Posts Tagged ‘Texas Department of Transportation’

Remembering Andrew Wimsatt: “The Coolest Dude Ever”

Sunday, September 13th, 2026

When I originally posted about the random senseless murder of my friend Andrew Wimsatt, I did so out of a sense of obligation. He was a close friend, and I’m a writer with a blog, so if I wasn’t going to write about him, who would?

But I’ve been stunned by how quickly the story blew up. Andrew’s murder has become national or even international news, from Fox News to the New York Post to even The Daily Mail in the UK.

Given that explosion of publicity, and Andrew’s family’s dismay over so many articles dwelling on the murder rather than the man, I felt the need to do another, longer post celebrating Andrew’s life and re-post some of the many tributes to him. He was a man of many parts, in the best possible sense.

The good thing, the heat-warming silver-lining in a very dark cloud thing, is the legions of people who knew Andrew coming from all walks of life, all different enthusiasms, to share what a great guy he was. Here’s one tribute:

I suspect being described as “the coolest dude ever” would have come as a great surprise to Andrew. As an engineer, Andrew was a geeky, goofy, affable, genial guy, and, with the sole exception of playing guitar, had none of the attributes the media use to label someone as “cool.” Our nickname for him (I think bestowed long before we met him) was “Goober,” or simply “The Goob.” And yet in a deeper, more meaningful way, he was a cool guy: A sturdy presence always looking to help out his friends, try new restaurants, listen to new bands. He was a quiet pillar of strength holding up part of the world, a vital cohort in numerous little platoons, each blithely unaware of how much he meant to others.

I knew Andrew for over 35 years, so long ago that my initial meeting with him is lost in the dim mists of time. For the last 30 of those years, he was a member of the Saturday Dining Conspiracy, a loose affiliation of myself, Dwight Brown, and a rotating cast of friends and family who go out to a different restaurant for dinner every week, everything from hot dog and taco places to high end steak joints. Andrew was one of our core members, and BBQ and sushi seemed among his particular favorites. So I’ve seen Andrew most Saturdays for three decades. We probably demolished 100 plates of nachos between us.

And it wasn’t just for food! A quarter century or so ago, we started watching movies every night after dinner, with Andrew usually joining us for that as well. We’ve watched everything from All That Jazz to Suspira to Zulu to any number of Godzilla films. (We have eclectic tastes.) After I bought my house in 2004, it became the de facto movie viewing venue, despite not then having a large TV. Andrew had a video protector he used for teaching classes, and for the first year or two, we projected movies up on a white sheet.

Andrew wasn’t just friends to us, he was a friend to my dogs as well. He would race my Great Pyrenees Buddy up and down the stairs (“Go up! Go up! Go up!”) to burn off some of his energy, and my Lab/Pit mix Avery frequently found her way under the upraised legrest of the battered brown Lay-Z-Boy Andrew always sat in.

One thing missing from all the praise flowing in over Andrew is the dark sense of humor he shared with most of our group. When it came time to divvy up the dining bill, Andrew would often joke “In the end, we will all pay.” He was a fan of The Simpsons back when it was good (which, I know, really narrows it down to “every single person in my generation”), and especially liked the 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode where Bill Clinton and Bob Dole are replaced by space aliens, often quoting the line “It doesn’t matter which one of us you vote for, either way your planet is doomed! DOOMED!”

And he loved a good Hitler joke. “You know who else loved to paint?” And after Dolly Parton died, he showed us an AI generated picture of famous singers (Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, Elvis, etc.) welcoming her into heaven, only some wag had swapped out Elvis for Hitler. We laughed.

We grew up in the 1980s. Dark humor is just how we roll.

Long before I knew him, Andrew was a big music fan, and had collaborated with Karl Rehn on various musical projects in high school and college. We shared interests in Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Yes, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass and Slowdive, among many others. But Andrew’s tastes ran far afield and quite eclectic, championing such odd or obscure bands as Mr. Bungle, Tilts, Tobacco, Torche, and probably dozens I never even knew about. He was a regular attendee of Psych Fest and Levitation, the latter (which Andrew had tickets to attend) being this weekend.

He got into world music before I did, especially artists on Gabriel’s Realworld label. He was such a fan that he flew to England to work as a volunteer on the WOMAD festival. He picked up Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, all 300+ pounds of him, at an airport in a compact car, which must have been a sight to see. He complained to festival management about some of the ways he thought the artists were being treated, and received a snide, condescending letter for his troubles saying that he was being “disingenuous” and had a “hidden agenda.”

That inspired Andrew and Karl to form the band Hidden Agenda (now variously known as Hidden Agenda (of Evil) or Hidden Agenda (TX), depending on the music service, due to multiple other bands with the same name), which I would later join for (some) lyrics and vocals. The whole point of the band was to annoy people. We did a song called “Kill Yourself for Satan” and put Christian back-masking in, just so we could piss off everyone. See the FAQ (and ignore the security warning) for more details of what tremendous smartasses we were in our 20s. More recently Andrew had been playing with transforming Hidden Agenda songs into even more mutated forms via AI tools like Suno.

Apart from his myriad interests, Andrew spent his working life as a civil engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation and associated institutes. He seemed particularly proud of the Mobile Load Simulator, a giant machine he worked on to help test pavement to destruction. He was also a certified bridge inspector, and used to joke about closing bridges, setting them on fire, and then reopening them to see cars race through the flames. Here’s a video of Andrew giving a lecture on pavement fatigue.

Since so many in our group read science fiction, and Andrew came from a literary academic family, it was natural that we got him reading SF as well, and he subscribed to Nova Express, the SF critical fanzine I used to edit. He became a big fan of Howard Waldrop, another close friend of mine. I sold Andrew several of Howard’s books (among others) over the years.

Karl got Andrew into guns and shooting. He would go out on our group’s occasional trips to the range, see our various guns, and go “Ooo, I want that!” He eventually acquired quite a collection. We all greatly admired his ridiculously powerful (and loud) Desert Eagle.

Andrew had been following Iowahawk on Twitter for a while, and we went to a meetup when he moved to Austin. Andrew joined his orbit as a car enthusiast, frequently attending the Hot Rod Meetups at Top Notch Hamburgers, and other classic car events. Here’s a tribute from Iowahawk:

I won’t belabor the terrible circumstances of his death, which have been discussed in depth online recently. I am as angry and upset about his murder as anyone, but my car ID threads are designed as a sanctuary from the woes of the contemporary world. I would rather spare that anger for a different forum and choose here to focus on Andrew Wimsatt, the human being. He was a relentlessly cheerful and positive soul, I hope you will respect his spirit in your replies.

I think our mutual friend @AnnaZ perfectly summed up Andrew as “everybody’s biggest fan.” His various fandoms include countless bands, visual artists, podcasters, @wethefifth, @reason, @uaustinorg, and @TheFIREorg. And I am humbled that one of his fandoms was Dave’s Car ID Service.

You may have noticed from reading the various tributes to him over the past few days his adjectives: kind, generous, warm, positive, never had an unkind word about anyone. All true. But he seldom spoke about himself, despite having a very distinguished career as a civil engineer in road materials research. He was far more interested in talking about you, with zero expectation of anything in return. He was the least transactional person in a hyper-transactional world.

If you were lucky enough to have Andrew as a fan he was generous with his time and support, and in my case, that support included loads of his old family photos with mystery cars.

I can’t fully repay my debt to him for that. But I’d like to dedicate this episode of Dave’s Car ID Service to him, and use those photos to illustrate the life a genuine mensch.

“Least transactional person” seems right. I know if I were friends with important media personalities, the urge to blurt out “Put me on! Put me on! I’m smart and funny and well-spoken and ever so cleeeever!” would be overwhelming.

Andrew was firmly on the conservative-to-libertarian spectrum. He was a fan of this blog (and my Twitter account, before the ancien regime suspended it (which I never managed to get lifted)). I hold small election night gatherings at my house every two years where we eat pizza and watch returns roll in, and Andrew was a regular attendee. He was here in 2020, where we called it a night just before 3 AM, convinced President Trump had been reelected only to wake up to those mysterious 4:30 AM ballot drops.

He was a big fan of Gutfeld! and The Five. Such a fan that he started working behind the scenes compiling music and clips for them. Greg Gutfeld offered up a tribute to him on The Five:

More:

He was also a big fan of the libertarian We the Fifth podcast, and Matt Walsh put up this tribute.

We come here to remember and celebrate and express gratitude toward our friend Andrew, whose name will be etched permanently on our under-construction sixth floor recording studio, probably within the area where Never Fly Coachers will be invited to watch us podcast live. Busty, after all, probably witnessed us recording more than any other fan—coming to all the live shows except one, raising his hand on every damned Second Sunday, pouring drinks around the (very!) Stupid Table for Special Dispatch #34, post-gaming an episode or three back when we recorded at the DIY Paloma Media studio.

Andrew first buzzed across my radar in December 2013 when, over the course of a few days, three things happened for the first time: 1) The Independents television show, starring MTV’s Kennedy, Kmele, and myself, debuted on the Fox Business Network; 2) Wimsatt started following me on Twitter, and 3) he gave a four-figure donation to the Reason Foundation during our annual Webathon. It makes sense that these were related: Andrew l-o-v-e-d music, he adored the anarchic energy of Fox’s legendary late-nite show Red Eye (his pinned tweet for the past decade has been a celebration/compilation of Greg Gutfeld’s chosen outro music on The Five), and he was long attracted to the no-nonsense, structural-engineering ethos of Reason Foundation transportation-policy stalwart Bob Poole, whose annual highway report Andrew suggested improvements for.

We hung out for the first time in Austin back in September 2018, after which he started doing what Andrew Wimsatt does, which is send us (or just tweet out) clips of all us + others in the extended Fifth Column/Red Eye multiverse whenever we’d appear on other media. He was famously much quicker on the draw publicizing a new Fifth Column episode than any of the drunk co-hosts, and at some early point we just gave him the keys to our Facebook page. And oh yeah, did I know he actually saved most of the entire run of The Independents? (You can watch a few over at the Paloma Media YouTube page, which was chiefly the fruit of his labors.) When we started doing Patreon in November 2019, and created what we thought was an absurd, no-one-will-ever-go-there level of $50-a-month subscriptions, Andrew became one of the first few to Never Fly Coach. He would come to New York several times a year, including the last couple during our annual sojourns to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown. I took calling him “Busty,” for the very stupid reason that a funny British friend of mine back in the ‘90s would always refer to Kate Winslet as “Busty Winslet,” and this very accomplished transportation engineer not only took it in stride, he kind of beamed a bit when the nickname caught on in the community.

So that’s where the “Busty” nickname came, which I swear I never heard before he died.

Here’s one from Nancy Rommelmann, who Andrew brought as a guest to an SDC many moons ago.

Do you know those friends who seem to always have been around and you don’t recall when you first met? Andrew was like that, though the not-remembering could be because Andrew was so unprepossessing, mild and kind and never wanting to intrude, while in fact being both whip-smart and the person so many, many, many of us relied on to spread the word about our work. The Fifth Column, of which there was no bigger fan, had just about zero visibility, in terms of clips, until Andrew started to create them, quietly tugging the pod onto a bigger and bigger stage. Matt wrote yesterday about some of Andrew’s quiet, steady work on behalf of others.

Since Andrew’s absolutely senseless murder, we have learned that he did not just signal boost the Fifth, as he had for more than a decade for Red Eye and Greg Gutfield and anything involving Kat Timpf, all of whom have posted their shock and remembrance, but for others, some I have never heard of.

It is exactly like Andrew not to shine any spotlight on himself. He saw people whose work he liked, probably chortled to himself (he had a good deep chortle) that they could use a little help archiving that work, then did it and them the clips. I literally have a score of these clips from him, as well as twice as many SOSs.

Snip.

I can almost guarantee you that Matt and I would have been texting Andrew that Thursday morning about the frozen computer, and that no matter where he was or what he was doing, Andrew would have responded immediately to tell us how to fix it or that he’d be on it as soon as he was by his laptop.

Snip.

He was also – and I learning this more and more as the days go by and we touch base with people Andrew knew – a Zelig of sorts, appearing wherever you were gathered, at a Fifth live show in LA, at a Cuckoo’s Nest remembrance in Tulsa, at a meet-up in Chicago. As his friend Karl Rehn told me last week, “You’d say to Andrew, ‘I’m going to such and such music show in New Jersey,’ or Las Vegas, and he’d say, ‘Great, I’ll meet you there.’” Andrew always showed up.

More tributes:

Andrew Wimsatt spent his life figuring out how to make things last longer.

Roads, bridges, tunnels, pavement, friendships.

He held three civil engineering degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, spent 18 years at TxDOT, ten of them as Fort Worth District Pavement Engineer, and in 2006 joined the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, where he eventually ran the Materials and Pavements Division and its $9 million annual research program. He worked on ground-penetrating radar, nondestructive testing, asset management.

Describing the work once, he said the real challenge wasn’t building new things; it was making what we already have last longer.

Andrew made what we already have last longer.

He was an obsessive live-music fan who would fly across the country to see a band. He loved Slowdive. In 2023 he was recommending “Souvlaki” and “everything is alive” to anyone who’d listen, singled out their cover of Syd Barrett’s “Golden Hair,” and admitted that when he heard them play it at FYF in 2014, he teared up. In 2016, when bad weather killed Levitation and Slowdive threw together a surprise show at the Scoot Inn, Andrew happened to be sitting at his computer and grabbed two $7.50 tickets in the roughly two minutes before it sold out. Then he recorded the entire set on his iPhone for a friend.

I was the one who used the other ticket. And Andrew got to know at least two members of Slowdive (and possible all of them), one of whom, Simon Scott, helped engineer an album with him.

He made music too. He’d been in bands with Karl Rehn since high school, engineered their home cassette recordings in the early 1980s, and in 1990 released “Reflections” under the name the Andrew Wimsatt Ensemble, cut at Sixth Street Studio. He and Rehn made music videos that ran for years on Austin’s ACTV, and contributed to the score of a 1994 documentary about Barton Springs.

And more tributes:

I could have posted dozens if not hundreds more tributes. It seems both overwhelming and strangely inadequate.

I didn’t anticipate how big the story of Andrew’s murder would be, though I probably should have. The parallels with Iryna Zarutska’s murder are painfully obvious. My initial post may or may not have been the first pebble that started that avalanche, but when your friend’s murder in Texas is news in England and India, many including the tuxedo photo I took of Andrew at A.T. and Carol Campbell’s wedding that accompanied my initial blog post, it tends to give you pause.

And now politicians, including some I support, are coming out of the woodwork to talk about his murder.

I’m pretty sure Dustin Burrows couldn’t have picked Andrew out of a lineup with a gun to his head.

It’s weird to see someone you knew transformed from a man into a martyr for a cause less than a week after his death. Even if it’s a cause you believe in. Even if it’s done by your side. Unsettling. And maybe a little unseemly.

Politics has been played as a blood sport for a long, long time, and I’ve delivered my fair share of rhetorical blows. But the flood of stories had me going “Wait, that detail is not quite right,” and made me wonder how many errors I’ve unwittingly spread here reposting “hot takes” on different stories.

It’s the modern condition. Or the post-modern condition. For a long time, Americans naively believed we had a news media that at least tried to report objectively, but the rise of the alternate news sources on the Internet proved that wasn’t so. But it’s particularly hard watching the sausage being made when it’s someone you know being fed into the machine. (Probably the wrong metaphor to use here.)

As the pitted olive on top of this shit sandwich, Nancy Rommelmann sent me a note pointing out that some scumbag scammer is raising money in Andrew’s name. Losing someone is bad enough without the human cockroaches shuffling out of the shadows to feed. Here’s a form to complain to. Update: In a tiny bit of good news, the scam fundraiser for Andrew has been “unpublished.”

I’m in touch with Andrew’s family, and once they get together any sort of fundraiser (and an obituary and memorial website, etc.), I’ll let you know here.

It still feels a bit overwhelming. This post is pretty long already, but I fear I haven’t adequately captured the smart, goofy friend I knew. But it will have to do.

Feel free to share memories of Andrew in the comments below.

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Posted in Austin, Crime, Republicans, Texas | 5 Comments »

My Friend Was Murdered On Labor Day

Thursday, September 10th, 2026

Andrew Wimsatt, a friend for over thirty-five years, a regular member of the Saturday Dining Conspiracy (and the movie night afterwards) and an all-around standup guy, was murdered on Labor Day.

New details have emerged in a homicide investigation in Williamson County.

The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office responded to the 2400 block of Chandler Creek Boulevard on Monday after a report of an injured person. Deputies arrived to find a person who was later pronounced dead by medics. The agency’s Investigation Division determined the death to be a homicide.

Investigators identified 26-year-old Benedict Ogbodiegwu of Round Rock as a suspect. Court documents identify the victim as 62-year-old Andrew James Wimsatt.

According to court documents obtained by KVUE, a witness called 911 after finding what appeared to be a dead person near a park bench. Authorities obtained video footage of the incident. After reviewing the footage, the sheriff’s office said it showed a Black man with braids or locks and light-colored tips and a dark goatee holding a knife in his right hand. The man appeared to approach a white man from behind and repeatedly strike him in the neck with a knife while wrapping his left arm around the victim, according to the documents.

The victim allegedly tried to defend himself but was unable to, the sheriff’s office said. The footage showed the victim was stabbed multiple times before falling to the ground. The suspect then ran toward a neighborhood area, the documents state.

Detectives later found Ogbodiegwu at a home on Matagorda Drive in Round Rock. He matched the description of the person in the park surveillance video and in footage from a McDonald’s restaurant in Round Rock following the alleged incident, where video showed the suspect leaving the parking lot as a passenger in a red SUV.

A search warrant at the home led investigators to a white trash bag in an outdoor trash can. Inside, they found a 5.5-inch-bladed knife with a wooden handle and a red substance. The substance was tested for human blood using a Bluestar identi-hem test and showed a presumptive positive reaction, according to court documents.

Documents state clothing and a knife found in the trash matched what the suspect wore and used in the fatal stabbing, according to video footage reviewed by investigators.

Following this incident, Ogbodiegwu was taken into custody and is facing a murder charge. Investigators said Tuesday they believe the attack was random and that the victim and suspect did not know each other.

Andrew was murdered by a thug for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His mother is in a nursing home in the area, and he would regularly visit her and take her out for a walk. According to the family, he would do one walk with her, and then one walk alone, and it was during that second walk when this random thug murdered him for no reason. (His mother was unharmed.)

I looked into whether some of the themes covered by this blog applied to Andrew’s murder, but as far as I can tell Ogbodiegwu was not an illegal alien and does not appear to have been released on bail for previous offenses in Travis County. (See update here.) (Edited to add: I’m hearing reports that I may be wrong on both these counts. Feel free to share additional information in the comments below.)

Writing about the murder just makes me mad, so let’s talk about Andrew.

I first met Andrew through Karl Rehn, because Karl and I were both prog rock fans who traded tapes in college at UT. Andrew had been bandmates with Karl in high school, and roommates shortly after college. I remember playing P. D. Q. Bach’s “Prelude to Einstein on the Fritz” in their shared apartment, telling him it was the latest Philip Glass CD. When it got to the “Ko-Hosti-Tatsi” part, Andrew went “This isn’t Philip Glass.” Karl, Andrew and I were also in a band together whose entire point was to piss people off.

Being smart, geeky and well-read, Andrew naturally slipped into the orbit of my group of friends. In addition to his existing love of music, Andrew was easy to get involved in your own interests, be it science fiction, guns or politics. I sold him several books over the years, and he ended up driving Howard Waldrop and Ellen Brody back to Austin from the 2013 San Antonio Worldcon. Karl and I might have sucked him into politics equally, to the point he was doing some behind-the-scenes work for The Greg Gutfeld Show and the We the Fifth podcast. Andrew frequently flew across the country to catch a show for one of the many bands he followed, or for watching the taping of a political show. He was even an executive producer on the Penn Jillette film Director’s Cut.

Andrew loved all sorts of obscure bands I’d never heard of, but I was the one who introduced him to Slowdive. We saw three Slowdive shows in Austin, in addition to a King Crimson show and a very intense Filter/Everclear show at Liberty Lunch right after both those bands burst into prominence in the 1990s.

Andrew was a devoted son and brother, who helped care for both his ailing mother and his father James, a literary academic and occasional SDC member who died at age 96 in 2023.

Andrew spent his career as a civil engineer working for the Texas Department of Transportation and related entities. He spent stints in Fort Worth and College Station, but even then frequently drove back to Austin on weekends to see his friends.

I saw Andrew two days before he was murdered, when he came over Saturday to watch movies with us, where he saw the giant collection of books someone gave me and we watched the MST3K version of The Crawling Hand.

His murder offers up several bitter ironies. He was a CHL/LTC holder who likely would have survived his assault had he been carrying that day. (See update here.) He owned a condo in the crime hotspot that is downtown Austin but was killed in nominally safe suburban Round Rock. Both his parents were long-lived, and Andrew, who frequently walked several miles a day, probably would have lived to a ripe old age had he not been cut down.

He was a sturdy friend, and I will miss him greatly.

Now that he’s gone, the years grow colder, and more silent.

Always be aware of your surroundings, and take whatever precautions you can to avoid (or survive) encounters with random criminals or lunatics. Make a will (I need to do this).

Tomorrow is promised to no one.

Update: Promoting Greg Gutfeld’s post from the comments:

man, this is horrible and shocking. Andrew was one of the nicest, most selfless people i’ve ever met. i’m so sorry for you, and for all of us who knew him. if you have any details on how to help, you have my email.
we are reeling over the news here at gutfeld. he was a regular at our shows, and always lent a hand clipping videos. The whole thing is sickening.

Update 2: Some notables weigh in on Twitter:

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Posted in Austin, Crime | 22 Comments »

Austin Seeking Another Rail Boondoggle?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2026

You might remember Austin’s light rail boondoggle, which is now scaled back, behind schedule, and very possibly illegal. (For the current status on that project, see here.)

Now more Austin elites, in the form of the Travis County Commissioner’s Court (an organization so far in the shadow of the Austin City Council that I didn’t previously have a tag for them) has funded the study of a high speed rail line between Austin and San Antonio, the price tag for which would be a staggering $13.5 Billion.

A high-speed rail line between Austin and San Antonio would cost about $13.5 billion to build, according to a recent feasibility study commissioned by Travis County Commissioners Court.

The study conducted by HNTB Corporation assessed the potential of a high-speed rail route between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the Amtrak station in San Antonio along State Highway 130 and Interstate 10.

Running from an airport in one city to an Amtrak station in another? Who the hell is this line for, tourists who want to save money traveling to San Antonio? It certainly doesn’t seem geared for the benefit of actual Travis County residents, especially now that the theoretical Project Connect light rail link to Bergstrom has been cancelled.

Also, if you’re going 130 to I-10 to San Antonio, you’re missing the bigger I-35 cities like Kyle, San Marcos and New Braunfels in favor of smaller cities Lockhart and Seguin. I guess the plan is to keep it high speed because almost no one will want to visit the smaller bergs on the train line.

The proposed route would run at about 125 miles per hour with a travel time of about an hour between the two cities.

Sure it would. Pretty much no U.S. “high speed rail” services hit their theoretical maximum because they stop too often and the track’s not straight enough to maintain top speed for long.

Travis County approved $125,000 to fund the feasibility study in October 2025.

The proposed 89-mile route presents challenges because of the many cross-street overpasses and an existing right-of-way that has minimal space to accommodate the rail route. These challenges contribute to the $13.5 billion price tag by requiring much of the route to be elevated.

The high-speed rail would also cost $190 million to operate and maintain annually, according to the report.

That works out to some $520,000 a day in ongoing operating costs paid by the taxpayers.

The feasibility study did not include ridership or fare estimates for the proposed high-speed rail line.

Acela serves just under 9,000 passengers a day. Even if the proposed Austin-San Antonio leg got that many (it won’t; even a thousand a day is probably too many), that results in a cost of over $4,000 per passenger per day over the first year in fixed costs alone. At 1,000 riders, it’s more like $36,000 a passenger per day the first year. For that price you could buy every rider their own Honda Civic, and save the taxpayer gobs of money over the other 364 days of the year (and 15-20 years more to boot). Including the ongoing costs adds a $520 taxpayer subsidy per rider per day.

The actual Austin Amtrak ridership in 2025 was 47,030. Not per day. Not per week. Not per month. That’s the total yearly ridership to all destinations.

Maybe my 1,000 estimate is way too optimistic.

There’s also this: “A separate TxDOT study found expanded passenger service on existing tracks could cost as little as $800 million.” Even that is too much for how much such a line would actually be used. Intercity passenger rail is a money loser everywhere it’s run, and only sorta, kinda works in the northeast because of a much higher population density. Even there it’s heavily subsidized, and even the fastest train, Amtrak’s Acela, only saves just over an hour over a car trip between D.C. and New York City.

Leftists everywhere love rail because it’s an endless source of graft in the planning and building stages, and a superior means of surveilling and controlling the population. How are you supposed to inflict socialism on the peasants if they can just climb in their car and drive away?

All this is a boondoggle in search of a problem, as low cost mass transit between Austin and San Antonio already exists in the form of buses, with fares starting at as little as $11. But that’s not a desirable form of transportation for liberal elites, because riding a bus doesn’t show how smugly superior they are over ordinary people. Plus they have to rub shoulders with both the peasants they disdain and the illegal aliens they’ve inflicted on them.

This proposed train project makes zero economic sense, benefits very few Austinites, costs taxpayers dearly, will be an endless source of graft, and, like California’s Train to Nowhere, will never actually be built.

For all those reasons, expect Austin Democrats to keep pushing for it.

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Posted in Austin, Democrats, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 8 Comments »

LinkSwarm For June 19, 2026

Friday, June 19th, 2026

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

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

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Clearly, somebody did.

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

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

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

    From the report:

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

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

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

    2) The attackers are overwhelmingly Muslim foreigners.

    From the report:

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

    And:

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

    The report does not pull punches in its conclusion:

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

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

    From the report:

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

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

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

    From the report:

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

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

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

    5) Authorities purposefully and willfully ignored the mass abuse.

    From the report:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Snip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    School choice programs could also affect future trends.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Eternal vigilance…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Debts are for the little people…

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

      Everyone else survived.

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

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





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      Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 13 Comments »

      Is Abbott Finally Cleaning Up Austin’s Homeless Mess?

      Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025

      Ever since Steve Adler and the Austin City Council voted to let drug addicted transients camp on Austin streets, the city has been a magnet for sturdy beggars across the state They flocked to Austin to “party,” a situation only partially cured by reinstating the “camping” ban. After proposition B, the larger homeless camps were cleared, but smaller ones continued to exist around the city.

      Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been more than critical of the move from the very beginning, threatening state action to clean up Austin’s mess:

      According to this press release, Abbott is finally following through on his threats.

      Governor Greg Abbott today announced an operation dedicated to making Austin safer and cleaner by relocating homeless individuals and removing encampments in and around the capital city and state property.

      “Texans should not endure public safety risks from homeless encampments and individuals,” said Governor Abbott. “Weapons, needles, and other debris should not litter the streets of our community, and the State of Texas is taking action. I directed state agencies to address this risk and make Austin safer and cleaner for residents and visitors to live, travel, and conduct business.”

      The operation, led by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) in close coordination with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Texas State Guard, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), has led to a cleaner, safer Austin.

      Homeless individuals violating state law or local ordinances will be arrested and debris created by homeless encampments will be removed. Since the operation began late last week, Texas has arrested numerous individuals for a variety of criminal offenses, and removed firearms, drug paraphernalia, and encampments from public areas across Austin.

      Since the operation began late last week, The State of Texas has:

    • Removed 48 encampments
    • Removed over 3,000 pounds of debris
    • Arrested 24 repeat felony offenders
    • Seized over 125 grams of narcotics

      • During the camp cleanup operations, ten subjects have been found to have outstanding warrants. Several of these individuals were identified in their warrants as being armed and dangerous and exhibiting violent tendencies. One subject was wanted out of state for Aggravated Escape from Custody. Additionally, 24 of the subjects arrested were identified as repeat felony offenders.

      This is good news, and getting any repeat felons off the streets makes things safer for law-abiding Austinites. There are a few news stories on the cleanup, but none that I can see with any more details than are in the governor’s press release. In particular, I’m not seeing a map of those 48 cleared camps. I haven’t traveled around to see if the (generally very small) homeless camps in northwest Travis and southern Williamson counties have been cleared, but I suspect they haven’t.

      Though, what do you know, the City of Austin has announced they’re doing homeless camp cleanups as well “according to a memo from Director of Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations David Gray.”

      “According to another memo obtained by KXAN regarding results from the first day of that surge, the city cleaned up 46 encampments and visited 29 more for outreach Monday. ‘Most people agreed to leave voluntarily, and staff connected several people to shelter and/or additional services.'” Well, if they’re in the shelter, it’s easier for the Homeless Industrial Complex to rake money off them. I also wonder if they’re just double-counting the sites state troopers already cleared.

      Alder and the Austin City Council’s foolish policies put Austin in a deep hole in terms of dealing with the drug-addicted lunatics lured here. It will probably take more homeless site cleanups before they move elsewhere.

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      Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

      Has Trump Finally Killed The Train To Nowhere?

      Thursday, July 17th, 2025

      Longtime readers will remember the Texas vs. California updates I did for many years, until the bad news out of California became such a torrent that it took too long to compile them. One reoccurring feature in those posts were updates on the “high speed rail to nowhere”

      Now comes word that the Trump Administration may have finally driven a stake through its heart.

      President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy canceled the $4 billion funding meant for California’s high-speed rail train….

      The plan started 16 years ago. California has spent $15 billion but never built one high-speed track.

      Duffy’s press release noted that the “$135 billion projected total cost of the project could buy every San Francisco and LA resident nearly 200 roundtrip flights between the cities.”

      Trump wrote on Truth Social:

      To the Law abiding, Tax paying, Hardworking Citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, “HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE.” This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns. The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will. This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED. Thanks to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again. This was an ill-conceived and unnecessary project, and a total waste of Taxpayer money — But no more!

      Duffy started an investigation into the train in February, reviewing two grants:

    • $929 million Cooperative Agreement from 2010
    • $3.07 billion Cooperative Agreement from last year

      • In June, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) told the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) that the review “identified a trail of project delays, mismanagement, waste, and skyrocketing costs.”

      “This is California’s fault. Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check – they come with a promise to deliver results. After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget,” declared Duffy. “It’s time for this boondoggle to die. President Trump and I will always fight to ensure your tax dollars only go to projects that accomplish great, big, beautiful things.”

      It became very clear, very early on that California’s high speed rail would never be built, but the one party blue state insisted on pushing on in order to continue raking off the graft and featherbedding, as well as an unshakable belief in anthropocentric global warming and a desire to take the proles out of their hated cars and pickup trucks and cram them into trains so as to better control their movements. The project should have been killed a long, long time ago.

      At least now, the only taxpayer money California’s government will be wasting is that of its own taxpayers.

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      Posted in Democrats, Waste and Fraud | 5 Comments »

      Texas Mini-News Roundup for July 13, 2023

      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.)

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      Posted in Austin, Border Control, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

      Austin Half-Asses Its Homeless Problem

      Tuesday, November 12th, 2019

      The problem with posting about Austin’s ongoing homeless problem is where to stop gathering data and throw up a post, since the left-wing politicians who created the problem refuse to do anything about solving it. So let’s just dig in:

      When last we checked, Austin’s downtown areas had become increasingly overrun by homeless drug addicts thanks to Austin mayor Steve Adler and the City Council repealing the urban camping ordinance. After watching this clown show, a little over a month ago Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared that if Adler wouldn’t fix his own problem, the state would. As per his word, last week the Texas Department of Transportation started clearing homeless camps from underpasses.

      In between then, faced with obvious evidence of a how massively they screwed up, and that actual citizens hated their newly trashed city, Adler and the city council boldly decided to half ass the issue:

      After the Austin City Council voted to lift a ban on homeless camping, sitting and lying, city leaders have decided to make some changes at a council meeting Oct. 17.

      The changes mean camping on all city sidewalks will be banned, but sitting and lying down will not – unless it is 15 feet from an operating business. Camping, sitting or lying downtown around the ARCH will be banned, within a quarter mile of the area. That rule will eventually apply to the South Austin homeless shelter when it is built.

      Camping, sitting and lying will also be banned in high wildfire risk zones, which is 14% of the city, or if it is endangering the health or safety of the public. It was approved by a 7-4 vote.

      The four nays were Kathie Tovo, Leslie Pool, Ann Kitchen and Alison Alter, who supported a more specific plan that would add bans in more areas and make the ordinance clearer for enforcement.

      Underpasses were not addressed in the changes on Thursday.

      So transients camping on business sidewalks are right out, but open public spaces next to ordinary citizens are evidently A-OK to camp and shoot-up on.

      Two days ago, the Texas Department of transportation opened a camp for the homeless near 183 and Montopolis Drive. (Montopolis is one of the last ungentrified black neighborhoods in Austin.) DPS troopers are patrolling the camp 24 hours a day. My prediction is that this will help some, but the majority of homeless won’t avail themselves of it because they won’t be permitted to buy and use drugs there.

      The City Council is also considering buying a motel for $8 million to house the homeless:

      The Austin City Council on Thursday will consider allocating $8 million to purchase an motel in South Austin to provide housing for people who are homeless.

      The property is a Rodeway Inn at 2711 Interstate 35 South, between Oltorf Drive and Woodward Street, with 82 units.

      “The property is an ideal location given the proximity to areas where individuals who are experiencing homelessness live, accessible by public transportation, close to major arterials, and within reasonable distance of health care facilities,” city documents say.

      That seems to be about four times what it’s actually worth:

      I’m sure property owners in the Riverside/Oltorf area, which had been undergoing gradual gentrification from it’s immediate sleazy past, will be happy to have drug-using transients imported into their neighborhood on a permanent basis.

      Chuck DeVore, who fled California’s dysfunction only to see it crop up again in Austin, has some clear-eyed observations on the problem:

      Last summer, the all-Democratic 10-member Austin City Council voted to lift the city’s ban on sleeping or camping on public property, such as sidewalks and parks – except for City Hall itself.

      Immediately following the vote, Austin’s visible homeless population soared, with people passed out in the doorways of businesses, erecting tents along busy parkways and, according to police, getting hit and killed by cars.

      Responding to criticism from city residents, including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott (who lives in downtown Austin in the governor’s mansion), the City Council passed an amendment to its homeless camping ordinance last month. The new rules made it illegal for the homeless to camp within a quarter-mile of a large downtown homeless shelter.

      The amended ordinance quickly pushed more of the homeless into the city’s business district, leading a manager of one of Austin’s famous food trucks to note that the increased chaos on the streets was threatening to his customers.

      In his Fox News interview, Adler, a Democrat, repeatedly said the homeless problem can only be solved by giving people homes. He blamed the homelessness issue on the high cost of housing.

      Adler also claimed that the new ordinance didn’t create more people experiencing homelessness, but rather simply drew them into the open from the woodlands and greenbelts where they had previously been staying, mostly out of sight.

      However, a Fox News reporter recently interviewed a homeless man in Austin who had a different take, saying: “This is a famous place to live on the streets. Everybody knows that. If you want to live on the streets, go to Austin. You don’t even have to buy food. Everybody feeds you, give you money. You can party, it’s a blast.”

      Adler referred to getting the homeless into homes at least a half-dozen times during his interview, mentioning medical care once. This is what’s known in policy circles as a “housing first” strategy. The mayor’s intent was made clear when, near the end of his interview, he claimed that Austin needed “no barrier housing.”

      What is “housing first” and “no barrier housing”?

      “Housing first” is a federal policy that prohibits nonprofits receiving federal grants from requiring the people they serve to comply with service participation requirements like sobriety or job training – this is also the “no barrier housing” to which Adler referred.

      So, in short: Sturdy beggars comes to Austin to get high and mooch off bleeding hearts. We should start calling them “Adlers.”

      Because up to 75 percent of unsheltered people struggle with substance abuse disorders, a one-size-fits all “housing first” policy often ends up harming the very people it purports to help – recovering addicts and domestic violence survivors – by placing them in close proximity to addicts and abusers. This incentivizes program models that don’t work.

      Unlike the Trump administration’s successful approach to the opioid crisis – which recognizes individual needs – “housing first” failed to address the root causes of homelessness. For many people, the root cause of their homelessness is drug addiction and untreated mental illness. In that sense, “housing first” threatens to undermine the progress being made on the national opioid crisis.

      So why haven’t Adler and the City Council reversed course despite huge public opposition to their move? Some say because of all the money to be raked off for the “Homeless Industrial Complex”:

      Here’s how the process works: Developers accept public money to build these projects to house the homeless – either “bridge housing,” or “permanent supportive housing.” Cities and counties collect building fees and hire bureaucrats for oversight. The projects are then handed off to nonprofits with long term contracts to run them.

      That doesn’t sound so bad, right? The problem is the price tag. Developers don’t just build housing projects, they build ridiculously overpriced, overbuilt housing projects. Cities and counties don’t just collect building fees, they collect outrageously expensive building fees, at the same time as they create a massive bureaucracy. The nonprofits don’t just run these projects – the actual people staffing these shelters aren’t overpaid – they operate huge bureaucratic empires with overhead and executive salaries that do nothing for the homeless.

      Many examples of how this works in California snipped.

      Recognize that a special interest, the Homeless Industrial Complex – comprised of developers, government bureaucrats, and activist nonprofits – has taken over the homeless agenda and turned it into a profit center. They are not going to solve the problem, they are going to milk it. Their PR firms will sell compliant media a feel-good story about someone who turned their life around, living in a fine new apartment. What they won’t tell you is that because of the $400,000 they charged to build that single apartment unit, dozens if not hundreds of people are still on the street with nothing.

      For examples of what Adler and company’s decisions have wrought:

      More:

      And it’s had extreme negative effects on Austin businesses:

      Even former mayor Lee Leffingwell (hardly a conservative) says that the repeal of the camping ban was a huge mistake.

      More complaints from the citizenry:

      And Rep. Dan Crenshaw weighed in as well:

      And today Austin is getting its first seasonal hard freeze, with homeless shelters expecting an influx.

      None of the actions Adler and the Austin City Council have taken since repealing the camping ban have addressed the central issue: their actions made Austin streets a Mecca for sturdy beggars and drug-addicted lunatics. Either they restore the ban, or Austin voters need to recall and/or vote them out.

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      Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, video, Welfare State | 2 Comments »