Posts Tagged ‘Rio Grande Valley’
Friday, January 9th, 2026
Iran teeters, Walz falls, more Russia’s shadow fleet has an epically bad week, more Minnesota Somali fraud fallout, more computer security vulnerabilities, and a policeman transformed into a frog using the power of AI! Plus the Austro-Hungarian and Achaemenid empires. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Personally, this week has been deeply frustrating, as I’ve been trying to withdraw money from my 401K account to pay my property taxes, a process I began mid-December, and it’s still not done. “Oh, these things take time,’ says 401K company. Then it’s “Oh, we haven’t heard back from your former employers.” Former employer: “Oh, we haven’t received the request from your 401K company.” Then: “Oh, the third party company we hired to handle 401K requests hasn’t received the request.” Now it’s “Oh, they’ve just started working on it, but they’re always slow at the end of the year.” It’s frustrating to have to jump through so many hoops to access my own money.
On to the LinkSwarm!
From the outside, it’s hard to tell how serious the chances of protesters are to free their own country, but they’re so fed up with the mullah’s rule that they’re burning mosques.
Iranian protestors demonstrating against the theocratic regime will face harsh punishment with absolutely zero leniency, Iran’s top judge has warned — as footage emerged Friday of mosques burning on the streets of Tehran amid the ongoing riots.
Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of Iran’s judiciary, issued the stark warning after President Trump vowed to back those peacefully demonstrating across the country.
Signaling a potentially violent crackdown, Ejei vowed the punishment for rioters would “be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.”
Protesters gather as vehicles burn in Tehran, Iran.
Things in Iran seem to be moving very fast indeed…
“Authorities report that Mahmoud Haqiqat, a police station commander in Iranshahr, Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province, was shot and killed by unknown assailants this week in a drive-by attack. Video circulating online appears to show gunmen firing on Haqiqat’s vehicle before it crashed. Social posts and video descriptions identify him as the former head of the city’s intelligence and allege that he was involved in operations targeting anti-regime Baluch groups in the area.” Add Balochs to Kurds and Lurs as ethnic minorities pissed at the mullah’s government. There’s also a substantial Baloch population in Pakistan, and they don’t like the Pakistani government either. Hell, history records the Balochs rebelling against the Achaemenid Empire three millennia ago…
“Blue states created an election trimester for ballots, now Trump conservatives are pushing back.”
With constant pressure from liberal activists, some states now dispatch mail-in ballots 45 to 60 days before Election Day and allow the counting of such absentee votes as many as three weeks afterward, creating an election trimester that causes vote tallies to wildly fluctuate days after polls close and increasingly erodes Americans’ trust.
But conservatives are now fighting back, first with an executive order by President Donald Trump requiring all ballots to be counted on election night, followed by a challenge to Mississippi’s counting process that has not reached the U.S. Supreme Court and then the Ohio legislature’s vote to require all its ballots to arrive on election night to be tallied.
“It’s common sense that ballots should arrive by Election Day,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told Just the News this week after his state became the 35th to require mail-in ballots to arrive by Election Night in order to be counted. Previously, the state had a four-day grace period for ballots to arrive after Election Day.
“I think that trying to reduce complexity should be our goal in government, and certainly when it comes to the rules for how elections run,” LaRose said in a wide-ranging interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast. “If you were to stop the average person on the street last year and say, what’s the deadline for your ballot to get back to the board of elections, they would not know that it’s four days after. It’s kind of an arbitrary date.”
The National Conference of State Legislatures reported that many states now mail out ballots as early as 45 days to two months before Election Day and about a dozen states allow them to be counted days later — as long as three weeks afterward in Washington state, 14 days in Illinois, 10 days in Maryland and seven days in California and New York.
There’s not a violin small enough. “Minnesota Governor Tim Walz Drops Reelection Bid amid Somali Fraud Scandal.”
Tim Walz is dropping his bid for a third term as governor of Minnesota amid a national political firestorm sparked by the identification of massive welfare fraud in the state’s Somali community.
Walz released a statement Monday morning ahead of a late morning press conference announcing his withdrawal from the race.
“But as I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” Walz said. “So I’ve decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work.”
Translation: “I got caught, and I need to see if I can get away from this giant pile of graft as quickly as possible.”
Walz and fellow Minnesota Democrats have been subjected to withering attacks at the hands of Trump and his allies over the staggering scale of welfare fraud that’s taken place under their noses in recent years. Federal prosecutors announced last month that the cost of the welfare fraud perpetrated against state-run Medicaid services alone could exceed $9 billion, half or more of the $18 billion paid out since 2018.
A federal probe into the matter has been initiated, and Minnesota officials have until January 9 to provide the administration with more information regarding who is receiving the welfare benefits in the state.
It’s amazing that anyone can give Gavin Newsom a run for the title of America’s Most Incompetent Governor, but Walz is just that special.
A few facts on Somalis in Minnesota:
- 54% of Somalis are on food stamps
- 73% on Medicaid
- 81% on Welfare
- 78% on Welfare after 10 years
The perfect Democrat constituency…
It’s been going on a while. “Minnesota Inspector General [Carolyn Ham] covered up hundreds of millions in Somali childcare fraud in 2018.”
You know how the Somali childcare fraud has been a big thing, kind of an open secret in Minnesota for years now?
Well, not only has this been happening for at least a decade, but, according to this report, the state has known about it for at least that long.
Check out these receipts from Maze on X detailing a nine-year-old investigation into the fraud at Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program — an investigation that went nowhere.
The Minnesota child care fraud saga is so strange because years ago it was fully investigated, documented, and reported on by a team of state investigators set up to catch and stop child care fraud.
They spent years gathering evidence including many hours of surveillance footage. In 2018 they compiled a detailed report and delivered it to their boss, the DHS Inspector General.
Directly from the report: ‘Investigators, as well as the Supervisor and Manager of this unit believe that the overall fraud rate in this program is at least 50% of the $217M paid to child care centers in CY2017.’
What did the Inspector General do with this information? She refused to meet with her own team, refused to discuss the findings of the report, and then spent $90,000 of taxpayer money to have an outside company write a report saying the fraud isn’t quite as bad as her own team of investigators was claiming.
Woke is a heckuva drug, isn’t it?
So is corruption, scamming, and Democratic politics in general.
“Growing List Of Democratic Billionaire Kings & Queens Funnel Millions Into Terror-Tied Nonprofits.”
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani, now at Fox News, is investigating the left-wing, billionaire-funded dark money networks in the nonprofit world and offering much-needed coverage for mainstream Americans on how these NGOs influence protest movements, unleash riots, and conduct sophisticated political pressure campaigns.
Snip.
Key details from the report:
- MacKenzie Scott disclosed sending at least $5 million in a new round of donations to the Solidaire Network, on top of a $10 million gift in 2021 via her philanthropy vehicle, Yield Giving.
- Solidaire funds a network of radical anti-Israel activist groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine, both of which are under House and Senate investigation for alleged coordination with Hamas-linked activities.
- Other Solidaire-backed groups include the Palestinian Youth Movement and the US Palestinian Community Network, which publicly justified Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
- Scott’s grants are unrestricted, allowing recipients to spend funds freely. Solidaire used this flexibility to finance campaigns promoting “Palestinian liberation,” campus protests, and direct-action activism, including efforts to block U.S. military logistics supporting Israel.
- Funding was often routed through fiscal sponsors such as WESPAC Foundation and Tides Foundation, structures that have drawn scrutiny from Republican lawmakers investigating possible links to extremist groups.
- Scott’s cumulative charitable giving has reached roughly $26 billion since 2019, surpassing the lifetime donations of George Soros, and placing her at the center of growing political controversy over billionaire-funded activist networks.
Doug Ross provides more leftwing funding network graphics.
“Somalia’s UN Ambassador, Implicated in a Medicare Scandal, May Have Acquired American Citizenship Under False Pretenses.”
The Somali ambassador to the United Nations, Abukar Dahir Osman, who is tied to a daycare company in Ohio under investigation in Washington, might have acquired an American citizenship fraudulently, according to a source in Somaliland.
Ambassador Osman, who currently serves as the rotating president of the UN Security Council, first entered America in the mid-1980s and again in 1989. He claimed to be a refugee of a minority in Somaliland persecuted by the Somali regime at the time, a Somaliland ambassador at large who tweets under the name of Haggoogane, tells the Sun via text.
Haggoogane, whose real name is Mustafa Osman but is unrelated to the ambassador, says that the current Somali UN ambassador was far from a refugee fearing extermination by the Somali regime. Instead, he tells the Sun, the UN ambassador was part of that regime in the late 1980s. “His job was to identify anyone the regime saw as a threat,” Haggoogane says.
Between 1960 and 1991 the government of Somalia killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Isaaq and others in Somaliland, which declared independence of Mogadishu in 1991.
Following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland last month, the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, visited its capital, Hargeisa, on Tuesday, and met with President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi. After Israel became the first UN member to recognize Somaliland’s independence, Mr. Osman, the Somali UN ambassador, convened an “emergency session” of the security council.
At Washington on Tuesday, the deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Service, Jim O’Neill, confirmed a rumor regarding the Somali ambassador, which has long been whispered in UN corridors.
“I can confirm public speculation that Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman, Permanent Representative of Somalia to the UN and President of the Security Council, is in fact associated with Progressive Health Care Services, a home health agency in Cincinnati,” Mr. O’Neill wrote on X. “HHS has previously taken action against Progressive in response to a conviction for Medicaid fraud. More to come.”
“US seizes Russian-flagged tanker, intercepts ‘dark fleet’ ship in Venezuela sanctions crackdown.”
The United States seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic this week while also intercepting a separate stateless “dark fleet” vessel tied to Venezuelan oil exports, US officials said, marking a significant escalation in Washington’s enforcement campaign against sanctioned energy shipments.
According to US officials, the Russian-flagged tanker Marinera, previously known as Bella-1, was seized on Wednesday near Iceland after being tracked for more than two weeks across the Atlantic, reports Reuters. The operation occurred as Russian military assets, including a submarine, were operating in the general area, though officials said there were no signs of confrontation.
In a post on X, US European Command said the tanker was seized for violating US sanctions. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded, writing, “The blockade of sanctioned and illicit Venezuelan oil remains in FULL EFFECT — anywhere in the world.”
Two US officials said the operation was carried out by the US Coast Guard with support from the US military. The Coast Guard declined to comment. Russian officials have not issued a response, though Russian state media outlet RT published an image showing a helicopter hovering near the ship.
The Marinera had previously evaded US enforcement efforts in the Caribbean and refused boarding attempts. After those encounters, it re-registered under a Russian flag and changed its name, officials said. Sources indicated the vessel may now be heading toward British territorial waters, though its final destination has not been confirmed. The UK Ministry of Defence declined to comment.
Separately, US Southern Command confirmed that the Coast Guard intercepted another tanker, the Panama-flagged M/T Sophia, in Latin American waters early Wednesday. The vessel was described as a “stateless, sanctioned dark fleet motor tanker” linked to Venezuelan oil shipments.
“Prosecutor Calls Newsom ‘King Of Fraud‘ For Oversight Failures.”
U.S. First Assistant Attorney Bill Essayli Thursday called California Gov. Gavin Newsom “the king of fraud,” accusing him of a lack of oversight on spending to address homelessness.
Essayli made the comments on the “Fox and Friends” telecast, during which he discussed the federal fraud charges that were filed in October against real estate executives Steven Taylor and Cody Holmes for allegedly misusing grant money meant for homeless housing.
Holmes, 31, of Beverly Hills was charged with mail fraud charge that was allegedly linked to millions of dollars in grant money that the state paid Shangri-La Industries to purchase, build and operate homeless housing in Thousand Oaks, just north of Los Angeles. Holmes was Shangri-La’s chief financial officer.
Taylor, 44, of Brentwood, was charged with seven counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of money laundering.
Essayli Thursday said the charges are the “tip of the iceberg” in an investigation he launched with a task force in April. He said more charges would be coming, probably later this month.
The state spent $24 billion in the last five years to address homelessness and can’t account for where the money went, Essayli said on “Fox and Friends.”
California Democrats: “Hey, let’s institute a wealth tax on billionaires!” California billionaires: “See ya!”
A ballot measure that could tax the wealthiest people in California may reportedly push billionaires Larry Page and Peter Thiel to leave the state, while other wealthy residents have condemned the idea, whose supporters claim could generate up to $100 billion—though the measure has yet to be considered by state officials or voters.
- Thiel, who cofounded PayPal and Palantir, and Google cofounder Page have held discussions to reduce their ties to California by the end of the year because of the billionaire tax proposal, The New York Times reported, citing people familiar with their thinking.
- Thiel operates the investment firm Thiel Capital and may open an office for the company in another state, with plans to spend more time outside of California, while Page has filed documents to incorporate three limited liability companies in Florida, according to the Times.
- Bill Ackman weighed in, calling California “on a path to self-destruction,” adding, “Hollywood is already toast and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave, taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere.”
- Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya wrote on X the proposed ballot measure would result in an “exodus of the state’s most talented entrepreneurs” who would opt to “build their companies in less regressive states,” and argued the middle class would be the worst hit by the tax.
Dear Fleeing Billionaires: Welcome to Texas! Please be sure to discard any liberal ideas you brought with you in the nearest trash receptacle…
“Ukrainian Drones Hit Usman Oil Depot in Lipetsk & Ball Bearing Factory in Penza.”
“Major train crash on key route used to feed Putin’s war machine with North Korean military equipment…A freight train hauling 35 wagons spectacularly derailed in Russia’s remote Amur region on the Transbaikal Railway – a strategic line linked to the famed Trans-Siberian route.”
Ukraine also hit the Oryol power plant.
Ukraine also hit Russian shadow fleet tanker Elbus in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey. It’s been a bad week all around for Russia’s shadow fleet…
France and UK bomb Islamic State targets in Syria. This isn’t the first time France has bombed Islamic State terrorists, as they also participated in Operation Chammal in 2014, back when the would-be caliphate was much closer to the extremely short zenith of its limited powers.
Minnesota woman tries to run over ICE agent, immediately enters find out phase.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers fatally shot a woman during an operation in Minneapolis Wednesday.
As videos of the incident went viral, the Department of Homeland Security justified the shooting on self-defense grounds, calling the slain woman a “violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle” by driving towards federal agents.
Today, ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism. An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots,” said DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
“The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries. This is the direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement.”
She wasn’t the only idiot dirtnapped trying to run over ICE agents. A Tren de Aragua scumbag tried the same trick, and met the same fate, in Portland. Naturally, the usual leftist idiots there rioted.
Yesterday, Border Patrol officers had to shoot a dangerous criminal gang member in self-defense after he committed a vehicular assault on them to evade arrest. Leftists in the sanctuary city of Portland, Ore., promptly turned out to protest his shooting — and apparently to try to accomplish his deadly intention against federal officers.
In case you still have any illusions that the Democratic Party is not essentially a criminal organization, just look at the fury and violence the last few days in blue cities over the shootings of individuals who deliberately tried to seriously injure or kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Border Patrol officers. Renee Good in Minnesota and the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua member in Oregon were both violently and dangerously ramming their vehicles into officers at the time they were shot. That makes them leftist heroes and martyrs, it seems.
The American left is trying to do a repeat of the summer of love and mostly peaceful protests in 2020. They want to burn down what is still standing after their previous riots. With Democrat politicians and media lying to fuel violence and their followers cheering for murder, how can we avoid the conclusion that the Democratic Party is acting like a terror organization?
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“U.S. Department of Homeland Security Suspends Funds for Immigration Work of Catholic Charities RGV. The charity is accused of grant violations and incomplete recordkeeping.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has suspended the funding for Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV) pending an investigation into whether or not the charity is complying with federal grant requirements.
According to CCRGV, the charity learned of the suspension in late November 2025. It claims that it is “committed to compliance with federal grant requirements and will work expeditiously with DHS to resolve the matter.”
The charity stated that all of its funding was used to care for people brought to CCRGV by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) — individuals who were “released by CBP with a document that gave them permission to travel to their points of destination with instructions on where to follow up with their immigration proceedings.”
CCRGV runs the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, a place that offers food and shelter to immigrants who are awaiting court hearings.
According to reporting by Fox News, CCRGV was suspended after a DHS investigation revealed what the outlet called “major grant violations.”
The suspension follows “months of warnings and data reviews that auditors say uncovered sweeping inaccuracies, large gaps in migrant records, and significant billing outside federally allowed timeframes,” Fox News reported.
The investigators also reportedly found 248 instances in which CCRGV billed the federal government for services to immigrants outside of the 45-day window allowed by federal rules.
“North America Leads Largest LNG Export Surge Since 2022.”
Surging liquefied natural gas exports from new North American export plants likely pushed global LNG shipments in 2025 by the most since 2022, Kpler data showed on Tuesday.
The annual rise in 2025 would be the steepest increase in global LNG exports since 2022, when shipments grew by 4.5% compared to 2021, the data showed.
North America was the key supplier of new LNG volumes, as Canada’s first-ever export facility, LNG Canada, started shipments in the middle of 2025, and Plaquemines LNG in Louisiana launched operations and ramped up shipments throughout the year.
Thanks to rising capacity and volumes, the U.S. is set to become the first LNG exporter in the world to have passed in 2025 the threshold of 100 million tons of LNG exports in one year.
Additional LNG supply is poised to hit the market between 2026 and 2030 as more U.S. export plants come online and Qatar begins shipments from its huge capacity expansion of the North Field export facilities.
The U.S. is set to export 14.9 billion cubic feet per day of LNG in 2025, up by 25% from 2024, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for December. With new projects ramping up, the EIA expects U.S. LNG exports to jump to an average of 16.3 billion cubic feet per day in 2026.
“Trump blocks chips deal over national security, China-related concerns.”
President Donald Trump on Friday blocked the Delaware firm HieFo Corporation from acquiring assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore for $3 million, citing national security and China-related concerns.
The president claimed HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China,” and that there was evidence to believe HieFo, through the merger, may “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
“The Transaction is hereby prohibited,” Trump said and ordered HieFo to “divest all interests and rights in the Emcore assets, wherever located,” within 180 days.
Snip. “HieFo purchased Emcore’s chips business and indium-phosphide wafer-fabrication operations for $2.92 million.” Indium-Phosphide is a pretty exotic wafer material used in optics and photonics chips.
Leprino Foods, the world’s largest mozzarella producer and a vital supplier to major pizza chains like Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s, moved its operations from California to Texas. “For over a century, the Lemoore plant in California’s Central Valley served as a cornerstone of the dairy industry, but the company is now shifting billions of dollars and hundreds of jobs into a new $870 million facility in Lubbock, Texas.”
Progress! “Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes itself out of existence. The private agency, which has distributed federal funding to PBS, NPR and hundreds of local television and radio stations across the country for more than a half-century, saw its appropriations from Congress eliminated this past summer.” They promised Big Bird and delivered leftwing propaganda.
“NYC Bus Fares Raised To $3 Despite Mamdani’s Promise To Make It Free.” Commies breaking promises?
Borepatch: The 2025 most dangerous software exploits list.
I get an incredible sense of deja vu all over again looking at Mitre’s list of top 25 exploits for 2025.
The top 4 are all very, very old. I myself demonstrated #4 when I taught a computer security class (with corporate IT Security present) back in 1994. That’s three decades ago.
And what’s with numbers 11 and 14? One of the classic papers on software security is Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit – from 1996.
Numbers 3, 6, and 22 are web server vulnerabilities that are over 20 years old, and I’ve posted about them before.
17, 19, and 21 have been known since before I was in this industry. Call it the 1980s, although it’s likely older.
Number 2 is literally the Little Bobby Tables exploit…
“Cops Forced to Explain Why AI Generated Police Report Claimed Officer Transformed Into Frog.” (Hat tip: Commenter CayleyGraph2015.)
Ubisoft studio unionizes. Company lays them all off.
Sony PlayStation 5 boot keys have been leaked online, making it much easier to jailbreak systems.
Critical Drinker is cautiously optimistic about Avengers: Doomsday.
A new Peter Gabriel album is in the works.
Why the Austro-Hungarian army sucked in World War I.
Did ancient Roman soldiers carry a multi-tool?
Philly weirdo steals 100 skeletons from graveyard. That’s taking your Halloween LARPing too far…
“I don’t know if you know this, but all the presidents in South America, they’re free. You can just go take them.”
“Tim Walz Retiring To Spend More Time In Prison.”
“Trump Has Delta Force Operators Tell Maduro ‘You’re Fired.'”
“Trump To Choose Next Venezuelan President In Inaugural Season Of ‘El Aprendiz.'”
Trump Leads SEAL Team To Capture Rogue Dictator Gavin Newsom.”
“Aides Tell Disappointed Trump That Maduro And Mamdani Are Different People.”
“Democrats Once Again Threaten Civil War To Stop Republicans From Taking Away Their Slave Laborers.”
“Democrats Confused Why Venezuelans Cheering Downfall Of Nice, Warm Collectivism.”
“Anthropologists Discover Uncontacted Tribe In Remote Area Of IKEA.”
I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:2026 Election, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, Abukar Dahir Osman, AI, Amur, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Babylon Bee, Baluchestan, Bilal A. "Bill" Essayli, Bill Ackman, Border Controls, Bruce Sterling, California, Carolyn Ham, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV), Chamath Palihapitiya, China, Cody Holmes, Communism, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Critical Drinker, data security, Director Blue, Disney, Domino's, Elections, Emcore, food, France, fraud, Gavin Newsom, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Habitual Linecrosser, HieFo Corporation, History Matters, Hollywood, homeless, Illegal Aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Indium-Phosphide, Iran, Iran 2026 Uprising, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Jim O'Neill, Larry Page, Leprino Foods, LinkSwarm, Lipetsk, LNG, Lubbock, MacKenzie Scott, Mahmoud Haqiqat, Marvel, Medicare, Military, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mississippi, music, Mustafa Osman AKA Haggoogane, natural gas, Navy SEALs, New Jersey, Nicolas Maduro, North Korea, NPR, Ohio, oil industry, Oryol, Papa Johns, PBS, Penza, Pete Hegseth, Peter Gabriel, Peter Thiel, pizza, Pizza Hut, PlayStation, Portland, Rio Grande Valley, riot, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Semiconductors, Shangri-La Industries, Somalia, Somaliland, Sony, Steven Taylor, Suchomimus, Syria, Taxes, Texas, Tim Walz, Transbaikal Railway, Transiberian Railroad, Tren de Aragua, UK, Ukraine, UN, unions, Venezuela, video games, voting fraud, World War I, Zohran Mamdani
Posted in Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 7 Comments »
Thursday, August 21st, 2025
After all the unnecessary and futile drama of the Democrat’s quorum break, the Texas House has finally passed the congressional redistricting bill.
After weeks of gridlock, the Texas House has approved a new congressional redistricting plan that Republicans say will strengthen their hold on Washington, adding five GOP-leaning seats across the state.
The issue has been a priority for Gov. Greg Abbott, who placed congressional redistricting on the call during the first special session earlier this summer. But Democrats brought the chamber to a standstill when they broke quorum and fled to Illinois and other states to prevent the map from advancing.
Their walkout effectively killed the first special session, but with Abbott calling lawmakers back for a second 30-day session, Democrats returned on Monday. By Wednesday, Republicans had rushed the proposal out of committee and onto the House calendar, where it passed on a party-line vote.
State Rep. Todd Hunter (R–Corpus Christi), who carried the legislation, defended the process while laying out the plan on the floor.
“This plan originated in the first called special session before the chamber left a quorum,” said Hunter. “In that session, we held three public hearings—we were not required to hold those hearings. At these hearings, we heard testimony from members of Congress and citizens alike. The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance.”
The map, which reshapes districts in Dallas and Houston as well as Central and South Texas, is designed to reflect population growth while giving Republicans an even stronger advantage. Each new district is required to be nearly equal in population, with the ideal congressional size sitting around 766,900 residents.
Democrats blasted the proposal as “illegal and racially discriminatory.”
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, cheered the move on Truth Social, calling it “ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL CONGRESSIONAL MAP!” He praised Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows for restoring a quorum, writing, “With the Texas House now in Quorum, thanks to GREAT Speaker Dustin Burrows, I call on all of my Republican friends in the Legislature to work as fast as they can to get THIS MAP to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, ASAP.”
The detailed county-by-county breakdown maps of the new districts can be found here. On a personal note, I am thankfully being moved out of Democrat Lloyd Doggett’s District 37 and into Republican August Pfluger’s District 11.
Here’s a snapshot of the new districts from The Texan.
“The final vote was 88 ayes — all Republicans including House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), who normally doesn’t vote on legislation — to 52 nays.”
Republicans drew this new map at the behest of President Donald Trump and with his 2024 election performance top of mind, ensuring that each of the projected five GOP pickups were areas the president won last year by at least 10 points.
Those five seats are the 9th, 28th, 32nd, 34th, and 35th congressional districts; two are in South Texas, one in Dallas, one in Houston, and one on the outskirts of San Antonio.
The Democrats currently representing those districts are Al Green of Houston (9th), the currently indicted Henry Cuellar of Larado (28th), Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch (32nd), Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen (34th), and infamous commie twerp Greg Casar of Austin (35th).
My guess is that Cuellar and Gonzalez are simply gone, since the Rio Grande Valley was already trending Republican and there are no friendly districts anywhere nearby for them to run in. Green could quite conceivably run in the now-vacant 18th congressional district, previously represented by the deceased Sylvester Turner, and before that by the daughter of the also-deceased Sheila Jackson Lee, and before that by Lee. While Johnson could theoretically run in neighboring Marc Veasey’s 33rd congressional district, that’s a Hispanic and black majority district (and I suspect it’s getting even more so in the current redistricting), which is a tough hill to climb for any white candidate, much less a gay white girl in a suburban district, so I suspect she’s toast as well. The redistricting sets up a Thunderdome showdown between Doggett and Casar for the Austin-based 37th, unless Doggett (who is 79) retires.
Now on to the Texas Senate, where which passed its own redistricting bill handily in the first special session and will likely pass this one in quick order.
I have been (and will continue to be) quite critical of House Speaker Dustin Burrows’ membership in the Straus-Bonnen-Phelan cabal that stays in power thanks to Democrat votes and special interest/gambling money, but in this instance he has delivered on a very important Republican priority.
Remember: All this was set in motion by Petteway v. Galveston County, a lawsuit Democrats filed in order to save one Galveston County commissioner’s seat, whereupon the Supreme Court ruled that “black/brown” coalition minority districts carved out to benefit the Democratic Party were unconstitutional. So instead of saving one county commissioner’s seat, they’re going to lose five U.S. Congressional seats.
Democrats did this to themselves, and have no one else to blame…
Tags:11th Congressional District, 18th Congressional District, 2026 Election, 32nd Congressional District, 33rd Congressional District, 35th Congressional District, 37th Congressional District, 89th Texas Legislature, 9th Congressional District, Al Green, August Pfluger, Austin, Brad Johnson, Brandon Waltens, Dallas, Democrats, Dustin Burrows, Elections, Greg Abbott, Greg Casar, Henry Cuellar, Houston, Julie Johnson, Lloyd Doggett, Marc Veasey, McAllen, Petteway v. Galveston County, Redistricting, Republicans, Rio Grande Valley, Special Session, Supreme Court, Texas, Texas 28th Congressional District, Texas 34th Congressional District, Texas Scorecard, The Texan News, Todd Hunter, Vicente Gonzalez
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Supreme Court, Texas | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, July 1st, 2025
The Trump Administration is using every tool at its disposal to secure the border Biden left deliberately unsecured, and that includes bringing in the military.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) announced it will create designated defense areas along the U.S. southern border to bolster border security.
The U.S. Air Force released details about the “National Defense Area” (NDA) directive, explaining it will manage a 250-mile stretch of land along the Rio Grande River in Cameron and Hidalgo counties, and work alongside another DOD installation, Joint Base San Antonio.
Other responsibilities at the NDA will be handled by members of the Joint Task Force-Southern Border in coordination with U.S. Northern Command, to conduct border enforcement duties such as “temporarily detaining trespassers until they are transferred to the appropriate law enforcement authorities” and the “installation of temporary barriers, and signage to secure the area.”
On May 1, the Air Force press release mentions, an additional Texas zone was established. This zone will stretch approximately 63 noncontiguous miles, connecting El Paso and Fort Hancock, and will serve as an extension of Fort Bliss. Another zone in New Mexico was established on April 21.
“This designation marks the latest in a series of NDAs established to strengthen interagency coordination and bolster security operations along the U.S. southern border,” the press release states.
Snip.
In May, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas stated there had been “dozens of illegal aliens” found guilty of illegally entering NDA zones, in addition to the 60 who had already pleaded guilty to the same charges.
On January 20, the day of his 2025 inauguration, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14167 — “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States” — that directs U.S. North Command “to provide steady-state southern border security, seal the border, and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion, including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America states that the federal government shall protect each state against invasion. Certainly the flood of illegal aliens Biden unleashed upon the U.S. counts as an invasion, and one of the traditional tasks of a military is guarding borders. In early 2021, the Department of Justice issued an opinion that such border duties did not violate the Posse Comitatus Act, as “Congress has expressly authorized the military to support civilian law enforcement under chapter 15,” as per the terms of the act, as long as troops were not involved “in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity.”
Securing the border is overwhelmingly popular with actual American citizens, and President Trump hasn’t been shy about using every tool at his disposal to do so.
Tags:Border Controls, Cameron County, Department of Defense, Donald Trump, Fort Bliss, Fort Hancock, Hidalgo County, Illegal Aliens, Military, Posse Comitatus Act, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, Texas
Posted in Border Control, Military, Texas | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2025
“Turning Texas blue” is an idée fixe for Democratic Party operatives, and it’s easy to see why. Securing Texas’ 40 (and soon to be 43 or 44) electoral votes would go a long way toward ensuring presidential election dominance for the donkeys. Indeed, one (of many) big driving factors behind the headless Biden Administration opening the border was to secure enough illegal alien votes via amnesty to do just that. (Ironically, what it actually seem to do was turn the Rio Grande Valley red and add millions of Hispanics to the Trump coalition.) But the idea never goes away, and now moneybag social justice funder George Soros is trying to turn Texas blue.
A Democrat-aligned political group backed by billionaire George Soros is once again setting its sights on Texas, aiming to flip the reliably red state with a new multimillion-dollar campaign.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Texas Majority PAC—bankrolled heavily by Soros—has launched a new initiative dubbed “Blue Texas,” partnering with the Texas Democratic Party and several county parties to organize volunteers, recruit candidates, and boost voter turnout ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Campaign finance records show Soros gave $2.1 million to Texas Majority PAC in 2024 and another $1 million in April.
The move marks the latest in a long line of efforts by Democrats to make inroads in Texas, a state Republicans have dominated for decades. Despite shifting demographics and repeated national predictions of a “blue wave,” Democrats haven’t won a single statewide race in Texas since 1994.
Soros and his political allies tried a similar approach in the last election cycle—pouring millions into Texas Majority PAC in an attempt to build a Democrat ground game—but came up short. In 2024, Republicans not only held their ground but made gains in both the Texas House and Senate. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, won 12 of the state’s 14 border counties and defeated Kamala Harris by nearly 14 percentage points.
I covered last year’s Soros funding attempts here.
The Texas Majority PAC, which describes its mission as growing the Democrat majority and winning statewide elections, is hoping for a different result this time.
Organizers say they’ll hold rallies across the state in June and visit more than two dozen cities in July to recruit candidates.
Rallies. Yeah. That will do the trick. I do wonder if they don’t actually mean “riots,” since that seems to be what Soros is best at funding.
Their long-term goal is to make Texas a competitive battleground state by 2032, when a new round of redistricting could further increase the state’s electoral significance.
“If a win is on the table in 2026, we don’t want to leave it there by not being organized,” Katherine Fischer, deputy executive director of Texas Majority PAC, told WSJ.
A win for Democrats is “on the table” in the same sense that a World Series championship is “on the table” for the Colorado Rockies in 2026: It’s theoretically possible, but no one is betting that way.
But past efforts like Battleground Texas—formed over a decade ago with similar ambitions—have largely failed.
Battleground Texas was a particularly spectacular flameout. And that was staffed with Obama retreads, i.e. the last actually successful Democratic presidential campaign that didn’t rely on mysterious 3 AM ballot dumps. What election experts are they going to bring in to turn Texas red? The supergeniuses behind the Kamala Harris campaign? What pearls of wisdom are Soros-funded cadres going to dispense on their presumably benighted Texas counterparts? They need to burn more police cars? They need to buy more Palestinian flags?
Texas Republicans are quite lucky nationwide liberals seem clueless about how to wisely allocate money to boost Democrats in Texas. Just think if that $160+ million Bobby Francis “Beto” O’Rourke wasted on his two losing statewide campaigns had been channeled into effective grassroots organizing instead of ill-fated media ad buys. Texas might look a lot more purple right now. Of course, that assumes it’s even possible for Democrats to carry out effective grassroots organizing, instead of shoveling money into the insatiable maws of hordes of social justice locusts looking to foment their own brand of self-serving revolution.
I think that literally just Scott Presler, by himself, has moved the electoral needle more than all the millions of dollars national Democrats have dumped into Texas all this century combined…
Tags:2026 Election, Border Controls, Brandon Waltens, Democrats, Elections, fundraising, George Soros, Rio Grande Valley, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Texas Majority PAC, Texas Scorecard
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 4 Comments »
Friday, December 20th, 2024
Because I had to get out my book catalog last week, I’ve been as busy as Kathleen Kennedy on Ruin Star Wars Day, so this is another two-weeks crammed into one LinkSwarm. It’s just been a packed two weeks, with so many major stories breaking up not going to tease them up here, so let’s jump right in.
“21 Soros-linked district attorneys replaced since 2022 by voters seeking ‘tough-on-crime’ policies.”
A new report has revealed that 21 George Soros-linked district attorneys across the United States have been replaced by “tough-on-crime” prosecutors. The report also noted that four have left office, either through recall efforts or other means.
Among those listed by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund were former Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who lost a May election to Democrat challenger Nathan Vasquez, Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, who lost her reelection bid to Kalki Yalamanchili, and Kim Foxx, the former Cook County State’s Attorney who in 2023 announced that she would not seek reelection.
For those who were removed from office, there is Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, who in November was indicted on federal bribery charges, and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who was recalled last month after serving just 18 months in office, per The National News Desk.
Replacements also noted by the report were Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who lost to challenger Nathan Hochman in last month’s election, and former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who lost the 2022 Democratic primary election to Ivan Bates. Since her election loss, Mosby has been found guilty of one count of mortgage fraud.
All of them need to go.
Speaking of Soros tools: Subway Samaritan Daniel Penny found not guilty on all charges. Just like Kyle Rittenhouse, he never should have been charged in the first place. Soros tool Alvin Bragg needs to be impeached and removed from office.
Christopher Wray steps down as FBI head. This shouldn’t keep the Trump Administration from prosecuting for his manifest interference in the political process.
More Democratic Party fundraising fraud. “ActBlue, the massive online fund-raising platform for liberal causes, has informed Congress it did not automatically block donations made with foreign-bought gift cards until recently.” Almost like the entire party is a giant money laundering scam…
Busted. “Georgia Court Removes Fani Willis from Trump Case over Relationship with Special Prosecutor.”
An appellate court removed Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis (D) from the racketeering case against President-elect Donald Trump over her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Georgia’s court of appeals ruled Thursday that Willis will be removed from the case because of the appearance of misconduct surrounding her relationship with Wade, but did not throw out the case all together.
“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety is generally not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the three judge panel ruled.
Left unstated is that her lawfare attack on Trump was both illegal and unconstitutional.
“Law enforcement arrested and charged a suspect on Monday in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which occurred in New York City on Wednesday outside a Manhattan hotel. Luigi Mangione, 26, of Towson, Md., was stopped by auth0rities in Altoona, Pa., on Monday. The detained suspect had a handwritten manifesto that criticized the health care industry.
Biden’s Department of Education spent $1 billion to infect schools with DEI, because of course they did.
He also handed Iran access to $10 billion, because promoting terrorism, plotting to destroy Israel, and trying to build nuclear weapons are activities that Democrats seem eager to reward.
Winning. “ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a settlement in a defamation suit brought by President-elect Donald Trump, which requires the network to apologize, contribute $15 million to a ‘Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff,’ and pay Trump’s legal team $1 million.”
Believe it or not, that wasn’t the biggest settlement ABC owner Disney agreed to pay out this month. They also agreed to pay $233 million to settle a minimum wage lawsuit.
How DeSantis and Abbott bussing illegal aliens to blue sanctuary cities changed the game.
As Saul Alinsky once said, make your enemies live up to their words.
Let the Democratic Party Civil War commence.
The battle lines are now drawn between West Coast liberals, Bernie Sanders-socialists and moderate technocrats in the Midwest, who insist the party has completely lost touch with the average American voter.
But first, there is one thing that all sides seemingly agree on: The current political establishment must be chased out of national politics for good. A reckoning is coming.
‘The people that are responsible for this s**tshow are the Obama people. They’re just grifters,’ a well-connected Democratic donor exclusively told Daily Mail. He singled out Jen O’Malley Dillon, who went from Biden 2024 campaign chair to serve in the same role for Harris’s camp, and David Plouffe, an ex-Obama 2008 campaign manager turned top Kamala adviser.
“Trump sues Des Moines Register, pollster for ‘brazen election interference’ over faulty polling in presidential race.” I think it’s very unlikely that Trump will win this lawsuit, thanks to First Amendment protections and the “absence of malice standard.” Plus pollster Ann Selzer can always just claim “I just sucked at my job.” She retired after the election.
After Assad fell, Israel pounded the snot out of his remaining military assets.
Israel pounded Syrian army bases on Tuesday in strikes it says aim to keep weapons from falling into hostile hands, but denied its forces had advanced into Syria, toward Damascus, beyond a buffer zone at the border.
Regional security sources and officers within the now-fallen Syrian army who spoke to Reuters described Tuesday morning’s airstrikes as the heaviest yet, hitting military installations and airbases across Syria, destroying dozens of helicopters and jets, as well as Republican Guard assets in and around Damascus.
The rough tally of 200 raids overnight had left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets, said the sources.
The Israeli Air Force has carried out over 300 airstrikes in Syria since the collapse of the regime, destroying advanced weapons and other capabilities.
Strikes reportedly carried out by Israel in Damascus’s Barzeh area completely destroyed a defense ministry research center, AFP correspondents reported on Tuesday. Western countries including the United States struck the facility in 2018, saying it was related to Syria’s “chemical weapons infrastructure.”
Plus they sunk the entire Syrian navy.
Speaking of pounding the snot out of things:
Videos of Russia buggering out of Syria.
Ukraine hit a solid rocket propellant plant in Russia.
“Palantir CEO Alex Karp Eviscerates Democrats: Voters ‘Do Not Want To Hear Your Woke Pagan Ideology.'”
Alex Karp, the co-founder and CEO of Palantir, said late last week that Democrats lost the 2024 election because they did not understand the fundamental human desire to feel safe.
Karp made the remarks during a panel discussion at the Reagan National Defense Forum while talking about what Americans expect out of the U.S. government.
“Americans are the most loving, God-fearing, fair, least discriminatory people on the planet,” he said. “They want to know that if you’re waking up and thinking about harming American citizens, or if American citizens are taken hostage and kept in dungeons, or if you’re a foreign power sending fentanyl to poison our people, something really bad is going to happen to you and your friends and your cousins, and your bank account and your mistress, and whoever was involved.”
He continued, “When Americans are spending a trillion dollars on ‘defense,’ what I want and what I think my peers want is: why are these people keeping our citizens as hostages, torturing our people, attacking our allies, maligning us in what was once called the United Nations — basically a discriminatory institution against anything good? We need to stand up and those people need to be scared.”
He said that it was critical for the U.S. to dominate because “we have the best products in the world, and we can not have parity.”
“Our adversaries do not have our moral compunction,” he said. “If it is even, they will take advantage of our niceness, our kindness, our desire to be at home in Nebraska and New Hampshire or wherever we live, in our peaceful environments.”
“They need to wake up scared, and go to bed scared, and if you give that to the American people, the American people will go back and say — and honestly, I probably shouldn’t say this, this is why I thought the Democrats were going to lose the election, and why they did, because people want to live in peace,” he continued. “They want to go home. They do not want to hear your woke pagan ideology. They want to know they’re safe. And safe means the other person is scared. That’s how you make someone safe.”
Democrats are now, finally, pissed at Obama. “There are people there are people who are now multi-millionaires as a result of the Harris campaign, and we know exactly who they are. And I just want to say that half a billion dollars in advertising went to just four well-heeled Democratic firms. This whole thing is deeply incestuous.”
China cracks down on economists telling the truth about how much their economy sucks rather than parroting Beijing’s approved lies.
“Ozy Media Founder Carlos Watson Sentenced To Hefty Prison Term For Defrauding Investors. [He] was sentenced to 116 months, or nearly ten years, in prison for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in an unusual case that briefly captivated the media world.”
“Crystal Mangum admits to fabricating 2006 Duke lacrosse scandal accusations.” And by “scandal” they mean “false accusations of rape.” So when can we expect apologies from Nancy Grace and Amanda Marcotte? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“Biden’s EPA just made the first-ever “climate change” related arrest.”
More of that voting fraud Democrats swear doesn’t exist. “2020 Carrollton Mayoral Candidate Admits to Mail Ballot Fraud. Zul Mohamed pleaded guilty Monday to 109 voter fraud felonies.”
“After Donald Trump flipped his county for the first time in a century, longtime Democratic Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina has announced he is switching parties to the Republicans saying that “the [Democratic] party left me, and the people of South Texas behind.”
Three soldiers arrested for smuggling illegal aliens into the country.
Three U.S. Army soldiers have been arrested in Texas on criminal charges relating to smuggling illegal aliens.
The three soldiers were based at Fort Cavazos, which is near Killeen in Central Texas.
Fort Cavazos is The Fort Formerly Known As Fort Hood. I might have been a little more worked up over the name change if Hood hadn’t been such a shitty general.
U.S. Border Patrol agents made an initial traffic stop of a suspicious vehicle in the city of Presidio, located in West Texas on the Rio Grande. As an agent approached the vehicle’s passenger side, the driver sped away—hitting a second Border Patrol vehicle and injuring the agent inside.
The vehicle was eventually stopped by local law enforcement officers who detained four individuals in the car. Three were illegal aliens, and one was identified as U.S. Army soldier Emilio Mendoza Lopez.
The driver of the vehicle was reported as being another soldier named Angel Palma, who fled on foot from the vehicle but was located in Odessa a day later.
Presidio is nearly 500 miles away from where the soldiers were stationed.
“Mendoza Lopez and Palma allegedly traveled from Fort Cavazos to Presidio for the purpose of picking up and transporting undocumented noncitizens,” announced the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas. “A third individual, Enrique Jauregui, is alleged to be the recruiter and facilitator of the human smuggling conspiracy.”
“Tren De Aragua Gun Runner Released by Biden Admin Charged in Texas Capital Murder.” Democrats sure love murderous gang members… (Hat tip: Issues and Insights.)
“Laredo Educator Arrested for Production of Child Pornography. Carlos Jobany Castaneda Lechuga was a lecturer at Texas A&M International University, but has since been removed from the staff directory.”
“Three More Texas Teachers Nabbed for Child Porn.”
Three Texas teachers made news last week over charges of child pornography—also known as child sexual abuse material, as the images and videos depict sex crimes being committed against minors.
The educators worked in Dallas, Leander, and Wall Independent School Districts. Two of the three taught band.
On December 13, Dallas Police arrested Sean Turner, 34, and charged him with possession of pornography featuring a child younger than 10 years old—a first-degree felony.
Snip.
Retired principal Curtis John Locklear was arrested December 12 and charged with felony possession of child porn.
Locklear was arrested by the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office working with the Houston-area Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.
Snip.
Also on December 12, a federal judge sentenced Joshua Carroll to 30 years in prison for possessing and producing child porn.
Carroll was an assistant band director in Wall ISD from January 2022 until his crimes were discovered earlier this year.
Texas Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw got dinged by the Internet for insider trading. So then Crenshaw attacked the Internet. It didn’t go well for him.
Phllly man awarded $41 million for overturned murder conviction is back in jail for murder.
AOC loses an election to be the ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to 74-year-old Gerry Connolly. “Connolly is undergoing chemotherapy and immunotherapy for esophagus cancer.”
In addition to being a brutal dictator, Bashar Assad was also a drug pusher.
Google unveils a newer, more powerful quantum chip.
Google on Monday introduced a new chip called Willow, which solved in five minutes a computing problem that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe.
Tech companies are chasing quantum computing in hopes of developing systems that perform at speeds far faster than traditional silicon-based computers.
The building blocks of quantum computers, called “qubits”, while being fast, are error-prone, making it hard to ensure quantum computers are reliable and commercially viable.
The more qubits used in quantum computing, the more errors typically occur. But Google said on Monday it found a way to string together qubits in the Willow chip so that error rates decline as the number of qubits rise, adding that it can also correct errors in real time.
My understanding of how quantum computers work is limited to popular explanations, but D-Wave is evidently still in business, so maybe they work?
It’s been a long time since I found Louis Black funny, but this rant on the Democrats post-election reactions is pretty good.
MSNBC viewers haven’t returned.
City in Florida tries to fine man over $1 million for 10 year old code violation fines against the previous owner for a home the new owner bought on foreclosure.
Company YesMadam surveys employees to see how stressed they feel…then lays off employees feeling stressed. Then reveals the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
Assad had a really shitty survival bunker. Plus a garage of luxury cars.
“Jordan Peterson Flees “Totalitarian Hellhole” Canada For U.S. Due To Censorship, Taxes.” Welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
“How Now, Woke Longhorn? An Open Letter to University of Texas President Jay Hartzell.”
“Trump announces $100 BILLION investment to create 100,000 US jobs from Japanese company Softbank.”
Add Big Lots to the list of retail chains that died thanks to the Biden Recession. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Broadcom hit $1 trillion in market cap this week.
Jaguar is going all in on woke thanks to new CEO Adrian Mardell, and the infection is spreading to fellow Tata subsidiary Land Rover.
First reaction to Mufasa: The Lion King: “Profoundly awful.”
The trailer for James Gunn’s Superman dropped. I’ve never seen a Superman film in theaters, and this will not be getting me in. But you’ve got to give Gunn credit for thinking way outside the box and including Krypto the Superdog and Hawkman, two characters that absolutely no one in the greater viewing public was clamoring for.
Don McMillan has cracked the Hallmark Christmas movie code.
Heh:
“Now Now, Let’s Not Be So Hasty To Find And Assassinate Everyone Responsible For The Healthcare Crisis,’ Says Nervous Obama.”
“Assassin Luigi Mangione Takes Lead In 2028 Democratic Primary Polls.”
“Members Of Congress Explain They Need Pay Raises To Keep Up With The Inflation They Caused.”
“Biden Calls For New Gun Laws He Can Pardon His Son For Breaking.”
“Running Low On Ideas, God Makes Oklahoma.”
“Unclear If Pianist Total Beginner Or Professional Jazz Player.”
In you go:
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Tags:ABC, ActBlue, Adrian Mardel, Alex Karp, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Alvin Bragg, B-52, Babylon Bee, bankruptcy, Bashar Assad, Biden Recession, Big Lots, Border Controls, Border Patrol, Brian Thompson, Broadcom, Budget, Canada, Carlos Jobany Castaneda Lechuga, Carlos Watson, Carrollton, China, Christmas, Christopher Wray, Communism, Cook County, Crime, Crystal Mangum, Curtis John Locklear, Dan Crenshaw, Daniel Penny, DC Comics, Deborah Gonzalez, DEI, Democrats, Department of Education, Disney, dogs, Don McMillan, drones, Duke lacrosse case, Emilio Mendoza, Emilio Mendoza Lopez, EPA, F-15, Fani Willis, FBI, Florida, Foreign Policy, Fort Cavazos, fraud, Ft. Hood, George Gascon, George Soros, George Stephanopoulos, Georgia, Gerry Connolly, Google, Greg Abbott, Guns, Hallmark, Hollywood, Illegal Aliens, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Israel, Jaguar, James Gunn, Japan, Jay Hartzell, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Jessica Tarlov, Jihad, Jody Owens, Jordan B. Peterson, Joshua Carroll, Kalki Yalamanchili, Katie Couric, Kim Foxx, layoffs, LinkSwarm, Louis Black, Luigi Mangione, Media Watch, Mike Schmidt, Military, MSNBC, Nathan Vasquez, Nathan Wade, Obama, ObamaCare, Oklahoma, Palantir, Pamela Price, pedophilia, Philadelphia, quantum computing, Regulation, Republicans, Rio Grande Valley, Ron DeSantis, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Sean Turner, Secret Service, Semiconductors, sex offender, Softbank, superheroes, Superman, Syria, Tano Tijerina, Texas, Ukraine, UnitedHealthcare, University of Texas, voting fraud, Webb County, Zul Mohamed
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 7 Comments »
Sunday, June 30th, 2024
Like Joe Biden’s mental decline, Democrats have sworn up and down that election fraud doesn’t exist, no matter how many documented cases came to light. But a funny things happened on that boating excursion up the River Denial: The Chairman of the Texas Democratic Party just swore in a lawsuit that voting fraud is taking place in South Texas.
The chairman of the Texas Democrat Party, Gilberto Hinojosa, says election fraud is taking place in South Texas.
This claim is based on a lawsuit filed in Hidalgo County contesting the election for Justice of the Peace Precinct 3, Place 1. The certified vote showed Sonia Trevino winning the Democrat primary runoff last month with 4,233 votes, while Ramon Segovia finished second with 4,202 votes.
Segovia is currently challenging the election results, with Hinojosa representing him as his lawyer. The lawsuit makes numerous allegations of voter fraud, including:
– Numerous votes were allegedly cast illegally by individuals registered at an address that was not their residence or was not a residence at all.
– Many voters who cast ballots during early voting and on election day were allegedly assisted in reading or completing the ballot, despite not being eligible for such assistance under the Texas Elections Code.
– Numerous mail-in ballots that were counted should not have been counted due to voters being ineligible to vote by mail, incorrect or mismatching signatures, and mail-in ballots prepared “without direction from the voter.”
The contest argues that “because the number of illegal votes cast exceeds the difference in the total votes cast for the Contestant and those cast for the Contestee, the Court cannot ascertain the true outcome of the election and must declare the election void and order a new election.”
They claim Sonia Trevino “conspired to monitor, influence, and pressure voters to vote for her by unlawfully exploiting the voter assistance laws in the State of Texas.”
So the position of the Texas Democratic Party has gone from “There’s no election fraud anywhere ever” to “There’s no election fraud except for this one race where our party chairman says that a bunch of the election fraud tricks that Republicans have accused us of just happened to happen in this one particular race.”
It sounds like Republicans should take Hinojosa’s filing to Attorney General Ken Paxton and demand the Texas Rangers investigate voting fraud all across South Texas to ensure the fraud Hinojosa alleges doesn’t occur in Hildago County or anywhere else this November. Voting rules should be scrutinized and purged, politiqueras should be interrogated and asked just how they “assist” people in filling out ballots and upon who’s instructions, email and bank account records should be subpoenaed, and Texas Rangers stationed inside early and election day voting centers to verify that Voter ID laws are being followed and to lookout for (and thus deter) in person fraud.
The Chairman of the Texas Democratic Party just said that voting fraud is real, and we should take him at his word.
Just like that Galveston Voting Rights Act lawsuit, the end result of Democrats filing a lawsuit to save their preferred candidate in a single election may be to enure a lot fewer Democrats are elected going forward.
Tags:2024 Election, Democrats, Elections, Gilberto Hinojosa, Hidalgo County, Hispanics, Lawsuit, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Texas Democratic Party, Texas Scorecard, voting fraud
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas | 8 Comments »
Thursday, July 13th, 2023
Just a quick roundup of Texas news to cut tomorrow’s LinkSwarm down to size, as this is another insane week.
Property tax relief is finally heading to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s desk.
After months of caterwauling and posturing, the Texas Legislature’s property tax plan ended up about where it began, with additional rate compression, an increased homestead exemption, and an appraisal cap.
The Texas House and Senate put the final bow on their recently announced deal on property tax relief to put to bed the months-long standoff — after which the pair adjourned sine die for the third time this year. The plan is expected to be signed quickly by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The toplines of the $13 billion deal are:
- More than $7 billion to compress school district Maintenance & Operations rates
- An increase of the standard homestead exemption to $100,000
- A three-year trial run for a 20 percent appraisal cap on commercial and non-homestead residential properties valued at or below $5 million
- A $1.47 million increase to the state’s franchise tax exception
- The creation of three elected positions on Appraisal Review Boards in counties above 75,000 population
That compression is on top of the $5.3 billion already passed in the 2024-2025 state budget to continue the 2019 reform.
The new compression and the homestead exemption — should it be approved by voters in November — will be effective this tax year. The appraisal cap will begin next year and run through the end of 2026 unless continued by the Legislature.
Estimates project the reform will provide a $1,200 “savings” for the average homeowner in Texas — meaning a reduction from what tax bills would yield without the reform, not a reduction from the previous year’s tax bill.
Good news, if long in coming.
You know the “incident” Austin City Council used as an excuse to end DPS patrols? It never happened.
The City of Austin canceled its recently-resumed partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Tuesday after allegations were made that officers pointed a gun at a child during a traffic stop — but DPS has now released body camera footage disputing that claim.
The patrol partnership that deployed DPS officers throughout the capital city to assist the ailing Austin Police Department was set to resume this month after a May pause to bolster enforcement at the border as Title 42 expired. But city officials — Mayor Kirk Watson and Interim City Manager Jesús Garza — abruptly canceled the partnership on Tuesday.
The onus for that decision was an allegation made by Carlos Meza and his son Angel that during a Sunday evening traffic stop, DPS officers pointed their sidearms at the child.
DPS said that did not happen. The agency released three angles of footage of the incident.
“Texas Department of Transportation Attempts to Hide DEI-related Records.”
The Texas Department of Transportation is attempting to withhold documents concerning the agency’s use of materials related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG).
Responding to a tip from a whistleblower, Texas Scorecard sought agency records that would either confirm or debunk allegations that the agency has been pushing a “woke” agenda on its 12,861 employees.
Texas Scorecard sent an open records request to TxDOT under the Texas Public Information Act (PIA). This request sought to unveil whether or not TxDOT employees are being paid to discuss such issues.
Specifically requested were communications referring to DEI and ESG in the possession of the Texas Department of Transportation commissioner, chief of staff, director of human resources, and/or the director of the DEI section.
Obviously TxDoT must be hiding considerable social justice subversion.
“Keller ISD Adopts New Student Pronoun and Bathroom Policy Based on Biological Sex.”
A northeast Texas school district has adopted new policies related to the continued hot-button topics of restroom accommodations for transgender students and pronoun usage by school employees.
On June 28, the Keller ISD board of trustees voted 5 to 0 with one abstention to establish a new pronoun policy wherein “district staff, educators, and other district employees shall not promote, encourage, or require the use of pronouns that are inconsistent with a student’s or other person’s biological sex as it appears on the individual’s birth certificate or other government issued record.”
Additionally, the school district shall not compel any employee or “other students to address or refer to students in any manner that would violate the speaker’s constitutionally protected rights.”
Prior to the vote, the board engaged in back-and-forth discussion of hypotheticals, such as if a teacher is asked by a student to be referred to by a pronoun that does not correspond with their biological sex.
“The policy is pretty clear,” board President Charles Randklev said of the hypotheticals. When asked if the trustees will support teachers who might come to them with concerns following the passage of the pronoun policy, he said that “this board has always supported teachers.”
Randklev added that the new policies “lay the groundwork for protecting kids and educators.”
“I also think they basically help us get off to a good start for the upcoming school year.”
The board did pass an additional bathroom policy that will “maintain separate restrooms” based on biological sex, but will make accommodations for students who are “seeking privacy” such as in a single-use bathroom.
This move by Keller ISD comes on the heels of a federal judge’s ruling in 2022 that Texas had the ability to vacate the Biden administration’s guidance on allowing people to use restrooms based on their gender identity that do not correspond to their biological sex.
Remember: Keller ISD voters kicked social justice school board members out and took a solid turn toward sanity instead. Elections matter.
Meanwhile, La Joya ISD down in RioGrande Valley, which has been pushing DEI, is so scandal-ridden that they’re being taken over by the state.
A small public school district in the Rio Grande Valley is the latest to face a state takeover under Texas law, but district officials have vowed to fight the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in court.
Located on the U.S.- Mexico border west of McAllen, the La Joya Independent School District (LJISD) operates 38 schools and serves 24,804 students. However, enrollment has steadily declined over the past decade and the district has been embroiled in multiple scandals.
After an FBI investigation into corruption in Hidalgo County, five LJISD officials pled guilty last year to federal charges that included theft, bribery, money laundering, extortion, and wire fraud.
In January 2022, Trustee Armin Garza admitted to participating in a kickback scheme regarding a district energy-saving plan under which he received more than $234,000. Later, central office administrators Luis Morin and Alex Guajardo would both also plead guilty for their part in the conspiracy.
In a separate case, trustee Oscar Salinas pled guilty to federal extortion charges related to kickback payments he received from contracted vendor L&G Engineering. After discovering that L&G Engineering’s chief operating officer supported a political opponent, Hidalgo County Commissioner Everardo Villarreal, Salinas demanded additional funds and threatened to cancel a contract with Villareal’s wife. When the CEO refused, Salinas voted to terminate the contract.
Another LJISD administrator, Rodrigo Lopez, pled guilty to federal charges of theft and bribery in August 2022 in relation to contracts for athletic equipment. Lopez also served as the mayor of Penitas, Texas.
Earlier this year, TEA officials notified La Joya ISD Board President Alex Cantu and interim Superintendent Beto Gonzales that investigators had substantiated allegations related to fraud and violations of conflict of interest and contract procurement laws.
Those who have been following the blog for a while know that fraud in border school districts and Hidalgo County (still Democratic Party strongholds) has been a recurring theme.
NBA power forward Grant Williams choose to sign with the Dallas Mavericks over the Boston Celtics due to tax differences between the two states.
By approving a new wealth tax last year, Massachusetts voters might have dented the Boston Celtics’ chances of chasing down a National Basketball Association (NBA) championship.
Grant Williams, a talented power forward drafted by the Celtics in the first round just four years ago, declined to re-sign with Boston this summer. Instead, he’ll be playing next season in Dallas, where his new contract won’t be subject to Massachusetts’ so-called “millionaire’s tax.”
Williams told The Athletic that his decision to sign a $54 million deal with Dallas over a $48 million offer from Boston was “a little strategic” and that the gap between the two offers was larger than it might seem.
“In Boston, it’s…$48 million with the millionaire’s tax, so $54 million in Dallas is really like $58 million in Boston,” Williams said.
In Texas, which has no state income tax, Williams can keep more of his earnings, though it is worth noting that professional athletes unfortunately owe taxes in states where they play road games. His new state’s tax situation gives Williams a nice incentive to move, considering Massachusetts would have taken 9 percent of those earnings—thanks to its 5 percent flat income tax and newly created 4 percent tax on income in excess of $1 million.
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tags:Alex Cantu, Alex Guajardo, Armin Garza, Austin, Austin Police Department, Beto Gonzales, Carlos Meza, Critical Race Theory, Everardo Villarreal, fraud, Grant Williams, Hidalgo County, Jesus Garza, Keller ISD, La Joya, La Joya ISD, Luis Morin, NBA, Oscar Salinas, Rio Grande Valley, Rodrigo Lopez, Social Justice Warriors, Taxes, Texas, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas DPS, Texas Education Agency, transexual
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
Saturday, November 12th, 2022
National results were a deep disappointment to Republicans expecting a red wave. What about the results in Texas? Better:
Republicans retained all statewide races.
Incumbent governor Greg Abbott walloped Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke by about a point less than he walloped Lupe Valdez in 2018, the year O’Rourke got within three points of Ted Cruz in the Texas senate race. 2018’s Betomania seems to have slightly raised the floor for Democrats in various down-ballot races, but not enough for them to be competitive statewide. This is O’Rourke’s third high-profile flameout in five years, and one wonders whether out-of-state contributors are getting wise to the game.
Vote totals seem down a bit from 2018, with the governor’s race drawing about 266,000 fewer voters.
Incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick increased the margin by which he beat Mike Collier (also his opponent in 2018) from about five points to about ten points.
For all the talk of Ken Paxton being the most vulnerable statewide incumbent, he also won his race over Rochelle Garza by about 10 points, as opposed to a three and half point victory over Justin Nelson (a man so obscure he has no Wikipedia entry) in 2018. (Thought experiment: Could Beto have beaten Paxton this year? My gut says his money would have made it a lot closer than his race with Abbott, but I think he still would have lost by about the same margin he lost to Ted Cruz in 2018. But his lack of a law degree would have worked against him, and I doubt his ego would ever consider running in a down-ballot race like AG…)
In the Comptroller, Land Commissioner and Agriculture Commissioner races, Republicans were up a bit around 56%, and Democrats were down a bit more. (And Dawn Buckingham replacing George P. Bush should be a big improvement.)
Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian had the biggest spread between him and Democratic opponent Luke Warford, 15 points (55% to 40%).
Three Republican statewide judicial race winners (Rebeca Huddle in Supreme Court Place 5, Scott Walker in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, and Jesse F. McClure in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 6) were the only statewide candidates to garner 4.5 million or more votes (possibly due to the absence of Libertarian candidates).
Of three closely watched Texas majority Hispanic house seats, only Monica De La Cruz in TX15 won, while Myra Flores (TX34) and Cassy Garcia (TX28) lost.
Though Republicans came up short in those two U.S. congressional seats, statewide they “narrowly expanded their legislative majorities in both the House and Senate.”
In the House, the GOP grew its ranks by one — giving them an 86-to-64 advantage in the 150-member chamber for the 2023 legislative session. The Senate has 31 members, and Republicans previously outnumbered Democrats 18 to 13. The GOP will hold at least 19 seats next session. Democrats will hold at least 11, though they are leading in one Senate race that is still too close to call.
The Republicans’ victories were felt prominently in South Texas, where the GOP won key races after targeting the historically Democratic region of Texas after Democratic President Joe Biden underperformed there in 2020.
In House District 37, now anchored in Harlingen, Republican Janie Lopez beat Democrat Luis Villareal Jr. The seat is currently held by Democratic state Rep. Alex Dominguez, who unsuccessfully ran for state Senate rather than seek reelection. The district was redrawn to cut out many of the Democratic voters in Brownsville from the district to the benefit Republicans. Biden carried District 37 by 17.1 points in 2020 under the old boundaries, but would have won by only 2.2 points under the new map.
Lopez would be the first Latina Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley in the House.
In another major South Texas victory, Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, who defected from the Democratic Party and ran this cycle as a Republican, won reelection handily.
In another crucial battle in southern Bexar County, which has traditionally been dominated by Democrats, Republican incumbent John Lujan prevailed over Democrat Frank Ramirez, a former San Antonio City Council member.
Who did well? Incumbent Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw. Remember this ad from 2020? In addition to Crenshaw winning reelection by some 73,000 votes, August Pfluger and Beth Van Duyne won reelection to their districts, and Wesley Hunt, who ran a close-but-no-cigar race for TX7 in 2020, managed to win the race for newly created TX38 this year. (My guess is that, just like Rep. Byron Donalds (FL19) and Rep. Burgess Owens (UT4), Hunt will be blocked from joining the Congressional Black Caucus.)
Is there any sign of black support for Democrats eroding? A bit. In 2018, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (one of the very dimmest bulbs in congress) received 75.3% of the vote from her black and Hispanic majority district. In 2020, she received 73.3%. In 2022 (post redistricting), she received 70.7%. Slow progress, but progress none the less.
Unfortunately, corrupt Harris County Democratic head Lina Hidalgo managed to edge her Republican opponent by a mere 15,000 votes.
Leftwing fossil Lloyd Doggett was elected to his fifteenth term in congress, crushing his Republican opponent for the newly created 37th congressional district, while communist twerp Greg Casar (formerly of the Austin City Council) was elected to the 35th, formerly Doggett’s prior to redistricting.
Tarrant County had been trending more purple recently, going for O’Rourke over Cruz there by about 4,000 votes in 2018, and going for Biden over Trump by a mere 2,000 votes (less than .3%). But Abbott beat O’Rourke there by some 25,000 votes.
Jefferson County (Beaumont) is another county that’s flipped back. It went for O’Rourke over Cruz by about 500 votes,and flipped back to Trump over by around 500, but Abbott walloped O’Rouke by over 8,000 votes this year.
The runoff in the Austin Mayoral race will be on December 13 between hard lefty Celia Israel, and soft lefty retread Kirk Watson. If Watson picks up a clear majority of third place finisher Jennifer Virden’s voters (which seems likely), he should win.
As I mentioned in the Liveblog, the social justice warrior slate beat the conservative slate in Round Rock ISD.
This is a side effect of Williamson County, formerly a reliable Republican bulwark, becoming decidedly more liberal as Austin has become a hotbed of radical leftism. Abbott still edged O’Rourke by some 2,000 votes here, but Biden beat Trump by about 4,000 votes in 2020.
If 1978 is the year this election reminds me of nationally, then 1984 is the template year for Texas politics. In 1982, Phil Gramm resigned after Democrats threw him off the House Budget Committee (because why would you want a professional economist on a budget committee?), switched parties, and ran for his own vacancy in a special election as a Republican, winning handily.
Gramm’s switch showed that the time for conservatives to remain welcome in the Democratic Party was drawing to a close, and the way he resigned to run again rather than just switching made him a folk hero among Texas republicans. In 1984, Gramm ran for the senate, walloping Ron Paul, Robert Mosbacher, Jr. (a sharp guy who eventually did better in business than politics) and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Hank Grover in the Republican primary before decisively beating Lloyd Doggett (yep, the same one that’s still in congress) in the general by some 900,000 votes.
Gramm’s victory showed that the political careers of conservative Democrats who switched to the Republican Party could not only survive, but thrive. Between 1986 and the late 1990s, a series of high profile conservative Texas Democrats (including Kent Hance and Rick Perry) would switch from an increasingly radical Democratic Party to the GOP.
So too, this year showed that Hispanic Democrats could leave a party increasingly out of tune with people they represented (largely hard-working, law-abiding, entrepreneurial, conservative, and Catholic) for the Republican Party and win. Republicans may not have flipped terribly many seats in south Texas, but except for recent special election-winner Myra Flores, they held their gains.
The combination of Trump’s distinct appeal to working class Hispanics, deep opposition to disasterous Democratic open borders policies, and Gov. Abbott’s long term dedication to building out Republican infrastructure there have all primed Hispanics to shift to the GOP. Just as it took years for all Texas conservatives and most moderates to abandon the Democratic Party (Republicans wouldn’t sweep statewide offices until 1998), it will take years for the majority of Hispanics to switch.
But if Democrats continue to push open borders, social justice, radical transgenderism, soft on crime policies, high taxes and socialism, expect Hispanics to make that switch sooner rather than later.
That’s my Texas race roundup. If you have any notable highlights you think I should have covered, feel free to share them in the comments below.
Tags:2022 Attorney General's Race, 2022 Election, 2022 Lt. Governor's Race, 2022 Texas Governor's Race, 35th Congressional District, 37th Congressional District, 38th Congressional District, Alex Dominguez, August Pfluger, Austin, Beth Van Duyne, Beto O'Rourke, black, Burgess Owens, Byron Donalds, Cassy Garcia, Celia Israel, Dan Crenshaw, Dan Patrick, Dawn Buckingham, Elections, Frank Ramirez, Greg Abbott, Greg Casar, Harlingen, Hispanics, Janie Lopez, Jesse F. McClure, John Lujan, Ken Paxton, Kirk Watson, Lina Hidalgo, Lloyd Doggett, Luis Villareal Jr., Luke Warford, Mike Collier, Monica De La Cruz, Myra Flores, Phil Gramm, Rebeca Huddle, Rio Grande Valley, Rochelle Garza, Round Rock, Round Rock ISD, Ryan Guillen, Scott Walker (Texas), Tarrant County, Texas, Texas 15th Congressional District, Texas 28th Congressional District, Texas 34th Congressional District, Wayne Christian
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, October 18th, 2022
If you’re looking to make a late, last minute U.S. Congressional race donation to help Republicans flip the House, here are three south Texas campaigns for majority Hispanic districts you might consider donating to:
Myra Flores, TX-34 (Donation Page). Technically this isn’t a “flip” opportunity, since Flores eked out a Special Election win against Dan Sanchez to fill out the remaining term of Democrat Filmon Vila Jr., who left office to work at Aiken Gump. But that election was a big upset, since Vila had defeated his Republican opponent in 2020 by 14 points. In November she faces Democrat Vicente Gonzalez (an incumbent for TX-15 who changed races because his own district was becoming too competitive), who says that Flores and Republicans stole the seat by out-raising Sanchez. This seat is a bellwether for Republican chances to flip Hispanic voters to the party. I donated to Flores.
Cassy Garcia, TX-28 (Donation Page) Speaking of heavy lifts, Garcia is running against longtime incumbent Henry Cueller, who garnered three times the votes Garcia did in the primary and blew out his Republican opponent in 2020 by 19 points. But Biden only won the district by four points that year, and if this year is the wave election for Republicans signs seem to point to, and if south Texas Hispanics have really soured on Democrats, this is exactly the sort of seat that Republicans could snatch, like Blake Farenthold coming out of nowhere to defeat Democratic TX-27 incumbent Solomon Ortiz in 2010.
Monica De La Cruz, TX-15 (Donation Page.) The 15th is now an open seat, thanks redistricting making it more Republican and to Gonzalez’s decision to run in TX-34. De La Cruz is running against Democrat Michelle Vallejo, and here the Republican is the favorite in the race.
Three Hispanic republican women, all of whom support securing the border. If you haven’t donated to a Republican House race this cycle and want to, consider donating to one of them.
Tags:2022 Election, Cassy Garcia, Dan Sanchez, Democrats, Elections, Filmon Vila jr., Henry Cuellar, Michelle Vallejo, Monica De La Cruz, Myra Flores, Republicans, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Vicente Gonzalez
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, June 15th, 2022
Republican inroads into Texas Democratic Hispanic strongholds continue apace.
According to unofficial results, Republican Mayra Flores has won the special election to represent Texas’ 34th Congressional District, anchored in Cameron County.
The 34th is a sprawling district that includes a lot of rural southern Texas between San Antonio and the Gulf Coast. Cameron County is where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and includes Brownsville, Harlingen and South Padre Island.
It’s an 85% Hispanic district that went for Obama by 61% in 2012, but for Biden by only 51% in 2020, an indication of the steady erosion of Democratic support among Texas Hispanics. And it’s also a district that suffers greatly under the Biden Administration’s continued refusal to deport illegal aliens.
It’s also where Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica is located. A small house Boca Chica is also Musk’s legal residence, and Musk announced on Twitter that he voted for Flores.
Flores’ victory represents a major upset for the historically Democratic seat.
A Republican has not won the seat since the district was drawn in the last redistricting cycle 10 years ago. In fact, over the past forty years, a Republican has only won the seat once, in 2010.
Flores squeaked past the 50 percent mark just after 9 p.m. on Tuesday night. At the time, runner-up Dan Sanchez, a Democrat, had just over 43 percent of the vote.
Flores enjoyed a clear advantage over Sanchez in the election day vote count. Among early voters only, the gap between the two candidates was fewer than 300 votes. Election day voters preferred Flores to Sanchez by well over a thousand votes.
The special election pitted candidates from both parties in a four-way race on the same ballot. However, party leaders largely rallied behind Flores and Sanchez.
Flores, a respiratory care practitioner, had already won the Republican primary in March before the incumbent Filemon Vela (D-TX-34) announced his retirement. Flores enjoyed the endorsements of Governor Greg Abbott and Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-15), who currently represents a neighboring congressional district in South Texas, won the Democratic nomination on March 1. However, Vela’s abrupt resignation announcement meant that Gonzalez would have had to leave his current seat to run for the 34th district instead of waiting for a regular transition in November.
Gonzalez decided not to leave his current seat, endorsing Sanchez in his stead.
Sanchez also nabbed Vela’s endorsement among other prominent Democrats, such as attorney general candidate Rochelle Garza.
However, there’s a caveat:
Bolstered by ongoing political trends in South Texas, timing gave Republicans an advantage.
The voting population included in District 34 under the current map leans 54 percent Democratic based on data from the past two general elections. But the voting population of the newly adopted district map leans 63 percent Democratic.
In other words, if Vela had not retired and triggered a special election, his replacement would have been decided in November by a more Democratic voting population than what the district currently includes.
Flores may face a greater challenge in November when the regular election takes place under the new map with a more Democratic voting population.
Between the impact of the Biden Recession and the continued flight of Hispanics from the Democratic Party, if ever there were a year for Republicans to defend a marginal seat, 2022 is it. Expect Flores to get all the help she needs from the state and national party to hold the seat.
Can Republicans trust her to not go squishy on border security once in office? Since she’s married to a border patrol agent, I’m go to go with “Yes”…
Tags:2022 Election, Boca Chica, Cameron County, Dan Sanchez, Elon Musk, Filemon Vela, Harlingen, Mayra Flores, Rio Grande Valley, SpaceX, Texas, Texas 34th Congressional District
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »