The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

FMJRA 2.0: New York, New York

Posted on | January 12, 2025 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

A good week for my Senators as the bts came alive and we swept the Angels on Tuesday and took two out of three from the Yankees at the Polo Grounds, which we’re really liking since it’s really short down the lines and our boys like to jack those long balls just inside the foul poles. Joe Coleman and Spaceman Lee got their second wins, but Pat Dobson had the bad luck to face Bruce Kison, who utterly crushes righties, in our sole loss of the week. So we’re 7-7, tied with Pete’s Brewers for third behind the Twins and Royals, and traveling to Cincinnati (8-6) for a three-game series on Tuesday.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

4-1. We’ll take it.

FMJRA 2.0: Giant Killers
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Sunday: Smoke Break
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum


In The Mailbox: 01.06.25
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 01.07.25
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Vindicated: Britain’s ‘Grooming Gangs’ Finally Get the Attention They Deserve
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 01.08.25
Daybreak Bulletin
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

His Ex-Girlfriend Was Driving the Bus
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.09.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 01.10.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Top linkers for the week ending January 10:

  1.  EBL (9)
  2.  (tied) 357 Magnum and A View From The Beach

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

The Fake Priesthood of ‘Misinformation’

Posted on | January 12, 2025 | No Comments

We shall explore the buffoonery of Jeff Hancock, of whom Professor Glenn Reynolds has said, “Honestly, that he calls himself a ‘misinformation expert’ proves that he is a charlatan already.”

Before we get into the details of Hackock’s blunder, however, I first wish to point out that our beloved hero and role model, Ace of Spades, has for months been styling himself “Misinformation Expert Ace,” the point being that he’s just as much an “expert” as any of the academics sucking up federal grant money and 501(c)3 cash for their alleged “expertise” in this entirely bogus field. “Misinformation studies” sprang into existence — a la Athena emerging from the head of Zeus — after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Democrats blamed this event on Russian “meddling” in the election. Supposedly, a handful of Internet trolls operating in the Balkans had flipped the 2016 election by publishing “fake news” clickbait. Any sophomore student of logic could have found the flaw in this absurd claim — how is X the cause of Y? It might be true, on the one hand, that these Macedonian “misinformation” farms were somehow part of a Russian intelligence operation, but where is the evidence that even one American voter was influenced by these “fake news” stories? Yet it was on the basis of such unproven causality that there emerged an apparently lucrative industry employing self-anointed “misinformation experts,” an industry that subsequently proclaimed itself qualified to determine the truth of claims surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. “Misinformation experts” were closely allied with the “fact checkers” who were paid to direct Facebook’s suppression of inconvenient news about, e.g., the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Misinformation studies” is a cult religion, of whom “experts” are the priesthood. The existence and purpose of the quasi-religious witch hunt against “misinformation” is entirely political, having originated in the post-2016 effort to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump.

Now, via Wikipedia, this thumbnail biography:

Jeffrey T. Hancock is a communication and psychology researcher and professor at the College of Communication Stanford University. Hancock is best known for his research in fields of deception, trust in technology, and the psychology of social media. Hancock has been published in over 80 journal articles and cited in National Public Radio (NPR) and CBS This Morning.
Hancock was born in Canada, though he currently resides in Palo Alto, California. He received his bachelor’s degree of Applied Science in Psychology from the University of Victoria in 1996. . . . In 1997, he began his doctoral program in Psychology at Dalhousie University in Canada, from which he would graduate in 2002. From 2002 to 2015, Hancock was a faculty member and professor of Information Science and Communication at Cornell University.

The man is a psychology major. You know who else has a Ph.D. in psychology? Deb Frisch. “Your honor, I rest my case.”

“Argument from authority,” as we sophomore logic students were once taught to call the fallacy of relying on the prestige of a source as evidence of the truth for any assertion. The fact that Jeff Hanckcock has a Ph.D. and has been associated with elite univerities (Cornell and Stanford) is insufficient to prove that we can trust every word he utters.

Professor Hancock’s expertise was solicited in defense of a 2023 Minnesota law “to criminalize the use of deep-fake technologies to influence elections.” Christopher Kohls is an online content creator known as “Mr. Reagan,” who had used artificial intelligence (AI) technology to create parody videos about Kamala Harris. At least one of these videos was shared by Minnesota Republican state legislator Mary Franson. When one of Kohl’s parody videos got retweeted by Elon Musk and went viral, it was denounced by prominent Democrats, including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Subsequently, Kohls and Franson filed for a preliminary injunction on First Amendment grounds to prevent the use of Minnesota’s “deep fake” law against themselves. Professor Hancock was then enlisted as an expert witness by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and submitted a brief with the federal court under penalty of perjury — a phrase that the judge made a point of emphasizing in his ruling that disqualified Hancock’s testimony:

With his responsive memorandum in opposition to Plaintiffs’ preliminary-injunction motion, Attorney General Ellison submitted two expert declarations … [including one] from Jeff Hancock, Professor of Communication at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Social Media Lab. The declarations generally offer background about artificial intelligence (“AI”), deepfakes, and the dangers of deepfakes to free speech and democracy….
Attorney General Ellison concedes that Professor Hancock included citations to two non-existent academic articles and incorrectly cited the authors of a third article. Professor Hancock admits that he used GPT-4o to assist him in drafting his declaration but, in reviewing the declaration, failed to discern that GPT-4o generated fake citations to academic articles.
The irony. Professor Hancock, a credentialed expert on the dangers of AI and misinformation, has fallen victim to the siren call of relying too heavily on AI—in a case that revolves around the dangers of AI, no less. Professor Hancock offers a detailed explanation of his drafting process to explain precisely how and why these AI-hallucinated citations in his declaration came to be. And he assures the Court that he stands by the substantive propositions in his declaration, even those that are supported by fake citations. But, at the end of the day, even if the errors were an innocent mistake, and even if the propositions are substantively accurate, the fact remains that Professor Hancock submitted a declaration made under penalty of perjury with fake citations. . . .

You can read the whole thing. “The irony,” indeed. Permit me to add a personal anecdote: One of my sons is a law student who has worked as an intern/clerk and, as part of his job, was able to detect fake citations in a brief, which were the result of someone else relying on AI research the same way Professor Hancock did. If my 20-something son is more capable of finding AI fakery than this Ph.D. “expert”?

Yeah, your credentials are bullshit, Professor Hancock.



 

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Category: Intellectuals

Hollywood Getting Red-Pilled?

Posted on | January 11, 2025 | No Comments

Maybe you never heard of Sara Foster, but she is Hollywood royalty. Her father is David Foster, who came to Hollywood as the keyboardist in a Canadian pop band, became a studio musician, then a songwriter and producer, and is responsible for some of the biggest hit songs ever.

Because her father has been married five times, Sara Foster can count among her former step-siblings the Hadid sisters, not to mention two of Bruce Jenner’s kids. Her ex-boyfriends include Benicio del Toro, Leonardo Di Caprio, and David Spade. Sara Foster is connected to the West Coast celebrity universe by decades of direct personal relationships and — this is an important point to make — she is a liberal Democrat, whose Trump-hating credentials are impeccable. When someone like Sara Foster starts denouncing California’s Democratic governor, that matters. That is significant, and she is not the only one doing it:

Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jillian Michaels and Sara Foster have joined Donald Trump in slamming local and state officials amid the devastating Southern California wildfires. . . .
[They] took to social media to express their frustrations while slamming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom. . . .
One of the hardest hit areas has been the upscale community of Pacific Palisades, where numerous celebrities called home.
The sprawling mansions owned by Tina Knowles, Miles Teller, and Candy Spelling are reportedly among those that have burned to the ground.
Reality stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag documented the harrowing experience of evacuating their home – and later watching everything they own be reduced to ashes on a security camera.
Paris Hilton said she was “heartbroken” after she watched her home be consumed by flames on live TV. . . .
Gellar, 47, took to Instagram to air her frustrations at Bass, 71, who has been slammed online for her response in the midst of the disaster as well as previous fire department budget cuts.
She tagged Bass in her story and wrote: “City of LA you want everyone to evacuate yet you have complete gridlock and not one traffic cop on the roads helping.”
Foster, 43, made her feelings clear on X, writing: “We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared.
“Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits.”
Like Trump, 82, Foster also called on Newsom and Bass to resign as she claimed their “far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party.” . . .
Former Biggest Loser trainer Michaels, 50, didn’t hold back when expressing her “outrage” at state officials.
The fitness guru understands first-hand the trauma victims are experiencing as her Malibu home was burned in the 2018 Woolsey fire.
Although she consider her family “lucky” because they “didn’t lose everything,” she said the experience still greatly impacted herself and her children.
She told the Daily Mail: “People are dead, homes have burned, it is not your first rodeo. It is not.
“And when you know that you have a state that is prone to fire and – I’m going to give it to you – you’ve got global warning, you have literally have a tinderbox.
“Isn’t this the part where you take the highest taxed, highest income tax, highest sales tax, highest gas tax and rebuild the infrastructure?”
Michaels further claimed Newsom did not take swift enough action and believed the National Guard should have been called in sooner to help with firefighting efforts.
The 50-year-old added: “I’m sorry, and the reason for me this is super serious is because this guy wants to be your president. This now goes from a California problem to a country-wide problem.”

The tragic devastation — the most damaging wildfire in California history — may be an inflection point in American politics, like the 1968 Tet offensive or the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Everybody with two eyes could see what Jillian Michaels mentioned, that Gavin Newsom has been positioning himself for a White House run in 2028, and this wildfire was the event that caused them to speak out and warn America: “You do not want to elect this guy!” If I were J.D. Vance, I’d be scheduling a visit to Southern California, arranging to meet with however many Hollywood celebrities would be willing to listen to some basic common-sense ideas about how they can get themselves out of this Democrat-created mess they’d voted themselves into. Because 2028 will arrive in due time.

Sara Foster added this comment:

Fire chief turning on @MayorOfLA for her failure to do her job. If it “triggers” you to face the reality that our leaders have failed us by prioritizing absolute nonsense than I don’t know what to tell u. It’s not “right wing” to acknowledge this. That’s low hanging fruit language to label moderate dems who have common sense. I will not be reprimanded by the far left:the ultimate bullies. I’m not afraid of you. I am a democrat who is very comfortable staying in the non delusional democrat lane. Praying we get our shit together as a party. But I won’t hold my breath.

Ma’am, did I mention I was born and raised a Democrat? Speaking as an ex-Democrat, I’ll advise you that waiting for your party to “get our shit together” is likely to be a very long wait. Just walk away.



 

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Category: California, Celebrities

In The Mailbox: 01.10.25

Posted on | January 11, 2025 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

A reminder from X and @skscartoons.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Temple, Joe Biden tells Kamala Harris to “Fire Away” during press conference, and SCOTUS denies Trump’s emergency appeal 5-4
Twitchy: Biden Gives LA A Blank Check While FEMA Leaves WNC Out In The Cold, Newscum Asks Biden To Crap On The 1st Amendment To Cover Up His Failure, and LAPD Says Not Enough Probable Cause For Arson Suspect Residents Say Was Starting Fires
Louder With Crowder: Meet LA’s assistant fire chief, who says in an OFFICAL VIDEO it’s your husband’s fault if he needs to be saved by her, Angry citizen demands answers from Gavin Newsom, so he pulls this pathetic move, Mark Zuckerberg drops BOMBSHELL on Joe Rogan podcast, says Biden Admin would “scream and curse” at them to censor, and  Mel Gibson Has Figured Out Where CA Tax Dollars Went
Vox Popoli: Big Serge’s 2024 Ukraine Summary, The January Books, A Different Breed, and Ivermectin and Cancer
According To Hoyt: It Runs On Rails, The Missing Pieces, and The Illusion of Knowledge
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Meditations On Bias
Jim McCoy: DC Comics Absolute Green Lantern – The Sinesto Corps War

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Can Labor’s New Best Friend Keep the Good Times Rolling?
American Greatness: Man Seen Starting Fires With Blow Torch in LA County Not Charged With Arson, Biden Sends Another $500 Million to Ukraine Ahead of Trump Inauguration, SCOTUS Denies Trump Effort to Stay Sentencing Hearing, President-elect Trump Reportedly Plans Many Ambitious Executive Orders on Immigration, and Pardon the Candy-Snitchers
American Thinker: Scientific Societies Err on ‘Climate Change’
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Oh Canada! Friday
Babalu Blog: ‘Justice’ in Cuba: Corruption and subordination to the Communist Party, Cuba’s only airline has just two operational aircraft left in its fleet, Mercedes-Benz celebrates the sale of its first car to a “private customer” in Cuba since 1959, and Nicarguan dictatorship has closed over 5,600 non-profit organizations and seized all of their property
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For January 10
Behind The Black:  ISRO moving ahead with Spadex docking, Rocket Lab’s new Neutron rocket added to NASA’S contract bidding list, Cruz reveals another area where red tape is blocking SpaceX at Boca Chica: roads, Hubble captures a nice example of intergalactic microlensing, and The old media logjam has broken: Even the left is now getting its news from new media
Cafe Hayek: The Economy of Dynamia, also, The Fetish for Manufacturing Is Foolish
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: The LA Fires and the CA Coastal Commission
Da Tech Guy: Do You Want Justices Who Think For Themselves or Don’t You?
Dana Loesch: Merchan Sentences Trump In Hush Money Case
Don Surber: TikTok comics are making the mainstream obsolete
First Street Journal: Our friends on the left will be just spittle-flecked appalled!
The Geller Report: Photo of One of the Los Angeles Wildfires Arsonists
Hollywood In Toto: What Celebrity Will Be Red-Pilled Next?
The Lid: Poll: Americans View Biden as Worse Than Obama Or Trump as Term Ends
Legal Insurrection: Study Suggests Brown University Radicalized Students Following October 7th, Trump Case Is an Indictment of NY Legal System, Contains a ‘Peddler’s Wagonful’ of Reversible Errors, Los Angeles Fires: Arson Suspect Arrested Near Kenneth Fire, Newsom Complains About ‘Disinformation’ as Wildfires Destroy Los Angeles Area, and Teachers in Minnesota Could Lose Licenses if They Don’t Affirm LGBT Identities
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday; Six ‘P’s
Outkick: Don’t Pencil In Winner Of Cotton Bowl As CFP Champion, Notre Dame Has One More Stop On Redemption Tour, Clay Travis Applauds Marcus Freeman’s Response To ESPN’s Molly McGrath’s Race-Baiting Question, Ohio State Came Up Clutch In The End, Finding A Defensive Way To Win. Notre Dame Should Be Licking Its Chops, Carson Beck Transferring To Miami, As His College Career Will Continue For One More Season, and MAGA Bikini Congresswoman Dubbed ‘Sexiest Woman In Congress,’ Corso’s Tough Night & Did ESPN Really Say That?
Power Line: Zuckerberg Unbound, Trump Sentenced to…Nothing, Wildfire of the vanities, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: DeSantis Slams “Smear” Of Appointee Amid Backlash Over Comments On Women & Education
Shot In The Dark: Place Your Bets, also, I Was Reliably Informed
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Intellectual’s Responsibilities in an Age of Totalitarian
This Ain’t Hell: Chuckie Pinocchio, Valor Friday, and Barbra Streisand blames climate change for Santa Ana winds
Transterrestrial Musings: Anti-aging, also, How California And LA Got Here
Victory Girls: California is Burning: Nero Newsom and the Amen Corner Media
Watts Up With That: Carbon Brief and The Guardian Falsely Claim Climate Change is Making Cyclones Worse, Massive Recovery in Antarctica Sea Ice Unreported by Net Zero-Obsessed Mainstream Media, The Interests of the U.S. and the Honolulu Climate Case Before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Did the LA Fire Disaster Have to Happen?
The Federalist: U.K. ‘Grooming Gangs’ Scandal Could Happen In The U.S. Thanks To Leftist Justice System, While California Burns Gavin Newsom Begs Biden To Silence ‘Disinformation’, California’s DEI-Obsessed Anarchotyrants Threw Money At Everything But Water And Firefighters, Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard Reminds Us Why We Should Place Our Trust In The Lord, and Will 2025 Be The Year The West Frees Itself From All Justin Trudeaus?
Mark Steyn: South Yorkshire Police Come Back for More, also, Live Around the Planet: Child Sacrifice

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 01.09.25

Posted on | January 10, 2025 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Double Kindle Points on books bought tomorrow!

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Soft-on-Crime NYC Sees Rise in Repeat Offenders
EBL: The Death of Nelson, President Jimmy Carter at U.S. Capitol, and President Jimmy Carter Memorial Service at National Cathedral
Twitchy: DEI Literally Dangerous! Jemele Hill Throws Hissy Fit At Matt Walsh For Noticing The Obvious About LAFD, and “You Can’t Fight Fires With Platitudes, Pronouns, & Politics”
Louder With Crowder: DEBUNKED: Biggest Myths About Homeschool, Top Leftist Slogans Debunked, Mayor Karen Bass goes silent when grilled over her policies causing LA to burn down, Senate Democrats Start The New Trump Admin With The World’s Cringiest Video, and The warning a fireman gave Joe Rogan of how bad Los Angeles could get is eerily accurate
Vox Popoli: Gomorrah Burns, also, There Could be Another Reason
Stoic Observations: A Part of the Main
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: Firefighting By Kristen, also, Rapes & Race Riots
Cedar Sanderson: The Madoc Rhys Mysteries
Bugscuffle Gazette: Throwback Thursday
Toni Airaksinen: Study Shows 72% Of False Rape Accusers Were In Therapy When Accusations Were Made 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Will Chrystia Freeland Be Canada’s Rishi Sunak?
American Greatness: MTG Says Biden Administration ‘Despicable’ for Funding Foreign Wars Yet Providing Little Help for U.S. Storm Victims, ‘Matter of Importance’: Lip Reader Reveals What Trump and Obama Talked About During Jimmy Carter’s Funeral, Biden Considering Preemptive Pardons for Fauci, Cheney, Others, Merrick Garland Plans to Release Jack Smith Report on Trump Before Inauguration, and We, the People Affirm American Greatness
American Thinker: The Sinking of the USS Agility
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Red Thursday News
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship hands farmland over to Vietnam to grow rice, The Castro family dictatorship and its expanding international business empire: Part 1, Families of soldiers missing after munitions explosion denounce Cuban dictatorship’s carelessness and callousness, and Cuban YouTuber unmasks deep flaws of new dollars-only apartheid supermarket in Havana
BattleSwarm: Banks Zero Out NetZero
Behind The Black: JPL shuts down due to threat from California fires, DeSantis: Put NASA headquarters in Florida, Correction: SpaceX DOES NOT launch 21 more Starlink satellites, The new conservatives who have been mugged by a wildfire, and The biggest members of ESA cut their annual contributions to the partnership
Cafe Hayek: Sloppy Statistics Make for Sloppy Analyses
Chicago Boyz: California, Angela Merkel, and Dancing With a Train
Don Surber: The Founding Fathers would be proud
The Geller Report: Huge Victory for Women & Girls
Hollywood In Toto: Indie Darling Jim Jarmusch Blames LA Fires on Climate Change, also, The Last Showgirl Shares Uncomfortable Truths
The Lid: L.A.’s Fire Hazard Mayor Who was in Africa when Wildfires Hit Caught in Embarrassing Social Media Attack
Legal Insurrection: Five Fires in Los Angeles Leave Five Dead, Thousands of Homes Burned, Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Request to Halt Hush Money Sentencing, Historically Black University’s Marching Band Scolded by Leftists for Agreeing to Perform at Trump Inauguration, Democrats Reach the ‘Republicans Pounce’ Phase of LA Wildfire Story, and As Iowa Regents DEI Vote Looms, Equal Protection Project Challenges Discriminatory U. Northern Iowa Scholarships
Nebraska Energy Observer: Fingers crossed!
Outkick:  Ohio State Fans Reportedly End Up In Miami For Orange Bowl Due To Brain Fart, While Buckeyes Play In Dallas, Carson Beck Planning To Enter Transfer Portal, After Declaring For NFL Draft. He’s About To Get Paid, Quinn Ewers Comes Full Circle, Leans On Faith As Texas Prepares For Ohio State, CFP Semifinals: Texas Battles Ohio State In Cotton Bowl, While Notre Dame And Penn State In Orange Bowl Fight, and The Real Pressure Heading Into The Orange Bowl Is On The Girlfriends Of The Notre Dame & Penn State QBs
Power Line: When Elvis met Nixon, The Fire This Time, and Adolf Hitler, Communist
Shark Tank: Rick Scott Introduces Bill To Guide Venezuela Back To Democracy
Shot In The Dark: The Way You Groove, Labor Dispute, and The Real Problem
STUMP: In Memory Of President Jimmy Carter
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – Eco-Overlords: Rights Of Nature Tribunal; Eco-Marxist Education; Reshaping Your Diet
This Ain’t Hell: SM assaulted by college mob due to TikTok, also, Elon Musk aims for $2 trillion in federal budget cuts
Transterrestrial Musings: The Cloak Of Deceit In The UK
Victory Girls: Are Bass And Newsom Watching Their Political Careers Burn?
Watts Up With That: Europe’s Energy Debacle Is a Warning for U.S., Mann FINALLY has to pay, and Trump Reportedly Mulling EO To Shield Americans’ Gas Stoves From Bureaucrats
The Federalist: Here Are All The Ways DEI-Crazed Officials Made The LA Fire More Deadly, Court Strikes Down Biden’s Title IX Tranny Overhaul Nationwide, Lawfare Against Trump Flares For Final Time, If Karen Bass Isn’t Recalled, Prosecuted, Or Forced To Resign, Democracy Is Wasted On L.A., and  Supreme Court Chief Roberts Just Defended The Censorship-Industrial Complex
Mark Steyn: Morning in Canada

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Category: Linkagery

His Ex-Girlfriend Was Driving the Bus

Posted on | January 9, 2025 | No Comments

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation operates a fleet of buses called DASH (Downtown Area Short Hop). Two days before Thanksgiving, 911 received a call that one of the DASH buses was being followed by an armed man driving a white Maserati. The caller told the 911 dispatcher there was a “domestic dispute” between the Maserati driver and the woman driving the bus, who was his ex-girlfriend and the mother of one of his children. He brandished a gun at the bus driver, and then began following the bus — a Maserati chasing a bus.

As I was watching a recently-released YouTube video of the incident, I was mystified by this bit of information. A Maserati is a pricey Italian sports car. New models sell for as much as a quarter-million dollars, although Maserati offers lower-priced models that can be had for as little as $60,000. Still, it’s a prestigious high-status luxury brand, so how is it that a bus driver’s ex-boyfriend is driving a Maserati? Like, if you’re tooling around LA in a Maserati, shouldn’t you be dating movie starlets or fashion models? Instead, you’re hooking up with bus drivers?

Perhaps you see why my curiosity was aroused.

Multistate Drug Organization
Dismantled; 31 Defendants Face
Federal Drug and Firearms Charges

That was the headline on a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas in September 2018:

This drug-trafficking organization is alleged to be led by Eric Baldwin, 29, and Nicholas Robinson, Jr., 23, both of Little Rock. The indictment named 23 defendants from the central Arkansas area — where the drugs were distributed — and eight defendants from southern California, which is alleged to be the source of the drugs.
“This criminal organization stretched from Arkansas to California, and was responsible for distributing large quantities of illegal drugs here in our neighborhoods,” U.S. Attorney Hiland said.

Among other things, authorities seized more than 40 pounds of methamphetamine as part of the investigation. The ringleaders in Arkansas had been using wire transfers to send money to California as payment for the drugs, which were sent via the Post Office.

Aundre Lamar Jones of Los Angeles was among those indicted, and in November 2021, Jones “was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Brian Miller to serve eight months in federal prison”:

Aundre Lamar Jones, 34, of Los Angeles pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering for his role in the drug ring . . .
Under U.S. sentencing guidelines, Miller said, the recommended sentence for Jones ranged from six to 12 months in prison, a fine of $2,000 to $20,000 and a term of supervised release from one to three years. Probation from one to five years was also listed as an option.
Jones’ attorney, Darrell Brown Jr. of Little Rock, asked Miller to consider a sentence of probation, saying Jones’ primary problems were caused by a longtime addiction to drugs.
“He does need assistance with the drug issue,” Brown said, “which has caused him additional problems here.”
Brown pointed out that Jones, at 34 years old, is the father of three boys and that he had accepted responsibility for his actions and was trying to make positive changes. . . .
But Miller, considering Jones’ circumstances, said he was troubled by additional charges Jones had racked up since his indictment, including a weapons charge.
“He’s 34 years old, he lives with his mother, and I think he gets $1,500 in unemployment,” Miller said. “The job he was working, for which he is receiving unemployment benefits, he didn’t have it very long.”
Miller pointed out that Jones had worked for 12 years for a temporary staffing company, which he said at best provided only sporadic employment.
“It doesn’t, except for the time he had his own business, look like he’s ever had long-term gainful employment,” he said. “Living in Los Angeles with no gainful employment and making what it appears you’ve been making, it begs the question what do you do for income, and if you’re not working and you don’t have any money, you still have to live. It requires you to find other ways to make money. I don’t know if that’s true but I’m telling you what it looks like.”
Miller said based on Jones’ criminal history, he had been close to some significant crimes, including a murder, for which he was not charged.
“What this smells like, or what it looks like, is that you’re out here doing things you probably shouldn’t be doing and this time you got caught,” he said. “That’s what it looks like.”

Judge Miller is a shrewd observer. How are you supporting three children by “sporadic” employment through a temp agency? The circumstances were suspicious, even if the judge didn’t know that Aundre Lamar Jones was driving around LA in a Maserati, which brings us back to that incident two days before Thanksgiving this year:

A man has died a day after he led Los Angeles police on a chase and engaged in a gun battle with officers in West Adams, officials said Wednesday.
Police identified the suspect as 37-year-old Aundre Jones. Jones had been hospitalized after the shooting that occurred Tuesday afternoon in the 3000 block of West Boulevard, but he was pronounced dead on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The violent series of events unfolded around 12:17 p.m. Tuesday when police were called about a domestic violence suspect in a white Maserati who was apparently following the driver of a city DASH bus in the San Pedro area.
According to police, the bus driver and Jones previously dated and had a child together.
Responding officers spotted Jones’ vehicle and attempted a traffic stop, but he sped away, beginning a chase that headed north on the 110 Freeway, police said.
They chased him along the freeway and into the West Adams area and eventually into a residential neighborhood near West and Jefferson boulevards.
The suspect pulled into a driveway, parked behind an apartment building and walked toward the street, where police were approaching.
“The suspect in the driveway pulled out two guns — one in each hand — and opened fire on the officers,” LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told reporters Tuesday. “Officers returned fire, striking the suspect.”
LAPD says Jones and officers fired multiple rounds at each other.
Jones was treated at the scene and taken to a hospital, where he died Wednesday.
Two 9mm semi-automatic handguns were recovered next to Jones at the scene, police said.
The suspect’s mother, who police said approached Jones during the shooting, was struck by gunfire on the arm and brought to a local hospital. She was treated for her injury and is expected to make a full recovery.

Now you can watch the YouTube video with police body camera footage of the incident in which Aundre Lamar Jones died in the proverbial “hail of police gunfire.” Toward the end, you see cops pull a woman away from Jones’s bullet-riddled body — that’s his mother. Apparently the whole point of that lengthy police chase was so he could make it to his mother’s apartment, so she could watch him go down with guns blazing.

My favorite part of the video is at the beginning, where they play recordings of 911 calls, and you hear the dispatcher repeating what the caller has just told her, to confirm that she’s got the correct information: “A Maserati is chasing the DASH bus?” Like, you’re kidding me?

Just incidentally, none of the news media coverage of this November shootout included the background information I gave you about Aundre Jones being busted by the feds for drug trafficking. Apparently nobody in the world of LA journalism has the kind of natural curiosity that would lead them to ask the obvious question, “Who is this guy driving a Maserati, chasing a bus and shooting at the cops?” The spelling of his first name was unusual enough that I figured Google might turn up some information about his previous criminal activity because, let’s face it, nobody begins their criminal career this way. While I didn’t expect what I found — a federal prison sentence for an interstate drug-trafficking operation — I knew I’d find something, because there had to be some explanation for why the bus driver’s ex-boyfriend was driving a Maserati.

Are you driving a Maserati? Because I know that I’m not driving a Maserati. Apparently, the only people who can afford to drive a Maserati are the kind of criminals who die in shootouts with police.



 

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Category: California, Crime

In The Mailbox: 01.08.25

Posted on | January 9, 2025 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

After firing over 100 firefighters for refusal to take the jab, LAFD is begging for volunteers to help fight the uncontrolled fires. (Photo via Gateway Pundit on X)

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Hydrogen As a Power Source versus Reality
EBL: MAGA Greenland, Soros Operatives Now Control Wikipedia, and CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS HELP BURN DOWN THE STATE
Twitchy: No Words – LA Mayor Karen Bass Stands Silent As Reporter Bombards Her With Questions, UK Dads Tell of Being Arrested For Trying To Save Their Daughters From Grooming Gangs, and Bulwark Toady Sam Stein Tries Blaming LA Fires On Trump & Gets Rekt
Louder With Crowder: Justin Trudeau attempts to be a tough guy about Trump, but one sentence from Elon Musk puts him in his place
Vox Popoli: The End of an Era, The Crisis of Clown World, The Only Skull, Burn Hollywood Burn, and Reject Diversity
Bugscuffle Gazette: Maintain The Rage
Stoic Observations: MIT Press Essential Knowledge
Cedar Sanderson: The Land of Beyond
Toni Airaksinen: JewHateDatabase Deletes Post On Falsely Accused Boca Raton Prof – “I Am Innocent”
Ammo.com: Mass Shooters By Race 1966-2024

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Biden Set to Announce Parting Gift of $500 Million in Military Aid to Ukraine, Trump Blames ‘Governor Newscum’ For Nightmare Firestorm in Southern California, Climate Hustle: EPA Advisor Admits Sending Billions to Climate Groups Before Trump Takes Office, Senate Democrats Attempt to Delay Tulsi Gabbard Confirmation Hearings, and Conspiracies Too Awful to Imagine?
American Thinker: The Necessity of Heroes
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Explosions rock Cuban munitions depot in Holguin, 13 soldiers missing, Apartheid hotel in Cuba throws lavish Orthodox Christmas party while Cubans are starving, What Fidel Castro’s ‘revolution’ has stolen from the Cuban people, and Guess who’s angry with the New York Times?
BattleSwarm: Why Is Diet Root Beer Up 131% Even Though Aluminum Is Down?
Behind The Black: SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites; delays 7th Starship/Superheavy launch several days, India appoints a new leader for its space agency ISRO, Blue Origin fined by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for using its launch deluge system, Oman plans three more suborbital launches in ’25 from its proposed spaceport site, and Japan identifies a Chinese hacker group as the source of 210 attacks since 2019
Cafe Hayek: Another Strawman Slain
CDR Salamander: Permission Structures, A PSYOP Against The American People, & The Big Man Theory
Chicago Boyz: At Long Last
Da Tech Guy: Who’s Responsible for the Situation in California in one Devastating Tweet
Don Surber: Zuckerberg goes full Musk
First Street Journal: I check Bluesky so you don’t have to
The Geller Report: “APOCALYPTIC SCENES”: Los Angeles Wildfires Rage Out of Control Due to Catastrophic Failure of Democrat Policies
Hollywood In Toto: Adam Carolla’s DEI Firefighter Story Goes Viral, also, Why Blade Runner Ruled the ’80s
The Lid: CNN Finally Reveals that ‘Jan 6’ was Meaningless to Voters in 2024
Legal Insurrection: FBI Investigating Threats Against SpaceX Launch Site, Palisades Fire Incinerates Future Career of Mayor Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom’s Presidential Aspirations, U. Texas at Austin President Leaving School After Trying to Implement a More Conservative Vision, Canadian Leaders Not Too Happy After Trump Posts Map Showing Country as Part of U.S., and Couple That Threw Firebombs at U. Pittsburgh Michael Knowles Event Sentenced to Prison and Fined
Nebraska Energy Observer: Leading the Way
Outkick: Brittney Griner Says New 3-On-3 League Will Put Pressure On WNBA To Pay Players More, Michele Tafoya Blasts Mark Zuckerberg For Damage Facebook Has Done In Wake Of Fact-Checker Program Ending, Lions Coach Makes Media Explode With Just Six Words, Jamie Lee Curtis Stripping Turns On Gen-Z, Kay Adams Tries Raw & The Media Meltdown Over Black NFL Firings, and Cotton Bowl Ticket Prices Plummet: Weather, Travel Expenses Weighing On Minds Of Texas And Ohio State Fans?
Power Line: MPD consent decree: Note 2, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back, and Is Newsom to Blame for California’s Wildfires?
Shark Tank: Coral Gables City Manager Resigning?
Shot In The Dark: Turning Of The Tide, also, Method
STUMP: Geeking Out – Picking Apart A Chicago Pension Actuarial Report From 2024
The Political Hat: Breaking Free from Political Polarization?
This Ain’t Hell: Tarawa Marine to be laid to rest
Victory Girls: Pocahontas Proclaims Pete Hegseth Unfit!
Watts Up With That: Grid battery cost issue storm looms in Massachusetts, Why California Wildfires are NOT Climate Driven: A Historical and Meteorological Perspective, And Then There Were NONE! JPMorgan becomes last of the Big-6 U.S. banks to quit Net-Zero Banking Alliance, and A Country With No Wind Turbines?
The Federalist: Canadian Doctors Suggest Harvesting Organs From Euthanasia Patients Before They’re Dead, Navy Veteran Suing CNN For Defamation Breaks Down At Trial, How Trump Can Deter Red China From Ransacking Taiwan, LA Already Shipped Firefighting Equipment To Ukraine, And Now Biden Is Planning Another Handout As California Burns, and Trudeau Leaves A Legacy Of Failure And Electoral Discontent In Canada 
Mark Steyn: The Ghosts of Charlie Hebdo

Amazon Warehouse Deals
The Collected Verse Of Robert W. Service
Today’s Deals
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Category: Linkagery

Vindicated: Britain’s ‘Grooming Gangs’ Finally Get the Attention They Deserve

Posted on | January 8, 2025 | No Comments

Because Elon Musk decided to remind people of the role that Britain’s Labour Party played in the “grooming gang” scandal, suddenly millions of people who never knew about the scandal — particularly in the United States — are talking about this as if it were breaking news. And while I suppose I should be grateful that this gruesome tale is finally getting the attention it deserves, excuse me for asking: Where were these people 10 or 15 years ago, when I was frequently calling attention to this?

That was my first spate of coverage, nearly 15 years ago, and in 2014, I wrote extensively about “The Rotherham Horror”:

Imagine if more than a thousand girls, some as young as 11, were sexually exploited by members of a fundamentalist religious cult. Now imagine that authorities refused to act to stop this heinous abuse of young girls because of their fear of offending public opinion.
Except you don’t have to imagine this. It actually happened.
And the fundamentalist religious cult? Yeah: Islam.

Subsequently, I wrote about Emma Jackson, who was pimped out by these gangs beginning at age 13. What is amazing about all this is how the problem was widely known for years and yet was ignored, as I remarked when activist Tommy Robinson was arrested in 2018:

Class prejudice was clearly a factor in this. Most British journalists are from the college-educated upper classes, while the girls being raped and pimped out by these Muslim gangs were mostly from a class that Americans would call “white trash.”
It’s not as if the “grooming” gangs were a big secret, after all. Young Pakistani men were parking their cars in front of schools to pick up their 14- and 15-year-old “girlfriends” and, because these girls were generally from the welfare-dependent lower classes, nobody seemed to care. Police, educators and social-service agencies ignored what was going on, and as for the media, well, they wouldn’t want to be accused of “racism” or “Islamophobia” for reporting on this phenomenon.

Radical feminist Julie Bindel was actually the first to write about the so-called “grooming gangs” in 2007, and it was also covered at great length by my friend Pamela Geller. It was a “fringe” concern back then, and to see the story surge to the top of the headlines because Elon Musk slammed the British Prime Minister — well, welcome to the party, pal.



 

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Category: Crime, Great Britain, Islam, Racism
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