Posts Tagged ‘Lauren Bis’

LinkSwarm for July 3, 2026

Friday, July 3rd, 2026

Happy Independence Day Eve! We plan to celebrate America’s 250th Birthday tomorrow in the time-honored tradition: Blowing things up.

More Democrat welfare state fraud, dispatches from the Democrat Civil War, another very bad week for Russian logistics (and aircraft, and any Russians trying to buy fuel), Eurocrats want lowly peons to die of heatstroke rather than use the air conditioning enjoyed by their betters…

…a followup to the weird Plano ISD booster club story, plus Mexican Batman. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Finally: “DOJ Grand Jury Probes Neville Roy Singham’s Marxist NGO Empire.”

    Fox News’ Asra Nomani reports that on Monday, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, authorized by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is examining whether Singham, NGOs he funded, or their leaders committed wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, or other financial crimes.

    Prosecutors have issued subpoenas seeking bank records and other financial documents, according to Nomani’s sources.

    Nomani’s team recently reported that Singham pumped $285 million through a Goldman Sachs donor-advised philanthropy fund and shell entities before it flowed into US nonprofits, while a broader review showed that $591 million flowed across five continents from 2017 through 2025.

    More color from the report:

    Of that money, Fox News Digital established a documented $278 million flowed directly from Singham into organizations that “sow discord” in the U.S., as House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith put it earlier this year at a hearing a dynamics called “foreign malign influence.”

    Singham, who resides in China, has a long track record of assisting far-left entities, such as Code Pink and the Party for Socialism and other socialist NGOs, that oppose U.S. interests and support U.S. adversaries.

    According to investigative reports (e.g., New York Times, 2023), Singham has worked closely with pro-CCP propaganda networks targeting the US.

    Any Democrat or NGO staffers who knowingly accepted communist Chinese money need to go to prison.

  • “RFK Jr. Says 1 Million Obamacare Enrollees Lacked Social Security Numbers. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said 1 million people were enrolled in Obamacare health plans without Social Security numbers, as the Trump administration pledged to intensify efforts to combat fraud in federal health care programs.” Was ObamaCare designed from the ground up to provide taxpayer-funded medical care for illegal aliens, or did Democrats just see the opportunity along the way?
  • Finally Redux: “Supreme Court: States Can Ban Trans Athletes From Girls’ Sports.”

    The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that states can block biological transgender males from competing in girls’ sports. In a 6-3 ruling, the court gave an iron-clad answer to the question.

    Writing for the majority in West Virginia v. B.P.J. (consolidated with Little v. Hecox), Justice Brett Kavanaugh held that neither Title IX nor the Equal Protection Clause requires schools to carve out an exception for transgender athletes who’ve undergone hormone therapy or never experienced male puberty. States can draw the line at biological sex, full stop – no judge-administered athlete-by-athlete fairness hearings required. The ruling reverses both the Fourth Circuit (which sided with West Virginia’s B.P.J.) and the Ninth Circuit (which sided with Idaho’s Lindsay Hecox), and lands squarely in the wake of last year’s Skrmetti decision, extending its “this is a sex classification, not a transgender classification” framework from medical care straight into the locker room.

    The transsexual madness gripping the left deserves its own chapter in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

  • “DOJ Sues States Over Alleged Failure To Turn Over Food Stamp Data. The Trump administration has sued four states, accusing them of withholding crucial data on food stamp applicants.” The only surprise is that California is not among them.

    Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania refused to turn over information to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that would let federal officials identify fraud, Trump administration lawyers said in lawsuits filed on June 26 against the states.

    Officials are asking judges to enter injunctions that would force state authorities to hand over the last five years of applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamp program known as SNAP.

    The USDA requested the SNAP data in 2025, citing an executive order from President Donald Trump that directed agencies to stop waste, fraud, and abuse, and many states complied with the request.

    Data from those states showed that states had enrolled some 186,000 people in SNAP despite those people being deceased, among the discrepancies that added up to $3 billion in wasteful spending, the department said in a report.

    We known Minnesota isn’t turning it over due to the massive fraud lining Democrat pockets, and the same is probably true in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Kentucky is pretty red, but Democrat Governor Andy Beshear must be doing his best to gear up the fraud there.

  • “The Democratic Civil War: the Organized Crime Democrats are Losing to the Bolsheviks.”

    The Democratic Party has two main factions right now, which can conveniently be described as the Organized Crime Democrats, who view the government as primarily a vehicle to distribute resources and power to friends, allies, and clients who can be counted on to return their largesse with reliable votes, and the Bolsheviks, who want to do all those things as well, but whose overriding goal is the destruction of the United States and Western Civilization and replace it with Third World communism.

    For decades, at least, the Organized Crime Democrats have dominated the party, but they have tolerated and even fostered the growth of the Bolsheviks with the mistaken belief that no group of clients can ever be more reliable than those who could not in a million years vote for the Republicans.

    Snip.

    The OCDs’ alliance with and fostering of the radical left has come back to bite them in the nether regions now. As their resources have become constrained, the Bolsheviks have become ever more powerful, and as is always the case, the revolutionaries despise their allies as much as their ideological opponents, and now feel ready to take them out.

    And, so far, their putsch is working, and the OCDs are rightfully frightened.

    I had previously reported on this civil war much earlier, but I used the terms “insane wing” and “corrupt wing.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • More chickens come home to roost: “Moscow Region Attacked by Missile! Big Blast.”
  • “Ukraine Destroys Two More Key Bridges: On the Mariupol-Donetsk Highway and the E58 Road.”
  • “Ukraine Destroys Three More Key Bridges: Road Bridge Falls on Railroad Track.”
  • Russian Oil Refinery Hit By Reported Flamingo Missile: Slavyansk-na-Kubani Refinery.”
  • “Flamingo Missiles Hit Iskander Missile Launcher Factory in Volgograd.”
  • “Missile/Drone Strike on Major Electronics Factory in Penza: Makes Sensors for Su-34 and Su-57.”
  • “Ukrainian Drones Hit Multiple Fuel Trains and Tankers in Crimea!”
  • Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s post on Russian full shortages. “4km Line for Fuel in Russia’s Zabaykalsky Krai Region: 28 Hour Wait!” That’s all the way out east near Mongolia.
  • “Ukraine Claims SEVEN Russian Aircraft Destroyed/Damaged At Saky Air Base in Crimea.” Including Su-30 fighters and Su-24 bombers.
  • “One, Possibly TWO Su-35 Fighters Shot Down!”
  • Missed this earlier: Russian covert unit exposed.

    A JOINT PROJECT BY the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel and the investigative website The Insider has uncovered the existence and inner workings of a previously unknown Russian intelligence and cover action unit. The unit’s formal name is Military Unit 75127, but it is known within Russia’s intelligence establishment as Center 795. The Russian government reportedly created the unit in December 2022—less than a year following the Kremlin’s full military invasion of Ukraine.

    Snip.

    Notably, unlike other special activities units in Russia’s intelligence arsenal, Center 795 does not appear to reside within the GRU. Instead, it appears to operate independently of military intelligence oversight and to report directly to General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff of and First Deputy Minister of Defense, or to one of his subordinate deputy defense ministers.

    According to the investigative reports, the existence of Center 795 was revealed when one of its officers, Denis Alimov, used Google to translate a message sent to him by a Serbian operative living in the United States. This allowed the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation to use a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) warrant and access the Google Translate transcripts. Alimov was eventually arrested in Bogotá, Colombia, on February 24, 2026, after arriving there on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, Turkey. He is currently awaiting extradition to New York.

  • “Minnesota Gov Walz Pardons Convicted Child-Molester, Blocking Deportation.”

    A Minnesota pardon board that includes Gov Tim Walz among its three members has issued a full pardon to a convicted Laotian child-molester, torpedoing Homeland Security’s effort to deport him. The 42-year-old convict, Tou Lue Vang, submitted a letter to the board saying he regretted what he did — and just like that, his criminal record is now clean as a whistle via unanimous decision.

    “Governor Tim Walz’s decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” said DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis. “These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting. Tou Lue Vang lost his legal status following his conviction for repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.”

    Find someone who loves you as much as Democrats love illegal alien child molesters…

  • “EU headquarters shuts off AC to save energy…but only on the lower floors where the peons work.”

    The European Commission’s headquarters was forced to shut down its air-conditioning system on Friday due to the heat wave.

    Staff working at the Berlaymont building received a text at midday, reading: ‘BERL — URGENT — Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day.’

    The 13-story building is home to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, her 26 commissioners, and about 3,000 staff. Von der Leyen works on the 13th floor, and most of her commissioners’ offices are housed on floors eight or above.

  • Also mandating the lowly peons to die of heat stroke: “UK orders homeowners to remove AC units during heatwave due to concerns about climate change.”

    Britons have been ordered to remove air conditioning from their homes – despite the country baking in up to 40C heat this week – under a fresh Net Zero crackdown.

    Planning officials at councils have told residents to take down their cooling units over concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.

    They say AC, despite the heat, should serve only as a ‘last resort’.

    Know your place, peasant…

  • SCOTUS Declines To Hear Challenge to Texas Election Security Law. The Fifth Circuit’s decision upholding Texas’ vote harvesting law remains in place.”

    The U.S. Supreme Court declined to disturb the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding a sweeping Texas election security law banning paid vote harvesting.

    Senate Bill 1, passed in 2021, aimed to extensively reform election security and eliminate paid vote harvesting with increased criminal penalties for offenses.

    Vote harvesting is the practice of collecting and returning completed ballots, which can be used as a cover for voter fraud and voter coercion. Paid harvesters are often intent on delivering results for a specific candidate or measure.

  • “The DOJ has launched an investigation into Sen. Ruben Gallego’s (D-AZ) campaign spending, according to Axios and The Washington Examiner.

    A source told Axios the DOJ started the investigation after a “whistleblower complaint” in Southern California.

    Gallego’s problems began after numerous women came forward accusing his bestie, former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), of sexual misconduct.

    In April, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) claimed, “There is a woman that allegedly is coming forward with attorneys, wants to go on-record about an incident that occurred between the two of them at the same time, and the event was sexual in nature, allegedly.

    Last week, I wrote about how Politico scrutinized Gallego’s financial records and discovered he used leadership PAC campaign cash to fund luxury outings with his family since he launched his Senate campaign in 2023.

    The Senate Ethics Committee dismissed an inquiry into those allegations against Gallego on Monday.

  • “AG Paxton Joins Legal Challenge to California Plastics Act. A coalition of 17 states says the law would raise prices and burden interstate commerce.”

    Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging California’s Plastics Act, arguing it imposes burdensome regulations on companies doing business with California and will increase the cost of everyday American products.

    The lawsuit, which Paxton joined alongside the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and 16 additional attorneys general, calls the California law a “blatant and unprecedented attempt to impose its own policy preferences on the entire nation” and argues that it infringes on the sovereignty of other states.

    Implemented May 1, “the Plastics Act” places new requirements on goods containing plastic shipped into and out of California, affecting both producers and consumers nationwide.

    The act forces companies that sell products in the state to reduce single‑use plastic packaging, make it recyclable or compostable, and help pay for recycling and cleanup. It does this through strict reduction and recycling targets by 2032 and an extended producer responsibility program that shifts costs from taxpayers to packaging producers.

    Paxton’s office expressed alarm that the regulations and fees will drive up prices for everyday goods and discriminate against out-of-state businesses.

    “I am challenging California’s Plastics Act to protect businesses from unnecessary regulations and Texans from higher costs on the products they use every day,” said Paxton. “Texas has always been a place where businesses can thrive, and I will ensure it remains that way. I will not allow California lawmakers to harm Texas businesses.”

    The lawsuit further challenges California’s decision to place the private organization Circular Action Alliance in charge of implementing the law.

    According to the complaint, the CAA would collect roughly $500 million annually from businesses while operating with little public oversight or transparency.

    So a left-wing, radical environmental NGO gets to benefit directly by running left-wing, radical environmental program. What are the odds?

  • “Texas Supreme Court Rules ‘Detransitioner’ May Proceed in Suing Her Gender Modification Providers. SCOTX stated that the two-year statute of limitations clock began when Soren Aldaco’s surgery occurred, not when it was recommended.”

    The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) determined on Friday that a woman who regretted her gender modification surgery did not file her claims too late to take her providers to court, in a case centered on the state’s statute of limitations in medical malpractice cases.

    Soren Aldaco of Tarrant County sued her healthcare providers and counselors for fraud and negligence over their roles in obtaining gender modification procedures for her, including a double mastectomy at age 19 — a procedure she later came to regret.

    After the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth rejected Aldaco’s appeal in November 2024 on the basis that her medical claim had expired, affirming the Tarrant County district court’s prior summary judgement, SCOTX accepted her petition for review and scheduled the case for oral arguments on February 11, 2026.

    A SCOTX opinion was then issued by Justice James P. Sullivan four months later on Friday morning, reversing the finding that her claims had expired on the basis that the clock began ticking once the injury occurred, not when her therapist recommended her for the procedure.

    Aldaco’s therapist, Barbara Rose Wood of the Three Oaks Counseling Group, wrote her a letter of recommendation for a double mastectomy after the Crane Clinic advised her that she would need one in order to move forward with the procedure.

    Those who inflicted radical surgery on teenagers in the name of social justice deserve to lose every dime they own.

  • Now we know what’s driving that push for a Permian Basin high voltage line: WInd and solar power interests.

    In response to lawmakers’ request for a pause on extra-high-voltage transmission lines, transmission service providers admitted reliance on wind and solar power, along with government intervention, is driving Permian Basin energy issues. This aligns with a third-party report that the lines are primarily built to support wind and solar, while local reliable generation alternatives were never fully examined.

    Providers argued that public utility commissioners do not have the power to grant lawmakers’ request to pause the project. The next day, state senators announced they would hold a hearing on the proposed lines in late July.

    This centers on ERCOT’s 765-kilovolt Strategic Transmission Expansion Plan (STEP), a key part of the Permian Basin Reliability Plan (PBRP). STEP proposes three transmission lines spanning over 1,200 miles to move power from East Texas into the natural-gas-rich Permian Basin, with routes crossing North Texas, Central Texas, and South Texas.

    The three lines are split into five interconnected segments for Phase 1. Phase 2 would build 765-kV lines from Northeast-East Texas southward through Central and South Texas. This eastern portion would tie into the lines leading into the Permian Basin.

    On June 24, in a joint filing, Transmission Service Providers (TSPs) Oncor, Lower Colorado River Authority Transmission Service Corporation, AEP Texas, and City of San Antonio-owned CPS Energy admitted that the risk to sustained electrical supply in West Texas is “greatest during low-wind, no-solar conditions, when the Permian Basin relies heavily on imports” from the lower voltage 345-kV network.

    The TSPs’ filing was in response to a June 15 brief by more than 40 state lawmakers asking PUCT to pause the project. They filed it in support of pro-landowner American Stewards of Liberty’s motion to defer deciding the need for the first four segments.

    The lawmakers cited Dr. Brent Bennett, who wrote the May 2026 study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). Bennett warned that the “main effect of the 765-kV lines is to integrate more wind and solar into the ERCOT grid,” and that helping ERCOT “manage [such] a future system … to meet growing industrial demand” is the “primary rationale” for the lines.

    This comes roughly five years after the 2021 winter blackouts. Two failures that energy specialist Jason Isaac said contributed to the problem are overreliance on “unreliable” wind and solar and market-distorting subsidies for wind and solar.

    Bennett wrote that more transmission “does not ensure that enough new reliable generation will be built to meet demand and could even discourage such generation if the transmission provides wind and solar favorable market access.”

    Bennett and ASL believe that building new dispatchable power generation, such as natural gas, in the Permian Basin was not fully examined as an alternative. The TSPs wrote they “do not dispute” that more such generation would benefit the Permian Basin.

  • Former Tomball ISD Tax Assessor Charged with Wire Fraud
. Kristi Williams is accused of stealing $1 million and disguising the theft by altering information in the tax office’s collection software system.”

    When local taxpayers used cash, a tax office employee would put the cash in an envelope and record the payment as part of a “batch” of payments in the office’s tax collection software, Spindlemedia.

    After reaching between $15,000 to $20,000, an employee would close that batch of payments in the software. At this point, Williams was responsible for depositing the cash from the envelopes into the district’s bank accounts.

    Williams’ indictment alleges that she stole $996,174 in cash and disguised the theft by reversing payments recorded in certain batches, recorded those payments in new batches, and kept the new batches open for long periods in the Spindlemedia software.

  • “The company formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems is ending its $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against MyPillow and its CEO, Mike Lindell. The voting machine company, which was sold last year to a former GOP election official and is now called Liberty Vote, agreed to dismiss the long-running lawsuit in a federal court filing this week.”
  • “Pete Buttigieg says his children were temporarily taken by CPS after he was accused of ‘unspeakable violent crimes.'” Falsely calling CPS on anyone is wrong and evil. However, gay men have been convicted of raping their adopted children before, so the charge is not beyond the realm of possibility.
  • Crazy Transtifa mass shooting thwarted.

    Las Vegas cops busted a transgender gunman who allegedly planned a casino massacre using a huge cache of weapons.

    Allison Howlett, 36, who was born a man but lives as a woman, was arrested Saturday on charges of making terroristic threats, assault with a deadly weapon, auto theft, gun theft and other offenses.

    The wild story unfolded shortly after 9:30 a.m. Saturday when Howlett’s former spouse, who is female, called police to report Howlett had stolen her car and the vehicle held numerous firearms, Henderson Police Chief Reggie Rader said.

    You know how the MSM always report “arsenals” that seem like fairly puny gun collections? That isn’t the case this time.

    The officers were shocked to see that Howlett had been sitting on a handgun and had an MP5 submachine gun sitting on the back seat.

    When cops searched Howlett’s car, they recovered 22 other guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

    Cops who searched the suspect’s home in Henderson found 30 more firearms, including automatic rifles, plus ammo, grenade launcher attachments and silencers.

    Officers said Howlett made several threats going back years, a including a 2024 call where Howlett threatened a mass shooting.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Here’s a weird follow-up to a weird story. “Plano ISD Sued Over Arrests of High School Booster Club Mothers.”

    Mothers from a Jasper High School choir booster club filed a lawsuit claiming Plano Independent School District (ISD) participated in civil conspiracy and had them falsely arrested.

    The lawsuit, which names Laura Cervantes and the Jasper High School Choir Booster Club as the plaintiffs, describes the series of events that led to the filing.

    Cervantes was elected as president of the booster club in 2019, and in June 2022 the club was filed as an incorporated nonprofit organization. The club utilized a Prosperity Bank account, and three directors, Cervantes, Krisinda Lingenfelter, and Maria King, assumed oversight.

    Cervantes’ lawsuit states, “Neither Plano ISD, nor any of its employees, were members, officers, or employees of the organization” at that time.

    The directors reportedly sought funding from Plano ISD for repairs in the theater, but allege that the district then flipped the script, asking the booster club to instead fund improvements. When they responded that repairs were not in the description of the club’s functions, Plano ISD claimed that the booster club was no longer acting in compliance with district guidelines and staged a coup, according to Cervantes.

    The district disavowed the club and elected new leadership, despite the club operating as a legally separate entity from the district. The lawsuit claims that during that time, “Defendants continued to divert the Booster Club’s mail, kept it, opened it, and used its contents (namely bank statements).”

    The lawsuit also claims that the newly elected booster club directors, along with the school’s fine arts director, subsequently went to Prosperity Bank in order to replace the original club directors as authorized signers on the account.

    The lawsuit states, “These Defendants’ conduct likely constituted the crime of forgery under [the Texas Penal Code], because they intentionally presented documents intended to defraud the bank and harm the Booster Club by taking over its funds.”

    Eventually, the bank notified the three moms that it would be closing the account, and they proceeded to take the check and deposit that money into another bank account at Vantage Bank in the name of the booster club. The check bounced.

    In August 2024, a Plano Police Department detective executed a probable cause affidavit — which Cervantes claims was “based entirely off the knowingly false statements of each Defendant” — and obtained warrants for the arrests of Cervantes, Lingenfelter, and King “for the felony offense of theft over $2,500 but less than $30,000.”

    They were booked into the Collin County Jail with their bonds set at $25,000 each.

    A Collin County grand jury declined to indict the women “for any crime for want of probable cause, and the prosecution was terminated in Cervantes’s favor.”

    Plano ISD released a statement about the legal drama, arguing that school-affiliated organizations, including booster clubs, “must follow established guidelines for financial accountability, annual audits and open communication with district leaders.”

    The statement did not address the termination of the prosecution, or the district-led formation of the new booster club, but maintained, “Plano ISD did not file any suit against the former booster club- these proceedings were strictly between the current booster organization and the previously disbanded group.”

    The statement by Plano ISD also detailed that they gave the $4,437.39 recovered from the old booster club’s account to the new club.

    On May 27, the federal lawsuit was filed with Cervantes at the helm. Allegations cover 11 items, from false arrest and unreasonable seizure of property to violations of the rights to free association, free speech, petition.

    The lawsuit alleges, “Plano Independent School District and its employees conspir[ed] with private citizens to assume control over a private non-profit organization, take control of its property and monies, and eventually, have the directors of that organization falsely arrested and publicly humiliated – all because the officers of a high school choir booster club would not bend the knee to an out-of-control public school district.”

    It seems inexplicable that Plano ISD threw three booster club members in jail in order to steal their $4,437.39…

  • MS-NOW, AKA The Failing Network Formerly Known As MSNBC, has decided to fill its weekend slots with podcast reruns.
  • Do you have a permit to worship while Jewish, comrade?
  • Nuclear power is heating up again (literally). “Three Reactors Achieved Criticality Before July 4th.”
  • “Peppa Pig backlash as US company Hasbro requires child actors to sign voices over to AI.”
  • Reminder, yet again, that when you “buy” digital goods with DRM like movies, you don’t actually “own” them.
  • Mel Brooks turned 100. Happy birthday to the man who brought us Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.

  • Supergirl pitch meeting.
  • Saul Goodman celebrates 250 years of American constitutional rights.
  • Sleep Tricks That Sound Wrong But Work Instantly.” I’m definitely nottrying that lettuce water thing…
  • Hoovie takes over the Car Wizard’s shop.
  • BeardMeatsFood tackles a medieval banquet challenge…for two. Himself.
  • New York business that makes columns and decorative architectural elements shutting down after 110 years.
  • Not The Bee: “‘Mexican Batman’ Keeps Gift-Wrapping Bad Guys And Leaving Them For The Cops.”
  • “Democrats Furious Trump Would Make Haitians Leave Most Racist Country On Earth.”
  • “Terrorist Torn Between Going On Violent Jihad Or Getting Elected As Democratic Senator.”
  • “American Missionaries Dispatched To Europe To Spread The Good News About Air Conditioning.”
  • “Rape Gang Busted In The UK For Illegal Air Conditioner Use.
  • “Heat Wave So Intense The French Are Considering Wearing Deodorant.”
  • A dog and her squirrel:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





    LinkSwarm For June 19, 2026

    Friday, June 19th, 2026

    Happy Juneteenth, the day we celebrate Republicans freeing the slaves!

    This week: More Newsom graft, the Iran War maybe ends, he horrific extent of Muslim rape gang activity in the UK revealed, black rain in Moscow, two Supreme Court decisions (one Texas, one U.S.) with some interesting implications, and a famous cathedral is finally finished after a mere 144 years of construction.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

    Another weird week for me, as I had to have over $700 in car repairs done (bad battery, 120,000 mile maintenance stuff, odds and ends, etc.), and dealing with a welcome (but time consuming) order for over 50 paperback books. So a lot of things got pushed aside while I was dealing with that stuff.

  • “U.S. military blows leader of Tren de Aragua to kingdom come. The Venezuela strike was on Niño Guerrero, “whose legal name is Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores.”

  • Stephen Green: “How Deep Are the Newsoms in It? THIS Deep.”

    It seems impossible — or just too revolting — to keep up with the financial hanky-panky of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner (gag) Jennifer Siebel Newsom. But thanks to a couple of investigative reporters with stronger stomachs than I have, let’s see if I can’t put everything you need to know into one easily digestible column.

    I love it when other people do my dirty work for me, so let’s get started.

    “Today, my wife & I joined Donald Trump’s hit list,” Newsom practically boasted on Monday. “He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us. They have not found a crime — they are simply trying to find one.”

    Well, let’s see what Fox Business anchor Liz MacDonald and my old friend and Red State colleague Jen Van Laar have to say about that.

    MacDonald said Tuesday that the DOJ probe “is about California Democrats’ modern-day machine politics,” which she described as a “feedback loop of Sacramento-corporate lobbyists-governor/wife nonprofit-behested nonprofit donations-lucrative state contracts-Sacramento.”

    Don’t bother writing all this down — there won’t be a quiz at the end of today’s column. You’re welcome.

    “The modern Sacramento machine trades corporate compliance and nonprofit funding/donations for policy access and state business,” MacDonald added, and then explained how that grift (allegedly!) worked for the Newsoms:

    According to IRS Form 990 disclosures, her nonprofit frequently buys from Siebel Newsom’s for-profit film company—Girls Club Entertainment LLC—writer, producer and director services and the licensing and production rights for her documentaries. Then it sells the docs to the state and public schools.

    IRS records show that her nonprofit has paid her Girls Club Entertainment LLC roughly $1.64 million for these production and licensing rights since 2012, which includes a steady annual contracting fee of $150,000 since 2018.

    TL;DR: Siebel Newsom produced unwatchable propaganda videos for children, for which Democrat-dominated schools then paid her handsomely. Or as MacDonald summed it up, “Over the past decade, Siebel Newsom has collected over $3.7 million in combined personal salary and LLC payouts funded by the nonprofit.”

    Then there are behested payments, which MacDonald explained are “a unique mechanism in California politics where an elected official asks a corporation, labor union, or wealthy individual to donate money to a specific charity, nonprofit, or government program.” Unlike campaign donations, there are no caps.

    As governor, Newsom requested a record $226 million in behested payments in one year. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to the California Partners Project,” MacDonald wrote, “a nonprofit founded by his wife.”

    “Many of the biggest donors were corporate giants (like health insurers and utility companies) actively bidding for lucrative state contracts or fighting state regulations.”

    One hand washes the other with filthy lucre, if you’ll allow me to mix metaphors.

    Which brings us to Jen Van Laar, and her hip-deep-in-the-muck wade through the Newsoms’ finances, going back years.

    Way back in 2021, Jen asked, “Somebody Paid $3.7 Million Cash for CA Gov Newsom’s Estate – But Who?” But couldn’t come up with any satisfactory answers. That’s because the Newsoms alternately claimed that “the Newsoms’ cash was used to purchase the home but was done through an LLC managed by his first cousin,” or that “Newsoms obtained a loan… to purchase the home because the sale happened so quickly that they didn’t have time to obtain a mortgage.”

    Then, California’s First Couple played similar LLC games, buying a second home for $9.1 million in ritzy Marin County. “Based on my examination of 15+ yrs of Newsom’s financial disclosures, tax returns, and real estate transactions,” Jenn explained in March, “they absolutely did not have $9.1M in cash.”

    Clearly, somebody did.

    The shenanigans were so egregious that — no matter what TDS nonsense Newsom’s social media team posts on X — the DOJ investigation began under the Biden administration. As I quipped on Instapundit this week, maybe Newsom needs to take a break from social media and lawyer up.

  • U.S.-Iran MOU Language Released and Signed.” I haven’t read it yet, and a lot of people aren’t too happy with it. After I’ve had a chance to actually read it, I hope to have a far more extensive, informed write-up on it.
  • “The official [UK] rape-gang report is here.”

    1) The number of raped and trafficked British girls is in the hundreds of thousands.

    From the report:

    The scale of the crimes committed is staggering. It has been previously established that, at the very least, 250,000 young white girls have been subjected to repeated rape, gang rape, trafficking, torture, pregnancy, forced Islamic conversion, and lifelong trauma. The true number is probably higher.

    This number was reached by compiling reports from Rotherham and Telford over several decades, in addition to conversations and estimates from dozens of British cities, then looking at estimates of national distribution and underreporting (many women have never acknowledged that they were raped by these gangs).

    Reviews that informed these estimates include the 2025 Baroness Casey National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, as well as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), a group established by the British government in 2015.

    2) The attackers are overwhelmingly Muslim foreigners.

    From the report:

    In court records and official inquiries, around 87% of those convicted in these group-based child sexual exploitation (‘CSE’) cases bore distinctively Muslim names. The vast majority of men involved in these gangs were not convicted. Dr. Taj Hargey, an imam with the Oxford Islamic Congregation, believes the true proportion of gang members who are Muslims to be around 95%.

    And:

    Researcher Peter McLoughlin in Easy Meat (2016) compiled a comprehensive list of grooming gang convictions from 1997 to 2018 (with updates in subsequent analyses), drawing from published court outcomes. His examination of names indicated that approximately 87% of those convicted bore distinctively Muslim names, which was a figure echoed in related analyses far exceeding the Muslim proportion (around 6%) of the general population of Britain.

    While the largest rape gangs were operated by Pakistani Muslims, “smaller groups from Somali, Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, and other Muslim origins were also involved.”

    Snip.

    The report goes on to say that these gangs were religiously motivated to carry out these rapes under the theological teaching of al-walā’ wa-l-barā’, which demands subjugation of the infidel, including sex slavery as a form of subjugation.

    Muslim armies have used this teaching to justify rape across the world for 1,400 years.

    Evidence for these numbers includes from a 2017 Quilliam Foundation analysis, Peter McLoughlin’s research, and “analysis of 264 convictions for group-based child sexual exploitation from 2005 – 2017.”

    The report does not pull punches in its conclusion:

    These figures indicate that the rape gangs are a specific ethnoreligious phenomenon, with Muslims – especially Pakistani Muslims – significantly overrepresented.

    3) The problem is geographically widespread, affecting all corners of the nation.

    From the report:

    We found that the same unspeakable crimes occurred in at least 149 local authority districts – close to 40% of all such districts across the United Kingdom…

    Here is a map showing where rape gangs have operated in the nation (these are only the known cases).

    4) The rape gangs started more than 50 years ago.

    From the report:

    The independent chair of the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection Alexis Jay has identified the 1970s as the decade when immigrant rape gangs first began tormenting the girls of Britain. However, the British Newspaper Archive reveals that the first recorded case of specifically Pakistani rape gangs dates back to 1955, when four Bradford-based Pakistanis were charged with raping a 15-year-old girl from Middlesbrough.

    This was soon after former colonial subjects, from the subcontinent as much as the Caribbean, became eligible to enter the United Kingdom in non-trivial numbers under the British Nationality Act 1948. What began as singular and small-scale instances became systematic and industrial over time.

    These horrific crimes have only escalated in recent decades, especially following Tony Blair’s 1997 victory and the start of orchestrated mass immigration. With greater numbers came greater opportunities for abuse. Perpetrators built organised networks that transported victims between towns and cities and passed girls between multiple adult men.

    5) Authorities purposefully and willfully ignored the mass abuse.

    From the report:

    Police forces ignored repeated reports, criminalised victims instead of perpetrators, destroyed evidence, and allowed known rapists to walk free on bail. Social care services undermined protective parents, placed children in trafficking hubs inside children’s homes, closed cases despite clear indicators of exploitation, and retaliated against whistleblowers.

    The NHS [the UK’s health service] recorded genital injuries, multiple sexually transmitted infections in children as young as 13, pregnancies caused by rape, and suicide attempts, yet discharged victims back to their abusers without safeguarding referrals or trauma care. Schools observed older men collecting girls at the gates, heard disclosures of rape on school premises, and responded by excluding victims rather than protecting them.

    Taxi licensing authorities renewed permits for drivers who formed the logistical backbone of the networks and collapsed in the face of organised protests when basic safety measures were proposed.

    The report specifically blames the Labour Party for these government failures.

    Much more at the link, including “Whistleblowers were silenced and threatened with seizure of their assets and careers.”

  • The actual report can be found here. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • A final example that should make your blood boil: “But the report describes one particular occasion in which a vulnerable young girl was returned by the authorities to a house where she was being sexually abused. According to the account, the police officer who brought her back reportedly told the men inside to ‘have fun with her.'” Plus this pick of the rapists Labour policy let into the country:

  • Nor is it limited to the UK. In France, they’re threatening to send a rape survivor to prisoner for daring to point out the rapes are being carried out by black and Muslim men:

  • But all of Europe is getting tired of leftist parties importing Muslim rape gangs, and they’re finally willing to do something about it.

    The announcement of the European Parliament’s final vote on the Return Directive was met with a burst of jubilation in the chamber, where energetic cries of “Send them back” rang out, reflecting the MEPs’ enthusiasm at having succeeded in passing the first genuine measure to seriously restrict immigration at the European level. On the opposite side of the chamber, MEPs responded to these exclamations with vigorous—though minority—cries of “Shame on you.”

    The choice of words is not insignificant; some even see it as a foreshadowing—still a fantasy at this stage—of remigration.

    Through a number of key measures, the directive drastically changes the landscape for the management of illegal immigration. Previously, an obligation to leave the territory remained a national decision. From now on, thanks to the Return Regulation, these decisions may be converted into a ‘European Return Order’—an obligation to leave European territory.

    The maximum detention period for irregular migrants is quadrupled, up to 24 months, with the possibility of a further six-month extension.

    The Return Regulation lists a number of other measures that may be taken: body searches, property searches, the obligation to remain contactable during the procedure, the recording of biometric data, house arrest, and the obligation to report regularly… Finally, the Return Regulation establishes a framework for EU member states to sign agreements with third countries that agree to receive individuals subject to a return decision.

    This outpouring of enthusiasm did not go down well with everyone. Fabienne Keller, a French Renaissance MEP, made a fool of herself in the European Parliament by denouncing the right-wing “celebratory evening” organised by a few MEPs on the terrace of one of the parliament’s buildings, following the vote on the Return Regulation for rejected illegal migrants—a measure which, Keller argued, “will send families with children to camps.” Her statement, in which she lambasted a “political drinking spree,” was met with boos and prompted a call to order from the chair on the grounds that no breach of conduct had taken place.

    On the Left as well as in the centre, the prevailing mood was one of exaggeration and dramatisation. Abir Al-Sahlani, a left-wing MEP from the Renew group, said she had never felt “as unsafe in Parliament as she did after the vote.”

    It is true that the MEPs’ symbolic reaction marks a real turning point in the mindset of the political class at the European level. For a long time, the EU has been a brake on the implementation of more selective migration policies. This remains the case on many issues, particularly asylum. But we are witnessing a major shift, one that is being openly acknowledged. From a political standpoint, as a result of this vote, the European Union can no longer be invoked as a convenient excuse for inaction that satisfies the imperatives of political correctness.

  • “Alleged Leader of UFC Terror Plot Is an Illegal Immigrant Granted ‘Dreamer’ Status Under Obama.”

    The man accused of coordinating a failed scheme to attack the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House over the weekend is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) under the Obama administration, Department of Homeland Security officials said Thursday.

    FBI agents arrested Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez in Omaha, Neb., on Sunday for his alleged connection with a plan to attack the recent UFC event on the south lawn of the White House, which was attended by numerous government officials and others. Alvarez is believed to be the ringleader of the group that planned the attack, according to officials, while four other co-conspirators were also arrested over the weekend in Ohio, Missouri, and California.

    The FBI alleges Alvarez was responsible for organizing the thwarted attack, which involved a multi-part plan to target buildings near the event with explosive-laden drones in an attempt to force a mass evacuation that would send crowds toward a pre-staged sniper team. The would-be attackers then allegedly planned to storm the White House gate.

    Alvarez, who operated under the name “Shepherd” online, allegedly “used a Signal chat to direct staging locations, sniper and drone positions, escape routes and communications protocols,” according to court documents. He instructed the others involved in the plot — police say as many as 23 people were involved in the chat planning the attack — to obtain explosive-capable drones, specifically instructing them to get their hands on “as many and as deadly as we can get.”

    Now DHS says Alvarez, who is facing federal charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds, entered the United States on a B2 visitor visa and failed to depart before it expired in December 2001. He was later granted DACA status by the Obama administration in 2014.

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer for Alvarez.

    “This illegal alien from Mexico should never have been allowed in our country. He was the ringleader of a failed terror attack targeting UFC Freedom 250 at the White House,” acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement. “He and his co-conspirators now face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds. He will face justice and swiftly be removed from our country.”

  • 63 people arrested, 4 stabbings and 1 shooting reported in NYC as Knicks fans go wild celebrating NBA Finals win.”
  • Moscow Attacked By Drones! Oil Refinery Hit Hard by Drones!”
  • Moscow Refinery Hit Again! With Oil Tank Toss (Lid Lifted on Fireball!)” But see the next item about that dramatic lid toss…
  • “Russia Destroyed Their OWN Oil Tank With Missile: Plus MORE Air Defence Failures in Moscow!” Russian air defense is like those scenes in Sleeper where a crew repeatedly sets up a gun, only to have it misfire every time…
  • “Moscow Update: Moscow’s Skies Turn BLACK As Oil Refinery Burns: Plus Oil Rain Starts.”
  • “Ukraine Destroys 415 Russian Trucks, Tankers and Logistics Vehicles in June: Ten a Day!” And that was four days ago…
  • “Big Drone Strike on Rybinsk Oil Depot (Air Defence Non-Existent) and Azot Chemical Plant in Tula.”
  • “Ukrainian FP-2 drones destroy an important bridge on a supply road leading to Chongar and Armiansk in Crimea.”
  • “Big Drone Strike on Russian Ammo Depot & Base in Donetsk.”
  • Tu-22M3 Bomber CRASHES in Irkutsk!” Probably not from Ukrainian action.
  • “Federal Agents Dismantle Human Smuggling Stash House In Texas.”

    U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents busted a stash house used for human smuggling in El Paso, Texas, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) exclusively told The Epoch Times on Monday.

    The joint investigation, which resulted in the arrests of 11 illegal immigrant adults and one unaccompanied child found in the house on May 27, highlights the need for strict enforcement efforts at the border to dissuade individuals from entering the country unlawfully through human smugglers, CBP officials said.

    “This operation, in partnership with U.S. Border Patrol, reflects our mission to safeguard the homeland and uphold the integrity of our immigration system,” HSI El Paso Special Agent in Charge Ryan McRae said. “We remain committed to ensuring the safety and security of El Paso and beyond.”

    Of the 12 illegal aliens arrested, 10 were from Mexico and two from Guatemala.

    The 11 adults were processed and charged with violations of Title 8 of the U.S. Code, CBP said, which encompasses immigration offenses including unlawful entry, unlawful reentry, alien harboring or smuggling, and more.

    The unaccompanied minor was “administratively processed,” CBP told The Epoch Times.

  • “Texas Supreme Court Sides With Citizens in Eminent Domain Dispute. TxDOT had refused to return land it no longer needed, citing sovereign immunity.”

    The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that state agencies cannot invoke sovereign immunity to block former landowners from reclaiming property taken through eminent domain and later deemed unnecessary for public use.

    Snip.

    In 2013, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) sent an offer to Joyce Hutcherson, Rudolph Pusok, and Jimmie Pusok—the owners of 19502 Mueschke Road in Tomball—to purchase their property. TxDOT planned to construct a new road along the Grand Parkway (State Highway 99).

    After receiving pushback from the landowners, the state filed an eminent domain lawsuit to acquire the property in 2014. The suit was dismissed when the owners ultimately agreed to sell at $1.05 per square foot.

    Years later, TxDOT stated in an email that approximately 20,000 square feet of the subject property constituted “surplus land,” as the decision to reroute Mueschke Road made the land no longer necessary for public use. When the landowners—now represented by JRJ Pusok Holdings—sought to buy it back, TxDOT denied the request.

    Pusok then sued both the State of Texas and Kyle Madsen—director of TxDOT’s Right of Way Division—in a Harris County civil court, claiming a right to repurchase under the Texas Property Code Chapter 21.

    The code states: “A person from whom a real property interest is acquired by an entity through eminent domain for a public use … is entitled to repurchase the property as provided by this subchapter if … the property becomes unnecessary for the public use for which the property was acquired.”

    The State argued that the property was purchased from a settlement—even though the process began with the threat of eminent domain—rather than a final judgment in an eminent domain proceeding. According to the State’s logic, “the repurchase statutes therefore do not apply.”

    Pusok rejected this logic, asserting that “all that is required for a property to be acquired through eminent domain is a transfer of land in exchange for compensation.”

    Another argument made by the State was that Pusok sought to recover only a portion of the property, while the repurchase statutes allegedly require any repurchase to cover the entire parcel.

    Snip.

    On Friday, Texas’ Supreme Court sided with Pusok, affirming that the State has “no immunity from Chapter 21 claims to repurchase condemned property no longer necessary for public use.”

    “Repurchase claims derive from constitutional limits placed on the State’s eminent domain power,” the opinion continued. “Further, Chapter 21 permits the repurchase of a portion of condemned property no longer necessary for public use.”

    The ruling is significant as it clarifies that State actors may not eminent domain a property then claim immunity to block repurchase attempts when the property goes unused and unneeded.

    Correctly decided, especially since “sovereign immunity” was never intended as a “Get Out Of Any Statute Free” card.

  • An interesting case. “SCOTUS Sides With Texas Man Over Second Amendment Rights for Drug Users.”

    The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has unanimously sided with a Texas man in ruling that the government cannot restrict gun rights for casual drug users.

    The case involves a dual citizen of Pakistan and the United States, Ali Hemani. In 2019, Hemani, the subject of an FBI investigation that found he was connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was stopped at the Texas border. He was not arrested at the time.

    The FBI had additional information that not only was Hemani connected to a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, but that he was dealing drugs.

    In 2020, Hemani attended the funeral of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani after Soleimani’s assassination by the U.S. that year. Hemani’s mother was reportedly seen on Iranian television stating that she hoped her sons would follow in the footsteps of Soleimani and become martyrs themselves.

    Over the next couple of years, his passport showed trips to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, and a July 2022 border search of Hemani upon return from Iran “found Defendant deleted all messaging applications and wiped communication data from his cellphone.”

    Eventually, the FBI obtained a warrant to search the home he shared with his parents, at which time a handgun, cocaine, and marijuana were all discovered.

    Hemani is clearly a Jihadi scumbag, but that’s not the focus of the decision.

    Hemani was indicted by a grand jury, not for foreign terrorism charges, but under the federal statute that it is unlawful for a person addicted to or using a controlled substance to possess a firearm “in or affecting commerce.”

    Hemani moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the statute violated his Second Amendment rights and conflicted with Second Amendment precedent. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Hemani’s argument.

    However, the government sought SCOTUS’ review of the lower court’s decision, and on Thursday, the high court announced its decision, delivered by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

    Gorsuch stated, “Ali Hemani uses marijuana a few times a week. That fact alone, the government says, means he is automatically banned from possessing a firearm under federal law.”

    “This case poses the question whether the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani is consistent with the Second Amendment.”

    Gorsuch stated that the government’s argument, which attempted to draw a parallel between “present regulations and historical laws addressing habitual drunkards,” did not hold against Second Amendment violation claims by Hemani.

    Other justices also rebutted the government’s comparison of chronic alcoholism to casual marijuana use by Hemani. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “marijuana use today is like alcohol use at the founding. It is widespread and increasingly considered socially acceptable in many quarters.”

    “And from a practical standpoint, law enforcement widely tolerates the use of marijuana.”

    This is a case of “bad defendant, good decision.” If Second Amendment rights are “fundamental” and “deeply rooted” in American history, as per Heller and Bruen, then they can’t be tossed aside for misdemeanor offenses. Now I’m waiting for the Supremes to apply the originalist jurisprudence test of Bruen to interpretation of the commerce clause…

  • Public School Closures Mount Amid Enrollment Declines. More than 100 campuses have permanently closed in recent years, with 64 more confirmed for closure next year.”

    Public school closures are increasing across Texas as districts face historic enrollment declines and mounting financial pressure.

    Despite Texas’ continued population growth, public schools lost 76,000 students in the past school year—the first nonpandemic decline in nearly four decades. Districts across the state are consolidating and shuttering campuses in response to the decline, setting the stage for major structural changes to Texas’ education infrastructure.

    “There’s a lot of emotions and history tied to these schools,” said Monica Ryan, board president of Judson ISD, which voted to close four campuses amid a budget shortfall. Ryan is one of many district officials across the state citing enrollment declines and budget pressures as reasons for the closures.

    The closures are widespread. Fort Worth ISD plans to close 18 campuses over the next four years, while Houston ISD will close 12 next year and Austin ISD 10. Arlington, McKinney, Aldine, and many other districts are pursuing similar plans.

    In a May 2026 report, Texas 2036 pointed to parents increasingly choosing private or homeschooling options as a big reason for the decline. As families move away from traditional public schools, districts are shifting budgets and long-term planning.

    “Parents are paying attention to the weekly barrage of failures across the education system,” Mandy Drogin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told Texas Scorecard. She pointed to schools’ failures to adequately serve students, especially those with special needs, to shield classrooms from political agendas, and to protect students from predators.

    Lower birth rates have further accelerated enrollment losses. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told lawmakers, “a lot of this is a decline in birth rates that has happened that is working its way through the system as students age up.”

    While elementary schools absorbed the majority of the losses, the empty desks are expected to ripple upward through higher grades.

    School choice programs could also affect future trends.

    Beginning next year, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program (TEFA) created through Senate Bill 2 will provide $1 billion in education savings accounts for eligible families seeking alternatives to public schools. Around 102,000 families have been approved, though it remains to be seen how many will use the funds.

    Strangely, given that it’s Texas Scorecard, no mention is given to the deportation and self-deportation of illegal aliens that were previously overloading the system.

  • Higher Education Administrators Conference Promotes DEI Themes.” “Belonging,” “Culturally Relevant,” and “Culturally Sustainable” are the new DEI terms.”

    A national trade association for higher education administrators held a conference last week in downtown Austin that demonstrates the continued presence of diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology in higher education.

    Texas Scorecard was present at the conference, which highlighted a series of less politically charged terms that expressed similar goals to DEI.

    The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) describes itself as “the leading association for the advancement, health, and sustainability of the student affairs profession.”

    The organization has a membership of over 15,000 professionals at 2,100 institutions across the globe.

    While the conference was not exclusively dedicated to DEI, many panel discussions across the three-day event explicitly discussed DEI themes. Examples include:

    • Servingness and Beyond: An Equity Minded Leadership Playbook for Institutional Transformation.
    • First Gen Latinas Leading First-Gen Strategy.
    • Black First Gen Collective.
    • Operational Equity: Creating STEM Circles of Belonging.
    • Building a Neuro-Inclusive Campus.

      Eternal vigilance…

    • TPPF: “Why Can’t We Get Rid of Drag Queen Story Hour?”

      Americans have pushed back. Many, even on the left, believe that a big factor in President Donald Trump’s re-election is because he is for “us,” and his opponent, Kamala Harris, was for “they/them.”

      Polling consistently shows that most Americans oppose allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and support maintaining sex-specific spaces, such as locker rooms and restrooms for women.

      Pride celebrations in many cities can’t find sponsors anymore as corporations reconsider whether it’s worth alienating customers to add their brand to a “pride” event.

      Americans delivered a resounding “no thanks” to Bud Light after it featured Dylan Mulvaney, a man pretending to be a woman, in its advertising. Customers also turned their back on Target after it marketed a line of cross-dressing clothing.

      So why has there been so little progress in eliminating drag shows for children, most commonly manifested in what has become known as Drag Queen Story Hours?

      Texas has spent several legislative sessions attempting ban drag shows that target kids. Senate Bill 12, which passed in 2023, prohibited sexually oriented performances in the presence of minors and on public property. Texas has gotten leave to enforce the law, but court challenges continue.

      Some educational leaders, including Texas public school librarians, believe it is important that children see drag shows. They insist drag queen performances are part of the mainstream, so they belong in public schools.

      Unspoken by TPPF: Because the leftwing groups pushing it want to destroy the nuclear family because it represents a separate power center apart from the all-powerful stateand they view it as a celebration of their power in the culture wars.

    • “TDCJ fires parole supervisor Donna Robinson over Facebook comments on Karmelo Anthony case. “In her viral Facebook post, Robinson wrote that Anthony would be protected in prison, expressed indifference to the victim’s family, and stated she was glad they did not have to bury another Black child.”

      The TDCJ administration emphasized that impartiality is a non-negotiable requirement for state parole employees. A department spokeswoman released an official statement defining the agency’s position.

      “These statements are incompatible with TDCJ policy and values. They demonstrate bias and a lack of the impartiality essential to the fair administration of justice in Texas. Discriminatory or inflammatory conduct that erodes public confidence in the criminal justice system will not be tolerated,” the spokeswoman added.

    • Obama the Deadbeat. “Obama Presidential Center subcontractors claim they’re owed millions and facing financial ruin ahead of grand opening.”

      Several [contractors] also described what they viewed as a wall of silence surrounding the project, with some declining to speak publicly or requesting anonymity because of confidentiality agreements or fears of professional retaliation.

      The allegations emerge days after a Fox News Digital investigation reported that the Obama Foundation’s reserve fund — originally promoted as a $470 million financial safeguard intended to help protect taxpayers if the project encountered financial trouble — remains funded at roughly $1 million.

      Standing outside the center on a gloomy Friday afternoon, Owen flipped through spreadsheets and financial records that he said documented millions of dollars in losses tied to the project.

      Owen said the project stretched on for years longer than anticipated, forcing his company to absorb millions of dollars in labor and overhead costs as work demands changed and expanded.

      He said the losses have drained the company’s reserves, created uncertainty for employees and could ultimately force layoffs.

      Debts are for the little people…

    • Nick Freitas doesn’t think China can take Taiwan. It was looking pretty difficult before Russia invaded Ukraine, and the recent leaps and bounds in development of military drones make it look all but impossible.
    • Missed this last week: After 144 years, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia cathedral, designed by Antonio Gaudi, was finally completed.
    • Joshua Baer, godfather of Austin’s startup scene, dies in plane crash. A dramatic video shows bystanders rushing to the plane with tools and implements of destruction to extract the other passengers.

      Everyone else survived.

    • Rick Beato says he was right about AI. He also mentions Flock AI cameras mysteriously popping up everywhere. Maybe he and Louis Rossmann should compare notes…
    • The bright side of the Google-pocalypse: “What’s left of Vox Media has been sold (likely on the cheap) to Penske Media, and this is after Buzzfeed imploded and MSNBC got spun off from Comcast because it was such a failure.”
    • Critical Drinker didn’t like Disclosure Day.
    • Speaking of Critical Drinker, here’s “Crash And Burn Gaming – The Anita Sarkeesian Story.
    • “Body Symptoms Doctors Are Seeing Everywhere But Can’t Explain.”
    • “British Tourists Pleasantly Surprised By Quality Of American Food, Lack Of Rape Gangs.”
    • “Gen Zer Hospitalized After Going More Than 5 Minutes Without Saying ‘Bro.'”
    • Puppies!

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