Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy, 10/23

[SVPete]

21 Year-Old Semi Driver Kills at Least 3 in Horrific SoCal Crash UPDATE: ILLEGAL

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/10/22/21-year-old-semi-driver-kills-at-least-3-in-horrific-socal-crash-n3808117

Yesterday afternoon, in the Southwestern portion of San Bernardino County, CA, where the I-10 and the I-15 meet near the city of Ontario, there was a horrific freeway accident.
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On the I-10 yesterday, it was particularly dangerous because there was already a slowdown and traffic was coming to a complete stop, so eyes were focused on brake lights ahead.

That's when a red semi truck blew into and through the line of stopped vehicles like a tornado.

It never slowed down as it approached the traffic in front of it.
...
However, the dashboard camera from the big-rig has been released, and it is so God awful, it defies description.

The eyewitness accounts were absolutely correct. He plows into the first cars he hits at full speed and goes through them like they were butter.
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Twenty-one years old, driving a massive freeway machine, and he was stoned.

Gobsmacking.

The fact that the state has not released the driver's name yet is also leading to increased speculation that there may be an issue with residency here. California and the Trump administration are at war over Gov Gavin Newsom's dangerous, relaxed standards for the state-issued Commercial Driver's Licenses (CDL), which is what truck drivers need to have.
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The man suspected of being under the influence when he crashed his tractor-trailer into a crowd of vehicles on the 10 Freeway Tuesday afternoon has been identified as a 21-year-old resident of Yuba City.

Authorities say Jashanpreet Singh was under the influence of drugs when his speeding truck crashed into several slow-moving vehicles caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic in the westbound lanes of the 10 Freeway.

Per an embedded X post, Jashanpreet Singh is illegally present in the US, caught-and-released in 2022 by the LIEden MalAdministration. Need it be said that since the guy resided in Yuba City, it means that the State of California issued his CDL, i.e. issued the CDL to an illegal alien?

In case a DU Onlurker chances to see this post, I have ZERO against Sikhs or against Indians generally. Sikhs have been legally present in CA for at least a century, and one of their sons or grandsons was a high school classmate.

[enslaved1]

Lay’s says 42% of customers didn’t know their chips were made from actual potatoes

Lay’s study shows fans forgot the snack’s main ingredient

As told in a press release on October 9, PepsiCo revealed that 42% of people who buy Lay’s potato chips “don’t realize they’re made with real, farm-grown potatoes.”

Fortune cited this finding as coming from a 2021 survey — and it seems it had a big impact on Lay’s new look. Now, their chip bags will feature images of real potatoes and other photographs of ingredients like limes, chili peppers, and onions.

“At Lay’s, delighting our consumers goes beyond bold flavors — it’s about delivering trusted quality from farm to bag,” PepsiCo Foods US’s SVP of Marketing, Denise Truelove, said.

The pertinent part to me of the whole thing is the survey, which I can't find anywhere, but is indicated in a couple of places (like above) to be market research done by Pepsico itself, who frankly would be more reliable and trying harder than most "polls".  Hopefully, the wording of the question is not "what are potato chips made from?" and almost half the respondents didn't know.  But I'm not holding my breath anymore given people's lack of awareness or ability to make logical connections. 

21 Year-Old Semi Driver Kills at Least 3 in Horrific SoCal Crash UPDATE: ILLEGAL

Worst part is my first thought was "Again?"  We had the one in Florida who apparently didn't actually pass the CDL test but somehow still was issued a license by Cali and killed 3 people making an illegal U-turn, now this?  How often has this happened and not made any headlines? 

[SVPete]

Heat’s Rozier and Trail Blazers’ Billups charged in sports betting and Mafia-backed poker schemes

https://apnews.com/article/miami-heat-terry-rozier-gambling-probe-de98ecb76bb8f13b85f4c5ac62f66221

NEW YORK (AP) — Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested Thursday along with more than 30 other people accused of participating in schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities said.

Rozier is accused in participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using private insider NBA information, officials said. Billups is charged in a separate indictment alleging a wide-ranging scheme to rig underground poker games that were backed by Mafia families, authorities said.
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In the first case, six defendants are accused of participating in an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA athletes and teams, said Joseph Nocella, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. He called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”

The second case involves 31 defendants in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games, Nocella said. The defendants include former professional athletes accused of using technology to steal millions of dollars in underground poker games in the New York area that were backed by Mafia families, he said.
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In the sports betting scheme, players sometimes altered their performance or took themselves out of games early, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. In one instance, Rozier, while playing for the Hornets, told people he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury,” allowing them to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Tisch said.

The indictment of Rozier and others says there are nine unnamed co-conspirators, including a Florida resident who was an NBA player, an Oregon resident who was an NBA player from about 1997 to 2014 and an NBA coach since at least 2021, as well as a relative of Rozier.

Unlike the turn-of-the-20th-Century "Black Sox" scandal this looks like players from several teams were in on it, possibly over a period of a decade or more.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

21 Year-Old Semi Driver Kills at Least 3 in Horrific SoCal Crash UPDATE: ILLEGAL

Illegals kill more people than semi-automatic long rifles.

[SVPete]

London Mayor Khan, Met Police Face Accusations of ‘Cover Up’ over Long Rumoured Grooming Gangs in Capital

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/10/22/london-mayor-khan-met-police-face-accusations-of-cover-up-over-long-rumoured-grooming-gangs-in-capital/

The narrative of London having miraculously escaped the scourge of child rape grooming gangs may be on the verge of starting to unravel, with accusations of a “cover-up” being levied as investigations have uncovered potential examples of abuse operating in the British capital.

While the focus of investigations into England grooming gang activity, in which mostly Pakistani Muslim men sexually exploited and raped often young white working class girls, has been centred in northern areas of the country, such as Rochdale, Rotherham, and Telford, there long have been rumours that similar crimes were being committed in London, which like so many other cities is home to diverse populations living side by side.

London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has consistently denied, and often quite testily, that such gangs exist in the city. Earlier this year, during a heated interaction with Conservative Assembly Member Susan Hall, Khan attempted several times to claim that he did not understand what Hall meant by grooming gangs, before finally saying that they do not operate in London. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has also maintained this stance, saying that the Met has “not seen” such groups in London.

However, a recent investigation from the Daily Express newspaper and MyLondon has identified at least six cases with the hallmarks of grooming gangs, including a 15-year-old girl who was brought by several men to a London hotel before being plied with drugs and alcohol and ultimately raped. Another case identified involved a 17-year-old girl who was give alcohol by multiple men before being raped.

Did anyone seriously believe that the rape gangs operating in northern England would ignore the largest city in England, whose mayor dislikes and is selective about law enforcement?

[SVPete]

Liberal Mouthpiece Grills Walmart CEO on Prices - He Promptly Demolishes Dem Narrative

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/10/22/liberal-media-tries-to-grill-walmart-ceo-on-prices-it-doesnt-go-as-hoped-when-he-blow-up-dem-narrative-n2195342

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos had Walmart CEO John Furner on to speak to prices as we head toward Thanksgiving.

As our sister site Townhall observed, Stephanopoulos was a longtime Democratic operative who worked for the Clinton administration, so he clearly had a narrative he was trying to present in the interview. He claimed food prices were up, "especially turkeys."

But Furner poured cold water on him. He didn't give George what he wanted. Furner describes how the turkey prices are "all the way back to what they were in 2019." Whoops, pre-Joe Biden, back to the first Trump term. And that's using Butterball turkeys.

Plus, the price for their turkey basket is down about 25 percent from last year, he said, working out to about $4 per person, serving ten people. He said it was "better than I expected."
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Stephanopoulos tried again, claiming that President Donald Trump's tariffs were contributing to higher prices. Again, Furner didn't give him what he wanted.

Furner said that about two-thirds of what they sell is made, grown, or assembled in the U.S., [so it wouldn't be affected by tariffs], and they have been able to have 7,000 items on rollback pricing. That's another blow to the narrative.

George tried one more time, but Furner repeated the things that were down from last year, and how they were rolling prices back.

Time to accuse Furner of being MAGA!

[SVPete]

Alaska Schools’ Social Studies Standards Omit Washington, Lincoln, And Christianity

https://thefederalist.com/2025/10/22/alaska-schools-social-studies-standards-omit-washington-lincoln-and-christianity/

Alaska’s new social studies standards don’t mention the Nome Gold Rush. They don’t mention the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. They don’t mention William Egan, the state of Alaska’s first governor, and they don’t mention Sarah Palin, who ran for Vice President of the United States. There’s a lot more that’s missing in the Alaska social studies standards, but you can tell right away that something is wrong when Alaska’s social studies standards leave Alaska’s children ignorant of the headlines of Alaska’s history and the most famous Alaskans.

... But radical activists embedded in state education departments do the same thing in red states whenever policymakers and citizens aren’t looking. That’s what just happened in Alaska.

The Alaska Social Studies Standards (2024), produced by Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development, avoided the worst of the blue-state social studies standards’ extreme politicization, unprofessional vocabulary, and ideologically extreme content. That’s because there’s hardly any historical content. The standards’ absences include basic facts of American history, much of how our government works, and our foundational documents of liberty. The standards also introduced substantial new amounts of politicized material.
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The department outsourced much of the standards to the radical activists who have captured the national social studies establishment. Alaska’s standards take their structure and emphases from the National Council for the Social Studies’ (NCSS) ideologically extreme definition of social studies, as well as from its College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. The C3 Framework replaces content knowledge with insubstantial and opaque “inquiry”; lards social studies with identity politics ideologies such as Critical Race Theory; and inserts ideologically extreme activism pedagogies such as Action Civics.

The department also used a racially discriminatory drafting process. ...
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Because the standards follow the NCSS’ C3 Framework and use an “Inquiry-Based Learning” framework (p. 9), they have virtually no factual content. It’s not just the history of Alaska that’s missing. While there is some substance in the Economics strand, and limited substance in the Civics strand, the standards possess virtually no historical content. The names of Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln are absent. But so are words like Christianity, Protestantism, and Catholicism; any hint that technological advance might have improved Americans’ standard of living; and virtually all of the narrative, events, and heroes of America’s wars.

GIGO.

Parents homeschooling or parochial-schooling didn't intend for their munchkins to become educated elites, but it's getting close to that, as their munchkins are actually being educated.

[SVPete]

Democrats Left With Egg on Faces Again After Latest Anti-ICE Narrative About 'Street Vendors' Blows Up

https://redstate.com/katie-jerkovich/2025/10/22/democrats-with-egg-on-face-again-after-latest-anti-ice-narrative-about-street-vendors-blows-up-n2195359

Democrats have ended up once again with egg on their faces after their narrative about the unjust arrest of some street vendors blew up when the facts dropped about the illegal aliens' long criminal rap sheets.

The Department of Homeland Security reacted to the outrage from lefties following the ICE operation in New York City Tuesday night in Chinatown's Canal Street that netted the arrest of nine criminal illegal aliens. Almost like clockwork, the left and their ilk in liberal news painted these men as just street vendors trying to make a living.

"New York's Canal Street is safer: Nine illegal aliens arrested have violent rap sheets, including robbery, burglary, domestic violence, assaulting law enforcement, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, drug possession, and forgery," the DHS post read.

More LIEden Catch-and-Release illegals.

Progs' need to lie demonstrates what they are, example # 532,977.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Heat’s Rozier and Trail Blazers’ Billups charged in sports betting and Mafia-backed poker schemes

https://apnews.com/article/miami-heat-terry-rozier-gambling-probe-de98ecb76bb8f13b85f4c5ac62f66221

Unlike the turn-of-the-20th-Century "Black Sox" scandal this looks like players from several teams were in on it, possibly over a period of a decade or more.

A bit more with a lot of details:

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA guard and coach Damon Jones were among 34 arrested as part of a widespread FBI investigation on Thursday, Fox News Digital confirmed.

The investigation was tied to a probe into members of the La Cosa Nostra crime families.

What to Know:

FBI Director Kash Patel said the case targets “a wide sweeping criminal enterprise” involving the NBA and La Cosa Nostra.
More than 30 individuals have been arrested across 11 states.
Charges include wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, and illegal gambling.
The Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese crime families are named in the investigation.
Patel said the fraud spanned years and included crypto-related schemes.
The case is being prosecuted by the Eastern District of New York.
NBA players and coaches, including Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier, are among those arrested.

"Day in and day out, this FBI is following the money — and today is the result of that outstanding work," FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. "This operation involved an expansive effort across 11 states arresting 34 subjects, including multiple NBA players and coaches, who allegedly took advantage of their own positions of power to rig gambling systems for their own benefit — eventually funneling money to La Cosa Nostra, enriching some of the most notorious criminal networks in the world. That ends today — and the FBI’s efforts to make sure gambling operations of all kinds stay within the law are only beginning. Thank you to the outstanding men and women of the FBI who pursued this case and followed the facts accordingly."

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/10/23/foul-on-the-play-nba-greats-ensnared-in-gambling-probe-had-ties-with-la-cosa-nostra-n2195399

Have my own interesting thoughts about the now omni-present sports gambling, but am going to save that for another day. At the NY Slimes "sports site" The Athletic, the comments are 90% big mad at the Trump administration for revealing this (even though the investigation started under the Biden admin.), and butt-hurt that FBI Director Kash Patel is "wasting his time" on this.