Posts Tagged ‘Tranny Bathrooms’
Tuesday, December 30th, 2025
Via Holly Hansen in The Texan News comes a culture war skirmish that checks off a lot of this blog’s interest boxes: Williamson County GOP Chair Michelle Evans had her phone seized documenting a man using the women’s restroom, and now she has a powerful ally in the war against transsexual madness.
Social media giant X announced it will provide legal backing to a Texas Republican activist who faces felony prosecution for posting a photo of an alleged biological male in the women’s restroom at the Texas Capitol.
In the midst of a 2023 debate at the Capitol over legislation prohibiting gender modification procedures for minor children, Williamson County Republican Party Chair Michelle Evans posted the photo of a clothed person at a public bathroom sink on X in May 2023 and wrote that she had to tell the “man to stop using the women’s restroom at the Capitol.”
Hours later, police detained Evans and confiscated her phone, and Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza launched a criminal investigation into whether Evans had violated a state law prohibiting taking photographs or videos of individuals in bathrooms or changing rooms.
Although Garza has not indicted Evans, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office (TCDAO) still has possession of her phone.
“I just want my phone back,” Evans told The Texan. “I’m not worried about anything in particular, but I’m not going to give up anytime soon. Garza can continue to investigate me, charge me. But what I can do is make sure that it’s on the record that this was a safety issue for the women that were in that bathroom.”
Remember that Texas finally passed the The Texas Women’s Privacy Act, barring men from women’s bathrooms this year, and the law took effect December 4th. If Evans were to take such a picture today, she would be documenting evidence of a crime.
Garza, of course, is Travis County’s Soros-backed lefty DA, who seems far more interested in defending men in women’s bathrooms than protecting Austinites from criminals.
Evans has maintained that the person in the photograph is a biological male who was in the Capitol to testify on Senate Bill (SB) 14, and she told The Texan that said person had publicly announced as a candidate for Texas House District 64.
Several weeks after the confiscation of her phone, Evans filed a federal lawsuit accusing Garza of violating her free speech rights, but a lower court rejected Evans’ request for an injunction. Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a split opinion on Evans’ appeal of the case with two justices affirming the lower court’s decision.
The majority noted that Garza had not yet filed charges against Evans and thus the lower court had appropriately applied a legal doctrine that limits federal intervention in state matters, but in his dissent, Justice Andrew Oldham argued that the court had created a “Catch-22” for Evans that would prevent her from seeking an injunction at all, and that the mere threat of criminal charges had already created an injury and inhibited her First Amendment right to free speech.
“Evans has undoubtedly suffered an irreparable injury,” wrote Oldham. “While Garza decides whether to charge Evans, her First Amendment rights hang in ‘limbo.’ She must ‘self-censor’ from further publishing the purportedly illegal photograph.”
In support of Evans’ right to injunctive relief, Oldham asserted that “the loss of First Amendment freedoms from Day 1 is an irreparable injury.”
He also noted that the Texas law prohibited collection of images with the “intent to invade the privacy of a person,” but that Evans’ posted photograph was of a fully clothed person at a sink, not in an “intimate” setting.
“Insofar as we have to guess, it should be obvious that DA Garza will not be able to prove that Evans had the ‘intent to invade the privacy of the other person,’” wrote Oldham.
Evans is now asking for an en banc consideration of her case that would allow all 17 justices of the 5th Circuit Court to weigh in.
She will have additional legal representation provided by X itself.
X owner Elon Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist,” purchased the social media platform in 2022, citing many users’ complaints of censored content as one of his motivations.
True, but an even more basic reason for Musk’s intervention is social justice sorts turning his son Xavier trans. This was probably the key moment in which Musk started his journey from vaguely libertarian leftist to a Trump ally.
Evans said she has not communicated with Musk himself but that members of X’s legal team contacted her earlier this month.
X’s Global Government Affairs released a statement Monday morning in support of Evans.
Evans has a strong case on First Amendment ground, but an even stronger case in the court of public opinion, where insisting men can use a women’s restroom just because they’ve declared they’re women remains deeply unpopular. Tranny bathroom mandates were an early sign of just how far Democrats were willing to go to impose radical social justice on the nation under Obama, and have proven widely loathed everywhere they’ve been imposed. When put to a vote in Houston (hardly a deep red city), tranny bathrooms went down in flames.
Bill by bill, lawsuit by lawsuit, the transsexual madness social justice-infected Democrats tried to inflict on America is being rolled back, and women across the across the country can breathe a sign of relief.
Tags:Andrew Oldham, Austin, Elon Musk, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, First Amendment, Free Speech, Holly Hansen, Jose Garza, Lawsuit, Michelle Evans, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, The Texan News, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual, Travis County, Twitter, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »
Friday, December 26th, 2025
I hope everyone had a great Christmas! GDP says that some of the economy is already booming, Minnesota Somali fraud is even greater than we thought, Nigerian jihadis get dirtnapped, California drives yet more businesses out, another Democrat pedophile busted, Trump cleared in Epstein scandal by NYT, some cursed gun images, and some leftover Christmas cheer.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Is the Trump Boom here? “US Economy Grows By Big 4.3% In Third Quarter.” I can hardly wait for this booming economy to catch up with me…
“Minnesota Somalia Community Fraud Likely to Exceed $9 Billion.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, 14 Medicaid services currently under audit and deemed “high risk” have cost the state $18 billion since 2018. “I don’t make these generalizations in a hasty way,” he said. “When I say significant amount, I’m talking on the order of half or more. But we’ll see. When I look at the claims data and the providers, I see more red flags than I see legitimate providers.”
Thompson said during a press conference announcing new indictments that entire companies were created not to provide medical services but to pocket federal funds for international travel, luxury vehicles and lavish lifestyles. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
Thompson then outlined an industry of “fraud tourism” where some outsiders -specifically two from Philadelphia- even travelled to the state to participate in the financial windfalls. The scheme was “easy money,” he said.
Why, it’s almost as if the Democrats running the state didn’t try to stop the fraud…
Ukraine continued to hit Russian oil infrastructure by hitting a fourth oil and gas platform in the Caspian Sea.
They also used Storm Shadow to hit a refinery at Novoshakhtinsk.
they also hit a variety of targets, including a Spetznaz headquarters in Donetsk.
President Trump ordered the bombing of multiple Islamic State terrorist camps in Nigeria, with the permission of the Nigerian government.
Nigerian foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, has told broadcaster ChannelsTV that he was on the phone with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and that Nigeria “provided” the intelligence.
“We spoke twice. We spoke for 19 minutes before the strike and then we spoke again for another five minutes before it went on,” Tuggar said.
He added that they spoke “extensively” and that President Bola Tinubu gave “the go-ahead” to launch the strikes.
Tuggar did not rule out further strikes, describing them as an “ongoing process” that would also involve other countries.
In an interview with the BBC, Tuggar insisted the strikes had “nothing to do with a particular religion”. He said the operation did not have “anything to do with Christmas, it could be any other day – it is to do with attacking terrorists who have been killing Nigerians”.
Of course, the Islamic State has everything to do with religion, but it’s smart to say “We’re not killing Muslims, we’re killing terrorists.”
The BBC has more information on the strikes, saying they hit not Boko Haram, but “a smaller group [known] locally as Lakurawa” that “sought to establish a base in north-western Sokoto state.” DoD images released suggest the use of Tomahawk cruise missiles, but I haven’t seen any confirmation of the weapons used in the strikes.
Harsh but fair: “Democrats are letting criminal illegal immigrants kill people.”
Democrats are allowing people to be murdered by illegal immigrants so they can brag that they are not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This is the reality of the most recent case in Fairfax County, Virginia. There, El Salvadoran national Marvin Morales Ortez had been jailed and charged with multiple crimes after “maliciously wounding” someone who was living in the same home with him. When the alleged victim did not show up to testify, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office dropped the charges, and a judge ordered Ortez to be released. He was then arrested after allegedly murdering the same person he had injured, not even a day after being released.
ICE had put a detainer request on Ortez, given that he was an illegal immigrant, but Fairfax County refused to honor it and hand him over to be deported. Now, someone is dead. And this is not the first time there has been an issue with Ortez; Descano dropped murder charges against him from a 2019 killing where he had, according to Descano’s own office, confessed to participating in the murder. He has been charged with at least seven crimes in Fairfax County over the past five years, but Descano has dropped charges against him multiple times.
And, sure enough, he is also an alleged member of MS-13.
There are some questions to be asked here. For one, how can you be unable to prosecute an alleged MS-13 member after bringing charges against him multiple times? Descano’s office has constantly claimed noncooperation by the alleged victims, as if that is an insurmountable obstacle. But, more importantly, why not just hand him over to ICE, send him back to El Salvador, and never play this cat-and-mouse game where you arrest him for crimes and drop the charges the moment the case is more difficult than a slam dunk?
This guy could have been deported at any time, and yet he was allowed to stay free in Fairfax County through dropped charges and ignored ICE detainers. The Democrats who run Fairfax County are so obsessed with supporting illegal immigration that they allowed an alleged murderer to stay in the country, constantly released him from jail, and watched him allegedly commit another murder in the process.
This is the mindset of Democrats across the country in all sanctuary states, cities, and jurisdictions. They care more about protecting the concept of illegal immigration than they do about the lives of the people who are being victimized by illegal immigrants.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has posted a woman’s privacy complaint form. So if any of you woman see a man pretending to be a woman using your restrooms, now you know where to report them.
Good news, everyone! California officials are not allowed to lie to parents about their children.
California state officials received an emphatic legal rebuke over public school policies that required school officials to withhold from parents the gender identity or “social transition” expressions of minor students.
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled yesterday in a summary judgment decision that California’s parental exclusion policies are unconstitutional and issued a class-wide permanent injunction in the case of Mirabelli v. Olson.
The injunction permanently blocks California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state’s Department of Education from forcing teachers to lie to parents about their children being socially transitioned with new names and pronouns.
I hope every parent who had their child “transitioned” sues the asses off the groomers.
Speaking of crazy trannies: “Transgender felon who blinded Seattle woman was arrested and released 8 times this year.”
Because the People’s Republic of California wasn’t doing enough to destroy business in their state, they’re passing on more business-destroying taxes.
We may never run out of signs that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is an utterly incompetent executive who belongs nowhere near power. The latest is that he has not repaid a federal pandemic unemployment loan, effectively creating a new California tax on jobs.
During the 2020 pandemic, the Trump administration provided loans to states to help address unemployment as businesses were shut down. California received a loan of $20 billion and, more than five years later, has not paid it back. In fact, California is one of only two states that have not repaid their loans. And California failed to do this despite the Biden administration giving all states the ability to repay loans with federal stimulus money.
This means the cost is now passed on to California employers. Every employer in California will be required to pay an additional $42 per employee in payroll taxes to help the state pay back the loan. That will increase by $21 every year until the loan is paid back (which is not projected to happen until the 2030s). It does not matter if the employee is part-time or full-time. It does not matter if the employer is a big business or a small, family-run store. Everyone will be taxed for each person they employ.
That means, in effect, Newsom and California Democrats have allowed a new tax on employing people to take effect while having the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. California, with onerous regulations and taxes, already makes job growth difficult; in 2024, 96.5% of new jobs created were government jobs. This will only make it even more difficult, all because Newsom and California Democrats want to recklessly spend money without making sure everything is paid for.
Stephen Green wonders if Trump’s Venezuela move might topple Communist Cuba.
ity poor Cuba — one of the wealthier nations in the Latin America before the Communists got hold of it, and now at risk of “collapse” due to President Donald Trump’s seizures of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers.
If you liked the pressure Trump’s blockade put on the Maduro regime, you’re gonna love the second-order effects it could have on Cuba.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that “Venezuelan oil exports are at risk thanks to a partial blockade targeting sanctioned tankers — the kind that carry about 70% of the country’s crude.” The story continued, “Were Venezuela’s oil shipments to stop, or sharply decline, the Cubans know it would be devastating.”
Cuban exile and energy expert Jorge Piñón told the Journal, “It would be the collapse of the Cuban economy, no question about it.”
Communist Cuba has relied on foreign benefactors to stay afloat, pretty much since Fidel Castro and his butcher boys like Che Guevara seized power more than 60 years ago. In recent years, the regime — ruled since 2018 by Communist party chief Miguel Díaz-Canel — relies on the largess of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro for cheap oil the country can’t afford to buy at market price.
Yes, even at today’s low prices. I’d also pause here a moment longer and ask you to ponder that under the Communists, Cuba is so poor that Maduro’s Venezuela — where they already ate all the zoo animals — is its economic lifeline.
Venezuela is in such dire straits that oil shipments to Cuba already declined by two-thirds, from 100,000 barrels a day to 30,000. That was before we started pulling over their tankers and checking for license and registration.
My PJ Media colleague Sarah Anderson reported Saturday that U.S. forces just “seized another oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X, “This morning [the U.S. Coast Guard] in coordination with the [Department of War] executed a lightning strike operation to seize the Motor Tanker Centuries, which is suspected of carrying oil subject to U.S. sanctions. The iron fist of America’s joint military and federal law enforcement rules the waves.”
With the Motor Tanker Centuries tanker went another small fraction of $150-$435 million or so in hard currency imports (estimates seriously vary!) the Maduro regime requires each week to do little things like pay the troops who keep it in power.
And Díaz-Canel’s lifeline got that much shorter.
It would be ironic of all that military buildup people think is for Venezuela actually liberated Cuba…
“Massachusetts mayor needs translator because he doesn’t speak English.”
How does this happen in an American city with nearly 90,000 residents?
Welcome to Lawrence, Massachusetts…
Mayor [Brian] DaPena was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He came to the United States, according to his website, in the early ’80s.
More than 40 years later, he still struggles with English, showing no interest in assimilating to American culture or language.
“REPORT: ‘Ghost jobs’ with no intent to hire make up 22% of online job postings.” I think that estimate is too low. I think it’s probably more like 40-50%.
Another Democrat arrested for child porn.
If a Democrat ever tries to lecture you about decency and morality, just drop this name on them: Randy Sprinkle.
Yes, that’s a real name. It’s actually the name of a Democrat operative who was just arrested by the FBI and charged with distributing child porn. Randon “Randy” Alexander Sprinkle, 30, it turns out, was recently the finance chairman of the Virginia Democrat Party; he once served as a leader in the Young Democrats of Virginia, and worked in 2025 as the campaign treasurer for Richmond City Council Vice President Katherine Jordan.
And, now, Mr. Sprinkle is in big trouble with the law. It seems that he was an avid user of an app called “Jack’d,” which markets itself as “the premier social app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people” and boasts of having more than 15 million members. Whilst using Jack’d (under the name “Randy,” by the way), Sprinkle unknowingly made contact with an undercover FBI agent working out of the Manassas, Virginia, FBI field office; the agent is referred to as “OCE” in the 9-page affidavit against Sprinkle that was filed Friday.
Here’s the exchange Sprinkle initiated on the app:
Randy: “Hey how’s it going”
OCE: “What’s up man”
Randy: “Just horny af you, telegram”
OCE: “Let’s go Randy, what’s your Tele”
Randy: “hmudmv9, got a face pic btw”
Once the conversation was brought over to Telegram, Sprinkle advised the agent of his twisted, perverted interests: “Mostly into Yng, rape, incest you.” Sprinkle later sent the agent a video of a young boy being sexually abused by a grown man.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
You know it must have physically pained them to admit this: “NY Times Finds ‘No Evidence’ Implicating Trump in Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.”
To justify their efforts, reporters Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate drowned exonerating details in a sea of innuendo, for example: “Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.” (Italics added)
Almost all of the specific allegations of bonding between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein date back to the 1990s before Trump’s marriage to Melania in 2005. The reporters pretend to be shocked that during this period Trump enjoyed the kind of lifestyle rich men have enjoyed since the beginning of recorded time.
Why buying a car sucks: Wildly different quotes from dealers for the same Ford F150 model.
Jack in the Box is closing up to 120 stores.
A Pennsylvania nursing home blew up.
Inside the debt settlement industry, which seems to use a whole lot of micro-targeted AI videos.
Project Farm reviews batteries.
Ian McCollum looks at cursed Chauchat images (the French World War I light machine gun)…and finds that some of the modifications might be useful.
And speaking of cursed gun images, Brandon Herrera does his usual lineup. Come for the wooden lower AR-15, but stay for the hand-lettered “U.S.MARSHAL” jacket.
The Critical Drinker is not impressed with the latest Avatar movie.
The Pitch Meeting for Die Hard.
William H. Macy talks about how he landed his role in Fargo.
The Professor of Rock interviews Rick Beato.
Best of the Internet 2025.
Statue of Liberty collapses…in Brazil.
Driver does donuts around Christmas tree in Kazakhstan…and it ends exactly how you would expect. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Rudolph Changes Name To Rolanda, Dominates Female Reindeer Games.”
“Disappointing: Thompson Submachine Gun-Shaped Box Turns Out To Be Socks.”
“Every Single Parking Spot To Be Either Handicapped Or Online Pickup By 2027.”
I think he likes his visits.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:AR-15, Babylon Bee, Biden Recession, Bola Tinubu, Border Controls, Brazil, Brian DaPena, California, cars, Caspian Sea, Christmas, Coen Brothers, Communism, Conservative Treehouse/The Last Refuge, Crime, Critical Drinker, Cuba, debt, Democrats, Donald Trump, Donetsk, drones, economy, Fairfax County, Ford F-150, fraud, Gavin Newsom, Guns, Ian McCollum, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, James Cameron, Jeffrey Epstein, Jihad, Joe Thompson, Katherine Jordan, Kazakhstan, Ken Paxton, Lakurawa, Lawrence (Mass.), LinkSwarm, Machine Gun, Marvin Morales Ortez, Massachusetts, Media Watch, Military, Minnesota, Mirabelli v. Olson, movies, New York Times, Nigeria, Novoshakhtinsk, pedophilia, Pickup Truck, prepper, Professor of Rock, Project Farm, Randon "Randy" Alexander Sprinkle, Rick Beato, Rob Bonta, Roger Benitez, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, sex offender, Sokoto, Somalia, Spetsnaz, Stephen Green, Storm Shadow, Taxes, Tomahawk Missile, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual, Ukraine, Venezuela, Virginia, Welfare State, William H. Macy, World War I, Yusuf Tuggar
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Uncategorized, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 29th, 2025
The Trump Administration guts two lefty slop buckets of graft, Israel lights up the Houthis big time, crazy tranny shooter might have been in satanic cult too crazy for the Church of Satan, Ukraine bombs the snot out of Russia’s oil infrastructure (again), Scotland and Germany continue to favor unassimilated Muslim immigrants over their own citizens, a secret Spinal Tap concert, and the full weight of Plano ISD comes down on a nefarious…a choir booster club?
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Another court win for Trump47. “Supreme Court Rules 5-4 That Trump Can Slash $783 Million In DEI Research Funding.”
The Trump administration is free to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research funding on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) following last week’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court.
In a 5-4 vote, the justices lifted an order from a federal court judge in Boston that blocked $783 million in cuts made by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on health research grants that were being used to advance DEI efforts as well as “gender ideology extremism.”
The Supreme Court was split on the 5-4 decision which marks another win for President Trump and clears the way for his administration to move forward with canceling hundreds of grants after U.S. District Judge William Young ordered the health-related grants restored in June.
Chief Justice John Roberts was among the dissenters in the high court’s decision and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted with conservative majority to let the administration stop the grant funding.
Roberts and Barrett did land on the side of the dissent and allowed to stand a portion of the lower judge’s order that voided a number of NIH policies that targeted DEI programs at the direction of the White House.
Speaking of self-dealing garbage corrupt Biden Administration toadies were cutting themselves in for, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick voided ‘illegal’ $7.4B payment to Biden ally-staffed nonprofit for semiconductor research.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick canceled an Biden administration agreement Monday to distribute billions of dollars for semiconductor research through a nonprofit set up and staffed by former political appointees, according to a letter obtained by The Post.
The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act provided for $11 billion in semiconductor research and development funding to be given out by the Commerce Department’s National Semiconductor Technology Center.
“Rather than establishing these operations within the Department, however, Biden Administration officials spent significant time, effort, and resources creating an unaccountable, outside entity–Natcast–to administer taxpayer funds,” Lutnick wrote Natcast CEO Deirdre Hanford.
Four days before Biden left office on Jan. 20, Lutnick noted, the Commerce Department agreed to set aside $7.4 billion in “advance payments” to Natcast after spending nearly two years setting it up and tapping administration officials, advisers and allies to fill out positions.
That arrangement both effectively removed the incoming Trump administration from being involved in the process and provided “virtually all” of Natcast’s funding — prompting incoming Departments of Justice and Commerce officials to take another look at the Sunnyvale, Calif., nonprofit.
“These actions do not just give the appearance of impropriety; they flout federal law,” Lutnick told Hanford, pointing out that no provisions in the CHIPS Act authorized an outside entity like Natcast to distribute semiconductor research funds.
“The GCCA [Government Corporation Control Act] plainly prohibits agencies from establishing a corporation to act as an agency without specific authorization, and the January 16, 2025, agreement does nothing other than set forth the terms of the Biden Administration’s attempt to do just that.”
Natcast’s selection committee included Biden White House alums like Jason Matheny, former deputy director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and Kendra Wilkerson, the CEO of a nonprofit that “promotes greater equality for women and nonbinary professionals in technology fields,” according to the Biden Commerce Department.
Donna Dubinsky, another Natcast executive, worked as senior counselor to former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and signed off on the nonprofit’s 501(c)(3) status.
Susan Feindt, the Biden Commerce Department’s vice chair of its CHIPS Act advisory committee, is now the senior vice president of ecosystem development at Natcast.
Jeremy Licht, the former chief counsel on semiconductor incentives at the Biden Commerce Department, is now the general counsel at Natcast.
They weren’t robbing Peter to pay Paul, they were robbing you to line their own pockets. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Try to contain your shock, but D.C.’s Democrat government was lying about crime statistics.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller told reporters Monday that the Trump administration has uncovered a “massive scandal” in Washington D.C. involving the doctoring of crime statistics.
He said the alleged corruption is currently under investigation and said details of the corruption will soon be brought to light.
“The results will stun you,” he said.
Miller made the remarks in the Oval Office after President Trump signed a slew of new executive orders to end cashless bail throughout the United States and in the District of Columbia, prosecute the burning of the American flag, and additional measures to address crime in Washington D.C.
Miller said D.C. already had the worst crime statistics in the United States when “honestly measured,” but those stats “dramatically understated how bad it was.”
The White House advisor told reporters that murders and homicides were allegedly being reported as accidents instead of murders.
“This is how severe the manipulation of the crime data has been in the city and it will all be uncovered and it will all be brought to light,” he said.
For the past two weeks—since the D.C. crime crackdown began—the city has not seen a single murder or homicide.
“No police officer working in the city can remember a time in their lives when there has been no murders,” Miller asserted.
He said police officers have told him that members of the public have been thanking them for making D.C safe again.
“For the first time in their lives, they can use the parks, they can walk on the streets, you have people who can walk freely at night without worrying about being ribbed or mugged,” he said. “They’re wearing their watch again, they’re wearing jewelry again, they’re carrying purses again.”
Miller explained that D.C. residents had been forced to “change their who lives for fear of being murdered, mugged or carjacked.”
He added that Trump had freed the 700,000 residents of the city from “the rule of criminals and thugs.”
Miller credited Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Terrance C. Cole with discovering that street criminals in Washington D.C. have been “doing business directly with the transnational criminal cartels,” which are foreign terrorist organizations.
“So not only was the city being run by these criminal thugs, but they were working with some of the most dangerous terrorist organizations on the planet to traffic weapons and drugs into this city,” he explained.
Israel gets tired of the Houthis tugging on their cape.
Israel’s military conducted airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, on Sunday, targeting high-profile sites in a significant escalation of hostilities.
The strikes hit areas near the presidential palace, the Asar and Hizaz power plants, and Houthi facilities suspected of housing artillery, including ballistic missiles, according to regional reports.
The operation was a direct response to recent Houthi attacks on Israel, including projectile launches on Friday, a military source told the Jerusalem Post. While Israel has previously targeted Houthi infrastructure, its strikes have largely focused on the strategic port city of Hodeida, a critical economic and military hub. The shift to Sanaa signals a broader and more aggressive approach to the conflict.
At least two people were killed and five others injured, Al Masirah, a Houthi-affiliated media outlet reported, according to Al Jazeera.
“The attacks were carried out in response to repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the state of Israel and its citizens, including the launch of surface-to-surface missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles towards the country’s territory,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
There’s video:
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Crazy trans-cult member Robert Paul Westman, who hated Donald Trump and Jews, murdered children at a Minneapolis church this week.
Weirdly, the crazy murderous tranny’s manifesto name-checked Brandon Herrera. He is not pleased. (And there is a previous parallel.)
“Westman’s videos, posted hours before the shootings, may only suggest he used ‘very similar to the symbolism used by violent global satanic cults called Order of 9 Angles and 764.'” I reached out to a “left-hand path” guy I knew from science fiction for background, and he offered the following:
Many years ago Dr. Anton LaVey asked Micheal Aquino to write two “Lovecraftain Pieces” for the _Satanic Rituals — “Th Cermony of the Nine Angles”and “The Call to Cthulhu”.
Then back in the 1990s a weirdo (named Myall back in the day) claimed that family knew the REAL SECRET of the nine angles. It was mainly Neo_Nazy stuff — “Kill a Jew for Satan” The guy claimed 100s of followers and had several Orders he was running –my favorite was the “lesbian: Order of the Sapphic Satanists. He tried to join Islam and run an atisemetic Islamic Runic brotherhood that worshipped Azathoth. It did not go well. The ONA shows occasionally with anti-Jewish slogans.
According to this piece last year, 764 is a global Satanic child predator network.
Zohran Mamdani’s advisors are just as filled with lunacy as him.
The likely next mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, is, as President Donald Trump put it, a “100% Communist lunatic,” and so you won’t exactly be dumbfounded to learn that his advisors are a rogue’s gallery of political hacks and psychopaths the likes of which have not been seen since Chairman Mao sat down for a tete-a-tete with his fellow cultural revolutionaries. It’s clear that one way or another, once this clown moves into Gracie Mansion, New York City is in for it: skyrocketing crime, an inundation of illegal migrants, bankruptcy, the destruction of the city’s economic base — all that and more is on the table.
Fox News reported Thursday Mamdani’s “growing circle of influence is littered with activists who have espoused anti-Israel views and socialist principles as he attempts to dispel the narrative that he is too ‘radical’ to run the nation’s largest city.” Yeah, these advisors show that he is indeed far too radical to be mayor of New York, but that’s not likely to keep him from being elected.
Among those advisors is Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), which advocates ending “state support for detention, deportation, and mass incarceration.” Awawdeh insists that illegal migrants “deserve” healthcare, presumably at the expense of the American taxpayer. He has also ranted: “NO LISTEN… SEEKING ASYLUM AT THE BORDER IS A LEGAL RIGHT. ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES FROM VIOLENCE, PERSECUTION, & IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE. THE U.S. HAS A LEGAL OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE REFUGE. #WelcomeWithDignity”
A legal obligation to provide refuge for anyone fleeing any kind of difficulty? Do tell. Anyway, NYIC has “taken in $175,000 from the sprawling George Soros nonprofit network,” and if that connection of Soros to Mamdani is too tenuous for you, there is plenty more. Fox News reported on Aug. 14 that “A former top executive for liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) between 2017 and 2020 is back in the spotlight amid reports highlighting his involvement with Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral campaign and connecting Obama world to the campaign.”
The Soros exec in question is Patrick Gaspard, an old political hand on the left; the first campaign he worked on was Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential run. Gaspard “has served in several high-profile political positions, including advising former President Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, serving as the Democratic National Committee’s executive director, and being tapped as the Center for American Progress (CAP) president in 2021.”
Another Trump Administration victory over crime.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, is set to face the rest of his life behind bars as the Trump administration ramps up its efforts to dismantle cartels.
Zambada, 75, confessed in a Brooklyn, New York, courtroom Monday that he had coordinated with Mexican officials to smuggle drugs into the U.S. for decades — and ultimately pleaded guilty to serving as principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise and racketeering conspiracy.
The Trump administration has pledged to take down the cartels — and experts predict Zambada’s guilty plea paves the way for the Justice Department to launch more indictments against high-profile cartel members moving forward and exerts additional pressure on Mexico to comply with U.S. requests.
Russia may not have an oil industry at all when this war is over. Ukraine just hit two more oil refineries, Kuybyshevskiy in Samara and Afipsky in Krasnodar. “Multiple swarms hit this refinery, which makes Russia’s air defense look even more incompetent than usual.” It was also 1,000km away.
They also hit the Ust-Luga gas processing terminal near St. Petersburg with ten drones. “This terminal is responsible for processing stable gas condenscent in naphtha jet fuel fuel oil and distillates.” The location makes me wonder if a goodly portion was intended for the export market.
They also hit Syzran oil refinery again.
The map of Russian refineries reveals a key strategic problem. The main processing capabilities are in the European part of the country, whilst fuel consumption is rising in the far east. Fuel logistic chains for eastern regions span thousands of kilometers, creating additional costs and risks. Kilometer-long queues in cities are a direct result of the imbalance between western production and eastern consumption.
And they hit another fuel train, this one in in Dzhankoi, Crimea.
Russia tries to war crime a Ukrainian civilian with a drone, but it gets taken out by another civilian.
New problems require…very old solutions? “Ukrainians hunt Russian drones dangling out of prop planes with shotguns.”
“Chinese National Charged With Stealing Sensitive Data from UT-MD Anderson.”
Harris County’s District Attorney Sean Teare has charged Yunhai Li, a 35-year-old former MD Anderson Cancer Center researcher, with attempting to steal and take proprietary cancer-related research back to China. This comes after multiple warnings about research security in Texas higher education.
Texas House votes to the Attorney General’s power to prosecute election fraud.
“Trump Administration to Retake Control of D.C.’s Union Station amid Crime Crackdown.”
While the Department of Transportation has owned the historic station since the 1980s, it has allowed a nonprofit, the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation, more control over the station year after year.
Now, the Department of Transportation says it plans to use a new deal with Amtrak and USRC to fund improvements to elevators, lighting, security and other repairs to the roof and several major systems.
“Scottish Girl Arrested For Using Knife And Axe To Ward Off Migrant Stalker.” She was defending her 12-year old sister from unassimilated would-be Muslim statutory rapists, so of course the police had to arrest her…
“How can you tell the difference between a police raid and a home invasion?”
Last week, a Houston resident foiled a home invasion attempt by a couple criminals trying to impersonate the police. According to the news article:
“Police said the men told the homeowner they were serving a warrant. They were wearing bullet-proof vests, had badges around their necks and were wearing ski masks.”
The homeowner ended up shooting and killing both offenders.
There are many more tips in the article, but police don’t wear ski masks while serving a warrant…
“Texas Teacher Arrested on Federal Child Porn Charge…Robert Jerome Custer, 56, was arrested on a federal charge of accessing child sexual abuse material, commonly called child pornography. Custer previously worked as an educator and counselor in Palestine, Barksdale, Kingsville, and Abilene, according to a statement from the Texas Department of Public Safety.”
“Welfare state is not sustainable, says German chancellor.”
The German welfare state is no longer financially sustainable, Friedrich Merz said on Saturday.
The chancellor argued for a fundamental reassessment of the benefits system as spending continues to soar past last year’s record of €47bn (£40bn).
In a state-level party conference meeting on Saturday, Mr Merz said: “The welfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed with what we can economically afford.”
Once the export champion of Europe, Germany’s economy has slowed dramatically since 2017, with GDP growing by only 1.6 per cent since then versus 9.5 per cent for the rest of the eurozone.
Germany’s economy shrank by 0.2 per cent last year following a 0.3 per cent dip in 2023 – the first time since the early 2000s the economy has retreated two years in a row.
Industrial production fell under the Left-leaning “traffic light” coalition of Olaf Scholz and continues to slide under the new government, with GDP declining by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2025.
Meanwhile, spending on social welfare has exploded, and is set to increase further this year as Germany’s population ages and unemployment rises. Although the majority of benefit recipients are German, large numbers are non-German citizens.
German elites will do anything to support its welfare state…except stop importing unassimilated Muslim immigrants. Just like all the rest of Europe’s elites. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“Paxton Seeks End to Federal Decree Mandating Release of Harris County Misdemeanor Suspects. The O’Donnell federal consent decree has governed county bail practices since 2019.”
A decade after the radical left first started shoving tranny bathrooms down the public’s throat without debate, Texas is finally limiting bathrooms to biological sex.
“Mark Teixeira, Longtime Major League Baseball Player, Launches Texas Congressional Bid.” He’s running as a Republican for the 21st Texas Congressional District, where incumbent Chip Roy is running for Attorney General.
Having a meth habit is going to be disqualifying for a lot of jobs. Like District Attorney for Mariposa County. Thus it’s no surprise that DA Mike McAfee resigned…
Another electric bus company goes bankrupt. “Quebec-based Lion Electric, which the Biden administration awarded $159 million ‘to manufacture 435 school buses between 2022 and 2024,’ has fallen into bankruptcy.” (Previously.)
LA police can’t catch fleeing suspect…even after he stopped to fill up on gas.
This is a weird story. “Moms Arrested for Running North Texas Choir Booster Club. Cleared of charges, moms still lost choir booster club money to the school district.”
Local authorities in Collin County, including a school district, have harassed three moms in a quest to control a school booster club and its funds, even going so far as to arrest them.
Plano Independent School District targeted the Jasper High School Choir Booster Club for control of its bank account after the mothers charged with running the independent organization insisted that the district pay for Jasper High School’s stage—as was the district’s responsibility.
The district had the Plano police arrest the booster club’s founders—Laura Cervantes, Krisinda Lingenfelter, and Maria Luisa King. Yet, after a Collin County grand jury failed to find enough evidence to prosecute these moms, a Plano municipal judge recently awarded the club’s bank funds to Plano ISD.
Also this: “Oral arguments were held on May 30 before Judge Paul McNulty, chief judge for the Municipal Court of Plano. Texas Scorecard was in attendance. Recording devices were banned from the trial and the booster club was denied its request to bring a court reporter.” Also, another judge involved in the case, Lisa Bronchetti, evidently wrote a bad check to the club but still failed to excuse herself.
Like I said, weird…
Newark Airport sucks. Objectively. One major culprit? God.
Roanoke’s famous lost colony was never lost.
Spinal Tap did a secret concert at Stonehenge.
Ryan George tackles the difficulties of reading online news sites.
“Dear Stupid Bitch, I’m sorry to hear that your cat is a Communist.”
“Nation That Once Charged Into Certain Death For Freedom Now Letting Their Daughters Handle The Rape Gangs.”
“Travis Kelce Finally Acquires Ring Without Help Of Referees.”
Hap, hap, happy dog.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:2026 Election, 764, active shooter, Afipsky, Amy Coney Barrett, archeology, Babylon Bee, Brandon Herrera, cars, China, Collin County, Commerce Department, Crime, Crimea, Cthulhu, DEA, defensive gun use, DEI, Deirdre Hanford, Democrats, DHS, District of Columbia, dogs, Donna Dubinsky, drones, Dzhankoi, electric cars, Friedrich Merz, George Soros, Germany, Habitual Linecrosser, Harris County, history, Houston, Houthi, Howard Lutnick, Ismael Zambada-Garcia, Israel, Jason Matheny, Jeremy Licht, Jerome Custer, Jihad, John Roberts, Ken Paxton, Kendra Wilkerson, Krasnodar, Krisinda Lingenfelter, Kuybyshevskiy, LAPD, Laura Cervantes, LinkSwarm, Lisa Bronchetti, Maria Luisa King, Mariposa, Mark Teixeira, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Mexico, Mike, Mike McAfee, Murad Awawdeh, murder, Muslim, Natcast, National Institutes of Health, natural gas, New York Immigration Coalition, Newark Airport, NFL, Olaf Scholz, Order of 9 Angles, Patrick Gaspard, Paul McNulty, pedophilia, Plano, Plano ISD, rape, reptoids, Republicans, Roanoke, Robert Paul Westman, Russo-Ukrainian War, Ryan George, Samara, Scotland, Sean Teare, Semiconductors, Sinaloa Drug Cartel, Spinal Tap, spying, Stephen Miller (Trump advisor), subsidies, Suchomimus, Supreme Court, Susan Feindt, Syzran, Terrance C. Cole, Texas 21st Congressional District, Texas DPS, Texas Scorecard, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual, Travis Morgan, UK, Ukraine, Virginia, Welfare State, Yemen, Yunhai Li, Zohran Mamdani
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 10 Comments »
Friday, July 25th, 2025
It’s been an expensive month. I had to get a new dishwasher, quarterly home and car insurance payments were due, and my dog Avery has enlarged lymph nodes that my vet and I are hoping is just due to her current bad bout of allergies (hence buying a lot of medicine) and not cancer. I’ll find out in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed.
The Russiagate Hoax gets investigated, more WINNING, Iran’s nuke program confirmed to be toast, Colbert vs. Math, Gen Z workers get roasted, and The Case of Too Much Moose Meat.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
“Justice Department Announces Task Force to Investigate Obama Officials’ Russiagate Role.”
The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday the creation of a so-called strike force to investigate allegations advanced by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that former President Barack Obama and members of his administration led a “treasonous” conspiracy to promote the false claim that Trump colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election.
The task force announcement came hours after Gabbard released a previously classified House Intelligence Committee report that said the conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s was interested in aiding Trump was based on “one scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard reports.”
The DOJ strike force will assess the legal options it can take in response to the “alleged weaponization of the intelligence community.”
“Iran Acknowledges That US Airstrikes ‘Destroyed’ Nuclear Facilities.”
“Our facilities have been damaged, seriously damaged, the extent of which is now under evaluation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed in a Fox News “Special Report” interview on July 21.
Later in the interview, Araghchi conceded that “the facilities have been destroyed,” referring to nuclear enrichment sites that were targeted by the U.S. military on June 22. President Donald Trump authorized the strikes amid a nearly two-week aerial war between Iran and Israel.
I’m sure this will completely end any discussion of the effectiveness of the strike in the comments…
“So This Might Be What ‘Tired of All the Winning’ Feels Like.”
The Iranian nuclear sites were bombed 24 days ago. Despite high-profile figures making predictions of near-apocalyptic consequences of that action, the Iranian retaliation, so far, consisted of a missile strike on a geodesic dome used for communications at the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Parnell said the Iranian response “did minimal damage to equipment and structures on the base.”
(If you think you’re having a tough day, imagine being a salesman for the air-defense systems purchased by the Iranian regime. Israel dismantled Iran’s air defenses within 48 hours. Zohar Palti, former head of intelligence for the Mossad, told Sky News, “This is shocking in a way. This is amazing. We thought that it would be much harder. It was much more fast than we anticipated.” Despite claims from the Iranian government, there are no confirmed shootdowns of Israeli or U.S. planes.)
This morning, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany agreed to restore tough U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if there has been no concrete progress toward a new nuclear deal.
Today, Benjamin Baird, the director of MEF Action at the Middle East Forum, writes at NR, “Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.” This legislation would enact crushing sanctions on key parts of the Iranian economy, place an economic stranglehold on Iran’s remaining proxies, rescind Biden-era loopholes, and undermine the Iranian regime’s ability to censor information.
The year 2025 has been a terrible one for the Iranian mullahs, and we’re not even in August yet.
Snip.
“Across every branch of the U.S. armed forces, military recruitment has significantly increased since President Trump took office . . . the Army hitting its goal four months early and the Navy doing so three months early. The Air Force and Space Force have both achieved their recruiting goals three months ahead of schedule.”
Speaking of foreign economies, the official numbers from the Chinese government tell us they’re easily withstanding the trade war and tariffs. But Reuters reports that once you look closer, the Chinese economy is showing signs of strain:
Contract and bill payment delays are rising, including among export champions like the autos and electronics industries and at utilities, whose owners, indebted local governments, have to run a tight shop while shoring up tariff-hit factories.
Ferocious competition for a slice of external demand, hit by global trade tensions, is crimping industrial profits, fueling factory-gate deflation even as export volumes climb. Workers bear the brunt of companies cutting costs.
Falling profits and wages shrank tax revenues, pressuring state employers like Zhang’s to cut costs as well. In pockets of the financial system, non-performing loans are surging as authorities push banks to lend more.
The New York Times warns that China’s “local governments are swimming in debt after decades of building airports, train stations and bridges.” (And if you’ve been reading our Thérèse Shaheen, you know that modern China is beset by four walls closing in on them — environmental degradation, runaway debt, the inherent flaws of a centrally planned economy, and demographics of an aging and declining population.)
Closer to home, the U.S. unemployment rate is 4.1 percent, low by historical standards. The U.S. has 7.8 million job openings. Inflation ticked up a bit last month, to 2.7 percent, which is not great (and a likely consequence of the tariffs), but it’s still down from the 3 percent number in January. The stock market has won back all of its big losses from the spring, and the NASDAQ closed at another all-time high yesterday.
Plenty more winning at the link.
Remember in last week’s LinkSwarm how Alan Dershowitz claimed two federal judges were blocking access to Jeffery Epstein information? Well:
A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday denied a request from the Trump administration to unseal grand jury transcripts from an investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Separately, the House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena for Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s long-time associate, in an attempt to obtain further details about his high-profile clients.
Chairman James Comer of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued the subpoena Wednesday to Maxwell for a deposition at a federal correctional institution in Tallahassee, Florida, on August 11. Representative Tim Burchett made the motion for Comer to subpoena Maxwell, who was convicted for her role helping Epstein solicit minors for prostitution, in a Tuesday House subcommittee hearing. The motion was adopted by voice vote.
Snip.
United States District Judge Robin Rosenberg denied the request in a 12-page opinion Wednesday, saying she could not legally release the transcripts under the guidelines that govern grand jury secrecy set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit because the government had not requested the grand jury’s findings for use in a judicial proceeding. She further stated that the legal standard for transfer of the petition to another district was not met in this case.
“Green Agenda Fallout: Democrat-Led Northeast Now Has Highest Electricity Prices In Nation.”
Reeling from their 2024 election loss, Democrats are scrambling to reconnect with the working class—yet their brilliant strategy of embracing socialist and communist candidates, doubling down on un-American woke ideology, shielding criminal illegal aliens, and supporting dark-money NGOs that fuel insurrectionist behavior like the Los Angeles riots—isn’t a comeback plan but just political suicide.
The party of leftist social justice warriors is cracking under the weight of its own failures. Woke culture is imploding, “green” fantasies are backfiring, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Democrat stronghold states of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where the retirement of stable, affordable fossil fuel power in favor of unreliable solar and wind is driving up energy costs to the highest in the nation this summer and breaking the pocketbooks of working-class families they claim to champion.
Energy policies should balance three key objectives: affordability, reliability, and environmental sustainability — often referred to as the “energy trilemma.” Yet Democrats rammed through climate policies that torched two objectives, affordability and reliability for the environment.
According to the latest EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook for July, the average summer wholesale power prices across the PJM, NYISO, and ISO-NE grids are the highest in the nation. These prices now far exceed those in Texas’ ERCOT, the U.S. average, and even the traditionally high-cost West Coast markets. The blame is squarely focused on the Democrats’ initiative to decarbonize power grids.
“Oh, Look, Another Little-Known Democrat Who’s Going to “Turn Texas Blue.'”
Here we go again. Politico declares that Democratic Texas State Representative James Talarico “might turn Texas blue,” in large part because he recently was a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Talarico is thinking of running for Texas’s U.S. Senate seat in 2026.
This is a couple months after Politico wrote about the “eye-catching showing of support” Democrats had for Senate candidate Colin Allred, who lost to Ted Cruz by about 960,000 votes in the 2024 Senate race. And about seven years after Politico wrote “Beto-Mania Sweeps Texas.” And the August 2013 “Game On” cover of Texas Monthly. And . . . well, you get the idea.
You know what a Texas Democrat must do to get members of the national mainstream media to write that they have a chance to win that deep red state? Just show up, apparently.
Of course Talarico is making all the usual moderate noises Texas Democrats make when they’re trying to run statewide, and which he would almost certainl;y abandon if elected, like all Democrats seem to. He has a lifetime Freedom Index score of 4%.
In the last midterm, 8 million Texans voted; in the last presidential election, 11 million Texans voted. If turnout is 8 million, and a Democrat is behind by “just” five percentage points, he’s trailing by “just” 400,000 votes.
And yet cycle after cycle, we get not only credulous coverage saying a Democrat could win Texas — sotto voce conceding it is unlikely — last year you could easily find left-of-center columnists who were willing to go on the record predicting Allred would beat Cruz. Again, Cruz won by 959,492 votes or about 8.5 percentage points. It wasn’t close, and it was never close. Every cycle, the “Democrats could win Texas this year” coverage turns out to be pure wishcasting, as farfetched and unlikely as Trump’s quadrennial prediction that he will win his home state of New York.
“ICE Arrests Illegal Aliens Guilty of Heinous Crimes
.”
According to a DHS report, those arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement include individuals guilty of murder, rape, and pedophilia.
“Over the weekend, our brave ICE agents arrested more depraved criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, and three child pedophiles. These are the types of barbaric criminals our ICE law enforcement is arresting and removing from American communities every day,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
McLaughlin said that despite the rise in assaults against ICE officers, they continue to put their lives on the line to make American communities safe.
DHS highlighted the arrests of nearly a dozen individuals. Among those apprehended is 58-year-old Jose Arinaga-Ramirez, who is in the U.S. unlawfully from Mexico and was arrested in San Antonio by ICE Dallas. He has been convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
ICE Dallas also reports that Ramirez has a criminal history of resisting arrest, driving while intoxicated, and has two convictions for illegal re-entry.
Gilmer Vertiz-Bustemante, 37, another illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested by ICE Houston and has a murder conviction in Tarrant County.
Several other ICE field offices across the nation also reported the arrests of illegal aliens guilty of similar crimes, including ICE Los Angeles, ICE Philadelphia, and ICE Boston.
As if stealing their aid money wasn’t enough, LA and California government officials are letting squatters take over the burned lots of fire victims. “Local independent journalist Luke Melchior recently checked out the Palisades and gave this report that squatters are setting up entire campsites, even RVs, on the property of fire victims who are still waiting on permits to rebuild. It’s terrible what’s happening to these people. It begins to make more sense when you learn about a proposed bill in California, which will allow the state to buy up these properties to be used for low-income housing.”
Winning. “U.S. Olympic Committee Quietly Bans Men from Women’s Sports in Compliance with Trump Executive Order.”
Stephen Colbert’s fiercest enemy: Math.
You can be like Chris Hayes, Brian Stelter, Vox, The New Republic, Adam Schiff, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other progressives, and choose to believe you live in a world where the ending of The Late Show is a sinister plot by spineless, cowardly corporate executives who are terrified of irking President Trump and who desperately want the Federal Communications Commission to approve the merger of CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, with Skydance Media. (And, it should be noted, Colbert’s choice to turn the show into a four-nights-a-week version of the speaker list at the quadrennial Democratic National Convention.) That is a dramatic world, with noble heroes and dastardly villains, plotting against the interests of the public, punishing a brave comedian, smashing dissent, and bending the knee in obedience to a ruthless, vindictive, power-mad president.
Or you choose to believe you live in a world where the ending of the show is a reflection of the fact that CBS was losing $40 million each year on the show, as the Wall Street Journal reports today. And as much fun as it would be to blame Colbert for being greedy and making the show unprofitable with his $20 million per year salary, with numbers like that, the show would still be unprofitable even if he worked for free.
Reuters adds, “the show’s ad revenue plummeted to $70.2 million last year from $121.1 million in 2018, according to ad tracking firm Guideline.” If a show’s ad revenue gets nearly cut in half over a six-year period, that is a serious and worsening problem, and an indication that it isn’t a reflection of a one-year blip or temporary economic pressures.
“CBS’s Late Show Dies of Comedy-Deficiency.”
The real problem with CBS’s Late Show isn’t that it needed Letterman to survive, or even that CBS’s recent lawsuit payout to Donald Trump left Paramount/CBS looking to quickly cut a cool $16 million from their operating budget. The Late Show deserved to die simply because it got swallowed by the media trends surrounding it: Colbert used his star power to turn it into a watered-down variant on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. (Or, more often, and infinitely more damningly, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.) He became irrelevant.
Lately, he just doesn’t seem to be bothering at all. NR contributor Becket Adams hilariously noted how many of Stephen Colbert’s guests since taking the helm — on CBS, on a marquee-brand late-night talk show meant primarily to highlight Hollywood’s latest effluvia — have been better suited for The Maddow Report than late-night broadcast entertainment. “Where will I go now for lighthearted, fun celebrity interviews of, uh, CNN staffers, obscure federal administrators, and failed gubernatorial candidates?” Becket asks.
Stacey Abrams helpfully chimed in to salute Colbert on his way out the door, noting that she had appeared four times on the show — which, as Dominic Pino assesses, is a remarkable “2-to-1 exchange rate between Late Show appearances and number of elections lost to Brian Kemp.” And the just-so story to cap it all off: Who was the young Hollywood celebrity joining Stephen Colbert on the day he announced his cancellation? None other than that buxom starlet Adam Schiff, Democratic senator from California — for the full hour.
What is there to say? This was supposed to be a goofy, winkingly subversive late-night comedy show. With Colbert at the helm it has turned into Theme Time Therapy Hour for aging liberals who just want to watch a little TV in bed before turning out the light. “Political comedy” talk shows have infamously been the death of late-night comedy, the substitution of “clapter” in place of “laughter,” which is much harder to earn in any media era, and particularly one dominated by censorious progressive sensibilities. Their ratings trajectories have long since been clear. Why didn’t Colbert ever just try to be funny instead?
Because he’d rather garner the seal-clapping seal of approval for #CorrectThought.
One harbinger of the coming social justice warrior-initiated culture war was Democrats trying to shove tranny bathroom regulations down people’s during the Obama days. Well, returning to sanity is on the current Texas Special Session agenda.
Legislation separating biological males from women’s private spaces and vice versa is set to take the stage once again in the Texas Capitol as one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s items for this year’s first special session after a similar bill died in committee during the regular session.
The “Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” or House Bill (HB) 239, was filed during the 89th regular session by state Rep. Valoree Swanson (R-Spring) — resembling a nearly identical piece of legislation filed in 2017 that was also brought up during a special session, although it ultimately failed to pass.
Swanson filed HB 32, the special session version of the “bathroom bill,” on July 14. Identical to the legislation filed during the regular session, it seeks to establish a “statewide standard” for “private spaces” such as locker rooms or bathrooms in publicly-funded facilities such as prisons or domestic violence shelters. It stated that they “must be designated based on biological sex as stated on a person’s original birth certificate.”
“Belton ISD Teacher Faces Federal Child Porn Charges. Belton High School teacher Pietro Giustino is charged with possessing child sexual abuse material including depictions of minors engaged in sexual intercourse.”
“Tulsi Gabbard Releases Over 230,000 Documents Related to MLK Assassination.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Three Big Drone Strikes Hit Novocherkassk: Railway, Power Plant and Telecoms Building.” Ukraine has been on a tear hitting infrastructure targets throughout Russia.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have war between Thailand and Cambodia on my 2025 bingo card. Thailand is a “Major Non-NATO Ally” of the United States, whereas Cambodia is an ally (some say puppet) of China.
“Vance Slams Microsoft For Firing Americans While Applying For H-1B Visas…I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.’ That’s a bullshit story.”
“Empty Shelves, Rotten Odors Plague Gov’t-Funded Supermarket In Missouri.”
While the Democratic Party increasingly embraces socialist and Marxist-leaning policies, such as the seizure of private property, this idea of government-funded grocery stores appears disconnected from both fundamental economic realities and historical precedent.
Nowhere is this more evident than in East Kansas City, where a nonprofit operates a grocery store on government land that has become a symbol of failure, plagued by the smell of rot and empty shelves.
Local media outlet KSHB 41 Kansas City toured Sun Fresh Market at 3110 Wabash Ave (31st & Prospect) on the city’s Eastside. The store opened in 2018 as part of a multi-million dollar public-private revitalization of the Linwood Shopping Center. Operated by Community Builders of Kansas City, a nonprofit focused on urban development, the store has since become a massive reminder that while socialism may sound great on paper, in practice, it can be an absolute disaster.
KSHB 41’s Alyssa Jackson reported that her news team received a tip from a viewer about empty shelves throughout the dairy section, meat department, bakery aisle, and deli counter.
In capitalist countries, food waits for people. In socialist countries, people wait for food.
Why was Voice of America hiring communist Chinese and bringing them over on visas?
The U.S. Agency for Global Media sponsored hundreds of visas over a number of years for foreign journalists to come work for its subsidiary Voice of America, some of which were awarded to employees tied to Chinese state media, according to records reviewed by Just the News.
The agency’s hiring of more than 400 foreign journalists, from about 2009 to the end of the Biden administration, raises questions because of the liberal use of J1 cultural exchange visas, which are not designed for use as a general work authorization.
So Obama started importing communist Chinese and Biden continued it.
“Judson ISD is paying $1,500 a day for a financial consultant.” I think I can see where their financial problems start… (Hat tip: TPPF.)
Sig Saur’s P320 issues just got a whole lot worse. “An Air Force command is pausing its use of a Sig Sauer pistol following a fatal incident.” The M18 is military version of the P320. (Hat tip: Karl rehn at KR Training.)
Heritage Foundation founder Ed Feulner, RIP.
Edwin J. Feulner, founder and longest-serving president of the Heritage Foundation, died yesterday at 83. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and their two children.
Feulner founded Heritage in 1973 alongside Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors. Since his passing, Republican politicians and conservative institutions have remembered him as a courageous and wise defender of truth.
Snip.
Feulner served for 37 years as Heritage’s president before he moved into an advisory role.
“His unwavering love of country and his determination to safeguard the principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in human history shaped every fiber of the conservative movement—and still do,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said. “Whether he was bringing together the various corners of the conservative movement at meetings of the Philadelphia Society, or launching what is now the Heritage Strategy Forum, Ed championed a bold, ‘big-tent conservatism.’”
Though it’s become yet another ossified inside-the-beltway institution, in its heyday under Fuelner, Heritage was a force to be reckoned with The Reagan Revolution probably isn’t half as effective without the studies and policy guides Heritage produced, including the various Mandate for Leaderships.
“Michael Knowles says financial giant Stripe de-banked him for being a conservative Christian and he has the receipts to prove it.”
Project Farm does a flashlight brightness test. This Windfire flashlight seemed to fare the best of all the flashlights under $50.
How Las Vegas screws you. Yes, beyond the usual. They’ve come up with a number of brand new ways to screw people.
“Gen Z Workers in San Francisco Get a Rude Awakening.”
They FaceTime at their desks, show up in sweats or other inappropriate office attire, and expect a promotion by lunchtime. Some of them even bring their parents to job interviews.
To put it mildly, their older coworkers aren’t impressed. The latest crop of Gen Z workers is attempting to redefine workplace norms, and they’re running into some resistance along the way.
There are several possible explanations for why Gen Zers are struggling to adapt to the corporate workplace. Perhaps it’s because they’re the first generation to grow up entirely online. Or maybe it stems from a lifetime of being coddled—made to feel exceptional by parents, teachers, and other adults. The disruption of remote learning during the pandemic certainly didn’t help. Whatever the cause, many Gen Zers are entering the workforce with little understanding of how to behave in a professional environment.
And yet companies don’t want to hire older workers, either. Make up your mind!
Ozzy Osbourne, RIP.
Hulk Hogan, RIP. Legal Insurection remembers fondly how he killed Gawker…
Emmanuel Macron sues Candace Owens for saying his wife is a man. Owens was right about Andrew Gillum’s gay meth orgy, but has been right about less and less ever since.
Time magazine (which evidently still exists) did a list of the 100 most important podcasts…and left off Joe Rogan.
The Critical Drinker actually liked Fantastic Four.
Cause of air crash: Too much moose meat. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
A look at UK’s superheavy “Tortoise” tank, which never saw combat because World War II ended. I saw the one they have at Bovington, and it is indeed massive.
Supercell “Mothership” photographed at dusk.
“Hunter Biden Warns That Without Illegal Immigrants, The Price Of Prostitutes And Crack Will Skyrocket.”
Obviously, this is a death penalty case: “DOJ Announces They Have Arrested Man Responsible For Creating Microsoft OneDrive.”
“FASCISM ALERT: Show That Wasn’t Making Money Canceled.”
“Hosts Of ‘The View’ Go On Hiatus To Tear Unwary Sailors Apart With Their Talons.”
“Your gravity means nothing to me!”
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
Tags:89th Texas Legislature, Abbas Araghchi, aircraft, assassination, Babylon Bee, Belton ISD, Border Controls, Boston, Bovington Tank Museum, California, Cambodia, Candace Owens, China, Crime, Critical Drinker, Dallas, debanking, Democrats, Department of Justice, DHS, dogs, drones, Ed Fuelner, Emmanuel Macron, gambling, Gilmer Vertiz-Bustemante, Green New Deal, Guns, Heritage Foundation, Houston, Hulk Hogan, Hunter Biden, Illegal Aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iran, James Talarico, Jeffrey Epstein, Jihad, Jim Geraghty, Joe Rogan, Jose Arinaga-Ramirez, Judson ISD, Las Vegas, LinkSwarm, Los Angeles, Luke Melchior, Martin Luther King, Marvel, Media Watch, Michael Knowles, Microsoft, Military, Missouri, movies, murder, music, National Review, Novocherkassk, nuclear weapons, Obama, Obama Scandals, Obituary, Olympics, P320, pedophilia, Philadelphia, Pietro Giustino, prepper, Project Farm, Robin Rosenberg, Round Rock, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, San Antonio, sex offender, Sig Sauer, Social Justice Warriors, Special Session, Stephen Colbert, Stripe, subsidies, tanks, Texas, Thailand, The View, Time, Tranny Bathrooms, Tricia McLaughlin, Tulsi Gabbard, UK, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Voice of America, weather, wildfire, World War II
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 5 Comments »
Sunday, April 27th, 2025
The social justice left are always the aggressors in the culture wars, shrieking their outraged victimhood when conservatives merely roll back their unpopular excesses. Perhaps no issue is more emblematic of that than tranny bathrooms.
Before the Obama Administration, forcing ordinary people to accept men using women’s restrooms was never a policy Democrats promoted, but suddenly it became Holy Writ. It was an early sign that Social Justice was firmly in the diver’s seat of the Democratic Party, and the idiocy showed up everywhere, including Texas.
In Houston in 2014, openly gay mayor Annise Parker pushed the city into passing an ordinance that (in addition to many other gay agenda items like protecting “gender identity”) legalized men in women’s bathrooms. The backlash was immediate and severe, with ordinary Houstonians quickly putting together a ballot initiative push to undo the ordinance. Parker was so incensed that she actually subpoenaed the sermons of church pastors that might have opposed tranny bathrooms, because what’s trivia like the First Amendment when in stands in the way of the greater glory of social justice? When actual voters had their say, tranny bathrooms went down in flames.
Likewise, Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Kent Scribner tried to impose tranny bathrooms on his district in 2016, only to back down after widespread parental object and an adverse ruling from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
What brought up this trip down memory lane was the Texas senate passing a bill banning biological males from women’s bathrooms.
Biological males will be banned from using state-funded private spaces designated for biological women under proposed legislation, which passed the Texas Senate this week.
The “Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” Senate Bill (SB) 240 by Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), passed the Texas Senate along party lines on Wednesday — hearkening back to highly-controversial legislation from 2017, where a similar “bathroom bill” was buried in opposition after receiving a special session by Gov. Greg Abbott to pass it.
While SB 240 was being heard on the Senate floor for its third reading prior to a record vote, multiple Democratic members stood to speak against the measure, which establishes a “statewide standard” for “private spaces” such as locker rooms or bathrooms in publicly-funded facilities such as prisons or domestic violence shelters. It states that they “must be designated based on biological sex as stated on a person’s original birth certificate.”
“As a husband and dad, I want my wife and daughter to be safe when using facilities designed for women’s privacy,” Middleton said in a press release upon passage of SB 240.
Middleton continued, “Safety and privacy are common sense things we all should want for women and our families. I authored and passed the Save Women’s Sports Act, prohibiting men from unfairly competing against women in college sports. Now, we must protect women’s safety from fringe activists that are fighting to allow men in spaces dedicated to girls and women.”
Hopefully the Texas House will quickly follow suit.
The craziness of social justice overreach brought Trump to power as an instrument of counterrevolution against Cultural Marxism, and now Trump47 is leading Republicans (and normies) to destroy the social justice craziness.
While going back through these posts, I came across this on the “doctor lady inventor” who was none of those things. Back then, the transsexual outrage brigade was infuriated by a journalist actually doing his job and revealing a dead con artist’s male birth name, just as the open borders crowd is absolutely outraged that Donald Trump is doing his job and deporting their precious gangbanging illegal alien felons. In that post, I said the following, which I believe remains a true, succinct summary of the issue:
This is another case of the intolerant acolytes of victimhood identity politics mobbing someone for daring to tell the truth. The animating idea behind it seems to be that no one has a right to say anything that might make a tranny (or any other member of a Designated Victim Group) feel bad, even if it’s the truth. They have abrogated for themselves the right to dictate to others what the acceptable limits to free speech are as regards members of said victim groups. It’s an attempt to silence critics (both actively and preemptively) who do not toe the political correct, neo-Marxist, Critical Race Theory line that the “privileged” (straight white heterosexual conservative males in particular) should not be allowed to speak on any issue that touches on the “marginalized” (i.e., the members of any left-wing victimhood identity politics group). Their terminology is Orwellian in the very specific way that it seeks to shape language and limit discourse in ways that make it impossible to object to the agenda being pushed.
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,” he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. “Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
Or, put another way by the same author, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
Or, to put it still another way, “Freedom is the freedom to say that a man is a man and a woman is a woman.” Those pushing the #JusticeForDrV tag are largely the same as those who assert Bradley Manning magically became a woman by changing his name. The idea that “gender is a social construct” is a great lie that they must furiously defend, no matter how obviously absurd.
The Gramscian contingent who have wormed their way into the heart of the Democrat Party are at war with any structure that would thwart their will to power. The biological reality of the male and female binary, the nuclear family, Christianity in general, and Catholics and evangelicals in particular, all provide competing wells of moral authority with which to resist the encroachment of an all-powerful revolutionary state. They want to force their opponents to parrot obvious lies as tokens of surrender to the ideology of social justice, hence the absurd pantomimes of tranny bathrooms and mandatory pronouns. Every act of resistance is a blow to their schemes of control, hence their incessant attacks against anyone, be it J. K. Rowling or a random Colorado baker, who defies their will.
Every. Knee. Must. Bend.
Tags:89th Texas Legislature, Annise Parker, Democrats, Fort Worth ISD, Ken Paxton, Kent Scribner, Mayes Middleton, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual
Posted in Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 55 Comments »
Sunday, August 18th, 2024
Yesterday I covered the Supreme Court blocking the Biden Administrations unilateral rewrite of Title IX by executive fiat to impose transexism on colleges, but that’s not the only place Democrats are trying to impose their twisted gender ideology. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issuing the Biden Administration over their attempt to impose their gender ideology in Title VII.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is once again challenging the Biden administration, filing a lawsuit against the federal government in an effort to block enforcement guidance that the state argues unlawfully compels employers to adopt “transgender” mandates under the threat of discrimination or harassment lawsuits.
Specifically, the lawsuit points to a change the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) made in April to the “enforcement guidance on harassment in the workplace” that now includes the definition of “gender identity” under the category of “sex.”
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 created the EEOC to enforce the prohibitions on employment discrimination.
The EEOC guidelines explain how sex-based harassment includes harassment based on “sexual orientation or gender identity,” including misusing pronouns and “the denial of access to a bathroom… consistent with the individual’s gender identity.”
Forcing pronouns on people and making the peasants acquiesce to allowing men in women’s restrooms seems like a huge goal for the Democratic Party, one they’re been relentlessly pushing for over the last decade.
Paxton argues that the EEOC guidance “relies on an intentional misrepresentation of the Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.” He adds that the decision “did not discuss how such employers must accommodate such employees in the workplace.”
In Bostock v. Clayton County, the court ruled that firing someone for being “gay or transgender” is a form of sex discrimination, but Paxton argues that this does not extend to accommodations such as pronoun use, bathroom access, or dress codes.
“Thus,” the lawsuit states, “EEOC may not interpret Title VII to require employers to comply with the Pronoun Accommodation, the Bathroom Accommodation, or the Dress Code Accommodation.”
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the 2024 guidance unlawful, invalidate it, and permanently prevent its enforcement, as well as cover their legal costs and provide any additional relief deemed appropriate by the court.
Paxton is joined by the conservative Heritage Foundation in this legal challenge.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is attempting yet again to rewrite federal law through undemocratic and illegal agency action,” Paxton wrote in a statement.
“This time, they are unlawfully weaponizing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in an attempt to force private businesses and States to implement ‘transgender’ mandates — and Texas is suing to stop them.”
Pronouns and tranny bathrooms are popular with far leftwing activists, but deeply unpopular with ordinary American citizens. No voters outside of San Francisco (and possibly not even there) would vote for these policies, so the Democratic Party’s activist cadres must impose them by stealth via judicial and executive fiat. Just as with the Title IX cases, expect this radical activist regulation to wither under judicial scrutiny.
Tags:Bostock v. Clayton County, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Ken Paxton, Lawsuit, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Title VII, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual
Posted in Democrats, Regulation, Texas | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 12th, 2023
Now that it’s less than two years before the 2024 Presidential election, a small crop of Republicans whose last names are not “DeSantis” or “Trump” seem to have convinced themselves that they’re viable Republican presidential candidates. These people are either wrong or running for Vice President. The lack of enthusiasm for all four of the would-be candidates is palpable.
Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. For some reason (photogenic?), NRSC has been using her as one of their email begathon pitch-critters for a while, which probably explains why I’ve been receiving countdown emails (“I’m making a special announcement in 6 days.”) for her-not-even-remotely anticipated run. One struggles in vain to find the significant party faction Haley appeals to. Soft feminist Republican businesswomen? Indian-Americans? Plus: She appointed Tim Scott to the senate. Minuses: Backed Rubio in 2016, and was soft on culture war/social justice issues until about late 2020, and refused to fight transgender bathrooms, very low-hanging fruit for actual conservatives, back when she had a chance as SC Governor. No thank you. Effectively running for Vice President.
Former Vice President Mike Pence. Former Vice Presidents (Nixon, Bush41) used to have the inside tract to a White House nod in the Republican Party, but those days are gone. A solid, unexciting Vice President in the Walter Mondale mode for the first 46 months of his term who royally pissed off Trump supporters with his words and deeds in the last two months. Rational or not, Trump supporters now seem actively hostile to a Pence run, and since they were his only potential base of significant support (and only if Trump didn’t run), that’s a real obstacle, despite him checking almost all of the right policy boxes. If he runs (I have my doubts, as he doesn’t seem to have even his own website), he’s effectively running in the John Kasich lane (right down to the “unexciting Midwestern governor” background), which is a one-way ticket to Palookaville. No thank you. The only candidate here that we know isn’t running for Vice President.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. There was a time when being Secretary of State was a solid stepping stone to The White House. And that time was “the early 1800s,” as Martin van Buren was the last to do it, and only after a stint as Vice President. Which is bad news for Pompeo, arguably the most successful Secretary of State since James Baker. Between the Abraham Accords and keeping the War on Terror coalition together long enough to destroy the nascent caliphate of the Islamic State, Pompeo was a vast improvement over the largely ineffective Rex Tillerson, and worked well with foreign nations and international organizations that were, to put it mildly, not wild about his boss. And he has some other impressive credentials as well. “He graduated first in his class from West Point, and from Harvard Law and was on Harvard Law Review. After six years in the House of Representatives, he became CIA director for Trump, and then secretary of state – the only person ever to hold both jobs.” His short congressional tenure earned him a 97% score from the ACU. For me one of the biggest problems with Pompeo is that, like Haley, I primarily know his post-office career as a guy constantly in my inbox begging for money, and also talking like a career politician that’s already cranking up the baloney factory before properly introducing himself for a run. As Beto O’Rourke found out, three terms in the house is exceptionally thin electoral experience for a Presidential run. Plus his attempt to use “pipehitter” as a catchphrase for some sort of imaginary blue collar credibility was just laughable, as the term conjures drug addicts rather than plumbers. There’s just a bit too much standard issue political phoniness here, and Pompeo strikes me as someone who’s time has already passed. No thank you, but the softest no thank you of these four.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu. I was only vaguely aware of Sununu The Younger, but his attack on DeSantis for having the balls to fight the poison of social justice instantly rocketed him to the bottom of my list. You would think Romney’s failure would have soured the party on moderate business-oriented governors, but evidently Sununu didn’t get the memo. Likewise, I doubt modern voters are interested in voting for Bush Lite The Next Generation. No thank you. An unwillingness to actual fight for conservative values is automatically disqualifying, and I don’t him bringing anything to the table as a Veep pick.
So there you have it. Four people who are not going to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2024.
Bring on the Trump-DeSantis match!
Tags:2024 Presidential Race, Chris Sununu, CIA, Donald Trump, Elections, Harvard, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, New Hampshire, Nikki Haley, NRSC, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, State Department, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual
Posted in Elections, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors | 31 Comments »
Friday, July 29th, 2022
The Biden Recession picks up downhill speed, liberals are spending $160 million to seize control of elections, Biden wants to starve your children until you accept transgenderism, and another Soros-backed DA gets the heave-ho from voters. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
GDP shrunk by .9% in Q2, making the Biden recession official, no matter how much Biden Administration officials and their Democratic Media Complex toadies attempt to spin it otherwise.
Another sign of the Biden recession: car repos are soaring.
Manchin caves, helps pass bloated spending bill. Because there’s nothing so good for fighting inflation as deficit spending…
The FBI sabotaged the Hunter Biden probe in 2020. This is my shocked face.
Estimates that over 75,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the invasion of the Ukraine.
“How the Left Hopes to Seize Control of Local Election Offices.
Two big money liberal operations, ready to spend $80 million each, are trying to determine who controls elections and how in the years ahead.
“The overall objective of the political left is to change the way you conduct overall elections,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, which advocates clean elections, told The Daily Signal.
One of the two liberal groups, Run for Something, is a political action committee founded by a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer. In the spring, Run for Something established its Clerk Work project with the goal of electing clerks, election supervisors, registrars, recorders, and other local officials charged with running elections.
The PAC says it will promote thousands of election administrators in the years ahead. But for 2022, it reports endorsing 11 candidates competing in races in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Local election clerks generally are empowered to interpret and enforce state election regulations. They often have discretion on matters such as whether to count absentee ballots that come in after Election Day, how strictly to enforce voter ID or signature-matching requirements, and how closely poll watchers may monitor the ballot counting on Election Day.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, county-level election officials are elected in 22 states. In 10 states, elected officials appoint members to a local board of elections. Another 18 states divide election administration duties between two or more offices.
In any case, donating to specific candidates to oversee elections could directly or indirectly affect who holds these positions.
Some practices of local election administrators also could be guided by another $80 million effort by the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, a coalition of mostly left-leaning organizations financed in part by Big Tech executives to train local officials in running elections.
Snead and other critics say they see parallels between Run for Something and efforts to elect liberal prosecutors financed by liberal hedge fund manager George Soros. They also see strong similarities between the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s election administration grants in the 2020 election cycle.
“What we shouldn’t lose track of is they are playing the long game,” Snead said. “They are going to look for every possible way to impact elections, and they can make substantial changes in the long run through this kind of program that they wouldn’t have been able to make in 2020.”
Good news! Indicted, Soros-backed Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby lost her reelection bid.
When Soros-backed socialist son of convicted terrorists Chesa Boudin was recalled as San Francisco DA, the writing was on the wall. “Decarceration” is a disaster for everyone . . . except criminals.
Now another Soros-backed “decarceration” state’s attorney has lost her reelection bid. It’s not clear if the multiple crimes for which Marilyn Mosby has been charged are the impetus for Baltimore’s voters deciding it’s time to move on or if it’s the shocking crime rates in the city as a result of her radical anti-law and order agenda. Maybe both.
Mosby rose to national attention in the wake of the Freddie Gray riots and for her hyper-politicized botching of the prosecution in those cases.
Fox News reports:
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby lost her reelection bid to defense attorney Ivan Bates in the Democratic primary after she was indicted by a grand jury on federal charges alleging that she used coronavirus hardship as a reason to take money out of her city retirement account.
The Associated Press called the race in favor of Ivan Bates, a defense attorney, on Friday night. Bates is a former prosecutor in Baltimore who served from 1996 to 2002 before becoming a defense attorney.
Mosby, a Democrat, directed her office to stop prosecuting offenses such as drug possession, prostitution, urinating in public, and more during the coronavirus pandemic in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading in jails and prisons.
Object to tranny madness? No school lunches for you!
In May, the Biden administration announced that any school that participates in the federal school lunch program (which is run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service) must allow students to use bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers and play on the sports teams aligning with their gender identity if they want access to funds for the program — effectively holding money meant for ensuring student nutrition in exchange for compliance on radical leftist gender ideology.
Now, twenty-two Republican attorneys general are fighting back by suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture over that new guidance.
“We all know the Biden administration is dead-set on imposing an extreme left-wing agenda on Americans nationwide,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said. “But they’ve reached a new level of shamelessness with this ploy of holding up food assistance for low-income kids unless schools do the Left’s bidding.”
According to the Washington Times, nearly 30 million students take advantage of the National School Lunch Program at about 100,000 public and non-profit private schools and residential childcare institutions. The Biden administration policy was seen as a direct assault on the 18 states with existing laws barring male athletes from participating in female sports.
The lawsuit argues that the Biden administration (again) violated the Administrative Procedures Act by issuing regulations without going through the rulemaking process and that Bostock v. Clayton, the 2020 Supreme Court’s 2020 decision on employment discrimination, doesn’t apply to Title IX as the Biden administration claimed when they announced the guidance.
“This case is, yet again, about a federal agency trying to change law, which is Congress’ exclusive prerogative,” Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III said. “The USDA simply does not have that authority. We have successfully challenged the Biden Administration’s other attempts to rewrite law and we will challenge this as well.”
“Beto O’Rourke Campaign Staffers Vote to Unionize.” I can hardly wait for the first strike…
Things that make you go “Hmmmm.” Russian missile system being transported by rail…in the US.
Samantha Bee’s show gets cancelled by TBS.
In other news, Samantha Bee was evidently still on the air somewhere.
Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 jacket went for $2.8 million at auction.
“10 Biggest Adjustments Fleeing Californians Have To Make In Their New States.” One of my favs: “Man-buns are unacceptable in a professional setting. Or any setting.”
“CDC Declares Gay Orgies An ‘Essential Activity.'”
Tags:2022 Election, 2022 Texas Governor's Race, auctions, Baltimore, Biden Recession, Buzz Aldrin, Crime, deficits, Democrats, Elections, FBI, Foreign Policy, George Soros, Hunter Biden, Joe Manchin, LinkSwarm, Marilyn Mosby, Military, NASA, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Samantha Bee, school lunch, Texas, Title IX, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual, unions
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions | 2 Comments »
Thursday, October 10th, 2019
Between that South Park episode and the NBA, awareness of China forcing corporate entities to silence its critics has exploded into the mainstream, so let’s do a roundup of Chinese news:
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam threatens Chinese military intervention if protests continue.
China views people of Chinese extraction overseas as extensions of the Chinese Communist Party:
I watch with unease as the People’s Republic of China turns 70 amid great fanfare about its growing economic and political heft, the longest-running nation state to ever fly a flag emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, surpassing even the former Soviet Union. Ever since it embarked on its modernization program, China has been subtly cultivating and influencing the Chinese diaspora to its cause.
At an overseas Chinese conference just shortly before President Xi Jinping consolidated power and was reelected at the 19th Party Congress, Xi noted that the realization of the ‘great rejuvenation’ of the Chinese nation ‘requires the joint efforts of the Chinese people at home and abroad’, saying that he hoped that those who have Chinese descent outside of China — up to 60 million ethnic Chinese in more than 180 countries — can work hard for and share in the ‘Chinese dream’.
The word ‘Chinese’ can refer to the citizenry of a country, a race, a language, and even a culture, ambiguities that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exploits in order to appeal to the diaspora via the sentimental heartstrings of heritage via ‘flesh and blood’. It exports and reinforces the concept that there is only one politically-correct way of being Chinese: loyalty to the party first and foremost, above all else. In effect, it’s like the ummah, an Arabic term that describes the supra-national global community that unites all Muslims as one. Only this one is based not on religion but on ethnicity, where Tibetans, Uigher Muslims, Chinese dissenters, Hong Kong protesters, are excluded and marginalized like infidels.
Almost nothing embodies the scope of China’s attempts at a global soft power offensive more as the Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes, where there are 480 branches operating on six continents around the world (watch out, Antarctica!). These institutes ostensibly offer language classes and promote cultural education and diplomacy, but in reality they are de facto fronts for generating good Public Relations and patriotism to the CCP. In 2014, the American Association of University Professors issued a report urging colleges to close the institutes or renegotiate their mutual agreements to guarantee a certain degree of academic freedom and control.
The report asserted that ‘most agreements establishing Confucius Institutes feature nondisclosure clauses and unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China. Specifically, North American universities permit Confucius Institutes (CIs) to advance a state agenda in the recruitment and control of academic staff, in the choice of curriculum, and in the restriction of debate.’ As these centers draw scrutiny from the FBI, the Pentagon and even Congress, many CIs on US campuses have been closing.
The rhetoric between pro-Beijing factions and critics of the Chinese regime has been heating up, especially in light of the current conflict with Hong Kong protesters spilling over at pro-democracy rallies in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. There are roughly 1.5 million Chinese students studying overseas — roughly 300,000 in the United States alone — and increasingly, they are getting caught up in the crossfire of the escalating tensions and heightened scrutiny for ties to Beijing.
Making China part of the world trade system was supposed to lead to China liberalizing and adopting democracy. It was a beautiful theory with a lot of supporting evidence behind it. One tiny problem: It turned out not to be true:
Back in May, I went back to the arguments American policymakers had with themselves in the 1990s as they contemplated extending “most-favored-nation” status to China, and then “permanent normal trade relations.” Something weird happened when chief executives of American companies discussed China back then. They kept describing a market of a billion new customers, as if the average Chinese citizen was awash in disposable income. They pictured a China full of people eating American soybeans, drinking Coke, wearing blue jeans made with American cotton, celebrating with American bourbon and riding on Boeing airplanes.
America’s policymakers, by and large, agreed. Here’s Bill Clinton describing America’s future relationship with China in 2000, after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed Permanent Normal Trade Relations:
With more than a billion people, China is the largest new market in the world. Our administration has negotiated an agreement that will open China’s markets to American products made on American soil, everything from corn to chemicals to computers.
Bringing China into the WTO and normalizing trade will strengthen those who fight for the environment, for labor standards, for human rights, for the rule of law . . . At this stage in China’s development, we will have a more positive influence with an outstretched hand than with a clenched fist.
Clinton hailed the deal as a step to “a China that is more open to our products and more respectful of the rule of law at home and abroad.” And from that year on, America’s trade relationship with China was “normal.”
Except . . . China wasn’t a “normal” country, and it never was one. Only a few decades earlier, the Chinese regime had perpetrated some of the greatest horrors of the century upon its people — the Great Chinese Famine — which killed tens of millions! — the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution. The Tiananmen Square massacre had just been a few years earlier. It still had political prisoners and a police state, it was slowly but steadily building up its military, it still harvested organs from prisoners in its jails. And yet most of America’s political and business leaders looked across the Pacific, averted their eyes from the draconian human rights abuses, focused relentlessly on that growing economy and potential billion customers and declared, “we can do business with these people.” And they told the rest of us to trust them. Oh, and Bill Clinton assured us that money donated by Chinese citizens in his reelection campaign had never influenced his thinking about China. Even though in 1992, he had campaigned as a tough critic of China and called George H. W. Bush as too soft on the regime.
Nothing could seem to dissuade America’s business leaders when it came to their vision of an endlessly mutually profitable relationship with the regime. We kept being told how absolutely ruthless and relentless the Chinese efforts at corporate espionage were, and how brazenly and defiantly they stole patents, blueprints, and intellectual property. I don’t know about you, but when somebody steals from me, I don’t want to keep doing business with them. Yet America’s business leaders never seemed to experience anything that made them conclude the regime is so bad that it’s not worth doing business with them. There was this consistently weird disconnect in the comments from American business leaders, as they kept saying their Chinese competitors were overtly or secretly state-subsided, or would complain about corruption . . . but no one wanted to stop putting more resources there.
China is not as strong as it appears:
Whereas the Soviet Union largely walled itself off from its greatest adversary, literally and figuratively, China’s leaders have sought to exploit America across the board for decades. China profits from U.S. financial markets; purchases cutting-edge U.S. firms; pilfers trade secrets and technology from U.S. companies, including defense contractors; and promotes a massive misinformation campaign on U.S. soil to sway policy and public opinion in its favor. Yet far from being a source of strength, Communist China’s dependence on America is one of its primary weakness.
Like the Soviet Union before it, China’s tyranny stifles the creativity of its people. While Beijing grants some few a small amount of economic autonomy, it refuses to let the average Chinese citizen fully pursue her dreams, apply her talents, or realize her potential, preventing untold advances across every field of endeavor. There’s a reason Chinese parents send their children to American universities and their cash to Western banks. China’s seemingly inexorable rise requires continued access to America and the fruits of our system of free enterprise and the rule of law.
This reality is coming into focus under President Trump. The administration has started to disentangle Communist China from America’s economy and institutions. China’s stock markets are suffering and its economy is growing at the slowest rate in nearly three decades. Additional unraveling of U.S.–China ties will likely further demonstrate the bankruptcy of the Communist economic model, and its need for external support.
Beijing knows this, hence its relentless focus on tamping down trade tensions, but not national security or human-rights issues. It also benefits from the widespread belief that Communist China is here to stay, so we might as well deal with it rather than hope for a better, more democratic regime. In our organization’s discussions with government leaders, prominent academics, and corporations, we have found an overwhelming belief that a change in China’s government would be catastrophic. They prefer to work with the devil they know, not hope for a devil they don’t.
Yet the lessons of history are worth remembering. The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in a new era of freedom, prosperity, and peace in its former lands, and far beyond. A collapse of red rule in China will surely be more complicated, given its greater interaction with the world, but it stands to reason that the Communist party’s loss will be the Chinese people’s gain. Many others, America included, will benefit, too.
Communist China is weaker than it appears. However, it’s unlikely to fall unless the United States, and the rest of the free world, continue to ratchet up the pressure. The Communist ideology is a parasite that cannot survive for long on its own.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Then there was the Marriott employee who was fired for liking a tweet
America has expanded its trade blacklist of Chinese companies to include several AI-focused firms.
Blizzard games, makers of World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Overwatch, etc., hit Hearthstone player Ng “blitzchung” Wai Chung with a year-long ban from competitive Hearthstone, expelled him from the Hearthstone Grandmasters tour and had his prize money reduced to $0 for “shouting ‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age’ during a post-game interview on official Blizzard stream.”
Speaking of the NBA, remember: a million Uighurs in concentration camps is a statistic, but tranny bathroom laws in North Carolina are worth a boycott.
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Tags:Blizzard Games, Carrie Lam, censorship, China, Communism, Foreign Policy, Hong Kong, Marco Rubio, NBA, Ng "blitzchung" Wai Chung, North Carolina, Ted Cruz, Tranny Bathrooms, Uighers
Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 7th, 2017
On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called a special session of the Texas Legislature starting July 18:
Abbott gave legislators an ambitious 19-item agenda to work on — including a so-called “bathroom bill” — after they approve must-pass legislation that they failed to advance during the regular session. An overtime round, Abbott said, was “entirely avoidable.”
“Because of their inability or refusal to pass a simple law that would prevent the medical profession from shutting down, I’m announcing a special session to complete that unfinished business,” Abbott told reporters. “But if I’m going to ask taxpayers to foot the bill for a special session, I intend to make it count.”
(Ignore the usual Texas Tribune hand-wringing about the “controversial” nature of the bathroom law; it’s just a restoration of the status quo, reversing what the Obama Administration imposed on the nation via executive fiat.)
Here are Governor Abbott’s 19 items:
Teacher pay increase of $1,000
Administrative flexibility in teacher hiring and retention practices
School finance reform commission
School choice for special needs students
Property tax reform
Caps on state and local spending
Preventing cities from regulating what property owners do with trees on private land
Preventing local governments from changing rules midway through construction projects
Speeding up local government permitting process
Municipal annexation reform
Texting while driving preemption
Privacy
Prohibition of taxpayer dollars to collect union dues
Prohibition of taxpayer funding for abortion providers
Pro-life insurance reform
Strengthening abortion reporting requirements when health complications arise
Strengthening patient protections relating to do-not-resuscitate orders
Cracking down on mail-in ballot fraud
Extending maternal mortality task force
That’s an ambitious agenda…if Texas Speaker Joe Straus, who did so much to thwart so many of those items, let’s any of them pass.
In an effort to force the special session, [Lieutenant Governor] Patrick had held hostage legislation, known as a “sunset bill,” that would keep some state agencies from closing. That “will be the only legislation on the special session [agenda] until they pass out of the Senate in full,” Abbott said.
That’s quite defensible from a governance perspective, but it is going to eliminate Lt. Gov. Patrick’s biggest piece of leverage against Straus.
With fewer items on the agenda, maybe House Republicans will have a chance to concentrate and actually act like Republicans rather than let Straus’ liberal coalition run roughshod over them.
Tags:85th Texas Legislature, Budget, Dan Patrick, education, Greg Abbott, Joe Straus, Regulation, Special Session, Tranny Bathrooms, unions, voting fraud
Posted in Budget, Regulation, Texas, unions | 1 Comment »