Posts Tagged ‘weird news’

LinkSwarm For February 6, 2026

Friday, February 6th, 2026

More fraud in California, Homan declares victory in Minnesota, Virginia declares war on lawful gun owners, a lefty drops the N-Word on a black ICE agent, Musk shuts off bootleg Starlink to the Russian army, NOPD hires an illegal alien, and Illinois declares that no Democrat can express #WrongThink about trannies.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

I did get that second check from my closing 401K, so I have a few months worth of food and utilities in the bank.

  • California’s Hospice Fraud Explosion: Billions Drained From Taxpayers.”

    The massive hospice fraud racket thriving under California’s lax oversight is finally getting the spotlight it deserves, as the Trump administration’s CMS chief Dr. Mehmet Oz hits the streets of Los Angeles to call out the billions in stolen taxpayer dollars.

    With organized crime rings, including Russian-Armenian mafia elements, infiltrating the system through ghost patients and fake companies, the scam highlights how globalist policies have opened the door to foreign exploitation of U.S. resources. As fraudsters traffic beneficiaries like commodities, real Americans suffer denied care while the deep state looks the other way.

    Los Angeles County alone accounts for 18% of the entire country’s home health care billing, a staggering figure that screams foul play.

    One California physician billed the government $120 million in a single year, claiming to oversee 1,900 patients—a workload that defies logic and reeks of corruption.

    The county boasts almost 2,000 hospice agencies, more than 36 states combined and 30 times the number in Florida or New York.

    Dr. Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was forthright during his on-the-ground tour: “Hospice is crazy here… You’ve got hospice that’s grown seven-fold in the last five years. They represent about three and a half billion dollars of fraud, we believe, just in LA County.”

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta has admitted the problem’s scale, calling it “an epidemic in California, specifically in the greater Los Angeles area.”

    The fraud operates through recruiters who lure seniors with freebies like walkers or cash, harvest their Medicare numbers, and sell them to providers for $1,000 to $3,000 each. Providers then bill the feds $260 per day per patient, often for nonexistent services, while shuffling enrollees between sham outfits to evade detection.

    In LA’s San Fernando Valley, particularly Van Nuys, the density is absurd: 210 agencies crammed into one square mile, with one building listing 112 hospices showing no actual operations.

  • “Vance To Lead Sweeping Anti-Fraud Task Force Investigating California.”

    Vice President JD Vance is poised to chair a new White House task force aimed at rooting out potential fraud and abuse in government programs in California, according to CBS News.

    Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, is expected to serve as the task force’s vice chairman and handle day-to-day operations, CBS News reports. President Donald Trump is anticipated to issue an executive order in the coming days to formally establish the group, the news outlet said.

    The White House task force would operate separately from a related Justice Department effort led by Colin McDonald, a Trump nominee for a new fraud-investigation role at the department. McDonald is expected to also probe fraud in Minnesota uncovered by YouTuber Nick Shirley and other independent journalists.

    California has long grappled with documented issues of waste, fraud, and weak oversight in state and federally funded programs. State auditors have for more than a decade flagged problems including persistent cost overruns, inadequate internal controls, and unimplemented reform recommendations across various initiatives, CBS News reported last month.

    California’s Employment Development Department faced acute criticism during the pandemic, when unemployment-insurance fraud resulted in an estimated $20 billion or more in improper payments, while many eligible claimants endured lengthy delays in receiving benefits, according to NPR News.

    Separately, federal officials have recently scrutinized fraud risks in hospice and home-health services, particularly in Los Angeles County. Last week, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz visited the area to draw attention to the issue, citing the rapid proliferation of hospice providers and potential billions in improper billings.

    See above. Given the vast scale of graft Democrats rake in from various fraud schemes, I can only imagine they’re experience quiet panic at the prospect…

  • Tom Homan declares victory, says city and state officials in Minnesota will now cooperate with ICE and turn over illegal aliens. Just think of the deaths that could have been avoided if they had only done this in the first place.
  • California Democrats go all in on voter fraud.

    California Democrats are taking a victory lap, celebrating the fact that their election system has no way of verifying that the people who are casting votes are legitimate, registered voters.

    The Supreme Court of California effectively struck down Huntington Beach’s voter ID law, refusing to review a lower court decision that blocked the law. The city argued that it could impose a voter ID requirement for citywide elections, but California Democrats passed a law in 2024 banning localities from requiring voter ID in elections. California law not only does not require you to prove you are who you say you are when you vote, but it actively prevents cities and localities from having that requirement in place at all.

  • Trump Takes a Sledgehammer to Deportation Process and Sets Up a Court Fight With Another Activist Judge.”

    The Trump administration will publish a notice in the Federal Register on Friday that will demolish the slow-moving process of deporting illegals. The proposed rule aims to streamline the current process and reduce the backlog of cases that has nearly brought the system to a screeching halt. That said, we know it faces an uphill fight as federal judges, acting without jurisdiction, will certainly declare the changes improper at some point.

    The Federal Register notice titled RIN 1125-AB37, Appellate Procedures for the Board of Immigration Appeals, extensively overhauls the current process that could lead an immigration case to the Supreme Court.

    The first part of the system seems to remain intact. An apprehended illegal is brought before an Article 2 Immigration Judge and given a hearing. The judge either lets them stay or tells them to go home. If ordered deported, a removal order is entered. As we’re seeing from the cases popping in the news, it is not uncommon for an illegal apprehended today in Minneapolis, perhaps a contractor working for the Quality Learing Center, to have a removal order dating back two decades.

    Breaking the logjam at the Board of Immigration Appeals is the target.

    The filing lays out how Trump 1.0 tried to fix the problem.

    Among other changes, the Appellate Procedures NPRM proposed: (1) simultaneous briefing schedules for both detained and non-detained appeals before the Board; (2) shortening the reply brief deadline; (3) limiting briefing extensions; (4) harmonizing the 90- and 180-day Board adjudication timelines to both start from when the record is complete; (5) limiting the Chief Appellate Immigration Judge’s ability to hold a group of cases while awaiting certain outside actions; and (6) removing the process for Immigration Judge review of proceeding transcripts.

    Snip.

    The new regulation will “change the deadline for filing an appeal with the Board from 30 to 10 days, except for cases involving certain asylum applications.” This is not as trivial as it could appear. The current filing fee for the BIA is $1,030. There are provisions for filing “in forma pauperis.” This requires jumping through more hoops to prove you are indigent. The illegal now has 10 days to find representation and prepare an appeal, as well as pony up money. Historically, claiming you are broke is a good way to get the next flight back home.

    Once you appeal, there is no requirement that the BIA will hear the case. Rather, “the default will be summary dismissal unless a majority of current Board members vote to consider the appeal on the merits.” There is an expedited hearing process that will “require simultaneous briefing within 20 days of the Board setting the schedule in all cases not summarily dismissed, with no reply briefs and limited extensions.”

    Plus, there are deadlines for the BIA: “the Board shall dispose of all cases assigned to a single Board member within 90 days of completion of the record, or within 180 days of completion of the record for all cases assigned to a three-member panel.”

    So an appeal is no longer a way to buy time before a final decision is rendered. The 10-day window makes it difficult prepare, and the BIA will focus on “selecting decisions for review that present novel issues warranting the Board’s attention.” If you are lucky enough for your case to be heard by the BIA, it has no more than 180 days to render a judgment. There is still an appeal to a federal appeals court; however, this requires representation and a $600 filing fee.

    Faster, please.

  • Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton “Launches Investigation Into Alleged H-1B Visa Abuse by Texas Businesses.”

    Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced a wide-sweeping investigation into alleged abuse of the federal H-1B visa program by Texas businesses, issuing civil investigative demands to three North Texas companies suspected of operating sham enterprises to fraudulently sponsor foreign workers.

    Paxton said his office has issued the demands—known as Civil Investigative Demands, or CIDs—seeking documents identifying company employees, records detailing the products or services provided, financial statements, and communications related to business operations.

    Standing outside a single-family home listed as the office address for one of the companies highlighted in recent reporting, Paxton credited BlazeTV and Texas Scorecard personality Sara Gonzales with prompting the investigation.

    “Thanks to you, we’re here today,” Paxton said during an interview with Gonzales. “We’ve started an investigation of three different companies that we think might be scamming people with these H-1B visas.”

    Paxton did not publicly identify the three companies that received CIDs. However, his office said the investigation includes “entities identified in videos that were widely circulated online.”

    A portion of Paxton’s interview with Gonzales was filmed outside a residential home listed as the office address for 3Bees Technologies Inc., a location that Gonzales reported appeared vacant, despite the company’s sponsorship of multiple H-1B visa holders.

    According to Paxton’s office, reports indicate that businesses under investigation may have created sham companies featuring websites advertising nonexistent products or services while listing residential homes or unfinished buildings as offices. Despite those irregularities, the companies allegedly sponsored numerous H-1B visas in recent years.

    “Any criminal who attempts to scam the H-1B visa program and use ‘ghost offices’ or other fraudulent ploys should be prepared to face the full force of the law,” Paxton stated. “Abuse and fraud within these programs strip jobs and opportunities away from Texans.”

    (Previously.)

  • Paxton also sued Bexar County for funding legal defense for illegal aliens facing deportation.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking a court to shut down Bexar County’s taxpayer-funded deportation-defense program for illegal aliens, arguing it violates state law and the Texas Constitution.

    The Bexar County Commissioners Court voted on December 16, 2025, to allocate $566,181 in county funds to provide legal services to individuals unlawfully present in the United States through the county’s Immigration Legal Services fund.

    Paxton’s office noted that, with additional commitments, total spending on the program could ultimately exceed $1 million.

    The money is earmarked to pay lawyers to represent illegal aliens in federal deportation proceedings—a role typically handled either by private counsel or nonprofit organizations, not county governments. Paxton’s lawsuit names Bexar County, the Commissioners Court, and multiple county officials as defendants.

    Paxton’s petition argues that subsidizing deportation-defense work for people in the country unlawfully “confers no public benefit,” serves “predominantly private radical interests,” and falls outside any lawful power granted to counties under Texas law.

    He framed the program as an attempt by local officials to interfere with federal immigration enforcement while using statewide taxpayers as the funding source.

    “Leftists in Bexar County have no authority to use taxpayer dollars to fund their radical, criminal-loving agenda,” Paxton said in a statement, adding that “state funds cannot underwrite deportation-defense services for individuals unlawfully present in the country.”

  • Virginia’s radical Democrats declare war on the Second Amendment, ban high (i.e. normal) capacity magazines, making even possessing them a crime. I can’t imagine the courts are going to let that stand… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The New Orleans police department hired an illegal alien with an active deportation notice and no work authorization to be a cop. ICE took care of him…
  • Remember all those decades when lefties assured us that The N-Word was The Worst Word In The World? Evidently that doesn’t apply when a tranny protestor is cussing out a black ICE agent. (Hat tip: Ed Dricoll at Instapundit.)
  • Not just Minnesota: “HS Reports More Than 180 Vehicle Attacks On Law Enforcement.”

    Immigration officers have faced 182 vehicular attacks since President Donald Trump took office last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a Feb. 3 statement.

    Out of the 182 attacks between Jan. 21, 2025, and Jan. 24, 2026, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers faced 114, up by 124 percent from the 51 attacks during the same time period the previous year. The remaining 68 attacks were faced by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Attacks on ICE are up by 3,300 percent from two assaults previously, according to the DHS.

  • Supreme Court rules that gerrymander the hell out of their state, previous law be damned.
  • So part of the huge Epstein data dump includes a conversation with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak from 2014, discussing bringing Russians (I assume Russian Jews) to Israel. Weirdly, I think it makes it less likely Epstein was Mossad (or at least current Mossad). In 2014, Barak’s left wing (Labor/One Israel/etc.) had been out of power for a while and Benjamin Netanyahu was in the midst of a long run as Prime Minister, despite Obama’s best efforts. It just seems unlikely that a Mossad asset would just be shooting the shit with a former PM of an out-of-power party. (Of course, maybe he was team Barak/Barack.) And the message “Goyim were born to only serve us,” that’s so outlandish it could have come from The Protocols of Elders of Zion. Like the LARP Nazis chanting “Blood and Soil!” at Charlottesville, it reeks of someone trying too hard to fit in with a culture they’re largely ignorant of.
  • The Epstein revelations might indeed topple one world leader: Keir Starmer.

    Already-struggling UK Leader Keir Starmer is facing mounting pressure to step down over the latest scandal involving his former ambassador to America’s shocking close links to Jeffrey Epstein.

    The prime minister, whose popularity was already at a near-record low since his 2024 election, faced revolt even from his own party over the fresh revelations about former diplomat Peter Mandelson, who was even seen in his underwear with an unknown woman in photos in the latest Epstein files.

    Starmer went into a desperate damage-control mode Thursday, accusing his one-time close ally of “deceit” — even though Mandelson’s friendship with the now-deceased pedophile was well known when Starmer gave him the cushy role as the UK’s ambassador to Washington in December 2024.

    Starmer is indeed a nasty piece of work, but the sad truth is that any replacement Labour PM is likely to be every bit as committed to importing unassimilated illegal alien Islamic rapists as Starmer is.

  • “Panama Supreme Court Boots China From Canal Control.

    It took almost a year, but the White House finally chalked up its first objective in implementing the newly revitalized Monroe Doctrine. Or, as we call it, the Donroe Doctrine.

    Its very first manifestation came almost immediately after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Panama president Jose Raul Mulino and told Mulino in no uncertain terms that the US would not allow China to control ports on the Panama Canal any longer. On February 3, 2025, Muloino repudiated Panama’s Belt and Road Initiative agreements with China and would force the sale of control of those ports. China began a two-front strategy to reverse that decision, with parallel diplomatic and legal tracks. Diplomacy gave way to trade negotiations, which ultimately proved fruitless.

    Late yesterday, so did the legal challenge. Panama’s top court annulled the country’s contracts with China’s CK Hutchinson to operate both ports, effectively severing China from control of the Panama Canal.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Perhaps transsexual madness has peaked now that it’s costing people money.

    A woman who received a double mastectomy at the age of 16 under the guise of transgender-related healthcare was just awarded $2 million in the first successful medical-malpractice lawsuit brought by a detransitioner.

    Fox Varian sued her New York-based psychologist and plastic surgeon for facilitating her gender-transition double mastectomy in 2019, independent reporter Benjamin Ryan who attended Varian’s recent trial, said. Although a host of detransitioners have sued doctors who rush to “affirm” gender confusion with life-altering surgeries, Varian’s is the first known successful lawsuit.

    Claire Deacon, Varian’s mother, was led by her daughter’s psychologist to believe that breast removal was the only way to heal Varian’s gender dysphoria, she told the jury. At first Deacon told Varian’s psychologist Kenneth Einhorn that top surgery was “never gonna happen” if she could help it.

    “This man was just so emphatic, and pushing and pushing, that I felt like there was no good decision,” she said, according to an Epoch Times report. “I think it was a scare tactic: I don’t believe it was malice, I think he believed what he was saying … but he was very, very wrong.”

    Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.

  • Oppose transsexual madness? You’re not allowed to register as a Democrat in Illinois.

    Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender opposes the Democratic Party’s general elevation of gender identity over sex in public policy, especially subjecting gender-confused people to the lifelong consequences of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical interventions so they more closely resemble the opposite sex.

    The nonprofit’s leaders could allegedly be fined or go to prison in Illinois if they register as “Democrats” without the state party’s permission.

    The Land of Lincoln’s bespoke “party name provision” in its 40-year-old General Not for Profit Corporation Act, which Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias repeatedly invoked to deny DIAG’s applications to solicit charitable contributions in the state, is the target of a First Amendment lawsuit on DIAG’s behalf by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

    “Not only would they likely face an uphill battle in getting approval from the Illinois Democratic Party, they refuse on principle to seek permission from the very party they plan to criticize,” a flagrantly unconstitutional condition on protected speech, said FIRE, which also filed a motion for preliminary injunction.

    While the state party officially supports so-called gender affirming care as “health care,” without age or other restrictions, DIAG opposes throwing “gay, lesbian, and gender non-conforming/gender-distressed children and vulnerable adults under the wheels of a regressive ideological bus” through “predatory medical harm.”

    It portrays the standard Democratic position on medicalized gender transitions as pseudoscientific and harmful to both physical and mental health.

    The Illinois Democratic Party told Capitol News Illinois it hadn’t received a request from DIAG, but “the fact that they’re proudly anti-transgender does not align with the Democratic Party of Illinois’s values” of “progress and inclusivity.”

    Evidently men who believe they’re women have replaced black people in the Democrat Party’s Victimhood Hierarchy.

  • Minnesota Club Cancels Comedian’s Sold Out Show Over Good Joke.”

    Canadian comedian with a solid international fanbase just watched six sold-out shows vanish in Minnesota. Ben Bankas lost his gigs at Laugh Camp Comedy Club in St. Paul after clips of his routine on Renee Good’s death blew up online – the routine hit raw nerves in a city still reeling from the January 7 shooting.

    Club owner Bill Collins cited threats, media frenzy, and street chaos as the reasons for the cancellation.

    Snip.

    Bankas opened his bit by calling for a moment of silence for Good, then pivoting to say he hoped “that dog’s okay…and her pet,” a reference to Good’s dog, who was in the car with her, and her wife, Becca, who had been in the vehicle but left shortly before she told Renee to drive off while the agent was in front of her car.

    “That’s what you don’t want when you’re dealing with the police — your lesbian wife saying ‘drive, baby, drive,’” he told the crowd. “Her last name was Good; that’s what I said after they shot her in the face,” he continued. He then backed off slightly, saying, “I’m not a liberal, so I don’t celebrate the death of people that I… I didn’t hate her, I didn’t know her, but now that I know her, I hate her”.

  • Old and busted: Leftists demanding police bodycams to prove they’re killing innocent black people. The new hotness: Leftists demand we stop using bodycams because they’re showing police shootings are justified.
  • Democrat backs gang leaders over ICE. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Abbott Adds Chinese Tech Firms to Texas’ Prohibited Technology List Over Cybersecurity Concerns.” The brands are TP-Link, Hisense, and TCL.
  • “Couple Sentenced After Fake ID Bust by Dallas ICE. According to ICE, the manufacturing of fake identification documents by the couple took place from August 2020 until their arrest in February 2025.
”

    A Mexican couple living in Oklahoma has been sentenced for manufacturing fake identification documents for illegal aliens, a scheme uncovered by ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas.

    Karina Garcia-Salazar, 47, was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release for Conspiracy to Transfer Identification Documents and Conspiracy to Possess with Intent to Use or Transfer Five or More Documents.

    Her partner Jorge Augusto Prieto-Gamboa, 41, was sentenced in December to 15 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release following conviction for Conspiracy to Possess Five or More Documents with Intent to Transfer.

    The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma reported that Garcia holds a Lawful Permanent Resident card, while Gamboa has been living illegally in the U.S. since 2002.

    Sounds like authorities have reason to strip Garcia of their green card and deport them.

  • Winning: “Texas A&M Ends Women’s & Gender Studies Programming. The university cited low enrollment as the reason for the decision.”
  • A HIMARS strike knocks a Belgorod power plant offline.
  • A fuel trained derailed and exploded in Tambov, Russia. It may or may not be Ukraine-related.
  • “Ukraine says Starlink terminals used by Russia deactivated.

    Ukraine said last week it was working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to block the use of Starlink terminals used on Russian attack drones and was trying to compile a “white list” of all Ukraine’s terminals so the Russian ones could be turned off.

    “Starlinks included in the ‘white list’ are working — Russian terminals have already been blocked,” Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who took office last month, wrote on Telegram, adding that the list was still being updated.

    SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk said on Sunday that moves by SpaceX to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia seemed to have worked.

    Russia used to be home to space-faring superpower capable of launching its own communication satellites. Now its dependent on western COTS technology that can be turned off by Elon Musk.

  • Russian GRU military intelligence General Vladimir Alexeyev shot in assassination attempt in Moscow. No word if Ukraine or internal enemies attempted the hit. Alexeyev is a nasty piece of work with several planned assassinations and war atrocities laid at his feet, so he’s exactly the sort of person Putin would assassinate if he feared internal dissent.
  • Washington Post to layoff over 300 employees. John Nolte has thoughts:

  • Follow-up: Louis Rossmann’s war against Austin paying for AI cameras in its parks has paid off in the form of a new proposal. “If you go down to item 61, approve a resolution directing the city manager to return to council with an ordinance regulating the city’s use of surveillance technology. Mayor Pro Tem Jose Cheto Vela, Council Member Mike Siegel, Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, Council Member Krista Laine, Council Member Jose Velasquez are involved and sponsors of this.”
  • YouTuber makes horror film for $3 million, kicks Hollywood’s butt.  
  • Even Critical Drinker likes it.
  • Heh. “William Shatner’s fiber commercial is on pace to get more views than the woke new Star Trek show.”
  • Adobe screws animators by cancelling a program they depend on, then immediately walks it back. Sort of.
  • It’s not just employers who are flaky: “The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed.”

    John” accepted the offer and started last week!

    Except … it’s not the John my husband remembers. My husband was confused and said the following things were odd:

    – John has different hair and now wears glasses.

    – John is talking extensively about working in a garage because his three children and wife are home. In the interview, he made references to being single and was visibly in an indoor desk area.

    – John can’t answer a number of questions that they previously discussed in the interview, things pretty pivotal to the position.

    – Husband describes John as being aloof and pretty timid whereas John was confident and articulate when they interviewed him.

    He is convinced this is not the person they hired.

    Snip.

    They heard back from legal … who are less than thrilled about the situation! They approved HR to have a conversation with John regarding what has been reported (more in the vein of “there’s been some concerns about performance and you overselling abilities” and less of the We Think You Are a Liar route).

    Snip.

    As soon as HR got on the call with him, before they could get through their first question, John said the words “I quit” and hung up the calls. He has since been unreachable!!

  • YouTuber WhistlinDiesel was once again daring to register a vehicle he bought in Tennessee in another state. Sounds like Special Agent Curtis Richie has a vindictive vendetta against him. “Don’t buy cars in Tennessee anymore. I cannot recommend enough just moving to another state.”
  • When various WWII tanks were finally retired…and a couple of types are still in service.
  • Speaking of ancient military equipment: “Hospital evacuated after 8-inch WWI artillery shell discovered in patient’s butt.”
  • “Damning Photos Surface Of Clippy On Epstein Island.”
  • “Roomful Of Pedophiles Protests ICE Deporting Pedophiles.”
  • “Tim Walz Emerges From Den To Declare 6 More Weeks Of Rioting And Fraud.”
  • “If They Can Arrest Don Lemon For Something As Simple As Breaking The Law, Imagine What They Can Do To You.”
  • “Experts Warn Arresting Journalists Could Be Slippery Slope To Arresting Politicians And Other People Who Deserve It.”
  • “Suspicious: Voter ID Bill Defeated In Senate By Vote Of 7 Million To 53.”
  • I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    Smokin!

    Monday, March 13th, 2017

    Yesterday, I finished a story for an invitation-only anthology.

    Today I had a job interview.

    Both those things went well, but I can no longer brain today. Maybe brain tomorrow.

    So enjoy a single link instead of actual content: “Defense lawyer’s pants catch fire during arson trial.”

    Bonus: Florida! Like you couldn’t already guess that…

    LinkSwarm for October 7, 2016

    Friday, October 7th, 2016

    It’s been one of those weeks. Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:

  • This just in: The eight years of the Obama Administration have been a miserable failure.
  • Some ObamaCare patients are losing their plans, others are facing huge rate hikes. In Tennessee, they’re getting both. (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt.)
  • More on the same theme:

    ObamaCare’s unraveling shows the danger of a one-size-fits-all federal program. What’s happening in Tennessee is only a nationwide harbinger. Every single neighboring state will have less competition on its ObamaCare exchanges next year. The entire state of Alabama will have only one insurer. Almost all are facing double-digit premium increases: in Mississippi a weighted average of 16%; in Kentucky 25%; in Georgia 33%.

    These problems aren’t confined to the Southeast. ObamaCare exchange buyers will have only one option in nearly a third of American counties, according to an August report from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s a 300% increase in single-option counties from last year. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have approved rates leading to average premium increases next year of over 26%.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Indiana police raid offices in nine county voting fraud case. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • And speaking of voting fraud, the 86 non-citizens registered to vote in Philadelphia are just the tip of the iceberg. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • There’s even a huge voting fraud investigation going on in Tarrant County, with “a vote harvesting scheme involving as many as 20,000 ballots.”
  • Michael Moore: “I don’t think people do trust the Democrats.”
  • Even MSNBC panelists nail the media for obvious left-wing bias.
  • Race relations have gotten worse under Obama. That’s what happens when you have George Soros spending millions to poison race relations, and let Social Justice Warriors go rampaging through your institutions…
  • Both Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte and Donald Trump are gaining in New Hampshire. Remember that until very recently New Hampshire was considered a solidly Republican state.
  • Mayor de Blasio is thin-skinned and unable to handle even the slightest criticism.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • NFL ratings are down across the, and one-third of people surveyed says its because of the Black Lives Matter pandering. (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt.)
  • Followup: Dawanna Dukes seeks a plea deal. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • So even Canada has giant brawls in its McDonalds? Bonus: Baby raccoon.
  • Peak Florida? (Hat tip: Bill Crider.)
  • LinkSwarm for September 2, 2016

    Friday, September 2nd, 2016

    Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone!

  • Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are in a statistical tie.
  • Ditto Rasmussen: Trump 40%, Clinton 39%. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • 538: Don’t Assume The Electoral College Will Save Clinton.
  • Let us celebrate the fall of Alan Grayson with a look back at his greatest hits.
  • Huge food stamp fraud bust in Baltimore. More than half those arrested have names like “Mulazam Hussain.”
  • How the New York Times lies about red state vs. blue state prosperity.
  • Milo Yiannopoulos decries the Islamicization of London and declares he’s leaving.
  • “After a lengthy period of deliberation, the Brazilian parliament has formally removed from office President Dilma Rousseff, the corrupt left-wing populist who has been trying to do for Brazil what Hugo Chávez and his epigones did for Venezuela.” This is at NRO, which has recently installed an AdBlocker blocker, so good luck reading it. If it’s a choice between turning off my AdBlocker or giving up on reading NRO, I’ll give up on reading NRO, even though I subscribe to NRODT. Though I am still trying to figure out which combination of RefControl, GreaseMonkey and cookie deletion that will block the AdBlocker blocker…
  • Would you bite the hand that feeds you? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Is this Indonesian man really 145 years old? He does sort of look it…
  • Lefty science fiction writer John Shirley (who I workshopped with at a Turkey City many moons ago) has penned a piece on why science fiction needs conservatives at Tangent Online. And I’m accurately quoted. The big caveat is that Shirley doesn’t understand modern conservatism at all, doesn’t know what they’re trying to conserve, and doesn’t make mention of constitutional rights or limited government. But at least he’s recognized how Social Justice Warriors are poisoning the field.
  • “Alabama ACLU sues government, claiming pro-Muslim discrimination.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Are Austin’s red light cameras illegal?
  • The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
  • Newly hired woman explains how she got screwed out of her paycheck by a Silicon Valley startup. She also ignored several early warning signs…
  • Great story from Charles James II on how he made the Texans. “If you need a story to give you hope, I want you to lean on mine. As long as your most valuable measurable is your work ethic, there’s no reason you can’t be successful at whatever you wish to do.”
  • “Everyone was loving Montreal’s family-friendly puppet festival until the prison rape part.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Looks like your creepy Halloween stories are starting a little early this year: “At the edge of dark, dark woods in South Carolina, children have been telling adults that a group of clowns have been trying to lure them into the cluster of trees. They say the clowns live deep in the woods, near a house by a pond.” (Hat tip: Althouse.)
  • Workers tear up sidewalk to free a dog. With heart-tugging photo.
  • New Lucy Statue Replaces Horrific Hellbeast

    Saturday, August 6th, 2016

    Celeron, New York’s medium-term regional nightmare is finally over:

    There’s a new Lucy in town.

    Lucille Ball’s hometown of Celoron, NY is welcoming a brand new bronze statue of the actress on Saturday, Aug. 6 and sculptor Carolyn Palmer is anxiously anticipating how her statue will be received.

    “I’ve lived and breathed every second of Lucy for the last nine months,” Palmer tells The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the unveiling Saturday (Aug. 6), which would have been Ball’s 105th birthday. Palmer’s statue is replacing a previous statue, which was nicknamed “Scary Lucy” and frightened residents so much they petitioned to get it removed.

    Palmer’s version Ball stands proudly on her Hollywood star, clad in a polka-dot dress, pearls and heels with her hair curly and coiffed. The sculptor said the statue is a total of 7 feet tall in its entirety. She said she contemplated making the statue even taller, but she “didn’t want [Ball] so unaccessible to the public.”

    The new statue isn’t great, but it’s a vast improvement over zombie lobotomized alcoholic Amelia Earhart.

    See for yourself:

    Progress!

    (Previously.)

    LinkSwarm for August 5, 2016

    Friday, August 5th, 2016

    Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm! A lot of plane and weird news links this time around:

  • Aetna is losing $300 million a year on ObamaCare. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Air Force Declares F-35 ready for combat. (Hat tip: Borepatch, who is more than a little skeptical…)
  • Islamic State Sinai leader Abu Dua al-Ansari killed in Egyptian air strike.
  • Is there any greater bastion of 1%er elitism than New York Times wedding announcements?

    How is it actually acceptable for an ostensibly liberal newspaper to conclude that wealthy, well-educated people’s lives are more interesting and worth more attention than non-wealthy, less-educated people? Everyone laughs about the Weddings section, even the Times itself. But joking aside, isn’t it morally indefensible to treat people as newsworthy in accordance with their elite social status… a paper run by liberals, who would profess themselves averse to inequality, openly treats most of the population as insignificant.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Cahnman’s Musings has a really solid review of Jane Jacobs’ classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities and how central planning screwed everything up.
  • Clint Eastwood on various liberal whining over Trump: “Just fucking get over it.”
  • Frau Merkel ist nicht sehr beliebt.
  • Austin’s toy trains are a monument to government waste. (Hat tip: Push Junction.)
  • What Pokémon Go Teaches Us About Capitalism.
  • #BlackLivesMatters is all in against Israel. So what do George Soros and Tom Steyer have against Israel? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “A point of view should be based on its own merit, not dismissed by a lazy appeal to privilege.”
  • Funny or die mostly does the latter. (Funny or Die still has 95 staffers? Really? It takes that many people to produce mediocre comedy?)
  • Things you never knew about the World’s Strongest Man competition.
  • An Exciting History of Drywall.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Who would have won the battle between a Bismarck-class battleship and an Iowa class battleship? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Butthurt level: Epic.
  • Airplane trick.
  • Feel good dog story of the day.
  • Behold the legendary crime spree of Dickface Johnson.
  • “Oh no! Not the bees!
  • LinkSwarm for July 29, 2016

    Friday, July 29th, 2016

    Finally, the Democrats have a presidential candidate that combines the honesty of Bill Clinton, the electrifying personality of Walter Mondale, the down-to-earth demeanor of Adlai Stevenson, the even temper of Lyndon Johnson, and the humility of Barack Obama.

    In short: The candidate they deserve.

    A LinkSwarm:

  • Angela Merkel decides that she isn’t going to let a little thing like repeated terrorist attacks and mass rape dissuade her from welcoming lots more Muslims into Germany. It’s like she’s a sleeper agent designed to destroy the CDU from within…
  • DNC unable to fill seats, hires actors to fill them up.
  • Did Palestinian flags outnumber American flags at the DNC? I’m sure they did Monday, when the DNC realized they had no American flags…
  • John Stossel explains how Clinton Cash works. (Disclaimer: You just can’t read that site without AdBlock.)
  • Clinton Foundation investigation referred to IRS. I wouldn’t get my hopes up that anything comes of it.
  • It seems some disgruntled DNC delegates altered their HILLARY signs to read LIAR.
  • Seen on Facebook:

  • You’re not allowed to tweet about the Olympics without approval. So much for my live tweeting the 100 Meter Zika Infection…
  • Speaking of futile bans, China bans Internet news reporting. That’s not in any way the last-gasp desperation move of a country whose smoke-and-mirrors economy is imploding…
  • Trump gets big post-convention bounce.
  • UK Union of Students works to make the organization Judenfrei. Funny how “antizionism” starts to look a whole lot like garden-variety antisemitism…
  • Examining top world fighter planes, including the F-22, China’s Chengdu J-20, Russia’s T-50/PAK FA, the Eurofighter and the Sino-Pakistani JF-17. (Hat tip: Bad Blue.)
  • “Nearly 15 Years After 9/11, Retired Colonel Meets the Man Whose Life He Helped Save.” Man, there sure is a lot of pollen in the air today… (Hat tip: Ted Cruz’s Facebook page.)
  • NFL all-pro cornerback Richard Sherman reiterates that all lives matter. I find it hard to believe this is even remotely controversial… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo? Could work pretty well. He was excellent in Hail, Caesar!.
  • Woman assaults man with burrito, then knife.”
  • Florida Man Charged With Picking Magic Mushrooms While Carrying An Alligator. Oh Florida Man, don’t ever change…
  • Wyoming Man Found with 30 Eyeballs in His Anal Cavity. Authorities are keeping an eye on him…
  • Charles Manson’s Wedding Is Off

    Thursday, February 12th, 2015

    I know that the the breakup of this perfect romance is going to devastate so many of you:

    Manson’s engagement to a woman 53 years his junior was part of a wild scheme of hers to profit by putting his body on public display after his death, says the author of an upcoming book.

    Manson’s fiancée, 27-year-old Afton Elaine Burton, known as Star, sought to wed the convicted mastermind of the Sharon Tate murder and eight other slayings so that she could gain possession of his corpse, according to journalist Daniel Simone.

    Burton and a pal, Craig Hammond, planned to lay out Manson’s remains in a glass crypt, Simone says. The pair figured their bizarre California version of Lenin’s Tomb would draw huge crowds and make big money.

    Golly, whoever would have guessed that a woman who wanted to marry Charles Manson was creepy and unstable?

    Props for working in a reference to Lenin, one of the extremely finite number of people in the world compared to whom Charles Manson looks good by comparison…

    Bad Business Decisions

    Saturday, September 1st, 2012

    Pro-Business Tip: Try not to name your store after genocidal dictators.

    Unlike the people who opened a clothing store called Hitler.

    (Hat tip: Mike Godwin’s Facebook page.)

    Related.

    Disaster Recovery Plans: Mountain Lion Edition

    Thursday, July 5th, 2012

    “Most members of the urban workforce don’t actually have any plan if they came in contact with a mountain lion.”

    You don’t say.

    Actually, in Texas, a CHL holder would have one more action available: shoot it. Of course. this wouldn’t do you any good in California, or if you’re unfortunate enough to work in an office that has a “Gun Free Zone” policy, since there’s no chance the mountain lion will heed the “Mountain Lion Free Zone” policy…