Pacific Air Force base bans references to gender, age, and race
A division of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), the branch tasked with confronting China, has ordered its senior leaders and commanders to stop using gender pronouns in written formats, saying the shift to more neutral language will help improve the fighting force’s “lethality.”
“In accordance with the Diverse PACAF priority, ‘We must embrace, promote and unleash the potential of diversity and inclusion,” states a May email sent to senior leaders and commanders at the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, which operates under the Pacific Air Forces, according to a partial copy of the order obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Leaders at the base are instructed, “Do not use pronouns, age, race, etc.” when writing performance reviews or other materials, such as recommendations for awards. “Competition against near-peer adversaries requires a united focus from the command, the joint team, and our international partners. Welcoming and employing varied perspectives from a foundation of mutual respect will improve our interoperability, efficiency, creativity, and lethality.”
The policy change is part of a larger effort by the Biden administration and U.S. military to foster what it says is a more culturally sensitive environment. The U.S. Navy, for instance, recently published a video instructing its sailors on proper gender pronouns. The Army also mandates gender identity training and trains officers on when to offer subordinates gender-transition surgery, the Free Beacon first reported in March. Critics of these moves say a woke cultural agenda is handicapping America’s fighting forces and distracting it from pressing global challenges, such as terrorism and China’s aggressive war moves.
A spokesman for the Anderson Air Force Base confirmed the authenticity of the email, telling the Free Beacon that the Air Force is shifting “to a narrative writing format for awards and performance reports.” The ban on “pronouns, age, race” and other written descriptors is “intended to eliminate any information that could identify the nominee’s name, gender, age, or race so that all members had a fair and equal chance at winning.”
The Andersen air base, the spokesman said, specifically “developed local quarterly award guidance to ensure each nominee was considered without the potential of unfair biases.” Leaders at the base are “continually working to remove barriers and [are] dedicated to ensuring all members have the opportunity to excel.”
The email goes on to list “authorized” and “unauthorized” examples of pronoun use.
The “unauthorized examples” include: “He/She did,” “Best male/female,” “Youngest/Oldest,” and “Sergeant Murray.” The list of “authorized examples” include: “This sergeant,” “This NCO [Non-commissioned officer],” and “This member.”
The policy shift jibes with the Pacific Air Forces’ overarching goal to promote “diversity and inclusion” at all levels of the service, according to the military spokesman.
“Unleashing the potential of diversity and inclusion at all levels is a Pacific Air Forces’ priority and something we strive for at Andersen,” the spokesman said. “Diversity and inclusion are force multipliers and warfighting imperatives that enable our competitive advantage against near-peer adversaries.”
Rebeccah Heinrichs, a defense policy expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, told the Free Beacon that the Pacific Air Forces’ intense focus on pronoun issues is “a giant sucking waste of time.”
Military leaders who should be focused on defending the United States from an ever-increasing array of threats—particularly in the Pacific, where China is flexing its military might—are instead spending valuable time thinking about rules on proper pronoun use.
“It is painful to think about the amount of time servicemen have already spent writing these rules instead of figuring out how to beat China,” Henrichs said. “Somebody needs to remind DoD leadership that they’re in the business of preventing and winning wars and not in the Oberlin lounge.”
Taliban fighters on Wednesday paraded captured U.S. military vehicles and weaponry in celebration of the one-year anniversary of the United States’ withdrawal from the country.
At the Bagram air base, where a year earlier Afghan civilians died falling from U.S. military planes evacuating Kabul, the Taliban displayed a show of force, marching infantry and parading dozens of U.S. aircraft and vehicles.
The Taliban’s victory celebration comes a year to the date after President Joe Biden called his administration’s withdrawal a “success” and a “wise decision.”
Footage of the parade broadcast by Taliban media shows the jihadist force piloting American Black Hawk helicopters and driving Humvees and armored personnel carriers.
Some screens from military parade of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) celebrate first anniversary of the withdrawal of US-coalition from Afghanistan on August 31 2022. MD-530F and UH-60A helicopters pic.twitter.com/EchGSsU0Yp
At a ceremony at the air base, Taliban prime minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund commemorated the fighters who lost their lives to achieve “victory” over American forces and praised the “ideals of jihad,” Afghanistan International reported.
Representatives from Russia, China, Pakistan, and Turkey took part in the ceremony, the Taliban’s Bakhtar News Agency reported.
The Taliban also paraded in front of the former U.S. embassy in Afghanistan. On Tuesday night, the regime marked the anniversary of the departure of U.S. troops with fireworks and dancing.
The Taliban captured billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. military equipment amid the United States’ chaotic withdrawal last year, which it has since used to arm its forces.
Proud American triumphs over two-time champion Naomi Osaka
Naomi Osaka, the left-wing activist and former tennis champion who renounced her American citizenship to represent Japan at the Tokyo Olympics, lost her first-round match at the U.S. Open on Tuesday.
Florida native Danielle Collins defeated the two-time U.S. Open winner 7-6 (5), 6-3 at Arthur Ashe Stadium. “I feel like I just have to chill a little bit because there’s a lot of like random chaos in my head right now,” Osaka said after the match. “I don’t know if it’s a matter of practicing more or something like that. I just don’t have the same feeling.”
It was the second time this year Osaka has lost to a proud American in the first round of a major tournament. New Jersey native Amanda Anisimova beat Osaka 7-5, 6-4 in the first round of the French Open in May, two months after knocking her out in the third round of the Australian Open. Osaka told reporters after the French Open loss that she didn’t know if she would be “motivated” enough to take part in the Wimbledon tournament the following month. (She wouldn’t be.)
Osaka, a prominent social justice activist, is best known for withdrawing from the 2021 French Open and being fined $15,000 for refusing to take questions from reporters, citing “self-care” reasons. Many journalists cheered Osaka’s suggestion that interacting with journalists was a mental health hazard.
The 24-year-old earned more than $57 million in 2021, the vast majority of which came from endorsement deals with companies such as Nike, Louis Vuitton, and Beats by Dre. She also partnered with NFL legend Tom Brady to release a collection of NFTs. Earlier this year, Osaka accepted a lucrative endorsement contract from a cryptocurrency firm, arguing that the financial arrangement would help combat “inequality.”
Osaka, who has lived and trained in the United States since she was three years old, renounced her American citizenship in 2019 to play for Japan at the Tokyo Olympics. Collins, by contrast, is a proud American who has represented her country in international competitions and isn’t afraid to honor and celebrate the Fourth of July.
Wisconsin Dem refuses to say whether he’ll make a public appearance with the president
Mandela Barnes, the Democrat running against Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, is ducking questions about whether he will make a public appearance with President Joe Biden when the commander in chief visits Milwaukee next Monday.
Barnes’s campaign said he plans to attend Labor Day festivals in “Milwaukee, Madison, and Racine,” but declined to say if he will join Biden during the president’s scheduled appearance at the Milwaukee celebration. Barnes’s spokeswoman also declined to comment on the president’s visit.
Biden’s visit is causing a political dilemma for Barnes, an outspoken progressive and the state’s lieutenant governor, who has been striving to present a more moderate image as he seeks to win over rural and suburban voters. The Senate candidate faces a difficult choice of whether to publicly embrace Biden at a time when the president’s approval ratings have plummeted to 40 percent in the state.
“The lieutenant governor is excited to participate in Laborfest events throughout Milwaukee, Madison, and Racine,” his spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel told several news outlets this week. “His priority is talking to Wisconsin voters and supporting the labor movement that gave his family a ticket to the middle class.”
Biden is scheduled to travel to Milwaukee and Pittsburgh to “celebrate Labor Day and the dignity of American workers,” the White House announced on Monday.
Barnes has been working to ditch his reputation as a far-left firebrand, after spending his decade-long political career aligning with the progressive activist movement.
Other Democrats in competitive races have distanced themselves from Biden. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, declined to join Biden during the president’s trip to Wilkes-Barre this week. Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan agreed to attend an event with Biden next month, but slammed the president’s student loan forgiveness plan for sending the “wrong message.”
Last week, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he’s “not running for the Senate to join the Squad.” While his campaign said he supports Biden’s plan to cancel student debt, Barnes’s comments on the issue have been evasive.
The recent pivot is a contrast to Barnes’s political record, and his praise for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and other progressives in Congress.
“People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Johanna Hayes, they’re bringing big bold ideas to Capitol Hill and they’re changing the status quo,” he said in a 2019 speech.
Barnes said last February that he supports ending cash bail nationally, a policy he attempted to pass while serving in the state legislature. He has partnered with groups that support defunding the police, and was a member of a radical anti-Israel organization that advocates for boycotts of the Jewish state.
Leaders of a Yale University orientation program are apologizing for participants who helped clear a homeless encampment, which they call an act of “violence.”
A group of students in Yale’s community service-driven FOCUS program were assigned to help the New Haven Department of Parks and Trees to collect litter in the city. On Aug. 24, a department supervisor had students remove clothes and other debris from a homeless encampment the group said had been “forcibly evacuated” by police.
Upon discovering the atrocity, FOCUS pulled students from the site and terminated its partnership with the Department of Parks and Trees. On Wednesday, the program’s student leaders issued a statement of apology, telling the Yale Daily News they had committed “violence” and “theft” against the “unhoused.”
“This sort of violence—‘cleaning up after the cops’ and theft of unhoused people’s homes and belongings—is antithetical to the values of FOCUS,” the statement said.
Yale’s Dwight Hall Center for Public Service and Social Justice, which runs the orientation program, backed the student leaders’ decision. According to Dwight Hall executive director Peter Crumlish, the group is working to “understand the impact of the situation and to help students reflect on the experience.”
Liberals in recent years have agitated against clearing homeless encampments in U.S. cities. Democrats in Maryland supported a bill this year to bar police from clearing the encampments. Officials in Berkeley, Calif., refused to clean up homeless camps for most of the pandemic, beginning the effort only after 75 tons of garbage, human waste, and drug paraphernalia had been left behind.
With Gillum facing federal corruption charges, campaign aides join new group with its own ties to corrupt leaders
Following former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum’s arrest on federal corruption charges, the scandal-plagued Democrat’s top aides moved on to a new campaign—a recreational weed initiative spearheaded by a company with its own ties to the city’s corrupt actors.
On Aug. 8, Smart & Safe Florida—a political action committee working to legalize recreational weed—filed its organizing documents with the state, which listed former Gillum campaign attorney Glenn Burhans and former Gillum fundraising PAC head Andrew Gay as the group’s registered agent and treasurer, respectively. The move came six weeks after Gillum was arrested on federal corruption charges, which stemmed from a years-long probe into political corruption in Tallahassee, the city Gillum led from 2014 to 2018.
The company behind the recreational weed push, Trulieve, is no stranger to that probe. Tallahassee real estate mogul J.T. Burnette—who is married to Trulieve’s CEO, Kim Rivers—was sentenced in November 2021 to three years in federal prison as part of the investigation. Text messages from the case showed Burnette coordinating with a city commissioner to implement a temporary ban on new medical weed dispensaries, which benefited Trulieve. Burnette also bragged to undercover FBI agents that he worked with a then-state lawmaker to insert “little tweaks” into a bill that outlined which companies could apply for medical marijuana licenses in Florida—tweaks that made it impossible for some of Trulieve’s competitors to obtain licenses. The company gave Smart & Safe Florida $5 million in August.
Burhans and Gay’s work for the Trulieve-led weed initiative gives the pair of former Gillum aides a new political project following the disgraced Democrat’s rapid fall from grace. In March 2020, Gillum—who lost Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial election to Republican Ron DeSantis by just 0.4 percent—was found unconscious along with two men in a drug-filled hotel room, which contained crystal meth, Xanax, and a drug commonly injected into the penis by men suffering from erectile dysfunction. One of the two men who accompanied Gillum was a gay male escort who suffered a drug overdose.
While Gillum withdrew from politics after the ordeal, Gay continued to serve as treasurer of the Democrat’s fundraising PAC, Forward Florida, until his resignation in August 2020. Roughly two years later, federal agents arrested Gillum on 21 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and making false statements. When the Florida Republican Party ran ads in 2018 tying Gillum to the federal investigation into Tallahassee corruption, Burhans himself demanded TV stations take the ad down, calling the spot “demonstrably false in numerous respects.”
Smart & Safe Florida did not return a request for comment.
Prior to its push to legalize recreational weed in Florida, Trulieve worked to dominate the state’s medicinal weed market after DeSantis signed a bill in 2019 legalizing smokable medical marijuana. The company operates a quarter of Florida’s dispensaries and controls more than half of the state’s medicinal marijuana market, helping it bring in more than $320 million in second-quarter revenue this year. Many marijuana advocates in Florida, however, are not fans of Trulieve’s initiative, which they argue would give the company a monopoly by allowing only existing medical marijuana dispensaries to sell weed for recreational use.
Trulieve is tied to prominent Florida Democrats beyond Gillum. Florida agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried held six figures’ worth of stock in a rival cannabis dispensary, Harvest Health and Recreation, that was acquired by Trulieve in October 2021. After the Washington Free Beaconreported on that stock holding, Fried—who during her failed gubernatorial campaign this year promised to legalize recreational weed—said she would liquidate her Trulieve shares, which are worth roughly $183,000.
Fried on Aug. 23 lost Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial primary to Charlie Crist by 24 points. Tallahassee attorney Sean Pittman, who is a registered Trulieve lobbyist, has called both Fried and Crist his “friends.”
More than 1.1 million incarcerated individuals received COVID-19 stimulus checks, totaling over $1 billion dollars, according to internal data provided by the IRS.
Roughly 163,000 of those recipients are individuals serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, the IRS told Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) in a letter exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said that his agency does not possess data on how many of those individuals with life sentences may also be facing the death penalty. A study by the left-wing Sentencing Project found that life sentences are most commonly given to individuals convicted of homicide and rape.
“The American Rescue Plan was reckless in the amount of massive spending with no off-sets,” Bacon told the Free Beacon. “Giving stimulus checks to death row inmates is a glaring example. This bill triggered the worst inflation in 41 years, costing the average family $500 a month. The poor suffer the most.”
The total cost of these payments is estimated to be at least $1.3 billion.
Republican lawmakers such as Bacon and Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.) warned in 2021 that President Joe Biden’s nearly $2 trillion stimulus package lacked appropriate guardrails. After reports came out showing terrorists including the Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received a $1,400 stimulus check, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler apologized for giving Cotton “two Pinnocchios” over his concerns.
The IRS’s disclosure of criminals receiving stimulus checks highlights how the federal government’s unprecedented spending spree passed with little oversight. The Small Business Association admitted in May that it had no plan to stop fraudulent loan applications for its nearly $1 trillion Paycheck Protection Program.
The American Rescue Plan provided cash payments for individuals earning $75,000 or less and $150,000 for married couples. The plan did not prohibit prisoners from receiving the payments. Individuals in state and federal prison may still apply for the COVID-19 stimulus checks, officially known as Economic Impact Payments, if they have not received them, Rettig said.
Experts estimate at least $80 billion from the program was paid out to phony businesses, in what former U.S. attorney Matthew Schneider called “the biggest fraud in a generation.” Some Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (N.Y.) celebrated the cash giveaway. In February, she said she helped secure stimulus checks for “huge amounts of illegal immigrants.”
The Free Beaconpreviously reported on two Republican mega donors, both of whom are billionaires, erroneously receiving $1,400 stimulus checks.
Economists largely agree that the American Rescue Plan contributed to the country’s skyrocketing inflation, which is at 40-year highs. A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concluded that the cash payments resulted in much higher demand from U.S. consumers compared with their European counterparts.
A Chinese-backed hacking group—posing as an Australian news site—has run a systematic campaign targeting government agencies, news media, and heavy industries involved in wind turbine supply chains to the South China Sea.
The group, TA423/Red Ladon, was previously the subject of an indictment from the U.S. Justice Department and has been active since 2013, targeting defence contractors, manufacturers, universities, government agencies, and companies connected to either the South China Sea region or Australasia.
Its latest cyber espionage campaign, from April to June 2022, involved emailing targets from a Gmail or Outlook address—likely created by the hacker group—with subject headers like: “Sick Leave,” “User Research,” and “Request Cooperation.”
According to research from Proofpoint and PwC Threat Intelligence, the email claimed to be from a “humble news website” and tried to solicit feedback while providing a link to a fake news outlet called “Australian Morning News.” Users that click on the web page would then be delivered malware.
“The campaign has an international reach, but a heavy focus on the Asia Pacific region, Australian governmental entities, and companies and countries operating in the South China Sea,” the researchers said.
“In particular, Proofpoint has observed TA423/Red Ladon targeting entities directly involved with development projects in the South China Sea closely around the time of tensions between China and other countries related to development projects of high strategic importance, such as the Kasawari Gas field developed by Malaysia, and an offshore wind farm in the Strait of Taiwan.”
A Wide Range of Targets
Experts say the group repeated the same tactic during the Cambodian elections in 2018 and September 2021.
“[From June 2021 to May 2022] Australian targets regularly included military academic institutions, as well as local and federal government, defense, and public health sectors,” the researchers added.
“Malaysian targets included offshore drilling and deep-water energy exploration entities as well as global marketing and financial companies. Several global companies were also targeted that appear to relate to the global supply chains of offshore energy projects in the South China Sea.”
They include heavy industry, manufacturers of wind turbine installation components, exporters of energy, large consulting firms providing advice on the projects, and construction companies.
“This threat actor has demonstrated a consistent focus on entities involved with energy exploration in the South China Sea, in tandem with domestic Australian targets including defense and health care.”
Australian Senators Simon Birmingham and James Paterson—who is also the shadow minister for cyber security—responded to the incident saying it was a “significant threat” to local institutions.
“We call on the government to provide clear advice to Australian individuals and businesses about how they can protect themselves against this kind of malicious cyber activity, that has the potential to cause serious harm to our national security,” they said in a statement.
“All options should be on the table for consideration, including using the specially designed ‘cyber sanctions’ that are contained within Australia’s Magnitsky Autonomous Sanctions Regime to send a clear message that these kinds of actions are not acceptable.”
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has dialed up his efforts to back out buying Twitter by filing a new termination notice underpinned by “Exhibit Q,” a document that references bombshell claims made by Twitter’s former security chief-turned-whistleblower and accuses Twitter of “far-reaching misconduct” that is likely to have “severe consequences” for its business.
Musk said in an Aug. 30 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that his lawyers sent Twitter an Aug. 29 termination letter that gives new justification to Musk for pulling out of the $44 billion buyout agreement.
While Musk said he’s convinced his earlier July 8 termination letter has already “validly terminated” the buyout agreement, he opted to send Twitter the new Aug. 29 termination letter as a failsafe, in case the earlier one “is determined to be invalid for any reason.”
The new termination letter is fully justified by the contents of Exhibit Q, Musk said, which is a document detailing the claims made by ex-Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko, who in a whistleblower disclosure (pdf) made a series of explosive claims, including that Twitter was “lying about bots to Elon Musk.”
Exhibit Q
The document labeled Exhibit Q references the disclosure by Zatko, who also is known by his hacker handle “Mudge,” noting that it “alleges far-reaching misconduct” at Twitter that is “likely to have severe consequences for Twitter’s business.”
Zatko’s claims in the disclosure include accusing Twitter of “extreme egregious deficiencies” in the way it handled user information and alleging it had falsely claimed to federal regulators that it had a solid security plan.
“Twitter is in material noncompliance with both its obligations under a 2011 FTC consent decree and its general obligations under data privacy, unfair trade practice, and consumer protection laws and regulations,” Exhibit Q states.
Twitter also had difficulty identifying—much less restricting—the presence of foreign agents on its platform, Zatko claimed in his disclosure, while asserting that Chinese entities gave money to Twitter, raising concerns that these entities could access sensitive information about Twitter users.
“Twitter acquiesced to demands made by the Indian government that its agents be hired by Twitter and given access to Twitter user information,” Exhibit Q says.
Zatko also claims Twitter experienced server vulnerabilities, alleging that more than 50 percent of Twitter’s 500,000 data center servers had kernels or operating systems that were noncompliant and many had problems with encryption.
“Twitter is uniquely vulnerable to systemic disruption resulting from data center failures or malicious actors, a fact which Twitter leadership (including its CEO) have ignored and sought to obfuscate,” Exhibit Q states.
If true, Zatko’s claims prove that Twitter has broken its obligations under its merger agreement with Musk, giving him the right to back out of the deal, according to Exhibit Q.
Twitter has not returned a request for comment from The Epoch Times on Musk’s new termination letter and Zatko’s claims.
Parag Agrawal, Twitter CEO, has dismissed Zatko’s allegations in a message to staff as a “false narrative that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and presented without important context.”
“We will pursue all paths to defend our integrity as a company and set the record straight,” he wrote in the message.
Musk and Twitter are poised to go to trial in October in a Delaware court, with experts saying the whistleblower’s claims could give Musk a leg up in the court battle.
‘A FEW BAD APPLES’ IS TURNING OUT TO BE THE ENTIRE ORCHARD.
The British government has recommended against pregnant and breastfeeding women receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, admitting that “sufficient reassurance of safe use of the vaccine” for the demographic “cannot be provided at the present time.”
The findings were revealed in a comprehensive report from the country’s Department of Health and Social Care, “Summary of the Public Assessment Report for COVID-19 Vaccine Pfizer/BioNTech,” last updated on August 16th. The report was published through the government’s Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
The report’s “Toxicity Conclusions” section outlines why the department recommends against pregnant and breastfeeding women receiving the vaccine, noting:
“In the context of supply under Regulation 174, it is considered that sufficient reassurance of safe use of the vaccine in pregnant women cannot be provided at the present time: however, use in women of childbearing potential could be supported provided healthcare professionals are advised to rule out known or suspected pregnancy prior to vaccination. Women who are breastfeeding should also not be vaccinated.“
“The absence of reproductive toxicity data is a reflection of the speed of development to first identify and select COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 for clinical testing and its rapid development to meet the ongoing urgent health need. In principle, a decision on Licensing a vaccine could be taken in these circumstances without data from reproductive toxicity studies animals, but there are studies ongoing and these will be provided when available,” continued the report.
The admission follows controversy over several Western governments’ hasty approvals and, in some cases, mandates of COVID-19 vaccines.
In the U.S., following a massive lobbying campaign by pharmaceutical giants including Pfizer, many jobs, businesses, and schools required COVID-19 vaccination for entry. As a result, companies including Pfizer have enjoyed record-breaking profits throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The British government’s report also follows U.S. health agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appearing to slow roll the release of data relevant to the efficacy and long-term health implications of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Google is drawing criticism for refusing to make former President Donald Trump’s social media app Truth Social available in its app store.
The app’s absence in the Google Play Store is a huge issue considering that Android phones make up about 44 percent of the U.S. smartphone market. Truth Social is available on Apple App Store since the platform was launched in February, and it is also available via web browser.
“On August 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play,” Google told news outlets in a statement on Aug. 30.
Google added, “Last week Truth Social wrote back acknowledging our feedback and saying that they are working on addressing these issues.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Casper, Wyo., on May 28, 2022. (Chet Strange/Getty Images)
Trump Media & Technology Group, Truth Social’s parent company, said in a statement on Tuesday that it is still working on getting Google’s approval for the app, but emphasizes that it won’t sacrifice the platform’s founding principle of upholding free speech.
“TMTG has continuously worked in good faith with Google to ensure that the Truth Social Android App complies with Google’s policies without compromising our promise to be a haven for free speech,” the company wrote.
It added, “As our users know, Truth Social is building a vibrant, family-friendly environment that works expeditiously to remove content that violates its Terms of Service—which independent observers have noted are among the most robust in the industry.”
On its website, Truth Social describes itself as “America’s ‘big tent’ social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.”
Google’s decision not to make Truth Social available for Android users was met with criticism on Twitter on Tuesday.
“Google is once again targeting and silencing conservative voices, this time by banning President Trump’s Truth Social from their Google Play Store,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) wrote. “This is not acceptable.”
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, called Google’s decision corruption.
“Leftists running @Google again provide material support to Biden, Democrats and Left by corruptly suppressing another alternative social media platform—Trump’s Truth Social platform,” Fitton wrote.
Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT for America, gave her explanation of why Truth Social isn’t on Google Play Store.
“Truth Social was banned from Google Play because of its massive success,” Gabriel wrote. “When competition succeeds, big tech crushes it!”
Truth Social saw a surge in downloads after FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month. According to analytics firm Data AI, downloads of the Truth Social app skyrocketed by nearly 550 percent in the week after the FBI raid—the iOS app received 107,500 downloads with an average of 13,400 per day.
Secret Service personnel are seen in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 8, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)
The former president has also seen a significant increase in the number of his Truth Social followers. On Aug. 7, Trump had about 3.7 million followers but that number has now surpassed 3.96 million.
Trump has been using his Truth Social account to communicate with his followers, particularly after the FBI raid. For instance, in a recent post, Trump said the raid was “done for political purposes just prior to the Midterm Elections (and 2024, of course!).”
“The Raid on my home, Mar-a-Lago, is one of the most egregious assaults on democracy in the history of our Country which is, by the way, going to places, in a very bad way,” Trump wrote on Aug. 27.
Devin Nunes, a former House lawmaker representing California’s 22nd Congressional District and current CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, expressed frustration at Google for not approving the app during an interview on Real Amerca’s Voice News on Aug. 26.
“When are we going to be available on Android?” Nunes said. “Well, look, that’s up to the Google Play Store. I mean, we’re waiting on them to approve us, and I don’t know what’s taking so long.”
Two senators are demanding all communications about Hunter Biden’s laptop between the FBI and Facebook following a bombshell admission from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that FBI officials told him in late 2020 that there would be reports that were actually Russian disinformation.
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Aug. 29 sent a letter to Zuckerberg saying that in October 2020, “when the New York Post published articles based on evidence from Hunter Biden’s laptop, many news and social media organizations inappropriately rushed to censor and discredit the initial reporting and falsely labeled it as ‘disinformation.’”
In an Aug. 25 podcast interview with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg said Facebook actively reduced the reach of posts and articles regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop, which contained messages and emails about the younger Biden’s overseas business dealings as well as communication with his family, including President Joe Biden, regarding his deals.
Earlier this year, legacy news outlets ultimately reported that the laptop was real—not Russian disinformation.
“Basically, the background here is the FBI, I think basically came to us, some folks on our team, and was, like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that, basically, there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant,’” Zuckerberg told Rogan.
The two Republicans demanded Zuckerberg hand over any relevant information and communications by Sept. 12.
Letter
“You recently appeared to indicate that the reason why Facebook made the unwise decision to censor articles about Hunter Biden’s laptop was based off an alert from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the senators wrote, referencing Zuckerberg’s interview with Rogan.
Ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on voting rights on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 20, 2021. (Bill Clark/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“Whistleblowers have also alleged to Senator Johnson that local FBI leadership instructed its employees not to look at the Hunter Biden laptop immediately after the FBI had obtained it,” the senators stated. Americans “deserve to know whether the FBI used Facebook as part of their alleged plan to discredit information about Hunter Biden.”
“Congress and the American people require clarity with respect to the extent the FBI communicated with Facebook during the 2020 election about Hunter Biden-related information,” they said.
Over the weekend, the FBI responded to Zuckerberg’s comment and stated that it provided a general warning to Facebook and other social media firms. It didn’t include a call to action, the bureau stated.
The FBI “cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received,” according to the statement.
Meanwhile, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, issued a statement saying that the FBI shared general warnings about the election and didn’t mention Hunter Biden.
According to the senators’ letter, Zuckerberg’s revelation that “Facebook took steps to censor information about Hunter Biden on its platform based on the FBI’s guidance raises even more questions about the FBI’s actions regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
“As you may know, whistleblowers have recently alleged to Senator Grassley that in August 2020, FBI officials initiated a scheme to downplay derogatory information on Hunter Biden for the purpose of shutting down investigative activity relating to his potential criminal exposure by labeling it ‘disinformation,’” it stated.
Facebook didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
A recent preprint study has shed light on why adverse events have been observed following a COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination.
The study, led by researchers from Thomas Jefferson University, found that the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) used to transport mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines could “inhibit” and “alter” immune responses in mice.
LNPs are shells of lipids that envelope mRNA to prevent degradation and detection by our body’s immune system.
LNPs are not mRNA, simply an envelope to transport the mRNA cargo.
Both the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines use LNPs to deliver mRNA spike protein sequences into human cells. Once human cells received the mRNA sequences, the cells will then manufacture spike proteins, triggering an immune response.
It was originally intended that the LNPs discreetly deliver mRNA sequences into the cells to produce spike proteins, and in doing so, form immunity against the COVID-19 virus.
These nanoparticles are highly durable and can last for 20 to 30 days in the body. While they persist in the body, it is likely they will continue to activate the immune system, leading to immune exhaustion and non-responsiveness.
The Thomas Jefferson study also shared similar findings. The researchers investigated how LNPs affect the immune system by injecting mice with the same LNPs used in Pfizer’s vaccines, and some mice were even double-dosed.
Inflammation and immune responses in mice are not sure signs that the same will happen in humans. Nonetheless, mice have long been used to test for safety and efficacy in drugs for human use; signs of immune problems are an indication of possible health risks in humans.
Summary of the injections administered to different groups of mice, according to data by Igyártó et al. (The Epoch Times)
The authors found that mice that received two doses had a reduced immune response on their second injection as compared to mice that only received one dose.
“The mRNA-LNP (nanoparticle) vaccine platform induces long-term unexpected immunological changes affecting both adaptive immune responses and heterologous protection against infections,” the authors wrote.
Pre-Exposure to mRNA Nanoparticles Reduce Innate Cell Numbers
Mice that were injected with two doses of LNPs had a reduced number of innate immune cells, the first-responder immune cells.
The authors wanted to find how the LNPs, the shell that wraps around mRNA, affected mice by injecting them with different variations LNPs.
The mice were split into three groups, all three groups received two injections, albeit with different contents.
For the first injection, most mice were given an injection of LNP. Half were given LNPs containing mRNA sequences and another half were given empty LNPs with no mRNA inside.
The remaining mice were given an injection of salted water. These mice are used as the baseline for comparison as salted water injections are not supposed to introduce any changes to the body.
Two weeks later, all three groups were given the same LNP injection containing mRNA sequences for an influenza protein (HA). The second injection allowed their cells to make HA proteins, which triggered an immune response. It was intended that this immune response would then make the mice immune against the influenza virus.
The three groups of mice and what they were vaccinated against. The first group was given saline for the first shot, the second group was given a mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccination against a jellyfish protein, the third group was vaccinated with an empty mRNA LNP. All three groups were given a vaccination of influenza HA protein sequenced in mRNA and packaged in mRNA LNPs. Modified figure of “Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs or LNPs significantly inhibits subsequent adaptive immune responses induced by the mRNA-LNP vaccine” by B. Igyártó and affiliates, www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.16.484616v2.full, the material is available under Public License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.(Courtesy of Igyártó et al.)
The researchers found that following the second injection, all mice had developed immune defense against the influenza virus.
The authors observed mice that were given two doses of LNPs were more resistant to an influenza infection as they lost less weight. Oddly enough, these same mice also had a lower immune response to the flu vaccine with fewer immune cells activated.
The authors speculated that their “resistance” is likely not from strengthened immunity, but a product from an alternative pathway triggered by LNPs. It is unknown if this “resistance” will apply to other infections and may only be applicable to influenza.
This is because the study found that mice that were more “resistant” to the flu were actually more susceptible to fungal infections.
The researchers infected mice with Candida albicans, the mice that received two doses lost more weight and had poorer control over the infection, indicating an alteration in the innate immune response.
Further investigations showed that these mice had a lower number of neutrophils, which are the most common first responder immune cells.
The job of neutrophils is to patrol the body and attack indiscriminately when encountering something foreign, therefore a reduced number of neutrophils put an individual at a greater risk of infection.
Since an uncontrolled fungal infection, particularly C. albicans, is often a sign of weakened innate or first responder immune response, the authors therefore suspected that reduced neutrophil numbers may have contributed to the fungal outbreak.
LNPs cause inflammation, and certain inflammatory pathways reduce the production of blood cells. The authors speculated that the two doses of LNPs some mice received may have caused greater inflammation leading to a decline in blood cell production and low neutrophil counts.
Though this is speculation and it is uncertain if the effects in mice would apply to humans, there have been reports in vaccinated individuals of the sudden onset of severe aplastic anemia, a condition where the body can no longer make enough blood cells, particularly red blood cells.
Though serious fungal disease does not automatically mean a weak immune system, nonetheless, serious fungal infections “are most common among people with weak immune systems,” writes the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Antigen Numbers Reduced in Mice with High Nanoparticle Exposure
Within the immune system, there are the first responder (innate immune cells) and the second responders (adaptive immune cells).
The first responders mount an immediate attack upon encountering something foreign. However, their attacks are nonspecific and often cannot fully clear infections.
Therefore the adaptive immune cells, also known as T and B cells serve as our second responders.
They are activated around a week into the infection and clear infections by mounting potent and specific attacks.
To activate adaptive immune cells, T and B cells must be presented with information on the pathogen. In the case of Sars-Cov-2, it can be a section of the spike protein.
APCs (antigen presenting cells), a type of first responding cell bring pieces of the virus, bacteria, or infectious particle to the adaptive T or B cells. This will activate the T or B cell, triggering an adaptive immune response.
The image below shows a dendritic cell (APC), activating a T cell by presenting it with an antigen, a toxic or foreign substance.
A dendritic cell (antigen presenting cell) presenting a piece of bacteria or virus to a T cell (adaptive immune cell). Modified figure of “limitation of T cell expansion by antigen decay can explain the power-law dependence of fold expansion on the initial number of cognate T cells” by N. Wingreen and affiliates, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/377036v1.full, the material is available under Public License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. (Courtesy of Wingreen et al)
However, the authors found that mice that were given two doses of mRNA LNPs had reduced antigen presentation compared to mice that were only given one dose of LNPs.
This implies that fewer adaptive immune cells were made to activate against the influenza proteins.
mRNA Nanoparticles Reduce T and B cell Responses
The authors found the mice that received two injections of LNP had lower T and B cell responses to the flu mRNA vaccine than mice that were only given one dose.
As the final line of immune response, T and B cells are critical in our immune system’s ability to clear out infections.
However, in mice given two doses of LNP, less of their T and B cells were activated.
The double-dosed groups also had lower concentrations of antibodies (B cells make antibodies) against the influenza protein.
The reduced adaptive immune response was systemic, persisting across all organs and regions. Yet this reduction was even greater at the site of injection, especially if the mice were given injections at the same place for both shots, according to the authors.
On the other hand, the group that was only given one injection of LNP had higher T and B cell responses with more antibodies produced.
The authors found that exposure to LNP reduced T progenitor cells. Since T progenitor cells mature into activated T cells, less progenitors mean reduced T cell numbers and response.
The authors found if the T progenitor cells were removed before vaccination and then returned after vaccination, the active T cell numbers would not be reduced. This suggests that the LNP directly reduce the number of T progenitor cells, and in doing so, reduces the T cell response.
“Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNP inhibits T cell responses,” the authors wrote.
This reduced immunity should not be permanent, the authors speculated.
They noted that B cell responses mostly recovered if an interval of 8 weeks was introduced between the first and second doses.
Nevertheless, the authors did not verify the time period needed for a complete recovery, nor did they verify if the B cell response ever recovered in the mice.
However, injecting mice with adjuvants such as aluminum salts or AddaVax removed the suppressive effects the LNP injections had on mice immune cells.
“Inhibition of the adaptive immune responses by pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs is long-lasting but it is likely to wane with time.”
Immunity Changes from LNPs Can Be Inherited
As aforementioned, mice that were injected with two doses of LNPs were more resistant against an influenza infection than mice that were only given one dose of LNPs.
This was demonstrated through the mice’s superior maintenance of weight during infection, though it is uncertain if the resistance was from an immune response or some other pathway triggered by the LNPs.
Oddly enough, this increased defensiveness could be passed to their offspring. The inheritance of resistance against influenza is stronger if both parents were immunized, and less so when only a single parent, particularly if only the male parent is immunized.
However, the study did not address if the offspring also inherit immune weakness, such as a decline in immunity against C. albicans, a trait also observed in mice that were given two LNPs doses.
Implication of the Study and Pressing Questions
The findings from the mice study suggest that T and B cell functions are reduced temporarily in mice and raises the question if the same occurs in humans.
The adaptive immune response is critical to clearing infections, and preventing chronic conditions such as cancer. The study suggests that after two vaccinations with the mRNA LNPs, there are a few weeks of vulnerability in mice, putting them at a greater risk of infections and cancer.
Similar reports are also observed in humans, though there is yet to be any study establishing a conclusive link.
However, an increased rate of disease being reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after COVID-19 vaccination suggests reduced immunity in people following vaccination.
There have been many reports of cancers emerging following COVID-19 vaccinations.
In the VAERS database, 284 cases of breast cancer were reported after COVID-19 vaccination, while just 350 cases have been reported in the entire history of VAERS.
There were 269 cases of leukemia reported after COVID-19 vaccination as compared to 432 cases in the entire history of VAERS.
Additionally, there have also been concerning reports of new onset and recurrent shingles following COVID-19 vaccinations. VAERS data shows that 7,559 cases of shingles have been reported following COVID-19 vaccination.
Over the entire history of VAERS, 28,180 cases of shingles have been reported following any vaccination, meaning that around a quarter of shingles cases occurred after COVID-19 vaccination.
The CDC has indicated that a new diagnosis or recurrence of shingles primarily occurs in people with compromised immune systems and is a sign of weakened immunity.
Though the study on mice suggests possible health implications in humans, it is unknown whether all the symptoms and effects seen in mice will occur in people.
Nevertheless, growing data of reported adverse health effects in humans following COVID-19 vaccination warrant further research. Examination of the overlaps between health implications for mice and humans is also needed.
“Considering the broad exposure of a large proportion of human populations to vaccines based on this novel (mRNA) technology, more studies are warranted to fully understand its overall immunological and physiological effects. Determining this platform’s short and long-term impact on human health would help optimize it to decrease its potentially harmful effects,” the authors concluded.
Tariffs that had been placed on Chinese imports by President Donald Trump have pulled in more than $150 billion over the past 50 months, according to data from Customs and Border Protection.
Trump imposed the tariffs in 2018 and 2019 on $350 billion worth of imports, in retaliation for China’s abusive trade practices, which included throttling American companies’ access to Chinese markets, forced technology transfer, theft of U.S. intellectual property, and currency manipulation.
The tariffs somewhat depress demand for Chinese goods by making them more expensive. Some of the burden is also borne by the sellers, who are forced to reduce prices.
China responded by imposing tariffs on U.S. goods, which seemed to depress U.S.–China exports in 2019. Exports bounced back in 2020 and increased an additional 20 percent last year.
Aside from those aimed specifically at China, Trump also imposed tariffs on imports of solar panels, washing machines, steel, and aluminum. Those have brought in more than $17 billion so far.
The Biden administration has continued the tariffs, although Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has suggested lifting them to alleviate price inflation. Inflation has been running at a nearly four-decade high after unprecedented government spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. The price increases are mainly driven by energy and food—goods not particularly affected by the tariffs.
Plans to lift the tariffs were pushed aside by the administration after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) escalated its aggressive stance toward Taiwan when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island nation in early August, unnamed sources told Reuters.
White House spokeswoman Saloni Sharma said that “nothing has been shelved or put on hold.”
“The president had not made a decision before events in the Taiwan Strait and has still not made a decision, period,” she said.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Bloomberg TV that “after Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, it’s particularly complicated” to make a decision.
“The president is weighing his options,” she said. “He is very cautious. He wants to make sure that we don’t do anything which would hurt American labor and American workers.”
Trump used the tariffs as leverage to push for a trade deal with China and got as far as signing phase one of the deal in January 2020. Later that year, however, he shelved the negotiations after the CCP’s cover-up of the initial COVID-19 outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan contributed to the disease quickly spreading around the world.
China didn’t hold its end of the phase one deal, according to a July paper by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The CCP has blamed the pandemic.
An FBI official who has been accused of blocking an investigation into President Joe Biden’s son stepped down this month, lawyers representing the official confirmed to The Epoch Times on Aug. 31.
Timothy Thibault “voluntarily retired” and “was not fired, not forced to retire, and not asked to retire,” lawyers with Morrison & Foerster LLP said in an emailed statement.
Thibault, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI’s Washington Field Office, was “escorted” out of the office on Aug. 26, the Washington Times reported. Thibault was “walked out of the FBI,” CBS reported. Both outlets cited anonymous officials.
Thibault turned in his security badge and “walked with two long-time special agent friends through the field office to finish processing his paperwork,” Thibault’s lawyers said. “He walked out of the building by himself. Claims to the contrary are false.”
Thibault was eligible for retirement after working for over 30 years for the government and he informed his bosses about a month before his retirement about his intention to retire, his lawyers say.
The FBI declined to comment.
Mark Lyttle, a U.S. prosecutor for nearly 17 years and a White House lawyer during the Trump administration, offered praise for Thibault in a statement released by the former official’s counsel. “Agent Thibault spent his career rooting out corruption with integrity and honesty. I am proud to have worked with him and to call him my friend and trusted colleague,” Lyttle, now in private practice, said.
Thibault has come under fire in recent months after Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised concerns about his social media posts, including one that described former President Donald Trump as “a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man.”
Whistleblowers from within the bureau later told Grassley that the FBI gained information in 2020 about “criminal financial and related activity” carried out by Hunter Biden, the son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The FBI opened an assessment before the 2020 election but a team from the FBI headquarters used the assessment to “improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation” and caused the bureau’s investigation on Hunter Biden “to cease,” Grassley told FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, citing the whistleblowers.
When additional derogatory information about Hunter Biden came to light, Thibault “allegedly ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required by FBI,” Grassley said. FBI officials, including Thibault, then allegedly tried to “improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future.”
‘False Allegations’
Thibault’s lawyers, who have been retained on a pro bono basis, say Thibault believes he did not violate the Hatch Act with his social media posts.
The alleged violations of the law are being investigated by the Office of Special Counsel, the lawyers revealed.
“Mr. Thibault is cooperating with that investigation, urges the Office to complete its review, and expects to be fully exonerated,” they said.
Regarding claims that Thibault took certain actions for partisan reasons, the lawyers said Thibault “welcomes any investigation of these false allegations, regardless of his retirement.”
“He firmly believes that any investigation will conclude that his supervision, leadership and decision making were not impacted by political bias or partisanship of any kind. He is confident that all of his decisions were consistent with the FBI’s highest standards for ethics and integrity,” they said.
Wray, a Trump appointee, said earlier in August that the FBI is investigating Hunter Biden with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware. He said the investigation is being run out of the bureau’s Baltimore Field Office, which is in Maryland.
Thibault did not supervise the investigation into Hunter Biden, the former official’s lawyers say, and Thibault “was not involved in any decisions related to any laptop that may be at issue in that investigation, and he did not seek to close the investigation.” Thibault was also not involved in the search warrant that agents executed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort this month, according to the lawyers.
Grassley, upon hearing reports that Thibault was no longer with the FBI, said in a statement that Thibault’s “blatant partisanship undermined the work and reputation of the FBI” and said that “the effort to revive the FBI’s credibility can’t stop with his exit.”
Joe Biden crossed a line of sorts last week when he characterized the philosophy of Donald Trump and his supporters as “semi-fascism.”
“Fascism,” of course, is the verbal f-bomb of politics. As it’s most commonly used today, it’s an inflammatory insult, a rhetorical flame-thrower’s delight. It’s a virtual knee to the groin, a condemnatory epithet, the ultimate slur, shorthand for “You are a subhuman cretin who is beneath contempt.”
The word “fascism” once had a reasonably objective definition (more on that below) but it has been used so often as an emotive vilification that few people have a clear sense of what fascism originally meant. In his comprehensive description of the sadistic labor camps in the USSR, “The Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn explained the historical corruption of the word.
Solzhenitsyn tells us that “fascist” first became a pejorative term in the Soviet Union. The Communist Party branded everyone a “fascist” who wasn’t on board with Comrade Stalin’s plan for global socialism under the control of the Soviet Politburo. This started with the true fascists, such as Hitler and Mussolini, who were condemned for favoring national socialism over global socialism, and for clinging to the un-communist notion of national independence. But then the word became a term of scorn for all the opponents of worldwide communism—even individuals whose values and policies had little in common with the Fuhrer and Il Duce. Thus, everyone from the pope to atheists like Ayn Rand, American political leaders ranging from George McGovern on the left to Ronald Reagan on the right, and mortal enemies like the president of Israel and the ayatollahs of Iran, have been lumped together under the denunciatory label “fascist.”
In short, “fascist” means “non-communist.” What does that say about Joe Biden now that he has taken to using the political f-bomb to malign his political opposition? Of course, Biden left himself some wiggle room by saying “semi-fascism.” (Maybe Hillary Clinton should have said “semi-deplorables” when she felt like doing some venting several years ago.) Now Biden can say that he didn’t really call Trump’s supporters “fascists,” but I suspect he hopes that the stench and stigma of that ugly word will cling to Republicans.
Now let’s look at the word fascism more objectively. Merriam-Webster defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime … that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”
Which of our two main political parties comes closer to meeting this definition?
In the ongoing battle between the collective (the “nation” as per Merriam-Webster) versus the individual, it has been the American political left—progressives and Democrats—who, in the name of “social justice,” push collectivist master plans like the Green New Deal (a blueprint for a command economy, i.e., for “severe economic and social regimentation”). It has been the conservatives and Republicans seeking to preserve the traditional individualistic ideal of a free-market economy based on companies competing to meet the wants of the sovereign consumer instead of producing according to the dictates of a political elite.
When it comes to a “forcible suppression of opposition,” it’s Biden and his party that have tried to intimidate Americans into silence by characterizing parents who object to public school policies as “domestic terrorists.” It’s Biden’s party that has leaned on the social media companies to silence debate on vital issues like climate change and COVID-19 vaccinations, and often succeeding in censoring those who dissent from the progressive agenda. It’s the left that has sought to “cancel” conservatives and turn them into what were known as “non-persons” in the Soviet Union.
In amplifying on his charge that Republicans are fascists, and therefore hateful, Biden ignored the flagrantly hate-filled rhetoric of so many on the left. From calls to “guillotine the rich” to vicious comments from recent years, it’s clear that the left has not shunned hatred.
In short, Biden’s attempt to verbally tar-and-feather MAGA conservatives and populists with the “fascism” slander seems to be a case of projecting his party’s own tendencies onto his political opponents. I suppose one could retort to Biden’s baseless “semi-fascist” mud-slinging by saying that since it has been communists who have led the way in using “fascist” as a term of disgrace and disdain for their opponents, then maybe Biden is a semi-communist. But let’s not go there. Let’s break away from any disgusting contest to see who can administer the most hurtful or damning verbal insult to political opponents. We need to ratchet down the corrosive emotionality in our political dialog.
The way I prefer to look at the contest between Biden and progressives on the one side and Trump and MAGA Americans on the other is this: The most important political question is whether government policies protect or suppress liberty. All anti-liberty ideologies and movements—communism, socialism, fascism, progressivism, environmentalism—are opposed to liberty; therefore, they are literally illiberal. Let’s all forswear the use (actually, the misuse) of the political f-bomb. Let’s have a grownup conversation about whether governments are protecting the rights of all impartially, or instead suppressing them via illiberal policies.
If you win the House in November, it’s time for you to act.
You need to impeach Joe Biden. And that’s just the start; Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland need to go, too.
Some Republicans, to their credit, have been on it. Especially Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Of eight impeachment resolutions filed against Biden, Greene is the lead sponsor of half of them, according to The Hill.
The impeachment resolutions look like the complaints the American colonists made against King George in the Declaration of Independence.
Three resolutions name Biden’s complicity in the surge of illegal migrants across the border, three attack his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a year ago, one is due to the moratorium on evicting renters during COVID, and another is aimed at son Hunter’s international business transactions.
What’s missing is a resolution that reads, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” But that sentence was about King George, Americans not yet having dealt with a swarm of 87,000 new IRS agents.
Of course, the current impeachment resolutions are powerless, shriveled on the floor of a recalcitrant House controlled by a narrow Democratic majority.
But let Republicans take the House in the upcoming midterms, and some of them are ready to make Biden’s impeachment the top priority.
“I have consistently said President Biden should be impeached for intentionally opening our border and making Americans less safe,” Rep. Bob Good of Virginia said, according to The Hill.
“Congress has a duty to hold the President accountable for this and any other failures of his Constitutional responsibilities, so a new Republican majority must be prepared to aggressively conduct oversight on day one.”
Republican Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, a Biden impeachment advocate whose state is in the thick of the border breakdown, has also said that if Mayorkas has been derelict in his duty of border protection, he too should be impeached, along with the attorney general.
“Mayorkas and Garland have purposefully made our country less safe, politicized their departments, and violated the rule of law,” Biggs said. “In some instances, they have instructed their subordinates to disobey our laws. That is unacceptable.”
Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois has said Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should be impeached for “purposely ignoring our immigration laws.”
“Biden and Harris have failed their most basic duty … which is ensuring the safety of the American people through the security of our borders,” Miller said.
Say what you will about the third-rate burglary cover-up that got Richard Nixon impeached, or Bill Clinton messing with the help, or Donald Trump existing as Donald Trump, which got him impeached twice — there are some heavy items to lay on the Biden White House doorstep.
There has been a refusal to control the southern border, which represents criminal neglect of a major duty of the country’s chief executive.
There was the destruction of the national economy, small business and education at all levels coupled with untold personal suffering, death, censorship, persecution and failures in health care as the result of politicizing COVID as opposed to responding to it through measured steps of science.
There was the arbitrary collapse of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, leaving assets to be claimed by the Taliban, as well as the abandonment of U.S. citizens (some are putting the number at 800) and Afghan allies who aided our county at great risk to themselves.
And all those other things — Hunter Biden, the FBI acting as a Democratic police force, the destruction of U.S. energy independence, and on and on.
Biden obviously has cognitive limitations. But the people around him are not stupid, and the internal and external undermining of our nation and its interests deserve examination by Congress to ferret out what may be high crimes and misdemeanors.
And as the chief executive, the president is ultimately responsible.
A Secret Service official who was cited in testimony for the partisan Jan. 6 congressional committee is leaving the agency.
Tony Ornato, an assistant director of the agency responsible for the president’s protection, has stepped down.
Ornato confirmed his resignation in a statement to CNN on Monday.
“I did retire today to pursue a career in the private sector. I retired from the U.S. Secret Service after more than 25 years of faithful service to my country, including serving the past five presidents,” the statement said.
“I long-planned to retire and have been planning this transition for more than a year.”
Ornato was thrust into the public eye after a former aide for President Donald Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows cited him in her testimony before the House committee investigating the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021.
The aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, claimed Ornato told her that Trump became “irate” in a colorful account of events related to the day, according to NBC News.
Hutchinson, whose testimony has been widely disparaged by conservatives, indicated Ornato told her that Trump angrily lunged for the steering wheel inside the presidential limousine. According to the ex-Mark Meadows aide, Trump was demanding to be taken to the Capitol after a morning speech at the White House Ellipse.
A source close to Ornato later pushed back against the claims that Hutchinson had made in the hearing, according to Fox News.
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The Secret Service agent was reportedly “shocked” to find himself cited as a witness of claims he denies making.
Another Secret Service source has also indicated that an agent in the presidential limousine, Bobby Engel, is willing to testify against the claim that Trump lunged for the wheel.
Both Engel and Ornato have reportedly testified in private to the Jan. 6 committee since its inception, according to Fox. Ornato has testified twice, according to CNN, once in January, once in March.
Neither of the Secret Service agents described Trump lunging over the presidential limousine driver in an attempt to grab the steering wheel in their testimony, according to Fox.
The testimony of the Secret Service agents has not been released to the public. It’s not publicly known if they were asked about any altercation over the vehicle’s steering wheel vehicle and contradicted Hutchinson’s story, or if they were simply never asked about it at all.
NBC reported a source it did not identify saying the men were not asked.
The driver of the presidential limousine reportedly indicated a willingness to testify under oath against Hutchinson’s claims as recently as the end of June.
A source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.
Ornato’s departure from the Secret Service comes just after a senior FBI agent of the Washington field office was reportedly forced to resign under pressure.
According to agency whistleblowers, Timothy Thibault blocked an FBI inquiry into Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election.
hese days, it is often considered tantamount to professing allegiance to Nazi ideology to openly oppose homosexuality as a matter of Christian conviction.
This vitriol towards basic Christian sexual ethics and cultural values has caused many a believer to cower apologetically or even downright support LGBT lifestyles to avoid being branded as “hateful.”
Even the most right-wing conservatives often pour their energy into defending their views and trying to make them more palatable to the secular left according to the left’s own values.
I’ve expended quite a lot of breath on this subject myself, but the truth is, it is far too easy to become overly concerned with the opinion of man while forgetting the exponentially more important fear of the Lord.
Truth be told, to conscience-bound Christians, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks of our loyalty to God — it only matters that we have loyalty to God, and boldly and shamelessly so.
So I believe we have something to admire in the thousands of Serbian Christians who protested against a massive LGBT “pride” event planned in their country — Christians who were not afraid to boldly declare that “we don’t give up holy places,” as one sign professed.
The protest was held in the Balkan country’s capital of Belgrade on Sunday and organized by opponents of a “Euro Pride” event that was scheduled to take place in the city in September.
Reuters reported that thousands turned up, led by members of the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose bishops are calling for the event to be banned.
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The outlet noted that the day before, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic had said Euro Pride, which is held every year in a different European city, will be postponed or canceled.
Still adamant as to the threat to traditional values that the LGBT movement poses in their country, protesters carried signs saying “Keep your hands off our children” and “We don’t want a gay parade and occupation by the West,” according to Balkan Insight.
All “far-right” Serbian political parties have reportedly condemned Euro Pride, and the now-suspended event has been the subject of scathing remarks from Bishop Nikanor of Banat, who stated this month that the “pride” attendees would “flaunt and desecrate the city of Belgrade, the holy Serbian city.”
“I will curse all those who organize and participate in something like that,” he reportedly said, going as far as to declare, “If I had a weapon, I would use it. I would use that force if only I had it, but I do not.”
Now, something many Americans don’t understand is the cultural complexities of Eastern European loyalties and where they might lie after the tumultuous last two centuries.
And so we certainly don’t need to support everything these Serbians stand for — Reuters noted a marked presence of pro-Russia sentiment, for example, and we cannot wholeheartedly condone the outraged bishop’s desire to use a weapon to prevent the “pride” event from taking place.
What is not difficult to understand, however, whether you are discussing Serbia or other nations such as those in Africa and Latin America, is the sick and twisted ideological colonialism coming out of Western Europe and the U.S., imposing progressive, atheistic values upon traditional, Christian cultures.
The United Nations, the European Union and the government of the United States are often accused of attaching promises of aid to the aggressive advancement of progressive priorities like abortion and LGBT “rights.”
Now, something many Americans don’t understand is the cultural complexities of Eastern European loyalties and where they might lie after the tumultuous last two centuries.
And so we certainly don’t need to support everything these Serbians stand for — Reuters noted a marked presence of pro-Russia sentiment, for example, and we cannot wholeheartedly condone the outraged bishop’s desire to use a weapon to prevent the “pride” event from taking place.
What is not difficult to understand, however, whether you are discussing Serbia or other nations such as those in Africa and Latin America, is the sick and twisted ideological colonialism coming out of Western Europe and the U.S., imposing progressive, atheistic values upon traditional, Christian cultures.
The United Nations, the European Union and the government of the United States are often accused of attaching promises of aid to the aggressive advancement of progressive priorities like abortion and LGBT “rights.”
Now, something many Americans don’t understand is the cultural complexities of Eastern European loyalties and where they might lie after the tumultuous last two centuries.
And so we certainly don’t need to support everything these Serbians stand for — Reuters noted a marked presence of pro-Russia sentiment, for example, and we cannot wholeheartedly condone the outraged bishop’s desire to use a weapon to prevent the “pride” event from taking place.
Serbia is currently a candidate to join the EU. Reuters reported that the country will have to “improve the rule of law and its human and minority rights record” to make the cut, so banning “pride” parades is likely out if it hopes to join the enlightened West in this regard.
Meanwhile, Western Christians have stood by, afraid of being termed hateful, old-world bigots for opposing LGBT ideology in our own “advanced” countries.
To many Europeans, defending their traditional values is a matter of defending centuries of heritage and tradition. But to the unified body of Christ across the globe, defending our right to boldly oppose objective immorality is a matter of defending the cross and our right to bow before it.
Christianity spread around the world across centuries and brought with it unprecedented advancements in education, human rights, and dignity for women and children.
As the fear of God has been systematically dismantled, so have these critical social advancements and the values of universal liberty that could have only originated in a profound regard for the Creator of mankind.
It is high time we stop being afraid of whom we’ll offend when we stand up for our values — it should concern us much more how many people don’t care about offending God.
So as you watch things like drag shows for children and shamelessly vulgar LGBT “pride” parades become the norm in the U.S., why not ask yourself, sincerely, who it is that you truly fear — God or man?
Dem governor says she’s created ‘25,000 auto jobs.’ She’s actually killed hundreds.
In her official capacity, Michigan Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has acknowledged that she hasn’t actually created 25,000 auto jobs since taking office. Her reelection campaign apparently didn’t get the memo.
Whitmer’s campaign site says the Democrat “created nearly 25,000 auto jobs as part of the biggest manufacturing boom in years.” But even Whitmer’s official office has conceded that the claim isn’t true. After a Washington Free Beaconreport showed that Michigan has actually lost auto jobs on the Democrat’s watch, Whitmer amended an official state government fact sheet to remove a section that touted “creating nearly 25,000 good-paying auto jobs.” Whitmer’s official Twitter account also deleted a June 30 tweet that included the false claim, and in an Aug. 1 press release, the governor noted that the 25,000 figure stems from “projected” jobs that have been “announced” but not actualized.
Whitmer’s willingness to repeat the falsehood—even as her official office backtracks from it—comes as she faces a difficult reelection bid against Republican Tudor Dixon. The self-described “working mom on a mission” hammered Whitmer for “flat-out lying.”
“The fact is: Michigan has LOST auto jobs as a result of Whitmer’s disastrous policies, not gained them as she falsely claims,” Dixon said Monday. “No wonder Whitmer is delaying public debates. She doesn’t want to have to defend her lies and failed record.”
Neither Whitmer’s campaign nor her official office returned requests for comment.
Whitmer inherited 169,500 auto jobs when she took office in January 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number is now down to 167,800, according to the agency’s July 2022 preliminary data, marking a decrease of 1,700 jobs. Whitmer nonetheless said she’s “proud of the work we’ve done to secure investments in auto manufacturing” in an Aug. 6 tweet.
Beyond the auto industry, Whitmer has also failed to deliver on her coronavirus claims. In April 2020, the Democrat pledged to return a portion of her salary for the duration of the pandemic. She ended the pledge just five months later in September, even as her indoor gathering restrictions and public face mask requirements lasted for 15 months.
In June 2020, meanwhile, Whitmer defied her own social distancing rule at a Detroit civil rights protest, which came just days after she expressed a “high level of concern” that large protests could expedite the spread of the virus. Roughly a year later, in May 2021, Whitmer again broke her own COVID rules during a dinner party at a Michigan State University bar.
Dixon won Michigan’s Aug. 2 Republican gubernatorial primary by 18 points, while Whitmer ran unopposed in her party’s nominating contest. The pair will face off in November.
A year after the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Army National Guard colonel and congressman Mike Waltz (R., Fla.) called it a “disgrace to our country” that no officials in the military or Biden administration have lost their jobs over the debacle.
“Not one senior Biden Administration official nor military officer has resigned or been fired as a result of the withdrawal. That is a disgrace to our country,” Waltz said in a statement Tuesday. “Because of their actions, or lack thereof, the fallout of this debacle has irreparably harmed both our national security and global image.”
Waltz’s comments came just over a year after the Afghan military shattered in the face of Taliban offensives as U.S. troops withdrew from the country. The botched withdrawal saw Kabul fall into chaos; Taliban fighters seized the city with no opposition, 13 U.S. service members were killed in an ISIS suicide bombing, Afghan civilians died falling from U.S. planes evacuating the country, and the United States mistakenly killed 10 civilians in a drone strike that was intended to target ISIS terrorists.
Waltz described how the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated in the year since the Taliban took control of the country. “The Taliban have rearmed themselves with billions of dollars worth of U.S. military equipment, Al Qaeda & ISIS have reconstituted their ranks as foreign fighters flow into the country, Afghan women and girls have seen their rights stripped away, and famine has inflicted the country,” Waltz said.
The congressman called for Republicans to carry out public hearings and investigations into the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan should the party retake the House in November.
“A GOP majority must carry out public investigations in a manner that has broad jurisdictional oversight and subpoena power over the Department of State, Department of Defense, and Intelligence Community,” Waltz said. “We owe it to the thirteen Gold Star families who lost their loved ones to an avoidable terrorist attack, to the veterans who served in Afghanistan, and to the thousands of allies we abandoned and made unkept promises of security for their safety to get the accountability they deserve.”
A large majority of college students say they’re afraid of talking politics in class, even though they say professors talk politics, according to a poll published Monday.
The poll, which was conducted by the college-ranking site Intelligent, found that 59 percent of students “fear expressing their political beliefs in class.” Eighty-five percent of students, meanwhile, say their professors express political opinions in class, with 15 percent saying professors do so “frequently.” Those political professors are overwhelmingly liberal, according to respondents, with 77 percent of students saying their teachers espouse left-wing ideas.
Americans are losing confidence in universities, the Washington Free Beaconreported, as higher education has increasingly embraced left-wing “wokeness.” Yale Law School disciplined a student for using the term “trap house,” which it deemed “triggering,” while Georgetown suspended a law professor for criticizing President Joe Biden’s decision to base his Supreme Court nomination on race and gender. University of Virginia student Emma Camp wrote in March that “strict ideological conformity” is the norm on college campuses.
Thirty-one percent of students say their professors either “occasionally” or “frequently” ridicule them for their political beliefs, with 22 percent saying they have suffered tangible consequences for their beliefs. Nearly three-quarters of students say professors have influenced other students’ beliefs, with 77 percent of conservatives saying college radicalizes liberals.
The poll’s findings are in line with what Camp wrote in March. Many students fear “lower grades if they don’t censor themselves,” she wrote.
Update 1:29 p.m.: This piece has been updated on Georgetown Law School’s decision to suspend a professor. The piece originally said that Princeton fired the professor. The Free Beacon regrets the error.
Dem congressional hopeful’s radical positions could cost her in a tight race
Democratic Arizona House candidate Kirsten Engel signed an anti-cop activist’s reparations pledge earlier this year, a position that could cost her moderate support she’ll need to win her highly competitive race.
Engel, a University of Arizona law professor, said in June she was “proud” to sign the Reparations Pledge PAC pledge to support reparations if elected, and vowed to “fight for racial justice in all forms in Congress.” The PAC, which endorsed Engel, is led by an activist who called defunding police departments a “moral thing to do.” Redeem Robinson, the PAC’s founder, also railed against the “disgusting police system” that had declared “war” on minorities.
Engel’s support for reparations and links to left-wing activists could hurt her chances at capturing the open seat in Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District, which Democrats consider a “must-win” for them to maintain control of the House. Americans strongly oppose reparations and defunding police, according to recent polls. Sixty-five percent of respondents to a Washington Postpoll last year said they oppose the federal government paying reparations, compared with just 28 percent who support doing so.
Engel’s campaign released an internal poll this month showing her leading 49-47 over Republican Juan Ciscomani, though election analysts have given Republicans a slight advantage in the district, which FiveThirtyEight estimates leans 7 points in favor of Republicans.
It’s not the first example of Engel embracing unpopular left-wing causes. In 2020, she solicited donations for a Minnesota bail fund that freed a child molester and a man who later committed murder, the Washington Free Beaconreported. She also encouraged donations to Showing Up For Racial Justice, a coalition of white civil rights activists that publishes a “defund the police toolkit.”
The defund movement’s popularity has waned in recent years amid a nationwide crime surge. Just 31 percent of Americans support reallocating money from police departments to social services agencies, down from 38 percent the year before, according to a University of Massachusetts survey conducted in May. Seventy-five percent of respondents to a Politicopoll in February said that defunding police departments was a reason that violent crime is increasing in the United States.
Reparations have been a fraught issue for Democrats. President Barack Obama rejected the idea during his 2008 campaign, though he has flip-flopped on the matter since leaving the White House. President Joe Biden supported a commission to study reparations during the 2020 presidential campaign but has not endorsed full reparation payments as president. Members of Congress, mostly from reliably safe Democratic districts, have introduced reparations bills over the years but none have been held for votes in either the House or the Senate.
Engel’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
State Dept plays defense for Abbas amid anti-Semitism row
The State Department will not say if it is considering any repercussions for the Palestinian Authority after the authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts,” comments that sparked an international diplomatic scandal.
“We recognize that President Abbas today has, quote, reaffirmed that the Holocaust is ‘the most heinous crime’ in modern history, and we reject any attempts to draw false equivalencies or to minimize Holocaust atrocities,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters who questioned him about the administration’s response to the scandal.
Abbas during remarks in Germany earlier this month claimed that Israel has committed “50 Holocausts” against the Palestinians since its creation in 1948. Distortion of the Holocaust remains heavily restricted in Germany, making Abbas’s comments as he spoke next to the German chancellor unprecedented. While Germany quickly condemned the remarks, the Biden administration’s State Department attempted to play defense for Abbas, telling reporters that the Palestinian president later apologized.
The State Department also would not answer a series of Washington Free Beacon inquiries about how it is responding to the issue and whether it is considering any type of diplomatic penalties for Abbas’s comments, such as downgrading relations or withholding aid money to his government. Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress and Jewish community officials say the State Department’s reaction is providing cover for Abbas as the Biden administration supplies his government with millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer aid. The Trump administration froze that aid due to the Palestinian government’s promotion of anti-Semitism.
“The Palestinians are so emboldened to make abhorrent statements like these because the Biden administration has made clear that the U.S. will continue to hand them money and carry water for them diplomatically no matter what they do,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Free Beacon.
A State Department official would not say whether it addressed the issue with Abbas or other top Palestinian government leaders. The department also would not say if it is considering imposing diplomatic penalties on the Palestinian Authority for the comments.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, said Abbas maligned the memories of more than six million Jews while standing in the country that perpetrated the crimes.
“To accuse the Jewish state and the only functioning democracy in the Middle East of committing ’50 Holocausts,’ while standing in Germany, is something that only someone with as little character and sense of morality as Abbas could rationalize,” Zeldin said in a statement. “Six million Jews and millions of others were brutally murdered during the Holocaust. There has been absolutely no equivalence to that at any time anywhere in the world.”
The most public comment from the State Department came from its special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, who took to Twitter to criticize Abbas’s remarks. “Abbas’s claim that Israel committed ’50 Holocausts’ is unacceptable,” Lipstadt wrote. “Holocaust distortion can have dangerous consequences and fuels anti-Semitism.”
While Lipstadt’s comments were welcome, some in the pro-Israel community expressed concerns that the State Department is not taking the issue as seriously as it should.
“It is patently insufficient to simply reject [Abbas’s] remarks, without any consequences,” Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights attorney who serves as CEO of the International Legal Forum, a group that represents more than 3,500 lawyers and advocates, told the Free Beacon. “The international community, led by the United States, must stop coddling Mahmoud Abbas, and finally hold him to account, without which he will have no incentive to change behavior, whether that is distorting history, inciting violence, or paying the salaries of Palestinian terrorists. Enough is enough.”
Following pressure from Israel, German officials, and others, Abbas ultimately clarified his remarks, saying the Holocaust “is the most heinous crime in history,” but he did not explicitly apologize.
Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, is holding a lead against Democratic senator Raphael Warnock, according to a poll by Emerson College on Tuesday.
Forty-six percent of very likely Georgia voters said they plan to vote for Walker, while 44 percent said they would back Warnock and 7 percent were undecided. The last Emerson poll in April showed Walker with a 4-point lead, indicating a minor tightening of the race, with Walker still maintaining an edge within the margin of error.
The Emerson survey follows a month of data from other pollsters that found Warnock with a small but consistent lead over the former NFL star. Walker is currently trailing Warnock by 3.3 points in the Real Clear Politics polling average.
Walker’s advantage is most prominent among rural and suburban voters, according to Emerson.
“Walker leads Warnock among rural voters 58 percent to 24 percent while Warnock leads Walker 66 percent to 25 percent among urban voters,” Emerson reported. “In the suburbs, voters are breaking for Walker by a nine-point margin, 50 percent to 41 percent.”
The poll also showed Republican governor Brian Kemp ahead of Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, 48 percent to 44 percent.
While the races remain tight, there are still signs Democrats face an uphill battle in the state. Fifty-seven percent said they disapprove of President Joe Biden’s job so far. A plurality of respondents, 36 percent, said their top concern is the economy—a 16-point lead over those who listed “abortion access” as their main issue.
Iowa Dem congresswoman criticizes opponent for taking money from Chinese company she toured, praised
In what is sure to be one of the biggest self-owns of the 2022 midterm elections, Iowa Democratic congresswoman Cindy Axne is criticizing her opponent for taking money from a Chinese company—the same company Axne herself toured in 2019 and praised for “powering Iowa agriculture.”
Axne on Tuesday released an ad titled “Weaken,” which argues that the congresswoman’s Republican opponent, Zach Nunn, is in China’s pocket because he accepted a campaign contribution from a Chinese company. By Axne’s logic, the Democrat herself is also compromised. Axne in November 2019 visited the company in question, Syngenta, to “discuss trade, USMCA biofuels, technology, and rural broadband with their team.” Axne even praised Syngenta for “powering Iowa agriculture” and said she was “glad to hear from our neighbors” in a Facebook post touting the tour.
Axne’s decision to attack a company she herself has praised will almost certainly blunt the anti-Nunn ad campaign’s effectiveness. It also suggests Axne is feeling desperate as she fights for her political life in Iowa’s Third Congressional District, which former president Donald Trump won narrowly in 2020. The sole Democrat in Iowa’s congressional delegation, Axne is a top target for Republicans as they work to take back the House in November and has not won a race by more than 2 points in her career.
Axne’s campaign did not return a request for comment. In addition to the ad, Axne on Tuesday released a statement arguing that Nunn’s ties to Syngenta mark “another example of how Zach Nunn looks out for himself, even if it means leaving Iowans behind.” The statement did not mention that just three years ago Axne embraced the company as her “neighbor” and credited it with energizing Iowa’s top industry.
Beyond Axne’s past relationship with Syngenta, the Democrat has her own financial skeletons in her closet. In September, a nonpartisan watchdog group filed an ethics complaint showing Axne sold “more than 40 assets with a total value ranging from approximately $43,043 to $645,000 … without disclosing the transaction,” an apparent violation of the STOCK Act, which requires members of Congress to report large financial transactions within 30 days.
Just days after the complaint was filed, Axne spent thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds to hire liberal attorney Marc Elias. The Democrat went on to avoid punishment, though only because the House Committee on Ethics determined Axne was “generally unclear on the requirements” and did not knowingly omit the trades. Axne, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, has also bought and sold tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of stocks in financial services companies.
Nunn, a state senator and Air Force veteran, will face Axne in November after winning his primary contest by 47 points in June. He has raised $1.1 million to Axne’s $4.9 million.
Federal law enforcement officials have identified a high number of individuals with Middle Eastern names traveling with Mexican passports, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Since the beginning of 2022, nearly 30,000 Mexican passport holders were flagged as part of the investigation into passport fraud, the memo states, adding that each identified individual will be further evaluated. A senior official at DHS who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the agency will likely investigate whether any of the individuals have traveled to the United States and whether there are any other patterns in their travel.
The concern over fraudulent passports comes as a surge of illegal migrants at the southern border overwhelms the immigration system. With hundreds of thousands of migrants attempting to enter the country each month, Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies often lack resources to properly vet who is entering the country. DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last year that the United States risks losing its “first line of defense” because of the “unsustainable” amount of illegal immigration at the border.
There are fears that terror groups such as al Qaeda could take advantage of the strained immigration system. Last April, for example, two Yemeni nationals on the terrorist watch list were apprehended at the southern border. Law enforcement officials appear concerned that bad actors could abuse the legal travel system to enter the country with passports obtained from Mexico, and enter the United States legally. Roughly 20 million Mexican citizens easily travel to the United States as tourists each year, according to the U.S. Travel Association.
“This investigation highlights that criminals often use legal travel to facilitate criminal activity,” the senior DHS official told the Free Beacon. “The nexus to Mexico should cause the public and lawmakers to reflect on how a porous border can be even more dangerous.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
The concerning passports were identified by the agency’s National Targeting Center, the memo states. The lesser known subagency, created shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, “works quickly and quietly to identify people and products that pose potential threats to our Nation’s security, and to stop them from entering the United States,” according to a 2014 public memo.
The National Targeting Center also assists Immigration and Customs Enforcement with deporting money launderers and child predators, the senior DHS official said. The National Targeting Center regularly partners with other agencies on investigations involving terrorism or global criminal networks.
The agency uses naming conventions specific to different regions to automatically pinpoint the most likely nationality of individuals—in Mexico, for example, individuals typically keep two surnames, one from each parent. In much of the Arab world, individuals can be given much longer names which often include an entire chain of ancestors on the father’s side.
FBI director Christopher Wray testified in the Senate earlier this month that the border crisis “represents a significant security issue and represents a wide array of criminal threats that flow out of it.”
“Any port of entry, any potential vulnerability is something we know foreign terrorist organizations and others will seek to exploit,” Wray said.
Customs and Border Protection does not provide complete data on the total number of suspected terrorists apprehended at the southern border, citing security concerns. A joint report from the Department of Justice and DHS concluded that 2,554 individuals on the terror watch list attempted to enter the United States in 2017.
A majority of people who voted for former President Donald Trump admit that America is in a recession, while only a minority of Biden supporters agreed, according to a recent poll by The Economist and YouGov.
In response to a question about whether the United States is in a recession, 82 percent of respondents who voted for Trump in the 2020 election said that yes, the country is in a recession. Just 38 percent of respondents who voted for President Joe Biden agreed, while 40 percent said no and another 22 percent said they were not sure.
Broken down by party, 76 percent of Republicans agreed that the United States is in a recession, with 9 percent dismissing the idea and 15 percent being unsure. Among Democrats, 44 percent said yes, 35 percent said no, and 21 percent said they were unsure.
The poll was conducted among 1,500 adult U.S. citizens from Aug. 20 to Aug. 23 (pdf).
In terms of ideology, 79 percent of respondents who identified as conservatives said the United States is currently in an economic recession, along with 54 percent of moderates and 41 percent of liberals.
While 52 percent of Trump voters said they believed the prices of goods and services they buy is the best indicator of a recession, only 34 percent of Biden voters agreed.
Forty percent of Trump voters said they they think a recession in the next 12 months is “somewhat likely,” with Biden voters closely following at 39 percent.
However, 15 percent of Trump voters believe it is “very likely” that the United States will be in an economic recession in the next 12 months, triple the 5 percent of Biden voters who hold such a view. Another 31 percent of Biden voters said a recession in the next 12 months is “not very likely,” compared to just 13 percent of Trump voters.
Recession Predictions
The poll comes as several experts are raising alarm bells about the country entering a recession.
“We will have a recession because we’ve had five months of zero M2 growth, money supply growth, and the Fed isn’t even looking at it,” Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, told CNBC. “We’re going to have one whopper of a recession in 2023.”
M2—which includes cash, savings deposits, checking deposits, and money market securities—is seen as an indicator of future inflation and total money supply. Hanke pointed out that the money supply has stagnated in recent months, thus potentially leading to an economic slowdown.
In another interview with CNBC, Stephen Roach, a former Federal Reserve economist, predicted a recession as the “lagged impacts” of the Federal Reserve monetary tightening begins to kick in. “They haven’t kicked in at all right now,” he said while adding that the United States will need a “miracle” to avoid a recession.
The United States already posted its second consecutive quarter of negative economic growth in 2022, which is the generally accepted definition of a recession.
Gross domestic product fell by 1.6 percent in the first quarter and another 0.9 percent in the second quarter.
PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—Gov. Ron DeSantis made it clear on Aug. 30 that he thought his gubernatorial opponent’s running mate should be disqualified and never hold office in Florida.
At a press conference in Fort Pierce, DeSantis criticized Charlie Crist’s choice of Karla Hernandez Mats saying that she puts “union politics” first.
He called her “disgraceful” for defending a teacher who had been abusing children since 2004 and advocating that the U.S. attorney general investigate parents who speak out at school board meetings.
Mats was chosen as Crist’s Democratic running mate on Aug. 26.
She is a former middle school teacher and the vice president of the American Federation of Teachers.
DeSantis stated she has sent out controversial tweets about Fidel Castro as well as defending the actions of a now convicted child predator.
The governor complained that the union boss worked “tooth and nail” to keep children locked out of school during the pandemic.
“They opposed everything we did in the state of Florida to give kids an opportunity and to put parents and families first,” DeSantis said.
He went on to say that there has been learning loss due to locking children out of school.
“We already know the catastrophic damage that happened for locking these kids out of school and we know Florida is so much better off because we actually put our kids first and we understood how important it was to be in education.”
In May of 2020 Mat’s got into a war of words with parents and government officials over policies involving the pandemic and compared parents who showed up at school board meetings to fictitious serial killers such as mass murderer Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and butcher knife slayer Michael Myers from the Halloween series.
Crist served as the 44th Republican governor from 2007 until 2011; he ran for a Senate seat but lost the primary to Republican Marco Rubio; the Republican turned Democrat endorsed then-president Barack Obama for his reelection in 2012.
He ran for a U.S. 13th congressional seat and won. He has been serving in that position since 2017.
Since the Democratic ticket has been decided Crist has aligned himself with President Joe Biden and is hoping for his endorsement.
At a Democratic fundraiser in Maryland on Aug. 27, Biden said that Republicans who support a “Make America Great Again agenda,” were “fascists.”
Crist called Biden’s statements his being “honest about what he feels in his heart and his soul.”
However, these comments coincided with the Seminole County Republican party office being vandalized with the word “fascist” spray painted on the outside of the building during the weekend of Aug. 27.
The Seminole County Republican Party posted the incident on their Facebook page and provided pictures of the vandalism.
Super Glue had also been squirted on the front door lock. The investigation is still ongoing according to police.
The Epoch Times reached out several times to Charlie Crist’s campaign for comments on DeSantis’ attack on Mats but there was no response.
UPDATE: A lawyer for Timothy Thibault disputed claims that he was involved in the Hunter Biden investigation and said he wasn’t involved in the raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
In a statement to The Epoch Times, Thibault’s attorneys with Morrison & Foerster LLP said that he “did not supervise the investigation of Hunter Biden,” and it added that he was “not involved in any decisions related to any laptop that may be at issue in that investigation.”
The statement also said Thibault did not show any political partisanship in his work.
Original story below.
A top Republican lawmaker on Tuesday responded to reports that a high-ranking FBI agent, Timothy Thibault, had resigned from the bureau last week.
Anonymous sources within the FBI told corporate news outlets that Thibault, the FBI Assistant special agent in charge, no longer works for the law enforcement agency. He was walked out of the building on Friday, which is the standard procedure, the reports said.
The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI and Department of Justice for comment. Neither agency issued a public statement about the matter.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose letters to the FBI’s leadership repeatedly referenced alleged political bias on behalf of Thibault, said the agent “undermined the work and reputation of the FBI” and cast “a shadow over all the bureau’s work that he was involved in,” according to a statement from his office issued Tuesday morning.
Grassley accused him of “opening an investigation into Trump based on liberal news articles” and “shutting down investigative activity into Hunter Biden that was based on verified information.” The senator previously referenced those allegations against Thibault in letters to the FBI director, citing bureau whistleblower complaints against Thibault and other top leaders.
Neither Thibault nor the FBI has issued responses to Grassley’s specific claims about alleged political bias.
Grassley’s statement promised more congressional investigations into the FBI and called on the DOJ’s inspector general to further look into bias at the bureau.
Thibault was one of 13 assistant special agents in charge at the Washington, D.C., field office. Reports say Thibault was not involved in the FBI raid targeting former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, although the agency has not confirmed those claims.
Political Bias
The senator signaled that he would continue to press the FBI for any “political bias,” adding that the “effort to revive the FBI’s credibility can’t stop with [Thibault’s] exit.
Previously, Thibault was flagged by Grassley in letters to the agency for previously sharing a Twitter post calling Trump “a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man.”
And in other letters, Grassley accused Thibault of potentially violating federal laws and rules established by the FBI. Citing whistleblower claims, Grassley also alleged that there’s evidence Thibault had partisan bias when handling investigations into the Trump campaign and Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
“Whistleblowers have reported to me, that although the FBI and Justice Department maintain policies dictating specific standards requiring substantial factual predication to initiate an investigation, Thibault and other Justice Department and FBI employees failed to comply with these requirements,” Grassley wrote, noting that the agent was “referred to the Office of Special Counsel for potential Hatch Act violations.”
Justice Department official Richard Pilger, who has been identified as the director of the Election Crimes Branch within the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, was also targeted by Grassley’s letters in recent months. Along with Thibault, Pilger was allegedly “deeply involved in the decisions to open and pursue this investigation” against Trump’s campaign, the senator said.
‘A FEW BAD APPLES’ IS TURNING OUT TO BE THE ENTIRE ORCHARD.
A man who works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been arrested and charged with molesting multiple children, according to local news reports from Salt Lake City, Utah.
Robert Alexander Smith, 65, faces four 1st-degree felony counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, four class-A misdemeanor counts of lewdness involving a child, and two class-B misdemeanor counts of lewdness.
Smith was arrested after a young girl, believed to be six or seven at the time, told her mother that he forced her to inappropriately touch him underneath his clothes in 2020.
Smith, a resident of Utah, allegedly had inappropriate interactions with at least four other girls ranging in age from pre-teen to high-school.
FBI “Supervisory Intelligence Analyst” Arrested for Child Sex Abuse
Robert Alexander Smith, 65, Stansbury Park, Utah
Investigation did interviews with 5 minor girls who said they were victimshttps://t.co/DIACmO90Xq
He allegedly forced one of the girls to touch him in the same way as the other victim, and the three other girls said Smith had touched them inappropriately under their clothing.
The alleged abuse took place at Smith’s home in Stansbury Park at the time, though he now resides in Tooele.
Court documents emphasized that Smith “occupied a position of special trust as it pertains to the victims in this case.”
Smith was arrested on August 24th and charged in court the following day. He was ordered to be held without bail.
Responding to the arrest, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offered the following statement and referred the matter to its Internal Affairs department:
“We are aware of the arrest of an FBI employee. The FBI takes allegations of misconduct very seriously. As such, the incident has been referred to the FBI’s Internal Affairs Section. We cannot comment further on an ongoing personnel matter.”
Smith’s case follows the arrest and indictment of several high-profile politicians for grooming and molesting children. The Biden White House has also appointed individuals with a history of defending underage sex work to high-level positions within agencies including the Department of Energy.
President Joe Biden himself has unanswered questions about his conduct with minors, underscored by his own Justice Department effectively confirming the authenticity of a diary written by his daughter Ashley, where she claims Biden made her shower with him when she was a child.
The news also comes in the same week that FBI Special Agent Timothy Thibault was escorted out of the Washington, D.C. field office after allegedly using his privileged position to cover up the investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop, effectively helping to swing the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s favor.
A federal judge considering whether to appoint a special master to look at former President Donald Trump’s seized records has been provided a list of four academics specializing in executive privilege, including one who has been loudly against Trump for years.
A group called the National Security Counselors on Aug. 29 told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee weighing whether to appoint the special master to sift through records seized by FBI agents, that it identified four “uniquely qualified experts” who could serve as the special master if Cannon decides one is needed.
The accumulation of expertise on the matter of executive privilege “uniquely qualifies any of these individuals to ably serve you as a Special Master, should you choose to appoint one,” Kel McClanahan, executive director of the group, said in a letter to Cannon.
One of the individuals, Northwestern University law professor Heidi Kitrosser, has been vocally anti-Trump for years, a review of her social media posts shows.
Just this month, Kitrosser called Trump “an existential threat to democracy.”
She has also described him as “shameless,” “spineless,” a narcissist, having a “dangerous obsession with image control,” “cowardly,” and having a bigoted immigration policy.
Kitrosser has also promoted the theory that Russian President Vladimir Putin controls Trump, sharing a blog post in 2018 titled “Keep in Mind that Putin Manages Trump With Carrots and Sticks,” which she called “pretty chilling” and “important.”
In other posts, Kitrosser expressed support for anti-Trump Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and government officials fired or criticized for violating government policy and/or laws, such as former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr.
Kitrosser did not respond to a request for comment nor did Andrew Knopf, an attorney who entered the list with the court.
McClanahan has also frequently denigrated Trump online, a review of the National Security Counselors, which he is identified as running, shows.
McClanahan, for instance, said on Aug. 29, “I don’t want to jinx it, but seriously, only Donald Trump could singlehandedly snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in a midterm election year just by being his arrogant, narcissistic, delusional self.”
Other Three
The other three picks floated to Cannon are Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, Mitchel Sollenberger, professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Jonathan Shaub, an assistant professor of law at the University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law.
Shaub recently said that Trump’s claims of executive privilege over records held at Mar-a-Lago “just misconstrues what executive privilege is,” telling Reuters: “The person who gets to decide whether executive privilege is asserted is the president, so the special master would be [President Joe] Biden.”
The U.S. archivist previously rejected Trump’s executive privilege claims, after Biden deferred to her, according to a recently released letter.
Shaub said he has never been a special master but has expertise on executive privilege, working on the matter when he worked at the Office of Legal Counsel and believes that’s why his name was put forward.
“The other scholars mentioned in the filing are some of the most knowledgeable people in the country about executive privilege, and I felt honored to be included among them,” he told The Epoch Times in an email.
Rozell and Sollenberger did not respond to requests for comment.
The pair frequently write op-eds together. In one from March, they praised Biden’s decision not to back Trump’s executive privilege claims over documents sought by the House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach.
“President Biden, in so refusing to act to stonewall Congress, did well to uphold the value of transparency in our constitutional democracy. But he also acted as president to refuse a privilege assertion by his predecessor. This is exactly what the Constitution intended, as only one person is given the duties and power of president,” they wrote at the time. “No one else, especially a private citizen—even a former president—can also exercise presidential power. Despite arguments to the contrary, there are no laws or executive orders which can change that fundamental proposition.”
From grandmothers to college students, cartels recruit US citizens to break the law and become human smugglers
This is the second article in a series on illegal drug and human smuggling along Arizona’s border with Mexico.
CASA GRANDE, Ariz.—Mexican drug cartel money drives international human smuggling operations in the United States, according to the owner of a private investigation company in Arizona that deals with border security issues.
Without it, the industry wouldn’t exist, he says.
Sam (using a pseudonym, because of concern for his personal safety) told The Epoch Times that human smuggling along Arizona’s 372-mile border with Mexico couldn’t happen without a defective federal border policy, and added that American greed makes drug and human smuggling possible.
He’s seen cartel money lure U.S. grandmothers out of retirement, college students looking to make a fast dollar, social justice warriors, and “humanitarians” driven by conscience and politics—average citizens to outward appearances.
Many are everyday people you would never suspect of aiding and abetting the cartels in a lucrative business as inhumane as human smuggling. Still, these people have the best chance of sliding under the U.S. Border Patrol’s radar.
The doors to a section of border wall fence near Bisbee, Ariz., are left wide open on Aug. 25, ostensibly to prevent flooding, but allowing easy entry for illegal aliens coming up from Mexico. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
“The cartels would not be getting top dollar—$2,500 for each migrant entering the country illegally,” he said. “U.S. citizens would not risk going to jail if the money wasn’t there.
“The [cartels] control it. You don’t cross the border without paying the money. And if you can’t pay the money, you either are put to work carrying a load [of drugs],” or forced into sex trafficking or some other activity.
Alien smuggling in Arizona is a federal crime that carries a maximum of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.
In cases when death occurs, the maximum penalty is death.
In July, Benjamin Gallegos, 24, of Tucson received a two-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy for supervising illegal aliens arriving from Mexico, Central America, and South America.
On Nov. 18, 2021, Amelia Gonzalez-Lira, 43, of Phoenix, pleaded guilty in federal court to her involvement as coordinator of a human smuggling operation in Avondale, Arizona.
Court records stated Gonzalez-Lira conspired to transport and harbor more than 100 illegal aliens for profit, following a U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigation.
Co-conspirator Sergio Vazquez-Flores, 46, of Goodyear, Arizona, pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Nov. 5, 2021, after authorities charged him with operating a stash house in Avondale on behalf of Gonzalez-Lira.
“To anyone who’s anti-border and anti-wall, why is it only we are the bad guys?” Sam said on a recent Arizona border wall visit.
“What other nation has open borders as we do? If I cross the border into Mexico, I will get arrested and go to a Mexican prison. And they’re going to keep me there. And the [U.S.] State Department will have to argue to get me back and free me.
Water bottles left by humanitarians are common sights at breaches and open border gates along Arizona’s border wall near Douglas on Aug. 25, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
In the southern border town of Arivaca, Arizona, about 60 miles south of Casa Grande as the crow flies, citizens are known to conduct humanitarian operations, dispersing food and water to illegal aliens crossing into the United States through the Coronado National Forest and other points of entry.
Whether they know it or not, Sam said humanitarians assist the cartels and their human smugglers known as “coyotes” through the aid they provide.
“Usually, a lot of foot traffic is coming up to this point. Casa Grande is a hub for human and drug trafficking and disperses from here. It connects the I-8 and I-10. Those are two major highways to move product and people, and they have the Indian reservation here,” Sam says.
Some Arivaca residents seemed ambivalent as Sam and security specialist Kyle made a brief stop on their way to the border wall fence east of the town in a white Chevy Silverado equipped with thermal imaging equipment.
An unaccompanied child waits to be picked up by U.S. Border Patrol near a section of border wall fence in Arizona in March 2022. (Courtesy photo)
Outside the downtown general store, Kyle checked the electronic gear stored in the back of the truck.
Just then, a man in a white pickup rolled alongside, frowning.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Kyle eyed the man cautiously.
“Surveying,” he said.
“Well, there’s nothing to survey here,” the man said, then drove off.
Further up the street, the La Gitana restaurant warned citizen border monitors to stay away.
“Unwanted. Members of any vigilante or border militia group including, but not limited to, AZ Border Recon. Do not enter our establishment. We have the right to refuse service to any person or persons we deem undesirable.”
Sam and Kyle dislike the term “vigilante.” Instead, they consider themselves patriotic citizens helping law enforcement to secure the border.
Kyle said they aren’t militia members, despite their thick beards and rugged appearance.
Sam said the company’s border work is “pro bono” to a large extent. He supports sane immigration laws—not only for the sake of U.S. citizens but also for the illegal aliens who face extreme hardship and even death in the desert. But he knows law enforcement is spread thin and can’t do it all alone.
Many illegal aliens arrive at the border fence as unaccompanied children—toddlers barely out of their diapers.
“You get a car [load] of six people—that’s over $10,000,” Sam said. “The people coming through this area don’t want to be caught. They’re the criminals; they’re the bad element.
“In Yuma, [Arizona,] they come across in big parties. They’ll come across the fence and sit down and wait for the Border Patrol to come.
“It’s usually family units,” he adds. “It’s the same in Sasabe [Arizona] and Arivaca. They have large groups of children, but they just come across the fence, sit down, and wait for Border Patrol to come and get them.”
Sam said many illegal aliens are children in groups of 30 or more, with only one adult to guide them across the border.
A child left alone at the border fence in Arizona in March 2022. (Courtesy photo)
Once they cross over, they are less likely to be deported immediately.
Sam said high-speed chases with coyotes and their U.S. counterparts with police and Border Patrol are familiar sights near the border towns of Douglas and Nogales. However, most smuggling activity occurs along the border.
On the border wall fence opposite the town of Douglas sits the quaint Mexican city of Agua Prieta, Sonora. Here, cartel activity—murder and brutality—are daily events.
“[The cartels] recruit people from up north— younger people,” enticing Americans with money to transport illegal aliens once they cross into the United States, Sam said.
“The younger people take their parents’ cars and make their way” to Arizona from California.
He says illegal border crossings in Arizona are “just as bad—or worse—in some cases, depending on where you are,” as in Texas.
“Del Rio is the busiest sector in Texas, but Yuma is catching up and surpassing them,” he said.
A vehicle shot full of bullet holes lies just beyond the border wall fence east of Arivaca, Ariz., on Aug. 25, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
From October 2021 to June 2022, the Border Patrol encountered more than 2 million illegal aliens at the U.S. southern border, apprehending 207,000 migrants in June alone. Illegal migrant deaths also hit a record 609 this year compared to 566 deaths in 2021.
Sam and Kyle said they’ve come across the bodies of migrants who died of heat exposure in desolate areas of Casa Grande.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), human smuggling is an international business worth billions of dollars. It involves people seeking covert entry into the United States who “know they need to pay an organization for transport.”
Discarded camouflage backpacks lie in a pile near a section of border fencing in Arizona recently. (Courtesy photo)
The smugglers escort the illegal aliens across the border through the desert, then through stash houses to their final destinations in the United States.
“A portion of the smuggling fees paid to the transnational criminal organizations helps fuel their criminal enterprises,” ICE stated.
Sam said money is the main incentive the cartels use to recruit everyday U.S. citizens as de facto human smugglers.
“They use social media—Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger—they use all these social media platforms to recruit people,” he said. “They operate in all states. All states in this country have representatives of the Sinaloa cartel.
“You think of the U.S. military having global reach, so does the Sinaloa cartel.”
