The radical left-wing anti-farm green agenda isn’t just trying to destroy agriculture in foreign locales like The Netherlands, it’s also happening in Oregon.
“The state of Oregon has effectively shut down small farms and market gardens on a large scale, and they’re actually sending out cease and desist letters to farms.” (By “market gardens” he means small farms that only supply produce locally.)
“They’re using satellite technology to find their victims and then send them these letters, and say you can’t operate, and they’re doing it in the name of water conservation.”
“Oregon’s government and dairy industry [have joined] forces against small farmers.”
“There are two different laws that they’re using.”
“They’ve redefined what a CAFO is.” CAFO stands for “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.” According to Wikipedia, the source of all vaguely accurate knowledge, a CAFO is where “over 1,000 animal units are confined for over 45 days a year. An animal unit is the equivalent of 1,000 pounds of “live” animal weight.[1] A thousand animal units equates to 700 dairy cows, 1,000 meat cows, 2,500 pigs weighing more than 55 pounds (25 kg), 10,000 pigs weighing under 55 pounds, 10,000 sheep, 55,000 turkeys, 125,000 chickens, or 82,000 egg laying hens or pullets.”
Oregon seems to have redefined that. “This applies to people who have chicken houses, who have goat farms, basically anybody who has a barn or a facility that has a gravel or concrete floor.”
“What’s happening in Oregon, and why the small dairies have filed a lawsuit against the state…it doesn’t matter the size of the operation, you could have two milking cows.”
“Sarah King, who owns Godspeed Hollow Farm in Newberg, Oregon, has a pickup station that’s just 100 ft in length. She has an 11 acre property, and keeps things pretty simple. She has three milking cows. [Because] she has that milking stand, the state of Oregon said you are a CAFO, and because you are considered a CAFO, they require you to put in this infrastructure improvement which would cost her $100,000,”
“We’re requiring this massive infrastructure upgrade for you to continue to operate your facilities to protect our ground water from your two cows standing on a milking stand.”
Even if you have a gravel floor in a chicken coop, Oregon wants to come after you. “They have redefined CAFOs. This is going to impact nearly everybody.”
“This law is being enforced in the state of Oregon. It has already shut down some farms.”
There is an injunction on the definition of the law until it can be heard in court.
“You would think that they were going after raw milk, that always seems to be the case with a lot of these things, but this is actually going after anybody. Egg producers, anybody who has chickens that go up in a chicken house at night that may have a concrete floor.”
You have to go through a permitting process, and a lot of what they’re requiring is just simply too much for the small farmer. So that’s rule number one.”
“The second rule: In the state of Oregon, if you are using water, even groundwater, the only water that you can legally harvest and use without a permit is actually rainwater. They consider all water in the ground a resource of the public. Even if you have a private well on your property, that belongs to the people of Oregon.”
“This is a rule that went into place back in 2021, and then it has slowly rolled out to the point where market gardeners with a half acre of land are now receiving cease and desist orders saying you can’t water your gardens. Figure out another way to do it.”
The law says you can use up to 5,000 gallons a day, but market gardeners are proably only using 1,000 gallons a day. “You would think that they’re saying you’re a commercial business, because if you are growing food for yourself [But] There’s a lady has been growing food and selling it to neighbors. It’s been her primary income source and they shut her down.”
“Christina Del Campo um has just over a half acre. She grows blueberries, local vegetables, things like that. Her farm is called Oak Song Farm near Eugene. She’s operated there for 7 years and she recently received received a letter from the regional office of the Oregon Water Resources Department. It was a notification that the farm couldn’t irrigate its commercial crops without a water right.”
“They shut her down because, according to the Oregon Water Resources Department, the exemption for commercial use does not include irrigation of land.”
“Basically, the state of Oregon is coming in now and they’re they’re putting things on people’s wells to measure the amount of water. It’s very invasive.”
“Supposedly Oregon had these rules in place since 1909. They just keep changing them.”
“They’ve sent out letters not just to this one farmer, but multiple small farms, market garden farms, saying you can’t water your crops anymore.”
“This is actually a war on small farms.”
“We’ve seen this happening over and over and over again, where we’re seeing them utilize water rights [protection] to shut down farms across our country.”
“If you look at the number of farms that we’ve lost since 2000, it’s staggering. We’ve gone from 2,100,000 farms in 2000 down to 1,850,000 farms at the end of last year.”
“You’ve seen a lot of these cases where they’ve gone in and they’ve just shut off farms to water rights to an entire valley at a time.”
“We’re seeing them take control over people’s wells putting meters on people’s wells, shutting down small farms.”
“Everybody should have the right to farm fresh food. Oregon is basically taking that right away from every Oregon citizen by taking away the rights of the small farmers to operate their businesses in the name of some laws that were originally put in place to protect groundwater from much larger scale operations.”
If there isn’t some sort of sinister agenda behind these new regulatory pushes, destroying small farms certainly gives a pretty good impression of a sinister agenda. And no points for guessing which political party enjoys uncontested control of Oregon. Remember when Democrats claimed to be looking out for family farms? Doesn’t seem to be the case any more. Someone should ask Willie Nelson about all this…
Texas has a Right to Farm statute that should (theoretically) prevent such abuses here.
Trump wins Iowa (and picks up Ted Cruz’s endorsement), Democratic party popularity becomes ever more selective, Hunter Biden’s laptop confirmed as Hunter Biden’s laptop (not that we ever had any doubt), two shithole countries exchange airstrikes, and a science fiction legend dies. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Donald Trump won the Iowa Caucuses in convincing fashion, winning 51% of the vote. Ron DeSantis came in second with 21%, and MSM-and-Never Trump darling Nikki Haley pulling in 19%, and Vivek Ramaswamy a distant 4th with 7.6%. (Ramaswamy then endorsed Trump.) The most satisfying part of this result is seeing the Hindenburg of Haley puffery crash and explode.
Ted Cruz has endorsed Trump. “‘I’m a big believer in letting democracy play out,’ Cruz said. ‘I’ve got to say Trump’s victory was across the board. He won 51 percent of the vote. He won 98 of the counties. Congratulations to President Trump on that dominating victory.'” Despite DeSantis many strengths as a governor, he did not run a good campaign. And remember, Cruz actually beat Trump in Iowa in 2016, and ran a competitive campaign into May. That’s not going to happen this year. Trump seems likely to win all the primaries in every state.
A Gallup poll released on Friday reveals that a record low percentage of Americans who identify as Democrats in 2023 hit a record low, when independent ‘leaners’ are excluded.
Just 27% of Americans self-identify as Democrats, the smallest figure in the party’s history according to the survey. That said, self-identifying Republicans also hit 27%, though it did not mark the lowest figure in the party’s history – which was in 2013 when just 25% of Americans identified as such. The previous low for Democrats was in 2017 and 2015 at 29%.
Independents, meanwhile, take the cake – with 43% of Americans identifying as such.
Not that any of us ever had any doubt, but DOJ confirmed that the “Laptop from Hell” is in fact Hunter Biden’s laptop, and that they knew that all along:
‼️ In a new court filing today, the DOJ confirms Hunter Biden’s laptop is real, that he left it at a computer store, and that the contents matched what they obtained from a search warrant of his iCloud. Don’t hold your breath for a retraction from Joe Biden (“It’s a Russian… pic.twitter.com/xSZ2YG8JIB
Things that make your blood boil: “Texas man arrested in connection with videos showing seven men who sexually assaulted toddlers at a public mall.”
A Texas man is in federal custody after the FBI linked him to videos from the dark web depicting group sexual assault on toddlers in a mall.
Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, was arrested Dec. 18, 2023 in Kingwood, TX as the result of a Dec. 14 criminal complaint filed in federal court in Houston, records show.
The FBI were led to Fernandez as a suspect after viewing videos of an assault of a three-year-old child; a relative of the child “recognized the bracelets an individual in the video was wearing as belonging to Fernandez.”
The executive director of the Rainbow Resource Center, a prominent LGBTQ+ support center based in Modesto, has been identified as one of 17 men apprehended on suspicion of attempting to engage in sexual activities with a minor.
The revelation was first reported by the Modesto Bee.
Gerad Slayton, 42, was taken into custody during a sting operation organized by the Turlock Police Department, targeting individuals believed to be seeking illicit encounters with minors. Slayton, recently appointed as the executive director of the Rainbow Center, a local nonprofit dedicated to providing resources for LGBTQ+ individuals across all age groups, faces allegations of pursuing sexual activities with minors.
Rape kits that should have been analyzed by the NYPD but were left in storage at hospitals across the city are now part of a sprawling Department of Justice probe into the department’s Special Victims Division, The Post has learned.
The revelation comes after The Post revealed the snafu, which meant that an unknown number of cases were not fully investigated, victims didn’t get justice, and countless rapists could be roaming free.
Pakistan and Iran have traded airstrikes in each other’s territory. “The unprecedented attacks by both Pakistan and Iran on either side of their border appeared to target Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals. The countries accuse each other of providing a haven to the groups in their respective territories.”
The Disney magic seems to extend everywhere. “Pixar is planning on MAJOR layoffs this year, up to 20% of employees could be dismissed.” Under Jobs it made money hand over fist, but after Disney went woke it’s produced one flop after another.
Speaking of layoffs, Sports Illustratedlays off everybody. Wait, you mean putting fat women and trannys on the cover of your swimsuit issue and fluffing Colin Kaepernick weren’t tickets to success? Who knew?
Science fiction legend and personal friend Howard Waldrop died over the weekend. Howard was one of the greatest short story writers the field has ever produced. Since you can’t make a living from short stories, Howard was never far from penury, and he spent six months living in a spare room in my house. Pretty much everyone in the field loved him, and he will be missed.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of 2023! Iranian proxies get pounded, NGO’s help destroy the border, Democrats keep trying to remove Trump from the ballot, and thieves get a taste of their own medicine. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Not only is the Obama/Biden administration undermining American sovereignty and the rule of law by allowing a massive influx of illegal aliens, but a wide variety of NGOs, some “none political,” are also involved.
A network of NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, seems to be playing a powerful role in coordinating the large-scale invasion of illegals at the US southern border.
The new website Muckraker revealed a treasure trove of “mass migration blueprints,” handed out by NGOs across South and Central America to illegals with details about their route to the US.
“The collapse of the US southern border is the result of a carefully planned and deliberately executed industrial mass migration program,” Muckraker said.
MAP #1 – Distributed by Doctors Without Borders (Médicos Sin Fronteras in Spanish).
They seem to be taking that “Without Borders” part way too literally.
What’s becoming increasingly evident is that a network of NGOs funded partly by the US taxpayer but by other countries and corporations are covertly facilitating the invasion of illegals at the US southern border, as well as distributing them across the US into progressive metro areas.
According to an August report by progressive left-leaning media watchdog organization Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security allocated $363 million to NGOs to assist illegal aliens once in the US.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a press release one year ago detailing how “NGOs may be engaged in unlawfully orchestrating other border crossings through activities on both sides of the border, including in sectors other than El Paso.”
Once across the border, NGOs are also helping migrants with transportation across the US, such as providing seats on commercial airlines.
Also “Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona Inc.”
And speaking of Flu Manchu, here’s another fraud case. “A Georgia attorney and former City of Atlanta police officer has been convicted of fraudulently obtaining over $7 million in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, 62-year-old Shelitha Robertson from Atlanta conspired to submit PPP loan applications on behalf of four businesses she owned.”
The Real Story: “Philadelphia trans activist charged with rape of not one, but two minors.” The Newsweek Story: “Trans Activist Kendall Stephens’ Arrest Sparks MAGA Uproar.” Evidently the left feels that only MAGA Republicans should be upset at the rape of minors…
According to the Department of Emergency Management, San Francisco’s 911 call dispatchers answered just 72 percent of calls within 15 seconds in October, the latest month available. That’s the lowest share of any month in the last six years, and well short of the department’s goal to answer 95 percent of calls in 15 seconds or fewer.
Staffing is not up to the levels required, which is causing people to burn out, due to mandatory overtime. The bureaucratic hiring practice moves at a glacial pace, and so they can’t hire people to cover retirement and people just quitting due to burn out. They did raise pay some, but there is no indication if that is enough. I guess only time will tell.
The second problem that San Francisco has, in relation to 911 calls, is getting officers to the scene of a “Priority A” incident.
The slowdown in responses has contributed to broader delays San Franciscans face when trying to get help during emergency situations. The city’s typical response time to “Priority A” incidents — defined as the most urgent and serious events, like assaults-in-progress — is slower than it’s been at any point in the last eight years, increasing from about 6.5 minutes in January 2016 to nearly nine minutes this November.
Now this is the media, so there is no mention of any “defund the police” initiatives in San Francisco over the past few years.
“Since President Trump’s win in 2016, black support for him has more than tripled, now exceeding 20 percent in some surveys.” Including Mark Fisher, co-founder of a Black Lives Matter group in Rhode Island
“Two large Pizza Hut operators in California are laying off all their delivery drivers ahead of a new state law that raises the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour, Business Insider reports.” Good work, Democrats!
Grocery store manager Gatzke told Bild that the thieves who steal huge bags full of items are usually migrants, with around a third of them being Tunisian.
During one incident at the Edeka supermarket in Regensburg, a man stole €140 euros worth of goods, while the manager has also tried to stop thieves stealing groceries worth €300 euros.
“In the bag were spirits: vodka and liqueurs again. They are Muslims — did they want to resell the alcohol?” asked Gatzke.
“What do you need 10 sea bream and so many shrimp for? Nobody steals that because they’re hungry,” he added.
Gatzke noted that the culprits even steal shopping bags worth up to €2.50 euros.
However, he was denounced as a “racist” for complaining about the mass looting and subsequently criticized by Ferat Koçak, a member of the Berlin House of Representatives for The Left party.
Siding with the criminals, Koçak suggested that the migrants were “entitled” to steal because the government wasn’t giving them enough free money in welfare payments.
Some interesting artillery usage data, via reader Kirk”
Russian tremendous artillery advantage at beginning of war (65k shells/day) down to about 1/10 of that, while Ukraine advantage in platforms & counter battery has grown significantly. Then,… pic.twitter.com/Ak6o0hJmpv
Nothing says “Republican” quite like having Democrats do fundraising for you. “Dade Phelan Fundraiser Hosted by Liberals. Former House Speaker Joe Straus and former Democrat nominee for lieutenant governor Leticia Van de Putte are among those raising cash for Phelan.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a $700 million settlement with Google over anticompetitive practices.
According to the settlement, Google must pay $630 million in restitution—minus costs and fees—to consumers who made purchases on the Google Play Store between August 2016 and September 2023 and were harmed by Google’s anticompetitive practices.
Paxton secured the settlement alongside attorneys general from all 49 other states as well as the District of Columbia, and the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
would like to share the happiest Christmas memory of my childhood with you, an experience that shaped the young adult and the man I would become as much as any book or teacher ever would. I was accidentally given an inestimable gift – one which unwittingly dared me to grow intellectually and culturally so that I could be properly worthy of it, and which has since comforted me through endless long subsequent years of disappointment, heartache, personal growth, and triumph. And there’s no better time to write about it than during a season of joy. So if you will graciously permit me, on this Christmas Eve 2023 I’d like to take you back to the “not-too-distant future.”
On Christmas Eve 1991, my father suggested we should watch a cassette of an obscure TV show his friend at work had taped off a then-obscure cable channel called Comedy Central a few days before. “A guy and some robots make fun of bad movies” was how he described the premise. Since my dad and I had been talking back to films from the safety of our family-room couch for years already while watching B-movie schlock like USA Up All Night, it was at least something to do. (11-year-olds do not otherwise have a long list of entertainment options.)
Although my dad couldn’t possibly have intended it, what happened next altered the course of my life, and profoundly for the better: I was exposed to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K for short) for the first time. And “exposed” is the right word; the experience was as instantly catalyzing a moment for me as a rapid chemical reaction. It was the Christmas episode from a few days earlier, and the show was mocking something called Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
“I’ll never forget how comforted MST3K made me feel from that exact moment onward, comforted that there were people out there who had my sense of humor – only they were vastly more funny than me.”
God bless us, each and every one…
“North Carolina has a law that allows people to do practically whatever they want to the official state marsupial.” Which would be the possum. And it only applies five days a year. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Happy Black Friday, everyone! (Here’s my prepping/gift guide, if you haven’t seen it already.) I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Some interesting international election results, unreasonable gun control legislation gets struck down in two different states, more legal trouble for Houston Democrats, and a weed company goes bankrupt. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The average price American families will have to pay to celebrate Thanksgiving with a traditional dinner will be the most expensive in history after years of sky-high inflation that experts attribute partially to President Joe Biden’s policies, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The price of all goods has risen dramatically under Biden following a period of sustained high inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in March 2022 and has since remained elevated, measuring at 3.2% in October, while the index for food rose 3.3% year-over-year for the month. The total increase in costs for a Thanksgiving dinner is about 26% since the beginning of Biden’s term, culminating in the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner in history.
Don’t buy the cookies. “Girl Scouts To Host Training Sessions On ‘Internalized Racism,’ ‘White Supremacy Culture.'” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
In a surprising turn of events, Argentina has elected the libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its new president. The hotly contested presidential run-off saw Milei defeating left-wing candidate Sergio Massa — a consequential shift in the country’s political landscape. Massa brusquely conceded on Sunday night, stating, “Milei is the president elected for the next four years.”
The victory of Milei, a self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist,” introduces an unconventional leader with what are considered to be radical economic views relative to Argentina’s neighbors. His campaign, characterized by anti-establishment rhetoric and metaphorical gestures such as wielding a chainsaw to show his fervor for cutting taxes, resonated with voters frustrated by Argentina’s economic decrepitude, including triple-digit inflation. One of Milei’s key proposals is the adoption of the U.S. dollar as Argentina’s national currency, an unprecedented move for a country of its size (Argentina is home to some 45.8 million people).
Massa — a lifelong politician and representative of Argentina’s left-wing political establishment — emphasized his government’s actions to address inflation during his tenure.
But Milei’s appeal, particularly among the younger generation, suggests a desire for change to break free from the cycle of economic crises.
Milei’s victory has produced excitement and concern alike. While some see him as the catalyst for much-needed economic reforms, others fear the potential austerity measures tied to his plans, such as shutting the central bank and slashing spending. Despite the uncertainty, Milei’s supporters view him as the only viable option to break the political status quo and address Argentina’s persistent and extreme economic challenges.
The election is not just a political shift but also a generational one, with Milei’s popularity among the youth reflecting a desire for a new direction. The effect of Milei’s win extends beyond Argentina’s borders, potentially influencing trade relationships, especially with his criticism of China and Brazil and his preference for stronger ties with the United States. As for the U.S., the hour is late, and we’ll take all the friends we can get, and Argentina is doubly welcome because the Millennium must be nigh if a libertarian won an election outside of New Hampshire.
Note: Linking to MSN rather than NRO because the latter has now raised it’s war against ad-blockers to obnoxious levels. Year-by-year, the TDS-infected NR has become ever-more sad and useless.
Geert Wilders, the Dutch populist whose anti-Islam comments have led to death threats, could become the next leader of the Netherlands following an election upset for his Freedom Party (PVV) on Wednesday.
After 25 years in Dutch politics without holding office, Wilders was set to lead coalition government talks and has a good chance of becoming prime minister.
An exit poll on Wednesday evening showed the PVV in a clear lead, 10 seats ahead of its closest rival, Frans Timmermans’ Labour/Green Left combination.
“We will have to find ways to live up to the hopes of our voters, to put the Dutch back as number one”, Wilders said in his first response, adding that “the Netherlands will be returned to the Dutch, the asylum tsunami and migration will be curbed.”
Maryland is one of 14 states that require background checks for all firearm purchases, whether or not the seller is a federally licensed dealer. Since 2013, Maryland has imposed an additional requirement on handgun buyers: They must first obtain a “handgun qualification license,” which entails completing at least four hours of firearm training and undergoing a seemingly redundant “investigation” aimed at screening out people who are legally disqualified from owning guns. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, that process, which can take up to 30 days, violates the Second Amendment.
In a decision published on Tuesday, a divided 4th Circuit panel concluded that Maryland’s handgun ownership licensing system is not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the U.S. Supreme Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Writing for the majority in Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore, 4th Circuit Judge Julius Richardson notes that Bruen “effected a sea change in Second Amendment law,” making a variety of gun control laws newly vulnerable to constitutional challenges. Maryland’s handgun licensing law is the latest example.
Speaking of unconstitutional gun laws being struck down: “It turns out that bullets are an essential part of a gun, and limiting the number of rounds in a gun violates the Oregon constitution. A county judge in Oregon made that decision on Tuesday overturning Measure 114, a citizen-passed measure that outlawed what gun grabbers call ‘high capacity magazines’ and required that Oregon serfs get a permit to be allowed to purchase a gun.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Funny how no Arab nation wants to take in Palestinians. They know the simple truth: They suck.
The Palestinians tried to take over Jordan in the 1970s, leading to the late King Hussein declaring war on them and driving them out. They were booted from Kuwait after collaborating with Saddam Hussein’s forces before the Gulf War. They set off a powder keg in Lebanon, a nation that has yet to recover from its brutal civil war that lasted 15 years. No Arab country wants these people because they bring instability and trouble.
Outgoing Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner gets to enjoy a new host of scandals on his way out.
As term-limited Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner finishes his final days at the helm of the state’s most populous city, a new set of scandals have emerged over city contracts and a dispute over who will pay for a book touting the mayor’s legacy.
In the most recent dustup, an investigation by Houston’s KPRC 2 discovered that city contracts for much-needed water repairs were awarded to two relatives of Houston Public Works (HPW) employee Patrece Lee, including one for $4.5 million to Lee’s brother, who had only created his company six months before the city council approved the “emergency contracts.”
When KPRC reporter Amy Davis attempted to question Turner about the issue at a public event last week, Turner became irate and told his communications director to escort Davis from the room.
“You are not going to get away with this,” said Turner to Davis. “You are rude.”
Late Friday, HPW Director Carol Haddock announced that the employee had been placed on leave while the city’s Office of the Inspector General investigated the allegations.
In another contract scandal, Houston Landing media reported last week that the Midtown Redevelopment Authority had referred information to law enforcement on a since-fired manager who allegedly steered more than $4 million in taxpayer-funded landscaping contracts to himself and another contractor.
The latest developments came hard on the heels of Turner’s squabble with Houston First Corporation, the city’s marketing organization. During the “State of the City” luncheon last September, hosted by Houston First, attendees were given copies of Turner’s book “A Winning Legacy,” which celebrates the mayor’s accomplishments during his eight years in office.
As first reported by Bill King, Turner told President and CEO Michael Heckman that Houston First must pay a $123,979 invoice for the 600 copies, but Heckman refused, saying it was not in the corporation’s budget and not an appropriate expense. Houston First Chairman David Mincberg later told FOX 26 that the corporation would develop a strategy to raise private funds to pay for the books.
Controversy has also surrounded Turner’s management of city finances. Last year, Controller Chris Brown warned that the city was using $160 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to plug budget holes and even to cover ongoing expenses.
Speaking of governments in trouble for spending Flu Manchu funds on other priorities, Germany is also in trouble for pulling the same trick after their high court told them to stop. As Europeans, spending within their means is unacceptable, so they’re now plotting to suspend debt limits…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorses Donald Trump for President. This is interesting in that Abbott is a careful, cautious Republican, who might be more ideologically inclined to endorse Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. That Abbott has endorsed Trump indicates he thinks Trump is a lock for the 2024 nomination. He may be right.
“Stacey Abrams’ Brother-In-Law Arrested, Accused Of Human Trafficking, Choking Underage Girl…Jimmie Gardner, a well-known Georgia-based youth motivational speaker, is accused of human trafficking, lewd or lascivious touching, and battery…According to the Tampa Police Department, Gardner invited a 16-year-old girl to his hotel room in the early hours of Friday, offering to pay her for sexual acts.” Sounds like the wrong sort of youth motivation…
Democrats enabling sexual predators (yet again), more tanks for Ukraine information, and the unexpected return of Storm Drain Woman. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Published in November of 2022, the story indicated “thousands of child molesters are being let out after just a few months, despite sentencing guidelines.”
The story reported that more than 7,000 inmates convicted of “lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age” were released from prison the same year they were incarcerated.
The Daily Mail’s analysis was conducted using a database—created in 1994 after the federal Megan’s Law was passed—requiring law enforcement to make public information regarding registered sex offenders. The news organization examined data in California through July of 2019.
“Everyone should be really upset and frightened by this,” Dordulian said.
According to Dordulian, child molesters are the least likely of criminals to be rehabilitated and are four times more likely to commit the same crime again.
“Once they’re out,” he said, “they are going to re-offend and there’s going to be another child that is victimized by these people.”
Senate Bill 357. Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in July, the measure decriminalized loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution. The bill did not officially take effect until January 1 of this year; but, from the moment it became law back in July, these women say, the on-the-ground reality changed. “The minute the governor signed it, you started seeing an uptick on the streets,” Powell said. “And on social media, the pimps were saying: ‘You better get out there and work because the streets are ours.’”
The pimps were right: police stopped making arrests for crimes that would no longer be charged. The anti-loitering statute had provided the grounds for officers to question women and children whom they suspected might be trapped in a prostitution ring. “As a police officer, you need probable cause to stop and investigate,” Powell explained. “So if I have a law that says you can’t loiter in this area, with pasties and a G-string, flagging down cars, I could stop you for that because you’re loitering. But if I just say I’m stopping you because you look kind of young, that’s a little weak. So, it takes away a tool.” Without the statute, police hands were suddenly tied. Henceforth, questioning the girls—and potentially provoking a violent confrontation with pimps—came to seem a Pyrrhic gamble, one that California’s police officers would now avoid.
The films, which include “Miss Representation,” “The Mask You Live In,” “The Great American Lie” and “Fair Play,” are licensed to taxpayer-funded schools across every state and sometimes contain sexually explicit imagery and push students to feel “shame and sorrow” about American society split by privilege and oppression. They are paired with curricula that include discussion on Gov. Newsom’s comments within the films, urging them to gather their friends and vote for aligned politicians that support a “care economy” that “embraces universal human values.”
“Former Arlington teachers union president charged with embezzlement. A former president of the Arlington teachers union, who was ousted last spring, has been charged with embezzling more than $400,000 from the organization. Ingrid Gant, 54, of Woodbridge, was arrested yesterday (Monday) in Prince William County on four counts of embezzlement.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“Thirty years ago, Guan County, Shandong Province launched the ‘Hundred Childless Days‘ campaign under the aegis of national family planning, known in the West as the ‘one-child policy.’ The birthplace of the “Boxers” was deemed to have too high a birth rate by the provincial government. County officials sought to correct this by ensuring that not a single baby was born between May 1 and August 10, 1991.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
North says they do not feel safe anymore, and she believes it all ties back to the large homeless encampment located only feet away from the salon.
“Our safety started to become a big issue. We suffered from multiple break-ins. We’ve had our cars broken into. We clean up feces and needles on a weekly basis. It increased from that to, you know, people approaching us and threatening us with weapons, threatening rape, murder, all of those things,” said North.
The salon has been up and running just off Ben White Blvd. for four years now. North says she has seen an uptick in crime for a while now, but the dangerous behavior from people living in this encampment picked up recently.
“In the past year, it’s gotten increasingly worse and, in the past couple of weeks, it’s gotten to the point where I actually finally felt like this might shut my business down,” said North.
Erin Mutschler, another co-owner of the salon, says they have called the police every time they have dealt with a situation like the one caught on video, but she says police often take 45 minutes to an hour for anyone to show up.
The mayorship of Steve Adler is the gift that just keeps giving, even with him out of office… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Follow-up: Democratic State Rep. Harold Dutton: “Don’t Blame Abbott, Houston ISD Takeover Plan Was My Idea.” (Previously.)
A Florida woman was pulled from a storm drain for the third time in two years. Maybe she was looking for David Icke’s lizard people. Also, she sounds like a real winner: “Police said her license had been suspended 17 times from 2007 to 2020.” (Previously.) (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Jay Leno broke his collarbone, several ribs and both kneecaps in a motorcycle accident. But it sounds like a freak accident: “So I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it…I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just clothesline me and, boom, knocked me off the bike.” (There’s no evidence the line was strung there by Conan O’Brien.) “But I’m OK!…I’m working this weekend.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Democrats being soft on criminals, pedophiles and common sense highlights this week’s LinkSwarm.
Man, there sure seems to be a lot of funny number counting going on in Philadelphia.
Regular readers are well aware that back in July, Zero Hedge first (long before it became a running theme among so-called “macro experts”) pointed out that a gaping 1+ million job differential had opened up between the closely-watched and market-impacting, if easily gamed and manipulated, Establishment Survey and the far more accurate if volatile, Household Survey – the two core components of the monthly non-farm payrolls report.
We first described this divergence in early July, when looking at the June payrolls data, we found that the gap between the Housing and Establishment Surveys had blown out to 1.5 million starting in March when “something snapped.” We described this in “Something Snaps In The US Labor Market: Full, Part-Time Workers Plunge As Multiple Jobholders Soar.”
Since then the difference only got worse, and culminated earlier this month when the gap between the Establishment and Household surveys for the November dataset nearly doubled to a whopping 2.7 million jobs, a bifurcation which we described in “Something Is Rigged: Unexplained, Record 2.7 Million Jobs Gap Emerges In Broken Payrolls Report.”
Snip.
We bring all this up again because late on Dec 13, the Philadelphia Fed published something shocking: as part of the regional Fed’s quarterly reassessment of payrolls in the form of an “early benchmark revision of state payroll employment”, the Philly Fed confirmed what we have been saying since July, namely that US payrolls are overstated by at least 1.1 million, and likely much more!
And the correction came after the midterms! What are the odds?
The Royal Bahamas Police Force took the failed financial tech entrepreneur into custody after the U.S. filed criminal charges against him, according to a press statement. FTX, which Bankman-Fried founded, imploded in November, costing investors millions of dollars in losses. The fallen businessman has been accused of misusing customer funds deposited with FTX to artificially prop up another one of his enterprises: a crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, which he operated simultaneously while seemingly evading financial ethics scrutiny.
Speaking of abusing children: “Former CNN Producer Pleads Guilty In Pedo Scandal. Former CNN producer John Griffin, who worked ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with Chris Cuomo, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court to using interstate commerce to entice and coerce a 9-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity as his Vermont ski house. This is a different CNN pedophile than Jake Tapper’s former producer, Rick Saleeby, who resigned after it emerged that he solicited sexually explicit photos of an underage girl.”
The mother of an 11-year-old rape victim is suing a George-Soros backed prosecutor in Virginia who let the boy’s rapist walk free, alleging the prosecutor’s actions violated the minor’s civil rights and made him fear for his physical safety.
Amber Reel in November filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of her son after Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano (D.) let the rapist walk. Court filings show Descano was months late in sharing necessary evidence before a September trial, dooming the case and forcing his office to enter into a lesser plea deal with the rapist the same month. Ronnie Reel, who was released on time served, had faced life in prison for forcibly sodomizing the minor. Reel is the victim’s uncle.
This is the second high-profile case in the last month where the Soros prosecutor freed a dangerous offender. In December, Descano struck a plea deal that would clear the record of a man who fired his gun into a crowded Virginia bar. Soros donated more than half a million dollars to Descano’s 2019 campaign.
A grand jury had already indicted Reel in February for sodomy and aggravated sexual battery, and the case was set for trial in September. But Descano’s office didn’t share evidence with the public defender before trial, bungling Reel’s prosecution with its “woefully, woefully missed” deadlines. The case’s presiding judge said Descano’s office did a “disservice to the victim” and was “very concerning to the court.”
Because he dodged a felony sex crime conviction, Reel won’t have to register as a sex offender and won’t be barred from holding jobs in schools or other places that would put him near children. The victim and his mother in their suit say Descano’s “deliberate indifference represents egregious conduct that is shocking to the conscience.”
Speaking of pedophile friendly Democrats: “During the hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, California [Democratic] Rep. Katie Porter asserted that the phrase “groomer” is a “lie” used to maliciously discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and make them appear to be a “threat.” “You know, this allegation of ‘groomer’ and ‘pedophile,’ it is alleging that a person is criminal somehow and engaged in criminal acts merely because of their gender identity, their sexual orientation, their gender identity.” Yes, if your “gender identity” is “I like to have sex with children,” then yes, you’re a pedophile, and if you tell elementary school children what sort of sex you have, then yes, you’re a groomer.
Former state Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) will be the next mayor of Austin about two decades after he left that same office in the early aughts.
He defeated state Rep. Celia Israel (D-Austin) by a slim margin after finishing second in the general election. He’ll serve as mayor for the next two years before having to seek re-election in 2024 due to redistricting.
Watson lost Travis County, the city’s largest portion, by 17 votes while winning Williamson county by 881 and Hays County by 22. During the general and runoff races, he outspent Israel by a wide margin.
The two candidates sparred over housing and homeless policy during the general election and the runoff. About one-third of the voting population turned out to vote in the runoff versus the November 8 general.
Watson will take over for Mayor Steve Adler after his self-described “disruptive” tenure marked by a lingering homelessness problem, public fallout and a declining relationship with the police department, and a cumbersome and increasingly costly light rail transit project.
The United States has always had kind of a friends and family plan that it sells military gear to, but it has always reserved the very top top top stuff for itself and the Brits. Well, in this calendar year we have already seen the first two exceptions to that policy being made. The United States is sending air-launch cruise missiles and nuclear-powered submarines to the Australians. And now we’re giving Tomahawks to the Japanese, giving both of these countries the ability to independently destroy China’s economic links to the wider world without any additional help from the United States. And this sudden proliferation of countries that can now bring China to their knees independently, this is arguably the biggest strategic development of the Year, even more so than the Ukraine war, because it takes what has become the world’s second largest economy and puts it completely at the mercy of the domestic politics of a third party, and now a fourth party.
Oberlin College finally pays their judgment to Gibson’s Bakery. “The $25 million verdict plus interest and attorney’s fees resulted in an almost $32 million judgment, with interest running at about $4000 per day since June 2019. In all, over $36 million was owed.” Cudos to William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection for his thorough, ongoing coverage of this story from beginning to end.
F-35B fighter crashes in the Metroplex. Fortunately the pilot safely ejected, and it appears that the airplane (which was undergoing testing for Lockheed) looks recoverable. To my untrained eye it looks like a stuck throttle.
Greetings, and welcome to a special Election Eve Monday LinkSwarm! My Internet is back up, and tomorrow night I will be liveblogging the election returns starting around 7 PM.
For the past week or so, my back-of-the-envelope math envisioned a GOP House majority somewhere between 229 and 241, and I’m sticking to that. Give the Republicans the 212 seats in Cook Political Report, with two-thirds of the 35 races in the toss-up category, and you end up with 235 Republicans and 200 Democrats, so put those down as my final prediction numbers.
Snip.
With Bolduc, Laxalt, and Johnson winning, I come out to a 51–48 GOP advantage by the end of the week, with Walker and Warnock headed to a runoff. It wouldn’t shock me if Oz or Masters or both won, giving Republicans a 53- or 54-seat majority.
On Sunday, Hilary Rosen, a longtime Democratic strategist, predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party will have a bad night on Tuesday because they did not listen to voters.
“I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just think we did not listen to voters in this election, and I think we are going to have a bad night,” she said.
She faulted the Democratic Party for ignoring voters’ concerns about the economy, and implored them to “stop talking about democracy being at stake.”
“When voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them,” she said. “Stop talking about democracy being at stake. Democracy is at stake because people are fighting so much about what elections mean. Voters have told us what they wanted to hear. I don’t think Democrats have delivered this cycle.”
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson gave the federal prosecutor probing Hunter Biden a little nudge Wednesday — sending him more than 200 pages of bank records showing millions in transactions between the first son’s companies and Communist Chinese-tied entities.
Snip.
The senators’ analysis of banking records, first reported by Fox News, finds that between August 2017 and October 2018, $6 million was transferred to a company allegedly set up by Hunter Biden called Hudson West III, $5 million came from Northern International Capital, a [Chinese energy compan] CEFC affiliate, and $1 million was transferred from CEFC itself.
From the pool of cash, $4.8 million was transferred from Hudson West III to other Biden companies, such as Owasco P.C. and Owasco LLC, and to a company associated with President Biden’s brother James, the Lion Hall Group.
The bank records also show that Hunter Biden and his aunt and uncle, Sara and James Biden, went on a “spending spree,” in the senators words, after Hudson West III received the millions in payments from CEFC, through a line of credit that was opened.
“We are also providing bank records showing that credit cards were collateralized by a $99,000 preauthorized withdrawal from Hudson West III,” Grassley and Johnson write, noting that the money was spent for airfare, at Apple stores, hotels, and restaurants, as they detailed back in 2020.
Grassley and Johnson also mention two $3 million wire transfers sent to Robinson Walker LLC, another Hunter Biden-associated company; and by State Energy HK Limited, another CEFC affiliate, saying the purpose of those transfers “is unclear.” The Post reported on those mysterious transactions back in 2020.
The senators also make reference to JiaQi Bao, Hunter Biden’s Chinese secretary, who reportedly pushed for “Uncle Joe” Biden to run for president and has been linked to the Chinese government. The bank transactions included in Grassley and Johnson’s letter show that Hunter Biden made payments to Bao totaling $29,795.84 after Hudson West III received the $6 million from the Chinese firms.
Some names and entities will be familiar to BattleSwarm readers, but other bits are new.
Ballot harvesting, according to the California Democrats who’d like to take it national, is an innocent practice where union members and activists, some of them illegally present in the country, do voters the favor, see, of helping voters fill out their ballots and then collecting those ballots for them so that they need never go to the polls. They call it “a new service.” It’s part of their “make every vote count” agenda, and who could be against that?
But out in Florida, where there’s still some semblance of objectivity, investigators found another story.
According to the Washington Times:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security is requesting a criminal investigation into charges of ballot harvesting in Orlando, a Democratic stronghold in the critical swing state.
Cynthia Harris, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for District 6 commissioner in Orange County, which includes Orlando, provided a sworn complaint to the election crimes office, alleging left-leaning organizations have been perpetrating a scheme to encourage residents in black neighborhoods to apply for mail-in ballots and to fill out those ballots, which she said have been collected by paid canvassers, and sometimes altered, all in violation of state law.
In an interview with The Washington Times, Ms. Harris said she has video evidence of paid ballot harvesters operating in Orlando neighborhoods in both 2014 and 2017, and that the scheme has been going on for decades, continuing through the 2020 election and the 2022 primary.
If voting fraud is this massive in Florida, how widespread and massive is it in states controlled by Democrats? (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
Two members of Congress from Texas and one former Trump administration official who now serves in the Texas House of Representatives are asking for answers from the Biden administration after discovering that an open borders group funded by George Soros received millions of dollars in federal grant money last year.
Alianza Americas, a nonprofit that says it is “committed to a human rights agenda for all people, with an emphasis on the inclusion and support of Latin American immigrant communities, and people on the move in Latin America,” received $7.5 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February 2021, according to the Washington Examiner, and then another $1 million from the Health Resources and Services administration in July.
Both organizations fall under President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services organization, and both grants were to fund COVID relief and vaccination efforts.
The group has also received nearly $1.4 million from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation from 2016 through 2020.
Federal law prohibits government grant money from being spent on lobbying, but Alianza Americas may have violated that prohibition in its activities as a “political advocacy group,” according to a letter from former HHS Chief of Staff Brian Harrison.
Chicago teacher’s unions want to pass an Illinois state constitutional amendment that would basically let them run the state.
If approved by Illinois voters in November, Amendment 1 will give government teachers’ unions an unfettered constitutional right to demand not just anything in their interests, but in what they see as the interests of every Illinoisan. The amendment is not limited to employee matters at the workplace.
Don’t take my word for that. Look at the first sentence of the argument in favor of it as written in the official summary as published by the Illinois Secretary of State: “This amendment will protect workers’ and others’ safety.” [Emphasis added.]
hat particular sentence is just about safety, but it shows the broad interpretation of the amendment beyond the workplace that government unions will assert. The language of the amendment itself supports that broad interpretation, and will extend to anybody’s “economic welfare,” which is pretty much everything.
What will government unions, especially radical teachers’ unions, demand with that new constitutional right?
The Chicago Teachers Union has long been quite open about its purpose. It sees itself as the vanguard of a national movement, led by unions like itself, that is textbook Marxism.
That purpose is well documented. It goes beyond the radical curriculum they teach in schools and encompasses an entire rearrangement of how America works.
Among the first things we wrote about on this site, ten years ago, was the role of the CTU and other teachers’ unions at a Marxism conference held that year:
The event was teeming with teachers who spoke about the new found bond” between Socialism and teachers’ unions according to reports, and Chicago teachers were on the stage. Chicago Teachers Union [then] VP Jesse Sharkey spoke at one breakout session. Becca Barnes, a Chicago Teachers Union teacher and organizer with Chicago Socialists, proclaimed at the beginning of the conference that “the struggle here in the United States has entered a new phase. Nowhere have we pointed the way forward more clearly than here in Chicago with the teachers union strike….”
Since then, militant radicalism has become still more firmly embedded in the CTU. That history is well documented – quite proudly by radicals themselves. The International Socialist Review, for example, lays out a good history of the CTU, saying the CTU “transcended a simple labor dispute and was transformed into a social movement, with the teachers fusing their struggle with that of the community they serve…joining in the Occupy Chicago movement that pointed out the root of societal problems—social and economic inequality.”
A poll that shows ridiculously low support from black voters for defunding the police should be the final nail in the coffin for Democrats’ anti-law and order campaign of the last seven years.
TheGrio.com commissioned a poll, along with the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that 82% of black respondents want police funding either to be kept about the same (48%) or increased (34%). Only 17% wanted it decreased.
It’s just like Kari Lake said in a recent confrontation with a reporter. If you go into most black neighborhoods and talk about defunding the police, they’ll look at you “like you’re the craziest person on the planet.” But it’s one thing for a white, conservative Republican to say it — it’s far more important to hear black respondents in a poll confirm it overwhelmingly.
Things that make you go “hmmmm“: “San Francisco DA Won’t Release Police Bodycam Video, 911 Calls From Paul Pelosi Attack.”
Great line in the middle of this Ben Shapiro election roundup video: “Andrew Cuomo came to kill all the old people and grab ass, and he ran out of old people.”
Remember all those stories of how bad it sucked for workers in Foxconn’s iPhone factory? It’s worse now.
Hundreds and perhaps thousands of workers fled a Chinese manufacturing complex that accounts for 85% of iPhone assembly capacity. The mass migration, which began this weekend, called into question that country’s COVID-control measures and, more broadly, its reliability as a part of global supply chains.
“Something snapped over the weekend,” Bloomberg News reports. Employees suddenly fled the Zhengzhou plant of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., better known as Foxconn. Videos show, in what is now called the “Foxconn Great Escape” or the “iPhone Long March,” workers scrambling over high chain fences at the plant, known as “iPhone City.”
To avoid detection, workers traveled through cropland by day. At night, they took to the roads. “Some people were walking amid wheat fields with their luggage, blankets, and quilts,” said a poster on WeChat, the popular Chinese social media platform. “I couldn’t help but feel sad.”
Residents of neighboring areas rallied, for instance leaving water and provisions in the open on roadsides. Social media postings reported signs such as “For Foxconn workers returning home.”
Truckers also pitched in. Risking criminal prosecution, they took workers in pick-up, dump, and flatbed trucks. One video shows a woman standing on the back of a big tank truck speeding down a highway in the rain.
Workers fled Foxconn’s “closed loop” system, which isolated the plant from the rest of society. Inside the loop, the company went to great lengths to stop COVID. As a disease-control measure, it had ended canteen service on October 19, forcing workers to eat boxed food in dormitory-style sleeping quarters. Food was reportedly scarce, and conditions in the dorms rapidly deteriorated. On Sunday, Foxconn announced it would resume cafeteria dining.
The political establishment—left and right—want desperately to move on, to pretend the last 30 months didn’t happen. With very few exceptions (Ron DeSantis, Kirsti Noem, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Ron Johnson, and a few others, later), they betrayed their core values. Many Republicans and so-called Libertarians quickly capitulated the primacy and importance of individual liberties. Whereas supposedly equality-loving democrats embraced policies that in no uncertain terms screwed women, children and the poor. The 2020 democrat campaign slogan might as well have been “protect the rich, infect the poor.” Or “only the rich need to learn.” They’d all very much like that you forget about that. They’d like to go back to the fights they know how to fight, the golden oldies that turn the bases out, and turn us against each other. But COVID policies turned the whole thing on its side, jumbling us all up and resulting in all sorts of hitherto unheard of alliances. And when your business is maintaining the status quo, that is very dangerous.
Which is why Emily Oster is pleading for an amnesty.
First, let’s be clear to whom Emily Oster is speaking. She’s speaking to the furious well-educated suburban women who are swinging towards Republicans in this cycle, even in the bluest of states. Because it was the bluest of states that were hit hardest by these policies. It was in blue states that the schools were closed longest, that the economic devastation was worst, that crime spiked the most, where masks were required longest. The damage done by these policies is at its beginning, not its end. Dr. Oster, would like women to believe that it was all just a mistake, a mis-understanding, and remember that it is the Republicans who are looking to limit the freedoms that really count. That while democrats had no problem sacrificing the well-being of our living children for three years in support political power, it is Republicans that pose the real threat.
Blue city blues: “Nearly 20% Of Seattle Shootings Happened Near Homeless Encampments.”
Man who used to get all his information on conservatives from the mainstream media realizes he’d been lied to.
When I left the mainstream liberal media bubble & started listening to right-wing media to understand what they want, I became more aware of the world around me than ever before. Without the filter, I got to hear what conservatives actually believe & it's not what I was told.
— Adam B. Coleman, President of Aintblackistan (@wrong_speak) October 21, 2022
For a couple of days, I was at this conservative conference, everyone I spoke with was courteous and supportive and I felt completely comfortable. I didn't have people stare at me or give me the feeling that I wasn't welcome. Actually, quite the opposite.
— Adam B. Coleman, President of Aintblackistan (@wrong_speak) October 21, 2022
However, when I would go on Twitter, they would show clips from the event and reframed this benign conservative conference as being a "KKK rally". If Americafest was a KKK rally, then it was the lamest KKK rally ever.
— Adam B. Coleman, President of Aintblackistan (@wrong_speak) October 21, 2022
Wendell Perez received a call from the elementary school that would alarm any parent. School officials told him that his 12-year-old daughter had attempted suicide in the school’s bathroom. He was told it was because she wanted to be a boy, with a male name and pronouns.
Wendell couldn’t believe it. At home, his daughter hadn’t shown any signs of gender dysphoria or discomfort in being a girl. The Perez family is Catholic, and they raised their children with a biblical and scientific understanding of biological sex.
But when Wendell and his wife Maria arrived at the school, they found out that school officials had been having confidential meetings with their daughter and discussing her discomfort with her gender. Wendell and Maria found out that teachers and staff at school had begun treating their daughter as a boy at school without their consent or knowledge. Wendell was told by staff that they didn’t share information about his daughter’s “transition” with him or his wife because of “confidentiality issues.”
Whatever happened to in loco parentis? Or does that just not apply when there are radical transexual activists to mollify?
When the school called his 14-year-old son to the principal’s office for refusing to say a female student was a boy, Matthew Duncan decided he’d had enough.
When the school called his 14-year-old son to the principal’s office for refusing to say a female student was a boy, Matthew Duncan decided he’d had enough.
“There was never a push towards dominance and control like it is now,” said Duncan. “You can’t voice your opinion.”
In response, many families in Grants Pass have withdrawn their children from public school, enrolling them in private school or starting to homeschool, Grants Pass teachers, school administrators and parents told The Epoch Times.
Meanwhile, in a civilized state: “Florida Bans Puberty Blockers and Transgender Surgery for Minors.”
Also, an O’Rourke rally too close to a voting location violated Texas law.
Still more Beto: “New poll shows Abbott gaining six points in eight weeks, 53/40.”
“More California companies moving headquarters out-of-state than ever before.” Texas once again tops the list of destination states, followed by Tennessee, Nevada, Florida and Arizona.
“Democrat Nominee In Arkansas Arrested For Felony Terroristic Threatening. Law enforcement officials in the state of Arkansas arrested Diamond Arnold-Johnson, the Democrat nominee for Arkansas auditor, on Friday for first-degree terroristic threats.” Bonus:
Arnold-Johnson’s husband was on trial in August for allegedly posting terroristic threats on Facebook, police said. During the trial, Arnold-Johnson, 32, admitted that she, not her husband, posted the threatening messages on Facebook that led to the criminal charges, KATV reported.
A warrant was served for Arnold-Johnson’s arrest on October 13, but she refused to comply and a SWAT team was dispatched to resolve the matter.
However, police made the decision to cancel using the SWAT team to force compliance from Arnold-Johnson in an apparent attempt to not risk an explosive situation happening right before an election.
I cannot believe democracy is about to die in America, again.
After years of living under a dictatorship, America rose from the ashes. Democrats took control of the Presidency, the House, the Senate, the university system, Big Tech, the entertainment industry, and major corporations – and thereby defeated fascism by seizing every major lever of power in the nation. With one-party rule established, and all of our critics silenced, democracy was once again free to flourish.
Now, our dear democracy is under attack – by America holding a so-called “election” and allowing idiots to vote. Let us be clear about what the stakes are: if a single person I disagree with is elected in a free and fair election, democracy will be DEAD. If citizens have the power to simply vote the ruling party out of power – when I really like the current ruling party – all is lost.
Always keeping in mind Instapundit’s “Don’t get cocky!” warning, there are a whole lot of signs that this year’s midterm is going to be another Republican wave election along the lines of 2010 or 2014.
Here are some signposts for the impending Red Tsunami:
Remember how Democrats crowed how Roe vs. Wade was going to doom Republican electoral chances? Yeah, not so much.
Republicans made massive gains with independent women in recent weeks as Democrats ramped up their messaging on abortion ahead of the midterm elections.
Forty-nine percent of voters plan to vote for the Republican nominee to represent their House district while 45 percent said they’d back their Democratic opponent, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday. Of particular note was a 32 point swing among independent women toward the GOP. In September’s iteration of the poll, Democrats boasted a 14 point lead among that demographic, but by October, Republicans held an 18 point advantage.
While Democratic officials and progressive commentators had suggested that the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade might lessen the expected electoral blow of the midterms, the swing toward the GOP among independent women — the group most heavily targeted by Democratic strategists — suggests that their focus on abortion might be to their own detriment.
In a TV segment last month, Republican operative Matt Gorman was rebuked by his fellow panelists for suggesting that abortion “is not in the top four of issues.”
Yamiche Alcindor of PBS and NBC insisted that on the campaign trail “abortion comes up 90 percent of the time” when she speaks with voters. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and former senator who lost her re-election bid in 2016, shouted over other guests to declare “I hope Matt keeps saying that everywhere he goes — that abortion isn’t really an issue here in this election. I think it is exactly what infuriates women when they hear that.”
According to a study conducted by AdImpact, Democrats spent 73 million on messaging ads about abortion in September, which is “about a third of all Democratic television ad spending,” per NPR.
Twenty-six percent of voters in the Times/Siena poll identified the economy as the most important issue facing the country today. That was followed by inflation (18 percent), other (9 percent), the state of democracy (8 percent), immigration and abortion (five percent apiece), and then political division (four percent).
Only 24 percent of voters said the country was on the right track, while 64 percent indicated the opposite. Democrats presently hold the White House and majorities in both chambers of Congress, and President Joe Biden’s approval rating is nearly 20 points underwater.
So how do you explain a 32 point swing between two polls? A few possible answers: A.) Democrat’s loud, radical position on abortion is actually alienating independent women, B.) The crappy Biden economy is really starting to bite, or C.) Pollsters running biased polls to help Democrats simply stopped lying in order for their final electoral predictions to more closely match reality. Much as I’d like to believe A is the cause, I think C is the more likely culprit. Caveat: The sample was “792 likely voters nationwide,” which is a pretty damn small sample.
Democrats have no solutions to today’s crime surge.
Here’s how they shrug off the mayhem.
First: Deep denial.
Through Sept. 27, New Orleans suffered 208 homicides, up 44% versus that period in 2021 and 141% in 2019. The Crescent City has become America’s Murder Capital.
“I do not embrace that at all,” said Democratic Mayor La Toya Cantrell. “It isn’t based on what’s happening on the ground.” She later said that “our city is safer than it’s been in a long time.”
Crime books can be cooked: Curbing arrests can “erase” lawlessness by leaving it unrecorded. But there’s no faking a cadaver. Regardless, Cantrell scoffs at humiliating police data.
Then there’s the revolving door for violent criminals Soros-backed Democrat DAs have instituted:
100% gun control would not have stopped David Jakubonis who, last July 21, confronted Zeldin on the hustings, shoved a sharp keychain weapon beside the candidate’s neck, and said: “You’re done.”
Jakubonis was armed and threatened a congressman.
Regardless, he was free the next day before being arrested on federal charges.
Vincent Buccino savored pizza outside a Hell’s Kitchen eatery on Sept. 9.
An unprovoked attacker smashed a chair over his head and broke his arm.
The unidentified criminal remains at large.
Michael Palacios terrorized a Manhattan McDonald’s on Sept. 16. After harassing patrons, he yanked an ax from his backpack, menaced diners, and chopped up a table, chairs, and glass wall. He, too, was arrested and swiftly sprung without bail.
Palacios was arrested again on Oct. 11, for alleged graffiti and bicycle theft.
Once more, Palacios was freed without bail.
And if you dare to notice this, Democrats will call you a racist. “Democrats shout, ‘Racism!’ as often as people exhale.”
In July 2021, House Bill 1054 took effect in the Evergreen State after being passed by the Democratic state legislature and signed by the Democratic governor over the objections of [Chelan County sheriff Brian Burnett] and state law-enforcement associations.
Before they can pursue a vehicle, the new law requires that officers ensure that four conditions have been met: (1) An officer must have either a reasonable suspicion a driver is impaired due to drugs or alcohol, or probable cause to believe that he has committed certain kinds of violent crimes or sex crimes; (2) pursuit must be necessary to identify or apprehend the suspect; (3) the driver must be an imminent threat to the safety of others such that the risks of not pursuing him outweigh the risks of pursuit; and (4) a supervisor has authorized pursuit.
Burnett told National Review that these restrictions represent a threat to public safety. Anecdotally, that’s evidenced by Spitzer’s sojourn across the region and, statistically, it’s backed up by the data. Prior to HB 1054’s taking effect, the state recorded, on average, around 2,000 stolen vehicles per month. Since its passage, that figure has soared, reaching heights in excess of 4,000 per month.
“What we’re seeing on an average daily basis — whether it’s our jurisdiction or one of our neighboring jurisdictions — is there’s people that don’t stop for us all day long,” said Burnett. “It can be anything from a stolen vehicle, to somebody that we have probable cause on, or just a basic traffic stop, and, you know, next thing on it’s pedal to the metal and they’re off and running,” he continued.
Burnett and his fellow law-enforcement officials had foreseen these issues and lobbied against the bill, but he said lawmakers refused to take their concerns seriously.
“The response early on — because we have a Democratic-controlled Senate and House, and it’s a fairly large margin there — it was almost to the point of, I’ll call it arrogance,” remembered Burnett. The message the legislature sent to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs was: “We don’t need you, we don’t need your opinion,” he added. “We were begging them and telling them and giving them reasons why: ‘Please don’t do this, it’s bad, bad policy,’” he said, but they ignored the pleas, because their majorities (57–41 in the House and 28–21 in the Senate) empower them to impose their will without compromise. But public opinion will probably assert itself eventually, given that crime is surging in the state: Washington set records for homicides in 2020 and then again 2021.
Democrats have a long history, stretching back at least into the 1970s, of soft-on-crime policies costing them elections. And Soros DAs intent on “bail reform” have made them even softer on crime than they were in the nadir of the 1970s.
The 40,000-foot view is bad enough, but it’s the steady drumbeat of discouraging race-by-race poll results that now has Democrats bracing for a punishing midterm.
In the battle to break the 50-50 tie in the Senate, Republicans have taken small leads in Wisconsin and Nevada, and Herschel Walker is still hanging around despite the October-surprise claims about his ex-girlfriend’s abortion. RealClearPolitics now puts Dr. Oz in the lead in Pennsylvania, after adjusting for historical polling errors, and projects a 52-48 GOP Senate majority.
In the House, counting “safe,” “likely” and “leans,” RealClearPolitics gives Republicans a 221-176 lead, with 38 more races considered toss-ups. In June, that outlet projected the GOP would gain 24.5 seats; now it forecasts a 27-seat pickup.
In reliably blue Oregon, a Republican is poised to take the governorship for the first time in 35 years. Michigan governor and lockdown enthusiast Gretchen Whitmer is up only now leading by just 5 points in the latest poll. Even the New York governor race has tightened up, with Quinnipiac putting Democrat Kathy Hochul up only 4 points — and independents breaking toward challenger Lee Zeldin 57% to 37%.
“I think we had three really good weeks in August that everybody patted themselves on the back,” an anonymous Democratic advisor to major donors tells Politico. “We were like, ‘Yeah, that should be enough to overcome two years of shitty everything’.” Now, he says, “It’s not looking great. The best we can hope for right now is a 50-50 Senate, but the House is long gone.”
Oddsmakers have similarly flipped red when it comes to the GOP’s chances of retaking the Senate, joining a longstanding bet that they’ll win control of the House.
Yes, Democrats “peaked” on election night in 2020 when they used massive voting fraud in a handful of districts to steal the election for Biden (along with a senate race or two) and then acted like they had a blowout mandate to impose social justice on the country.
The Democrat label is now toxic, and every time voters see Democrats speak, they seem to turn against them.
The Republican surge is animated by decisive debate victories on Friday in three key races: Georgia (Senate), Michigan (Governor), and Wisconsin (Governor). Georgia had been trending Democrat before the debate under the weight of Hershel Walker’s scandals, but likely no more.
Tudor Dixon, the Republican candidate for Governor of Michigan, seemed like a hopeless case, but now, on the strength of a decisive win in her debate with incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmer the race seems winnable. The Republican Governor’s Association, after waiting to commit, now is pumping millions into her campaign. Responding to Dixon’s surge, former president Obama has announced plans to campaign against her in Michigan.
And, in Wisconsin, Republican Tim Michaels clearly defeated a largely passive and obviously aging Democratic governor Tony Evers.
Walker was supposed to lose the debate because, as a football hero, he’s not necessarily very articulate. Coming up against an experienced pastor, Senator Raphael Warnock’s chances seemed dim. But Walker surprised everyone with a strong performance. Whatever the issue he pivoted to bring it back to inflation and Joe Biden. Surprisingly, on abortion he indicated new flexibility and backed it in cases of rape or a danger to the life of the mother. But, above all he seemed to have mastered his new trade of politics and was able to spar with the best of them.
The most important debate will come next week in Pennsylvania Senate race between Dr. Oz and stroke-impaired John Fetterman on October 25th. Fetterman won’t release his medical records and recent on camera interviews indicate that he mispronounces words and cannot easily understand what he hears unless it is printed out in front of him.
Whatever his medical prognosis, he cannot recover from his radical positions on pardoning and releasing one in three Pennsylvania prison inmates and on defunding the police.
Other than the Oz-Fetterman race, we now lead in all contests for seats currently held by the Republicans. North Carolina is close but Ted Budd holds a consistent lead. And, despite a less than stellar debate performance, JD Vance is ahead in Ohio.
“Every debate has tanked the Democrat in the polls.”
Things are so bad that Democrats are shifting money from safe seats to really safe seats.
Some “safe seats” aren’t very safe anymore for suddenly vulnerable Democrats, and that has panicked PACs moving campaign dollars to protect previously invulnerable seats.
We’re down to the wire in Election 2022, and stuff just got real.
Today’s news takes us to deep blue Oregon, where onetime shoo-in Kurt Schrader just got the rug pulled out from under him by his own Democrat Party as he fights off Republican Amy Ryan Courser. According to AdImpact (as spotted by Josh Kraushaar), party ad spending for Schrader in the 5th district was shifted to the 6th to boost Andrea Salinas against Republican Mike Erickson. [As noted in the comments below, Jamie McLeod-Skinner defeated Rep. Kurt Schrader in the Democratic Primary. -LP]
Maybe you’re thinking this kind of thing happens all the time, and it does.
But it doesn’t often happen that Democrats appear to be writing off a district that Presidentish Joe Biden won in 2020 by nine points, to shore up a district that Biden won by 13 points.
If 10-and-up is the Democrats’ new firewall, they’re in bigger trouble than even I imagined. Complicating things even more for Oregon Democrats, gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek (looking to replace the outgoing and execrable Kate Brown) regularly polls behind Republican Christine Drazan.
Stephen Green notes that Oregon may be a special case because “Portland has served as Ground Zero for some of the craziest progressive ideas being put into terrible practice.” Wait, turning your city over to Antifa for endless riots isn’t popular with voters? Who knew?
You know who else thinks Democrats have gone to far pushing social justice? Would you believe the Lightbringer himself?
Former President Barack Obama slammed Democrats in a recent podcast, calling them “buzzkills” whose identity politics and cancel culture rhetoric force people to “walk on eggshells.”
Speaking with four of his former employees on the Pod Save America podcast, the former prez said that his fellow Democrats need to tone it down and understand that everyone makes mistakes, the Daily Mail reports.
“Sometimes Democrats are [buzzkills]. Sometimes people just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells, and they want some acknowledgment that life is messy and that all of us, at any given moment, can say things the wrong way, make mistakes,” he said, adding that Democrats should learn from he felt were his mistakes as president.
What does it say when the biggest beneficiary of white guilt and victimhood identity politics in political history says that Democrats have gone too far in that direction?
A sane party might be inclined to listen to him.
But the Democratic Party hasn’t been sane in a long, long time…
Hunter Biden is the gift that keeps digging: “The Russians have videos of me doing crazy f***ing sex!’ Hunter Biden is seen in unearthed footage telling prostitute that Russian drug dealers stole ANOTHER of his laptops.” 1. Hunter has more Russian-related felonies in a single weekend than Donald Trump had in his entire lifetime. 2. I don’t lose pennies the way Hunter loses laptops…
The obvious fact is, however, that this corrupt corporate press and the Jennifer Rubin “conservatives” of the world are the ones who propped Cuomo up as “the gold standard,” to use Joe Biden’s words, even describing themselves as “Cuomosexuals.”
Cuomo’s “radical transparency” made him a “terrific bureaucrat,” they said. Cuomo is “inspiring, uplifting, fascinating,” and truly “magnificent,” they insisted. He’s “honest, direct, brave,” and what “real leadership” looks like. Elites gave him an Emmy and blessed him with softball interviews and comedy-hour airtime, with left-wing activists working behind the scenes to discredit Cuomo’s accusers.
Tuesday’s resignation signals it’s the end of the road for Cuomo — for now. But if the media can sit and twiddle its thumbs — or worse, kiss keister and perform comedy sketches with giant Q-Tips — while thousands of elderly folks die in New York nursing homes and women in the double digits tell of a gropey governor’s disgusting habits, we must ask: How many other Andrew Cuomos is the media covering for?
Covering for elite misconduct is a perpetual problem in the media; it didn’t start with Cuomo. As Federalist Political Editor John Daniel Davidson wrote on Tuesday, the media did the same with Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and Theodore McCarrick. Don’t forget Bill Clinton or Roman Polanski, either.
“Everyone knew. No one cared. No one said anything until forced to. Then the feigned shock and outrage, the concern about the treatment of women, the hand-wringing and Me Too-ing, the performances on social media,” Davidson wrote. “As long as sexual harassment, assault, abuse, even the sex trafficking of underage girls stays quiet, then [the media] stay quiet, too.”
You read all this and think: The governor is a letch, a creep, a dirty old man. But also a nut—a high-functioning one, a politically talented one, but a nut. Only a nut would do these things, and only a nut would think he wouldn’t be found out.
No one in New York is walking around saying “I don’t believe it” or “That’s not the Andrew I know.” It’s apparently the Andrew Cuomo a lot of people knew.
(1) When they say inflation will "spike" or increase this year, and then "come back down next year", what they are saying is the price will skyrocket…. AND THEN the price will remain high.
(14) They didn’t. Consumer prices did not increase.
Trump knew they wouldn’t because essentially those trading partners responded in the exact same way the U.S. did decades ago when the import/export dynamic was reversed. pic.twitter.com/FyID9YCSwN
(16) To retain their position, China and the EU responded to U.S. tariffs by devaluing their currency as an offset to higher export prices. It started with China, because their economy is so dependent on exports to the U.S.
Baltimore professor arrested for dealing math. “Prof. Edward C. Ennels taught math at Baltimore City Community College but appears to have been offering a running lesson on supply side economic theory. Ennels reportedly was selling grades on a sliding scale depending on your worth and your ambition: $150 for a C; $250 for a B; and $500 for an A. He has now earned jail time after pleading to 11 misdemeanor charges, including bribery and misconduct in office.”
Speaking of Baltimore schools failing their students: Some Baltimore high school students test at grade school levels.
Dan Crenshaw slams Jennifer Ruben for a huge mistake:
You’re a liar and an idiot. The number you referenced is TOTAL hospitalized since the beginning of the pandemic. Not newly hospitalized. https://t.co/1I7CRES2qA
That’s a hell of a correction. “When we wrote Nolan Ryan struck out 383 batters in a single game, we meant he struck out that many in a single season…”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will welcome representatives from major stock exchanges, including Nasdaq, to Austin on Nov. 20 as the state makes a bid to be the top choice if the exchanges make good on threats to move their trading platforms out of New Jersey.
The Dallas Morning News reported last month that the governor’s office was in talks with Nasdaq and other exchanges about moving data centers to Dallas that power billions of dollars in trades each day on Wall Street.
The governor’s office confirmed the meeting, touting the state’s business-friendly environment.
“Texas continues to be the premier economic destination in the country, attracting more leading businesses than any other state,” spokeswoman Renae Eze said in a statement to The News. “The governor looks forward to meeting with Nasdaq and showcasing Texas’ business-friendly environment, skilled workforce, robust infrastructure, and low taxes, all of which foster greater economic growth in the Lone Star State.”
The downside is that this would make Dallas natives that much more insufferable… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The hidden Trump vote would appear to have thrown off the polls again — a phenomenon that illuminates the inhibited political ethos a punishing media has fostered in this country, where a significant swath of America quite understandably conceals its real views until it enters the privacy of the polling booth. The hidden Trump vote is a rebuke to the ruling class and its ambitions to control the minds of Americans through skewed and hectoring propaganda.
Pollster Frank Luntz has said that his industry will collapse if Biden loses. No doubt many members of it are trembling over the prospect. Again, a squeaker for Biden, should it happen, doesn’t exonerate them. As things stand at the moment, the betting odds and forecasts are rapidly changing and bear no resemblance to the polling industry’s pre-election picture.
Nor has the predicted demise of the Republican Senate come to pass. Whatever happens, this election can’t be characterized as the Blue Wave the elite had spent weeks expecting. Ironically, a Red Wave, with Hispanic voters riding it, crashed over the Democrats in Florida. That would suggest at least in one major state that the toxic identity politics of the Dems has backfired. How ironic it would be if the president, whom the Democrats have called a racist and xenophobe day in and day out for four years, should end up winning thanks to increased support from minorities unimpressed by that demagoguery. It would be an upending that Biden richly deserves. He has been utterly shameless in his race-based lying about the president, talking about saving the “soul of America” while engaged in the most cynical form of racial arson.
It also appears that the Democrats have paid some price for running so far to the left. Kamala Harris, the most liberal member of the Senate, has been a dead weight on the ticket. It would be wonderful if she ends up costing Biden parts of the Rust Belt. After having spent decades pretending to be a moderate, Biden formed a Faustian bargain with the far Left and adopted many of its radical positions. He could have moved to the middle by selecting a less extreme running mate. Instead, he threw his lot in with Bernie, Kamala, and AOC.
In the expectations game, the Democratic Party whiffed and whiffed badly. The Biden campaign and its allies managed to drive up turnout — but so did Trump. Republicans put up a hell of a fight, and not just, or even mainly, in the battle for the White House. Democrats have almost certainly failed to win a Senate majority, and so far they have lost some ground in the House as well (while still on track to maintain control of the lower chamber of Congress).
That means that Biden is on track to be a weak, ineffectual president governing at the mercy of Mitch McConnell’s Machiavellian machinations.
So much for the Democratic fantasy — the one that seemingly never dies — of unobstructed rule. Democrats didn’t just want to win and govern in the name of a deeply divided nation’s fractured sense of the common good. No, they wanted to lead a moral revolution, to transform the country — not only enacting a long list of new policies, but making a series of institutional changes that would entrench their power far into the future. Pack the Supreme Court. Add left-leaning states. Break up others to give the left huge margins in the Senate. Get rid of the Electoral College. Abolish the police. Rewrite the nation’s history, with white supremacy and racism placed “at the very center.” Ensure “equity” not just in opportunity but in outcomes. Hell, maybe they’d even establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to teach everyone who voted for or supported the 45th president just how evil they really are.
No wonder so many Republicans turned out to vote. Democrats proved to be the most effective GOTV operation for the GOP imaginable.
Yes, Trump and the Republican cheerleading section online and on cable news and talk radio harped on every extreme proposal. But this wasn’t just a function of the fallacy of composition, where one loony activist says something off the wall and the GOP amplifies it far beyond reason in order to tar the opposition unfairly. These were prominent Democrats — progressive politicians, activists, and scholars and prize-winning journalists at leading cultural institutions — talking this way. Joe Biden himself usually did the smart thing and tried to distance himself from the most radical proposals. But in the end it wasn’t enough to mollify fears of an ascendant left hell bent on entrenching itself in power and enacting institutional reforms that would enable it to lead a moral, political, and cultural revolution.
And therein lies a paradox that should be obvious but apparently isn’t: Democrats live in a country with a large, passionate opposition. Arrogant talk of demographic inevitabilities and transformative changes to lock Republicans out of power in the name of “democracy” has the effect of inspiring that opposition to unite against them, rendering political success less assured and more tenuous.
There will be no court packing. No added states. Nothing from the toxic progressive-fantasy wishlist will come anywhere close to passing. Instead, we will have grinding, obstructive gridlock. Some will demand that Biden push through progressive priorities by executive order. But every time he does — like every incident of urban rioting and looting, every effort to placate the left-wing “Squad” in the House, every micro-targeted identity-politics box-checking display of intersectional moral preening and finger-wagging — the country will move closer to witnessing a conservative backlash that results in Republicans taking control of the House and increasing their margin in the Senate in November 2022, rendering the Biden administration even more fully dead in the water.
On a House caucus call today, Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger, reportedly in an agitated state, warned that Democrats “lost races we shouldn’t have lost.” She further claimed that “defund police almost cost me my race because of an attack ad. Don’t say socialism ever again. Need to get back to basics. . . . If we run this race again we will get f***ng torn apart again in 2022.”
Elsewhere, former Missouri senator Claire McCaskill had this to say: “Whether you are talking guns or . . . abortion . . . or gay marriage and rights for ‘transsexuals’ and other people who we as a party ‘look after’ and make sure they are treated fairly. As we circled the issues we left voters behind and Republicans dove in.”
I see other Democrats grousing today that their candidates in Florida and elsewhere were falsely labeled “socialist.” I’m sorry, if that’s not the message you want to send, perhaps Nancy Pelosi shouldn’t pose with a gaggle of Marxists on the cover of Rolling Stone. Perhaps Democrats should treat Bernie Sanders as a fringe crank rather than a comrade who’s just moving a tad too quickly. Maybe arguing “democratic” socialism is the good kind doesn’t quite do it for the folks in Des Moines.
What are voters in Texas supposed to make of every major presidential Democrat presidential candidate, including Joe Biden, giving their blessing to the authoritarian Green New Deal? Boy, fact-checkers had to work overtime to help Biden walk back those endorsements of fracking bans, of defunding the police, and of confiscating guns.
We may well have a president in a few months who says there are “at least three” genders. Which probably seems sane on Twitter, but less so in Jacksonville, Fla. McCaskill has already apologized for her use of the word “transsexuals.” Unlike progressive urban dwellers, one suspects the vast majority of suburban Americans have zero clue what McCaskill is sorry about. They may even believe that letting genetic boys compete with their daughters in track and field is ridiculous. They probably wouldn’t be crazy about being accused of being transphobic for taking this rational position.
Illinois Democrats are even more screwed than usual because voters just rejected a constitutional amendment to create a progressive income tax.
One of the most surprising results of the 2020 election was the defeat, in Illinois, of a state constitutional amendment to permit a progressive income tax. The Graduated Income Tax Amendment would have eliminated the Illinois constitutional requirement that tax rates remain flat across incomes. Its defeat is likely the most important political event for the state since I moved here 18 years ago. The proposed change in the state constitution was an effort by the dominant Democratic Party to continue its model of high taxes and high spending to support the base of its political muscle—public-sector unions. The party retains control of the legislature and the governor’s office, but it is politically cornered. Legislatively, it faces a choice between a reform agenda that would undermine its political base or a substantial tax increase on every working citizen.
The amendment went down to defeat for two overriding reasons—one analytical, the other more emotional. The first was that the proposed tax increase was not connected to any steps that would address the structural problems in Illinois finances. Illinois has the nation’s worst bond rating, largely because of its enormous unfunded pension liabilities. But Governor J. B. Pritzker, after taking office in 2019, has proposed no serious pension reforms. Nor has he pursued a deregulatory agenda that would lead to higher economic growth rates that might service these liabilities. And worse still, in connection with the referendum, he did not agree to use a substantial portion of the additional revenue flowing from the progressive tax rates to pay down these liabilities. Instead, much of the new revenue would have been spent on new programs or expanding old ones. His promise to use a mere $100 million of the new lucre to pay down pension liabilities was an insult to Illinois taxpayers who would see another $4 billion extracted from their pocketbooks.
The other reason for the amendments’ failure had to do with more stories of corruption coming out of Springfield. When state representatives are being indicted for extortion, citizens instinctively recoil at handing them more money. Even more problematic for the amendment’s prospects, it became clear that Michael Madigan—speaker of the house, chairman of the state Democratic Party, and undisputed power broker for the last three decades—was under investigation for getting ComEd, the state’s major utility, to hire some of his supporters in return for favors.
That investigation underscores the real scandal in Illinois: not merely the illegal trading in favors but the more damaging legal trading. Public-sector unions support the Democratic Party in return for the party giving them sweetheart deals with the state. Unfunded pension liabilities are the consequence because many politicians hope to retire or move on to the federal level before the full bill comes due.
West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin says he won’t pack courts or end the filibuster. Maybe he should switch parties before he gets primaried by the hard left…
Put yourself in the shoes of the average college graduate today. It took you longer than expected to complete your “four-year degree” and you are almost $30,000 in debt. You are desperately searching for a job in your field before your student loan payments run you into the ground, assuming your rent and car payments don’t get you there first. The generations before you had student loan debt too, but not nearly to the same degree of an ever-present threat. How did you end up here, and what do you do now with the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic?
The business model adopted by our academic institutions is increasingly at odds with those seeking higher education and with the broader society as well. It is undesirable to have entire generations unable to participate in the economy, and as of June 2020, contribute a staggering $1.67 trillion to the national debt according to the National Reserve. This is more than auto loan debt and almost twice the amount of credit card debt in the US. It is crucial to understand the various factors that led to this predicament and to recognize where the system went wrong in order to find solutions.
The most obvious cause of this massive amount of debt is the continually rising cost of higher education. The College Board noted that in-state public college tuition from 1984 to 2014 increased by 225 percent. In the same timeframe, data from the US Census Bureau shows that the median family income has only increased by 24 percent, both figures accounting for inflation.
Snip.
So where is all this money going? While much of it goes to the salaries of faculty and the building and maintaining of facilities, a questionable amount goes to administration, another aspect of universities that has rapidly grown in recent decades. According to a 2014 Delta Cost Project report, the number of faculty and staff per administrator declined by roughly 40 percent at most types of colleges and universities between 1990 and 2012, now averaging around 2.5 faculty per administrator. In 2012, the number of faculty at public research institutions was nearly equal to the number of administrators.
“The interesting thing about the administrative bloat in higher education is, literally, nobody knows who all these people are or what they’re doing,” says Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University and the author of a paper entitled: ‘The Changing of the Guard: The Political Economy of Administrative Bloat in American Higher Education.’ Vague titles for administrative positions at institutions of higher education include Health Promotion Specialist, Student Success Manager, Senior Coordinator, and Student Accountability Manager. While some administration positions are surely useful and arguably necessary such as Director of Student Financial Aid, Director of Academic Advising, or those positions added in response to federal and state mandates, the salaries of administrative positions have rapidly increased.
“Azerbaijan Says It Shot Down Russian Helicopter ‘By Mistake.'” Oopsie!
Is the city of Austin trying to secretly stick a homeless shelter in north Austin? They evidently want to convert the Fairfield Inn on 183. The reviews for that place seem to have improved, but once it was infamous for reports of bedbugs…
All the reasons Quibi failed. Including only being available as a smart phone app (not on computers or TV) and “paying $6 million for Reese Witherspoon to do a voice-over for an animal show that nobody watched.” Also: Another failure for Meg Whitman.
Dreamhaven Books attacked (again). Owner Greg Ketter and another employee were attacked and robbed in the Minneapolis science fiction bookstore. This is the second attack on the store this year, as someone broke into the store and tried (unsuccessfully) to burn it down during the Antifa/BlackLivesMatter riots.
