Greg Schepens

Financial Planner, Volleyball Coach and Political Junkie. Likes are my way to save posts and don't always equal a like.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

AUSTIN MAN charged with running a sex trafficking ring and dealing cocaine, meth, MDMA, and Adderall -- caught fleeing police in a car after firing a gun -- just walked out with a 2-year deal and watched more than a dozen felonies vanish in a single afternoon.

Kaden Caro has 62 cases in the Travis County courts. In 2024, DPS arrested him after a vehicle chase that ended in a crash and an injured victim. (See video below.)

Officers found him with a gun he wasn't allowed to have as a felon, plus cocaine, meth, Adderall, and Xanax he was selling. He was indicted on a stack of charges, including trafficking and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

This April, DA Garza's office let him plead to two counts and dropped almost everything else from that arrest and others:

• Sex trafficking - waived in the plea
• Dealing cocaine - dismissed
• Dealing meth - dismissed
• Dealing MDMA - no charges
• Dealing Adderall - dismissed
• Robbery - dismissed
• Gun as a felon, twice - dismissed
• Tampering with evidence - dismissed
• Unlawful restraint, exposing the victim to serious injury - dismissed
• Fleeing police in a vehicle, twice - dismissed
• A 2021 home invasion charged as burglary plus two aggravated assaults - dismissed

He pleaded to firing a gun and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Back in 2023, Caro sat on an ankle monitor for an aggravated assault on a mother in a family violence case. A GPS company flagged him twice driving back onto her block, within 200 yards of where she lived, in violation of his protective order. The assault charge was no-billed. The protective order violations were quietly folded into the district court and then dismissed.

Across 62 cases and 15 years -- robberies, assaults, guns, drug dealing, a trafficking charge -- Caro has never once faced a jury. Every felony ended in a dismissal, a reduction, or a plea.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Suicidal empathy becoming homicidal empathy

[Owen Gregorian @OwenGregorian]

Nithya Raman overtakes Spencer Pratt — but watch out | CA Post Editorial Board, New York Post

Socialist Nithya Raman might be familiar with a phrase widely misattributed to Joseph Stalin: “It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.”

Not much voting went on in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, so Stalin probably didn’t say that. But the point about counting the vote stands.

On Sunday evening, Raman overtook challenger Spencer Pratt for second place in the race for LA mayor. The trend seems likely to continue.

We would like to report the ballots counted thus far as a percentage of the total cast, but unfortunately, we cannot: ballots are still being accepted, if they were postmarked by June 2.

So no one knows exactly how many ballots there are, because the number keeps growing.

They aren’t being counted at the precinct level, but in a massive, centralized counting facility.

And, of course, they have to get there, first.

There’s no evidence of fraud. Just proof of a massively flawed design.

There’s not one other democracy in the world that runs this way. Nor is there another state within the US that does. But California stands by its system.

And why wouldn’t it? Everything about it suits incumbents just fine.

Remember that in 2022, voters who wanted to recall unpopular LA County District Attorney George Gascón handed in 26% more than the required number of signatures.

County officials then reported that 27% of the signatures were invalid — just enough to disqualify the recall.

What a coincidence.

And observers weren’t allowed to watch the signature verification process.

Surely another coincidence.

In the end, Gascón lost his re-election campaign in a landslide, to Nathan Hochman.

Ultimately, the will of the people prevailed.

But that margin was so huge — almost 20 points — that there was no room for doubt.

In a close election, we cannot have a process that works this way.

The people defending the system today — because they like the result — will one day be on the receiving end.

Especially if it is a fight among Democrats, who know all the tricks.

Raman, despite being seven points behind on June 2, has now made up that seemingly insurmountable margin.

If she qualifies for the general election, congratulations and good luck.

One word of advice: remember that there are hundreds of thousands of Pratt voters.

They could be the swing voters in this election.

Mock their disappointment at your political peril.

https://t.co/Vyd9twXHgs

[Libertarians against Trump @jeffersonation1]

‘We protect your privacy by reading your messages without a warrant.’

-Pete Hegseth

Orwell couldn’t write this.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The reason ID is banned in California (and New York) elections is to enable large-scale fraud.

When you combine no ID and mail-in voting, fraud is de facto legalized.

[MonitorX @MonitorX99800]

🇺🇸🇮🇱⚡️BREAKING: American soldiers deployed to defend Israel had their phones bugged and wiretapped by Mossad – New York Times

[End Wokeness @EndWokeness]

Mail-ins arriving before Election Day:
🔵 Bass: 38.1%
🔴 Pratt: 27.9%
🔵 Raman: 20%

Mail-ins arriving after Election Day:
🔵 Raman: 37% (+17% surge)
🔵 Bass: 34.9% (-3% drop)
🔴 Pratt: 19% (-9% drop)

Who are we kidding here? This is fraud.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱 The Pentagon espionage bombshell just got worse...

New reporting confirms Israel has been eavesdropping on the American peace negotiators themselves.

The targets named: Steve Witkoff, Trump's top negotiator with Iran. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's policy chief.

And Michael DiMino, who runs Middle East policy.

Israel wasn't just collecting on America generally.

It was listening to the specific men writing the deal Netanyahu opposes.

What's wild is the documented incidents read like operations against an enemy state.

American defense personnel in Israel discovered spyware surreptitiously installed on their phones.

In 2021, Israeli military intelligence officers were caught planting listening devices at DIA headquarters.

Last year, Shin Bet officers were discovered trying to bug a Secret Service vehicle.

A SECRET SERVICE VEHICLE.

One senior official described the Israeli collection effort against top U.S. officials as "unhinged."

And the rating in context: Israel's counterintelligence threat level is now higher than any other American ally and EVEN HIGHER than some adversaries.

Notice who got targeted.

Colby is the most prominent advocate of foreign policy restraint in the government.

DiMino runs Mideast policy. Witkoff writes the deal.

Israel's espionage maps perfectly onto the people standing between Netanyahu and the war he wants to continue. They bugged the peace.

All of this while Israeli officers sit inside CENTCOM with unprecedented access, while Congress moves Section 224 to link the two militaries' systems and data permanently, and while Huckabee negotiates the framework.

The Pentagon says the ally is spying at a critical level.

Washington's answer is to hand them the keys to the network. Please make it make sense...

Source: NYT

[Valerie Anne Smith @ValerieAnne1970]

RFK Jr: Fauci FORCED AIDS patients onto the deadly chemo drug AZT and KILLED 330,000 people.

Fauci STOPPED any treatment alternative other than AZT.

Exactly like during COVID. Fauci STOPPED Ivermectin & Hydroxychloroquine...and ONLY allowed deadly Remdesivir.

[Chuck Ross @ChuckRossDC]

So the guy who grilled Kavanaugh about "boofing" and other yearbook slang when he was 16 is "unimpressed" by allegations against Graham Platner when he was in his 30s. https://t.co/P7wRB7mup1

[austinreform @austinreforms]

@Polymarket This is embarrassing. And shit like this happens because of your incontinent ass, @LeaderJohnThune

[Big Fish @BigFish3000]

The only decent journalist CBS had they fired.
Scott Pelley was silent.

[ATX data @data_atx]

Austin Nonprofit Contract of the day

$900k for support services at the ~120 person balcones terrace appartments.

It could be a very good program, but again to the FOIA topic earlier in the day , there is no way for journalists to get info about this to see how many people it helps, what the outcomes are etc etc , and the city is not reporting much on this

[Andy Ngo @MrAndyNgo]

“You’ve been stabbed? I don’t think you have, mate,” the officer responded.

The @HantsPolice body camera footage of the arrest of a dying Henry Nowak has been released.

The university student tried desperate to tell police he had been stabbed and that he couldn’t breathe. They turn him around on the ground and handcuff him until he goes limp.

Nowak was killed by an Indian man who lied and said he was the victim of a racist attack, a tactic often used and encouraged by leftists to get an upper hand against others.

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

Wow. 1,000 University of California professors signed an open letter to the Board of Regents demanding they bring back standardized testing after it was removed during covid for equity.

They reveal that many STEM students are BELOW Middle School level in Math!

“The SAT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather, it is a prerequisite for it. Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome.”

[Mary Talley Bowden MD @MaryBowdenMD]

🚨We have found 1575 patients at HoustonMethodist who were admitted to the hospital shortly after receiving a Covid shot and not reported to VAERS.

“Stacy”, a 27 year old female, got her first COVID-19 shot 1/7/2022 and was admitted to HoustonMethodist 12 days later on 1/19/2022. Her primary diagnosis was “Cardiomegaly” and her secondary diagnosis was “Hyperkalemia”. She died on 1/19/2022, just 12 days after the vaccine.

We are gathering more…. Please share with your Houston friends. Legal action forthcoming.

[redpillbot @redpillb0t]

Justin Trudeau's net worth in 2020 was $10M.

At the end of 2022 it's $385M.

He made $351,000 as PM.

Where are his tax returns?

[Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2]

Judge Cooper should recuse himself from any matter involving the president. His wife, Amy Jeffres, represents a number of clients against the administration; just this week, she filed the lawsuit on behalf of Joe Biden to keep recordings with his ghostwriter out of Congress’s hands.

Cooper and Jeffres were married by none other than Merrick Garland.

[Lone Star Liberty PAC @LoneStar_PAC]

James talarico was paid over $80,000 in income in the past year for his work for Maya Consulting, which promotes the following identities:

lesbian
gay
bi
trans
queer
questioning
intersex
asexual
femme
poly
BlaQ
gender non conforming
gender queer
bear
butch
demi
genderfluid
gender variant
gender unicorn
masculine of center
two spirit
coming out

[ATX data @data_atx]

Austin city nonprofit contract of the day

$135k from Austin Public Health for a program to teach kids how to screen print activist t-shirts