Posts Tagged ‘meth’
Friday, July 17th, 2026
Two important speeches (from President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio) on leftwing threats to America, more welfare state fraud uncovered by Nick Shirley, Ukraine continues to hit Russian ships at will, multiple marine drone attacks, TSMC has a good week (and pledges to invest more money in America), Apple sues OpenAI, and Bruce Sterling compares AI to jazz.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
President Trump dropped a prime-time address about cheating in the 2020 election, but not necessarily the cheating we already knew about.
Trump announced a massive declassification of documents showing how exposed our election system is to hacking and foreign interference. Top White House aides and intelligence agency chiefs have all reviewed and authenticated the documents.
The documents highlight major areas of concern. Starting in 2020, Beijing carried out the largest-ever compromise of election data. Some 220 million American voters’ files were meddled with by Chinese intelligence services. China signed a data exploitation unit for this project.
Members of the Deep State within the IC worked to suppress and downplay the scope and impact of China’s election interference. U.S. spy agencies discovered that the voter data breach in 18 states was bought, stolen, or hacked by China. That breach was kept hidden; Trump, who was still president at the time, was not informed, nor was Congress. The line was that the 2020 election was the most secure in history.
CIA reported in mid-2018 that the Chinese Communist Party’s strategy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements opposed to Trump. In mid-2019, China’s approach was to undermine domestic confidence during the first Trump presidency. The Chinese government aimed to identify anti-Trump reporters and pay them large sums of money to produce stories that cast Trump in a negative light.
The FBI obtained raw intelligence indicating that China’s activities included efforts to produce illegal ballots for Joe Biden. These were kept out of the presidential briefing. One analyst admitted to intentionally downplaying Chinese election activities. Another official stated she was running a shadow government to keep intelligence on China’s election interference away from the media and the White House. Numerous burn bags have been found.
Americans were lied to about the security of our election systems, including voting machines. They’re highly susceptible to attack. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and non-state actors have the ability to compromise our election infrastructure.
Michigan police raided a Democrat GOTV organization and were so concerned they contacted the FBI in Detroit. The documents state that canvassers signed voter registration forms in other people’s names, registered nonexistent individuals, and got paid based on the number of applications they produced. The FBI believed crimes were committed, but the Biden DOJ slow-walked and suppressed the case.
Of course they did.
The war with Iran is very much on again.
Today at 9:40 p.m. ET, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) completed its latest major wave of strikes against Iran.
U.S. forces, including fighter jets, aerial drones, and warships, launched precision munitions that hit dozens of Iranian military targets such as coastal surveillance and air defense sites, military logistics infrastructure, and maritime capabilities. This was the sixth consecutive night of U.S. strikes against Iran.
At the Commander in Chief’s direction, CENTCOM is further degrading Iranian military capabilities and holding Iran accountable for recent attacks on commercial shipping.
More than 50,000 U.S. service members are operating across the Middle East and remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.
Also, the full blockade of Iranian ports is back on.
“U.S. forces resumed the naval blockade against vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports and coastal areas today [July 14] at 4 p.m. ET,” the command posted to social media on Tuesday.
“There are currently more than 20 U.S. Navy warships and hundreds of military aircraft operating across the Middle East. American forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready,” the statement continued.
“Rubio Convenes 60-Nation Summit To Confront Transnational Far-Left Terrorism.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has requested that senior officials from more than 60 countries convene in Washington next Thursday to discuss the alarming rise of transnational far-left terrorism, according to a Washington Post report.
Snip.
The initiative is intended to expand intelligence sharing, law-enforcement cooperation and potential terrorist designations targeting militant groups with alleged ties to Antifa.
Administration officials have discussed whether foreign-terrorism links could unlock broader investigative and surveillance powers against US-based far-left revolutionaries that are a part of subversion networks.
The problem is that countries have been addressing far-left revolutionaries as a domestic threat, but in fact it’s transnational.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the upcoming event is in response to the rise of the radical left. He said far-left terrorism is “an old threat re-emerging with strong transnational links and new convergences.”
“Because this threat has not been adequately addressed in the past, each engagement, designation, or security assistance program creates a compounding effect supporting countermeasures at home and abroad,” Pigott said in a statement.
In November, the State Department designated four European far-left groups as foreign terrorist organizations and directed agencies to investigate networks accused of fomenting political violence. One of the militant groups in Germany is called Antifa Ost. Two more were in Greece and one in Italy.
During the Antifa roundtable at the White House last October, Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, briefed the president and his cabinet on a complex network of dark-money NGOs and activist groups fueling unrest nationwide via the permanent protest-industrial complex.
“We have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc investors,” Bruner told Trump.
More on the left-wing terrorist threat from Rubio himself.
Jihadists attacks and plots in the United States are down by two-thirds since ISIS’s peak. The number of people killed by jihadist terrorism in Europe dropped by roughly 97 percent from the year 2015 to the year 2024. In other words, to a very great extent, our counterterrorism strategy has worked. The threat has not disappeared, of course. It will continue to exist, particularly so long as we tolerate immigration systems that imports these threats directly into our respective homelands. But this threat has been severely diminished. The world looks very different today because of it.
For far too long, however, our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot – a blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left. Even today, the very idea that far-left terrorism could be a serious threat is treated as a right-wing fever dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy. It’s treated this way by many in the press, by many in academia and our universities, and by many of our legacy institutions. You will no doubt see the dogma rear its head in the coverage of this very conference. In spite of the clear and the undeniable reality, in spite of the objective numbers and statistics, in spite of the fact that in this room today there are representatives from across the political spectrum, we will hear this organized – that this kind of organized violence and terror will be dismissed. It will be dismissed as a partisan fiction.
A whole industry grew up in our countries around the study of extremism. We have think tanks and fellowships and journals and consultancies, with the unspoken understanding among them that the only kind of political violence that was a true threat to our system – I’m sorry – that only one kind of political violence was a true threat to the system. A bomb planted by a neo-Nazi group was a nefarious and murderous act of evil. It is. But a bomb planted by a Marxist revolutionary – well, that’s just merely a tragic excess of idealism. Perhaps its means were misplaced or overzealous, but its ends were virtuous and just. That’s the implication of how they treat it.
For years, this extraordinary ideological prejudice was embedded in the way we talked about political violence and extremism. It was repeated again and again, until it was accepted as the neutral and objective baseline, so entrenched – so entrenched in the mainstream conventional wisdom that it came to be regarded as an apolitical fact. It is the reason why, here in my country, so many people in positions of power have repeatedly dismissed acts of violence and even terrorism as legitimate forms of political expression so long as they served a left-wing cause.
It is why during those George Floyd – so-called George Floyd – riots in the summer of 2020, as criminals and extremists burned and looted their way through American great – America’s great cities and nearly brought the country to its knees, city governments all across the country simply refused to prosecute the people conducting these acts of violence and terror. It is the reason for the now infamous image – and you all recall this – of a news anchor from a very prominent agency – a news anchor standing in a neighborhood consumed in flames; meanwhile the chyron on the bottom read that the protests were mostly peaceful. This was something worse than a double standard. Left-wing violence was not just excused; it was treated as sacrosanct, a protected class unto itself. That era has to end.
“Move over, Somali Learing Centers! Nick Shirley and Dr. Oz just visited Asian “adult daycares” and found a whole bunch of fraud.” “We uncovered over $190,000,000 in fraud as these fraudsters use the elderly and needy to commit fraud through adult and personal home care scams in NYC. Your tax dollars are paying for elderly Koreans and Chinese to play ping pong and do tai chi, while the fraudsters give $ kickbacks to those who enroll.”
“I Watched the DSA Go Crazy. The Democrats May Be Next. The anti-democratic far Left is using the same strategy that helped them capture the Democratic Socialists of America.”
How worried should Democrats be about the Democratic Socialists of America? In the wake of a series of DSA victories in New York City, Jonathan Chait raised the alarm in The Atlantic, writing that as the group has risen in power, it has also grown “more hostile to the [Democratic] party, more illiberal, and more dogmatic.” Long-time DSA members, including former staff member and thought leader David Duhalde and socialist magazine publisher Nathan J. Robinson, pushed back, dismissing Chait as someone who doesn’t know or understand the DSA.
Well, I know the DSA, and as someone who was a member and served in local leadership, I can say that Chait has it right: today’s DSA is not a harmless organization. It includes disciplined, radicalized networks that have methodically expanded their power over the last decade in pursuit of extremist goals.
As the Democratic Party grapples with the DSA’s growing influence and extremism, it would do well to recognize that the same dynamic underway now—first accommodation, then capture, then surrender to insurgent radicals—already played out on a smaller scale within the DSA itself. The only defense is to out-organize it.
For decades, the DSA was mostly composed of a cohort of aging Boomers left over from its founding in 1982. It prioritized open debate and political tolerance. Following in the tradition of founder Michael Harrington, members viewed the DSA not as a revolutionary vanguard but as a reformist bridge to mainstream labor-liberalism, and they prioritized parliamentary process and pluralism.
But in the mid-2010s, the character of the organization began to change. I was in Boston at the time and witnessed the last days of the “old” DSA. New, younger members began to enter the organization, while Senator Bernie Sanders and the socialist magazine Jacobin grew their followings.
As the DSA’s cultural power expanded and it began to amass electoral victories, more leftists of varying extremist commitments were drawn in. This was an explicit strategy called “the big tent,” advanced by the then-DSA Jacobin Left. In August 2025, DSA delegates voted to remove a constitutional provision barring Leninists from entry. The provision was already a dead letter.
The old DSA’s high-mindedness became its fatal weakness. Veteran members assumed the younger generation played by the same rules of persuasion, but the newcomers’ goal was not to win arguments—it was to transform the institution and its politics.
As the organization grew, it began to profess more extreme ideas—and demand that its members do the same. First there were the purity tests of Black Lives Matter and BDS, then apologia for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and support for Hamas and its atrocities.
The new DSA—with the help of hype-man Hasan Piker—advanced these agendas with what American labor leader Walter Reuther called “the Communists’ highly developed technique of name-calling and character assassination.” The Harringtonites fought back, but their efforts came far too late, and many prominent members of the older generation eventually left.
In a sense Jake Altman is wrong. The Democrat Party has largely already been captured by allied forces under the guise of “social justice” at the same time the commies were taking over the DSA, and were able to do it for much the same reasons: “no enemies on the left”, along with a heaping bowlful of white guilt.
“Explosive report finds $225M in alleged K-12 education fraud amid Trump’s crackdown.”
A coalition of state financial officers said it uncovered roughly $225 million in alleged fraud across America’s schools over the past six years, identifying nearly 90 cases involving embezzlement, fake invoices, inflated enrollment, bid-rigging and kickbacks.
In a new report obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) and Open the Books analyzed every Education Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) Semiannual Report to Congress issued between Oct. 1, 2019, and March 31, 2026, revealing alleged fraud across 24 states and Puerto Rico.
Some other examples snipped.
In Texas, former Houston Independent School District Chief Operating Officer Brian Busby and contractor Anthony Hutchison allegedly orchestrated a fraud scheme of more than $6 million, involving school construction and grounds maintenance contracts in exchange for cash bribes and hundreds of thousands of dollars in home renovations.
A federal jury found Busby and Hutchison guilty of conspiracy, bribery, filing false tax returns, and witness tampering, with Hutchison also convicted on seven wire fraud counts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
“Bureaucratic bloat, insider dealing, and poor oversight prompted Governor Abbott and the Texas Education Agency to intervene in HISD and appoint new leadership,” HISD Superintendent Mike Miles told Fox News Digital. “School funding was being squandered, the quality of schools had deteriorated, and the majority of students’ education was being neglected. That is no longer the case. Since June 2023, we have made it a priority to eliminate waste and most importantly, now every decision we make is focused on closing student achievement gaps, preparing students for the future, and supporting teachers.”
(Previously.) (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
More proof that Democrats in office are scumbags all the way down. “Swalwell pal Sen. Ruben Gallego had sexual relationships with two House staffers, sources reveal to The Post.”
Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, engaged in sexual relationships with at least two House staffers and his “very flirtatious” habits with others may come back to haunt him, The Post has learned.
The 46-year-old lawmaker admitted to the two relationships — both with aides to Texas Democrats — to one source while a second person said they had recently learned of the romantic entanglements.
A third source confirmed one of the dalliances, both of which are said to have been consensual and occurred during Gallego’s decade representing Phoenix in the House.
So he’s just an adulterer, not a rapist (as far as we know). Does this put him in the top half of senate Democrats for morality? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“Marine Drones Hit Two Russian Tankers: Magyar Hit 11 More Ships.” I’ve arranged these from most recent to least recent, which is all of five days ago.
“20 Russian Ships Hit in the Black Sea: Tankers, LNG Tankers & a Tug.”
“Sea of Azov Massacre Continues: 15 More Ships Hit.”
“Ukraine Hits 14 More Russian Ships, Including FOUR Important Ferries. 90 in A Week.”
“28 Russian Ships Hit in One Night! Tankers and Tug.” 76 different vessels hit in the Sea of Azoth.
“Syzran Oil Refinery Turns into Mordor: Hit Hard By Ukrainian Drones.”
“Ukraine Attacks Engels Air Base: Russia’s Main Bomber Base.”
“In the last 5 days Ukraine has placed its ‘Drone Strategic Bombing Imperial Focus’ like a laser on Russian riverine/littoral/brown water logistics from Rostov-on-Don to the Sea. This is burning down both Russian military logistics & 1/5th the economy.”
“Insane operation: Ukraine wipes out 230 artilleries in 48 hours.”
“You must be this tall to fire the YakB-12.7 anti-drone gatling gun!” He wasn’t.
“Ukraine Sinks Rubin-Class Patrol Boat Izumrud with Marine Drone at Gelendzhik Port.”
“American Marine Drone Hits Iranian Submarine Repair Facility & Submarine at Bandar Abbas.” The drone used to attack the facility was the Corsair, manufactured by Austin company Saronic. Speaking of which:
“Sea Drone Company Saronic Announces $3.2 Billion Texas Shipyard. The company says the project is aimed at strengthening U.S. shipbuilding as autonomous vessels play an increasingly prominent role in modern warfare.”
Austin-based defense technology company Saronic, known for building autonomous watercraft, announced plans to invest more than $3.2 billion in a new shipyard at the Port of Brownsville that is expected to create 10,000 jobs.
Gov. Greg Abbott joined Saronic CEO Dino Mavrookas Thursday at the company’s Austin headquarters to announce the project, known as Port Alpha.
The shipyard’s initial phase will occupy more than 800 acres, with the potential to expand to more than 4,000 acres. Saronic plans to break ground this year and begin producing ships in 2028.
“The initial phase of Port Alpha will more than double America’s shipbuilding capacity today and will make it the largest shipyard in the country,” said Mavrookas.
Port Alpha will be designed for advanced manufacturing, software-based production, and autonomous vessels.
Mavrookas framed the project as a response to the decline of American shipbuilding and the increasing maritime capabilities of China.
“Today, China is now outbuilding the United States in shipbuilding capacity 230 to one,” he said.
“A nation that cannot build ships cannot project power, cannot protect its supply chains, and cannot defend its interests,” Mavrookas added. “We are at that moment right now. Port Alpha is our answer.”
Saronic designs and manufactures autonomous vessels for the U.S. military, including the Corsair, Mirage, and Marauder.
This is good news for American drone manufacturing (and shipbuilding). However, on a personal level, I note that Saronic has had the same technical writing position open for most of this year. Indeed, I’ve applied for it multiple times when listed, but gotten no contacts save form replies. Maybe with all their new activity they’ll finally be hiring…
It’s been an extraordinarily wet week for mid-July in Texas, with flash flood throughout the Hill County and at least one death.
Ye shall be known by thine enemies. “Iranian TV, Democrats, and witches celebrate Lindsey Graham’s death.”
Minnesota and the Obama Administration are just the gifts that keep on giving.
Former Obama staffer accused of stealing from colleagues to fund drug habit.
Adam Fetcher, 42, was let go from his role as Chief Communications Officer for the City of Minneapolis last week amid a police probe, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
According to the outlet, Fetcher, who earned $186,495 a year in his role, is accused of stealing cash and credit cards from three of his colleagues and racking up fraudulent charges in smoke shops.
Fetcher’s drug of choice was Kratom, “a substance which is used to manage opioid withdrawal.”
Rep. Chip Roy Seeks To Tighten Legal Immigration After SCOTUS Ruling.”
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy wants the Trump administration to crack down on legal immigration after last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision thwarting a presidential executive order to address birthright citizenship.
In a letter to the Trump administration, Roy (R–Austin) said that while the administration works to secure the nation from illegal immigration, the current level of legal immigration should be reassessed to ensure that the “economic opportunities, cultural and social cohesion, or security” of American citizens is not negatively impacted.
Expressing concern about increasing pressure on housing, schools, and healthcare services, Roy wrote that the “American people deserve transparency so we can ensure our immigration system puts American workers, taxpayers, and communities first.”
According to the congressman, the U.S. takes in approximately one million legal immigrants each year because of the Immigration Act of 1990. This accounts for roughly 34 million immigrants over the last 35 years. He also explained that more than 10 million nonimmigrant visas are issued to visitors such as guest workers, foreign students, and tourists.
Roy went on to cite an analysis of last year’s Current Population Survey (CPS) by the Center for Immigration Studies, which highlighted legal and illegal immigrant totals of “53.3 million and 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population in January 2025.”
“America Is Harboring a War Criminal Who Executed Seven Professors – And Let Him Become a Vice President of One of America’s Largest Muslim Organizations, ICNA.”
Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a former top official of the Islamic Circle of North America in Queens, New York, personally slaughtered seven university professors as the chief executioner of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Al Badr death squads during the 1971 Bangladesh massacre. Despite being convicted in absentia of war crimes, he helped build one of America’s largest Muslim organizations and continues to live freely in the United States.
You may previously remember Jamaat-e-Islami from them stabbing a science fiction writer in the head back in 2018. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Here’s a weird Texas crime story: “Lavaca County Justice of the Peace Commits Suicide Following Arrest for Compelling Prostitution, Sexual Assault. Travis Hill had been a fugitive since Monday, when he failed to appear for a pre-trial appointment.” Lavaca County is in south central Texas between Houston and Seguin on highway 90.
A Lavaca County justice of the peace who was arrested earlier this month on felony charges committed suicide on Thursday as law enforcement agents attempted to arrest him a second time.
Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Travis Mitchell Hill was arrested July 11 on first- degree felony charges of compelling prostitution, second-degree sexual assault, and solicitation of prostitution, but reportedly had been released on bond.
Usually, compelling prostitution is upgraded to a first-degree felony when the victim is a minor.
The Lavaca County Sheriff’s Office was made aware of allegations against Hill six weeks ago, but since Hill was an elected official and a practicing criminal defense attorney, Lavaca County Attorney James Reeves recused himself and referred the case to the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG). The Texas Rangers were leading the investigation.
Hill did not appear for a pre-trial appointment Monday, when he was supposed to receive an ankle monitor. The U.S. Marshal’s Office was assisting local law enforcement with locating him on Thursday.
According to a statement issued by Reeves, Hill was located Thursday evening “at a remote location in Gonzales County, Texas. During law enforcement’s encounter with Mr. Hill, he committed suicide.” No other details were provided.
“Hill was appointed as justice of the peace in 2011 by the Lavaca County Commissioners Court. He had reportedly previously run as a Democrat for Lavaca County district clerk in the March 2011 primary, but switched to the Republican Party sometime later.” There are no more details about the charges against him online that I can find.
Follow-up: Remember the killing of Tory-turned-reform MP Ann Widdecombe in last week’s LinkSwarm? Turns out the suspect arrested is probably a commie. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.
“Houston Man Killed by ICE, Hailed as Father Chasing ‘American Dream,’ Had Meth in His Car.” That would be illegal alien Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who tried to run over an ice agent in his truck.
Unexpected headlines: “A tech company is repurposing its sexbots into AI teachers’ aides and they’re already being used in at least one New York state school.”
U.S. Rep. Keith Self (TX-3) is suspicious of Flock cameras.
As Flock cameras are installed across the nation, citizens are growing more concerned about the potential privacy violations posed by automatic license plate readers.
On Friday, U.S. Rep. Keith Self wrote on X that “[i]f transparency is now considered a threat, we’ve already drifted too far from the principles of a free Republic,” responding to an article about Flock’s CEO, who said that it is “terroristic” for the public to want to know where the company’s automatic license plate readers are being installed.
Flock cameras do not act like traditional license plate readers. Powered by AI, they capture details such as the make and model of a passing vehicle, as well as any unique or identifying features such as dents, scratches, stickers, and aftermarket parts.
The ALPRs also capture data on vehicles, regardless of whether they have been implicated in a crime. Police departments do not need a search warrant to access Flock data, heightening concerns about Fourth Amendment violations.
“TSMC posts record revenue in second quarter on AI demand.” “Revenue in the April-June period of this year came in at T$1.27 trillion ($39.62 billion), according to Reuters calculations, slightly above a T$1.264 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 20 analysts.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
TSMC also says it’s going to invest $100 billion more in Arizona.
Apple sues OpenAI, two former employees for trade secrets theft.” For all the hype and near-trillion valuation, OpenAI seems to have an awful lot of smoke and mirrors.
Bruce Sterling compares AI to jazz.
We’re living in an Age of AI. Why was there a “Jazz Age”? Why did jazz create an “Age”? Why was there this period between the Great War and the Great Depression, where a new form of music was very important, and people around the world cared about it?
You can theorize about jazz. You can say that there were social reasons: that jazz was fun and new and sexy, and women wanted to wear short skirts and dance the Charleston.
Or you could say that jazz was infrastructural — that music from the town of New Orleans could be recorded, and exported, and transmitted on the radio. There were new forms of mass media, so it was easier to spread a viral fad, around the world. So, that somehow explains jazz.
Or you could say that jazz was political — that there was an oppressed class of black people living under apartheid, and jazz musicians and composers were making their voices heard.
Or you could say that the Great War had just ended, and it was followed by a plague of flu that killed even more people than the worst war in history. You might say that jazz was a method for musicians to rescue mankind by changing the subject. Jazz was strange and extreme, because it was denying and avoiding the trauma of a lost generation. With more trauma — depression and war — well on the way.
It’s pretty clear to me that the generation of AI — and it’s been going on for ten years, it’s a generation — has a lot of that unspoken Jazz Age anguish. It’s a vivid displacement activity for a lost and troubled era.
I’m a novelist, so I notice the peculiar emotional expressions here. I notice things like AI burnout, AI psychosis, unhealthy relations with imaginary boyfriends and girlfriends, AI fakes, stock market bubbles, and the fear of missing out. That stark fear. So much fear. The fear of missing that golden chance. Also, the fear that AI is real this time, and is really happening. The apocalyptic terror that AI will lead to the destruction of the world.
This is not the cyberpunk dystopian dark side of AI. This is the propulsive force of AI. It’s the restless and itchy drive that forces you to leave your apartment and rush downtown to the jazz club.
Why do you go? The jazz club is not a place for the angels. You might drink bootleg liquor there and become an alcoholic. Or you might get in a fight, or catch a venereal disease. There’s cocaine and marijuana there. Someone might mug you and take your purse or wallet. But also, in New York, Duke Ellington is playing! In Paris, Django Reinhart is playing! It may be a wild scene, but you’re crazy not to go!
This is the high summer of AI. The scene is red hot. I’ve been aware of AI for my entire, extensive lifetime, and it’s never been this technically intense and this deeply felt. Rational people, with education and money and power and experience, are cracking up in public. They’re losing their heads over it. Billionaires, captains of industry, politicians, military, spies. Worldwide. Old and young, men and women.
It’s a craze.
I’m very interested in it. I follow its every little up and down. It is so far out and science fictional that it might have been built just to entertain elderly cyberpunk writers. I do not invest in it. I’m not selling any of it to you. I don’t use it much personally. It isn’t changing my life — not much as yet. I’m not afraid of it. I don’t even think it will last. It’s defining an era, an era which is ten years old and counting, but something else will show up. AI is not a fraud, or pretense, or a fake. It’s a real and powerful technology and we’re never going back to the way things were. I recognize all that, but also, I take consolation in continuity.
Can you make money selling coal to Newcastle? “US burrito giant Chipotle opening first outlet in Mexico.” This will be in Nuevo León (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Another reason to disable Copilot: “A malicious website could push commands to the AI through Microsoft Edge without the user noticing.”
Marvel Comics leaves New York City for LA. Plus a lot of other changes.
Rick Beato interviews Billy Joel.
“The Lost Civilizations We Keep Finding Evidence Of.” Many of which conducted brutal human sacrifices…
He actually did the meme: “Maryland Man Tries To Rob Bank With Stolen Kitten.”
“Party Of Tolerance Holds Nationwide Parade Celebrating Death Of Political Enemy.”
“Study Shows Mysterious Link Between Trying To Run Over ICE Agent And Bullets Striking Windshield.”
“Scholars Agree Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak Signals Outpouring Of God’s Wrath On Vegetarians.”
“Explosive Diarrhea Epidemic Traced To Gain-Of-Function Lab At Taco Bell Institute.”
Cool: You have a dog and a motorcycle. Very cool: The dog rides with you on the motorcycle. UltraCool: The dog has his own motorcycle.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:2020 Presidential Race, Adam Fetcher, AI, Ana Kasparian, Ann Widdecombe, antifa, Apple, Arizona, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, Austin, Azov Sea, Babylon Bee, Bandar Abbas, Bangladesh, Billy Joel, Brian Busby, Brownsville, Bruce Sterling, Cenk Uygur, Central Command (CENTCOM), Chill Dude Explains, China, Chip Roy, Chipotle, Communism, Copilot, Corsair drone, Crime, data security, Debra McClure, Democratic Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Democrats, dogs, drones, drugs, education, Elections, Engels Airbase, FBI, Flock AI cameras, flooding, Foreign Policy, Fourth Amendment, Gelendzhik, Government Accountability Institute, Grant Halk, Greg Abbott, Guns, Hill Country, history, Holly Hansen, human sacrifice, Illegal Aliens, immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iran, Jake Altman, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, James Reeves, jazz, Jihad, Keith Self, Kratom, Lavaca County, Lindsey Graham, LinkSwarm, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Los Angeles, Magyar Birds [414th Unmanned Strike Aviation Brigade], Marco Rubio, Marvel, Media Watch, Mehmet Oz, meth, Mexico, Microsoft, Military, Mitchell Hill, music, New York, New York City, Nick Shirley, Obama Scandals, OpenAI, Regulation, Rick Beato, riot, Ruben Gallego, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Sam Altman, Saronic, Seamus Bruner, Semiconductors, sex scandal, Social Justice Warriors, submarine, Suchomimus, Syzran, Taco Bell, Texas Rangers, TSMC, Ukraine, vegans, voting fraud, war crimes, YakB-12.7
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, July 7th, 2026
I’d been staying away from covering the Platner story…
No, not that one.
…outside of the LinkSwarms because pretty much everyone was covering the story. But now that commie scumbag Nazi tattoo guy is multiple rape accusations commie scumbag Nazi tattoo guy, Democrats are shocked, shocked that he’s a scumbag.
In Platner’s version of events, he only found out that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol after hearing that opposition researchers were looking into it, at some unspecified date before the October 20 Pod Save America podcast. And then, two days later, he announced he had gotten another tattoo to cover it up. He insists Lyndsey Fifield is lying when she says that years earlier, he had called it “my Totenkopf.” He insists his former political director was lying when she said he had told her he had a “problematic” tattoo in the summer of last year.
Here’s the part that stuck with me: If you had found that you had accidentally gotten a tattoo of the Nazi regime over your heart, how many traffic laws would you break getting to a place to get it removed? Or would you just grab a steak knife and try to cut it off immediately?
A man who doesn’t think getting a symbol of the SS concentration camp guards tattooed over his heart is that big of a deal, and just a routine snafu . . . is not as opposed to Naziism as he wants everyone to think.
Every couple of weeks, we would find out that some other part of Platner’s carefully crafted initial image was poppycock. His whole campaign was built on his working-class image, but he attended an elite boarding school in Connecticut. The only customer of his oyster business was his mother’s restaurant. He bought his house with a $200,000 loan from his father, not with “support from the VA” as he had claimed. On the campaign trail, Platner kept insisting that Susan Collins had sent him to Iraq, but she voted to authorize military force in 2002 and he enlisted in 2004 and volunteered for three tours over eight years.
And then the post-tattoo scandals piled up. He blamed his choice of tattoo on the culture of the U.S. military. His Reddit comments about rape victims and black people would have gotten any other figure instantly canceled a few years ago. He called himself a communist, in the long-ago era of . . . 2021.
He’d been sexting with lots of women on Kik, but he insisted none of them were underage. Fifield described how Platner “regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.”
After each disturbing revelation, other Democrats and media interviewers would ask Platner if there were any other skeletons in his closet, any other unpleasant chapters from his past the public ought to know about. Every time, Platner said he had no other dark secrets.
Democrats lined up to endorse him.
Anybody with eyes could see that this guy, at minimum, had been a world-class creep.
Snip.
We’ve seen Democrats circle the wagons around scandal-plagued figures before. But usually, those figures had done a thing or two to inspire or “earn” that reflexive loyalty and shameless excuse-making.
Platner’s growing list of unsavory accusations kept getting longer, and . . . he had just shown up a few months ago. He was just some guy who had just arrived on the scene. He had never run anything; his harbormaster job was, in his own words, a “very, very part-time job.” (The town actually left the position vacant from February 2022 to April 2023.) He hadn’t helped get any bills passed, he hadn’t led the fight for any particular cause. He was just some guy who ranted about how “Senator Collins is bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu,” claimed John Fetterman was a “stooge for AIPAC,” and who accused Israel of committing genocide. Platner didn’t have a lot to say on foreign policy, but he sure made clear that he believed that Israel was evil and controlled Washington. Something of an odd strategy if you want to dispel suspicions that you ever had any youthful dalliances with neo-Naziism.
The term “gaslighting” gets thrown around way too frequently in our political culture; sometimes it’s effectively used as a synonym for lying. But this . . . this felt like an unprecedented, large-scale gaslighting effort. A lot of the mainstream media coverage of Platner felt like a weird, coordinated effort to convince the people of Maine that the scuzziest guy the Democratic Party could find was as solid and reliable as the Brawny Paper Towel Man.
Jon Favreau, one of the Pod Save America hosts, told his followers at the end of April, “Graham Platner isn’t just our best and only chance to beat Susan Collins, he’s a good, decent man who’s struggled and grown and is always trying to do better. I hope everyone with reservations takes a little time to get to know the real-life version of him, not what the algorithm throws in our faces.” I refer you to My Cousin Vinny.
On Monday night, Favreau was singing a dramatically different tune. “Platner needs to drop out ASAP — these are awful, credible allegations. Said on the pod after the (also credible) June NYT story that his biggest problem going forward would be credibility. It’s now abundantly clear that he just hasn’t been honest about his past and can’t be trusted as a candidate for office.”
Why did people trust Platner, Favreau? Because you told them he was a good and decent man!
This morning, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg concedes she was completely fooled by the hype around Platner:
Last October, when stories about Platner’s tattoo and Reddit posts first broke, I went to Maine to write about him. I tried to convey what I saw: a campaign that was electrifying angry Maine voters. But I deeply regret that, impressed by Platner’s political charisma, I wrote that he was “nothing like the edgelord caricature I encountered online.” If anything, he seems to be significantly worse.
I do not say this lightly: If Platner fooled you, maybe you should find something to do with your life besides writing columns about politics. Because the U.S. political landscape is full of creeps, cretins, con artists, crooks, and cads of every kind, and it always will be. If the media has any useful role to play in our system, it is to look beyond the spin and the campaign-crafted image and to tell the world who these candidates really are, warts and all, so the electorate can make an informed choice.
Despite Chinese marching band quantities of red flags, Democrats lined up like good little drones to do the Will of the Party and endorse Platner. Scott Jennings:
All of the things that have been stated, it was all out in the public and people like Ro Khanna, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Walz, the Bulwark, Pod Save America, all these people came together to overlook it all, to explain it all, to rationalize it all.”
“He was vetted. People knew all these things and a whole bunch of Democrats in Maine showed up and voted for him anyway. And a bunch of donors from around the country sent him money anyway.”
“I agree with Alyssa’s question. What changed? Why are you bailing on Graham Platner now?!”
“You already signed off on Nazi tattoo, a self-described communist, somebody who’s had rape fantasies, somebody who has been on a social media platform known as a playground for predators.”
“And on and on and on and on and on.”
“And the difference between this accuser and the previous one is simply this, she’s a liberal. It’s okay, I guess, for Democrats that their candidate’s assault conservatives.”
“But he broke into someone’s house. And apparently, according to her, raped her. And because her politics are correct, they can now believe it.”
“All of this whole thing is disgusting. But to say that they hadn’t vetted him, or that they didn’t know about all this is totally false.”
Of course, this isn’t the first scumbag Democrats embraced. Remember Bill Clinton’s endless “Bimbo Erruptions” couldn’t derail his nomination, just like serious sex offense allegations by Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey couldn’t derail his presidency, nor did the eventual Monica Lewisnky revelations. Prior to Bill Clinton, a President cheating on his wife with an intern in the White House, lying about it to the American public, then getting caught lying about, would not have been considered a survivable scandal. The press was outraged that Clinton had made a fool of them…but not so outraged that they demanded his resignation. After all, he was a Democrat.
More recently, another Democrat the Party assured us was a fine, upstanding citizen was in the news again. Remember would-be Florida governor Andrew “gay meth orgy” Gillum? Well, he was just arrested in Alabama for…wait for it…meth.
Andrew Gillum, the former Florida Democratic rising star and 2018 nominee for governor, was arrested in Alabama last week on possession of methamphetamine and other drug charges, according to police.
Gillum was arrested just before 11 p.m. on July 2 by local police officers in Daphne, Ala. He is accused of having the drugs in his car on U.S. Highway 98 and Walmart Drive, near a Walmart in the Gulf Coast city west of Mobile, Ala., and east of the Florida Panhandle, according to records from the Daphne Police Department.
According to the arrest report obtained by PEOPLE, Gillum allegedly possessed three grams of methamphetamine, eight “pre-rolled marijuana joints,” a bong, three pipes and other drug paraphernalia.
From narrowly missing his chance at the Florida Governor’s Mansion to getting high in an Walmart parking lot in Daphne, Alabama is quite a fall. Nor is Daphne that close to Tallahassee, where Gillum was once mayor, being a good three and a half hours down I-10, so it’s a mystery what he was doing there. Cheaper male prostitutes?
Do Democrats only nominate scumbags because they can’t find any decent men to run for office, or does being a Democrat politician inevitably make you a scumbag?
By the way, Joe Rogan thinks Hunter Biden is going to run for President, and could well snag the Democratic nomination in 2028, given their radical charisma deficit…
Tags:2018 Election, 2026 Election, 2028 Presidential Race, Alabama, Andrew Gillum, Bernie Sanders, corrupt scumbags, Crime, Democrats, drugs, Elizabeth Warren, Florida, Graham Platner, Hunter Biden, Jim Geraghty, Jon Favreau (politician), Maine, marijuana, meth, Michelle Goldberg, National Review, National Socialism, Pod Save America, rape, Ro Khanna, Scott Jennings, sex offender, Susan Collins, Tim Walz, Walmart
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 13 Comments »
Thursday, September 4th, 2025
It seems like every year there are news stories about “the biggest meth bust ever in [location x].” But this one is going to be pretty hard to beat.
The “largest” seizure of precursor chemicals used to produce methamphetamine “in U.S. history” happened in Houston this week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.
Over 300,000 kilograms worth of chemicals “used to produce methamphetamine and intended for clandistine labs” were seized at the Port of Houston, allegedly being shipped from China to the Mexican Sinaloa Drug Cartel.
Along with the arrest of Sinaloa head Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, it seems like the Trump Administration is particularly targeting Sinaloa above other Mexican cartels.
The seized chemicals are estimated to be capable of producing nearly 190,000 kilograms of methamphetamine, with a dollar value of around $569 million.
“This is the largest seizure of precursor chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine in U.S. history,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
“China was sending over 700,000 lbs on the high seas to the Sinaloa Cartel before my office seized them. Because of President Trump and Secretary Rubio declared the Sinaloa Cartel a Foreign Terrorist Organization, we can now strike faster and hit harder,” Pirro concluded.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an executive order on February 20 designating the Sinaloa Cartel and several other cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). He described it as “one of the world’s most powerful drug cartels and is one of the largest producers and traffickers of fentanyl and other illicit drugs to the United States,” adding that it has “used violence to murder, kidnap, and intimidate civilians, government officials, and journalists.”
In a video posted by Pirro on X, hundreds of blue barrels in plastic wrap could be seen lined up in a Port of Houston warehouse.
“Agents seized six shipping containers of benzyl alcohol, a solvent used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, weighing 164,880 kilos and six shipping containers of N-methyl formamide, another liquid organic solvent, weighing 151,560 kilos,” the press release recounted. It contrasted this with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) seizure of 78,925 total kilos of methamphetamine in one year.
I hope the DEA’s data linking these to meth manufacture and Sinaloa is airtight, because there are a lot of legitimate, non-drug uses for those chemicals.
“In order to transport the chemicals from port to a secure [Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)] storage facility, it took twenty-four, 18-wheeler trucks to transport the sheer volume of precursor chemicals.”
Due to the Sinaloa Cartel’s designation as a FTO by Rubio, Pirro and her office had the authority to execute a search warrant under the “terrosim forfeiture provision” of the declaration.
The Houston operation was a collaboration between the HSI, Pirro, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons.
Not much attention and effort has been spent on The War on Drugs recently, mainly because it looks like Drugs had already decisively won the war. The law of supply and demand is powerful enough to easily jump hurdles like “the rule of law.” To be fair, the ruling elite who lost that war seem increasingly feckless and incompetent in hindsight, and one suspects that a significant percentage of previous regimes never seriously tried to win the War on Drugs. It’s obvious that Trump is able to accomplish many goals they couldn’t. Plus the ongoing slow-motion legalization of marijuana will presumably let the feds concentrate on the hard stuff.
Trump47’s approach, emphasizing the tools of anti-terrorism over mere law enforcement, promises to take the fight nation-state and non-nation-state actors rather than relying on street level busts. But previous administrations have used supply interdiction strategies, to little effect. And it’s not like international drug cartels can’t avoid this problem in the future. If there’s a risk that docking in Houston, New Orleans or Long Beach might get their chemicals captured, they’ll just ship directly to Lazaro Cardenas or Veracruz instead.
And meth is particularly tricky to stop, since there are multiple chemical pathways to producing it. Though this particular bust is huge, it will likely only temporarily raise the price of the end-product and allow other cartels and small-time American sleazeballs to pick up the slack.
There’s talk that blowing up that drug boat will make international drug traffickers “think twice” before smuggling into the U.S. With all due respect: No it won’t. It may temporarily put a crimp in Venezuelan gangs, because they’re relatively low on the pecking order, but for the bigger cartels, a couple of goons and a speedboat isn’t even a rounding error. There are always more boats, and more goons, because the trade is lucrative enough to ensure there will always be more. Cartel gunmen get waxed all the time, and there are always more to take their place, because a high-paying job that lets you have flashy cars and flashy women beats hard-scrabble farming or working in a maliquadora for the vast majority of Mexican street toughs. And the Venezuela per capita GDP is, what, $15 a day? I’m pretty sure $2,000 a speedboat run to the U.S. would be more than sufficient for additional goons to keep lining up for the job indefinitely.
There’s a passage in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men where a sheriff talks about staking out an empty drug plane to arrest the gang members when they come back, and another cop notes they’re never coming back. An entire plane is just a line-item write-off for international drug cartels.
I have no objection to dirt-napping narcoterrorists on the high seas, and there’s no foe on earth the U.S. military can’t defeat in a real shooting war, but M1A3 tanks and F-35s are of rather limited use against criminal cartels. It’s easy to imagine DoD throwing billions worth of effort into the fight, killing multitudes of cartel gunmen, and still not making any dent in the drug trade.
I can imagine a War on Drugs that the United States government could actually win, but it would involve simultaneous attacks on all the cartels at the same time, temporary martial law and suspension of habeas corpus where all known drug dealers and gang members where arrested and held for a time while also rounding up and forcing all known addicts into rehab. Oh, you’d probably need to take the top level Mexican politicians, judges and quite a few generals into “protective custody” for a while, take an AI troll through every bank record in Mexico and the U.S. for cartel payoffs, then arrest anyone (in Mexico or the U.S) who were dirty and put them on trial, plus occupy significant portions of Columbia to seize the entirety of the coca crop, do the same to the poppy fields of the golden triangle, and probably bomb a who bunch of fentanyl factories in foreign countries, including China.
Do all that, and you might put a serious dent into the illegal narcotics trade that might last for, oh, maybe five years before the networks regrow. And I think a few people might just have some wee tiny constitutional quibbles with the approach.
It would be every bit as enjoyable as America’s military missions to Afghanistan and Iraq, but without all the rollicking, laughter-filled fun and good times.
And speaking of Afghanistan, drug warriors tried to wipe out the opium trade there during the two decade occupation. How did that work out?
President Trump’s numerous unorthodox approaches to previously intractable problems have already achieved things that many thought were impossible, but I suspect the War on Drugs is one even he can’t win.
Tags:China, Crime, Department of Justice, Foreign Policy, Houston, Jeanine Pirro, Marco Rubio, Mary Elise Cosgray, meth, Mexico, Military, narcoterrorism, Sinaloa Drug Cartel, The Texan News, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Venezuela, War on Drugs
Posted in Crime, Foreign Policy, Military, Texas | 4 Comments »
Friday, February 21st, 2025
Another deep freeze week here in Texas, with temperatures below freezing most of the week, but the state grid seems to be holding, and I haven’t seen any widespread power outages. I did lose power, but only for five minutes.
This week: More waste and corruption exposed by DOGE, the Secretary of Defense gets a spite audit from the IRS, and Texas rolls out plans for securing cybersecurity and nuclear power futures. Plus an unusual amount of stories about China, AI, Chinese AI, airlines, Canada, and an airliner in Canada.
Judge says that DOGE can access student financial aid data. “US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has denied an emergency filing to block DOGE’s access to federal records and government layoffs – saying in a 10-page decision that the 14 states who brought the lawsuit have failed to meet the burden of proof to prove ‘imminent, irreparable harm.'”
“A judge who blocked President Trump’s federal spending freeze is Chairman Emeritus of a nonprofit that will continue to receive millions in government funding as a result of his ruling, in an apparent conflict of interest seen as a second cause for the judge’s impeachment. On Wednesday, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) announced articles of impeachment against federal Judge John McConnell on the grounds that he overreached his authority and engaged in partisan activism by blocking Trump’s executive order freezing federal funding while Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) searches for wasteful spending. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Doug Ross has chosen 20 of the best examples of waste and fraud DOGE has discovered “Stacey Abrams/Power Forward Communities $2 Billion Grant (2025). DOGE uncovered $2 billion in taxpayer funds allocated to Power Forward Communities, tied to Stacey Abrams via Rewiring America, from a $20 billion EPA grant in April 2024. With $100 in revenue, it’s under scrutiny for potential fraud.”
Victor Davis Hanson: How To Commit Democratic Party Suicide.
The Democratic Party is polling about 31 percent approval, a near-historic low.
Despite enjoying a huge lead in fundraising, legacy media favoritism, and incumbency, in the 2024 election, Democrats lost the White House to Donald Trump. Ever since, they have offered nothing new, no novel agenda, no innovative policies—nothing other than screaming that they are loudly against everything and anything that the president is for.
In the past, what did they accomplish by following their prior two impeachments with attempts to de-ballot Trump? Who thought sending an FBI swat team to raid Trump’s home or waging five lawfare civil and criminal suits and issuing 91 felony indictments against him would win over the public?
Was conducting a media barrage of Hitler-Trump invectives, or lowering the bar of demonization that likely led to two assassination attempts of Trump a good way to win an election?
Apparently not, given the Democrats have now lost the presidency, the House, and the Senate. The Supreme Court is conservative. They have no power to subpoena anyone; they cannot block any nomination. Much of their old administrative state control is eroding. All the main issues—the economy, energy, border security, illegal immigration, crime, DEI/woke, and foreign policy—poll against the Democrats. The more they shouted that biological men must be able to compete as transgendered females in women’s sports, the more that 80% of the public disagreed, women were turned off, and the absurd idea was exploded by Trump.
The power of the administrative state, the legacy network news, print media, and Silicon Valley’s social media and search engines, the billions that poured into the Biden and Harris campaign all went for naught.
The efforts of moderators to warp debates, of network news to edit out unfavorable Harris or Biden comments, of leftists to cancel, deplatform, ostracize, censor, and shadow ban their enemies have failed. More likely to succeed now are numerous lawsuits against leftwing media for chronic defamation and censorship.
Given that collective meltdown, what would a sane Democratic Party do?
If they were stable, then they might renounce political suicide and perhaps return to something akin to the Clinton efforts of 1992 and 1996. Then the once self-destructive Democrats finally gave up on disastrous out-of-touch McGovernism, Carterism, an Dukakism. Instead, they began to embrace legal-only immigration, secure borders, balanced budgets, support for law enforcement, and meritocracy.
The result?
After twelve years in the wilderness (1980-1992), the Democrats regained power for the next 16 of 24 years—only in the second term of Barack Obama to go full radical Jacobin and soon lose it.
The current self-destructive obsessions with DEI/woke racialism, bi-coastal talk-down elitism, boutique transgenderism, and nonstop America Lastism all came to fruition during the Biden years. A shameless conspiracy to use an enfeebled John Biden as a prop to masque an otherwise unpalatable radical, neo-socialist agenda ensured the MAGA counterrevolution.
But instead of postmortem autopsy and introspection, since Election Day, the Democrats have doubled down on their veritable collective self-destruction.
On immigration, after wiping out the border and allowing in 12 million illegal aliens, including more than 500,000 suspected felons, they seem deliberately to be alienating public opinion even further.
So, thousands of leftists swarm and block the freeways of Los Angeles to protest the deportations of criminals. And how exactly?
By enraging middle-class commuters, while burning the flag of the country that they demand must allow them to stay, while chauvinistically waving the flag of the country to which under no circumstances they wish to return?
New Jersey Democratic governor Patrick Murphy idiotically virtue-signaled that he would defy the law, as he bragged that he was harboring an illegal alien living above his garage.
Then, when apprised that such performance-art showboating was a felony, in theory entailing a long prison sentence, the now buffoonish governor changed his narrative that the occupant of his garage was not really illegally living above his garage.
Democratic governors and mayors vie, bragging that they will be foremost in breaking the law by impeding the efforts of the federal immigration services to find and deport illegal aliens—for now, half a million criminals. Other activists are tipping off criminal illegal-alien gang leaders to avoid US government efforts to apprehend such dangerous criminals.
Is that the way to win back the working classes? By ensuring that the felons of M-13, Norteños, Sureños, and Tren de Aragua can flee and put in danger fellow American police officers?
Elon Musk has been appointed by Donald Trump to create a new government agency, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), to find waste, fraud, and abuse in the government spending of taxpayers money.
He and his young team of tech standouts have exposed shocking waste and fraud, but mostly insanity, in the USAID’s $50 billion of foreign aid grants.
Why are Americans paying for overseas drag shows or gay and trans advocacy in culturally imperialist fashion in traditional and conservative societies abroad? Why are we paying eight percent of the budget of the hardcore left-wing BBC? Is that a way back to the White House?
Do Politico, the New York Times, or the Wuhan gain-in-function virology lab and birthplace of COVID-19 really need millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars?
Do Democrats really think the middle class will hate Elon Musk for exposing that their government may well have handed the communist Chinese the necessary cash to birth a manufactured killer virus that took one million American lives?
Is that a winning strategy—to scream in Congress that Musk is a Nazi, a dictator for showing that Biden’s USAID under leftist Samantha Power was a clearing house to enrich and empower well-off leftist organizations that only weakened their own country abroad?
The Democratic Medical Complex has a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.
On December 6, 2024, a federal judge ordered the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release documents related to the emergency use authorisation of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. These documents had been hidden from public view.
The legal battle traces back to September 2021, when attorney Aaron Siri filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on behalf of the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency. The plaintiffs sought access to the vast trove of documents the FDA relied on to approve Pfizer’s vaccine.
Initially, the FDA proposed a slow release schedule. In November 2021, the agency stated it would release just 500 pages per month—a pace that would have stretched the full disclosure process to 75 years.
However, in January 2022, District Judge Mark Pittman of Texas rejected the FDA’s proposal, ordering the agency to expedite its release to 55,000 pages per month, aiming to complete the disclosure of all 450,000 pages by August 2022.
As the documents trickled out, researchers began uncovering glaring gaps that prevented a systematic review of the data. These gaps fueled suspicions about what else the FDA might be withholding.
It became evident that the FDA had withheld records directly tied to its emergency use authorisation of Pfizer’s vaccine, estimated to be over one million pages.
These documents, which the FDA had full knowledge of, were excluded from earlier disclosures, effectively misleading the judiciary and undermining public trust.
People need to go to jail.
Trump and Musk’s attempts to cut federal waste are super popular.
In recent months, Democrats have manufactured an elaborate narrative around Donald Trump’s push to streamline government operations and eliminate waste, branding it as a “constitutional crisis.” This exaggerated portrayal overlooks a critical reality: many Americans, particularly those who are politically moderate, actually support Trump’s initiatives aimed at reducing the size of government.
A recent focus group composed of Arizona swing voters, including those who previously backed Joe Biden, revealed a striking consensus on this issue: they overwhelmingly approve of Trump’s agenda and Elon Musk’s efforts with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to make government more efficient. “Every Arizona swing voter in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they approve of President Trump’s actions since taking office — and most also support Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government,” reports Axios.
Every. Single. One.
Dear Instant Internet Audit Experts: That’s not how audits work. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Vice President J. D. Vance tore into Europe’s leaders for their retreat from free speech.
Vice President JD Vance confronted European leaders at the Munich Security Conference on Friday over their support for authoritarian restrictions on speech, putting the assembled dignitaries on notice that the Trump administration expects the continent to revive its commitment to Western values.
“The threat that I worry most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,” Vance said. “When I look at Europe today, it’s not clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners.”
The vice president recited a litany of examples, taken from across Europe, in which governments cracked down on politically disfavored ideas.
In Brussels for example, officials notified citizens that they would shut down social media platforms “during times of civil unrest” if users post so-called hateful content. Vance also cited examples taken from Germany, where “police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online”; Sweden, where a judge recently explained to a man accused of participating in a Koran burning that he does not have “a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief,”; and the United Kingdom, where citizens can be arrested for silently praying within 200 meters of an abortion facility.
“In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear is in retreat,” Vance said.
The vice president lamented Europe’s abandonment of other democratic values, such as border security, he said, adding that Europeans should work with anti-immigration factions to address the record-breaking influx of illegal immigrants into Europe.
“While the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, [we] also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense,” Vance said.
A majority of French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Portuguese citizens believe that their countries should have stricter border security measures to curb illegal immigration, according to a poll conducted by the nonprofit EU-US Forum and the Tyson Group. Most respondents from France, Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands also agree that “I am more worried today than I was a decade ago about government censorship of my ideas,” according to the same poll.
Vance connected the massive flow of migrants into Europe with recent terrorist attacks, such as the one carried out this week in Munich by a 24-year-old Afghan migrant. The man has an Islamist motive, police said, and he plowed a car into a crowd of people blocks away from where the Security Conference is being held, injuring at least 30.
Another Saudi migrant rammed a car into a Christmas marked in central Germany last December, injuring hundreds, and killing five.
“Over the span of a decade, we saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city,” Vance said.
European leaders responded with a large bout of pearl-clutching and a chorus of “Well, I never!”
Senate confirms Kash Patel as FBI Director. Let the Augean stables cleansing commence.
“Trump Orders Firing of All Biden-Era U.S. Attorneys.” Good.
Nothing says class quite like the outgoing Biden Administration targeting incoming Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with a spite audit and demanding $33,000.
“Legislators File ‘Atomic Texas’ Act to Spark Nuclear Power ‘Renaissance.’ With the advent of small modular nuclear reactors, the nuclear industry feels bullish on a revival of nuclear power. Gov. Greg Abbott called for forging a “nuclear power renaissance” in Texas during his 2025 State of the State address, two legislators have filed legislation intended to make the concept a reality. State Rep. Drew Darby’s House Bill (HB) 2678 would create the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Authority and a low-interest loan fund to go with it, and is the companion bill to state Sen. Tan Parker’s (R-Flower Mound) Senate Bill 1105.”
Ukraine hits another oil refinery. I’m ignoring the news about U.S. Russian talks, etc., because Trump does a lot of persuasion bracketing, and it’s fruitless to place too much import on it at this stage.
New York governor Kathy Hochul says she might remove new York City Mayor Eric Adams from office, now that trump’s Department of Justice has dropped charges against Adams. My working assumption is that since Adams is a New York Democratic politician, he’s guilty as sin, but it’s funny how Hochul only started paying attention to Adams’ alleged misdeed when he started cooperating with Trump on deporting illegal aliens…
With DOGE busting their scam, is the Soros operation relocating to Europe?
With the Trump administration cutting off billions of US taxpayer funding for the USAID international slush fund, formerly flush NGOs are now begging woke EU nations for money to continue operations, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“WARNING! Our fears have come true: the globalist-liberal-Soros NGO network is fleeing to Brussels, after President Trump dealt a huge blow to their activities in the US,” Orbán wrote in a Tuesday post to X. “Now 63 of them are asking Brussels for money, under the guise of various human rights projects. Not going to happen! We will not let them find safe haven in Europe!”
“The USAID-files exposed the dark practices of the globalist network. We will not take the bait again!”
“A series of by-elections were held for local government seats on Thursday, with Nigel Farage’s [Reform] party storming to victory in Trevethin and Penygarn in Torfaen, Wales, gaining 47% of the vote from a standing start. Labour plummeted a whopping 49.2% to just 26.6% of the vote, down from 75.8% last time. Two independents then came in third and fourth, with the Greens in fifth on 2.6%.” The Tories didn’t even run a candidate.
“Gov. Abbott Lists ‘Texas Cyber Command’ as Emergency Item for State Legislature. The Texas Cyber Command is planned to be located in San Antonio.”
Gov. Greg Abbott delivered his State of the State address several days ago, outlining his priorities for the 89th Legislative Session and listing his emergency items, which included an unexpected addition — the creation of a Texas Cyber Command.
“We must deploy cutting edge capabilities to better secure our State,” Abbott declared.
Minutes after the proclamation was made, information from the governor’s office on the new proposition was circulated, detailing the necessity of a Texas Cyber Command to increase the state’s ability to protect critical infrastructure from cyber threats and hostile foreign adversaries like China, Iran, Russia, and “other rogue outlets” around the world.
The governor’s plan is to have the new venture be headquartered in San Antonio — a city with a large presence of cybersecurity experts, including the University of Texas (UT) at San Antonio, which is a member of the United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) Academic Engagement Network.
Austin has at least as many cybersecurity firms as San Antonio…
“Attorney General Paxton Launches Investigation Into Chinese AI App. Paxton expressed concerns that artificial intelligence company DeepSeek could be violating the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act.”
“Four Times-Deported Illegal Aliens Arrested With 350 Pounds of Meth in Colony Ridge.” You may remember Colony Ridge from such hits as “We secretly built an illegal alien city inside Texas.”
Speaking of foreign cities inside Texas, take a look at an Islamic City being built northeast of Plano.
In Houston: “22-year-old Chilean national arrested with device that disabled communication between arresting officers.”
“Transgender migrant featured in NYC Pride Parade charged with raping 14-year-old boy in public restroom.” “A migrant transgender woman [man] wanted by federal immigration officials allegedly stalked and raped a boy in Manhattan this week, The Post has learned. Nicol Suarez allegedly followed the 14-year-old into the bathroom of a bodega across the street from Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem Tuesday and attacked him, police and sources said.”
Chinese foreign investment declines 99% in the last three years. That’s what happens when you’ve got dirty commies being jerks of the world…
“Lebanon: IDF Strike Eliminates Top Hamas Operative Planning Terror Attacks on Israelis Abroad.”
Dear Margaret Brennan: No, National Socialist Germany was not an example of “weaponized free speech.”
Leftwing racism is reaching its inevitable conclusion: “Desegregation was a mistake.”
“Delta flight that crashed at Toronto airport was operated by Endeavor Air, which loves to brag about all-female crews.” (Flashback.)
Suddenly, failed presidential candidate and incompetent Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is pretending he’s against DEI. As if the son of a Marxist academic who specialized in the work of Italian communist Antonio Gramsci would ever give up cultural Marxism.
Accidents will happen. “Trump Administration Un-Fires Hundreds Of Nuclear Weapon Workers.”
California’s one party Democratic rule is so incompetent and burdensome that weed dealers can’t make money selling pot to Californians. “California’s legal cannabis market has hit another grim milestone: There are now 10,828 inactive and surrendered pot licenses in the state and only 8,514 active ones, meaning dead pot licenses now outnumber active ones.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Jihad terrorism is still very much alive in Africa. “70 Christians Decapitated in Church in Democratic Republic of Congo. DRC also faces violence from the Rwanda-backed armed group M23.”
“Trump Administration Pulls Approval of NYC Congestion Toll.” “The congestion toll came into effect last month, imposing a $9 charge on drivers entering Manhattan below 60th street. The tax will increase by $3 increments in 2028 and 2031 as drivers adjust to the program, if it remains in place.” London’s “carbon tax” is widely unpopular with drivers as well, so I imagine New York drivers are just as livid.
Kentucky Fried Chicken is moving its headquarters to Plano, Texas. That’s gonna leave a mark
Why Canada’s housing costs so much more than that in the U.S.
Air Canada has to honor refund policy invented by a chatbot. Live by AI, die by AI…
“Fungus Turns Cave Spiders Into Zombies.” I get the feeling your spellcaster should have fireball ready before facing these…
Teacher gives anti-Trump tirade. Student: Calm down. Teacher: DETENTION. Result: Teacher suspended.
“Canadian Hockey Fans Boo Their Future National Anthem.”
“Delta Adds A Little Hanging Tennis Ball To End Of Runway For Female Pilots.”
I’m between jobs again. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:Aaron Siri, AI, airlines, Andrew Clyde, Babylon Bee, Border Controls, Budget, California, Canada, China, Christianity, Colony Ridge, Communism, Congo, Crime, data security, DEI, Delta, Democrats, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Donald Trump, Drew Darby, Elon Musk, EPIC City, Eric Adams, EU, Europe, FBI, FDA, Foreign Policy, fraud, Free Speech, gay, George Soros, Hamas, housing, IDF, Illegal Aliens, IRS, Islam, Israel-Hamas War, J. D. Vance, Jihad, John McConnell Jr., Kash Patel, Kathy Hochul, Kentucky, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Larry Correia, Lebanon, LinkSwarm, M23, Margaret Brennan, marijuana, Mark Pittman, meth, Military, Muslim, Nazis, New York City, Nicol Suarez, Nigel Farage, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, pedophilia, Pete Buttigieg, Pete Hegseth, Pfizer, Pierre Poilievre, Plano, Reform Party (UK), Regulation, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Samantha Power, sex offender, Social Justice Warriors, spiders, Tan Parker, Tanya Chutkan, Texas, Texas Cyber Command, transexual, Trevor Noah, Trump Cabinet, Trump Derangement Syndrome, UK, Ukraine, USAID, Victor Davis Hanson, Viktor Orban, Wales, waste, weather
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 5 Comments »
Friday, March 1st, 2024
Congratulations on surviving the first 1/6th of 2024! The Big Guy is exactly who we knew he was all along, Houston police screw up, some big crime stories, Wayne LaPierre is found guilty, and the world’s saddest Oompa Loompa. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
In the least surprising news ever, Hunter Biden admits that Joe Biden is “The Big Guy.”
“Remember when Joe Biden told the American people that his son didn’t make money in China?” asked Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in a video posted to X. ““Well, not only did he lie about his son Hunter making money in China, but it also turns out that $40,000 in laundered China money landed in Joe Biden’s bank account in the form of a personal check.”
Indeed, the Bidens created no less than 20 shell companies to launder money through.
This seems like it should be a much, much bigger story: “Court Concludes Congressional Proxy Voting Rule Is Unconstitutional.”
Today, a U.S. District Court issued its final judgment in Texas v. Garland, which was a challenge to the U.S. House’s proxy voting rule under the Quorum Clause of the Constitution. In its final judgment, the Court concluded that U.S. House members must be physically present for their vote to comply with the Constitution’s Quorum Clause. Attorneys from the Texas Public Policy Foundation argued the merits at trial in January of this year.
The lawsuit was originally filed with the State of Texas in response to Congress’ unlawful passage of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill in December 2022. The U.S. Constitution requires a quorum, or a majority, of House members to be physically present for the U.S. House of Representatives to conduct business. As less than half of the members were present when the legislation was passed, with the rest voting by proxy, this legislation never should have passed, and the president should not have signed it.
“This meticulous, 120-page opinion was written after a full trial on the merits,” said TPPF senior attorney Matt Miller. “The Court correctly concluded that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 violated the Quorum Clause of the U.S. Constitution because a majority of House members was not physically present when the $1.7 trillion spending bill was passed. Proxy voting is unconstitutional.”
This basically says that every bit of that $1.7 trillion spending was unconstitutional, along with any laws, etc. passed in that omnibus. Just how do you back out all that money that’s been spent, assuming this is upheld?
Texas law to deport illegal aliens blocked by federal judge.
Record meth bust in Eagle Pass. “The U.S. Customs and Border Protections (CBP) have seized six and a half tons of methamphetamine, over 13,000 pounds, at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry, making it the largest ever seizure in a single enforcement action.”
Mitch McConnell Announces He Will Step Down as Senate Republican Leader in November.
Mitch McConnell announced on Wednesday that he will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November, ending his tenure as the longest-serving Senate leader in history.
“This will be my last term as Republican Leader of the Senate,” the 82-year-old veteran of the chamber said to his colleagues on the Senate floor. “I’m not going anywhere… It’s time for the next generation of leadership.”
He’ll leave the senate when his term ends in 2027. You can condemn him as the ultimate swamp creature, or praise him for his effectiveness at things like getting Trump’s Supreme Court picks confirmed. It’s two sides of the same coin. I’m not sure he was as effective as Trent Lott or Howard Baker.
The Houston Police Department announced that over 4,000 sexual assault cases will be closed without investigation.
Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner called it a “dark day” at a press conference for the Houston Police Department, announcing that 4,107 adult sexual assault cases were wrongly closed without investigation.
A case management code “suspended for lack of personnel” was used, which led to closing the cases without actually investigating them.
Finner said he was first made aware the code even existed in 2021 and instructed HPD’s special victims division to stop using the code; however, he found out on February 7, 2024 that it continued. HPD first began using the code in 2016.
He said he immediately ordered a review of all cases suspended using this code dating back to 2016, which will take at least 30 days to complete. While the number of cases they have today is 4,017, he says it is “fluid and subject to change.”
2016 just happens to be the year that Art Acevedo was named HPD police chief…
60 Minutes gets to enjoy some of that vibrant Muslim diversity in Sweden to the sides of their faces.
(Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Biden robocalls that “threatened democracy” came from Democrats.
“After five days of deliberations, a jury in New York on Friday held the National Rifle Association liable for financial mismanagement and found that Wayne LaPierre, the group’s former CEO, corruptly ran the nation’s most prominent gun rights group. The jury determined that LaPierre’s violation of his duties cost the NRA $5,400,000, though he already repaid roughly $1.5 million to the organization.” Here’s the thing: While they prosecution was unquestionably politically motivated, LaPierre did run a crooked ship. In the long run, forcing Wayne and his corrupt cronies from office has done the NRA a huge favor.
Argentine President Javier Milei just ended his country’s budget deficit in nine weeks. If Trump and the Republicans manage to control both houses of congress next year, there’s no reason they can’t balance the budget…assuming they have the will.
Google company Alphabet just lost $70 billion in market value due to its AI shenanigans.
“Austin Fire Department Chaplain Dismissed for Comments on Transgender Athletes Sues for Free Speech Violation. A chaplain for the Austin Fire Department was dismissed from his position after expressing beliefs on his personal blog about protecting women’s sports.”
After a volunteer chaplain of the Austin Fire Department (AFD) was fired for posting on his personal blog that men and women are biologically different and should not compete against each other in sports, a lawsuit was filed in an effort to protect his rights to free speech and religious freedom.
The Alliance Defending Freedom said in a press release that it filed a motion Tuesday on behalf of Dr. Andrew Fox, who served in a voluntary capacity as chaplain for AFD before he was dismissed in 2021.
Unlike APD, AFD public and union leadership has been infected by social justice. Dr. Fox appears to have a very strong case on viewpoint discrimination grounds.
White TV host tries to race-bait Jerry Seinfeld for hosting “mostly” white male comedians on his show. It doesn’t go well for him.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bipartisan bill into law authorizing the release of grand jury transcripts from an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The new legislation, signed by the Florida governor on Thursday, will allow a public release of the jury’s transcripts from the 2006 probe into Epstein’s abuse of underage girls. The new measure goes into effect July 1.”
“Texas Judge Temporarily Blocks Federal Survey of Cryptocurrency Miners’ Electricity Use.” I’m not particularly a fan of cryptocurrency, but it’s not the federal government’s duty to stick its nose into how you use the electricity you’re paying for.
Weird Austin crime story: “Prominent local businessman arrested in Austin, accused of arson.”
A prominent Austin businessman and founder of Continental Automotive Group, or CAG, was arrested Thursday on charges of Felony Arson and a State Jail Felony offense of Burglary.
Dorsey Bryan Hardeman, 75, is accused of starting a fire at a downtown Austin building on Sunday, according to an arrest affidavit.
According to Travis County court records, Trey Collins with the Minton, Bassett, Flores & Carsey firm has been retained as the attorney representing Hardeman. Sam Bassett told KXAN the office has just begun its work and “it is premature to comment. However, we will provide Mr. Hardeman an appropriate and vigorous defense.”
The affidavit said the Austin Fire Department responded to a building fire at the former Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop on 400 Nueces St. on Feb. 25.
Once the fire was contained, fire investigators determined the incident to be incendiary and found metal shavings on the ground below the door suggesting the door lock had been drilled out, records state.
The affidavit states fire investigators watched video surveillance from the building, which showed an older man entering the building with a red container consistent with a plastic gas tank.
Multiple cameras inside the building show a man pouring liquid from the red container and dropping multiple matches on the ground, the affidavit said.
Records show the man arrived at the location in a white 4-door Mercedez SUV.
Investigators interviewed the owner of Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop who told AFD Hardeman was the owner of the property next door and had previously asked about purchasing the property at 400 Nueces St.
This is not what people refer to as “the perfect crime.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Remember Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me? It turns out McDonalds didn’t destroy his liver, a decade of alcoholism did.
Behold the UK’s saddest Willy Wonka fest, complete with Oompa Loompa meth lab. (Hat Tip: Dwight.) (More from The Critical Drinker.)
Either this guy is an amazing close-up magician, or amazing at post-production digital effects.
“New species skeleton panda sea squirt discovered in Japan.” Like many things from Japan, it’s both cute and horrifying.
Why does Canada feel the need to make mine-sweeping funds to Ukraine “gender inclusive?”
“Biden Brags He Could Let Migrants Shoot Someone On Fifth Avenue And Not Lose Any Votes.”
“HAL Refuses To Open Pod Bay Doors After Determining Dave Is A White Male.”
Good dog!
Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:60 Minutes, AI, Alliance Defending Freedom, Andrew Fox, Argentina, Art Acevedo, Austin, Austin Fire Department, Border Controls, Budget, comedy, corruption, Crime, Critical Drinker, cryptocurrency, Democrats, dogs, Dorsey Bryan Hardeman, Eagle Pass, Florida, fraud, Google, Houston Police Department, Hunter Biden, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, James Biden, James Comer, Japan, Javier Milei, Jeffrey Epstein, Jerry Seinfeld, Jihad, Joe Biden, LinkSwarm, Matt Miller, Media Watch, Mellow Johnny's, meth, mine-clearing, mines, Mitch McConnell, Morgan Spurlock, NRA, rape, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, Russo-Ukrainian War, Social Justice Warriors, Sweden, technology, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Troy Finner, UK, Ukraine, Wayne LaPierre
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, July 28th, 2021
Democratic Party megadonor Ed Buck, the perverted creep who lured young black men to his home to administer frequently fatal methamphetamine overdoses to them, has been convicted of all nine charges:
Ed Buck, a longtime fixture of West Hollywood politics, was convicted Tuesday of charges that he supplied the methamphetamine that killed two men during “party-and-play” encounters at his apartment.
After about four hours of deliberations, the jury found Buck guilty of every charge in a nine-count indictment that also accused him of maintaining a drug den, distributing methamphetamine and enticement to cross state lines to engage in prostitution.
Buck, 66, could spend the rest of his life in prison. The convictions for supplying the meth that resulted in death each carry a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The verdict concluded a two-week trial that featured harrowing testimony by Black men hired by Buck, who is white, to show off their bodies in underwear and get high on crystal meth and the party drug GHB. Excerpts from Buck’s hundreds of graphic videos and photos of the drugs-and-sex sessions were played at the trial.
Buck’s obsessive pursuit of his dangerous fetish led to the overdose deaths of two Black men in his apartment: Gemmel Moore, 26, in July 2017, and Timothy Dean, 55, in January 2019.
It was only in September 2019, after a third Black man nearly died of an overdose, that Buck was arrested — a delay that fueled angry protests by activists who accused law enforcement officials of failing to aggressively investigate a politically influential white man. Buck, a onetime candidate for West Hollywood’s City Council, made more than $500,000 in campaign donations over the last couple of decades, nearly all of it to Democrats.
Because there were interstate drug distribution and prostitution aspects to the Buck case, Buck caught federal charges:
A federal grand jury today returned a superseding indictment charging Edward Buck with four additional felonies, including that he allegedly enticed victims – including a man who died at his West Hollywood apartment after he administered drugs to him – to travel interstate to engage in prostitution.
Buck, 65, was arrested in September 2019 after being charged in United States District Court with providing methamphetamine to a man who died after receiving the drug intravenously. Since that time, federal authorities have continued to investigate Buck for additional crimes.
The four additional counts charged today – bringing the total number of charges in this case to nine counts – include one count alleging that Buck knowingly enticed 26-year-old Gemmel Moore to travel to the Los Angeles area to engage in prostitution. Buck allegedly provided methamphetamine to Moore, who overdosed on the drug and died on July 27, 2017.
Buck also is charged with another count of enticing another man to travel with the intent of engaging in prostitution.
The superseding indictment also charges Buck with one count of knowingly and intentionally distributing methamphetamine, and one count of using his residence for the purpose of distributing narcotics such as methamphetamine, and the sedatives gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and clonazepam.
Last year, a federal grand jury returned a five-count indictment charging that Buck “engaged in a pattern of soliciting men to consume drugs that Buck provided and perform sexual acts at Buck’s apartment,” which is a practice described as “party and play.” Buck allegedly solicited victims on social media platforms, including a gay dating website, and used a recruiter to scout and proposition men.
Once the men were at his apartment, Buck allegedly prepared syringes containing methamphetamine, sometimes personally injecting the victims with or without their consent, according to the indictment. Buck also allegedly injected victims with more narcotics than they expected and sometimes injected victims while they were unconscious.
Another victim, Timothy Dean also suffered a fatal overdose in Buck’s apartment, on January 7, 2019, the indictment alleges.
For years Ed Buck was protected because of the campaign donations he doled out to Democratic politicians:
West Hollywood politics has a glimmering rainbow surface, but the authentic underlying powers are real estate interests. The City Council controls the fate of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development projects, a fact reflected in their campaign contributions. “Developers don’t drop tens of thousands of dollars in West Hollywood because they like the City’s position on gay marriage, says former West Hollywood Mayor Steve Martin.
With a huge war chest supporting them, a small handful of politicians reduced the government of West Hollywood to a game of musical chairs. John Duran, John D`Amico, John Heilman, Jeffrey Prang, and Abbe Land would bounce back and forth between the Mayor’s Office and City Council for decades, winning eighteen out of the last twenty-one mayoral elections between them.
Ed Buck played a variety of supporting roles in the political machinery, buoying the chosen few.
D’Amico’s political career was launched on the back of Buck’s support, winning a seat on City Council after marching through West Hollywood with Buck promoting his “Fur Free WeHo” campaign. Buck’s donations and connections to other major donors, including billionaire Gary Michelson, brought tens of thousands of dollars to Buck’s friends on City Council through multiple entities sharing the name ANIMAL PAC.
Buck’s money also bought him a position on the Steering Committee of the Stonewall Democratic Club, the kingmaker of West Hollywood politics. Buck used his position on the Steering Committee to influence Stonewall’s secretive endorsement process, one “designed to protect incumbents and well-financed, well-connected candidates,” says a former Steering Committee member. Stonewall rank and file must have wondered why the LGBTQ group was promoting candidates for County Tax Assessor and Board of Equalization. Buck was so useful, Abbe Land would open City Council meetings by calling him to recite the pledge of allegiance.
He also appeared to be a lot of local Democratic politicians’ favorite conduit to evade campaign finance limits:
Officially retired since his early thirties, Buck would not have had the money to sustain his prolific spending habits relating to drugs, escorts, and politics. His biggest payday was in the 1980s when he flipped his friend’s business, Gopher Courier, to profit just over a million dollars, after which he lost money investing into pay-phones and a restaurant.
After moving to West Hollywood, Buck was suspiciously cash-rich and asset poor, driving a wreck of a car and living in a rent-controlled apartment. Journalists paint Buck as a wealthy social climber, but his finances and lifestyle suggest he was a dirty political operative.
Data from California’s political contribution records is highly truncated, but campaign finance rules create patterns that highlight alliances.
One can skirt contribution limits and obscure contribution origins by breaking up large donations into smaller payments and passing them through family members and political allies, so I looked for donors that matched Buck’s donations.
He donated varying amounts to plenty of politicians and causes, but there were consistent primary beneficiaries such as Jeffrey Prang, John Duran, Scott Svonkin, Honesty PAC, and of course, his ANIMAL PACs. The highly incestuous top donors who also supported Prang, Duran, Svonkin, and Buck’s PACs were real estate interests, chief among them being Excel Property Management Services managed by CEO Arman Gabay. Arman Gabay and his company funded Jeffrey Prang’s successful 2014 Los Angeles County Assessor bid with the help of Ed Buck, Ed Buck’s future attorney Seymour Amster, ANIMAL PAC, John Duran, West Hollywood activists, and various real estate interests. The same donors also funded periphery candidates who endorsed Prang and Svonkin.
And don’t forget this classic photo of Buck with California Democratic congressman Ted Lieu.
Or this one:
Ed Buck was useful, and that’s why Buck (and his deadly fetish games) were protected from public scrutiny and prosecution. Then the New York Times lied and tried to call him a “small-time Democratic donor.”
More background on Buck can be found in these Grant Baker pieces here, here, and here.
Tags:Abbe Land, Arman Gabay, Democrats, drugs, Ed Buck, Gary Michelson, Gemmel Moore, Grant Baker, Hillary Clinton, Jeffrey Prang, John D`Amico, John Duran, John Heilman, meth, murder, prostitution, Scott Svonkin, Ted Lieu, Timothy Dean
Posted in Crime, Democrats | 5 Comments »
Saturday, March 14th, 2020
The “Andrew Gillum,” “Busted” and “Meth” parts of that headline are all spelled out on the police report, whereas the “gay orgy” part is only suspected.
Candace Owens, the conservative activist and founder of #Blexit, a campaign that encourages black voters to leave the Democratic Party, dropped a bombshell Friday on social media.
According to Owens, who included screenshots of what appears to be a Miami Beach Police Department report, Florida’s 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum “was involved in a crystal meth overdose incident.”
An incident that allegedly took place in a Miami hotel, where Owens said an orgy was “suspected, but unconfirmed.”
“Removing one page of report that had @AndrewGillum’s personal address listed which was wasn’t my intent— but YES— BREAKING: Democrat Andrew Gillum was involved in a crystal meth overdose incident last night in a Miami hotel. Orgy suspected, but unconfirmed,” she tweeted.
You may remember Gillum from such hits as “I’m not going to be governor of Florida despite George Soros and Tom Steyer’s money” and “I just paid a $5,000 campaign violation fine.”
Let’s repeat that the “gay orgy” part is only suspected, while the “busted for crystal meth” part is confirmed. It’s entirely possibly that three men just showed up the same hotel room at the same time merely to smoke crystal meth, and not to have a gay sex orgy.
Gillum, of course, denies everything. Drunk at a wedding, went to assist a friend, yadda yadda. The usual “veneer of plausibility” story no one believes.
Personally, I feel that a juicy Democratic politician gay meth orgy scandal is exactly what America needs to distract it from all the Wuhan Coronavirus gloom.
And now some tweets:
Update: BOOM! Confirmation: “Man busted with Andrew Gillum in hotel room with meth was gay escort.” (Hat tip: Andy Ngo.)
Tags:Andrew Gillum, Candace Owens, Crime, Democrats, Florida, gay, meth
Posted in Crime, Democrats | 4 Comments »