Democrats Focus Group Young Men

June 14th, 2025

You probably heard that Democrats spent $20 million to try and figure out why young men hate them so much. FreedomToons imagines how the focus group went…

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Posted in Democrats, video | No Comments »

LinkSwarm for June 13, 2025

June 13th, 2025

Happy Friday the 13th!

Israeli’s strike on Iran may be shocking to some, but I remember talking to co-workers about the possibility literally two decades ago. The Ayatollah Khomeini made the complete destruction of Israel a stated policy goal at the very outset of the Iranian revolution. Multiple Israeli PMs and American Presidents have made it clear to the Islamic Republic of Iran that they would not be allowed to produce nuclear weapons. Now the mullahs are reaping the whirlwind. And the strikes are still going on. As of this writing, there have been at least nine waves of Israeli strikes on Iran.

Other news: Trump racks up more legal victories, somebody SWATs the head of the FBI, more illegal alien felons deported from Houston, and a couple of callbacks to the 1970s. Plus a whole lot of bullet lists.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • For last night’s post on the Israeli strikes, strike footage was scarce, but Suchomimus has a roundup this morning:

    • General suspicion is that F-35s were used.
    • “It’s a complete embarrassment for the air defense here. Zero confirmed interceptions of missiles and aircraft so far.” Which is what you would expect after Israel took out Iran’s shitty Russian SAM systems. Not to mention the fact that Iran’s most capable fighter aircraft are pre-revolutionary F-14s…
  • Mossad even released footage of Israeli commando teams in Iran guiding in drone strikes on targets.
  • More:

  • Jim Geraghty on why the Israeli strikes were inevitable.

    If you’ve followed the Middle East at all over the past few decades, you’ve understood that the region was on a path to a conflict — the mullahs in Iran kept inching closer to a functioning nuclear weapon, and Israel — and multiple American presidents — kept declaring that that outcome was unacceptable and had to be prevented at all costs. On June 12, 2025, the Israeli military did something about it. Read on.

    Last night’s Israeli air strike was surprising, but also inevitable.

    Israel could not live in a world where the Iranian regime had nuclear weapons — or to put it another way, once the mullahs in Tehran had a nuclear weapon, Israel was certain to die, it was just a matter of when. It was just about inevitable that the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism — the primary sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Yemen’s Houthis, among others — would sooner or later use those weapons against Israel.

    If America were hit by half-dozen nuclear bombs, the effects would be devastating, but America would still function and carry on. If Israel were hit by six nuclear bombs — say one each in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and three other targets of your choice — it would likely cease to exist as a state. Almost three-quarters of Israelis live in cities. Israel’s land area is smaller than New Hampshire.

  • Trump gave Iran a chance to come to the negotiating table and Iran chose not to take it.

    Two months ago I gave Iran a 60 day ultimatum to “make a deal.” They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!

    Also:

    • Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump and his aides were only pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public — and didn’t express opposition in private. “We had a clear U.S. green light,” one claimed.
    • The goal, they say, was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel’s target list wouldn’t move to new locations.
    • Netanyahu’s aides even briefed Israeli reporters that Trump had tried to put the brakes on an Israeli strike in a call on Monday, when in reality the call dealt with coordination ahead of the attack, Israeli officials now say.

    The classic Two Man Con. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Also from Instapundit (Ed Driscoll):

  • RS McCain has an updated kill list, including some names we haven’t listed yet:

    Known kills so far:

    • IRGC Chief-of-Staff Hossein Salami
    • IRGC General Gholamali Rashid
    • Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri
    • Ali Shamkhani, Senior Advisor to Khamenei

    And these nuclear scientists:

    • Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi
    • Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi
    • Dr. Abdolhamid Minouchehr
    • Dr. Ahmad Reza Zolfajari

    The best thing you could ever do is die…

  • “Iran Launches Dozens of Missiles at Israel in Retaliatory Strike.”

  • But there seem to be more than that, and at least one seems to have hit Tel Aviv.

  • With all that’s going on, it might be easy to miss how President Trump keeps racking up court victories.

    While mainstream news outlets, cable networks and social media obsess over Elon Musk’s latest antics, they have neglected a far more important story — the Trump administration is accumulating a significant catalogue of appeals court and SCOTUS victories. Last Friday alone three more wins were added to the list. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the White House may exclude AP from its press pool while SCOTUS stayed a district court order requiring DOGE to heed a Freedom of Information Act request and ruled that it can access Social Security Administration records.

    These rulings follow a spate of similar wins last month. On May 30, the Supreme Court stayed a district court ruling that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem couldn’t revoke former President Biden’s parole of 532,000 non-citizens. On May 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stayed a U.S. Trade Court ruling that President Trump’s tariffs are somehow unlawful. On May 22, SCOTUS stayed a district court order reinstating two Biden administration officials fired by Trump. On May 19, SCOTUS stayed a district court ruling that Secretary Noem does not possess the legal authority to terminate the temporary protected status of 350,000 Venezuelan non-citizens.

    The seven cases noted above do not exhaust the list of the Trump administration’s wins. During April the administration won three Supreme Court cases. On April 17, Justice Elena Kagan declined to stay a deportation order involving four Mexican nationals without referring the case to the full court. On April 8, SCOTUS stayed a district court order to reinstate 16,000 fired federal employees. On April 7, the Court vacated a district court order blocking deportations pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. This particular ruling, combined with two others, led the editors of the Wall Street Journal to conclude that the Supreme Court was sending a message to the district courts:

    President Trump is exercising executive power in aggressive and often novel ways, and opponents are suing to stop him. But in a trio of recent orders, the Supreme Court has sent lower-court judges an important reminder that they must still respect judicial rules and procedures. A 5-4 majority handed Mr. Trump a partial victory Monday by allowing his Administration to continue deporting Venezuelans believed to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • The same radical leftists who love burning down cities during their “peaceful protests” are looking to do the same thing this Saturday.

    The pro-open-borders riots that have set parts of Los Angeles on fire and have spread to other U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, were anticipated more than a year ago by Democratic Party operatives gaming out ways to destabilize a second Donald Trump administration. Press reports and war-game scenarios from early 2024 predicted domestic unrest caused by the Trump administration’s arrest and deportation of illegal aliens. Consequently, according to the forecasts, the president’s decision to use the military to quell the violence triggers a crisis at the Pentagon and threatens to split the leadership of the U.S. armed forces.

    Whether those scenarios were simply Democratic Party fan fiction or early evidence of a genuine plot to destabilize the government in the event Trump was reelected is likely to become clearer this Saturday. Trump has scheduled a large military parade in the nation’s capital for June 14—the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, Flag Day, oh, and Trump’s birthday—while his adversaries have planned for a massive nationwide anti-deportation protest the same day. If the point is to overwhelm the capacities of local law enforcement agencies across the country, the administration may have no choice but to mobilize National Guard units and regular troops, like those now on the streets of Los Angeles. And it is the mass mobilization of the U.S. military in American cities, according to the 2024 scenarios, that prompts a crisis in the administration.

    According to border czar Tom Homan, the ICE raid that sparked the mayhem in Los Angeles wasn’t detailed to catch illegal aliens, but to serve warrants for a cartel’s money-laundering operation. But to Americans left and right, the protests are about open borders. The Democratic Party base broadly supports the policy, or lack of one, with the radical left leading the violence, and relatively normal Democratic voters believing that it’s a betrayal of American values to refuse anyone a shot at the American dream. Trump voters, on the other hand, expect the president to fulfill his campaign promise to deport tens of millions of illegal aliens. Therefore, Trump couldn’t ignore the riots, even if they directly affected only those who oppose him on open borders, and virtually everything else.

    Plans to destabilize the second Trump term have been in the works for at least a year and a half, and the Pentagon was virtually announced as home-base of the next anti-Trump plot.
    Copied link

    The FBI is investigating “any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots.” But some of the funding streams are already evident—they’re the usual sources of left-wing activist groups and donors, like the Neville Roy Singham-funded Party for Socialism and Liberation—which is to say that money isn’t the crucial factor. For instance, Elon Musk’s shutdown of USAID, which former administrator Samantha Power had used as a slush fund to advance progressive causes here and abroad, emptied only the public sector’s progressive piggy bank. America is teeming with private-sector donors, from “disruptive” tech billionaires to the wan and loveless heiresses who are keen to spend their inheritance on violence that impoverishes others. In America, no leftist will ever go hungry.

    The crucial issue is never money but leadership. That top figures and institutions of the Democratic Party have lined up behind the protests already suggests we’re not dealing simply with supposedly fringe elements on the far-left flank of the party. In fact, the operatives who in 2024 gamed out this latest anti-Trump effort are among the party bosses who ran the plot against the president during his first term. Among others, there’s Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer who paid for the dossier falsely alleging Trump’s ties to Russia; Mary McCord, a former Barack Obama Justice Department official who oversaw federal law enforcement’s unlawful investigation of the Trump circle; and Rosa Brooks, a former Obama Pentagon official who led the Transition Integrity Project, a 2020 war-game exercise forecasting how Trump was likely to contest the flagrant irregularities that would mark that year’s election and shape its aftermath. TIP was also a communications campaign, feeding press reports that outlined what the Democratic Party and allied institutions—including the court system and Congress—were preparing in order to stop the Republican leader and his supporters.

    It seems the same Obama-led crew that’s been targeting Trump since 2015 is still running the same op.

  • DataRepublican has more info on those funding the protests (with your tax dollars):

    Pulling a few NGOs out for future reference:

    • Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc.
    • BVM Capacity Building Institute Inc.
    • Chinese Progressive Association
    • Liberty Hill Foundation
    • National Endowment for Democracy
    • The Nature Conservancy
    • Silicon Valley Community Foundation
    • Tides Center
    • World Wildlife Fund
  • “House Oversight Committee Launches Investigation into Neville Singham, the Maoist Millionaire Funding Anti-ICE, Pro-Hamas Demonstrations.”

    The House Committee on Oversight and Reform is about to focus its investigative powers on Neville Roy Singham, the pro-China Marxist multimillionaire behind many of the destructive far-left demonstrations plaguing the United States in recent years.

    The Committee is reportedly issuing a formal document request to Singham over his alleged financial support of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)—an extremist Marxist group that has been helping to organize violent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

    As the main funder of The People’s Forum, Singham, 71, has also bankrolled the “Free Palestine” protests that erupted after 1,400 innocent Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The People’s Forum works closely with other organizations in Singham’s network, including PSL and the ANSWER Coalition, all of which have been involved in the anti-Israel protests and anti-ICE riots.

    PSL describes itself as a revolutionary socialist party that believes “only a revolution can end capitalism and establish socialism.”

    The group supports the Communist Party of China (CCP) and argues that “militant political defense of the Chinese government” is necessary to stave off “counterrevolution, imperialist intervention and dismemberment.”

  • “Ground Stop Ordered at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.”

    Police say a black SUV hit a gate at Bush Intercontinental Airport and drove into the Air Operations Area Thursday evening.

    HPD confirmed the incident and said the vehicle drove into the cargo area, but did not have any other details at the time of this writing.

    It is unclear if anyone was arrested or what happened afterwards.

    Lifted now. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Has President Trump killed wokeness?

    Trump has shifted the Overton window in the culture away from woke, and it’s hard to imagine it shifting all the way back.

    Corporations aren’t going to play ball again the way they did after the death of George Floyd. Trump could well lose his legal battle with Harvard and other schools, but they’ve admitted that they need to change. DEI and other race-conscious policies may go subterranean under different rubrics, although that, in itself, is a sign of weakness. Black Lives Matter has been discredited by scandal, and “anti-racism” now feels more like a relic than the hot new thing.

    Let’s hope so, but the left’s embrace of wokeness seems essentially religious (or “religious substitute”) in nature, and religions are notoriously hard to stamp out…

  • “CNN: “There is no block of voters that shifted more to the right from 2020 to 2024 than immigrant voters.” A 40 point shift to the GOP, from “+32 in favor of the Democrats in 2020 to +8 in favor of the Republicans” today. Usual poll caveats apply.
  • FBI Director Kash Patel told Joe Rogan that his house had been SWAT-ed.

  • The Wagner Group is bugging out of Mali in favor of new Russian military backed “Africa Corps.”

    The Russian Wagner Group formally withdrew from Mali, as the Kremlin continues to transition control of its military operations in Africa to the Ministry of Defense–backed Africa Corps. The shift to more overt Russian state military involvement in Africa creates myriad domestic and geopolitical risks for the Kremlin. Russia may accordingly adapt its engagement in Africa to the detriment of its current and prospective partnerships.

  • According to this Warfronts (AKA Simon Whistler) video, Wagner is leaving because the Jama’at Nusrat al Islam (JNIM) jihadis have been kicking their ass using motorcycle-based battleswarm tactics, which are well suited for sparsely inhabited, mostly desert environments like Mali.

  • Harris County gives up on its socialist guaranteed income program.
  • “ICE Houston Deports 142 Criminal Aliens to Mexico.”

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported 142 criminal aliens from the Houston area to Mexico.

    Among them were eight known gang members, 11 convicted child predators, and one individual who had entered the country illegally 21 separate times.

    Collectively, the group illegally entered the country 480 times and accumulated 473 criminal convictions for a wide range of serious crimes, including:

    • 11 convictions for child sex crimes
    • 76 convictions for driving while intoxicated (DWI)
    • 43 convictions for aggravated assault and domestic violence
    • 22 convictions for human smuggling

    ICE Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford said, “Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly. For the past few years, there has been virtually no deterrent to illegal entry into the country.”

    As a result, millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, child predators, transnational gang members, and foreign fugitives, have poured into the U.S.

    Among the most egregious cases:

    • Benito Charqueno Zavala, 60, was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child and is one of the 11 convicted child predators deported.
    • Johnny Urbina Carillo, 37, was convicted of sexually exploiting a minor and had prior convictions for cocaine possession and illegal reentry.
    • Luis Angel Garcia-Contreras, 40, a documented member of the Sureños 13 gang, had illegally entered the U.S. 21 times and had four convictions for illegal entry.
  • “Trump DOJ Official Aaron Reitz Enters Race for Texas Attorney General. His campaign announcement included praise from Trump, who described Reitz as “a true MAGA attorney” and ‘a warrior for our Constitution.'”

    Aaron Reitz, a former deputy attorney general under Ken Paxton and recent Trump administration appointee, announced his campaign for the Republican nomination for Texas attorney general.

    Reitz made the announcement Thursday, a day after resigning as assistant attorney general for legal policy under Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice. He previously served as Paxton’s deputy attorney general for legal strategy and as chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

    “We are in a fight for the soul of Texas, our nation, and Western civilization itself,” said Reitz in a campaign statement. “This is no time for half-measures or untested cowards.”

    “As Attorney General, I’ll use every ounce of legal firepower to defend President Trump, crush the radical Left, advance the America and Texas First agenda, and look out for everyday Texans,” he added.

    State senator Mayes Middleton is already in the race.

  • Moran canned.

    Finally, an excuse to dig out this classic meme from the depths of time.

  • Forty electric busses burn in Philadelphia. “They were parked in such a way that there was NO chance for firefighters to do anything. They could[n’t] get close to the fire. The buses were parke[d] so close together that a fire in 1 bus was almost guaranteed to destroy a bunch of them. And with electric buses mixed in, whatever caused the fire, toxic fumes were going to be released.”
  • Scott at Kentucky Ballistics has an important safety tip for you: Don’t try to run modern firearms on black powder.
  • Entire Shanghai city block moved by swarm of robots.
  • Truth in tourism advertising:

  • Richard Hammond drives the new Morgan Supersport. I’m not a candidate to spend £125,000 on a two seater sports car, even if it were available in the U.S., but that really is a nice looking car.”
  • The Talking Heads release a new video for “Psycho Killer” starring the pastry girl from Grand Budapest Hotel.
  • Speaking of things born in the 1970s, the Critical Drinker looks back on the disasterous production of Heaven’s Gate.
  • A look at Kinugawa, Japan, a hot springs resort that’s been mostly abandoned and untouched for decades.
  • “Mayor Bass Reflexively Skips Town After Seeing L.A. Burning Again.”
  • “CNN Reports Peaceful Night In L.A. As Majority Of Cars Not On Fire.”
  • “Trump To Release One Gorilla To Fight Every 100 Rioters.”
  • “Concerns Raised As ChatGPT Begins Replying To All Prompts With ‘Are You Sarah Connor?'”
  • Loyalty:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas | 2 Comments »

    BREAKING: Israel Hits Iran’s Nuclear Sites

    June 12th, 2025

    Israel has announced again and again that they cannot accept an Islamic Republic of Iran, which has stated it desires the complete destruction of Israel, acquiring nuclear weapons. Right now they’re doing something about it.

    The IDF has started to attack dozens of Iranian nuclear sites.

    Warning sirens have been set off to get the public ready for potential Iranian counter attacks of ballistic missiles on Israel.

    Iran has not yet fired ballistic missiles, but has thousands of them.

    According to the IDF, Iran has enough uranium to weaponize it to nuclear levels to 15 nuclear weapons within days

    In recent days, Iran developed a plan with Hezbollah and Hamas and other proxies to destroy the State of Israel, potentially including attempts to attack via all borders, including Egypt and Jordan.

    This was the point of no return according to the IDF.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has entered the security cabinet.

    The IDF targets also include commanders, bases as well as nuclear sites, though the main goal is nuclear sites.

    Further, the IDF said in the last 20 minutes, Iran was taken by surprise and they were attacked in places they didn’t expect.

    There are reports of multiple airstrikes in Tehran:

    From JihadWatch:

    For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has attacked Israel via terrorist proxies, and spent vast sums developing nuclear weapons over taking care of their own people or growing their economy. In the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attacks of October 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pursued a steadfast policy of neutralizing or destroying jihadist threats against his country. Now he’s eliminating the threat of a nuclear Iran.

    Developing…

    Update: Via Instapundit:

    Update 2: Not quite breaking, but The Jerusalem Post put up this explainer on Iran’s nuclear sites 16 hours ago. Convenient…

    Update 3: Trying to find footage of the strikes on YouTube, but all I’m finding is those crappy, non-embeddable “shorts.” This Hindustan Times live feed has some footage.

    Update 4: NRO has a piece up.

    Initial reports suggest that Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, conducted covert operations deep in Iran focused on its air defense and missile capabilities. Israel appears to have targeted Iranian military personnel and senior nuclear scientists with the strikes, including the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces.

    Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared an immediate state of emergency upon Israel’s launch of the attack, with the Jewish state preparing itself for an immediate Iranian missile response.

    “Following the State of Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the state of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” Katz said in a message blasted out to Israelis.

    Explosions have been reported in Tehran and in areas where Iranian nuclear facilities are located. Images and footage of the explosions have circulated widely on social media. It is not yet known if there are any casualties.

    The move comes after President Trump said earlier Thursday that he still believed in the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear buildup. Talks had been tentatively scheduled to resume in the coming days.

    “We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue! My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran. They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. had no involvement in the Israeli operation.

    “Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” Rubio said in a statement.

    “Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the Administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”

    Update 5: Jihad Watch:

    On Thursday evening, the long-anticipated Israel strikes began, targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear sites and other key military facilities. The objective of Operation Strength of a Lion is to end the Iranian nuclear threat once and for all, as well as to destroy, as much as possible, the Islamic Republic’s ability to continue to wage war against the Jewish state via its proxies, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis. The entire state of Israel was on emergency alert; the Israeli Home Front Command issued instructions to all Israeli citizens to comply with guidelines that would be issued as part of “preparations for a significant threat.”

    Almost immediately after the air strikes began in Tehran, the propaganda war also entered a new phase. The Iranian military posted on X: “Remember, we didn’t initiate it.”

    Ah, but it did. The Islamic Republic of Iran initiated this Israeli strike on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas operatives, funded and directed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, brutally tortured and murdered 1,200 Israelis. The Islamic Republic of Iran initiated this Israeli strike when its leaders regularly screamed “Death to Israel” (as well as “Death to America”) and repeatedly vowed to destroy Israel. As recently as May 17, the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, declared: “The Zionist regime, which is the dangerous and lethal cancerous tumor of this region, must undoubtedly be removed, and it will be.”

    In fact, the Islamic Republic of Iran initiated it by regarding Israel as an enemy from its earliest days. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic in 1979, replaced the Israeli embassy in Tehran with an embassy of “Palestine.” He decreed that the last Friday of the Muslim fasting-and-feasting month of Ramadan would henceforth be known as Al-Quds Day. Al-Quds is the name that modern-day Arabs and Muslims use for Jerusalem, and Al-Quds Day from its inception was the occasion for an orgy of hatred for Israel, jihadist saber rattling, and declarations that the Jewish state would soon be completely destroyed and a new genocide of the Jews would begin.

    Update 6: Two big bits of news from Ed Driscoll at Instapundit:

    Reminding people, yet again, that Mossad is probably the best intelligence service in the world…

    Update 7: From Not the Bee:

    This is a good time to remind people that just because someone has posted a video to Twitter doesn’t make it true, or current. Old videos get recycled as new war footage by the unscrupulous all the time…

    Update 8: LiveMap snapshot:

    Including reports of strikes at Qom, Qasr-e Shirin and Tabriz.

    Closeup of Tehran:

    Update 9: “Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei is alive, security source tells Reuters.” Pity, that…

    Update 10: LiveMap: “Israeli military radio – Israel has carried out five waves of strikes against Iran so far. Channel 13 Israel, citing sources, reported: The Air Force has launched hundreds of raids inside Iran since the start of the military operation.”

    Update 11: LiveMap: “Najaf base in Kermanshah” struck… “Armed Forces Commander Mohammad Bagheri” killed…”Revolutionary Guards camp in the western Iranian city of Borujerd” hit.

    Update 12: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit:

    Update 13: Israeli strikes on Iran to “continue for days.”

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military, video | 4 Comments »

    Abbott Calls Out National Guard Before Leftists Can Loot

    June 12th, 2025

    It’s no secret that when leftists carry out widespread “peaceful protests,” a whole lot of non-peaceful riots, arson and looting ensue, especially if they’re happening in Democrat run cities where they know public officials sympathetic to their cause-of-the-week will keep police away and give them “space to destroy.”

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott isn’t putting up with such nonsense, and is nipping it in the bud…

    …before it can even get started by deploying the Texas National guard before the riots can start.

    As riots erupt in cities like Los Angeles and protests targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are planned for this weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the Texas National Guard across the state to deter potential violence and maintain order.

    “Texas National Guard will be deployed to locations across the state to ensure peace & order,” Abbott posted on social media. “Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest. [Texas National Guard] will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order.”

    Under both the Texas Constitution and federal law, governors have broad authority to activate their state’s National Guard in response to emergencies, including civil unrest. In his role as commander-in-chief of the Texas National Guard when not federalized, Abbott can deploy troops to assist law enforcement, protect property, and respond to threats to public safety.

    “The State of Texas stands ready to deploy all necessary personnel and resources, including Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, to uphold law and order across our state,” Abbott’s press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, told Texas Scorecard earlier this week. “Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles. Anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property will be swiftly arrested and held accountable to the full extent of the law.”

    After one demonstration earlier this week in Austin that turned destructive, Abbott noted that more than a dozen protesters were arrested.

    “Peaceful protesting is legal. But once you cross the line, you will be arrested. FAFO,” Abbott posted.

    Abbott’s approach stands in sharp contrast to that of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has opposed efforts by President Donald Trump to bring in federal troops or National Guard units to restore order in cities such as Los Angeles. Newsom has called such deployments provocative and unnecessary, even as violent protests and property destruction continue nightly across the state.

    Meanwhile, Republican attorneys general across the country, including Texas’ Ken Paxton, are supporting Trump’s deployment of the National Guard.

    “If you set police cars on fire, throw Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, and loot businesses, you must be held accountable,” posted Paxton on X. “We stand with law enforcement, we support President Trump’s action, and we will not let chaos take hold in our states.”

    Seems entirely logical. So why don’t Democratic governors take similar precautions to prevent “peaceful protests” from turning into the usual riot, arson and looting sprees we keep seeing over and over again?

    Simple: Many Democrats want to see the riots happen. From Ferguson to Minneapolis to the current LA riots, Democratic office holders seem to sympathize with far left goals and seem perfectly happy to let those riots sweep across their city in bursts of revolutionary violence.

    What they hope to accomplish by letting such violence flourish I leave as an exercise for the readers…

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 6 Comments »

    LA Riot News Roundup

    June 11th, 2025

    Just like in 1992 or 2020, another bout of “mostly peaceful protest” in a Democrat-run city has turned into a multi-day spree of rioting and looting. So here’s a roundup of leftwing riot news from the pro-illegal alien felon riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere:

  • LA’s ineffectual hard-left mayor declares a curfew.

    The mayor of Los Angeles is imposing a nighttime curfew to curtail the continuing anti-ICE riots and combat looting and vandalism amid the chaos.

    L.A. Mayor Karen Bass (D.) announced a curfew beginning at 8 p.m. Pacific time in downtown Los Angeles and lifting at 6 a.m. She warned violators that law-enforcement officers would arrest them.

    “I issued a curfew starting tonight at 8pm for Downtown Los Angeles to stop bad actors who are taking advantage of the President’s chaotic escalation,” Bass said.

    “If you do not live or work in Downtown L.A., avoid the area. Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and you will be prosecuted.”

    Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D.) have faced criticism for allowing the riots against Immigration and Customs Enforcement to get out of hand and for taking a soft-handed approach. Both Democrats have attacked President Trump and his administration for quickly sending in the National Guard to quell the violence after local law enforcement was overwhelmed.

    “If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now,” Trump said Tuesday morning on Truth Social.

    Trump and Newsom have exchanged heated rhetoric over Newsom’s handling of the rioting and Trump’s decision to quickly intervene. Newsom has cast Trump as an authoritarian, wannabe dictator for mobilizing the National Guard to stop the violence.

    How dare Trump enforce public order and deport illegal alien felons?

  • Jim Geraghty on why LA is burning yet again.

    In the coming days, you’re going to see an enormous effort by the Democrats and large swaths of the media to declare that if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had never tried to enforce immigration law in Los Angeles, the city would not be beset by so much widespread violence and unrest this past weekend. Implicit in that argument is the idea that Los Angeles city and county are so primed for violence, such a powder keg of anarchic malcontents, that the U.S. government must simply throw up its hands and concede that it cannot enforce immigration law there. You see, this reflects how the likes of Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass approach governing — when a task is too difficult, they just don’t even make the attempt.

    In the minds of the progressive Democrats who run the city and county of Los Angeles and the state of California, ICE efforts to arrest and deport those who have entered the country illegally are unpopular among their constituents and, therefore, must be illegitimate.

    That is not how it works, of course.

    I sometimes think that news organizations in Los Angeles don’t want to give their audiences and readers a clear picture of what’s actually happening in their city. Here’s the opening sentence of an article published online by the Los Angeles NBC affiliate Friday afternoon: “A group of people were seen outside of a business named Ambiance in the Fashion District of downtown Los Angeles.”

    Hey, remember those basics of journalism, the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, and sometimes the how? Are we just not doing any of that anymore?

    The next sentence reads, “Essayli tells NBC4 that the FBI was working along with other federal agencies to serve a search warrant, which were [sic] signed by a judge, because they have probable cause to believe this employer is using fictitious documents for some of its workers.”

    There’s nothing indicating to readers that “Essayli” is Bilal A. “Bill” Essayli, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, the chief federal prosecutor for the region.

    Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement Friday afternoon declaring, “We received reports of federal immigration enforcement actions in multiple locations in Los Angeles. As mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place. These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. My office is in close coordination with immigrant rights community organizations. We will not stand for this.”

    Throughout the day, Bass issued one statement after another that kept referring to “immigrants” — refusing to even acknowledge the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants.

    California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a statement Friday contending, “continued chaotic federal sweeps, across California, to meet an arbitrary arrest quota are as reckless as they are cruel. Donald Trump’s chaos is eroding trust, tearing families apart, and undermining the workers and industries that power America’s economy.”

    What makes these law enforcement actions “chaotic” and “reckless”?

    The following morning, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons contended that an angry crowd of Los Angeles residents had assaulted federal agents, and the Los Angeles Police Department had an inexplicably delayed response:

    As rioters attacked federal ICE and law enforcement officers on the L.A. streets, Mayor Bass took the side of chaos and lawlessness over law enforcement.

    Our brave officers were vastly outnumbered, as over 1,000 rioters surrounded and attacked a federal building. It took over two hours for the Los Angeles Police Department to respond, despite being called multiple times. The brave men and women of ICE were in Los Angeles arresting criminal illegal aliens including gang members, drug traffickers and those with a history of assault, cruelty to children, domestic violence, robbery, and smuggling.

    The protest was outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building. The headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department is three-tenths of a mile away, an eight-minute walk.

  • DataRepublican took a deep dive into who is funding the LA riots. Let me pull out the relevant orgs for tagging:
    • Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights (CHIRLA)

    • Party for Socialism and Liberation
    • International ANSWER
    • Billionaire socialist Neville Roy Singham
    • People’s Forum
    • SEIU
  • The Daily Caller fingers more lefty organizations helping organize and fund the riots.

    Unión del Barrio and Centro CSO

    Another downtown Los Angeles press conference on Friday featured speakers from Unión del Barrio and Centro CSO, Facebook video shows. Unión del Barrio’s Ron Gochez told his audience about the need to resist ICE “by any means necessary.”

    “If we organize, we can kick their asses out of every single ghetto, every single barrio, anywhere where our people are,” Gochez said, drawing applause.

    “Who gives a damn about legality, when these people have their boot to our neck,” Gochez said, referencing immigration law. “We have … every single obligation, moral, historical, we have every reason to defend our people, to defend our community, to defend our families by whatever means necessary.”

    Unión del Barrio describes itself as “entirely self-financed through membership dues, community contributions, and local fundraising” on its website, while Centro CSO says it is a member-funded grassroots group. The organizations did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
    Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

    The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) helped spread SEIU’s graphic about CHIRLA’s Friday press conference on X. “Citizens who know their rights can disrupt and slow ICE incursions, as well as pressure local authorities to take action,” another Friday X post from the group reads. The DSA chapter did not respond to a request for comment.

    Snip.

    The 50501 Movement, formed in response to the second Trump administration, promoted the protests on Bluesky throughout the weekend, including the Friday 4 p.m. gathering. 50501 National Press Coordinator Hunter Dunn posted about being personally among the protesters.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • LAPD did the meme and called the leftwing arson and looting sprees “mostly peaceful.”
  • More mostly peaceful: “Illegal alien charged with attempted murder for throwing Molotov cocktail at officers in LA riots.”
  • The Other McCain looks at the left’s current love for illegal alien criminals, and reaches back into history to remember Sweden-Kampuchea Friendship Association.

    Voters elected Donald Trump for a reason, and if Chris Van Hollen, Will Bunch or anyone else thinks they’re going to fool the electorate into sharing their sympathy for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, they’re simply delusional. But we have often seen the Left enthralled by such delusions.

    Jan Myrdal, Marita Wikander, Gunnar Bergström and Hedvig Ekerwald were Swedish socialists who enthusiastically supported Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a widespread sentiment in Sweden at the time:

    The Indochinese revolutionary movements enjoyed widespread support in Swedish society, particularly among supporters of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. When the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh [in April 1975] and expelled its inhabitants, 15,000 Swedes greeted their victory by spontaneously celebrating in the center of Stockholm.

    The arrival of Year Zero in Democratic Kampuchea was, as we now know, the beginning of one of the most murderous tyrannies in all human history. The best estimates are that Pol Pot’s communist regime killed about 1.5 million people, nearly 25% of the country’s population.

    The first widely noticed account of the ongoing massacre in Cambodia was published by the Reader’s Digest in February 1977, and immediately sparked widespread controversy. The Left, having embraced the Communist regime in Cambodia, denounced the Reader’s Digest account as “propaganda.” To quote Wikipedia:

    According to Joel Brinkley, “Khmer Rouge apologists [among Western academics] easily outnumbered those who believed a tragedy was under way.” . . .
    [H]uman-rights activist David Hawk . . . claimed that the West was indifferent to the atrocities taking place in Cambodia due to “the influence of anti-war academics on the American left who obfuscated Khmer Rouge behavior, denigrated the post-1975 refugee reports, and denounced the journalists who got those stories.”

    In the prevailing worldview of the intelligentsia, the Communists must be good, because America was bad. Therefore, reports about atrocities in Cambodia (based on accounts from those who had escaped) must be false or exaggerated. Such was the background of the August 1978 trip to Cambodia by Myrdal, Wikander, Bergström and Ekerwald as a delegation from the Sweden-Kampuchea Friendship Association (SKFA). They spent two weeks as guests of the Khmer Rouge, even having dinner with Pol Pot, and “returned to Sweden where they undertook a speaking tour and wrote articles in support of the Democratic Kampuchea regime.” Bergström expressed the belief that, under the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia could become “a very special model for the third world … an ideal society with no oppressors.” And this, keep in mind, was a brutal regime that killed a higher percentage of their national population than any known dictatorship in all human history. Among the victims were Marita Wikander’s husband. She had married a Khmer Rouge diplomat, who returned to Cambodia in 1977. During the SKFA trip to Phnom Penh in 1978, she asked to see her husband. The request was denied. It wasn’t until years later that she learned he had been executed by the regime shortly after his return to Cambodia. Such an “ideal society“!

    The analogy to current liberal politics is obvious enough. Viewing Trump as the Sum of All Evils, liberals reflexively attack any policy advocated by Trump. Therefore, if Trump wishes to deport criminal illegal aliens, liberals must defend criminal illegal aliens: “Free Kilmar!”

  • It just wouldn’t be a “mostly peaceful” leftwing riot without widespread looting:

  • Evidently looting Apple stores is now so common that iPhones now have a store setting that sets alarms and tracking off if stolen, rendering them useless to looters:

  • Democrats always seem to have a pathological need to lie about the riots and looting happening on their watch.

    Los Angeles is grappling with a wave of violence and destruction that has left local business owners reeling, as captured in a viral TikTok video from NewsNationNow, posted on 10 June 2025.

    The video features a furious LA business owner, Monty, owner of Bargain2Perfumes, whose store was ransacked during protests against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. ‘This is ridiculous.

    This doesn’t look like they’re protesting ICE or anything… Just looting the stores,’ he told NewsNation, echoing sentiments shared across X posts.

    Yet, California Governor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly called these events ‘peaceful protests,’ a stark contrast to the reported £80 million ($107 million) in property damage since 6 June 2025, including looted stores, torched vehicles, and vandalised buildings.

  • Once again, President Trump is on the right side of another 80/20 issue in which Democrats have taken a widely unpopular position.

    So President Trump chose criminal deportation, law and order, and tough on crime.

    California Democrats Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass chose lawsuits and states’ rights.

    Who do you think won this latest round? I’d say Mr. Trump 10, Democrats zero.

    It’s just hard to believe that removing illegal alien criminals who have committed sexual assault and murders would be attacked by one of our two major political parties.

    But that’s the state of play among Democrats. Shame on Governor Newsom in particular.

    And good for Senator Fetterman for being just about the only Democrat to stand up and say that peaceful free speech is good, but violent protest is not. And Democrats should not be defending violent protests.

    And Mr. Trump’s border tsar, Tom Homan, is absolutely right that Mr. Newsom and Ms. Bass should be thanking ICE for making California a safer place.

    In an interview with Greta Van Susteren, Mr. Homan said, “What angers me the most” is that “people aren’t looking at the facts. ICE arrested significant public safety threats in the last few days in L.A. We arrested a murderer — a Vietnamese national who murdered teenagers at a graduation party.”

    He added that “we arrested several sexual predators — child sexual predators — we arrested people convicted of armed robbery, arrested people for domestic violence and all sorts of public safety threats.”

    And as protesters and trouble makers turn to violence to oppose ICE’s safety actions, remarkably the Democrats chose to support the rioters committing arson, and looting, smashing police cars, throwing rocks at ICE agents, spitting on the American flag and setting it on fire, and spray-painting “Death to America” graffiti on government buildings.

    Mr. Trump’s rapid action to protect public safety and avoid a truly vast insurrection by bringing in the National Guard and Marines was a stroke of genius.

  • Not just LA:

    The chaotic anti-ICE riots aren’t just confined to California; anti-ICE agitators have taken their lawlessness to the East Coast. On Saturday, New York City joined Los Angeles in becoming a flashpoint for radical protests, as demonstrators clashed with law enforcement after a mob of nearly 150 people tried to block federal officials from conducting an immigration raid in Manhattan.

    More than 20 anti-ICE protestors were arrested after interfering with immigration authorities trying to carry out lawful operations. The activists were actively obstructing the removal of criminal illegal immigrants. At one point, the mob attempted to block a white van from exiting the area. It successfully forced it back into the building’s parking garage after agitators threw themselves at the vehicle. The New York Police Department (NYPD) arrived and started pushing protesters back onto the other side of the street. Authorities warned protestors to disperse or get arrested

  • Even here in Austin, protestors were demonstrating the usual left-wing idea of “peaceful”:

    While the Austin protest was largely peaceful, it ended with a dozen arrests and a standoff between demonstrators and state and local police who deployed tear gas and pepper ball projectiles against a smaller group of protesters after they graffitied a federal building and threw rocks at officers.

    Snip.

    Laiba Khan, an organizer with the Austin chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said the group organized the protest specifically because of the Trump administration’s response to the LA demonstrations.

    Quoting that not because it’s important, but just so I have the tags ready the next time these Austin commies burn something else down.

  • Trace Gallagher on Fox News sums out just how bad these riots look for Democrats:

    “If the goal is to lose elections in perpetuity, they have devised the perfect plan.”

  • The Babylon Bee appreciates illegal alien rioters making things easier for ICE:

    • Remember to stay away from riot areas, and make sure your carry gun is properly oiled and loaded…

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, video | 4 Comments »

    Soros Tries To Buy Texas Again

    June 10th, 2025

    “Turning Texas blue” is an idée fixe for Democratic Party operatives, and it’s easy to see why. Securing Texas’ 40 (and soon to be 43 or 44) electoral votes would go a long way toward ensuring presidential election dominance for the donkeys. Indeed, one (of many) big driving factors behind the headless Biden Administration opening the border was to secure enough illegal alien votes via amnesty to do just that. (Ironically, what it actually seem to do was turn the Rio Grande Valley red and add millions of Hispanics to the Trump coalition.) But the idea never goes away, and now moneybag social justice funder George Soros is trying to turn Texas blue.

    ​​A Democrat-aligned political group backed by billionaire George Soros is once again setting its sights on Texas, aiming to flip the reliably red state with a new multimillion-dollar campaign.

    According to a Wall Street Journal report, Texas Majority PAC—bankrolled heavily by Soros—has launched a new initiative dubbed “Blue Texas,” partnering with the Texas Democratic Party and several county parties to organize volunteers, recruit candidates, and boost voter turnout ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

    Campaign finance records show Soros gave $2.1 million to Texas Majority PAC in 2024 and another $1 million in April.

    The move marks the latest in a long line of efforts by Democrats to make inroads in Texas, a state Republicans have dominated for decades. Despite shifting demographics and repeated national predictions of a “blue wave,” Democrats haven’t won a single statewide race in Texas since 1994.

    Soros and his political allies tried a similar approach in the last election cycle—pouring millions into Texas Majority PAC in an attempt to build a Democrat ground game—but came up short. In 2024, Republicans not only held their ground but made gains in both the Texas House and Senate. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, won 12 of the state’s 14 border counties and defeated Kamala Harris by nearly 14 percentage points.

    I covered last year’s Soros funding attempts here.

    The Texas Majority PAC, which describes its mission as growing the Democrat majority and winning statewide elections, is hoping for a different result this time.

    Organizers say they’ll hold rallies across the state in June and visit more than two dozen cities in July to recruit candidates.

    Rallies. Yeah. That will do the trick. I do wonder if they don’t actually mean “riots,” since that seems to be what Soros is best at funding.

    Their long-term goal is to make Texas a competitive battleground state by 2032, when a new round of redistricting could further increase the state’s electoral significance.

    “If a win is on the table in 2026, we don’t want to leave it there by not being organized,” Katherine Fischer, deputy executive director of Texas Majority PAC, told WSJ.

    A win for Democrats is “on the table” in the same sense that a World Series championship is “on the table” for the Colorado Rockies in 2026: It’s theoretically possible, but no one is betting that way.

    But past efforts like Battleground Texas—formed over a decade ago with similar ambitions—have largely failed.

    Battleground Texas was a particularly spectacular flameout. And that was staffed with Obama retreads, i.e. the last actually successful Democratic presidential campaign that didn’t rely on mysterious 3 AM ballot dumps. What election experts are they going to bring in to turn Texas red? The supergeniuses behind the Kamala Harris campaign? What pearls of wisdom are Soros-funded cadres going to dispense on their presumably benighted Texas counterparts? They need to burn more police cars? They need to buy more Palestinian flags?

    Texas Republicans are quite lucky nationwide liberals seem clueless about how to wisely allocate money to boost Democrats in Texas. Just think if that $160+ million Bobby Francis “Beto” O’Rourke wasted on his two losing statewide campaigns had been channeled into effective grassroots organizing instead of ill-fated media ad buys. Texas might look a lot more purple right now. Of course, that assumes it’s even possible for Democrats to carry out effective grassroots organizing, instead of shoveling money into the insatiable maws of hordes of social justice locusts looking to foment their own brand of self-serving revolution.

    I think that literally just Scott Presler, by himself, has moved the electoral needle more than all the millions of dollars national Democrats have dumped into Texas all this century combined…

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Why No One Stopped Stalin

    June 9th, 2025

    It’s one of those days when I’m not particularly interested in writing on a particular topic, or that I’ve already written about the current hot topic, so here’s a History Matters video on how Stalin outmaneuvered all his potential Soviet rivals.

    In the game of revolutionary violence, the most ruthless seem to invariably come out on top…

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    Posted in Communism, video | 6 Comments »

    Russo-Ukrainian War Roundup For June 8, 2025

    June 8th, 2025

    A lot of news out of Ukraine in the last week+ besides the bomber strikes and the Kerch Strait Bridge attack.

  • First up: A Ukrainian F-16 scores its first recorded air-to-air kill of the war against a Russian Su-35:

    The Su-35 was shot down over Kursk Oblast, indicating Ukrainian planes are now more comfortable operating near the front line than previously.

    A lot has been made of a fourth generation fighter taking down a fifth generation fighter, but America’s kit has pretty much always been better than Soviet/Russian kit, and the Su-35 is more of a “4.5 Generation” fighter anyway, and suffers from a lack of stealth and high maintenance costs.

  • Reportedly French special forces units are operating as volunteers fighting against Russian forces in Kharkiv:

    Caveat: Reporting from Ukraine has lots of detailed information about how particular battles in the war unfold, almost none of which can be independently verified.

  • They also hit a Russian fuel train in Zaporizhia:

    Looks like it blew up real good…

  • But that’s not the only rail attack! They also evidently used rail grain cars to hit a train transporting tanks and other military vehicles:

    Information is sketchy, and a location hasn’t been released or pinpointed yet. But using grain cars to launch drones to attacks targets on the same train is going to have Russian counterintelligence crawling out of their skins yet again. They already had units stopping shipping trucks after Operation Spiderweb, and now they have to do the same for train cars? That’s going to have Russians slowing down their own logistics all over the country hunting secret drone nests.

  • According to Kiev’s estimates, Russian losses are closing in on 1 million troops dead.

    Russia has lost 996,150 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported on June 8.

    The number includes 1,120 casualties that Russian forces suffered just over the past day.

    According to the report, Russia has also lost 10,911 tanks, 22,748 armored fighting vehicles, 51,225 vehicles and fuel tanks, 28,892 artillery systems, 1,410 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,183 air defense systems, 414 airplanes, 337 helicopters, 39,651 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.

    Such estimates should always be treated with grains of salt.

    • That’s the news I found worth rounding up. Feel free to share anything you think I missed in the comments.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | 13 Comments »

    Left Cranks Up Riot Season For Alien Felons

    June 7th, 2025

    if you wondered when the hard left was going to crank up the riot machine like we saw in the 2020 Antifa/#BlackLivesMatter riot, we now have an answer in Los Angeles: They’re going to riot over criminal illegal aliens being deported.

    Mayhem ensued when ICE raids were conducted in Los Angeles yesterday. Like in Minneapolis, leftists came out of the woodwork to berate and disrupt federal agents enforcing immigration laws. Unlike that incident, however, it didn’t lead to what I was told is an act of armed rebellion: anti-ICE activists stormed a federal building, and the local police were nowhere to be found (via Los Angeles Times):

    A series of surprise U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps in downtown Los Angeles on Friday prompted fierce pushback from elected officials and protesters, who decried the enforcement actions as “cruel and unnecessary” and said they stoked fear in the immigrant community.

    Tensions remained high in downtown into the evening. The Los Angeles Police Department declared an unlawful assembly and ordered around 200 protesters who remained gathered by the Los Angeles Federal Building to disperse around 7 p.m.

    Chaos erupted earlier in the day in the heart of the Fashion District after federal immigration authorities detained employees inside a clothing wholesaler, and used flash-bang grenades and pepper spray on a crowd protesting the raid around 1:30 p.m.

    Hundreds of people then rallied outside the Los Angeles Federal Building at 4 p.m., condemning the crackdown and demanding the release of Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta, who was injured and detained while documenting a raid, according to a statement from the labor union.

    Eventually Bass allowed riot police to be sent in and disperse the rioters, but she certainly took her sweet time about it.

    Instead of having the black Marxists in BLM running the riots, now they have Mexican Marxists running the current riots.

    Democrats and their rogue NGO network appear to be at it again—this time staging a new protest movement against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Los Angeles, hoping to spark another ‘Summer of Love’ nationwide riots like in 2020, when leftists used the useful idiots behind the Marxist group Black Lives Matter as a vehicle for chaos.

    With BLM kicked to the curb by the Democratic Party, the Mexican version of BLM – Unión del Barrio – whose manifesto is filled with explicit Marxist and communist rhetoric—has become the next group Democrats will use as useful idiots.

    On Friday, Unión del Barrio issued a call to action for the crazies on Facebook to stage a protest against “ICE Terrorists” in Downtown LA:

    Emergency Protest TODAY in LA! 4:30PM

    535 Alameda St LA, CA 90012

    Join us to denounce ICE terrorizing our communities! Over 200 people are currently being held at this location in the basement of the courthouse. Today, there has been ICE activity all over the LA area.

    LA EMERGENCY PROTEST!
    535 Alameda St, LA, CA 90012
    Friday, June 6, 2025 4:30PM
    STOP DEPORTATIONS NOW!
    ICE has hundreds of members of our community kidnapped and is holding them at this location.

    Given that ICE is still concentrating of deporting criminals, the “community” they’re talking about is “illegal alien felons.” I guess that makes them perfect victims as far as the cadres of social justice Democrats are concerned: non-white, non-citizen criminals, all things the hard left seems to idolize.

    A quick review of Unión del Barrio’s political program is absolutely alarming – and basically the Mexican version of BLM…

    Core Beliefs & Goals:

    • Opposition to U.S. imperialism, capitalism, and settler colonialism
    • Advocacy for immigrant rights, against deportations and ICE raids
    • Promotion of community organizing in working-class Latino neighborhoods
    • Support for socialist and pan-Latino unity movements
    • Education and youth empowerment through political study and activism

    Action campaigns:

    • Organizes rallies and protests, particularly against ICE and border enforcement
    • Runs community education programs like Escuelita Aztlán
    • Collaborates with other radical left-wing organizations in the U.S. and Latin America
    • Frequently involved in May Day demonstrations, anti-police protests, and immigration activism

    When it comes to the Democratic Party’s on-demand rioters, it’s commies all the way down…

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    Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, unions | 5 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For June 6, 2025

    June 6th, 2025

    Today’s the 81st anniversary of D-Day. Trump and Musk fight over the “big beautiful bill,” the Dutch government collapses, a whole lot of megacorps decide that “Pride Month” is over, hot Skynet on Skynet action, a fake Titanic, “nose ring theory” and a white Black Panther.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Elon Musk is not a fan of the “big, beautiful bill.”

    Elon Musk, the former head of the Department of Government Efficiency, on Tuesday dismissed President Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill as a “disgusting abomination.”

    “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” he said in a post on X.

    “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” he added.

    Musk’s comments on Tuesday represent an even harsher reaction to the bill than his previous criticisms. Last month, he said he was “disappointed” by the House passage of the bill because it undermines the work he has done as the head of DOGE.

    “The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion.”

    While the bill aims to cut $1.5 trillion in government spending, it also increases the debt limit by $4 trillion. The U.S. government is more than $36 trillion in debt.

    The bill would extend the 2017 tax cuts, introduce new tax cuts such as Trump’s signature “no tax on tips” policy, and add work requirements to Medicaid, among other provisions.

    The measure passed 215 to 214 in the House, largely along party lines after Speaker Mike Johnson was able to overcome opposition from members of his caucus who argued the bill should include further spending cuts to offset tax cuts that will add to the country’s deficit.

    Musk thoughts mirror my own. They should not have used reconciliation on a bill that doesn’t balance the budget.

  • Jim Geraghty offers some ideas for balancing the budget. Skipping over things that would break Trump campaign promises:

    Beyond entitlement reform, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget offers users an option in a fix-the-debt-yourself game. Among the options are medical-malpractice reform (saving the U.S. government $40 billion over ten years), allowing private plans to compete with Medicare ($360 billion over ten years), banning state Medicare matching gimmicks ($830 billion over ten years), rescinding Inflation Reduction Act climate tax credits ($780 billion over ten years), and repealing and replacing student-debt cancellation ($320 over ten years). Enact all of those, and that’s another $233 billion per year or so.

  • California’s Governor Hairgel is sucking up to the ChiComs.

    The administration of California Governor Gavin Newsom held closed-door talks on trade cooperation with Chinese officials on Monday, ahead of the anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s massacre at Tiananmen Square.

    The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the China-California Business Forum, an annual summit hosted by the Chinese consulate general in Los Angeles at the city’s ritzy Biltmore Hotel. That annual gathering gives local and state politicians an opportunity to rub shoulders with their Chinese counterparts.

    The Newsom administration’s participation in the meeting comes just ahead of the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which is commemorated by Chinese pro-democracy advocates and human rights advocates.

    Should we be relieved that Newsom isn’t actually sleeping with any of them?

  • You know that illegal alien scumbag gangbanger Democrats were all outraged over his getting deported to El Salvador? Well, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being returned to the U.S….to face charges on human trafficking.

    Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, has returned to the United States to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting illegal immigrants within the U.S., the Department of Justice said Friday.

    Last month, a federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Abrego Garcia, who was deported two months ago from Maryland to El Salvador.

    Prosecutors say Abrego Garcia was involved in a nearly decade-long conspiracy to transport thousands of illegal immigrants from Texas to other areas around the country. The illegal immigrants, some of whom were members of the MS-13 gang, came from Mexico and Central America.

    “The grand jury found that over the past nine years Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday. “They found this was his full-time job. Not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country.”

    While the allegations were not included in the May 21 indictment, Bondi said that Abrego Garcia also solicited nude images from a minor and was linked to the murder of a rival gang member’s mother. Co-conspirators also accused Abrego Garcia of assaulting women whom he transported across the country and claimed he was also involved in trafficking firearms and narcotics.

    No wonder he’s a poster child for Democrats…

  • There’s not an Alanis Morissette joke big enough: “A once-prominent Harvard University professor was stripped of her tenure and fired this week for outright fabricating data on numerous academic studies of dishonesty and unethical behavior.”

    Francesca Gino was regularly cited as an authority by prominent left-leaning outlets such as National Public Radio and the New York Times. Both outlets now admit that Gino’s research was likely fabricated. Disturbingly, the flaws in her research were exposed not by the allegedly robust university system of peer review, but by a series of posts by science bloggers.

    No professor has had tenure revoked at Harvard since the 1940s, when the rules for doing so were formalized, according to the Harvard Crimson. This is the academic nuclear option.

    Gino’s first retracted study showed evidence of data fabrication all the way back in 2021, and an investigation into her academic dishonesty lasted for the following two years.

  • “Paxton Smokes Cornyn 50-28 Percent in Latest 2026 GOP Primary Poll.” Only 600 Republican primary voters, which is on the small side for a poll sample.
  • Is wokeness dying? A whole lot of Fortune 500 companies have decided that they can now sit “Pride Month” out, including IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Disney, Target, Starbucks, BMW, Bank of America, and even Google. I think most Americans were willing to let adult “LGBs” go off and do their own thing, but every single letter they’ve added to that acronym since (especially the “T”) has marked them as enemies of the people.
  • Despite the power-sharing cabal ruling the Texas House, a lot of conservative priorities did get get passed and sent to Abbott’s desk. Here’s a roundup.

    The Texas Senate succeeded in pushing a majority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities through both chambers during the regular legislative session. Patrick released a list of 40 pieces of priority legislation in the first three months of the year, covering a variety of issues.

    Here is the status of the Senate priority bills in the 89th Legislative Session:

    • Senate Bill 1 – Senate’s Budget for Texas: Passed both chambers.
    • Senate Bill 2 – Providing School Choice: Signed into law.
    • Senate Bill 3 – Banning THC in Texas: Sent to Gov. Greg Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 4 – Increasing the Homestead Exemption to $140,000 ($150,000 for Seniors): Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 5 – Combatting Dementia and Alzheimer’s – Establishing DPRIT (Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas): Signed into law.
    • Senate Bill 6 – Increasing Texas’ Electric Grid Reliability: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 7 – Increasing Investments in Texas’ Water Supply: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 8 – Requiring Local Law Enforcement to Assist the Federal Government’s Deportation Efforts: Passed both chambers.
    • Senate Bill 9 – Reforming Bail – Keeping Violent Criminals Off Our Streets: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 10 – Placing the Ten Commandments in School: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 11 – Protecting the Freedom to Pray in School: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 12 – Establishing a Parental Bill of Rights in Public Education: Passed both chambers.
    • Senate Bill 13 – Guarding Against Inappropriate Books in Public Schools: Passed both chambers.
    • Senate Bill 14 – Texas DOGE – Improving Government Efficiency: Signed into law.
    • Senate Bill 15 – Removing Barriers to Housing Affordability: Passed both chambers.
    • Senate Bill 16 – Stopping Non-Citizens from Voting: Left in House Calendars Committee.
    • Senate Bill 17 – Stopping Foreign Adversary Land Grabs: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 18 – Stopping Drag Time Story Hour: Left on House General State Calendar.
    • Senate Bill 19 – Stopping Taxpayer Dollars for Lobbyists: Left in the House State Affairs Committee.
    • Senate Bill 20 – Stopping AI-Generated Child Pornography: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 21 – Establishing the Texas Bitcoin Reserve: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 22 – Establishing Texas as America’s Film Capital: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 23 – Removing the Cap on the Rainy Day Fund to Secure Texas’ Long-term Financial Future: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 24 – Educating Texas Students on the Horrors of Communism: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 25 – Making Texas Healthy Again: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 26 – Increasing Teacher Pay: Left in the House Public Education Committee.
    • Senate Bill 27 – Establishing a Teacher Bill of Rights: Passed both chambers.
    • Senate Bill 28 – Banning Lottery Couriers: Left in House Licensing and Administrative Committee.
    • Senate Bill 29 – Texas: Open for Business: Signed into law.
    • Senate Bill 30 – Curbing Nuclear Verdicts: Conference committee appointed.
    • Senate Bill 31 – Life of the Mother Act: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 32 – Business Tax Relief: Left in the House Ways and Means Committee.
    • Senate Bill 33 – Stopping Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Travel: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 34 – Wildfire Response: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 35 – Competing for Quality Roads: Left on House General State Calendar.
    • Senate Bill 36 – Establishing a Homeland Security Division within [the Department of Public Safety]: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 37 – Reforming Faculty Senates: Passed both chambers.
    • Senate Bill 38 – Stopping Squatters: Sent to Abbott.
    • Senate Bill 39 – Protecting Texas Trucking: Left in the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee.
    • Senate Bill 40 – Stopping Taxpayer-Funded Bail: Sent to Abbott.

    Not every conservative priority passed, and I don’t agree with every bill (much less every part of every bill), but a lot of progress was made this legislative session. Dan Patrick’s senate seems much better at delivering conservative results than David Dewhurst’s senate ever was.

  • Columbia U finally gets to the “find out” stage: “Columbia University Failed to Meet Accreditation Standards, Department of Education Finds.”

    Columbia University failed to meet accreditation standards due to its inability to uphold civil rights law and punish harassment against Jewish students, the Department of Education announced Wednesday.

    Office of Civil Rights (OCR) officials have notified the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the body that sets Columbia’s accreditation standards, that the university is “in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws and therefore fails to meet standards.” Administrators’ unwillingness to address months of anti-Israel activism on Columbia’s campus created an unsafe environment for Jewish students, the department added, putting the university in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

  • Hey, remember that New York hospital shenanigans Dwight reported on? Well, “10 hospital executives from Nassau University Medical Center, including its CEO, have put in their resignations in response to what they called a “hostile takeover” by Gov. Kathy Hochul, according to sources in the hospital.” Got to think someone wants to rake off some graft there…
  • “The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after the Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders pulled out of the coalition over the government’s asylum policy. Wilders had been adamant leading up to the collapse that without strict restrictions on immigration, his party would leave the coalition government. Wilders made good on those threats Tuesday.” Europe’s political elites evidently love unassimilated Muslim immigration more than they love life itself.
  • Marcos Lopez, the Democratic sheriff of Osceola County, Florida decided that, instead of busting an illegal gambling operations, it was a lot more profitable to run it.
  • Charmless professional liar Karine Jean-Pierre leaves Democratic Party, writes book on Biden White House. Honestly, I found her so inconsequential that I didn’t even bother creating a tag for her before today.

  • “Nose ring theory.” Also tattoo theory.
  • “Young man wins $20,000 from high school that suspended him for saying ‘illegal alien.'” No doubt BattleSwarm would give them a full-blown case of the vapors…
  • Speaking of lawsuits, The Babylon Bee is suing Hawaii over a law that makes it illegal to use satirical images to make fun of politicians. Like this one:

  • Someone asked me why UK Labour PM Keir Starmer was suddenly sounding like an uberhawk, talking about expanding UK’s nuclear submarine building program, etc. Actually, this is nothing particularly new, as he made similar points in February, and even last year. But I think the release of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review is driving much of the current chatter. A lot of it just the usual high-minded blather and buzzwords you find in any such doc, but there’s some meat here. Such as this “list of technologies redefining warfare” on page 27:
    • Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data science, improving the quality and speed of decision-making, the resilience of
      digital networks, and operational effectiveness. Forecasts of when Artificial General Intelligence (Where AI matches or surpasses humans’ ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a range of situations unaided) will occur are uncertain but shortening, with profound implications for Defence.

    • Robotics and autonomy, with armed forces increasingly using uncrewed and autonomous capabilities to generate mass and lethality.
    • Enhanced precision weapons that mean targets can be struck with greater accuracy from ever
      greater ranges.

    • Directed energy weapons, such as the UK’s DragonFire, which have the potential to reduce collateral damage and reliance on expensive ammunition.
    • Hypersonic missiles, which, travelling at over five times the speed of sound, may offer greater range and greater ability to evade defences.
    • Space-based capabilities that enable all aspects of modern operations. States are rapidly developing ways to disrupt military and civilian assets in and from space.
    • Quantum. Advances in quantum computing offer the potential to break encryption, making secure communications much more difficult. Quantum technologies have the
      potential to reduce dependence on satellite-based GPS, which may be vulnerable to interference.

    • Cyber threats that will become harder to mitigate as technology evolves, with AI, quantum technology, and the increasing dependence on satellite communications likely driving the most disruptive changes to the cyber threat landscape.
    • Engineering biology that creates the potential to enhance the capacity of the armed forces through advances in medicine, healthcare, and wellbeing, possibilities for new energetic and explosive materials, as well as avenues for enormous harm in the shape of new pathogens and other weapons of mass destruction.

    • A nice list of science fiction story ideas, some even with near-term defense applications.

    They’re also buying more subs and planes…

  • Speaking of future warfare, Lockheed Martin has launched AI “fight club” to test AIs against each other. This is a god idea, if they have their little Forbin Projects properly sandboxed, and if they remember that the map is not the territory. There are always radical surprises in warfare… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Democratic governor of Arizona Katie Hobbs just vetoed a bill that would’ve prevented communist China from buying land next to military sites in her state.”

  • “The Florida state university system’s Board of Governors voted 10-6 to reject former University of Michigan president and DEI fanatic Santa J. Ono’s candidacy for the presidency of the University of Florida.”

    Ono, who curiously was the only finalist advanced by the search committee for the job, came with their unanimous recommendation on May 4 and was unanimously approved by the university’s Board of Trustees on May 27. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has pledged that Florida is “where woke goes to die,” remained oddly reticent about Ono—stating first that he trusted the process, and later that the governors (15 of the 17 governors were appointed by DeSantis), should follow their consciences in deciding Ono’s fate.

    Other Florida conservatives, including Senator Rick Scott and Congressmen Greg Steube, Byron Donalds, and Jimmy Patronis, denounced the appointment and outright called for a negative vote.

    Ono’s rejection by the Florida Board of Governors is an unprecedented, but legally and procedurally correct, use of its powers. Ono’s demise followed a polite but charged meeting in Orlando on the campus of Central Florida University. Public comments included scathing denunciations and trenchant questions about his candidacy based on his well-documented record for supporting DEI, critical race theory, and radical gender ideology, among other leftist shibboleths.

    DeSantis should have done more to nip this candidacy in the bud.

  • Here’s a deep dive into Japan’s complex subsidy system for growing rice, and how it’s resulted in much smaller growth in rice harvests than competing countries that don’t have such subsidies.
  • The New Harbor Bridge in Corpus Christi is about to open after years of delay. It has numerous innovative features, and I’m including it here for the blog’s bridge and infrastructure enthusiasts (you know who you are).
  • Did you know that some company in China was building a full-scale Titanic replica mansion that’s now in bankruptcy?
  • Critical Drinker: Just when you think Disney has learned their lesson about the M-She-U, along comes Fantastic Four to prove they haven’t.
  • But wait, get ready for a white Black Panther.
  • “Disney laying off several hundred employees worldwide.” Funny what another string of bombs will do to you…

  • Speaking of which: “‘Andor’ Creator Says Disney Spent ‘$650 Million for 24 Episodes’ and ‘We Fought Hard’ for Money After Being Told in Season 2: ‘Streaming Is Dead. We Don’t Have the Money We Had Before.’”
  • Did FOX 26 in Houston just eliminate their entire sports department?
  • “Republicans Unveil New Plan To Fix National Debt Sometime After The Return Of Christ.”
  • “Trump Aides Shocked To Find Biden’s Autopen Still Signing Bills In Storage Closet.”
  • “Federal Judge Blocks Deportation Of Terrorist’s Family, Orders Jews Lit Back On Fire.”
  • “Fashion Faux Pas As Two Texans Both Attend Wedding Wearing The Same Gun.”
  • “Hamas Agrees To Surrender If Europe Will Take Greta Thunberg Back.”
  • “USS Harvey Milk To Be Renamed ‘USS No Homo.'”
  • Put down the phone.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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





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