Incompetence vs diversity? It's no contest within our modern security and military organizations (UPDATED)

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Our intrepid FBI sent agents over to the New Orlean’s terrorist’s home hours after the press had already arrived and begun interviewing neighbors.

Inside terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s squalid home, where sheep and goats roam his yard — after his financial ruin

By Jennie Taer

Published Jan. 1, 2025

By mid-afternoon, the feds swooped in — kicking The Post and other journalists out of the area and cordoning it off.

Dozens of police vehicles swarmed the neighborhood, including an armored, military-style truck.

Sooner than that, actually; they missed their chance in 2020, when his senility was already obvious

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Democrats Actually Missed Their Chance to Ditch Biden a Year Ago

Matt Margolis: “Many Democrats blame their loss in 2024 on Joe Biden for not getting out of the race sooner. But, they were handed an out on a silver platter nearly a year ago, and refused to take it.”

It’s incredibly frustrating to watch members of the mainstream media now admitting they failed to question Joe Biden’s cognitive health sooner—a failure many believe could have significantly altered the outcome of the election. Had Biden dropped out earlier, they argue, it would have given Kamala Harris, or perhaps a more competent Democrat, the time needed to build a stronger, more competitive campaign and potentially defeat Trump.

Yet, they had such an opportunity to do so a year ago, but they missed it—months before the June debate with Trump made it impossible for them to keep covering for him.

The truth is, there had been mounting evidence of Biden’s cognitive decline for years—even during the 2020 election—but they decided to defend him, ignoring growing concerns about his fitness for office. His verbal gaffes and memory lapses were hard to ignore, but the mainstream media dismissed these concerns as “conspiracy theories” or “ageist attacks.” ….

Despite their instinct to defend Joe Biden, the media’s first real opportunity to address his cognitive issues came not after the infamous Biden-Trump debate but with the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents in February 2024. 

That should have been the turning point, not the debate.

Though no charges were filed, Hur’s report raised serious concerns about Biden’s mental health, particularly his memory issues. 

The irony of the situation was that it was Biden’s advanced age and memory issues that saved him from being charged with mishandling classified information.

The report assessed that Biden's memory was "significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017 and in his interview with our office in 2023" and determined it wasn't worth bringing him to trial because Biden "would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." Thus it would be "difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him [...] of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

Hur’s report presented a clear opportunity for Democrats to reconsider Biden’s candidacy, but they failed to act. In fact, Democrats doubled down on their support of Biden, and attacked Hur for even making such an assessment of Biden. 

It’s not like the Hur report came out of nowhere, either. Hardly a week went by during Biden’s presidency without fresh evidence of Biden’s cognitive impairment coming out. The media even conceded the report was damning, yet the Democrats stood firm in support of Biden. And nothing was done about it. So, the media went back to pretending the Biden problem wasn't a problem at all. Instead of acknowledging the evidence, the media chose to focus on Trump’s nonexistent issues, affording Biden an opportunity to maintain a façade of competence.

All this is probably irrelevant anyway. Although it’s amusing to read various Democrat “experts” bewailing Biden’s late departure from the race, what would any replacement have to offer voters except more of the same policies, intensified? That wasn’t an attractive proposition, then or now.

Also irrelevant now, but fun nonetheless, here’s a clip of those same Democrats and their media monkeys lying about their man’s mental acuity, put together by the Trump team.

Mr. Biden tore down this wall

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New Orleans attack suspect named

To the complete astonishment of the FBI, which initially saw no indication that the man might be a terrorist

The suspect accused of plowing a truck through a crowd on Bourbon Street early Wednesday morning has been identified by a law enforcement source as 42-year-old Shamsud Din Jabbar.

Police fatally shot him after the attack, which killed 10 people and injured 35. 

The source said Jabbar was carrying an ISIS flag in the truck, and authorities have said he was dressed in military gear. 

Welcome to the new year — may the Democrats continue to prove that they learned nothing from the past one

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The Daily Chart: Why Democrats Lost for Dummies

Steven Hayward, Powerline:

The evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, who always regarded himself as a centrist-liberal, got a lot of heat for generating the top chart below of how the aggressive-progressive left (which is how they ought to be understood) went so far left that it pushed people like him to the right. The media/academic complex is wedded to the idea that it is the Republican Party that has become the “insurgent outlier” destabilizing American political life. But as the second chart below, produced by the Financial Times from survey data on immigration and affirmative action, shows, Wright had it right all along.

As bonus material, Hayward has included this photo, with self-explanatory caption, of the 81-year-old, 18-term Congressman from New Have Rosa DeLauro. Connecticut probably deserves to be punished for keeping her in office all these years, but is that fair to the rest of the country?

Put $42 billion into a government program and what do you get?

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Search Labs | AI Overview

As of September 2024, SpaceX's Starlink has reached over 4 million subscribers, which means that at least 4 million Starlink receivers have been installed globally. 

Lined pockets, but nothing else. You want rural broadband, call Elon.

The Libs are Noticing Biden’s Broadband Scandal

Early on in his Oval Office tenure, President Joe Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with overseeing a broadband internet program. Her job was to get broadband internet to every American across the country at a cost of $42 billion. 

In September, Republican Senator John Thune exposed the program hadn't connected a single household. 

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr explained more. 

"In 2021, Vice President Harris agreed to lead the Administration’s $42B plan to expand Internet to millions of Americans. Not one person has been connected to the Internet. None," Carr posted on X ahead of congressional testimony about the matter. "With VP Harris at the helm, Politico recently reported on the “frustration” and “finger-pointing” that now define the program’s 'messy, delayed rollout.' One state official described 'a chaotic implementation environment,' 'dysfunction,' and 'delays.' She added that the Administration 'has provided either no guidance, guidance given too late, or guidance changing midstream.' The Administration is 'slowing states down,' she said."

"So what has the Administration been doing over the last 1,039 days instead of connecting Americans?  It has been layering on red tape and advancing a wish list of progressive policy goals," Carr continued. "The $42 billion program led by Vice President Harris is being used to pursue a climate change agenda, DEI requirements, price controls, preferences for government-run networks, and rules that will lead to wasteful overbuilding.  All of this will leave rural and other unconnected communities behind."

As a participant in this graft program, Maine has experienced the same failure; contractors have walked away from bidding after calculating the cost of complying with all of the DEI requirements (minorities are hard to find in the Pine Tree State), union rules and pay scales, and new environmental regulations targeted at the installations. Obviously, the clusterfuck is not limited to Maine, but extends across the country, unlike the promised broadband access.

If I hadn't watched the entire nation meekly accepting and complying with the Wu Han Lockdown, I wouldn't believe that the residents of any state (and NY is next) would let this happen; but they are.

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back to the future

By Katy Grimes, December 30, 2024

They are coming for your gas-powered car, your gas stove, your gas water heater, your gas furnace, your gas dryer, your gas grille, your gas blower, your gas fireplace, and any other gas-powered appliance or vehicle you can think of.

Who is “they” besides California Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature imposing these policies on you?

California is set to become the first state to ban natural gas heaters, water heaters, and furnaces by 2030, a policy of the California Air Resources Board, entirely made up of appointees by the governor, I reported in 2023 in The Tangled Government Web Behind the Push to Ban Gas Stoves, where we link Harvard Health Publishing, the Rocky Mountain Institute,  MDPI International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, and U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine. NIH is the largest source of funding for medical research in the world. The WHO is named in the studies, as are many Chinese studies.

And they don’t care if it bankrupts you or causes you undue hardship. They don’t care if your public transit system is a hellhole on rails, when they take away your gas-powered car. They don’t care if you have to walk 5 miles to work. They don’t care. Just remember that they don’t care about you. They only care about their autocratic rules – and power.

….

Don Wagner, Chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and member of the Governing Board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, wrote an op ed for the OC Register addressing this. Here is what he reports:

SCAQMD intends to adopt two rules on all homeowners, multi-family residents, and businesses – more than 17 million people in all. The goal: eliminate natural gas appliances. Proposed Amended Rules 1111 and 1121 require homeowners, landlords, and businesses to replace furnaces and water heaters with costly new “zero-emission” electrical units.

He said these new rules “will seemingly do little to clean the air,” but will financially hurt many:

If implemented, these rules would impose ruinous expenses on already stretched residents and businesses, potentially cause people to lose housing, and strain an already stretched electricity grid.

We’re talking potentially tens of thousands of dollars per unit for every homeowner, landlord, and business forced to make these purchases.

Provoing my point that these Air Quality District board members don’t care, Wagner says:

You will be forced to comply. The old technology – the water heaters and furnaces you are using today – will be illegal to purchase or install.

Only the wealthiest of Southern California residents can afford such extravagance. Don’t even think about buying replacement units in other states and importing them. You will not be allowed to get a permit to install non-complying appliances, nor can you sell a property containing unpermitted units. You will have to comply.

Wagner says the new zero-emission water heaters and furnaces require a substantial increase in electricity usage, which we have heard before. But SCAQMD doesn’t even have a cost estimate yet to power these new electric appliances. But their orders will take place anyway. It’s another Nancy Pelosi moment: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Governor Gavin Newsom has already fallen quite short of his promise to build 3.5 million new homes in California while in office. He’s a victim of his own party’s rules and regulations, but won’t admit it. Because as Supervisor Wagner knows, the new all-electric rules run counter to building affordable homes. “They achieve minimal air quality improvements, are prohibitively expensive and ignore the region’s energy challenges,” Wagner adds.

Housing prices in California have dramatically increased since Newsom took office in 2019. And for all of his supposed efforts to streamline new housing construction, it just isn’t happening.

“Newsom promised in October 2017 amid his campaign for governor that he would help spur the construction and completion of 3.5 million new housing units by the start of 2025, according to a post the then-lieutenant governor made on Medium,” the Daily Caller reported.

“The governor took office in January 2019, when the state had around 14,235,201 housing units, and after five years at the helm, the number of units has increased to 14,824,626 as of the beginning of 2024, totaling just 589,626, according to data from the state’s Department of Finance.”

That’s only 117,925 new homes built every year in California, 2019 – 2024, while Gavin Newsom has been governor.

Californians are due to be very disappointed in just five short years:

NYT June 22 2023:

Why the U.S. Electric Grid Isn't Ready for the Energy ...

The current system makes it hard to build the long-distance power lines needed to transport wind and solar nationwide.

Washington Post Mar 7, 2024

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation's creaking power grid.

According to recent reports, the United States may soon face a situation where it cannot generate enough electricity to meet growing demand, primarily due to an aging power grid struggling to handle the increased needs from new data centers, manufacturing facilities, and the push towards electrification in various sectors, all while facing limitations in expanding transmission lines and integrating more renewable energy sources rapidly enough to meet the rising demand. 

Key points about the potential electricity shortage in the U.S.:

  • Outdated infrastructure:

    Much of the U.S. electric grid was built decades ago and is not designed to handle the modern energy demands, including the integration of large-scale renewable energy sources. 

  • Rapid demand growth:

    The surge in data centers, electric vehicles, and other electrified industries is putting significant strain on the existing power grid. 

  • Transmission limitations:

    Building new long-distance power lines to transport renewable energy from remote areas faces significant regulatory hurdles and community resistance. 

  • Concerns about grid reliability:

    Experts warn that certain regions of the U.S. could experience electricity shortages during peak demand periods if necessary infrastructure upgrades are not implemented quickly. 

Natural gas is cheap, abundant, and reliable: electricity is none of those.

Further, the huge reduction in CO2 gases in the United States is almost entirely attributable to our increased use of natural gas, instead of coal:

Why The U.S. Leads The World In Reducing Carbon Emissions

The focus on 15 years was primarily because that’s when fracking began to substantially boost U.S. oil and gas production. In addition to seeing the largest decline in carbon emissions over the past 15 years, the U.S. also saw the largest growth in energy production. That may seem counter-intuitive, but there is a simple explanation.

Coal produces more than double the amount of carbon dioxide per unit of power production than natural gas (source). The displacement of coal by natural gas in power production enabled the huge decrease in U.S. carbon emissions.

Renewables played a part, but the renewable contribution trailed that of natural gas. We can see that in the following graphic.

The people pushing for the end of fossil fuel production and use know all this, although their cowed subjects may not. The goal is to deindustrialize the United States and return the masses to the peasant ranks. And many are cheering their masters on. For sheer ignorant idiocy check out this response from a resident of Northern Virginia (we can safely assume he works for either the government or one of the corporate charlatans getting rich from these mandate):

Is it true that there is not enough electricity to power all ...

Quora

Edward Myers Lives in Northern Virginia (1983–present)

False. As soon as more vehicles in the US become electric, there will be a corresponding expansion of electrical power generation. Power companies are in the business of selling power and will willingly expand their capacity as needed to increase their profit.

Alternatively, every electrical vehicle could be matched with a corresponding increase in local solar generation alleviating the need for power companies to do much of anything. When the sun shines the electricity generated would go directly into a car battery nearby. On cloudy days, the cars’ battery reserve would be used to power the cars. Neither the grid nor power generation stations need to be enlarged when local solar generation is used to power vehicles.

The utility grid company might start communicating the demand for power by sending pricing signals when it has excess or needs more power. The electric car chargers will use that information to decide whether to add power to the car it is plugged into. This coordination would allow the power company to scale their power generation plants to produce more electricity from their most efficient plants thereby reducing the cost.

A large number of electrical vehicles will reduce the cost of electricity and prevent electrical shortages for everyone.




Walt, however, managed to die with his personal fortune intact

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December 30, 2024:

Bernie Madoff victims get final $131M payout from compensation fund, bringing total to a whopping $4.3B: feds

That’s good news for Bernie’s chumps and suckers, of course, but what about our homegrown boy, Walter Noel, the criminal who served as Madoff’s local feeder, funneling WASP money (a group Bernie, a Jew, couldn’t gain access to) into the Madoff centrifugal cream separation machine, the Harvard boy who put the “Rogue” into Rogues Hill — surely he didn’t suffer, did he? Because he was such a nice man and had such a lovely family!* Not to worry: You’ll be relieved to know that managed to die this spring in his Mustique retreat, surrounded by his doting children and their ill-gotten loot.

April 18, 2024 03:17 PM

Walter Noel, who ran biggest feeder fund into Madoff, dies at 93

Noel founded what would become Fairfield Greenwich Group in 1983 … and made his first $1.5 million “investment “[with Madoff] later that year.

By the time Madoff was arrested in December 2008 for running history’s biggest Ponzi scheme, the firm had about $7 billion invested with him or roughly half the firm’s total assets.

[All of it, in fact; despite Fairfield’s claim that they entrusted clients’ funds to a handful of carefully-selected, vetted funds, every penny scammed from Walt’s gand was handed over directly to Madoff to steal from it as he would - less the 20% slice to Walter, naturally. — ED]

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison after pleading guilty to his crimes. He died in prison in 2021 at age 82.

Madoff charged no fees to Fairfield Greenwich and other so-called feeder funds, meaning that those firms kept all the money they charged clients on what would eventually be proven to be fictitious returns. In Fairfield Greenwich’s case, that was 20% of any profit, and in later years a 1% management fee on assets.  

With the Madoff investment spinning off a return of at least 10% annually, Fairfield Greenwich made more than $1 billion in fees, according to a July 2010 complaint filed against Fairfield Greenwich’s entities and executives by Irving Picard, the trustee assigned to recoup money for investors. Noel personally received $114 million in partnership distributions between 2002 and 2008, the court document said, a sum that did not include salary or bonuses.  

Picard alleged that the executives of Fairfield Greenwich knew or should have known that Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme and said their relationship was a “de facto partnership.” Picard’s litigation is ongoing. No criminal charges have ever been brought against these parties.

… Noel, his Brazilian-born wife, Monica, and their five daughters led an increasingly lavish lifestyle from their base in leafy Greenwich, Connecticut. As Fairfield Greenwich assets ballooned, so did the number of vacation homes. In addition to the estate in Mustique and their mansion in Greenwich, they had places in New York City, Palm Beach and Southampton.  

Four of his five daughters wed men who later worked for Fairfield Greenwich. The daughters and their children were photographed by Bruce Weber for a 2002 Vanity Fair piece entitled "Golden in Greenwich" that described Noel’s offspring as the anti-Hiltons.  

Corina, the eldest, married Colombian-born Andres Piedrahita, who led the European and Latin American businesses, working out of London and Madrid. Lisina, the second oldest, wed Yanko Della Schiava, based in Lugano, Switzerland. He was responsible for selling Fairfield’s offshore funds in Southern Europe.

The fourth oldest, Alix, married Philip Toub, son of Swiss shipping magnate Said Toub. He marketed the group’s funds in Brazil and the Middle East. Marisa, the youngest, married Matthew Brown, who worked for the firm in New York. Ariane, the middle daughter, married a private equity investor who was not involved in the family business.  

Executive recruiter Russell S. Reynolds, a longtime friend of the Noels, told Vanity Fair that he saw Walter and Monica at the Round Hill Club in Greenwich the day after Madoff’s arrest. “Walter was shaking he was so upset,” Reynolds told the magazine.

 And here’s another take:

Bernie’s Biggest Sucker/Unindicted Co-conspirator Croaks

April 18 2024:

Unlike many of his old friend’s victims, Walter Noel lived to a ripe old age without knowing want.

Walter Noel lost a lot when Bernie Madoff got caught. As head of one of the oldest and the largest feeder fund into history’s biggest known Ponzi scheme, he lost about $7.5 billion of his clients’ assets. He lost a reliable source of income, since he paid his old buddy Bern no fees but charged lavish ones himself—some $1 billion worth over 20 years. He lost a chunk of his fortune, as well, although he never lost the $114 million the Madoff trustee has spent 15 years trying to recoup. He lost his share of a private jet. As four of his sons-in-law worked for his Fairfield Greenwich Group, he lost them their jobs and any real hope of obtaining new ones commensurate with their lifestyles. He lost his professional standing (but not his social standing, since he never had any).

He didn’t have much respect among his neighbors on Mustique, either, according to the man who developed the exclusive private Caribbean island. Apparently, however, the Mustique Company couldn’t do what the Round Hill Club did and simply throw him out. And so Noel was able to live out his final years amidst the celebrity, splendor and luxury that Ponzi paid for before joining his old partner, whose own beachside accommodations were distinctly more modest, in hell.

Walter Noel, who ran the the largest fund to invest with Bernie Madoff and made more than $1 billion in resulting client fees for his firm, has died. He was 93.

He died on Dec. 15 at Yemanja, his family’s property on Mustique, a private Caribbean island, according to his death certificate.

Ah, the memories.

*The Noel sisters of Greenwich, Connecticut, are turning tabloid-fodder sister acts (that is, Nicky and Paris Hilton) on their heads. In lieu of dancing on tables, the five Noel women have made a name for themselves by shoring up the virtues of a nearly extinct aristocracy. They're well educated and well married, and they're raising a pack of wellbehaved, multi-lingual children while keeping their string-bikini figures intact.

"Let me tell you, those Noel girls are perfect," says Laura McCloy, a socialite of a certain age who gestures with a clinking glass of iced tea toward the tall, attractive sisters. Mrs. McCloy, who is dressed all in pool-green Michael Kors, smiles at Corina, 38, Lisina, 37, Ariane, 35, and Alix, 34. The scene is a lawn in Greenwich, part of the property owned by retired Chase Manhattan Bank vice-chairman Robert Douglass and his wife, Linda. The couple is hosting a party for the youngest Noel sister, Marisa, 25, who is to marry 33-year-old investment manager Matt Brown on October 26.

All these new jobs! The unemployment rate will soon fall to zero.

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