National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd blasted the Biden administration’s response to the border crisis during a Friday interview, as 85,000 migrants reportedly approach the nation’s southern border.
Panama has warned that up to 85,000 migrants are traveling to the border of the U.S. Responding to Vice President Kamala Harris and her role to address the root causes of migration, Judd offered strong words against her lack of leadership.
“She’s pandering to her open border base,” Judd said during the “Fox & Friends First” interview on Friday, regarding Harris. “That’s what this administration does.”
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd slams the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis, as 85,000 migrants approach the U.S.https://t.co/QmoTKIxIFc
Judd added that the response has more to do with Democratic supporters than border security and enforcing immigration laws.
“They look at what does their base want and they go out and they give it to them. When we look at 65,000 people coming up to our borders — and this is just one group. It’s not like these are the only people coming up to the borders.”
Judd also addressed the recent Del Rio, Texas, migrant movement that saw up to 15,000 people living under a bridge along the southern border in September.
“This administration wasn’t prepared. They knew they were coming. They weren’t prepared. Now you have 65,000 in the month of October. Next month, we’re probably going to have 150,000.Should Biden close the southern border?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“This administration doesn’t really care about enforcement at the border. And as this group is coming up, they just made this announcement, that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] now can’t deport people just because they’re here in the United States illegally.”
Judd believes the ICE judgment will be legally challenged and overturned but warns we should expect to continue to see large groups coming up to the southern border.
“Again, this administration — when you look at enforcement at the border — this administration is a complete dumpster fire. It really doesn’t care what’s coming across our borders.”
The Border Patrol leader also published an Op-Ed on Sept. 22 for Fox News that addressed the driving forces behind the large caravans headed toward the U.S.
“Catch-and-release is the single biggest driver of illegal immigration right now. If we reward people for crossing our borders illegally, they will continue to come,” Judd wrote.
“More than 40 years of evidence proves this. And the staggering catch-and-release figures this year show why more people than ever are crossing our borders illegally.”
During an interview on “Mornings with Maria” earlier this week, Judd also addressed the concern of COVID-19 among illegal immigrants.
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd: “We are absolutely not testing migrants nor are we giving vaccines to migrants.”
“And you presume to tell somehow, over a hundred million Americans who have survived COVID, that we have no right to determine our own medical care. You alone are on high high, and you’ve made these decisions, a lawyer with no scientific background, no medical degree.”
Sen. Rand Paul grilled Biden regime HHS secretary Xavier Becerra during a Congressional hearing this week, pointing out that the latter has been making sweeping and grandiose claims about unvaccinated people despite having no scientific background or medical degree.
“Are you familiar with an Israeli study that had 2.5 million patients and found that the vaccinated group was actually seven times more likely to get infected with COVID than the people who had gotten COVID naturally?” Paul asked.
Becerra responded, “Senator, I have to get back to you on that one, I’m not familiar with that study.”
“Well, you think you might wanna be if you’re gonna travel the country insulting the millions of Americans, including NBA star Jonathan Isaac, who have had COVID, recovered, look at a study with 2.5 million study and say ‘Well, you know what, it looks like my immunity is as good as the vaccine or not,’ and maybe in a free country you oughta be able to make that decision,” Paul replied. “Instead you’ve chosen to travel the country calling people like Jonathan Isaac and other, myself included, ‘flat earthers.’ We find that very insulting, it goes against the science. Are you a doctor or a medical doctor?”
Senator Rand Paul tears into HHS Sec. Xavier Becerra:
“Are you a doctor?…You ignore history & science to shame the ‘flat-earthers,’ as you call them. You should be ashamed of yourself & apologize to the American people for being dishonest about naturally acquired immunity.” pic.twitter.com/yDt3hX4DsS
A visibly nervous Becerra leaned in and said, “I’ve worked over thirty years on health policy.”
“You’re not a medical doctor, do you have a science degree?” Paul continued, unfazed, later noting “And you presume to tell somehow, over a hundred million Americans who have survived COVID,, that we have no right to determine our own medical care. You alone are on high high, and you’ve made these decisions, a lawyer with no scientific background, no medical degree. This is an arrogance coupled with an authoritarianism that is unseemly, and un-American. You ignore history & science to shame the ‘flat-earthers,’ as you call them. You sir, are the one ignoring the science.”
Paul noted, “You should be ashamed of yourself & apologize to the American people for being dishonest about naturally acquired immunity.”
Newsweek recently ran an article calling for the 27 year Navy vet to be banned
Jarome Bell, a 2022 candidate for U.S. House in Virginia’s 2nd district, was suspended from Twitter Thursday following the publication of a Newsweek article that called on the platform to censor him over a tweet advocating for those tried and found guilty of election fraud to face the death penalty. The suspension follows a similar incident just one month ago when Twitter locked Bell’s Twitter account after determining that he had violated the Taliban’s “right to privacy.”
“Audit all 50 states. Arrest all involved. Try all involved. Convict all involved. Execute all involved. #MaricopaCountyFraud,” Bell, posted to Twitter on September 24th, following the explosive release of findings in the Maricopa County election audit. Bell has been a staunch supporter of election integrity efforts and has called for election audits in all 50 states. His efforts towards election integrity have helped net him the endorsements of General Michael Flynn and Arizona audit champion, State Senator Wendy Rogers.
Quoting heavily from responses to the Tweet by anti-Trump ex-GOP Congressman Denver Riggleman, as well Fred Wellman of the disgraced Lincoln Project, Newsweek published an article three days after the tweet was posted titled “Twitter Won’t Remove Pro-Trump Candidate’s Call to ‘Execute’ Election Fraudsters.” The article highlighted left-wing outrage over Bell’s call to investigate and try those suspected of stealing a presidential election in the United States of America and claimed that the Arizona audit had “upheld President Joe Biden’s win.”
“The tweet prompted outrage, and many questioned why Twitter had not removed it under its policy prohibiting the glorification of violence,” Newsweek reported. “On Monday, a Twitter spokesperson told Newsweek: “The tweet you referenced is not in violation of the Twitter Rules.”
Now, two days following the publication of Newsweek’s article calling for Bell to be censored, Twitter has suspended the congressional candidate from the platform. Additionally, it appears that Bell’s massive collection of followers has been erased from his profile, as well as his former tweets, and his account no longer appears in Twitter search results.
In a statement to National File, Bell blasted China-tied big tech and their censorship policies, accusing them of election meddling and questioning why a black patriot would be kicked off the Twitter platform when open pedophiles, as well as Taliban terrorists, operate on the site with impunity.
“This is what happens when you are over the target and shooting missiles at bunkers and busting everyone,” Bell said. “The Taliban and pedophile accounts are still active but a black conservative trying to save Virginia and this country gets silenced by the big tech communists that are allowed to run wild in what we used to know as the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he continued. “China-controlled Twitter and Facebook have been given free rein to meddle in U.S. elections.
As previously reported by National File, just one month ago, Twitter locked Bell’s account after he posted a video exposing a barbaric Taliban execution because the big tech corporation determined he had violated the Taliban’s “recognized right to privacy.” Additionally, Bell’s Twitter account was suspended in 2020 when he was seeking the GOP nomination to Congress in Virginia’s 2nd District for the first time. His account was only brought back online after the nomination process, and he had to start from scratch with no followers as if it were a new account.
“These tyrants want to keep the internet under lock and key so as to prevent the rise of Donald Trump’s America First populism,” Bell said in a press release at the time his suit was filed. “And I’m here to stop it.”
The former U.S. director of national intelligence says that there was no concerning intelligence regarding China in the fall of 2020, rebutting congressional testimony by Gen. Mark Milley.
“There was no concerning intelligence that merited a call to his Chinese counterpart,” John Ratcliffe, who was the director from May 2020 to January, said on Fox News.
Milley spoke with a Chinese general, Li Zuocheng, in October 2020 and January. He told a Senate panel this week that the first call was triggered by “concerning intelligence which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried about an imminent attack by the U.S.”
Milley said he conveyed to his counterpart that the United States wasn’t going to attack China.
Milley, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the top military adviser to the president. When the calls were made, that was President Donald Trump. And Ratcliffe was at the time the top intelligence adviser to Trump.
Ratcliffe said neither he nor Milley nor other top advisers briefed Trump a single time about concerning intelligence regarding China.
He also said that Milley received intelligence from him.
“The idea that he’d have better or different intelligence, or have concerns about it that he wouldn’t share with me as the president’s principal intelligence adviser, is absurd,” he said.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the conclusion of military operations in Afghanistan and plans for future counterterrorism operations in Washington on Sept. 28, 2021. (Patrick Semansky/Pool/Getty Images)
The existence of the calls was revealed in three recent books. Milley acknowledged speaking to the authors, who are political reporters who have known animus against Trump.
“I think it is important for me to speak to the media,” Milley said.
But Ratcliffe said Milley knew when he was sitting down with the reporters that he was choosing sides.
“It’s frankly unforgivable,” he said, calling on Milley to resign.
Milley has also said he was directed to call the Chinese general by Mark Esper, who was defense secretary in late 2020, and Christopher Miller, who succeeded Esper.
Esper hasn’t commented, but Miller said earlier this month that he didn’t authorize the latter call.
If the reporting in one of the books is accurate, Miller said, “it represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the Nation’s top military officer.”
Huawei’s financial report for the first half of this year shows a sharp decline in its revenue. The company’s senior members have talked about their difficulties on different occasions, revealing that Washington’s sanctions and technology ban have significantly impacted the Chinese tech giant.
On Aug. 6, Huawei disclosed its H1 financial report. According to its press release, the company generated a revenue of $49.5 billion in the first half of 2021, with the biggest decline in its consumer business revenue, which includes handsets—it fell from $39.5 billion in the first half of last year to $20.9 billion in the first half of this year.
Huawei’s rotating chairman Eric Xu said that the company wanted “to survive and do so sustainably,” which implies that Huawei was hard hit by Washington’s sanctions.
Huawei’s revenue growth trend was curbed by the sanctions imposed by the United States in May 2019. Huawei recorded 19 percent increase in revenue in 2019, and only 3.8 percent in 2020.
“As the U.S. has imposed four rounds of sanctions over the past two years, our 5G smartphones are affected, and we have to go with 4G; and our 5G microchips are used like 4G,” said Richard Yu, Huawei’s consumer business CEO, at the launch event of the company’s latest flagship model P50 in July.
Yu’s words reveal that Huawei’s core consumer business has been losing ground due to Washington’s sanctions and export bans on Huawei.
It’s been pointed out that P50-series suffer from lack of adequate peripheral 5G parts such as radio frequency filters.
“Huawei could no longer source bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters from Broadcom and thus had to sell the P50 as 4G phones,” reported Asia Times.
The report indicated that such filters convert electrical energy into acoustic or mechanical energy, and are widely used for many new 4G and 5G bands.
According to a Chinese report, filters in China use either SAW (surface acoustic wave) technology or BAW technology, and their production is dominated by U.S. and Japanese manufacturers.
Attendees walk past a display for 5G services from Chinese technology firm Huawei at the PT Expo in Beijing, China, on Oct. 31, 2019. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)
Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer of electronic components, had a 50 percent global market share of SAW filters in 2020, according to its annual report.
U.S. manufacturers of BAW filters, Broadcom Inc. and Qorvo, account for 87 percent and 8 percent of the global market of BAW filters, respectively.
China-made RFICs (radio-frequency integrated circuit) are used in 2G, 3G, and 4G frequency bands. Few domestic manufacturers of SAW and BAW filters are able to mass produce the products. Most Chinese filters are used in medium- and low-end products only. Chinese producers are not able to provide high-performance 5G RFICs needed by Huawei.
Washington’s restriction orders on chips have also impacted Huawei’s server vendor business, aside from its high-end handset business.
Rumors on the internet say that Huawei plans to sell its server business and that the local branch of China’s watchdog for state-owned enterprises in eastern Suzhou city will take over. If the news is true, Huawei will have to sell another premium asset. Last year, it sold its smartphone brand Honor to a consortium of more than 30 companies.
This time, Huawei is said to be selling its server business that uses Intel/AMD chips (based on X86 architecture). Huawei finds it difficult to have a stable supply of X86 chips due to the U.S. sanction.
According to Chinese media reports, X86 architecture is the absolute mainstream system adopted by China’s server CPU market. This system is highly reliable on Intel and AMD in terms of core components, and the X86 CPUs are purchased from Intel and AMD.
Once these companies are prohibited by the United States from selling their products to China, Chinese X86 server service providers could see their businesses shut down.
Huawei may not be able to escape Washington’s bans even if it sells its businesses to other companies, which the United States may include in the Entity List as well.
At a press conference on Sept. 13, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that China has set up over 1 million base stations, accounting for more than 70 percent of the global base stations. China has over 400 million 5G end users—the largest user group in the world. China’s shipment of 5G handsets reached 168 million, a year-on-year growth of 80 percent.
However, Huawei’s P50 handsets show that, even with 5G chips, they do not necessarily have the function of 5G. Moreover, as long as the U.S. bans the export of filter technology used in 5G RFICs, smart electronic products of various loT (Internet of Things) types will not be able to have 5G functions.
The survival of Huawei is not just an issue for the company and its supply chain alone. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) really wants the United States to relax the ban on Huawei because U.S. technology is crucial for China’s entire 5G industry. Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s warm homecoming shows that the CCP is hoping the United States will further lift the restrictions on the company.
The Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Sept. 29 that it intends to issue a new memo scrapping the “Remain in Mexico” immigration program implemented by former President Donald Trump despite a Supreme Court ruling that the program was to be reinstated.
Also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), the “Remain in Mexico” program centers around making some immigrants who seek asylum wait in Mexico while their claims are heard in the United States.
The program was launched in January 2019 under the Trump administration and was widely credited by proponents for the decline in illegal border crossings.
Mark Morgan, who was acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection at the time, told The Epoch Times that the MPP was ”the most significant game-changer” and largely responsible for a 75 percent drop in such crossings.
However opponents, including Democrat leaders, have argued that the immigration system needs to be completely overhauled, and have slammed the MMP as “inhumane” and “dangerous” to illegal aliens who are at greater danger of exploitation by cartels and criminal organisations in Mexico.
MMP was swiftly suspended by President Joe Biden on his first day in office in January, along with several other Trump-era immigration policies.
Although DHS issued a memo ending the program in June, a Texas-based federal judge ruled that the MPP must be restarted and placed an injunction that required the department to work in “good faith to re-start MPP.” DHS appealed that injunction but was blocked by the Supreme Court in August.
“The Department of Homeland Security intends to issue in the coming weeks a new memorandum terminating the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP),” the DHS announcement reads.
“A new memorandum terminating MPP will not take effect until the current injunction is lifted by court order. In issuing a new memorandum terminating MPP, the Department intends to address the concerns raised by the courts with respect to the prior memorandum.”
Republicans decried the move. GOP members of the House Homeland Security Committee said it was “negligent and irresponsible,” adding: “Like much of the rhetoric coming out of the administration, this action flies in the face of our homeland security and foundation of laws.”
Illegal immigrants, many from Haiti, wait in lines to board buses under the Del Rio International Bridge, in Del Rio, Texas on Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)Illegal immigrants take supplies back and forth between Acuna, Mexico, and the United States (far side) across the Rio Grande, the international boundary with Mexico, in Acuna, Mexico, on Sept. 20, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
DHS said that in the meantime, it will continue working in good faith to re-start MMP in compliance with the Texas judge’s order and is engaged in ongoing diplomatic talks with Mexico.
But according to court documents filed this week, Mexico has so far been resisting the rebooting of the program and Biden is yet to send a single illegal immigrant back to the country.
“Discussions with Mexico are ongoing and are proceeding in good faith, but, as of yet, Mexico has not yet agreed to accept returns under the Court-ordered restart of MPP,” Brian Ward, a lawyer at the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote in one filing.
“Simultaneously, the Department has instituted an interagency Task Force to efficiently rebuild the infrastructure and reapportioning the staffing that will be needed to restart MPP once that concurrence has been obtained. Among many other steps, the Task Force is updating policies and procedures to account for COVID-19 and preparing to put in place contracts to rebuild the soft-sided Immigration Hearing Facilities used for court proceedings associated with MPP,” DHS added.
The department noted its commitment to building a “safe, orderly, and humane immigration system that upholds our laws and values,” stating that it will continue to process immigrants in accordance with U.S. law.
The memo comes at a time when border patrol agents are buckling under the weight of increasing illegal immigrant crossings that show no sign of slowing down. Agents made over 200,000 arrests at the southern border alone in August, one of the highest months on record.
The Biden administration has spent been soft on communist China from the very beginning.
Such examples include rescinding Trump-era executive orders that result in economic benefits to the Chinese regime, appointing pro-Beijing apparatchiks who advocate resetting relations with China, and allowing a de facto “hostage swap” for a Huawei executive awaiting extradition to the United States for financial crimes, including fraud.
Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou entered into a plea deal (a “deferred prosecution agreement”) with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sept. 24. According to the statement released from the DOJ Office of Public Affairs, Meng “has taken responsibility for her principal role in perpetrating a scheme to defraud a global financial institution.” In admitting her crimes, including knowingly making false statements about Huawei’s operations in Iran (which is under U.S. trade sanctions), she agreed “not to commit other federal, state or local crimes.” If she subsequently commits any of these acts, she would be subject to apprehension and prosecution for the deferred crimes listed in the agreement.
And by the way, the U.S. extradition request to Canada that was initiated by the Trump administration was rescinded, allowing Meng to return in triumph to China in exchange for two Canadians being held there, pending trials on trumped up charges. The DOJ sees no harm and no foul.
Meanwhile, Chinese state-run media, which have been propagandizing for Meng’s release since she was arrested in Canada in December 2018, are crowing about her release and their “vindication” for several days now. On Sept. 26, the Global Times posted an article that featured a picture of Meng “wav[ing] to a cheering crowd as she step[ped] out of a charter plane at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, on Saturday.”
This giving into Beijing’s “hostage diplomacy” is just the latest in an ongoing series of the Biden administration’s giveaways to the Chinese Communists (ChiComs) that began virtually from the first day of Joe Biden’s presidency.
The precedent for future hostage exchanges with the ChiComs has now been set: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can secure future releases of Chinese citizens by arresting a few unwitting foreigners in mainland China and using them for trade bait for Chinese spies and others facing prosecution for real crimes committed in the United States.
A Chinese security guard gestures outside the U.S. embassy in Beijing on Sept. 12, 2020. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration has been seemingly hard at work in granting concessions to China, starting with various executive orders as well as the appointment of China-friendly apparatchiks, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, to positions from which future giveaways to China can be orchestrated.
The following items are just a few of the Biden administration’s gifts to China since January.
Cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline. On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order that canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have carried millions of gallons of Canadian oil to refineries in the United States. New regulations in that executive order were also designed to curtail domestic oil and gas production, and since then, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has increased dramatically, as shown in the chart below.
Canceling the pipeline was a direct economic gift to China because higher energy prices make heavily-subsidized green tech more economically viable, leading to increased demand for Chinese-built electric vehicle batteries and solar panels. Washington’s rejoining the Paris Agreement is also of a piece with increasing China’s future sales of green tech to the United States.
Facilitating ChiCom Involvement in the U.S. Power Grid. Buried in that same executive order that canceled the XL pipeline permit was a provision that rescinded President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13920 of May 1, 2020 (Securing the United States Bulk-Power System). The purpose of EO 13920 was to “ban, replace, and set new criteria on bulk-power system (BPS) electric equipment coming from a foreign country or national that poses a national security threat.” Envision a future in which Beijing can turn off—or at least disrupt—America’s lights in order to obtain geopolitical or economic advantage!
The “Xenophobia” Memorandum. On Jan. 26, Biden signed a memorandum ostensibly aimed at “combatting racism” titled, “Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.” A key provision was the direction to federal agencies aimed at “mitigating racially discriminatory language in describing the COVID-19 pandemic.” That meant terminating any U.S. government labeling of SARS-CoV-2 as the “China virus”—a major propaganda coup for the CCP, which has been trying to deflect from the known origins of the virus in China since early 2020.
Arms Sales Frozen to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. On Jan. 27, the Biden administration imposed a “temporary” freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. As discussed in a previous Epoch Times analysis here, a long-term CCP goal is to oust the United States from the Middle East, and freezing arms sales to U.S. allies in the region plays right into the ChiComs’ strategy.
Support for the ‘One-China’ Policy. Despite Beijing’s forced absorption of Hong Kong and the increasing intimidation of Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and Air Force, the Biden administration publicly announced continued support for the “one-China” policy. What would Biden do if the Chinese military invaded Taiwan?
Appointment of a Pro-China Ambassador to the United Nations. Biden appointed Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.N. ambassador. She is on record for praising the CCP’s global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”), which uses debt trap diplomacy to capture control of foreign ports and other transportation infrastructure. She was actually paid by the CCP to give that speech at a Confucius Institute event in 2019. Hers words will doubtless be “harsh” when warranted, but real actions aimed at confronting communist China at the U.N. will be few and far between.
Revocation of a Ban on CCP Propaganda in U.S. Universities. As reported here, the Trump-era policy was implemented to “compel primary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions to disclose all contracts and transactions with the Confucius Institute,” with noncompliant schools losing their certification for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. Biden rescinded that policy on Jan. 26, which reopens the door for continued subversion of American colleges and universities through China’s Confucius Institutes.
Holds on WeChat and TikTok Cases. In February, the DOJ placed holds on two important cases involving Chinese tech companies TikTok and WeChat. The Trump administration had banned the apps for security reasons, including surreptitious collection of user data and “malicious intentions” by Chinese actors/bots. In June, the U.S. Department of Commerce formally rescinded a list of transactions previously prohibited with TikTok and WeChat, opening the door for CCP subversion of Americans using those apps.
A reflection of the U.S. flag is seen on the signs of the WeChat and TikTok apps on Sept. 19, 2020. (Florence Lo/Reuters)
Labeling CCP Genocide a “Cultural Norm.”In late February, Biden publicly called the failure of Xi Jinping to speak on the genocide of Uyghur Muslims part of a “different norm.” He said, “What [Xi] is doing with the Uyghurs in the western mountains of China, Taiwan and one-China policy by making it forceful, and he gets it. Culturally there are different norms in each country and their leaders are expected to follow.” One logical interpretation is that Biden provided diplomatic cover for continued CCP aggression in East Turkestan, Tibet, Southern Mongolia, Hong Kong, and even Taiwan in the future!
CCP Sympathizer Overseeing the Review of Trump-era China Policies. Melanie Hart, Biden’s China Policy Coordinator to the Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, is leading a team that is reviewing Trump’s “Clean Network” Initiative, which encouraged countries to block Huawei from 5G networks. Except that Hart took a trip to China, which was sponsored by the suspected CCP-front China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), and contributed to a report by the Center for American Progress that “urged closer financial ties and military collaboration” between both countries. So much for being “tough on China.”
The Debacle in Anchorage. On March 18 and 19, China’s Politburo member Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a verbal beatdown to national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. As expertly summarized by Sinoinsider here, the Chinese side’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy aimed at promoting the rise of Red China across a number of topics discussed, coupled with the decline of the United States and the West in general. And this was on the world stage for all U.S. allies to observe.
Canceling the Sea-Launched Nuclear Cruise Missile. In June, the Biden administration canceled the U.S. Navy’s sea-launched nuclear cruise missile program. This was done despite the rising threat from PLAN ship-launched cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons. The move nips in the bud U.S. efforts to address the Chinese regime’s nuclear and conventional missile superiority in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait.
Dropping Prosecutions of Chinese Nationals Accused of Espionage. In July, the DOJ dropped cases brought by the Trump administration “against five visiting researchers accused of hiding their ties to China’s military, prompting questions about the department’s efforts to combat Chinese national security threats,” according to The New York Times.
Not Backing Restitution for “COVID Damages” From China. In early August, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated that Biden would not back the Trump administration’s demand for “COVID reparations” from China. The greatest fear of the ChiComs is that world consensus would develop that Beijing be required to pay restitution for economic and personal damages wrought by COVID-19. It seems the current administration let China off the hook in one fell swoop.
The Gift of Afghanistan’s Lithium. This is the greatest gift that the Biden administration has given Xi Jinping so far. The ongoing U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan has left the Taliban in charge of the country. The ChiComs are already planning to exploit Afghanistan’s estimated $1 to $3 trillion in lithium reserves for Chinese production of batteries and other products. This is a perfect economic coup for the ChiComs as the Biden administration pushes green technologies, especially electric vehicles and EV batteries. The debacle was also a major strategic geopolitical defeat for America, demoralizing U.S. allies in the region by the abandonment of Afghan allies.
Conclusion
On issues large and small, the Biden administration is gift-wrapping policies that favor Beijing. There are many other examples in addition to the above list. The giveaways will continue, as the administration has some political appointees who have been corrupted in the past by ChiCom bribery, academic sinecures, and various awards, and who are ready, willing, and able to provide Beijing with a handsome return on their investments.
Remember that shameful walk down the hallway to the principal’s office? Chances are that the next generation of misbehaving students will not meet the same fate.
A recent TikTok trend has unleashed a wave of school vandalism, with multiple states reporting students stealing their teachers’ belongings, intentionally clogging toilets and spraying red graffiti on mirrors.
The so-called “#deviouslick” challenge has since been banned by the popular social media platform. The trend sheds light on a deeper issue facing schools: the plummeting standards for student behavior and the rise of legislation banning disciplinary actions.
Instead of relying on the media to censor such trends and “parent” children, teachers must be able to set boundaries for students. Recent legislation has made that impossible.
Allowing kids to bend the rules in the classroom without consequences sets a precedent that enables young people to commit more serious offenses, such as those seen on TikTok.
The destructive behavior exhibited in these Tik Tok videos are only a tiny fragment of a nationwide issue. Bad behavior is on the rise, and teachers no longer have the ability to address it.
According to a study by EAB Global, a school management consulting agency, there has been an alarming increase in behavioral disruptions in early grades over the last three years.
The report found that “The vast majority of educators responding to the survey identified an alarming increase in behavioral disruptions in early grades over the last three years. This perception holds steady across various school and district roles. More than a third of all respondents note that behavioral disruptions have increased ‘significantly’ during this time period.”
When asked how supported teachers felt by their school in managing such behaviors, teachers gave an average rating of 5.5/10.
With a rise in rowdiness, one might assume that teachers have been sending more children to detention, or in some cases suspension. Yet it is just the opposite. Liberal politicians have set rolling back school rules high on their agendas.
Beginning last July, California teachers were banned from suspending elementary and middle school students from school for disrupting classroom activities or defying school authorities.
The law was signed by the infamous Gov. Gavin Newsom. In 2015 in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio prohibited immediate suspensions for unlawful possession of marijuana, minor physical altercations, profanity and insubordination. Instead, students are now being handed warning cards.
Proponents of these laws argued that students should not miss out on time spent learning for minor rule-breaking and that minority students face a disproportionately higher number of detentions and suspensions.
They’re absolutely right. Under no circumstances should a student be taken out of the classroom for chewing gum — or, of course, for having a different color of skin.
The problem, however, surpasses liberal identity politics. Teachers must have the ability to remove students who are actively disrupting the learning process and breaking rules. What if a student brings drugs onto school property? Threatens to hurt another student? Are those not grounds enough for detention?
If a teacher constantly has to deal with one misbehaving student, then they are unable to give their full attention to a class of students who are ready to learn.
In terms of education, America should and could be doing better. The nation rests upon the success of our students to lead the way in innovation and generate a strong economy.
Research in the Asia Pacific Business Review shows that countries that implement classroom discipline report higher levels of academic performance and better work ethics among students.
Multiple other studies reveal that the U.S is falling behind East Asian countries in terms of educational outcomes. In 2015, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Those rankings should be a wake-up call.
Students need expectations. They need boundaries. Not just for the safety of the school and the maintenance of a learning-conducive classroom environment for others, but also for their own success.
Learning institutions were once venerated by all who walked through their doors. They were the place to develop skills and exchange ideas. In many countries, the opportunity to gain an education is seen as the most valuable opportunity a young person can have.
Yet in America, students are losing respect for their schools. In a nationwide survey of 21,678 U.S. high school students, Yale researchers found that nearly 75 percent of the students’ “self-reported feelings related to school” were negative. The nonprofit YouthTruth has reported that only 50 percent of students feel that what they’re learning in school is relevant to the real world.
The recent TikTok trend illustrates the breakdown of the modern American education system. Administrators are bowing down to politicians and teachers are bowing to administrators. If teachers are forced to relax the rules, the epidemic of student disengagement and disruption will only get worse.
It’s time to hold students responsible for their actions and make education matter again.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ encouraging response to a college student who claimed Israel commits “ethnic genocide” has made her a star — on an Iranian state media outlet, that is.
Press TV, a division of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, shared on Twitter a video of the exchange between Harris and a student at George Mason University.
“Student accuses US of funding ‘ethnic genocide’ by Israel in front of VP Harris,” Press TV tweeted on Thursday.
“Americans are struggling because of a lack of health care, public health care, lack of affordable housing and all this money ends up going to Israel..’ the student said at an event on VOTING RIGHTS!” it added, omitting a comment the student made that criticized funding to Saudi Arabia as well.
Student accuses US of funding “ethnic genocide” by Israel in front of VP Harris
“Americans are struggling because of a lack of health care, public health care, lack of affordable housing and all this money ends up going to Israel..” the student said at an event on VOTING RIGHTS! pic.twitter.com/n2lTSU4qp3
According to The Times of Israel, Harris showed up at the college Tuesday to promote voter registration, then stopped in a class to take questions when one student, irked at the House passage of a bill to give Israel $1 billion for its Iron Dome missile defense system, let loose.
“Just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and the displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this,” the student said.
Harris nodded through the student’s comments, even as the student mentioned “ethnic genocide.”
Her lack of defense for Israel drew criticism from former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, along with several high-profile Republicans.
Shameful. There is truth and their are lies. No one is entitled to their personal truth. This attack on Israel is simply a lie and VPOTUS should have called that out.https://t.co/leLOO5C6Cs#FoxNews
Kamala Harris doesn’t have time to go the border, but she apparently has plenty of time to encourage anti-Israel, anti-Semitic falsehoods https://t.co/wY4T6rjdGX
The irrational and anti-Semitic Israel hate is despicable and dangerous. @Israel allows Arabs in its legislature. How many Jews are allowed to help govern UAE, Syria, Iran, Saudi, Qatar, et al? NONE! Kamala Harris agrees as Student Bashes Israel https://t.co/fpcWrZD60L
Harris, however, said she was “glad” the student said what she did.
“And again, this is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things that we’re fighting for in a democracy, right?” Harris said.Did Kamala Harris betray Israel in this exchange?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Harris then offered a vague justification for her failure to stand up for Israel.
“Unity should never be at the expense of telling anyone personally that, for the sake of unity, ‘Oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let’s not deal with that thing.’ That’s not unity. True unity is everyone in that room has a voice,” she added, according to the Daily Caller.
She also said that the student’s opinion was simply part of a national debate.
“The point that you are making about policy that relates to the Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that,” she said.
Donation could run afoul of federal law that prohibits taking money from foreign nationals
Virginia Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial campaign in July raked in $350,000 from a mysterious, New Jersey-based telecom company owned by a Sri Lankan-British national, a donation that could run afoul of federal laws that prohibit candidates from taking money from foreign nationals.
LycaTel, a discount calling card provider, boasts a complicated web of offshore businesses and has been the subject of tax-fraud and money-laundering allegations overseas. The company is owned by Sri Lankan-born British national Allirajah Subaskaran, who holds 99 percent of the company’s shares through his London-based company, WWW Holding Company Ltd., according to U.K. corporate records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. In a Federal Communications Commission filing in August, Subaskaran describes himself as “a natural person and Citizen of the United Kingdom” and lists his U.S. business office as the same address and phone number as LycaTel.
The company does not appear to have contributed to previous Virginia campaigns or federal races. LycaTel in July retained D.C.-based Thompson International Group to lobby on “Telecom” issues, according to disclosure records. Before that, the Thompson International Group had registered as a foreign agent that represented Subaskaran as part of a “business expansion within the U.S.A.,” according to records filed with the Department of Justice.
LycaTel’s contribution is one of the largest received by McAuliffe’s gubernatorial campaign this election cycle. Ethics experts say the donation raises foreign-influence red flags. It’s also reigniting questions about McAuliffe’s previous foreign-donor controversies. The FBI in 2016 reportedly opened an investigation into a $120,000 donation McAuliffe received from a company owned by Wang Wenliang, a Chinese citizen and U.S. green card holder who served as a delegate to China’s parliament.
LycaTel did not respond to emailed questions. When reached by phone on Thursday, LycaTel’s general counsel said the company had no comment and was “waiting to hear back from management as to what they want to disclose and what they don’t.” A lawyer for Subaskaran did not respond to a request for comment. McAuliffe’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal law prohibits campaigns from accepting money from foreign nationals and entities, directly or indirectly, in local, state, and federal elections. While U.S.-based subsidiaries of foreign corporations can contribute, the donation can’t be made under the direction of the company’s foreign leadership—which legal experts said can be a murky legal distinction.
“This is effectively a really easy way to launder foreign money into the U.S. political process and to avoid the FEC prohibition on foreign nationals making contributions in U.S. elections,” said Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy.
Freeman said the McAuliffe campaign’s decision to accept such a large donation from a foreign-linked source was also troubling from an ethics perspective.
“Three-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars to Terry McAuliffe, that’s a huge sum of money, even by campaign finance standards,” said Freeman. “If I was a part of that campaign, or if I was any way connected to that, I’m not going to accept that money because I don’t want even the semblance that we have foreign influence on my campaign. If I was them, I’d give the money back.”
Tom Anderson, the director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, said his organization was concerned about the size and source of the donation.
“McAuliffe probably has one of the most prolific dark money machines in politics but brazenly soliciting and accepting $350,000 from a foreign source is crossing a very bright red line in our opinion,” said Anderson.
Subaskaran, through his WWW Holding Company and other entities, owns a globe-spanning web of companies in the technology, media, and gaming sectors, many of them with the word “Lyca” in the names. The Lyca network is so complicated that its accounting firm, KPMG, acknowledged in a corporate filing that it was unable to account for $134 million on the balance sheet due to the “complex nature of the related party structure the company operates within,” according to the Guardian.
The Lyca group has also come under scrutiny for its financial activities overseas. LycaMobile is one of the largest donors to the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party but has clashed with British authorities over allegations of unpaid taxes. French authorities in 2016 raided LycaMobile’s Paris headquarters and arrested “19 people suspected of being involved in a money-laundering system implicating Lycamobile and Lycamobile Services,” according to a statement from French prosecutors.
LycaMobile couriers in 2015 were photographed transporting tote bags of cash—reportedly as much as $1 million per week—to various post offices around the United Kingdom, according to a series of articles by BuzzFeed. LycaMobile denied any wrongdoing related to the deposits and noted that it operates a cash-heavy business.
LycaTel’s operations in the United States have come under scrutiny as well. The Federal Communications Commission in 2011 fined the company $5 million for “deceptively marketing prepaid calling cards” to largely immigrant buyers. The company reportedly claimed the low-cost cards could be used to make “hundreds of minutes of calls” overseas, but buyers were only able to use “a fraction of those minutes for calls, because LycaTel applies a variety of fees and surcharges that quickly deplete the card,” said the FCC.
Biden national security adviser pushed collusion claims after they were debunked
An attorney for the Clinton campaign exchanged emails with Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan regarding a discredited theory of Trump-Russia collusion at the center of an ongoing special counsel investigation, the New York Times reports.
Attorney Marc Elias exchanged emails with Sullivan and other Clinton campaign officials on Sept. 15, 2016, regarding a purported link between the computer servers of Donald Trump’s real estate company and the Russian oligarch-owned Alfa Bank, the Timesreported. Elias and Michael Sussmann, partners at the firm Perkins Coie, shared the data with the FBI and journalists as part of an effort to publicize allegations that the Trump campaign was working with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Sullivan’s knowledge of the lawyers’ activities raises questions about what else he knew of the effort to push the now-debunked collusion theory. His involvement in peddling the theory is also opening him up to allegations that he pushed election disinformation.
Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI’s general counsel during a meeting on Sept. 19, 2016, regarding the purported Alfa-Trump link. Special Counsel John Durham accused Sussmann of lying when he allegedly claimed he was not sharing the data with the FBI on behalf of a client. In reality, he was representing the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and a tech executive who hoped to land a position in a future Clinton administration. The executive and a group of computer scientists claimed to have stumbled across computer records showing suspicious activity between Alfa and Trump’s company.
Alfa Bank has vehemently denied the allegations and claims that someone fabricated data linking the company to Trump.
The Sussmann indictment describes a series of interactions between Sussmann, Elias, journalists, and the computer researchers. Elias and the researchers have not been charged in the investigation. CNN reported on Thursday that Durham recently subpoenaed Perkins Coie. The National Security Council has not responded to questions about whether Sullivan has been contacted by Durham.
Sullivan publicly touted the Alfa-Trump allegation days before the 2016 election. He issued a statement on Oct. 31, 2016, citing a story in Slate that laid out the evidence for an Alfa-Trump link. Sullivan said the “secret hotline” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank “may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.” It was later revealed that Sussmann was a key source for the Slate article. It is unclear if Sullivan or others on the Clinton campaign helped with the story.
Though the FBI had determined by February 2017 that there was not a secret link between Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization, Sullivan repeatedly alleged a nefarious connection. In an interview on March 17, 2017, he told CNN that “very serious computer science experts” had uncovered “a secret hotline” between the Russian bank and Trump’s company.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a report (pdf) on Sept. 30 on the FBI’s applications to surveil U.S. citizens, finding “widespread” failure that “raises serious questions” and criticizing agents for not fixing flaws spotted in previous audits.
The inspector general (IG) reviewed about 7,000 applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants—the same used to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2016—and found that the agency had failed to follow key rules, the Woods Procedures, in the program. In December 2019 review, Horowitz discovered 17 significant errors and omissions in the FISA surveillance application targeting Page.
The most recent audit of the agency’s Woods Procedures—rules that the FBI follows to ensure that FISA applications are “scrupulously accurate”—found sweeping “non-compliance” that “raises serious questions about the adequacy and execution of the supervisory review process in place at the time of the applications we reviewed,” Horowitz said, stating that the FBI’s quality-control officials apparently missed these problems.
His office also identified 183 FISA applications that had a missing or incomplete Woods file, which is a document meant to ensure the accuracy of statements made to the secretive FISA court. The report also found hundreds of other cases where there were instances of noncompliance with the agency’s Woods procedures.
“A failure to adhere to the Woods Procedures … could easily lead to errors that do impact probable cause—and therefore potentially call into question the legal basis for the government’s use of highly intrusive FISA warrants,” Horowitz wrote.
Horowitz recommended that the FBI attempt to make “additional efforts to communicate and emphasize to its workforce the importance” of the bureau’s own standards when applying for FISA warrants.
In a statement released after Horowitz’s report, the FBI told media outlets on Sept. 30 that it appreciated the IG’s “determined focus on the FBI’s FISA process, especially given the significant changes and policy enhancements that we have worked to make in concert with, and in many instances, prior to the issuance of this most recent OIG Audit Report.”
The federal law enforcement bureau will accept Horowitz’s recommendations detailed in the report and has adopted about half of them already, according to the statement. FBI officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The audit report is an extension of a report that was issued by Horowitz in March 2020, when he reviewed 29 FISA applications. According to that report, the inspector general couldn’t review four of the applications because the FBI wasn’t able to locate them. Of the 25 he could review, all of them had flaws—209 errors in total, Horowitz said.
“Our testing of FISA applications … identified apparent errors or inadequately supported facts in all of the 25 applications we reviewed, and interviews to date with available agents or supervisors in field offices generally have confirmed the issues we identified,” he said in his March report.
Horowitz lamented in the Sept. 30 audit that the FBI hasn’t taken his earlier report seriously.
“In response to the findings in our December 2019 FISA report and March 2020 [report], the FBI Director publicly acknowledged the seriousness of the identified problems and announced numerous steps the FBI was undertaking to address them,” he said.
“However, we believe certain public statements from the FBI and NSD in 2020 failed to recognize the significant risks posed by systemic non-compliance with the Woods Procedures, and during our audit, some FBI field personnel minimized the significance of Woods Procedures non-compliance.”
The IG report was likely referencing statements FBI Director Christopher Wray made to Congress in February, when he told representatives that they shouldn’t “lose any sleep” over the December 2019 IG report.
“The vast majority of the FISAs we do, both the initial applications and the renewals, are the kinds of applications that I am quite confident—we don’t know each other, but you wouldn’t lose any sleep over, and we wouldn’t want to grind to a halt,” Wray told Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) at the time.
Following the release of the latest report, Jordan took to Twitter to blast Wray for downplaying earlier concerns.
“Feb. 5, 2020: FBI Director Christopher Wray dismisses concerns about the FISA process. Says Americans shouldn’t ‘lose any sleep’ over it. Today: IG Horowitz releases damning report about the FBI’s broken FISA process,” Jordan wrote.
“It was worse than we ever thought.”
The FBI’s failure to adhere to surveillance rules has led to criminal charges in some instances.
After Horowitz’s findings were released in 2019, special counsel John Durham later filed charges against former FBI Attorney Kevin Clinesmith for falsifying a document used in a FISA application to surveil Page. He pleaded guilty in August 2020.
In August, Durham’s office indicted Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who represented the Democratic National Committee, for allegedly lying to the FBI when he spoke to a top bureau official, James Baker, in 2016. On Sept. 17, Sussmann pleaded not guilty to the charge.
According to the indictment, Sussmann had passed along a claim alleging that there was a secret communications channel between a Russian bank and the Trump Organization. Durham alleged that Sussmann told Baker that he wasn’t representing a specific client, but was actually secretly representing Democrats, Clinton’s campaign, and an unnamed technology company executive.
Fox News host Chris Wallace, the moderator of last year’s first presidential debate last September, appeared to advocate for a wall on the country’s southern border on “Fox News Sunday” when speaking to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Wallace, who teamed up against former President Donald Trump during the debate with then-candidate Joe Biden, asked Mayorkas, point-blank, why the federal government isn’t interested in using a physical barrier, such as a “wall,” to stop the flow of illegal immigrants entering the country.
“Why didn’t you stop them from coming into the country?” Wallace said Sunday during a conversation about thousands of migrants huddled under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, earlier this month.
“We — we did. We encountered them, they gathered — they assembled in that one location in Del Rio, Texas, and we applied the laws,” Mayorkas claimed. “We applied the public health law under the CDC’s authority, and we applied immigration law.”
Wallace, a Democrat, then found himself in the uncomfortable position of suggesting a border wall could have been effective — something Trump spent years both talking about and working to get built.
“My question is why did you allow them in the country in the first place?” he said. “Why didn’t you build — forgive me, a wall or a fence to stop them from walking in — this flood of people coming across the dam, it looks like a highway that allows them to cross the Rio Grande.”
Fox News’ Chris Wallace to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Haitian migrants:
“Why did you allow them in the country in the first place? Why didn’t you build, forgive me, a wall?”pic.twitter.com/k6APdhntHc
Wallace appeared to understand the irony of his question as he was asking it.
Mayorkas, for his part, responded: “It is the policy of this administration. We do not agree with the building of the wall. The law provides that individuals can make a claim for humanitarian relief. That is actually one of our proudest traditions.”
Mayorkas is proud of presiding over an open border, but the odd part of this interview was seeing Wallace seemingly suggest one of Trump’s key positions before, during and after his term in the White House may have worked to prevent the border crisis.
Wallace in January of 2019 was vocal in his opposition to a border wall while speaking with former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders during an interview.
Wallace at that time was of the opinion that an open border was not a national security threat, which Sanders disagreed with.
“We know that … nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally,” Sanders told the Fox host. “It’s by air, it’s by land and it’s by sea. It’s all of the above.”
“[T]he most vulnerable point of entry that we have into this country is our southern border, and we have to protect it,” she added as she advocated for strict application of the country’s immigration laws.Do you think Democrats are intentionally allowing immigrants to flood across the border?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Wallace, who opposed a physical barrier on the border, fired back.
“[Suspected terrorists are] not coming across the southern border,” Wallace claimed. “They’re coming and they’re being stopped at airports.”
Nine months into the Biden administration’s border crisis, and Wallace has seemingly now seen the light.
He apparently never held any strong personal beliefs against a border wall. It’s looking more and more like he simply opposed the man who wanted to build and maintain it.
Steve Cortes of Newsmax said Biden might consider the booing a win, “because in stadiums across America, something far more profane is being chanted about him.”
He was, of course, referring to the “F*** Joe Biden” chants that were first heard in college football stadiums about three weeks ago and have continued since then.
Cortes also said that Washington, D.C., is “the bluest of blue cities,” so the fact that Biden was booed “is really, really surprising to me.”
On Wednesday night, Sean Hannity of Fox News said Biden was quickly becoming the “most unpopular president to ever serve.”
After greeting the Democratic and Republican lawmakers in their respective dugouts, Biden left the stadium. His visit lasted under an hour. But it appeared everyone was OK with that.
Maskless Biden closely meeting and shaking hands with attendees at Nationals Stadium ahead of congressional baseball game. pic.twitter.com/gOqJHFKcEf
The chilly reception comes at a perilous time for the president.
It follows a series of spectacular blunders, from his mishandling of the southern border to his sloppy and tragic exit from Afghanistan. Making matters worse, three of his top military officials just contradicted his claim that none of them recommended he leave troops in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban at bay.
Biden is currently trying to shepherd his twin multitrillion-dollar spending bills through Congress, where he’s run into opposition from Republicans and two key members of his own party: Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
One of the country’s oldest gun manufacturers, Smith & Wesson, will move its headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee, the company announced Thursday.
In a news release, the company cited a “changing business climate for firearms manufacturing in Massachusetts,” and said it would leave its home of 170 years for a state which will not jeopardize its ability to manufacture quality firearms.
The company recently began seeking an escape from its historic home in New England over the state’s lawmakers and their liberal language in proposed bills about firearms, the news release stated. After nailing down criteria for a new state as a landing spot, the company began to look.
Smith & Wesson said that the state of its new home would need to be gun friendly, business friendly, affordable and near crucial transportation infrastructure.
The company also said its new home would need to be a place that would offer its employees opportunities and quality of life.
President and CEO Mark Smith said the company finally decided on Maryville, Tennessee, a suburb of Knoxville, as a place to relocate its headquarters and 750 jobs. Smith, per the company, made the decision over “legislation recently proposed in Massachusetts that, if enacted, would prohibit the company from manufacturing certain firearms in the state.”
The company has been headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts, since 1850. Smith and the company said the location there will remain open in some capacity.
But Tennessee will be home, and that process will begin in 2023.
“This has been an extremely difficult and emotional decision for us, but after an exhaustive and thorough analysis, for the continued health and strength of our iconic company, we feel that we have been left with no other alternative,” said Smith in a statement.
“These bills would prevent Smith & Wesson from manufacturing firearms that are legal in almost every state in America and that are safely used by tens of millions of law-abiding citizens every day exercising their Constitutional 2nd Amendment rights, protecting themselves and their families, and enjoying the shooting sports,” added the CEO.
“While we are hopeful that this arbitrary and damaging legislation will be defeated in this session, these products made up over 60% of our revenue last year, and the unfortunate likelihood that such restrictions would be raised again led to a review of the best path forward for Smith & Wesson,” Smith also said.
Two Smith & Wesson facilities in Missouri will close and be consolidated with the operation in Tennessee, while another facility in Connecticut will also close.
Smith expressed regret for employees who will be affected by the relocation and consolidation, which will cost Massachusetts 550 jobs and 200 more combined from the other sites set to close.
“Our loyal employees are the reason for our success and are always our number one priority,” he said. “We are deeply saddened by the impact that this difficult decision will have on so many of our dedicated employees, but in order to preserve future jobs and for the viability of our business in the long term, we are left with no choice but to relocate these functions to a state that does not propose burdensome restrictions on our company.”
Smith also said that one reason the company made the announcement of its move to Tennessee is so employees can have time to prepare.
“We are making this announcement now to ensure that each employee has the time to make the decision that is right for them and their families. We are firmly committed to working on an individual level with each and every one of those who will be affected,” he said. “We will assist any affected employee who is willing and able to move with financial and logistical relocation assistance. However, we also fully realize that this is simply not feasible for some.”
Smith & Wesson said that employees who cannot or will not relocate to Tennessee with the company will be offered “enhanced severance and job placement services.”
A 4-year-old girl was supposed to get her flu shot at a local Walgreens in Baltimore earlier this month, but instead accidentally received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The mix-up, reported by The Baltimore Sun, could have had potentially dangerous implications, as children under 12 are not officially cleared to get the vaccine under Food and Drug Administration standards.
The drug giant Pfizer, which produced the vaccine the girl received, has applied to the FDA for authorization to use a less potent shot of the vaccine on children aged 5 to 11, the Sun reported, but even if that were approved, it’s still out of the girl’s age range.
In a statement, Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said the company has apologized to the family for the mistake, according to Fox News.
“Events like this are extremely rare and we take this matter very seriously,” the statement said.
“We are in touch with the patient’s family and we have apologized. Our multi-step vaccination procedure includes several safety checks to minimize the chance of human error. We’ve recently reviewed this process with our pharmacy staff in order to prevent a future occurrence.”
Victoria Olivier, the girl’s mother, told the Sun the family took steps such as calling poison control and asking for advice on social media as a precautionary measure.
Thankfully, the girl had no immediate ill effects, according to the Sun report.
According to Fox, the FDA also released a statement about the Baltimore incident, noting that the agency had not “evaluated data pertaining to the safety and effectiveness” of the COVID vaccine in children 12.
“We are glad to hear that the child is doing well and hope that she eventually received her flu vaccine,” the statement said.
“As per the vaccination provider agreement, it is mandatory for vaccination providers to report vaccine administration errors whether or not associated with an adverse event to VAERS [The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System].”
The Maryland incident comes after a similar thing happened to Savannah Courtad, a young woman in Arizona.
In an Instagram post, Courtad described going to a Walgreens earlier this month for a flu shot and getting a COVID-19 vaccination instead — a vaccination she never consented to.
Courtad does not identify the location of the Walgreens, but her Instagram biography describes her as a 19-year-old in Scottsdale, Arizona.
“She gave me the shot and as I was leaving told me to come back for my 2nd dose in 21 days,” Courtad wrote.
“Nurses can’t just go around injecting people with the wrong shot,” she continued. “I never gave consent for the COVID-19 vaccine to be injected into my body. Regardless of one’s position on this vaccine I would hope that we can all agree that having something injected into your body should be your CHOICE.”
The Olivier family and Courtad’s cases both reveal a potential procedural issue with how Walgreens is handling this chaotic crossover between flu season and the COVID-19 pandemic.
For those who are over the age of 12, the vaccine is certainly safe and effective to lessen the harm of contracting COVID-19, but that does not excuse mistakes when the patient is either too young or did not want the shot.
Although the Olivier family has said they will not file a complaint with the Maryland Board of Pharmacy, this mistake should make parents extremely cautious when they bring their small children to get their flu shot this fall.
The Biden administration was warned about a surge of Haitian migrants heading for the southern border, according to Panama’s foreign minister.
In an interview with Axios, Erika Mouynes said “we sounded the alarm when we should have.”
“We’ve engaged with every single authority that we can think of, that we can come across, to say, ‘Please, let’s pay attention to this,’” Mouynes said.
She also said the mass of more than 15,000 Haitians who camped out under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, early this month is nothing compared to what is coming.
Mouynes estimated another 60,000 Haitian migrants are on their way north from Panama, with about 27,000 expected to cross a section of the country known as the Darien Gap this month. That’s higher than the total number from 2019, she said.
“Let’s recognize that they all are heading toward the U.S.,” she said, calling for action after meetings with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and members of Congress.
Mouynes called it “shocking” that the first meeting of officials from South American countries, Mexico, Canada and the U.S. to discuss illegal immigration was not held until August.
“We all have a role to play in this issue, and the regional approach is the correct approach,” Mouynes said. “It is impossible for Panama to solve it on its own.”
Panama is not alone in dealing with Haitians making the trek to the U.S., according to the Miami Herald.Has the Biden administration lost control of the southern border?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“They enter Guyana and they do not remain here. Very few leave through the channels they came. These people are being smuggled,” Anil Nandlall, Guyana’s attorney general, said in June.
With the need for action growing, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy issued an open letter last week criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tasked with addressing the root causes of the border crisis.
“Since her appointment six months ago by President Biden to lead efforts to ‘stem migration’ at the southern border the situation has actually only spiraled further out of control. The humanitarian situation continues to be dire, our border communities overwhelmed, and border patrol agents are being asked to do the impossible,” McCarthy wrote.
He noted that on Sept. 19, “as Customs and Border Patrol agents at the Del Rio sector were being overwhelmed by the massive influx of immigrants arriving — Vice President Harris was conducting the coin flip prior to kickoff at a college football game.”
Over 1.2 MILLION illegal aliens have already crossed the border since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office.
It’s a disaster. It’s a public health catastrophe. It’s a national security catastrophe. It’s a humanitarian catastrophe. pic.twitter.com/LNWTLfamwM
“As ‘Border Czar’, Kamala Harris has done nothing to help stop the border crisis,” McCarthy continued.
“She has let down the local leaders and our Border Patrol agents who have been forced to deal with the fallout of this administration’s bad policies. Even after months of being named to this position, this administration still has no clear plan to address the situation. Her lack of leadership has failed the American people.”
That lack of leadership is making leaders of Val Verde County, Texas, desperate enough to sue the federal government over its immigration policies, according to the New York Post.
County Commissioner Beau Nettleton said he was “sick and tired” of the ongoing border crisis.
“We’ve talked about immigration reform for as long as I can remember. Both parties have had control of Washington at one point or another over the last 20 years, and we have failed to do anything about it other than create the mess that we have today,” Nettleton said.
“It is a complete failure of everything that is going on in Washington for not just the last couple of years, but for many, many years,” he added. “I am for people coming into this country legally. This is not a legal process. This is not the way to do it.”
Former President Donald Trump blasted the Biden administration in a statement on Thursday, claiming Democrats are sneaking “unlimited” funding into a spending bill to support Afghan refugees.
“Snuck into the government funding bill, or CR, the Democrats are trying to pass, and just found, is unlimited money to random, unscreened, unvetted Afghan nationals. Republicans can’t let this happen,” Trump said in the statement.
“This is a further insult after Biden’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, that needlessly killed 13 Americans,” he added.
NEW!
“Snuck into the government funding bill, or CR, the Democrats are trying to pass, and just found, is unlimited money to random, unscreened, unvetted Afghan nationals. Republicans can’t let this happen. This is a further insult after Biden’s humiliating withdrawal… pic.twitter.com/UlCZGmKQFZ
The proposed $6.4 billion for Afghan refugee resettlement in a proposed continuing resolution “would allow for the tens of thousands of Afghans being brought in to quickly apply for permanent U.S. residency,” according to a Fox News report.
The resolution would allow Afghan refugees access to a green card within a year. A green card holder can then apply for U.S. citizenship within a few years, according to the report.
The former president called the policy change “a major immigration rewrite.”
“This is not a ‘clean’ government funding bill. It’s a major immigration rewrite that allows Biden to bring anyone he wants from Afghanistan for the next year — no vetting, no screening, no security — and fly them to your community with free welfare and government-issued IDs,” Trump said.
“from Afghanistan, that needlessly killed 13 Americans.
This is not a “clean” government funding bill. It’s a major immigration rewrite that allows Biden to bring anyone he wants from Afghanistan for the next year—no vetting, no screening, no security—and fly them to your…
Concerns with some Afghan refugees have already been discovered, according to Trump’s statement.
“We’ve already seen some of the horrible assaults and sex crimes that have taken place. But these terrible assaults will just be the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming if this isn’t shut down,” Trump said.
“community with free welfare and government-issued IDs. We’ve already seen some of the horrible assaults and sex crimes that have taken place. But these terrible assaults will just be the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming if this isn’t shut down.
The former president even referred to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as “an incompetent radical,” saying the bill must be opposed.
“The CR even covers people who don’t live in Afghanistan and haven’t in many years, as long as they used to live there. So Biden and Blinken can load up planes of former Afghans from Pakistan or elsewhere without any limits, checks or even a lawful visa or refugee status,” Trump said.
“The only ‘rule’ is that Mayorkas — an incompetent radical — give them a green light. This bill must be opposed!” he concluded.
The only “rule” is that Mayorkas—an incompetent radical—give them a green light. This bill must be opposed!” – President Donald J. Trump
“Joe Biden left behind thousands in Afghanistan who already have American citizenship, green cards, or pending visas,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas tweeted.
Now he wants to award unlimited green cards to people who didn’t serve alongside our troops and who may even threaten our safety and health—all while exempting them from the normal refugee screening process. https://t.co/rH9WqyaW7p
“Now he wants to award unlimited green cards to people who didn’t serve alongside our troops and who may even threaten our safety and health — all while exempting them from the normal refugee screening process.”
The politicization of federal government agencies began in earnest with the Obama-Biden Administration and has picked up steam in the Biden-Harris Administration.
The latest institution to become entangled in politics is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, America’s health protection agency.
In early August, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signed an order which extended the moratorium on evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. A CDC statement said the director had concluded that “evictions of tenants for failure to make rent or housing payments could be detrimental to public health control measures to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2.”
Two weeks ago, an independent CDC advisory panel voted 16-2 to recommend a Pfizer COVID-19 booster shot for all Americans aged 65 and over and for high-risk individuals with underlying conditions. This decision delivered a blow to President Joe Biden, who had hoped to see the recommendation include all frontline workers.
Last week, ABC News reported that Walensky overruled this decision “in a notable departure by adding a recommendation for a third dose for people who are considered high risk due to where they work, such as nurses and teachers — a group which the panel rejected in its recommendation. Some panelists said that without further data, they weren’t comfortable with automatically including younger people because of their jobs.”
Unbelievable: after 18 months of demanding everyone FOLLOW THE SCIENCE and scorning any questioning, Biden’s CDC Director ignores — overrules — the overwhelming recommendation of her scientists about the Pfizer booster, to align with what Biden wanted:https://t.co/msSY2RN0OC
Walensky now has our Second Amendment rights in her crosshairs. She will tackle gun violence in America, which she considers to be an epidemic.Do unelected bureaucrats have too much power in America?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
The CDC director signaled her intentions during a late August interview with CNN, when she labeled gun violence a “serious public health threat.”
“Something has to be done about this,” she told CNN. “Now is the time — it’s pedal to the metal time.”
“The scope of the problem is just bigger than we’re even hearing about, and when your heart wrenches every day you turn on the news, you’re only hearing the tip of the iceberg,” Walensky said. “We haven’t spent the time, energy, and frankly the resources to understand this problem because it’s been so divided.”
On Wednesday, NPR reported that “the CDC is now hoping to get a fuller picture of the data and long-neglected details on the impact of daily gun violence. The CDC and the National Institutes of Health, for the first time in nearly a quarter-century, are funding new research on guns to help reduce firearm-related injuries, deaths, crime and suicides.”
“Among several other gun research projects, the CDC is now providing funding to 10 state health departments so they can start collecting data in near-real time on emergency room nonfatal firearm injuries. This will allow doctors and epidemiologists to potentially identify trends and craft swift interventions, as they have done to contain the coronavirus pandemic and other national health emergencies.”
The NPR article goes on to highlight several victims of gun violence to underscore the severity of the problem.
NEW – CDC implements study on “gun violence” after labeling it a “public health threat,” aiming to “craft swift interventions, as they have done to contain the coronavirus pandemic and other national health emergencies.” (NPR)
Ms. Walensky’s first two forays into politics clearly amounted to overreach, but now this unelected public official is inserting herself — and the agency she runs — into a Constitutional debate. Neither Walensky nor the CDC belongs there.
As conservatives, we support the Second Amendment. If the CDC has shown us anything during the course of the pandemic, it is that they are very extreme. They have pushed mandatory masks, mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns. It’s hard to trust anything they do or say.
It’s easy to predict what conclusions the CDC will draw at the end of their study. They will most certainly recommend some form of intervention that would infringe upon our Second Amendment rights.
The CDC should stay out of this debate.
The last eight months have shown us that the Democrats seek total control over America. Our right to bear arms has never been more essential to our freedom.
Americans will never give up their guns. The explosion in gun sales over the past several years shows that Americans are cognizant of our government’s slow drift into socialism.
History has proven what happens when citizens surrender their guns to a nefarious ruling class.
In the 1990s, Australians handed over their guns to the government.
