn, 1110 Fort Crook Rd S, Bellevue, NE.

    The five Nebraska men from Nebraska with very Nebraskan names were identified as:

    • Kentakumar Chaudhari, a/k/a Ken Chaudhari, age 36, of Elkhorn, NE;
    • Rashmi Ajit Samani, a/k/a Falguni Samani, age 42, of Elkhorn, NE:;
    • Amit Prahladbhai Chaudhari, a/k/a Amit, age 32, of Omaha;
    • Amit Babubhai Chaudhari, a/k/a Matt, age 33, of Omaha; and
    • Maheshkumar Chaudhari, a/k/a Mahesh, age 38, of Norfolk, NE.

    Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers conducted a search of 14 premises, including homes and several “Brow and Lash” salons associated with the men.

    During the operation, law enforcement officers rescued 10 minors from an alleged labor trafficking conspiracy that involved putting children under the age of twelve years old to work at the hotels for long hours with little to no pay. Seventeen adult victims were also rescued from the same conspiracy.

    The US Attorney’s Office says at least one of the defendants were running a sex trafficking operation that sold both children and adults into prostitution. Sex trafficking was “not only allowed at the hotels … but also encouraged.” Prosecutors say hotel management and employees sexually abused the victims personally, as well as selling their victims out to others.

    Drugs were also openly used and sold at the hotels, according to officials.

    The Biden Administration went all-out to ensure that all 50 states got to enjoy that vibrant illegal alien diversity they imported…

  • “Former Austin Elementary School Teacher Gets 71 Years For 20 Child Sex Crimes. Kevin Abeyta taught art at Austin ISD’s Campbell Elementary.”
  • An Arizona judge freed an illegal alien child rapist despite him violating the Mann Act.

    An Arizona judge is reportedly planning to free an illegal alien who kidnapped and raped a girl from Kansas whom he brought all the way to Arizona.

    The 14-year-old girl went missing on July 20, but authorities were able to track her cell phone and locate her in an Extended Stay America hotel in Chandler, Arizona. The kidnapper is a man named Cristian Leonardo Caal Mucu. When police arrived, the teenage girl was alone in the hotel room. What local media was reluctant to admit was that Caal Mucu is an illegal alien. And now this predator is set to be released on bail with only electronic monitoring.

    How is he not being handed over to the FBI and/or ICE? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Of the 2,942 religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024, 2,041 (69%) offenses targeted Jews.”
  • China has a supergenius to solve its housing collapse problems: Force government-backed corporations to buy unsold homes. What could possibly go wrong?

  • Hollywood unions want to control YouTube. Also, people in Hell want ice-water.
  • Funko popped.
  • The Critical Drinker really liked Weapons.
  • “Democrats Warn New Trump Census Could Negate All The Illegal Alien Votes Biden Brought In.”
  • “Democrat Mayors Report Violent Crime Down 40% Since They Redefined ‘Violent’ And ‘Crime.'”
  • “Gavin Newsom Vows To Double California’s Violent Crime If Trump Doesn’t Stop Cleaning Up D.C.”
  • Saying hello to the new neighbor:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud | 8 Comments »

    Brandon Herrera Running For Congress Again

    Monday, August 11th, 2025

    Shortly after declaring that running for congress was “one of the worst nine-month experiences of my life,” gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera is rushing into the breach again.

  • He starts off by comparing his run to Rocky II, the movie in which Rocky actually wins the heavyweight championship.
  • His first run “was a terrifying jump into unfamiliar territory. But I did it because the congressman who represented me, Tony Gonzalez, even though a Republican, kept making bad votes that just made no sense to me, like voting for Biden’s gun control, opposing border security, selling out American interests on behalf of other countries, and a bunch of other things that shocked me to learn that a Texas Republican would vote for.”
  • “Statistically, replacing an incumbent that wants to run for reelection is very hard to do, but we gave it a shot. What followed was one of the craziest 10-month journeys of my life, running for office in Texas Congressional District 23, one of the biggest in the country, against one of the best funded members of Congress in the entire country.”
  • “We succeeded in our goal of taking him to a runoff.”
  • “What followed was a brutal two-month runoff where I had all of the guns and money of the establishment pointed directly at my forehead. over $10 million being spent against me. I got outspent like 10 to one.”
  • “I lost by like 400 votes, by 1%.”
  • Gonzales doesn’t seem to have gotten the message. “Like three days after the election was over in November, he was on CNN arguing against deportations.”
  • “When these people win, they feel untouchable. They will continue to do favors for the people who kept them in office and vote for garbage without any sense of accountability from the people who they hate and pretend to love when the cameras are on. The truth is, these people only understand one language. The only way to stop them, truly stop them, is to win.”
  • “I’m not going to lie, [the loss] started to eat at me. Those things that I didn’t like about DC, about my congressman, they didn’t change. The things that the voters in the district were upset about, the reason so many of them were sick of their fake conservative congressmen, they didn’t change.”
  • “People in the political world kept telling me, you know, nobody wins on their first try, even during my first try, which, I’ll be honest, kind of ticked me off, cuz I was, you know, gunning to prove them wrong.”
  • “Texas District 23 deserves a real conservative, not a cheap fake who plays one on TV.”
  • “Somebody who actually understands and respects the Constitution, not just as like a cheap line, but actually respects it. Someone who will vote not just to protect, but to enhance your gun rights. Not vote to throw them away when it gets inconvenient.”
  • “Someone who will actually vote to protect America’s borders, not just claim that they will on TV during election season.”
  • “Texas deserves better than Tony. I’m willing to put my life to the side to stand up and take that fight.”
  • He goes on to praise his donors. “The amount of you guys that were able to put together even just $5, $10, $20 blew away the DC professionals. I’m not even kidding. I had these conversations after the race with, you know, DC types who do political data for a living, and they were in literal disbelief of what we were able to put together. All with no big super PACs, no special interests, no foreign lobbyists, just me and you guys.”
  • “They literally didn’t believe me until I showed them the numbers. I mean, we were able to raise over a million without having to play the DC games and beg people who definitely don’t expect favors in return.”
  • “But this time, I want to make sure we give them a fight they’re not ready for. I’ll give you a war you won’t believe.”
  • Flogs his website: https://brandonherreraforcongress.com/ and says he’s going to personally match donations with his own money. “To start off strong, I’m going to be matching your donations in the month of August up to $100,000 personally.”
  • “I hate that money is such a pivotal part of politics, but last time I saw exactly what happens when you didn’t have enough. The establishment could barely handle us last cycle, and money and slander were the only two weapons they had. This time, if we keep the momentum up, they don’t stand a chance.”
  • “Unlike the DC types, I don’t need this. I already have my dream job. I’d be taking a pay cut to take this job, but I’m willing to do it because I truly feel like it’s the best way I can currently serve my country, cuz that’s what it should be.”
  • “When I’m in office, I will not be buying, selling, or trading a single stock. Hell, I support legislation to ban it while in office. Again, unlike the DC types, I don’t need insider trading to be successful. Although, if you’re looking for stock tips, I’d just recommend doing what Nancy Pelosi does. I hear that tends to work out for some reason.”
  • “I am tired of Republicans saying that they’re going to go in and they’re going to fight for us. And then when the time comes to fight for something specific, they cave, they capitulate, they say, ‘I had no choice.’ Most of them didn’t even bother to fight in the first place.”

    • Some of it is standard campaign boilerplate, but Herrera is striking all the right notes here.

    As in 2024, unseating a sitting congressman is going to be an uphill struggle, especially since Gonzales has been careful to stand closer to President Trump (at least rhetorically) than he has in the past.

    The Q3 fundraising numbers for the race should be very interesting…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 6 Comments »

    Republicans Dominate Texas Fundraising

    Saturday, July 19th, 2025

    Texas fundraising reports for the first half of 2025 are out, and Republicans continue to out-raise Democrats by a considerable margin, and sometimes orders of magnitude.

    Gov. Greg Abbott continues to show off his fundraising prowess and flaunt his status as the financial king of Texas politics. He raised $20 million in just a couple of weeks and has $87 million in his war chest between his cash on hand account and his Texans for Greg Abbott PAC.

    “Support from thousands of donors across the state reflect the unwavering trust Texans have in Governor Abbott’s strong leadership,” said Campaign Manager Kim Snyder. “The broad backing we’ve received proves that Texans are committed to keeping our state strong, secure, and prosperous.”

    In the last two reporting periods, Abbott has raised $43 million, and with a re-election bid next year, he has the capacity to bring in far more. His advisors have stated they want to put $20 million into flipping Harris County back to red, and a similar attempt is in the works to continue the momentum Republicans gained in South Texas last year.

    And all of that will take money — lots of it. Abbott doesn’t yet have an opponent, but if he doesn’t draw a top-level challenger, Republicans across the state will depend on him and his money to be the rising tide that lifts all of their boats up and down the ballot. The governor has also hinted at a Texas House crusade on property tax reform similar to his school choice push that succeeded in 2024.

    In 2022, Abbott had what should qualify as a “top tier” challenger in Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, who actually managed to outraise him by $3 million. This managed to reduce his 2018 margin of victory from 13.3% to 10.9%. And for all his goofiness and the malleability of his “principles,” O’Rourke did the work. Against Cruz in 2018 and Abbott in 2022, he was an indefatigable campaigner who built effective, tech-fueled campaign teams that raised tons of money. It wasn’t enough, but O’Rourke in 2022 was undoubtedly better funded, organized and motivated than the Lupe Valdez campaign in 2018 or the Wendy Davis campaign in 2014, and will probably be better than whatever token opposition Democrats can dredge up against him in 2026. Barring a self-funding billionaire jumping in (which seems unlikely), Abbott should have an overwhelming funding advantage against anyone running against him.

    If reelected, Abbott would surpass Rick Perry’s record of 5143 days as Governor on February 19, 2029.

    Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick can play a similar role with his $37 million cash on hand. So far, his only declared opponent is state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-Austin) who raised $36,000 and has $219,000 cash on hand. Patrick will have plenty at his disposal to fend off Goodwin and at the same time play a role in the elections for the currently four open Senate seats, and more if he so chooses.

    Two orders of magnitude less funding and an Austin liberal is hardly a recipe for success running statewide in Texas.

    Patrick is closer to the end of his time as the state’s second in command than the beginning, and speculation has buzzed about him ultimately not seeking re-election next year. But in addition to maintaining publicly that he’s running, he’s raising money like it, too.

    “More miles traveled, more media coverage, more meetings held, and more money raised than anything I have ever seen in Texas. He has set the pace for the 2026 reelection campaign, and it is fast!” said Allen Blakemore, Patrick’s political consultant.

    Being the two biggest elephants in the room, Abbott and Patrick can affect a lot of other races if they choose to, and both are very much eyeing their post-office legacies.

    In the Year of Beto, Democrats got within 5 points of Patrick, and then in 2022 were back to losing by ten points.

    Texas politics is a prolific business; there were 18 seven-figure or higher contributions made in this reporting period. Another 15 were half a million dollars or more.

    Among these include $10 million from the law firm Arnold & Itkin into their new Texans for Truth and Liberty PAC; $9.1 million from Las Vegas Sands owner Miriam Adelson into her Texas Sands PAC; $5 million from Tim Dunn into his Texans United for a Conservative Majority; $3 million from Phillip Huffines into his brother Don’s comptroller campaign; and $2 million from Elon Musk to Texans for Lawsuit Reform and one of their arms.

    Sands PAC is a big supporter of the Straus-Bonnen-Phelan-Burrows cabal. Texans for Lawsuit Reform used to be a powerful force, before a series of missteps (such as backing the Paxton impeachment effort) diminished their influence. Musk is theoretically starting a third political party (based on a Twitter poll), but I haven’t seen any signs it’s actually happening. He’s one of the few individuals wealthy enough to run a successful statewide race, but probably not against Abbott, with whom he’s evidently a big pen pal.

    Abbott himself pulled in four million-dollar checks during the brief fundraising period.

    Given the lack of contribution limits and its political importance nationally, it’s easier to raise jaw-dropping amounts of money in Texas than anywhere else.

    Democrats are farther away from winning anything statewide than they were in 2018, and while offyear elections typically favor the party out of the White House, Democrats just seem to keep falling further and further behind.

    Maybe I’ll have a chance to look at some of the other races later…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

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