Austin Independent School District course says gender is ‘innermost concept of self as male, female, neither or both’

Instead of ruining life for everyone, just send these kids to a special needs facility. We do this for rowdy kids and ones with handicaps like autism. Enough of the attack on children and parents by Marxist enemies of the state (AKA Teachers’ Unions, teachers). They are guilty of child abuse and treason. [US Patriot]

A Texas school district encouraged K-12 teachers to take paid time off, at taxpayer expense, to take a course on “how to create supportive learning environments for LGBTQIA+” students as young as five years old.

The Austin Independent School District’s course material, obtained through a public information request, defined gender identity as the “innermost concept of self as male, female, neither or both,” calling it “one’s authentic identity.” The course also provided an example of a girl who questions her gender identity and asked how teachers should properly respond.

“A 14-year-old youth, who recently asked to be called Ronnie not Veronica, discloses to you a desire to go by ‘they’ pronouns,” one PowerPoint slide read. “Ronnie wants to cut their hair short but isn’t sure how their parents will react, making them feel anxious. Ronnie is also stressed because while they have been dating Julie and ‘came out as a lesbian’ in 7th grade, they have started to have feelings for Ted, who identifies as male, and this is confusing for them.”

The Austin public school district did not respond to a request for comment on the substance of the training course.

The district pushed the teacher training amid a series of fights nationwide over whether students should be taught about gender identity and transgenderism. The Free Beacon reported last year that these debates over sex education at the local level are fueled by liberal advocacy groups that push public schools to promote gender ideology to elementary students. One district spiked a sex education plan in Nebraska after parents discovered it was secretly advised by a Planned Parenthood activist, the Free Beacon reported.

The Austin public school district sparked controversy in June when it defied orders from Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R.), who labeled its pride parade as “human sexuality instruction,” which requires parents to approve their children’s participation. The district rejected Paxton’s claim and followed through with the parade without parental approval.

The “Be a Beacon” gender course is run by Out Youth, which in a February Facebook post claimed that so-called gender-affirming care for transgender children “saves lives.” The training course cited resources from two prominent LGBT groups that also support children receiving puberty blockers and hormone treatment. The presentation cited a book titled, The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals.

“Are you, or parts of you, both? How do you know?” the course asked teachers. “If your anatomy changed overnight to the opposite sex, would it change who you feel yourself to be?”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Once again, Woke clearly does not equate to Awake. [US Patriot]

The flood of illegal immigrants and drugs coming over the U.S.–Mexico border constitutes an “invasion,” a majority of respondents to a new poll say.

Respondents were asked to label the statement, “The U.S. is experiencing an invasion at the southern border” as completely or somewhat true, completely false, or don’t know.

More than half, or 54 percent, said it’s true. Republicans were much more likely to say the statement is true, with 76 percent agreeing compared to 40 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of respondents.

Democrats were most likely to say the statement was completely false, and independents were most likely to say they don’t know.

Under Joe Biden, the United States has recorded unprecedented numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border. Due to relaxed immigration enforcement policies, many illegal aliens have been released into the U.S. interior, while deportations have plunged.

Amid the immigration crisis, a number of Texas counties have declared the situation an “invasion,” including Parker County. Officials also cited drugs being brought across the border.

Seven out of 10 Republicans in the new poll said the drugs being brought over the border are responsible for the increase in drug overdoses in America, along with 35 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of independents.

‘Open Border Policy’

A majority of Republicans also agreed with the statement the United States is implementing “an open border policy” along the border.

A person’s main source of news impacted their choices, pollsters found. Republicans who watched Fox News, for instance, were more likely to describe the border crisis as an invasion than those who have a different primary source.

Fox regularly reports from the border, including showing footage of migrants crossing the border between ports of entries, which makes them illegal immigrants.

The most cited source of news for Democrats and independents was ABC/NBC/CBS, while Republicans were most likely to source from Fox.

Respondents were also divided by political affiliation when answering whether there are enough immigrants in America already.

Six out of 10 Republicans agreed, versus 30 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of independents.

Democrats were the most likely to say immigrants are an important part of the American identity. Seventy-four percent agreed, compared to 49 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of independents.

Most Republicans, meanwhile, agreed with the statement that there is a “deep state,” or embedded political class, working to open the borders to more immigrants. Compared to 19 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents, 58 percent of Republicans agreed.

The NPR-Ipsos poll (pdf) was conducted online on July 28 and July 29. The sample of 1,116 adults included 516 Democrats, 317 Republicans, and 141 independents. (Now we know the reasons the poll only came up with 54% [US Patriot])

The margin of error was plus/minus 5.1 percentage points.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reacting to the recording-breaking number of illegal immigrants walking through the southern border.

The world’s richest person was replying to reporting from Fox News’s Bill Melugin, who posted on Twitter drone footage of a group of hundreds of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border at Eagle Pass, Texas, into the United States.

In his post, Melugin cited Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics showing border agents to have encountered 400,000 illegal immigrants so far in the Del Rio sector in fiscal year 2022 (since October 2021), a number that’s already more than double the total number of encounters in fiscal year 2021. This number doesn’t include “gotaways”—illegal crossers who evaded apprehension.

Strange that this receives very little attention in the media

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2022

“Strange that this receives very little attention in the media,” Musk wrote in response to Melugin on Aug. 14.

Musk, a self-portrayed political moderate and a design engineer by trade, has shared his perspective with his 100 million-plus followers on a wide range of issues beyond cars and rockets.

The billionaire’s comments on the border crisis, for example, were the latest in his series of criticism of the current administration and the Democratic Party in general; others include his comments on the influence of labor unions on the Democratic party, the Spygate collusion scandal involving Clinton-affiliated Democrats, and the Biden White House’s alleged sidelining of Tesla’s role in the electric vehicle market.

The Bigger Picture

The backstory to the exchange between Musk and Melugin features an ever-increasing surge in illegal immigration, overextended Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resources, and an administration that actively strives to undo Trump-era “America First” immigration policies.

Eagle Pass is only one of the regions along the southwest border where hundreds of illegal immigrants pour into the United States. From the beginning of fiscal year 2022 on Oct. 1, 2021, to early August this year, border patrol agents apprehended 1.8 million illegal crossers. That’s more than the population of Phoenix, Arizona, the fifth-most populous city in the country, and about 40 percent higher than the total number of apprehensions in the previous fiscal year.

BORDER: Border Patrol agents organize hundreds of illegal immigrants who have streamed across the border from Mexico near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20. pic.twitter.com/ftZyyhfTc0

— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) May 21, 2022

The head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meanwhile, insists that the border is secure, while the Biden administration is kept busy by legal disputes with border states about key Trump migration policies.

One of the policies that the Biden administration began pulling back—following a Supreme Court decision that ruled in its favor—was the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required non-Mexican migrants seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico for processing.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration will continue to enforce the Trump-era immigration and public health policy known as Title 42, a policy instated as a COVID-19 countermeasure that allowed the United States to quickly expel migrants who unlawfully entered the United States and bypassed health screening in the process. A judge blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to lift Title 42 in May.

Another legal battle that will be consequential to border security will play out in the Supreme Court in the fourth quarter of this year, when the highest court will hear a case on whether Biden’s immigration enforcement guidelines constitute executive agency overreach. In July, the Supreme Court allowed a federal judge in Texas to block the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines that, according to the border states’ prosecutors, limit the ability of border agents to detain and deport illegal aliens.

“The Biden Admin’s border record is an absolute failure,” Chad Wolf, former acting DHS secretary in the Trump administration, wrote on Twitter on Aug. 17, following reports of anonymous CBP sources saying that a record-setting 2 million illegal crossers were apprehended since the beginning of fiscal year 2022.

“I encourage Republicans next year to enact strong oversight in this area – specifically how DHS leadership executed an intentional plan to endanger migrants and American communities by refusing to enforce the law,” Wolf wrote.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

State files appeal against decision as midterms approach

Some 5,000 Texans who used a P.O. box as a voter registration address will likely be able to cast a ballot in the state’s midterm elections after a federal judge blocked a 2021 state election law.

Senate Bill 1111 attempted to tighten residency guidelines for Texas voters, but was struck down this month by U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel, an appointee under former president George W. Bush.

Yeakel, who presides over the Austin Division for the Western District of Texas, found in a summary judgement that the state used vague language in the election law and parts of it failed constitutional scrutiny.

Texas’ Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed the decision last week to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), who authored the election bill.

“There is no one that can live inside a P.O. box,” Bettencourt pointed out in a statement earlier this month.

Bettencourt told The Epoch Times he was disappointed in the decision against a “common-sense voter integrity bill.”

The bill required people registering to vote with a P.O. box to show proof of address such as a driver’s license or utility bill.

Some 5,000 people were registered to vote in Harris County alone using a P.O. box in 2020, Bettencourt said.

As of this month, the number is around 4,800 because some of the records were processed before the law was blocked.

The actual number using P.O. boxes to register statewide would make the total higher, he added, saying he expects the number could climb before voter registration ends in October without the law.

The Republican-led Texas Legislature passed the bill along with others in an attempt to guard against election fraud after the 2020 election.

The lawsuit filed by the Texas chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens and Voto Latino, a nonprofit that seeks to mobilize voters, called those requirements in SB 1111 an unnecessary burden on voters.

The Latino groups claimed voter suppression against six large counties controlled by Democrats: Travis, Bexas, Harris, Hidalgo, Dallas, and El Paso.

“This measure imposes vague, onerous restrictions on the voter registration process, chilling political participation and further burdening the abilities of lawful voters to cast their ballots and make their voices heard.” Texas LULAC state director Rodolfo Rosales said in a statement after filing the suit.

Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, celebrated the decision.

“The true intent of this discriminatory measure has always been about suppressing voter turnout—especially among young people, communities of color, low-income voters, and other historically marginalized groups,” she said in an August statement.

The State of Texas was not a party to the lawsuit at first and had to intervene in order to appeal the decision. Had that not happened, it would have been up to the Democratic controlled counties to appeal.

Bettencourt said suits filed against Democratic-controlled local governments by friendly liberal organizations is a new tactic to get around Texas’ voter integrity laws because the entity being sued will “agree with the suit.”

Hans von Spakousky, an election law reform manger for the Heritage Foundation, said every state has residency requirements.

For a judge to rule against a state law requiring verification of residency would appear political, he said.

Friendly groups suing each other is a tactic to get a favorable outcome, he said. “They’re hoping for a collusive settlement.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

In a stunning move, Joe Biden disbanded a federal employee labor union, but only after it endorsed his opponent in the 2020 election and criticized his policies.

Help “The League” Fight the Left’s Anti-Gun Agenda!

The Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled last week to disband the “National ICE Council,” which represents 7,600 employees of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It was one of the few labor unions to endorse President Donald Trump and has been critical of Biden’s policies. It has also been critical of alleged corruption by union bosses supporting Biden. 

(RELATED: Biden Admin Caves to Democrat Senator’s Border Security Request)

The Washington Times reports:

Chris Crane, president of the council, said the government colluded with AFGE to silence the organization and its members.

“There is no doubt that ICE and DHS leadership worked in unison with corrupt union bosses to make this happen,” he said. “DHS and AFGE leadership both wanted desperately to silence ICE Council whistleblowers. Without a union, it’s doubtful those whistleblowers will have jobs much longer.”

He also called the FLRA’s decision “the largest single act of whistleblower retaliation in United States history” by depriving union members of their representation.

“We did what we were supposed to do. We reported to the Department of Labor that union bosses at AFGE were allegedly spending dues money on prostitutes and strippers, sexually assaulting their own employees, engaging in payoffs and coverups, and other unlawful and egregious acts. It was supposed to be investigated. We were supposed to be protected,” he said.

He added: “Federal employees must be alerted immediately that they have no protection from corrupt unions when reporting allegations to the Department of Labor. This can’t happen again.”

It’s not the first time Biden is alleged to have officially retaliated against critics of his border policies.

In January FBI agents raided the home of Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat representing a district on the Texas/Mexico border. 

(RELATED: FBI Raid on Congressman’s Office, Home Reportedly Linked to Azerbaijan Corruption Probe)

Cuellar has been openly critical of Biden’s border enforcement policies, and the raid came just days before ballots were to be mailed out in a Democrat primary between Cuellar and a nationally-supported-and-funded liberal challenger.

Despite the raid Cuellar narrowly won his primary. The FBI has not announced any charges or allegations against Cuellar.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: America and Its Borders Are Worth Fighting For >>

Democrats have one priority, and it’s not the United States, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) says. Instead, Democrats want to destroy former President Donald Trump, and they’ll do “everything they can” to accomplish that goal.

Nehls, along with the Republican Study Committee, spent three hours with Trump after the raid and said the former president not only firmly grasps the situation but also fully understands that Democrats are out to “get him.”

“They’ve been out to get him with one impeachment, two impeachments, the Russia hoax. … Democrats will do everything they can to keep him off the ballot in 2024,” Nehls told The Epoch Times and NTD as part of a special EpochTV report on the raid.

Nehls, who has a law enforcement background and was a sheriff for several years, said that to obtain a search warrant, you first have to obtain a “probable cause” affidavit. Once you have a signed affidavit, you can get a search warrant to look for specific items in a person’s home.

Unfortunately, according to Nehls, probable cause affidavits can be “very, very weak,” but if you find a “friendly judge” to sign it, it doesn’t matter; you can search a person’s home for whatever is on the warrant.

Furthermore, Nehls said everyone in law enforcement knows a judge who will rubber stamp affidavits and search warrants and said that’s what happened to Trump and the “raid” on Mar-a-Lago.

“They found the friendly judge there, with Reinhardt in the Southern District. … These guys are big Obama supporters, … and they got the judge to sign the warrant.”

Garland Approves Unsealing of Warrant

Concerning Attorney General Merrick Garland stating he approves unsealing the warrant, Nehls said that’s only part of what needs to be released.

Specifically, Nehls said he wants to know if the person who tipped off the Department of Justice (DOJ) is an FBI informant.

“Who is the individual that said … the former president has a bunch of these documents inside … the basement of Mar-a-Lago and … they’re classified or not classified, and we need to do something?”

Nehls said seeing the affidavit and the warrant would let people know what the FBI was “really looking for.”

Indeed, Nehls is skeptical about the FBI’s stated reason for raiding Trump. Instead, he thinks it’s likely that the FBI is creating a false pretext to destroy Trump.

Nehls pointed out that Democrats, the DOJ, and the FBI have targeted Trump and his family for the past few years, claiming they colluded with Russia. In the end, however, the evidence exonerated the past president.

Now, the DOJ and Democrats are up to the same old tricks. But instead of “Russia Collusion,” it’s “Jan. 6.”

Nehls argued that the FBI has lowered its standards and is now going after political adversaries at the behest of former President Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Nehls concluded that he expects Biden and his lackeys to go after Trump “until they can find a way to destroy him.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Banks, federal agencies, and ESG investors handicap the expansion of America’s energy supply

The oil and gas industry is looking to the future with caution, and plans for expanding production of fossil fuels appear to be limited. 

At the Enercom Energy Investment conference in Denver this week, the oft-repeated mantra among CEOs was that they will use the bulk of their profits to pay down debt and return money to investors through stock buybacks and dividend payments, with significantly less emphasis on major new capital investments. In addition, executives highlighted their commitment to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles for producing cleaner energy and addressing social justice issues. 

As Democrats in Congress prepare to allocate $369 billion via the Inflation Reduction Act to subsidize electric cars and wind and solar energy, America’s oil and gas producers face an uphill battle. A shrinking supply of capital, a hostile regulatory environment, and shortages of materials and labor are creating significant hurdles against new drilling. 

“I don’t want subsidies for our industry; we don’t need subsidies in our industry,” Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy, told The Epoch Times. “We just don’t want barriers standing in the way of us providing the energy that people in the world want and need.”

Wall Street Steps Back from Fossil Fuel Financing

Among those barriers are banks and investors cutting back financing for new fossil fuel projects, due to both economic and political factors. In line with the ESG movement, 114 banks, collectively representing 38 percent of global banking assets, signed the Commitment Statement of the UN Net-Zero Banking Alliance, in which they pledged to “transition” their lending portfolios to reduce greenhouse-gas (GNG) emissions and reach net-zero GNG emissions by 2050 or sooner. American banks that signed this pledge include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.

Another global money club, Climate Action 100+, is “an investor-led initiative to ensure the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.” It has 700 investment companies as members, representing $68 trillion in assets, and includes asset managers such as BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity, Invesco, Fisher, and PIMCO; insurers such as Aegon, Allianz, and AXA; state pension funds like CalPERS, CalSTRS, New York State Common Retirement Fund, New York City Pension Funds, and Maryland State Retirement and Pension System; and university endowment funds from Harvard, MIT, and University of Rochester, among others.

In response, West Virginia and Texas recently barred banks that discriminate against fossil fuel companies from getting municipal banking contracts in their respective states. On July 28, for example, West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore announced that JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo would be placed on a Restricted Financial Institution List because they “are engaged in boycotts of fossil fuel companies, according to new state law, and are no longer eligible to enter into state banking contracts.”

“Each financial institution placed on the Restricted Financial Institution List today has published written environmental or social policies categorically limiting commercial relations with energy companies engaged in certain coal mining, extraction or utilization activities, rather than considering the financial or risk profile for each company,” Moore said in an official statement. “While the ‘Environmental, Social and Governance’ or ‘ESG’ movement might be politically popular in California or New York, financial institutions need to understand their practices are hurting people across West Virginia.”

Last week, 19 state attorneys general sent letters to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink declaring that his efforts to impose the ESG agenda on companies whose shares it owns run counter to its fiduciary obligations to pensioners, intentionally harm America’s energy companies, and, to the extent that financial companies collude in this effort, raise anti-trust concerns. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with approximately $10 trillion in assets under management. 

In a letter to Fink, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich wrote, “BlackRock appears to use the hard-earned money of our states’ citizens to circumvent the best possible return on investment, as well as their vote. BlackRock’s past public commitments indicate that it has used citizens’ assets to pressure companies to comply with international agreements such as the Paris Agreement that force the phase-out of fossil fuels, increase energy prices, drive inflation, and weaken the national security of the United States.”

Global ESG Clubs Leave Oil and Gas Industry ‘Starved for Capital’

Oil and gas executives say the push to divest from fossil fuels by global organizations like Climate Action 100+, the UN Net-Zero Banking Alliance, and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero is having its intended effect.  

“Our industry is being starved for capital,” Anthony Gallegos, CEO of Independence Contract Drilling, told The Epoch Times, noting that banks are increasingly unwilling to provide revolving lines of credit or asset-based lending facilities [ABLFs] to the oil and gas industry. “There’s probably a third as many banks today that are willing to provide revolvers and ABLFs to [oil and gas] service companies compared to what there would have been six years ago,” he said. “There are investors, there are endowments, there are limited partnerships, some of which have historically invested in energy, that today have a mandate that they cannot make investments in fossil fuel industries.”

“The concern that the State of West Virginia, the State of Texas, and other states have had about financial institutions trying to dissuade investment I think is very real,” Wright said. “What that impacts most is the smaller or rising players that count on bank debt financing and reserve-based lending [RBL]. There is massively less RBL capital today than a few years ago; there’s a number of big European banks that were players in this space that have pulled out; there are American banks that want to show a decline in the percent of their portfolio that’s in oil and gas; there is less private equity capital because university endowments and CalPERS, CalSTRS, and other state pension funds, are divesting from oil and gas.”

Curtailing credit to smaller, private oil and gas companies is particularly harmful, Wright said, because they are currently the most active in developing new production. By contrast to the larger, public oil and gas companies, which are cautiously investing in new growth, “The private companies are investing relatively aggressively. Sixty percent of the drilling and fracking activity right now in the United States is private oil and gas companies,” Wright said. 

In response to state actions, several U.S. banks recently denied they are doing anything to reduce financing for fossil fuels. Goldman Sachs stated in a July letter to West Virginia’s treasurer that it provided more than $118 billion in financing to fossil fuel companies. JPMorgan wrote that it had more than $42 billion in credit exposure to oil and gas companies. 

In an apparent reversal of BlackRock’s position in 2020 that “we will be increasingly disposed to vote against management and board directors when companies are not making sufficient progress on sustainability-related disclosures and the business practices and plans underlying them,” BlackRock announced in May that it will likely support fewer climate-related corporate votes in 2022 than it did in 2021.

Investors Are Risk-Averse After Oil Price Volatility, Bankruptcies

In addition to the ESG movement, the oil and gas industry is also emerging from a period of over-investment in new fracking projects a decade ago, which together with increased output in the Middle East caused oil and gas prices to fall sharply in 2016 and then collapse in 2020 during pandemic lockdowns, forcing many oil and gas companies into bankruptcy. This has caused many investors to take a more cautious approach, particularly now that the economy is slowing and oil and gas prices have fallen from their peaks in the spring. 

“I don’t think you’re ever going to see capital flow into this industry the way it did in 2012 through 2014,” Gallegos said. “Investors have made it clear: ‘We’re not here to fund your growth just for growth’s sake; if we’re going to give you money, you’re going to have to demonstrate a pathway toward generating returns where we’re seeing something back as investors.’”

Accordingly, CEOs are now more focused on returning cash to their equity and debt investors. 

Fitch Ratings Director Neil Stirrat said that oil and gas companies were “exercising capital discipline” and using profits to repay debt and repurchase equity, with only a “marginal” increase in capital expenditures. This increase, about 15 percent on average across the industry, was approximately equal to the increase in companies’ costs due to inflation. 

Fitch noted that industry credit ratings were generally going in a positive direction, as oil and gas companies reduced leverage, extended loan maturities, and improved their financial health. Whereas in 2020, Fitch downgraded the debt of 20 oil and gas companies, while upgrading four; in 2021, 13 companies were upgraded and only two downgraded. Year to date in 2022, Fitch upgraded the debt ratings of 10 oil and gas companies, with no downgrades. The average debt ratio for North American oil and gas companies, calculated as debt to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), came down from 4-to-1 in 2016 to 1-to-1 today.

A Hostile Regulatory Environment for Fossil Fuels

In addition to less generous investors, America’s fossil fuel companies faced a hostile regulatory environment. A June 28 report from the Heritage Foundation, for example, noted a rush by oil and gas companies in the final months of 2020 to secure drilling permits before the Biden administration took control. 

“To date, Biden is the only president in modern history not to have held a single oil and gas lease sale on federal lands despite clear direction from Congress to do so quarterly,” the report stated. “While the Department of Interior is being forced by court order to hold a lease sale this quarter, it increased fees by 50 percent and decreased the amount of available acreage for drilling by 80 percent—even as it cut fees and red tape for renewable ‘green’ energy production.”

In addition, Biden has not completed any offshore lease sales. By contrast, the Trump administration sold eight offshore leases, and the Obama administration sold 29. However, in 2021, the Biden administration issued more permits to drill on federal lands than the Trump administration did in its first year in office, though issuance of drilling permits has declined sharply in 2022.

Biden has also used other agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to discourage investment in new oil and gas projects. The SEC issued a mandate in March that all listed companies must produce audited reports detailing their fossil fuel emissions, as well as those of suppliers and customers, together with their plans to reduce them. The SEC claimed that it was compelled to issue this mandate because “investors representing literally tens of trillions of dollars support climate-related disclosures.”

Government Spends Hundreds of Billions to Support Wind and Solar

Besides government policies and global money-club boycotts, the hundreds of billions in subsidies for renewable energy further undermine oil, gas, and coal companies’ ability to compete. This includes the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the invocation by Biden of the Defense Production Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, currently being debated in the House of Representatives after being passed by the Senate.

In return for voting for green subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) reportedly negotiated a “side deal” that Congress would later approve a lessening of the regulatory burden for fossil fuels, including more congressional action to attempt to force the Biden administration to sell more oil and gas leases and issue new drilling permits. However, many doubt that Manchin will ever receive his part of the bargain, given that Democrats were virtually unanimous in rejecting a GOP-backed bill to streamline permit approvals last week.  

The version of the Inflation Reduction Act that Manchin approved even granted the EPA the right to regulate carbon emissions. This was a critical issue because the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in West Virginia v. EPA stated that the EPA’s decree that electric utilities must transition to renewable energy and away from coal and other fossil fuels was not legal because Congress never gave the EPA the authority to regulate carbon emissions. The Inflation Reduction Act would have given the EPA this authority, invalidating the Supreme Court’s decision, which had ruled in favor of Manchin’s home state. 

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.) offered an amendment, which all Democrats, including Manchin, voted against, to remove from the bill the provision that granted sweeping new powers to the EPA. When that effort failed, Capito then challenged the provision’s compliance with budget reconciliation rules, which allow the Senate to bypass the filibuster. The Senate parliamentarian agreed with Capito, and the language granting the EPA new authority was removed from the bill. 

“You could make the argument, and I’m sure Manchin would make it, that we’re getting some of those barriers out of the way for hydrocarbon development, and that would on the margin be positive,” Wright said. “But I balance that with the certainty that we’re going to spend $300 billion subsidizing unreliable, more expensive, grid-destabilizing energy, and if you subsidize it heavily enough, you’re going to get it no matter how destructive it is to our grid. No matter how negative it is, the subsidies are big enough that it is in the economic interests of those parties to build it, and we’re going to pay the price.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

New DCCC ad pans to menu that lists prices in euros as narrator touts support for local entrepreneurs

A new Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad aimed at wooing Latinos says Democrats “strengthened Arizona by investing in small businesses.” The business to which the ad subsequently cuts is almost certainly not in Arizona, or even America—its prices are listed in euros.

The DCCC released the ad Monday as part of a “six-figure digital advertising campaign to reach Latino voters,” the group said in a press release. During the spot, a narrator says Democrats supported Arizona entrepreneurs by investing in local businesses. But the restaurant to which the ad cuts is by no means local—its menu lists an array of overpriced options in euros. A goat cheese platter, for example, will set customers back 11 euros, while an avocado option costs 10.50 euros. Should an Arizonan want to visit the eatery, however, the cost would be much higher. The cheapest flight from Phoenix to the European Union is $750, according to online travel agency Kayak.

The DCCC’s intercontinental Arizona ad—which the group said would appeal to Latinos as they are uniquely concerned about “protecting small businesses” and “creating good-paying jobs”—marks Democrats’ latest botched attempt to appeal to Hispanics.

Just weeks ago, in July, first lady Jill Biden compared the Latino community to breakfast tacos. Days later, the DCCC released a radio ad targeting Texas Hispanics, which argued that even though Democrats “seem so out of touch,” they aren’t as bad as “these Republican extremists.” The ad was routinely mocked by liberal Latinos in the Lone Star State—Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha called it “the worst ad I’ve ever heard,” while a Texas Young Democrats member said the spot was “so cringe.”

The DCCC did not return a request for comment. Its ad comes as Democrats hemorrhage Hispanic voters, particularly in South Texas. In June, Republicans flipped a Rio Grande Valley House seat for the first time in more than a century, a result that made Mayra Flores the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress. Flores even defeated her Democratic opponent in deep-blue Cameron County, which is 90 percent Hispanic and less than two years ago backed Joe Biden by double digits.

Democratic lawmakers and liberal media outlets alike have responded to the Republican Party’s gains with Latino voters by attacking Hispanic Republicans. Flores’s opponent in November, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D., Texas), argued in June that he is more qualified than Flores because he “wasn’t born in Mexico.” Weeks later, Arizona representative Rubén Gallego (D.) said a female Hispanic Republican running for Congress in the state was not sufficiently Latina because she took her husband’s last name.

The New York Times, meanwhile, said Flores’s win marked the “Rise of the Far-Right Latina,” citing the Republican’s support for religiosity, strong borders, and traditional values. A Texas political blog that has received campaign funds from Gonzalez also attacked Flores last month, referring to the congresswoman as “Miss Frijoles,” “Miss Enchiladas,” and a “cotton pickin’ liar.”

“Who does this Mayra Flores think she is? Somebody said she was crowned Miss Frijoles 2022 in San Benito,” Texas political blogger Jerry McHale, who has received $1,200 from Gonzalez’s campaign, wrote on July 2. “She isn’t in congressman Vicente Gonzalez’s league. She isn’t even in the bush leagues unless she doesn’t shave her p**sy.”

The DCCC is no stranger to bungled political ads. In addition to the European menu included in its Arizona spot, the group’s latest ad in New Mexico shows a person taking pills from a bottle labeled “FOR ANIMAL USE ONLY.” It’s unclear if the person in the ad is taking an animal version of the drug Ivermectin, which CNN labeled a “livestock drug” and a “horse dewormer” after popular podcaster Joe Rogan said he took it to treat COVID-19. Rogan was prescribed a human version of the drug.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Supply chain woes have more companies eyeing manufacturing here at home

It wasn’t long ago that Sherman, Texas, might have been best known as the birthplace of Buck Owens, the late country-and-western star, or as the home of Austin College, one of the state’s oldest colleges. More recently, however, the city of nearly 44,000 people located about 65 miles north of Dallas has had something else to brag about: a growing reputation as a center of high-tech manufacturing.

In June, Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer GlobalWafers announced plans to build a state-of-the-art, $5 billion silicon wafer factory in Sherman, which beat competing sites in South Korea and Ohio for the facility. The plant will produce advanced, 300-millimeter wafers—which are currently manufactured in Asia—and could support as many as 1,500 jobs over time.

The GlobalWafers announcement came on the heels of Dallas-based Texas Instruments saying that it would put up as many as four new semiconductor (or chip) manufacturing plants in Sherman, potentially investing $30 billion and employing up to 3,000 people. Before selecting the North Texas city, the company had considered Singapore for the facilities, which also will produce 300-millimeter wafers.

The latest developments are a far cry from previous decades in Sherman, when factories there making surgical dressings and automotive glass products were shuttered, with some of the jobs going to other countries.

“We’ve suffered our ups and down,” Sherman Mayor David Plyler said. “But as the economy changed and we started telling our story, things turned. Now folks want to be here.”

Sherman’s success at luring new factories underscores how some cities and towns across the country are enjoying a manufacturing renaissance. That renaissance comes after the United States spent decades shipping manufacturing jobs overseas—mainly to lower-cost suppliers in East Asia, especially China. In 1990, the United States made 37 percent of the world’s computer chips, a figure that since has fallen to about 12 percent. Now, however, some of the manufacturing is coming back, promising communities new jobs and new life.

The return of manufacturing to the United States, known as “reshoring,” got a kick-start in about 2010. But it took on new urgency after COVID-19 lockdowns revealed vulnerabilities in global supply chains. Shipping costs soared and ports were logjammed, resulting in shortages of products ranging from masks and toilet paper to computer chips, which are critical components in everything from smartphones and computers to appliances and automobiles.

“You’ve got by far the most momentum we’ve had at any time in the 12 years we’ve been tracking it,” said Harry Moser, founder and president of the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit that promotes the “return-manufacturing-home” message. “Where I’ve had to go to companies in the past and sort of hustle them, now I get more calls from companies saying, ‘I’ve been told we have to get our work out of China and find a source in the U.S. Can you help me find a source?’”

While other kinds of manufacturing are experiencing a U.S. revival as well—there are plans for more than a dozen new electric vehicle battery factories in the South and Midwest, for example—semiconductor plants have taken center stage lately, in part because of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act.

The bipartisan measure, which passed the House and Senate last week and was headed to Joe Biden’s desk, provides $52 billion in federal subsidies for domestic chipmaking. Both GlobalWafers and California-based Intel, which plans to build two big semiconductor plants in Licking County, Ohio, had stated that the projects in Sherman and Ohio might not have proceeded as planned unless the legislation was successful. The Biden administration pushed the measure partly on national security grounds, citing U.S. reliance on China for “mature” chips, as well as China’s threats against the island of Taiwan, which the United States has depended on for the most advanced chips.

Offshoring Declines

As recently as the 1970s, the United States had a robust manufacturing sector and balanced trade. The country ran a trade surplus of $8.9 billion in 1975, and manufacturing employment in June 1979 climbed to a record 19.5 million. After that, however, both figures went south. Manufacturing employment plunged to 11.5 million in 2010 before recovering some to 12.5 million in 2021. And the export-import trade balance has been underwater for more than 45 years, with a record deficit of about $860 billion in 2021.

It’s also been about four decades since U.S. companies started “offshoring” jobs overseas. Attracted by the lower cost of labor in Latin America and Asian countries such as China, manufacturers in industries including textiles, steel, and electronics decided to relocate some of their operations there, ostensibly to stay competitive by paring production costs. By 2011, however, an analysis by the Boston Consulting Group was questioning this strategy. The influential consulting firm stated that China’s labor-cost advantage was quickly eroding and predicted that, by 2015, “manufacturing in some parts of the U.S. will be just as economical as manufacturing in China.”

Companies such as Caterpillar and General Electric got the message. Over the past 12 years, the rate of offshoring has declined, while the rate of “reshoring plus foreign direct investment (FDI)” in the United States has been accelerating, Moser said. Combined, the latter two categories were responsible for a record 261,000 manufacturing job announcements last year, up from 6,000 in 2010, he said. That brought the total number of jobs announced because of reshoring and FDI since 2010 to more than 1.3 million.

Most of the jobs came back from Asia. Eliminating the trade deficit by making in the United States what’s currently being imported would result over time in a 40 percent increase in domestic manufacturing, generating 5 million more manufacturing jobs, he said.

The best candidates for reshoring include companies in those manufacturing sectors with high freight costs, volatile demand, frequent design changes, and processes that can be automated, Moser said. Among them are machinery, transportation equipment, appliances, electric batteries, semiconductors, personal protection equipment, pharmaceuticals, and rare earth materials. To help companies better understand the benefits of reshoring, his nonprofit has developed something called a “Total Cost of Ownership Estimator” (TCO). The TCO is a free online tool that calculates the “true” total cost of outsourced products, including such factors as overhead, balance sheets, corporate strategy—and risk.

Risks such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine pale in comparison to the risk of China “decoupling,” which these days hangs over companies like the sword of Damocles, according to Moser.

“I tell companies, ‘Figure out what you can bring back now, and get it back here now—or if you have to, get it to Mexico,” he said. “Because if the [expletive] hits the fan and nothing is coming from China to anyone, you’re going to be one of 30,000 companies trying to find a foundry or a machine shop, and you’re not going to get it.”

Hitendra Chaturvedi, a professor of supply chain management at Arizona State University, agrees that Mexico is a good alternative location for U.S. companies exiting China. “Nearshoring” from China to Mexico—as well as to Latin America and Canada—would make supply more accessible, he said. And manufacturing in Mexico is about 20 percent cheaper than in China.

Besides considering the advantages of nearshoring, Chaturvedi suggested a more targeted approach to reshoring itself.

“We should not take a shotgun approach to this,” he said. “You don’t want low-paying sewing jobs coming back to the U.S. You want high-paying jobs. I want us to focus strategically on sectors that we want to onshore.”

‘Just Getting Started’

For its part, Sherman attracted the two new chip facilities with incentives such as tax abatements, in Texas Instruments’ case, and a package of cash, cheap land, and other breaks for GlobalWafers. The Taiwan-based company also received a $15 million grant from the Texas Enterprise Fund, the state’s “deal-closing” fund, and is eligible for more incentives under the CHIPS Act. The CHIPS subsidies should also benefit Texas Instruments’s Sherman projects (as well as South Korea-based Samsung’s plans to build multiple semiconductor plants in the Austin area).

Plyler said his city also touted its ample workforce, abundant water supply, “business-friendly” approach, and diversified economy. Among the city’s top employers are Tyson Foods, beverage company Sunny Delight, and II-VI, a high-tech optical firm and Apple supplier.

“We’ve taken a lot of hassles out of City Hall for developers and people who want to come in and start a business,” he said. “We walk them through the process of getting permitted, sometimes in a fast-track manner. Making that process easy goes a long way in getting some of these projects off the ground.”

As a result of Sherman’s success, smaller towns around the city are preparing to accommodate the Texas Instruments and GlobalWafers workers with new housing, and industrial facilities for high-tech suppliers and vendors “are really hopping” in the region, the Dallas Business Journal reported.

“We’re expecting a lot of businesses to fill in,” Plyler said. “We’re expecting a lot of new restaurants, a lot of quality-of-life improvements. I think we’re just getting started.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it will conduct “flyovers” of the Permian Basin region in Texas and New Mexico to “survey oil and gas operations to identify large emitters of methane” amid the Biden administration’s climate policy initiative.

“The flyovers are vital to identifying which facilities are responsible for the bulk of these emissions and therefore where reductions are most urgently needed,” said Earthea Nance, an EPA official, in an Aug. 1 news release.  The flyovers, which will use infrared cameras, will be conducted until Aug. 15, the agency said.

With the announcement, it means the administration will continue to target the oil and gas industry, coming after Joe Biden sent letters to the heads of major oil companies in June and threatened to take action to increase supply. The move drew pushback from the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Chevron, who both accused Biden of taking an increasingly hostile approach to the industry.

The Permian Basin accounts for 43 percent of the nation’s oil supply, meaning any federal regulation or rules may impact gas prices nationwide.

“The flyovers will continue through August 15. By emphasizing identification of potential super-emitters, this effort builds on previous aerial surveillance efforts in the Permian Basin area starting in 2019,” the EPA release said.

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Its announcement came days after an Associated Press report claimed that 533 gas and oil facilities in the Permian Basin are emitting what it described as excessive amounts of methane. But an EPA spokesperson told the Washington Post this week that the flyovers are not connected to AP’s article.

Republican Criticism

Republicans are poised to target the EPA’s flyover announcement and blame the Biden administration for causing further pain at the pump.

Several weeks ago, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, warned that an EPA proposal reversing a 2017 decision to designate certain regions in the Permian Basin as compliant with 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards would imperil the U.S. oil supply.

“While you express concern about out-of-control gas prices, your Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is threatening to increase them even further,” Abbot wrote in a letter to the White House in late June. “The EPA’s process could interfere in the production of oil in Texas which could lead to skyrocketing prices at the pump by reducing production, increase the cost of that production, or do both.

“Your administration’s announced action is completely discretionary. Thus, you have the power to stop it. If you do not, this action alone might serve as a catalyst for economic harm leading to an even deeper reliance on imported foreign energy and a faster economic decline into the pending recession by forcing even more pain for American consumers to pay at the pump,” the governor said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who has taken thousands from teachers’ unions, says parents shouldn’t question teachers

Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke said this week that “we don’t need to tell” teachers “what version of history” they are “allowed to teach,” a statement similar to a remark that in part cost Democrat Terry McAuliffe the governorship of Virginia.

O’Rourke, who is best known for losing a Senate campaign and a presidential primary, went on to dismiss parental concerns about critical race theory, which he said he had “never heard of before last year.” Instead of asking questions, he said, Texans need to treat a teacher with “the respect that she has earned, that she is owed.”

O’Rourke has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from teachers’ unions.

McAuliffe, who lost the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election to Republican Glenn Youngkin, made a similar statement that likely cost him votes. “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe said during a televised debate. At least one poll found before the election that parents of school-aged children opposed McAuliffe by nearly 20 points, The Hill reported in October.

O’Rourke has flip-flopped on critical race theory, which teaches that the United States is systemically racist, several times during his gubernatorial bid. He opposed a Republican bill to ban the theory from classrooms, saying in February that students should learn that “so much of the wealth and opportunity in this state was actually created by people who had no choice in the deal whatsoever.” He said just one month later, however, that he does not think critical race theory “should be taught in our schools.”

Education has become a hot-button issue in the Texas gubernatorial race. Republican incumbent Greg Abbott and O’Rourke have clashed extensively over school choice, with O’Rourke saying the idea of letting parents decide what schools their children should attend is “radical.” A plurality of Texans, including an overwhelming majority of Hispanic Texans, support Abbott’s school voucher program, polls have found.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

GOLIAD, Texas—Three stash house operators, a raft guide, two walking guides, a bush hiking guide, a taxi driver, and at least three other drivers were coordinated to smuggle Martin Lazaro Bieya from Reynosa, Mexico, to Houston—his first major city after running the gauntlet through U.S. Border Patrol and law enforcement.

His final goal was Detroit, where he said an uncle had a job lined up for him.

Bieya’s trip was cut short in Goliad County, some 200 miles north of the border and 150 miles shy of Houston, after the vehicle in which he was being smuggled crashed into a culvert as the driver attempted to flee local law enforcement.

He initially fled the scene, but was picked up by the sheriff that evening after walking to a road to look for water and food.

The Epoch Times spoke with 17-year-old Bieya through a translator on June 23 as he sat in the Goliad jail.

Bieya said he’s from Veracruz in eastern Mexico, where his family owns a small ranch, but he “can’t make enough money there.”

He says that in late May, he made the decision to come to the United States and called his uncle in Detroit.

“He told me he would get me to the United States,” Bieya said.

A couple of weeks later, Bieya and his father took a bus to Reynosa, a major city separated from McAllen, Texas, by the Rio Grande, which marks the international border.

In central Reynosa, the duo waited at a restaurant. They provided to the uncle their GPS location and what they were wearing, and a taxi soon arrived to take them to a stash house.

At the house, Bieya’s father bid him goodbye and got back in the taxi to return to Veracruz.

Inside the house, which Bieya said was good-looking, “not a trashy house,” four other Mexicans waited to be smuggled across the border. These weren’t the illegal crossers who turn themselves into Border Patrol for asylum, but rather, the “gotaways”—the tens of thousands who evade capture every month because they’re unlikely to qualify for any type of legal entry.

A Mexican man in his mid-20s was running the house, Bieya said. He said that he didn’t have to pay anything for food, accommodation, or transport at any stage, but suspects that his uncle paid about $7,000 to have him smuggled to Detroit.

“He said he paid a lot of money, but he never told me how much he paid,” he said.

Bieya said he spent the night in the house, and around noon the next day, the five migrants were transported by car to “the end of a long road,” after which he estimates they walked about three miles to the bank of the Rio Grande.

There, they crossed the river in an inflatable raft and disembarked into the United States.

Two Mexican Americans appeared and escorted them further from the river.

“They knew what they were doing. They were just there to pick us up,” Bieya said. The group walked until nightfall, then stopped for a while before resuming at about 1 a.m. They arrived at a stash house in McAllen, Texas, in the early morning, he said.

Three other illegal immigrants were already at the stash house, bringing their group to eight.

Several hours later, the group was transported to a second stash house in McAllen, where they waited until evening before squeezing into a Ford pickup truck. By now, there were 14 people to transport, including two Honduran nationals and one female.

“There were seven of us” jammed into the truck bed under a sheet of plywood to hide them, he said. “It was tight.”

“After about an hour on the road, the truck stopped and they told us to get out.”

Bieya said he didn’t know where they were, but the timing fits with where smugglers drop off illegal immigrants so they can walk through the brush to skirt the Border Patrol highway checkpoint near Falfurrias, Texas.

It’s one of the deadliest paths for illegal immigrants, where many die from heat-related issues. Guides, or “coyotes,” leave sick or injured people to fend for themselves.

The original two coyotes were still with Bieya’s group, and at this point, a third was present to lead them in their ensuing seven-night trek.

“We walked from 4 in the afternoon until 5 in the morning,” Bieya said. At the time, the temperature in South Texas was hitting the high-90s to 100s during the day, while the night cooled to the mid-70s.

The group carried 1-gallon jugs for water, and when they ran dry, they’d find a livestock trough to refill. They ate only once a day.

“We all talked about what we would do if we made it safe into the United States,” he said. “I wanted to work for a couple of years and hopefully get citizenship.”

Helicopters with spotlights passed over several times, and they had to scurry into the brush to hide. He said he also saw drones three times during the trek. Two rattlesnakes met their demise during the trip.

After seven nights, Bieya said the group arrived at a paved road and waited for the pickup vehicle to arrive. Within an hour, a Chevy Tahoe SUV stopped, and they all crammed in. The next stop was supposed to be Houston, but in Goliad County, Sheriff Roy Boyd spotted them and attempted to pull the vehicle over.

The driver tried to escape, but lost control and crashed into a culvert. All of the occupants, including Bieya, fled into the brush. But he was the last one to exit the vehicle and never saw the main group again. He said members of the group had told him they planned to go to New York, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Houston.

“I didn’t know what to do because I was so hungry, so thirsty,” he said. Later that evening, he said he decided to turn himself in.

Bieya found some workers near a road and asked them for water.

“They gave me two bottles of water and a beef taco,” he said. Not long afterward, the sheriff was passing by, saw him on the side of the road, and apprehended him.

Eight other members of the group were later apprehended in a nearby county. They were turned over to Border Patrol and taken back to Mexico, but Boyd has issued warrants for their arrests, should they reappear. The warrants include felony charges for engaging in organized crime, as well as several misdemeanors, including evading arrest, Boyd said.

The Cartel

The Gulf Cartel coordinates all the logistics of the human smuggling from the eastern part of Mexico right through the Texas corridor and deep into the United States, said Boyd.

“Just think of the logistics that go into it,” Boyd said. Bieya was just one person in a system that handles thousands of illegal aliens per day.

Officials in El Paso, Texas, recently estimated there were 60,000 people across the border in Ciudad Juárez waiting to enter the United States illegally. Boyd said he’s heard estimates of a half-million waiting to cross along the 1,254-mile Mexico–Texas border.

“As you move those people, where you’re moving them to has to be vacated by the people who are already there,” he said.

“It’s almost like warfare, the logistics of feeding and transporting and housing and having water and the toiletries and all of the things that are required. It’s a phenomenal task just on the logistics side.”

He said working factories and warehouses in Mexico are common locations that cartels use to stash people until they’re ready to take them across the border.

Boyd said the cartels pay the Mexican government each month for the use of the “plazas,” which are the staging and border crossing areas. The government will allow a certain volume of drugs or amount of people to flow through per month, and if it exceeds that, the cartel is taxed, or the government will raid a warehouse and sit on the commodity until the cartel pays.

“It’s how they work with the drugs, so I suspect they work the exact same way with humans,” Boyd said.

If too many people get stacked up waiting to cross, it causes a cash flow issue for the cartels, he said, “because now, the cartels have got to pay extra manpower, they’ve got to pay for water, they’ve got to pay for food, they’ve got to pay for toilet paper, they’ve got to pay for medicine—they’ve got to pay for all the things because it’s in the cartel’s interest to keep these people alive.”

“What these people don’t know at this point is that that payment to get across to Texas is not the final payment. The final payment gets told to them when they get to Houston,” he said.

Inside Texas, and beyond, the Gulf Cartel has an extensive network, with Atlanta being the next major hub beyond Houston.

“The cartel owns car dealerships, restaurants, various businesses, and it helps them launder their money, move their slaves, and maintain a foothold within the communities,” Boyd said. “That’s how it functions, and it’s very complex, but it ensures the cartel’s total control of their operational area within the United States.”

The smuggler drivers are now often recruited via social media such as TikTok, WhatsApp, and Facebook, Boyd said.

“They were targeting Hispanic teenagers from the metropolitan areas like Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas,” he said.

“They show wads of money. And so you have a teenager who sees somebody with $10,000, and they’re told, ‘You can drive down to Falfurrias, pick up eight people, drive up here, and you get this amount of money.’ It’s quick, easy money.”

Boyd said there’s a large Hispanic community in Houston, of which a portion “sympathizes with Mexico and works for the cartel—and so they’re the operatives that get hired to go back and forth.”

Boyd’s goal is to deter the cartel from entering Goliad County. Within the 852 square miles of the county, he monitors 16 cartel sites that are currently dormant, but tactics change quickly.

“We can’t stop it. The federal government wants it. The federal government encourages it through their policies and procedures,” he said.

“All I can do is try to make it as uninviting as possible for them to come into Goliad. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

Boyd started putting up large billboards on the county line last year.

“Warning! Drug and human traffickers: Turn around, do not enter Goliad County,” the signs read. “Go around. Or we will hunt you down and put you in Goliad County jail.”

He said they worked—when the signs were up, cartel activity decreased, and when the Texas Department of Transportation (DOT) removed the signs, cartel activity picked up again.

Boyd had to stop putting up the signs after an attorney general opinion came back saying a county isn’t authorized to place signs without approval from the DOT.

“We have a whole list of rules, we have a Constitution, we have laws,” Boyd said.

“The cartel only has one: to make money. So it makes them very quickly adaptable to whatever situation they find themselves in. They’re constantly morphing.”

Boyd arranged a deal with Bieya that if he gave him as many details about his journey as possible, he’d recommend that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) allow him to stay in the United States. Boyd said Bieya will likely be released—with the 3,000 pesos (about $150) he brought—within the next two weeks, to his uncle in Detroit.

“Hopefully, it’ll save him from winding up in indentured servitude [to the cartel],” Boyd said.

Former President Donald Trump chided Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser after she requested that the National Guard be mobilized to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants being transported from southern states.

“The Mayor of Washington, D.C., wants the National Guard to help with the thousands of Illegal Immigrants, coming from the insane Open Border, that are flooding the City, but refused National Guard help when it came to providing Security at the Capitol Building for a far larger crowd on January 6th,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on July 29.

“Figure that one out?” Trump asked.

Bowser’s government has sent two separate letters to the White House and the Pentagon seeking federal help, describing the situation at the nation’s capital as a “humanitarian crisis.” In one of the letters, Bowser added that the arriving immigrants had brought her city to a “tipping point.”

Bowser, a Democrat, blamed Arizona and Texas in the other letter, saying the migrant crisis is “cruel political gamesmanship from the Governors of Texas and Arizona.”

The D.C. mayor has also claimed that immigrants are “being tricked” into opting to take buses to the nation’s capital.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, announced transportation programs to send illegal immigrants on free rides to Washington, D.C., following Joe Biden’s decision to lift a pandemic-era immigration policy to expel illegal aliens. The first bus carrying immigrants from Texas arrived in D.C. in April, with Arizona sending its first bus in May.

Since then, Washington has received some 6,100 immigrants on 155 buses, Stars and Stripes reported on July 28, citing data from Abbott’s office.

Responding to Bowser’s request for the National Guard, Abbott wrote on Twitter that the problem that D.C. is experiencing is small compared to what Texas has been dealing with.

“D.C. is experiencing a fraction of the disastrous impact the border crisis has caused Texas,” Abbot stated. “Mayor Bowser should stop attacking Texas for securing the border & demand Joe Biden do his job.”

Two GOP lawmakers also suggested that Bowser should take up her troubles with Biden.

“Mayor Bowser now understands what it feels like to be a border state. How do you think folks in Texas feel?” Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) wrote in a post.

Weber added, “She should knock on Biden’s door and tell him that there is a crisis at our southern border and every state is a border state.”

“Mayor Bowser should call the White House instead and tell them to secure the southern border,” Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.) wrote on Twitter.

On July 29, Abbott’s office released a press release detailing what it had accomplished with the state’s Operation Lone Star, a program launched in March 2021 to prevent criminal activity along the border, including drug smuggling and human trafficking.

“Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to more than 287,000 migrant apprehensions and more than 17,700 criminal arrests, with more than 15,100 felony charges reported,” the press release stated.

“In the fight against fentanyl, DPS [Texas Department of Public Safety] has seized over 325 million lethal doses throughout the state,” it added.

“Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps left by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border,” it stated. “Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to Biden’s open border policies.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Two more Texas counties confirmed they have declared an invasion at the U.S.–Mexico border in recent days amid historically high illegal immigration.

The Parker County Commissioners Court unanimously voted this week to invoke a law to say that the United States and Texas are under invasion, local media reported.

Because of the significant presence of illegal immigration and drug trafficking, the declaration says it is “an invasion of Parker County, Texas, as the term ‘invasion’ is used in Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution and in Article 4, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution.”

“I think we all know the border is a mess,” Parker County Sheriff Russ Authier told commissioners during the meeting ahead of the vote. “We see different aspects of it other than our partners who are on the border seeing the human side of the smuggling, trafficking of people. A lot of what we’re seeing here is the drug smuggling.”

The Atascosa County Commissioners Court also separately declared the surge of illegal immigration an invasion on Monday. Judge Russell Wilson signed a disaster declaration affirming the invasion at the border.

Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith told The Center Square that with the declarations from Parker and Atascosa counties, “the significance … cannot be overstated.” Kinney County and several other Texas counties issued a similar declaration earlier in July.

Goliad, Edwards, Jeff Davis, Terrell, and Presidio counties also declared an invasion this month.

More Details

“It clearly establishes that the border crisis impacts every county in the state and is not limited to those communities near the Rio Grande,” Smith also told the outlet. “The safety and security of every Texan is threatened by the federal government’s abandonment of its constitutional duty. I encourage every county in the state to acknowledge the crisis is an invasion. If Texans don’t save Texas, no one will.”

Earlier in July, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an order authorizing the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety to apprehend illegal immigrants who cross the Mexican border into Texas and return them back to the border. Unlike the counties, the Republican governor didn’t declare an invasion.

“While resident Biden refuses to do his job and enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress, the State of Texas is once again stepping up and taking unprecedented action to protect Americans and secure our southern border,” he said at the time.

A section of the Texas Constitution allows the governor to declare an invasion to protect the state.

“He shall be Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the State, except when they are called into actual service of the United States. He shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions,” the state Constitution says.

Along the border, apprehensions have surged past 1.7 million so far in the fiscal year—with three months to go, July data shows. Border Patrol agents between Brownsville, Texas, and San Diego, California, apprehended 232,628 illegal border crossers in May, the highest monthly total in 23 years, officials have said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

When the first bus carrying illegal migrants from Texas arrived in the District of Columbia on April 13, an official of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said those who had no family to pick them up would be “put on a train” to Florida, according to a newly surfaced email.

The Oversight Project, an investigative arm of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, obtained the email from the D.C. government via a Freedom of Information Act request regarding its response to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s initiative to bus illegal immigrants apprehended at the nation’s southern border to the nation’s capital.

Abbott launched the border bus mission in April to give the Washington community a taste of what has been experienced by Texas border towns as a result of the Biden administration’s border policy. He pledged to send cooperating migrants to the U.S. Capitol, where “the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”

In the email dated April 13, a FEMA official told a group of Washington health officials that Abbott “made good on his promise” to drop migrants off on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building.

The FEMA official appears to be disappointed that the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which was tasked to arrange the buses, didn’t keep its Washington counterpart informed of the buses’ whereabouts.

“DC was in contact with Texas EM [Emergency Management] and they said they would alert DC when a bus was leaving and provide a manifest. They did not do that,” the official writes.

The official goes on to describe a plan to rely on Catholic Charities of Arlington, Virginia, for support, although the religious charity network indicated that they didn’t have “a huge bandwidth” if buses kept coming from Texas. The official also said that FEMA has held meetings with Washington officials, Customs and Border Protection, non-governmental organizations from the border towns, and border town officials for advice on how to handle the situation.

“For this first drop, some were picked up by family members and the rest will be put on a train to Miami,” the email states.

The message was relayed by Patrick Ashley, senior deputy director of the D.C. Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Administration, and was introduced as “a quick update from FEMA.”

Destination: Miami

Some illegal immigrants who voluntarily accepted the one-way bus ticket to Washington told news outlets they wouldn’t be staying there. A young man from Venezuela, who was among the very first batch of arrivals, told Newsmax that his final destination was Miami. The Daily Beast spoke to the same group of people and reported that they were planning to travel either to New York or Miami, with the help of Catholic Charities.

When asked about their travel plans, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned the illegal immigrants not to try to come to the Sunshine State, where they wouldn’t be welcomed.

“To those who have entered the country illegally, fair warning: Do not come to Florida. Life will not be easy for you, because we are obligated to uphold the immigration laws of this country, even if our federal government and other states won’t,” the Republican governor’s office told Fox News in a statement.

“Florida is not a sanctuary state, and our social programs are designed to serve the citizens of our state. The governor will protect the sovereignty of the state of Florida.”

The Mayor’s Response

Meanwhile, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser continued to condemn Abbott for “tricking” people into accepting his bus ride offer.

Appearing July 17 on CBS News, Bowser said her administration has called on the federal government “to work across state lines to prevent people from really being tricked into getting on buses.”

“We think they’re largely asylum-seekers who are going to final destinations that are not Washington, D.C.,” the mayor said.

“I worked with the White House to make sure that FEMA provided a grant to a local organization that is providing services to folks. But I fear that they’re being tricked into nationwide bus trips when their final destinations are places all over the United States of America.”

FEMA and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Free Beacon report sparks probe

Congressional Republicans launched a formal investigation into the Biden administration on Friday following its decision to sell a Chinese state-controlled company nearly one million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, according to a copy of the probe obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.

The probe comes on the heels of a Free Beacon report detailing how the Biden administration sold China oil from the U.S. reserves amid a crippling energy crisis that has sent consumer prices skyrocketing. Rep. Pat Fallon (R., Texas), a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, is spearheading the investigation along with six of his GOP colleagues, including Reps. Ronny Jackson (Texas) and Ralph Norman (S.C.).

Fallon and his colleagues are demanding the White House turn over a trove of documents detailing the behind-the-scenes decision-making about these sales, as well as others potentially made to “foreign adversaries.”

The Biden administration came under intense criticism earlier this month after it was disclosed that it sold Chinese state-controlled energy firm Unipec 950,000 oil barrels from the U.S. reserves, which historically are tapped in response to emergencies. The White House claimed the sale would “address the pain Americans are feeling at the pump” and “help lower energy costs.” But critics say the administration is exploiting the reserves to appease foreign countries while it cuts production domestically to appease the Democratic Party’s far left flank.

“Your policies are harming American energy independence and benefiting our adversaries,” the lawmakers write. “Draining the [U.S. reserves] to historic lows for the sake of political expediency … threatens the national security of our nation, and contemplates no long-term strategy to ensure the energy independence of the United States.”

Information included in the Republican probe shows that the White House sold China 2.5 million barrels in October and another 1.5 million in November. Millions more were sold to other foreign countries during this time period. Amid these sales, the U.S. reserves dipped below 500 million barrels—the lowest level since 1986. China, on the other hand, has around 926 million barrels stored as it continues to import illicit Russian and Iranian oil to offset the rising price of crude. Current projections show the U.S. reserves “will be drained to approximately 130 million barrels by 2031,” according to figures included in the probe.

“The American people can’t afford to put gas in their tanks and our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level in decades, yet Joe Biden is wasting our money and resources by sending oil that’s intended for emergencies to the Chinese Communist Party,” Jackson told the Free Beacon. “Helping our adversaries and setting America up for failure in the event of a major disaster or national security threat is no way for an American president to govern. Taxpayers deserve better.”

The lawmakers say the “depletion of emergency supplies is troubling to the American public and puts the United States at a disadvantage should there be a real disaster or a national security threat.”

As China drains the American reserves, it also is “benefitting from loopholes in current sanctions against Russia and from your lack of sanctions enforcement,” the lawmakers write. “It is troubling that the United States is exporting [reserved] crude to China as China continues to align itself with our adversaries.”

While China has said that it would stop importing Russian oil amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, it has not made good on these promises. It also is importing illegal Iranian crude oil at record amounts, behavior that has been enabled by the Biden administration’s decision to loosen sanctions on Tehran as part of an effort to cajole it into signing a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear accord.

“Biden has taken these inappropriate steps as China continues to build their own reserve capabilities with cheap Russian and Iranian oil,” Fallon told the Free Beacon. “Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created to address national or weather emergencies, not for political expediency and personal profit.”

The Republican lawmakers instructed the White House to provide them with internal documents related to the sell-off of America’s strategic oil reserves. This includes “all documents and communications, from January 20, 2021, to present” that relates to U.S. crude “being shipped to foreign adversaries—specifically, the People’s Republic of China.” The White House must also furnish in-depth information about China’s own oil reserves, as well as any draft plans to potentially replenish America’s stockpile.

“Our strategic reserves are for national security, not to satisfy global oil markets, and certainly not to cover for resident Biden’s failed energy policies,” Norman told the Free Beacon. “This administration owes our nation immediate answers to these questions.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Illinois set to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue

Illinois Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker celebrated the departure of two GOP billionaires and one of the state’s biggest businesses in remarks delivered last weekend to a group of Democrats gathered in the Sunshine State.

Pritzker opened remarks at a Florida Democratic Party event by calling Ken Griffin, the CEO of hedge fund Citadel, a “spoiled rich kid” and arguing that Griffin’s decision to relocate his company to Florida stemmed from disappointment over his preferred gubernatorial candidate’s loss last month in the Republican primary. “Griffin announced he was taking his toys and leaving Illinois,” Pritzker told the Tampa Bay crowd. “Again, really sorry about that.”

Griffin, who was not long ago the richest man in Illinois, cited Florida’s lower crime rate and more hospitable business environment as reasons for the move, which cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in annual income tax revenue. A spokesman for Citadel said that the hedge fund’s employees paid more than $1 billion in taxes to Illinois over the past decade.

While his remarks drew attention from the mainstream press, Pritzker’s comments about Griffin and another billionaire, former Illinois Republican governor Bruce Rauner, were largely overlooked.

It’s a curious political argument from Pritzker, a governor facing reelection in November and who has seen three major companies announce plans to decamp from Illinois in the past two months: Caterpillar, Boeing, and Griffin’s Citadel. The remarks were an obvious attempt to position Pritzker as an alternative to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), so his decision to highlight the businessmen who have chosen to take their companies to Florida from Illinois is puzzling.

Pritzker mocked Rauner, who moved to Florida in 2018. Rauner, whose net worth is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, paid $50 million in state income taxes in 2016 alone. “He’s your problem now,” Pritzker said. “Sorry about that.”

Citadel was the third major Illinois employer that recently announced its intention to leave the state. In May, Boeing announced it was moving its headquarters to Virginia from Chicago. The following month, Caterpillar, which has been headquartered in Illinois for nearly 100 years, said it would move 230 jobs in the state to Texas.

Several leaders in the Illinois business community cite rising crime in Chicago as a primary reason why they consider leaving the state. Murders in Chicago rose by 60 percent in 2021 compared to the previous two years. Shootings were up 66 percent and car theft was up 19 percent during the same time period.

A spokeswoman for Pritzker did not respond to a request for comment about whether he celebrates the departure of all billionaires from Illinois, or just Republican business leaders.

Democrats who attended Pritzker’s speech included Rep. Val Demings (D., Fla.), who is now running statewide for Senate. Demings did not respond to a request for comment about whether she agrees with Pritzker’s assessment of Griffin.

Pritzker faces reelection in November against Republican Darren Bailey and is rumored to have presidential aspirations.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

The U.S. Supreme Court gave Texas and Louisiana a temporary legal victory in the border states’ attempt to strike down a September 2021 Biden administration immigration guideline.

The Supreme Court, in a ruling without explanation on Thursday, allowed a federal judge in Texas to block the Biden Administration’s immigration guideline that, according to the border states’ prosecutors, limits the ability of border agents to detain and deport illegal aliens.

The ruling is a political setback for the Biden administration as it tries to juggle an unprecedented surge in illegal immigration, overburdened Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and an agenda to replace the Trump administration’s more stringent border policy amid bipartisan criticism.

Dissenting justices include Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—marking Jackson’s first vote since the start of her tenure last month.

DHS Guidelines

The DHS issued the new immigration enforcement guidelines in late September 2021, directing immigration authorities to exercise “discretion” and prioritize detaining or deporting illegal aliens who “pose a threat to national security, public safety, and border security.”

Put into practice, the September 2021 guideline designates that an illegal alien’s lack of legal authorization to stay in the United States “should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them.”

This guidance is in direct contrast with the Trump-era DHS policy, which guides immigration authorities to detain and deport illegal aliens in a non-discriminatory manner, except in certain limited cases, such as those who came to the United States as children or are parents of U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

The high court’s ruling, which upheld a federal court’s ruling in June 2022 vacating the Biden administration’s September 2021 DHS guidance, gives Texas and Louisiana a temporary victory, at least until the Supreme Court hears the case in the December 2022 argument session.

‘Uncontroverted Evidence’

According to Trump-nominated Judge Drew Tipton from the Texas District Court for the Southern District, it is “difficult to deny” that the DHS’s September 2021 memo inflicted harm on the state of Texas.

Tipton sided with the border states in saying that “uncontroverted evidence” shows that the September 2021 memo led to an increase in the flow of illegal immigrants into Texas, with the state needing to spend more money on prosecution, detainment, healthcare, and administration. 

The district court continued by saying that while the DHS argues that some immigration data showed an increase in the number of arrests and expulsions following its guidance to “prioritize” criminally convicted aliens, the increase is disproportionate considering the “unprecedented surge of illegal aliens pouring over the border.”

“Given that the number of encounters with illegal border-crossers is ten times what it was in April 2020 … an increase in arrests and expulsions is far from impressive, especially if … roughly three-fourths of the illegal aliens that cross the border go undetected by DHS entirely,” Tipton wrote.

Border States Sue

The ever-escalating legal clash between the border states and the Biden Administration began two days after Biden took office.

Texas, on Jan. 22, 2021, sought a court injunction on a January 20 DHS memorandum that the state attorney general said suspended the deportation of the “vast majority of illegal aliens without any consideration for individual circumstances.”

As the case spiraled in the courts, the DHS issued a new set of immigration guidelines in February 2021 and yet another in September 2021—the last of which Texas and Louisiana sued in Texas’s District Court for the Southern District.

Tipton sided with the border state attorneys general and ruled in June 2022 that the federal government may not “require its officials to act in a manner that conflicts with a statutory mandate imposed by Congress.

Texas and Louisiana showed that the DHS’s September 2021 guidance, Tipton continued, is “contrary to law,” “arbitrary and capricious,” and “failed to observe” necessary government procedure.

“Using the words ‘discretion’ and ‘prioritization,’ the Executive Branch claims the authority to suspend statutory mandates,” Tipton wrote. “The law does not sanction this approach.” 

Split Courts

After Tipton’s ruling, the Biden administration appealed to a three-judge panel—unsuccessfully.

The judges at the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an unsigned opinion dated July 6, 2022, wrote that some of the Biden administration’s concerns advanced in its September 2021 guidelines—particularly those replacing “Congress’s statutory mandates—are “extralegal” and “plainly outside of the bounds of power” conferred to Congress by the Immigration and Nationality Act. 

“For example, it provides that the guidelines ‘are essential to advancing this administration’s stated commitment to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality,’” the panel wrote.

The Fifth Circuit ruling came a day after a polar opposite ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on a similar case, in which Arizona, Ohio, and Montana sued the Biden administration on the same grounds.

Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a Bush-appointed judge, sided with the Biden administration, opining in the ruling that the Biden administration, like previous governments, is given “considerable authority” by federal law to shape immigration policy and, therefore, guidelines for detention and removal of illegal immigrants.

The Fifth Circuit court, in explaining its differing opinion with the Sixth Circuit, said that precedent supports its conclusions and that “fulsome fact-findings” from the lower court support Texas’s and Louisiana’s standing.

In an email statement to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson from the DHS said it “is obligated to and will continue to abide” by the Texas District Court’s decision regarding its September 2021 guidelines “as long as the decision remains in effect.”

“In the interim, ICE officers will make enforcement decisions on a case-by-case basis in a professional and responsible manner, informed by their experience as law enforcement officials and in a way that best protects against the greatest threats to the homeland,” the spokesperson added.

The Texas attorney general celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling as “another win” for Texas and border security. 

“Yesterday the Supreme Court made clear that, while we prepare for oral argument this winter, the Biden Administration must detain illegal aliens with criminal convictions,” Paxton said in a July 22 press release.

“It’s the right legal decision, and it’s what’s best for Texas and our nation.”

Source: The Epoch Times

South Texas blogger labels Flores “Miss Frijoles” and uses sexually crude language

Republican Congresswoman Mayra Flores responded to racial stereotypes and crude language used to describe her by a South Texas blogger paid with campaign money from Congressman Vicente Gonzales, her Democratic opponent in the Texas District 34 midterm election.

In a Twitter post on Monday, Flores accused the Gonzales campaign of paying for a blogger to “run hateful and racist ads” against her. The posts that appeared in the McHale Report blog referred to her as “Miss Frijoles,” “Miss Menudo,” “Miss Enchiladas,” and a “cotton-pickin’ liar.”

“I am disgusted that Vicente Gonzalez has hired a creepy blogger to attack my Mexican heritage and sexually degrade me, but I won’t let this distract me from my work,” she told The Epoch Times via text. “Vicente Gonzalez is an example of everything that’s wrong with Washington. It’s truly sick,” she said.

Jerry McHale, a longtime South Texas blogger, also used sexually crude language in a May 13 headline about the Congresswoman: “Does Flores Want Trump to Come & Take Her [expletive]???”

Federal Elections Commission data shows Gonzalez made campaign advertising expenditures to Jerry McHale of $1,200 on June 24 and $1,000 on October 27, 2021.

McHale told The Epoch Times that Gonzalez never told him what to write, and he has never spoken to the Congressman. He was unapologetic for the language used in the blog. The self-described ultra-left Democratic blogger said he had no regrets using “satire” to describe Flores or “punching hard” at Republicans. He said Gonzalez and other politicians pay him to run photos with wording akin to a headline.

Colin Steel, campaign manager for Gonzalez, did not return a call seeking comment. However, he told NBC News, which first reported the story, that Gonzalez disapproves of calling Flores names and denied any wrongdoing.

Flores became the first Republican elected in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande District in more than 100 years. The devout Christian won a special election for the district on a conservative platform of God, family, and country.

The controversial blog is just the latest incident in the rough-and-tumble political race for Texas District 34, which Flores aims to keep red. During her swearing-in ceremony, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared to nudge Flores’ daughter to the side, which prompted Flores to condemn Pelosi on social media.

Pelosi’s camp responded that the speaker was trying to help the child so she wouldn’t be hidden during photos at the event.

Flores, a legal immigrant from Mexico married to a border patrol agent, is convinced that more Democratic voters will realize that their traditional Latino values are more aligned with the Republican Party. Democrats largely ignored the special election, but Republicans saw it as an opportunity to further their efforts to convert South Texas red after a strong showing in 2020.

Flores replaced former Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who resigned this spring to work for a Washington D.C. lobbying firm. She will only hold the seat until January 2023—unless she can beat Gonzales to serve for a full term by winning in November.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Left-wing Democrat mega donor George Soros has donated $1 million to help Beto O’Rourke’s efforts to unseat Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, filings show.

Records filed with Texas Ethics Commission published Tuesday show the billionaire donated the sum to the Beto for Texas political action committee in June, according to The Hill. O’Rourke’s campaign confirmed the donation to the outlet.

O’Rourke has benefited from laws in Texas that allow uncapped campaign donations. According to filings, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee has received a number of donations over six or seven figures.

Soros, 91, frequently supports progressive causes. He has spent at least $40 million in support of liberal prosecutor candidates between 2014 and 2021, according to a report published by Virginia-based Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.

Additionally, the progressive investor gave more than $125 million to a Democrat-aligned super PAC to boost Democrat groups and candidates ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Soros handed over his donation to Democracy PAC, which he set up in 2019. Democracy PAC is his main political action committee to support Democrats in what was a “long-term investment” beyond the 2022 elections.

He has also spent tens of millions of dollars funding media properties, including journalism schools and industry organizations, according to a report by the Media Research Center.

Matt Palumbo, author of “The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros,” said the billionaire funds many left-wing groups, media companies, and political candidates through his Open Society Foundation.

Palumbo, during an interview for EpochTV’s “Facts Matter” program, also said Soros uses his influence to control what is written about him.

Soros’s foundation claims to promote democracy and individualism, but in reality it supports a more radical agenda, said Palumbo.

Abbott Leads O’Rourke

According to a poll from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, Abbott leads O’Rourke by 5 percent among likely voters (pdf).

The report states that Abbott leads at 49 percent to O’Rourke’s 44 percent, with 5 percent undecided and 2 percent intending to vote for Libertarian Mark Tippetts.

“More than nine out of 10 Abbott (95 percent) and O’Rourke (92 percent) voters are certain about their vote choice, while 5 percent and 8 percent indicate they might change their mind between now and November,” the report states.

“Abbott holds a 27 percent (60 percent to 33 percent) lead over O’Rourke among white voters while O’Rourke holds a 72 percent (80 percent to 8 percent) lead over Abbott among Black voters, and a 9 percent (51 percent to 42 percent) lead among Latino voters.”

Women prefer O’Rourke (6 percent) while Abbott outpaces O’Rourke with support of men (18 percent), according to the report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Border apprehensions recently topped 1.7 million, with three months of the fiscal year remaining. At the same time, the Biden administration has broken a long-standing policy of publicly releasing the number of illegal immigrants who die while crossing into the United States, or soon after.

The Rio Grande Valley in Texas and the Tucson Sector in Arizona have traditionally been the most deadly border sectors, as the river and the summer heat claim the most lives, and smugglers leave injured and sick aliens to die.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published on its website the number of migrant deaths along the southern border from fiscal 1998 to fiscal 2020, but stopped once the Biden administration took over the agency.

Over the course of three months, The Epoch Times made multiple requests to CBP for the missing data from fiscal years 2021 and 2022 to date. But CBP, to date, has declined to provide the information.

Previous CBP data show 247 illegal immigrants died near the border during fiscal 2020, while 300 died in fiscal 2019.

This June, according to unpublished CBP data obtained by The Epoch Times, 111 illegal immigrants died while crossing into the country, or soon after. An additional 53 died in a tractor-trailer unit outside San Antonio.

The highest number of deaths on CBP’s record was 492 people in fiscal year 2005. In the same year, Border Patrol apprehended about 1.2 million illegal immigrants.

The historical CBP data include a footnote indicating that the “data may be subject to change based on new discoveries of remains and possible dates of death as determined by a medical examiner.”

Not all migrant deaths are counted in the CBP data, as Border Patrol agents aren’t always involved in the discovery. Sheriff’s offices have their own tally of bodies discovered by ranchers, hunters, or others.

Brooks County in Texas accounts for many border-related deaths, and sheriff’s deputy Don White of Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery often finds the bodies. The illegal immigrants traveling through Brooks County have evaded law enforcement at the border and are walking on ranchland 70 miles farther north to skirt the Border Patrol checkpoint on Highway 281.

So far this year, White has recovered 64 bodies and is set to break last year’s record of 119 recovered from the brush and 11 from nonpursuit traffic situations. In comparison, 34 bodies were found in 2020.

“A video has surfaced of two men supporting a third man. The third is environmentally stressed, and is not doing well,” White posted on Facebook on June 19. “The two men supporting him are cleaning out his pockets, and putting his personal items in their pockets. Then they walk him off the trail and lay him in the brush. Cruel, if found, the young man will not have an ID.”

He shares another story of a woman who was “stressed and lost.” White searched for the woman at a GPS location she had sent to her parents, but she had moved.

“She sent a new GPS location to her husband in Amarillo. He didn’t want authorities to be involved, so he drove down to get her. She was where the GPS he had said she was. Deceased,” White posted on Facebook on June 12.

“If he would have thought of her life first and called it in, the outcome would have been different. Shaping up to be a savage summer.”

In Arizona’s remote desert areas, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (OME) works with nonprofit group Humane Borders to document illegal immigrant deaths.

So far this fiscal year, with three months remaining, the Tucson sector has recovered 128 bodies.

“Since January of 1990, over 3,600 undocumented migrants have died within the Pima County OME jurisdiction,” Humane Borders states on its website.

“And in any case, many remains will never be found or reported.”

The Pima County OME recorded the highest number of body recoveries (226) in fiscal year 2021, according to its annual report.

A Government Accountability Office report issued in April said CBP hasn’t “collected and recorded, or reported to Congress, complete data on migrant deaths or disclosed limitations with the data it has reported.”

The report evaluated the Missing Migrant Program implemented by Border Patrol in June 2017 “to help rescue migrants in distress and reduce migrant deaths along the southwest border.”

The program focuses on an area consisting of 45 counties on or near the nearly 2,000-mile international border with Mexico.

As of February this year, Border Patrol had placed 165 rescue beacons and more than 2,500 “911” placards along the southwest border, the report stated.

The lieutenant who was the acting police chief on duty the day of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, has been placed on administrative leave, following a report that found systemic failures by law enforcement who responded to the incident.

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin confirmed in a statement published on July 17 that Lt. Mariano Pargas had been placed on leave. McLaughlin noted that the city has a responsibility to evaluate how the Uvalde Police Department responded to the shooting incident, including Pargas’s role as acting chief.

“This administrative leave is to investigate whether Lt. Pargas was responsible for taking command on May 24th, what specific actions Lt. Pargas took to establish that command, and whether it was even feasible, given all the agencies involved and other possible policy violations,” McLaughlin wrote in the statement.

The statement didn’t provide details as to whether Pargas was placed on paid or unpaid leave.

The announcement came just hours after the Texas state House of Representatives on July 17 published a 77-page report noting that there were failures across the board by some of the roughly 400 law enforcement officers who responded to the May 24 mass shooting, including Pargas.

“There is no one to whom we can attribute malice or ill motives. Instead, we found systemic failures and egregious poor decision making,” the report said.

It also pointed to “shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District [CISD] and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement” and “an overall lackadaisical approach.”

‘Void of Leadership’

Pargas told the committee that “he figured” CISD police Chief Pete Arredondo had jurisdiction over the incident and that he “must have been coordinating the law enforcement response—and that the Uvalde Police were there to assist,” the report states.

The committee, in its report, also determined that Arredondo, who was one of the first responders on the scene, “failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander” on the day of the shooting, which left 19 students and two teachers dead.

“This was an essential duty he had assigned to himself in the plan mentioned above, yet it was not effectively performed by anyone,” the report states. “The void of leadership could have contributed to the loss of life as injured victims waited over an hour for help, and the attacker continued to sporadically fire his weapon.”

Arredondo was placed on leave in June following growing criticism over his failure not to immediately breach the classroom where gunman Salvador Ramos was fatally shooting students at the Texas school.

The committee wrote in its report that law enforcement failed to quickly confront Ramos on the day of the shooting, which saw law enforcement officers take more than 75 minutes to neutralize the shooter after he entered the building.

Missing Key

In June, Arredondo told The Texas Tribune that a missing key to a locked classroom door was the reason law enforcement officers took more than 70 minutes to take down Ramos.

“The only thing that was important to me at this time was to save as many teachers and children as possible,” he said.

But in its report, the committee noted that “in this crisis, no responder seized the initiative to establish an incident command post.”

“Despite an obvious atmosphere of chaos, the ranking officers of other responding agencies did not approach the Uvalde CISD chief of police or anyone else perceived to be in command to point out the lack of and need for a command post, or to offer that specific assistance,” the report states.

“Given the information known about victims who survived through the time of the breach and who later died on the way to the hospital, it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue.”

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw also told a state Senate hearing in June that police officers wasted time that day searching for the classroom door key without ever testing to see if the door was locked. According to the report, “none of the Border Patrol agents who used a key and ultimately opened the door were wearing body cameras which might have shed additional light on this question” of whether the door was actually locked.

“There is reason to question whether the door was actually locked,” the report reads (pdf).

In his statement published on July 17, McLaughlin said he agreed with the committee’s review of the mass shooting incident and its finding that there was a “failure of command,” but said the city has further questions regarding that day, such as who was responsible for taking command and what specific actions were taken by each agency on the day.

The Uvalde mayor’s office didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for additional comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Washington’s mayor is criticizing two border states for busing illegal immigrants to the nation’s capital, which bills itself as a sanctuary city.

For months, Texas and Arizona authorities have been offering free rides to illegal aliens who have claimed asylum, citing a lack of resources in dealing with the immigrants and the hope that sending them to Washington will help convince Resident Joe Biden to increase immigration enforcement amid a record number of arrests at the border.

But Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is a Democrat, isn’t on board.

“This is a very significant issue. We have, for sure, called on the federal government to work across state lines to prevent people from really being tricked into getting on buses. We think they’re largely asylum-seekers who are going to final destinations that are not Washington, D.C.,” she said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on July 17.

“I worked with the White House to make sure that FEMA provided a grant to a local organization that is providing services to folks. But I fear that they’re being tricked into nationwide bus trips when their final destinations are places all over the United States of America.”

Ranae Eze, press secretary for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, told The Epoch Times via email that “the only lie is the Biden Administration telling the American people that our border is closed.”

“With our nation’s capital now experiencing a fraction of the disaster created by resident Biden’s reckless open border policies that our state faces every single day, maybe he’ll finally do his job and secure the border,” she wrote.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, another Republican, wrote on Twitter: “Welcome to our world, @MayorBowser. Now work with your party, your Congress, and your President to do something about it.”

Complaints

Thousands of illegal aliens have been sent to Washington from the two states this year, beginning in April. Getting on the buses is a choice, according to officials in the states. But some of the immigrants complained to WUSA-TV that promises made by officials before getting on the buses weren’t fulfilled.

Ana Karina Arce Polano, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, told the broadcaster that she was told her family would be transported to Colorado via Washington, but that they didn’t end up being offered transportation to Colorado.

“We arrived here with faith to give them a better life, and it turns out that we do not even have a place to sleep and no way to get where we want to go,” Polano said.

Another illegal alien said she was told that her family would be given a ride to Chicago after arriving in Washington, but that hasn’t happened.

“If anyone is being misled, we certainly want to know about it,” Ducey spokesman CJ Karamargin told WUSA-TV.

Sister Sharlet Wagner, executive director of the Catholic Charities-run Newcomer Network, told NTD previously that most of the illegal immigrants were traveling to places beyond Washington.

“Most of them do have family or friends in the place where they really want to go. We’re happy to help them if they want to stay here. Most are choosing to move on,” she said.

Federal authorities have said that states aren’t “adequately coordinating” with them or local authorities. They also said that most immigrants who aren’t expelled via Title 42, a pandemic-era order, are released into the U.S. interior with notices to appear in court.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesman told The Epoch Times, “Through its Southwest Border Coordination Center, DHS is executing carefully designed plans to manage the processing and transport of noncitizens arriving at the border.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Christian employee resigned from union after learning her union fees were being spent to promote pro-abortion cause

A federal jury in Texas ordered Southwest Airlines and its union on July 14 to pay a former flight attendant who opposes abortion more than $5.3 million after she was fired for sending pro-life messages to her union’s president.

The jury determined that the airline and Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) Local 556 violated Charlene Carter’s rights as an employee to speak out against the union. The airline was ordered to pay Carter $4.15 million for back pay and pain and suffering. The union was ordered to pay Carter a separate $1.15 million, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which represented Carter in court, was elated at the verdict.

“It’s a good day for courage and it’s a good day for individual freedom and liberty. It’s exciting. It’s been a five-year odyssey for Charlene, and for our legal team,” Mix told The Epoch Times in an interview.

Carter’s story goes back to 1996 when, as a Southwest employee, she joined TWU Local 556. A pro-life Christian, she resigned from the union in 2013 upon learning her union dues were being spent to promote social causes that violated her conscience and religious beliefs.

Despite exiting the union, Carter was still forced to pay fees in lieu of union dues as a condition of her employment. State-level right-to-work laws don’t exempt her from forced fees because airline and railway employees fall under the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA), which allows union officials to have a worker fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees. Despite this, the RLA protects the rights of employees to remain nonmembers of the union, to criticize the union and its leadership, and to advocate for changing its leadership.

Pro-Abortion Event

When Carter discovered in 2017 that TWU Local 556 President Audrey Stone and other union officials used union dues to attend a pro-abortion event in the nation’s capital and that the company had accommodated local members wishing to attend by rearranging their work schedules, she took to social media to challenge Stone’s leadership. The airline demanded a meeting with Carter, informing her that Stone felt harassed by Carter’s issue advocacy.

A week later, the airline fired Carter. Not long after, Carter sued.

Mix said Carter objected to her forced union fees “being used for political purposes” such as attending a Planned Parenthood rally and the Women’s March. She also didn’t like that the union sent out notices to all union members “saying they should oppose the national right to work law,” which he said she supported.

Sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) S. 406, the proposed National Right-to-Work Act, is currently pending in Congress. It would repeal provisions of the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act that allow employers to make an agreement with a labor union to require employees to join that union as a condition of employment.

In this case, the union complained to the airline about Carter’s political views and got her fired, Mix said. Under current law the employee is represented in grievance proceedings by the union when a firing takes place, he said.

Both the union and the employer are required “to make accommodations for sincere religious beliefs,” Mix said. The union was in breach of the duty of fair representation “and this is the problem with union monopoly bargaining: when you have a dispute against the union, who do you go to to represent yourself in front of your employer?”

“This is one of those cases where Southwest for some reason decided to really go hard against Charlene,” Mix said, adding she had “no blemishes” on her employment record.

“The idea that the money she’s compelled to pay in order to keep her job was used for political and ideological causes that have nothing to do with her workplace is really an injustice.”

“This is a pretty good indication that both companies and unions need to watch out if they’re going to violate employee rights,” Mix said. If the cases go to jury trials, “there is a punishment for that, and today we saw that.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Southwest Airlines repeatedly for comment but had not received a reply as of press time.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Texas on July 14 sued the federal government over a recent document that says abortions must be performed even if the procedures are not allowed by state laws.

The guidance amounts to an abortion mandate and is illegal because it violates multiple laws, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said.

The guidance (pdf) was promulgated on July 11 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

It tells state survey agency directors that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a doctor at an emergency department who is presented with a pregnant woman who has an emergency medical condition “must” perform an abortion if the abortion is a necessary “stabilizing treatment.”

The abortion must be done even in states where the law “prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person,” the guidance says. “That state law is preempted.”

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, on the same day, told health care providers across the nation that “stabilizing treatment” could include abortion, “irrespective of any state laws or mandates that apply to specific procedures.” He said in the letter (pdf) that per the emergency labor act, the physician “must provide” an abortion in certain cases.

Texas officials see the situation differently.

Abortions Not Required by Law

“The Abortion Mandate requires that a provider perform an abortion if ‘abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve [an emergency medical condition].’ This condition has never been a part of EMTALA,” they said in a 20-page suit, filed in federal court in Lubbock.

EMTALA “does not mandate, direct, approve, or even suggest the provision of any specific treatment” and, “says nothing about abortion,” they added.

The guidance violates Texas’s sovereignty, according to the suit.

Plaintiffs say defendants lack the authority to amend EMTALA and that the order violates multiple federal laws. Officials also illegally issued the rule without alerting the public and soliciting comment, which violates the Administrative Procedure Act, according to the suit.

Texas officials are asking the court to hold the guidance unlawful and issue injunctions preventing the U.S. government from enforcing it.

HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The guidance came shortly after resident Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed an executive order directing Becerra, the HHS secretary, to within 30 days identify how to make sure that patients “receive the full protections for emergency medical care afforded under the law, including by considering updates to current guidance on obligations specific to emergency conditions and stabilizing care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.”

Biden’s order, in turn, was signed weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, ruling the 1973 decision was not constitutionally sound. The ruling returned the ability to fully regulate abortions back to states.

The majority opinion said that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion” and “does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion.”

“This administration has a hard time following the law, and now they are trying to have their appointed bureaucrats mandate that hospitals and emergency medicine physicians perform abortions,” Paxton said in a statement.

“I will ensure that resident Biden will be forced to comply with the Supreme Court’s important decision concerning abortion and I will not allow him to undermine and distort existing laws to fit his administration’s unlawful agenda,” he added.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Vicente Gonzalez’s South Texas district has long history of cartel activity

Before joining Congress, Vicente Gonzalez agreed to legally represent drug smugglers and gang leaders who flooded his border community with illegal drugs. Now, the Texas Democrat stresses the need to stop the flow of drugs and maintain “law and order.”

In 1997, Gonzalez founded his law firm, V. Gonzalez and Associates, through which the multimillionaire Democrat still earns tens of thousands of dollars a year. One year later, Gonzalez was retained to represent Richard Contreras, who pleaded guilty to federal charges after he conspired to import more than 2,200 pounds of marijuana from Mexico, court documents show.

In 1999, meanwhile, Gonzalez was retained to defend Frank Tijerina, the leader of a Texas street gang called the “Corrupt Criminal Mob.” Tijerina was sentenced to 30 months in prison on federal drug charges after conspiring to distribute nearly $420,000 worth of marijuana. Tijerina later pleaded guilty to selling large quantities of meth in a scheme that also started in the late 1990s. In total, Gonzalez agreed to represent an array of felony drug dealers who conspired to distribute eight pounds of MDMA, nearly half a pound of cocaine, and more than 4,000 pounds of marijuana, easily worth millions of dollars.

Gonzalez’s decision to represent high-level drug dealers in his South Texas border community—long a hotspot for Mexican cartels working to traffic narcotics into the United States—is at odds with the Democrat’s rhetoric as a member of Congress. In June 2018, Gonzalez called himself a “law and order member” who “believe[s] in strict border security.” Two months later, the Democrat said he was working to “bring security to our border” and ensure “drugs are not coming across as freely as they are now.” The issue could haunt his campaign as voters sour on resident Joe Biden’s border policies amid record-high illegal immigrant encounters—according to a February Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, just 32 percent of voters approve of Biden’s handling of immigration.

A former Border Patrol agent who served in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which Gonzalez represents, criticized the Democrat for the “stark inconsistencies” between “where he’s at today versus what he did before.” “Most South Texas Democrats act as if they’re not threatened to lose their jobs,” the former agent told the Washington Free Beacon. “[Gonzalez] is on that list—he’s been very comfortable, at least until now.”

Gonzalez’s campaign, which touts his record as an attorney, did not return a request for comment. 

McAllen, Texas, where Gonzalez lives, is no stranger to cartel activity. The city borders the Mexican city of Reynosa, which is known as a “key trafficking point” for “cartel violence.” As a result, the New York Post reported in 2019, McAllen is “‘ground zero’ in the border crisis between the U.S. and Mexico” and even features “a new Maserati dealership and ads for Rolex and Cartier watches” as cartel traffickers look to launder their cash. Roughly two decades earlier—as Gonzalez defended drug dealers in the area—federal agents arrested individuals in McAllen and nearby Brownsville who were implicated in a Mexican trafficking ring that held more than 5,200 kilograms of cocaine, nearly 10,000 pounds of marijuana, and roughly $11 million in cash, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration press release.

Despite the long-standing flow of cartel drugs into McAllen, Gonzalez has criticized former president Donald Trump’s border wall, which he called “useless” and “wasteful.” Instead of funding the wall, the Democrat argued, Congress should send billions of dollars to Central American countries to slow illegal immigration. Gonzalez also said the idea that the wall would “stop illegal drugs from coming to our country” is a “myth.” Former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Ronald Vitiello disputed that claim, calling the wall an “important” tool that “makes the work of agents safer.”

“It provides an anchor for the operation, it provides an anchor for technology, and it makes the agents safer, because they have the ability to slow people down and have this base of operations,” Vitiello told the Free Beacon. “So saying that doesn’t work is not an informed opinion. It doesn’t comport with my experience and wisdom.”

Gonzalez made big money from his legal career, his financial disclosures show. The Democrat owns an array of rental properties—his latest disclosure lists eight in McAllen, two in Washington, D.C., one in Monterrey, Mexico, and one in Madrid, Spain. Those properties earned Gonzalez at least $235,000 in 2020. Gonzalez also earned a combined $280,000 in “attorney fees” income from his law firm in 2019 and 2020, according to his disclosures.

Gonzalez in 2020 narrowly defeated Republican challenger Monica De La Cruz in Texas’s 15th Congressional District. One year later, he announced his decision to run in the 34th Congressional District in 2022, as the state’s redistricting process made that area considerably more blue. Still, Republicans are hopeful that Republican congresswoman Mayra Flores can give Gonzalez a run for his money in November. 

Flores in June became both the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress and the first Republican to represent parts of the 34th Congressional District since 1870 after she won a special election against Democrat Dan Sanchez. That race saw Flores best Sanchez in historical Democratic strongholds—the Republican, for example, won in Cameron County, which is 90 percent Hispanic and voted for Biden by double digits less than two years ago. After her win, the New York Times said Flores’s win marked “the rise of the far-right Latina,” citing the Republican’s support for religiosity, strong borders, and traditional values.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

DEL RIO, Texas—The U.S. Border Patrol agents who were falsely accused of striking illegal immigrants at the U.S.–Mexico border have had their careers “ruined” by resident Joe Biden, the head of the agency’s union told The Epoch Times.

“Their careers were ruined by this president,” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

A slew of media outlets in the fall of 2021 claimed that Border Patrol agents on horseback had whipped Haitian aliens who were entering the United States by crossing the Rio Grande at Del Rio, Texas. The outlets later backtracked on the claims.

But multiple government officials, including Biden, used similar language.

Biden told reporters he observed that the agents had “strapped” the immigrants, calling what happened “outrageous.”

“I promise you, those people will pay. They will be—an investigation is underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. But beyond an embarrassment, it’s dangerous; it’s wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are,” he said at the time.

However, an internal review released on July 8 said there was “no evidence” that agents “struck any person, intentionally or otherwise.” Further, U.S. prosecutors declined to charge any of the agents involved, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) revealed.

“The president accused them of a criminal act. He has not apologized for that,” Judd told The Epoch Times.

He said he doesn’t expect Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, who said she was “outraged” by the treatment of illegal immigrants, to apologize.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The agents were quickly placed on administrative duty after the widespread coverage of the incident on Sept. 19, 2021. At the time, as many as 30,000 mostly Haitian illegal immigrants had entered the United States and created a makeshift camp under a bridge that connects Del Rio, Texas, and Mexico’s Ciudad Acuña, while waiting to be processed by Border Patrol. Rumors of a riot had been circulating as conditions deteriorated.

Four agents are facing disciplinary charges, CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus told reporters during a briefing on July 8. According to the report, that includes an agent who acted unprofessionally by shouting at an illegal immigrant and nearly coming into contact with a small child on the concrete ramp leading out of the river.

On multiple occasions, mounted agents “used force or the threat of force to drive migrants back into the Rio Grande River despite the fact they were well within the territorial boundary of the United States,” the report stated.

“We’re not going to be discussing specifics of the disciplinary proposals today. But when it’s appropriate to do so, we will make the final disciplinary actions public consistent with the privacy rights of the individual employees,” Magnus, a Biden appointee, told reporters.

The Border Patrol union is representing three agents; the fourth person facing discipline is a supervisor, according to Judd.

He said he fears investigators “had no choice but to find some sort of fault” given the quick condemnation from Biden, Harris, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“And the fault that they found is some of the flimsiest I’ve ever seen in my 25-year career. In seeing disciplinary proposals time and time again, I have never seen a more flimsy proposal,” Judd said.

He said the situation has been “absolutely demoralizing” to agents because the agents involved were performing a legitimate law enforcement operation.

A Border Patrol agent in the Del Rio Sector, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of repercussions, told The Epoch Times that agents on the ground were set up by leadership for failure in a “no-win situation,” because of a lack of manpower and capability to effectively handle the flood of illegal aliens who were entering the United States on the day in question.

“With regard to the horse patrol, we know what happened. Agents know what happened. Leadership knows what happened. And instead of backing their agents for doing the best they could with what little they had, our leaders ‘Monday morning quarterbacked’ from their comfy offices and went on a fishing expedition, looking for reasons to get agents in trouble to appease those in this administration,” the agent said. “Our leaders need to quit saying Honor First and start living Honor First.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Texas Republican Party delegates—who last month approved a resolution rejecting Joe Biden as a legitimately elected president—adopted a sweeping new platform with a big focus on election integrity.

The state’s GOP released the results of its 2022 platform vote this week. Two of the measures seek fair elections free of illegal voting practices and updated voter registration rolls to combat fraud.

Among provisions for fair elections, Republicans want to limit mail-in ballots to those who can’t physically appear in person, and prohibit internet voting for public office, mandate full signature verification for mail-in ballots, require voter photo ID, and deter counterfeiting by using sequential ballots.

On voter rolls, Republicans want voters to re-register if they haven’t voted in five years. Voter requirements include proof of residency, citizenship, and a photo ID. They also approved compiling a list of certified deaths so the Texas secretary of state’s office can remove deceased persons from voter rolls. They also want to repeal all motor voter laws.

The platform reflects concerns raised in the resolution rejecting the certified results of the 2020 presidential election. In June, nearly 5,000 delegates at the Texas Republican Convention voted on the resolution and platform.

The resolution declared that the 2020 election violated the Constitution by allowing secretaries of state to circumvent their state legislatures illegally. It asserted that “substantial election fraud” had occurred in key metropolitan areas, affecting the results in five states to Biden’s favor.

Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, said in a statement that the Texas GOP was raising funds for election integrity, which is a top priority to ensure that Texas never goes down the same path as Pennsylvania, Georgia, or Arizona.

“Texas Republicans rightly have no faith in the 2020 election results, and we don’t care how many times the elites tell us we have to. We refuse to let Democrats rig the elections in 2022 or 2024,” he said.

Democrats have long dismissed the idea of significant voter fraud swaying the outcome of the 2020 election, calling it misinformation perpetuated by former President Donald Trump in his effort to overturn a legitimate election.

Texas Republicans also made election integrity a top legislative priority for the 2023 session. Delegates want to restore felony penalties and enact civil penalties for election code violations. They want to restrict the distribution of mail-in ballots, limit early voting, and close Republican primaries.

The Republicans also called for legislation allowing the state’s attorney general to have the authority to prosecute election fraud, after the all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled the state’s attorney general couldn’t unilaterally do so in December 2021.

James Wesolek, a media spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas, told The Epoch Times that the vast majority of the 274 planks of the platform passed with 80 percent or more support. Five items had less than 80 percent, but none came in less than 70 percent of the vote. The platform covers a wide range of topics, including border security, medical freedom, pro-life issues, constitutional rights, and even Texas secession.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Specter of Democratic interference raises concerns of voter fraud

Republicans in Texas and elsewhere are considering closing primaries to limit what they say is Democratic meddling.

One of the Texas GOP’s top legislative priorities includes closing primaries to stop Democrat interference. It is part of a sweeping measure calling on the state legislature to enhance election integrity while combating voter fraud.

The idea also appears in a platform “plank” to prevent liberal Democrats crossing over so they can “move the Republican Party to the left.”

Some Republicans point to stories of Democrats playing spoiler in Texas primaries as a concern.

In February, an Austin woman quoted in a Texas Public Radio story admitted she and others crossed over to vote in the Republican primary to cause chaos.

“Let’s get these guys to a primary runoff. Let’s make them burn their war chest money before they face Democrats in November,” K. Monroe told Texas Public Radio.

In other states such as Colorado, Democrats ran ads for MAGA candidates, hoping to knock out more moderate Republicans during primary races.

Republicans in Georgia are talking about closing their primary because more than 80,000 people who voted Democratic in the past voted in their primary.

In Texas, State Rep. Cecil Bell (R-Magnolia), who serves parts of Montgomery and Waller counties outside of Houston, told The Epoch Times crossover voting isn’t an issue in his district. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t caused problems in larger metropolitan areas.

“I know there are people who are very concerned about closing our primaries,” Bell said. “Election integrity is a high priority to all Texans and Americans.”

Cal Jillson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, told The Epoch Times that registered voters may cast a vote in a Republican or Democratic Texas primary.

However, voters must stick with the party they selected. If someone voted in the Democratic primary race, that person couldn’t switch back and vote in a Republican primary runoff, for example.

Jillson said the idea behind Republicans closing their primary would be limiting “Republicans In Name Only” candidates and ensuring office-seekers are true to Republican values. But he pointed out that cross-voting may be more of a perceived threat than an actual one.

Republicans are unlikely to go through with closing their primary at this point because they dominate statewide elections.

“The Republicans haven’t lost a statewide race in Texas since 1994,” Jillson said.” When you’re winning, why would you change the game?”

Using definitions developed by Ballotpedia and the National Confederation of State Legislatures, Texas and 14 other states have open primaries. Nine have closed ones, and the remainder falls somewhere in between.

Open primaries are where registered voters of any affiliation may vote in any party primary they choose. They cannot vote in more than one party’s primary each election.

Mark Rountree—founder and president of Landmark Communications, a Georgia firm that conducts political analysis—told The Epoch Times that crossover voting changed the outcome of Georgia’s Republican primary.

His firm’s research shows that 85,019 or 7.6 percent of voters in the Georgia Republican primary had voted Democratic in either 2018 or 2020.

That leads him to believe it impacted the primary in the case of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the incumbent who faced Trump-backed candidate Rep. Jody Hice.

Raffensperger finished with 52.3 percent of the vote, or 2.3 percent above the majority threshold that would have prompted a runoff.

“Raffensberger got nominated simply because a lot of Democrats switched over,” Rountree said.

However, he said that doesn’t mean Democrats switched over to stop Trump-backed candidates from winning in the Georgia Republican primary.

It appears that some people are “Republicats,” meaning they are swing-voters who vote Democratic or Republican depending on the race in years past, he said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The firearms industry abandons blue states to avoid crushing regulations

Of all the businesses that are moving out of blue states, those in the gun industry lead the pack.

Storied firearms manufacturers, some of them having operated in northern states for centuries, are now heading South. Remington, founded in 1816 and America’s oldest gun maker, announced in November it was moving its headquarters from New York to Georgia.

In announcing the move, which will include a $100 million investment in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and create 856 new jobs, Remington CEO Ken D’Arcy said, “the decision to locate in Georgia is very simple. The state of Georgia is not only a business-friendly state, it’s a firearms-friendly state.”

Also exiting New York is Dark Storm Industries, a gun manufacturer and retailer. They will be moving to Titusville, Florida, where they have begun construction on a new manufacturing plant, bringing up to 75 jobs to Florida.

“If you’re in the gun industry and you have the opportunity to move to Florida, you’re figuring it out, that’s where you want to be,” Dark Star Communications Manager Kevin Elder told The Epoch Times. When the company asked its employees if they would consider moving south, they didn’t hesitate, Elder said, “they were ready to go.”

Dark Star was founded to make firearms that are compliant with New York’s strict regulations, “but they just keep adding on more and more restrictions and more hoops to jump through,” Elder said. “Our clientele is very friendly, and our community, and we try to give back as much as we can. We do a lot of charity work and local law enforcement loves us. But as far as the state itself, they don’t want that kind of stuff up here.”

Elder said that Dark Star’s problems in New York went beyond state regulations to also include banks and payments companies. “We had to change credit card processors,” as well as the company’s bank, he said, because they were denying service to firearms companies, despite their strong creditworthiness.

Tennessee has been another popular destination, attracting Smith & Wesson in September and Troy Industries last May, both from Massachusetts. Even before these moves were announced, Tennessee was already home to more than 20 firearms manufacturing companies.

Smith & Wesson’s move to Maryville, Tennessee, will include a $125 million investment and create 750 new jobs. Among the many reasons cited by CEO Mark Smith were new laws proposed by Massachusetts’ Democrat-led legislature banning the sale, possession and manufacture of “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines” for civilian use. Smith noted that these products comprised 60 percent of his company’s revenue.

Steve Troy, CEO of Troy Industries also cited the “changing climate for firearms manufacturers” in Massachusetts, which “determined the need for our relocation to Tennessee.” Troy Industries will invest $7 million in Clarksville, Tennessee, adding 75 jobs.

Other firearms companies leaving blue states include Kimber Manufacturing, which left New York for Alabama; Winchester Centerfire, which left Illinois for Mississippi; Stag Arms, which left Connecticut for Wyoming; and Magpul Industries, which left Colorado for Wyoming and Texas.

The migration of the firearms industry is part of a wider movement by American firms to escape high-tax, high-regulation states like California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. But gun makers are in a particular hurry to exit these states in response to new laws and regulations seemingly intended to drive them out.

What all of the destination states have in common is that “they are respectful of the contributions that these businesses make to state economies,” National Shooting Sports Foundation Managing Director Mark Oliva told The Epoch Times. “And they are respectful of the Second Amendment rights of consumers who are buying these firearms.”

The firearms industry is a rapidly growing business. “Our last economic impact report showed that we have grown 270 percent since 2008,” Oliva said, “and it’s an industry that continues to grow every year.” About 20 million firearms were purchased in 2021, the second-highest year on record after 2020, when nearly 22 million were sold. Firearms owners are an increasingly diverse group, with women and minorities comprising the fastest growing percentage of new gun owners.

American small-arms makers also supply police and the military. According to the 1933 Buy America Act, the federal government must buy from American companies whenever possible. This has caused many foreign arms makers, including Austria-based Glock, Italy-based Beretta and Czech-based CZG to set up manufacturing in the United States. Beretta initially set up manufacturing in Maryland, but moved to Tennessee in 2016. Glock manufactures in Smyrna, Georgia, and CZG bought Colt Manufacturing in 2021, giving it production facilities in the United States and Canada.

However, efforts to put the gun industry out of business are continuing, both at the federal and state level. Last June, New York State passed a law making it easier for the state and its residents to sue gun makers for injuries caused by the guns they make. New Jersey and California are looking at similar legislation, and in February, grieving parents of elementary school children who were shot in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre successfully sued Remington, the manufacturer of the rifle used in that tragedy, on the grounds that it was marketed improperly under a Connecticut consumer protection law.

Resident Joe Biden has called for nationwide bans of semi-automatic rifles and magazines with more than 10 rounds, has spoken out against the use of 9mm ammunition, and has demanded the repeal of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects the gun industry from lawsuits regarding “criminal or unlawful misuse” of firearms. Biden claimed, falsely, in April 2021 that “the only industry in America, billion-dollar industry, that can’t be sued, exempt from being sued, are gun manufacturers.”

“Resident Biden stood on the campaign stage in one of the early debates and said that firearms manufacturers are the enemy; not an adversary, not an opponent, an enemy.” Oliva said. “That is compelling when our commander in chief views the industry that provides the means to protect our nation, protect our communities, and protect ourselves, as the enemy.”

Source: The Epoch Times

GOLIAD, Texas—Sheriffs in Texas are experiencing the impact of the border crisis in their counties every day—whether it’s armed cartel operatives smuggling illegal immigrants, vehicle pursuits resulting in crashes and deaths, or drug overdose deaths from fentanyl brought across the southern border.

In Goliad, Sheriff Roy Boyd sits 200 miles from the Texas–Mexico border, between McAllen and Houston—a major transport corridor of illegal immigrants and illicit goods.

As a 29-year law enforcement veteran in the region, Boyd said he’s never seen a border crisis so bad or border-related crime so egregious.

“There’s no end to it,” he told The Epoch Times on June 23. He monitors 16 cartel-operated sites in his county that are currently dormant, but have been used to stash illegal immigrants on their way to Houston. Currently it’s mostly carloads of illegal immigrants being smuggled straight through his county to the city.

“It’s a movement of individuals from third world countries, all over the place, into our country. But the farther you get into it, the more you realize it’s all done by design—and it’s at the design of the federal government.

“We’re in a transformation of America from a free Republic to moving to something that’s more of a Marxist state.”

Since resident Joe Biden took office in January 2021, border authorities have apprehended more than 3.2 million illegal border crossers, according to Customs and Border Protection data. An additional 800,000 or so have been detected, but evaded capture.

When asked how allowing millions of people from more than 160 countries through the southern border results in the transformation to communism, Boyd harkened back to the 1960’s and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty.”

“LBJ sold the war on poverty to the Democratic National Party … and the DNC’s response was, ‘Why would we give those people something for nothing?’” Boyd said.

LBJ responded by saying he’d have them voting Democratic for 200 years, Boyd said, paraphrasing an infamous quote that has been widely attributed to the former president.

“This is nothing but a replication of the soft enslavement of people through entitlement,” Boyd said. “Because if you understand psychology and you look at the history of things, this is how it functions. Once it starts, it’s hard to stop.”

Trevor Loudon, a communism expert and contributor to The Epoch Times, said in a previous interview that the communists’ main enemy is the United States.

“And if you can’t bring it down through nuclear weapons, you bring it down through illegal immigration, which is maybe just as effective in the long run,” Loudon said.

“This is an orchestrated, communist assault on America, to destroy America’s borders, to create confusion in America, to overwhelm the system politically.”

Loudon said an additional 15 million to 25 million Democratic voters would ensure perpetual Democrat control of government.

“You will have a one-party state in America. And that is the plan. That is why they are doing this,” he said.

“This is Marxist. This is Leninist. And this goes back to American politicians cooperating with hostile foreign powers in the destruction of America. And their No. 1 weapon is illegal immigration and overwhelming the border.”

Traditionally, noncitizens have voted about 80 percent Democratic and 20 percent Republican, according to a 2014 study by Old Dominion University.

“We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections,” the study concluded.

“Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.”

Now, the number of non-Hispanic illegal aliens entering the United States is increasing at the same time that Hispanics are skewing more Republican, as evidenced by Rep. Mayra Flores’s recent win in south Texas.

It’s illegal for non-U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections, however, for years there’s been a push for municipal elections to accept noncitizen voters, including visa holders.

Loudon said Eliseo Medina, a labor union activist and former immigration consultant to President Barack Obama, is a main driver of the illegal immigration movement.

In 2009, Medina spoke at the America’s Future Now progressives’ conference in Washington.

“[If] we reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters,” Medina said. “Can you imagine … [even] if we get 8 million new voters that care about our issue and will be voting—we will create a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”

Fourteen municipalities currently allow noncitizens to vote, including 11 in Maryland, two in Vermont, and one in San Francisco.

A recent court ruling quashed a New York City law that would have allowed at least 800,000 noncitizens to vote in municipal elections.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams allowed the measure to become law on Jan. 9.

“I believe that New Yorkers should have a say in their government, which is why I have and will continue to support this important legislation,” Adams said in a statement at the time. “I believe allowing the legislation to be enacted is by far the best choice, and look forward to bringing millions more into the democratic process.”

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and former member of the Federal Election Commission, said allowing noncitizens to vote “cheapens and diminishes” the concept of citizenship.

“The whole point of the open borders crowd is to do two things: one, extinguish the line between legal and illegal aliens in this country. And second, to frankly get rid of the whole concept of citizenship,” Spakovsky said in a previous interview.

Biden has said he wants a pathway to citizenship for all illegal immigrants in the United States.

Boyd said the Biden administration is working hard to purge conservative and constitutional thinkers at the federal level and replace them with people with a socialist mindset.

“But always remember, as Stalin said, the aim of socialism is communism,” Boyd said.

He said his focus remains in Goliad to protect his county and make it an unwelcoming place for criminals. The sheriffs in the region try to work together to “help each other to fight this massive wave of criminal activity,” he said.

“We don’t deal with immigration, we’re not tasked with it, we’re not authorized with it, we don’t want anything to do with it.

“But we’re fighting all the felonies that are being brought to our doorstep as a result of the national policy that’s causing this problem. And to be quite honest with you, I have no faith in the federal government.”

“My faith is in our Lord and Savior. One day we’re going to meet the end and we’re going to have to answer for what it is we’ve done, and so I want to have a good answer when I get there.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Blue states believe their abortion policies can bring companies back

Amidst predictions of a political “red wave” in the upcoming mid-term elections, an economic wave has been building for years with no end in sight as companies flood out of blue states and into red states.

And as a result of its political divisions, America appears to now be dividing itself into prosperous, high-growth states and states that are suffering a chronic decline. But Democrat-run states believe their abortion policies could be a key factor in attracting companies back.

Caterpillar and Citadel, which in June announced their exit out of Illinois, are only the latest firms to leave high-tax, high-regulation states. Tesla, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Remington are also among the hundreds of companies flocking out of California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey to business-friendly places like Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee. Relocating companies have spanned industries including tech, finance, media, heavy manufacturing, autos, and firearms.

“There is a great migration going on, and I expect it to accelerate,” Glen Hamer, president of the Texas Association of Business, told The Epoch Times. “When the Caterpillars and the Elon Musks relocate, it’s an advertisement to the entire country and the entire world that something positive is going on in that state. And there is a multiplier effect.”

According to a 2022 survey of 700 CEOs, the top states for business were Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, and North Carolina. The worst were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington.

Even companies like Apple, which did not move its headquarters to Texas, chose to establish its second-largest campus for employees there. Amazon selected Houston as one of its prime hubs. Ford, Volkswagen, and Nissan chose Tennessee as the location for major new manufacturing facilities. And in some cases, entire industries like firearms, which are being targeted by legislation and lawsuits in blue states, are moving south.

“It’s a broader trend that we’ve been tracking for the last 15 years,” Lee Schalk, Vice President of Policy at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), told The Epoch Times. ALEC tracks state economic trends in their annual report, “Rich States Poor States.”

“You won’t see companies moving to states like New York, California, and New Jersey,” Schalk said. “They’ll be moving out of those states into neighboring states, where the policies are a little bit better, or they’ll be making the big move to places like Texas, Florida, North Carolina.”

“Texas was one of the first states to recover all the jobs it lost during the pandemic,” Hamer said. “Now we have a workforce that is at an all-time high, and the economy has diversity and strength. Whether it’s energy, manufacturing, health care, technology, finance, you name it, the Texas economy is firing on all cylinders.” Texas has attracted 250 new corporate headquarters since 2015, Hamer said.

When jobs leave, people leave with them. According to the U.S. Census, Democrat-run states California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois together lost 4 million people between 2010 and 2019, the so-called “leftugees.” During the same period, the states with the greatest influx of people were Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona.

States have been able to attract companies by cutting taxes, reducing red tape, and establishing right-to-work policies. In 2013, North Carolina passed a landmark tax reform package to cut corporate and personal income taxes. The business income tax there is now 2.5 percent and will be phased out entirely over the next several years.

Contrary to expectations that states would bankrupt themselves by cutting taxes, an influx of companies and new residents often boosts state revenues from property taxes, sales taxes, and personal income taxes, even when the percentages are reduced. Florida attracted 624,000 new residents in 2020, along with more than $40 billion in income, equating to an estimated $23.7 billion in new tax income. Florida has enjoyed two decades of net in-migration, amounting to a total income gain of $197 billion.

North Carolina’s latest budget included a deal to phase out corporate income taxes while also giving teachers a raise and even padding its “rainy day fund,” Schalk said. “North Carolina has been able to do that because not only have they been bold on lowering taxes, but they’ve also gotten the spending side under control.” And when companies move in, they bring intangible benefits with them as well.

“Any sort of civic organization loves it when they hear that a blue chip company like Caterpillar is relocating to our state,” Hamer said. “It means these executives are going to be serving on all sorts of different boards of directors, the local art museum, opera, or the chamber of commerce. When companies relocate their individuals, they become deeply ingrained in the community. They contribute time and treasure to activities that make the community more vibrant.”

The reverse is also true for states that are losing businesses and population, creating a vicious circle where continuously hiking taxes fails to bring in more revenue because the tax base gets depleted and quality of life suffers. According to a report based on IRS data by Wirepoints, an Illinois-based economic research organization, the cost of losing companies and people is stark for states like Illinois, which has lost population for 21 straight years.

Since 2020, that state has lost a total of $535 billion in income that moved away, which equates to about $25 billion in lost tax revenue during that period, and $4 billion in 2020 alone. Illinois’ problems include a loss of 114,000 residents in 2021, a string of 21 consecutive years of state budget deficits, a $313 billion deficit in public pensions, and the second-highest property tax rates in the country.

“Illinois is stuck in a vicious downward spiral it can’t hope to escape from without fundamentally changing how it governs,” the Wirepoints report states. “Structural property tax reform, reductions in pension debt, slashing units of local government—the state needs to do all these things if it wants to convince Illinoisans to stay and persuade other Americans to move in.”

Reducing violent crime would also help. Escalating crime was reportedly a factor, one among many, in Citadel’s decision to leave Chicago for Miami. Ken Griffin, the hedge fund’s CEO, had been one of Illinois’ richest residents and had given more than $600 million in charitable donations to educational, cultural, medical, and civic causes in the state.

“It’s the beauty of the 50 laboratories of our democracy,” Schalk said. “We’re able to quickly see what’s working and what’s not working across all issue areas. Unfortunately, I don’t see the high tax and high spend states changing their ways.”

“We can see an acceleration of hostile business policies in states like California, Illinois, and New York,” Hamer said. “It’s a race to increase taxes, increase regulation, and make it more difficult for people to live their lives. When you contrast that with states like Texas and Arizona, the gap is just widening and we’re seeing the great migration as a result.”

Republican Representatives in Washington are attempting to grant even more economic power to states in energy production. The GOP introduced the Federal Land Freedom Act last year, which would take authority to approve oil leases and permits away from the federal government and “give each state the right to develop all of the energy resources on the federal lands located within that state’s borders.”

Recently, however, blue states appear to be waking up and looking for ways to boost their competitiveness. California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently stated, “some businesses may have left the state, come on back! It’s a point of pride that we welcome you back.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy sent personal letters to more than 50 companies in red states, appealing for them to come to New Jersey. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont made a similar attempt. These governors are highlighting one regulatory advantage that they believe will give them an edge over conservative states: their permissive policies toward abortion.

Murphy’s letter to companies in Georgia stated that “The overturning of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy—and the chilling effect this decision will have on your ability to attract and retain top female talent by being located in a state which has refused to recognize women’s reproductive freedom—cannot be ignored.”

Alyana Alfaro Post, Murphy’s press secretary, said, “Governor Murphy encourages businesses looking to stand with their employees to look at New Jersey, a state where they can be confident that the rights of women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and voters will always be protected.”

“We’re a family-friendly state that respects women,” Lamont stated in a video pitch. “I know some of you are in states like Texas, which are outlawing a woman’s right to choose. We have codified, we are protecting a woman’s right to choose … any of you business owners thinking about making a move, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you.”

Source: The Epoch Times

States will not prevent life-saving treatment for pregnant women post-Roe v. Wade, contrary to claims from liberal media outlets and politicians.

Democratic politicians including Resident Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with left-leaning media outlets like the New York Times, have said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe may endanger or kill pregnant mothers. “I don’t mean to sound alarmist, I mean this: Women will die,” Harris said in a recent interview. Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali said women will have to ask themselves, “Do I abort this ectopic pregnancy to literally save my life or do I go to jail?”

While the overturn of Roe has either outlawed or severely restricted abortion in at least 11 states, each include exceptions to save the life of the mother in medical emergencies. Nevertheless, Democrats are hyping these concerns over pregnant mothers’ safety, and abortion advocates are spending millions of dollars to rally supporters before the 2022 midterms. Biden reminded his party last week before the Dobbs decision that “Roe is on the ballot“

The Texas “heart beat” bill, which prohibits abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, states that removal of an ectopic pregnancy does not constitute an abortion. Louisiana’s law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks includes exceptions for ectopic pregnancies and other medical emergencies, along with the Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Wisconsin abortion bills.

Treatment for ectopic pregnancies, where the unborn baby develops outside the uterus, is not abortion, said Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB-GYN and associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. She said women will receive the same treatment for life-threatening conditions as when Roe was in effect.

“The intent of an abortion is to end the life of the developing fetal human being, while our intent when we treat an ectopic pregnancy is to save the life of the mother,” Francis told the Washington Free Beacon. “We do a very different procedure than what’s done for an induced abortion.”

In Oklahoma, the state with the strictest abortion laws in the country, abortion is allowed when the doctor’s “reasonable medical judgment” determines it is necessary to save the mother’s life. Alabama allows abortions if the mother has a medical condition that requires “the termination of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function.” West Virginia, which criminalizes abortion, also allows exceptions with the “intention of saving the life of such woman or child.” South Dakota’s 2022 abortion bill says a “procedure for the management of a miscarriage” is not an abortion.

Claims that the overturn of Roe will harm mothers who have miscarriages are also unfounded, according to Francis. If the unborn baby has died, “abortion laws, statutes, and even discussions don’t apply,” she said.

“There is intentional fear mongering being done,” Francis said. “I think people who know better are trying to scare women and physicians in the general public into supporting abortion laws.”

https://freebeacon.com/politics/liberals-are-wrong-emergency-pregnancy-treatments-remain-legal-after-roe/

KINNEY COUNTY, Texas—Kinney County sheriff’s deputies responded to a suspected smuggling vehicle on a county road early in the morning on June 29. During the ensuing pursuit, the fleeing driver lost control of the vehicle and flipped it.

The driver, a Mexican national wearing a cartel-related medallion, was taken into custody and is facing at least seven felony charges, according to Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe.

Of the five passengers, all illegal immigrants, one female was taken to the hospital in Del Rio for non-life threatening injuries, while the remaining four declined medical treatment.

Coe said Border Patrol told him they could take the four uninjured illegal aliens into custody for processing only if they had been checked medically first.

“Well they had declined any type of medical help,” Coe told The Epoch Times. “So I can’t let them walk the streets. I can’t say, ‘Hey, go, be free.’ Because I still have to protect the Constitution and protect the people in the county.”

Coe said he loaded the three males and one female into his truck and drove to Eagle Pass, about an hour away, and dropped them off at the port of entry between the United States and Mexico.

In response to a question by The Epoch Times about the sheriff’s move, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the sheriffs in Texas play a “vital role” up and down the border.

“I applaud all of our sheriffs for having to respond in unprecedented conditions. And that’s causing all of us to use unprecedented action,” Abbott said during a press conference in Eagle Pass on June 29.

“And so whether it’s doing what that sheriff in Kinney County is doing, or what we’re doing, such as turning back more than 20,000 people, we all have our own tools and strategies that we use to either turn back or to return people across the border.”

Coe said he agrees with Abbott that local law enforcement shouldn’t have to be tying up so many resources on the border issue.

“But to let them go, undocumented, unaccounted for, just go because of a policy—I couldn’t do it. It’s going to be the exception rather than the rule. But at the same time, if Border Patrol won’t take a group for whatever reason, I don’t have a choice.”

He said he’s not sure if there will be any legal ramifications—”We’ll see what happens.”

Kinney County deputies have arrested 66 smugglers so far in June as the county remains a thoroughfare from the U.S.–Mexico border to San Antonio.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-sheriff-drives-4-illegal-aliens-to-international-bridge-deports-them_4567764.html?utm_source=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2022-06-30&utm_medium=email&est=tfStmd0vnUutQkif9a%2F65g9EaQzHOdBcCrYDgUsk1Vn7jsu3MUXAuR12eZtZ%2FhCU5w%3D%3D

Why not start using the border for munitions testing; waste disposal (especially nuclear); etc.? [US Patriot]

The Supreme Court gave the Biden administration the green light on June 30 to end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy that requires non-Mexican asylum-seekers arriving at the southern border to wait in Mexico for processing.

Resident Joe Biden’s decision to nix the program didn’t violate a 1996 migrant detention law, the court held, noting that the administration’s memorandum rescinding the program should have been examined by the lower courts.

The 5–4 opinion (pdf) in Biden v. Texas, court file 21-954, was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and comes as record numbers of illegal aliens are streaming across the U.S. border with Mexico, overwhelming the capacity of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to deal with them.

Roberts’s opinion was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett Kavanaugh. Breyer, 83, retired from the court at noon on June 30 and was replaced by Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kavanaugh also filed a separate concurring opinion. Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett both filed separate dissenting opinions.

Texas and Missouri had argued that Biden broke the law by ending the program.

Upon taking office, Biden cut off enrollments in the program, part of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) created by Congress under then-President Bill Clinton. In 2018, the Trump administration said it would enforce the program to crack down on the practice known as catch-and-release, in which individuals would make fraudulent asylum claims knowing they would be released into the United States and be able to stay for years before their court appearance.

Under Biden, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a memorandum on Jan. 20, 2021, saying it would “suspend new enrollments in the [MPP] pending further review of the program.”

“Aliens who aren’t already enrolled in MPP should be processed under other existing legal authorities,” it reads.

Days later, Biden signed three new executive orders aimed at undoing Trump-era immigration policies. One of them, Biden said, “orders a full review of the previous administration’s harmful and counterproductive immigration policies, basically across the board.”

But in August 2021, at the urging of the two states, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, ordered the government to enforce the MPP policy until “lawfully rescinded.” The Biden administration had failed to properly justify ending the policy and to uphold a 1996 law requiring the detention of certain migrants, the judge held. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit affirmed Kacsmaryk’s ruling.

On May 2, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of asking the attorneys involved in the case to provide post-hearing submissions to the court. Both the Biden administration and the two states opposing it in the high-stakes litigation filed briefs arguing that the court does have the power to decide the central legal questions in the case, The Epoch Times reported.

In his new opinion, Roberts wrote that “the Government’s rescission of MPP did not violate” section 1225 of the Immigration and Nationality Act” and reversed the decision of the lower court, remanding the case “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

By incorrectly interpreting the section as a command, the appeals court needlessly injected itself into administration affairs and “imposed a significant burden upon the Executive’s ability to conduct diplomatic relations with Mexico,” Roberts wrote.

The district court would force the administration “to the bargaining table with Mexico, over a policy that both countries wish to terminate, and to supervise its continuing negotiations with Mexico to ensure that they are conducted ‘in good faith.’” The law doesn’t allow the lower court “to tie the hands of the Executive in this manner,” the chief justice wrote.

In his dissent, Alito wrote that even though Congress gave the administration the option of returning “inadmissible aliens to Mexico while they await proceedings in this country,” the Biden DHS instead violated the law by releasing in the United States an “untold numbers of aliens who are very likely to be removed if they show up for their removal hearings.”

“This practice violates the clear terms of the law, but the Court looks the other way,” he wrote.

Christopher Hajec, director of litigation at the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), a nonprofit public interest law firm that filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, shared his views on the new ruling.

“We are certainly disappointed with the Court’s decision today,” Hajec told The Epoch Times by email.

“We think it was wrong on the merits and wrong on jurisdiction. Nevertheless, there are two silver linings. On the merits, the Court made clear that the lower courts in this case have yet to decide, and should decide, whether Biden’s extreme parole policies are lawful. We think they clearly are not. Also, on jurisdiction, the Court still left open a path for states and other parties to get relief from Biden’s disastrous immigration policies, though that path is narrower than before.”

Judy Rabinovitz, special counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, praised the ruling.

“The Supreme Court was right to reject the spurious argument that this cruel policy is statutorily required,” Rabinovitz said in a statement. “While, as noted in the decision, the case will return to the district court, the Biden administration can and should move forward swiftly to finally terminate ‘remain in Mexico’ for good—a result that has been long, and unjustly, delayed.”

The U.S. Department of Justice didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-allows-biden-administration-to-end-trumps-remain-in-mexico-asylum-policy_4565236.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-30-3&utm_medium=email&est=Xodv3Q9nnt9ZaB7%2ByGooAS7ZqhRBeHFiM42IocVr0YoZFsooSx%2B3gdtBYJvzhNX98Q%3D%3D

A transgender activist who creates widely distributed educational resources for nonbinary students called for a “Supreme Court assassination challenge” on the same day Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Eli Erlick, a founder of Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER) and creator of a popular “Gender Unicorn” graphic for “gender fluidity,” tweeted and later deleted the remark on Friday, when the High Court delivered its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Since 2011, Erlick and the “youth-led” organization have helped implement transgender policies in dozens of school districts, including Wisconsin, New York, and Texas. The group backs sweeping “structural change” as opposed to “equality,” which according to its website, “reinforces systems of white supremacy, transphobia, and injustice.”

Following the leaked Dobbs decision in May, pro-abortion activists have targeted pro-life offices and crisis pregnancy centers across the country. Vandals firebombed pro-life buildings in Wisconsin and New York and defaced four pro-life churches in Washington State. Fears heightened in June when an armed California man was arrested outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh and later confessed to plans to assassinate the justice.

Assassination threats, sometimes from accounts with thousands of followers, erupted on social media on the day the Court ended constitutional protection for abortion.

“Can someone kill Clarence Thomas??” an account with more than 14,000 followers tweeted. The post hadn’t been taken down as of this article’s publication.

Another user said, “i’m going to assassinate supreme court justice Clarence Thomas,” in a tweet that has since been taken down. The account is no longer visible.

After deleting the assassination post, Erlick, who has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter, called out conservative pundit Ann Coulter for having joked six years ago that someone should “rat poison” former associate justice John Paul Stevens.

“The right only wants to defend the Supreme Court when it leans conservative,” Erlick tweeted.

Erlick was named one of Glamour magazine’s 2017 Women of the Year and has received breathless media coverage since transitioning and becoming a political activist as a teen.

Violence has only worsened since the Dobbs ruling. Protesters in Los Angeles assaulted police with fireworks and a makeshift blow torch, injuring four officers. In Phoenix, others attempted to storm the state capitol building while its Senate was in session, smashing windows and tearing down a fence in the process.

Some Democratic politicians, meanwhile, have fueled institutional distrust. In Washington, D.C., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) on Friday stood outside the Court, shouting “illegitimate” and urging supporters “into the streets.” In Chicago, Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot said, “Fuck Clarence Thomas!” in front of a crowd at the Windy City’s annual Pride parade.

Erlick, who is currently a Ph.D. candidate in “political philosophy, social movements, and trans history” at the University of California, Santa Cruz, did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment. Neither did TSER. The Trans Youth Equality Foundation also did not respond to a request for comment.

“Critical thinking requires carefully considering the source,” Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Free Beacon. “The ‘Gender Unicorn’ graphic makes profound claims about the fundamental metaphysical nature of mankind. The source doesn’t particularly appear to be a balanced and disinterested sage, to say the least.”

Update 4:13 p.m.: This piece has been updated with an additional comment.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/transgender-activist-who-created-gender-unicorn-calls-for-supreme-court-assassination-challenge/

Couple denies any wrongdoing

A retired Texas couple said FBI agents busted through the gate of their rural home, threw flashbangs, handcuffed them, and trained lasers on them before searching their home for evidence connected to the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol.

Lora DeWolfe and Darrel Kennemer, who live on seven acres near San Marcos, Texas, told The Epoch Times they attended the Jan. 6 rally at the Capitol but did nothing wrong. They believe the FBI mistakenly identified Kennemer as someone else.

The FBI didn’t arrest them, they said. Agents eventually produced a search warrant saying Kennemer was suspected of “assaulting, resisting or impeding” officers and “entering restricted building or grounds.”

Both said they went no further than the Capitol steps on Jan. 6 and did not harm anyone or damage anything. They said the allegation of assault was false, and the FBI kept showing Kennemer a blurry photo of a man who looked similar but wasn’t Kennemer.

“I vacillate between feeling mad and helpless,” DeWolfe said. “I was really sad. We just wanted an honest election.”

“They’re corrupt, and they’re trying to scare us,” Kennemer said, adding he feels the FBI targeted him for just being at the rally.

Raid Before Dawn

Their ordeal began when their gate alarm woke them up in the pre-dawn hours of June 22, DeWolfe said. At first, they thought a deer had tripped the alarm, but DeWolfe got up and saw a white car. Kennemer got his AR-15 rifle and went outside, not knowing what to expect, she said.

“I’m seeing one single white vehicle moving pretty fast, and I was thinking someone’s going to die,” Kennemer said.

FBI officers got out of the white vehicle and told Kennemer, who had his rifle up in the air, to drop his weapon. He kept his rifle and asked the FBI to show him a warrant. Kennemer said someone threw a flash-bang at him repeatedly because he wouldn’t drop his weapon at first.

DeWolfe said he put the gun down when she came out of the house. She noticed red laser sights trained on both of them.

“There was a drone flying around and an aircraft,” she said. “They never showed a warrant until the end.”

DeWolfe then tried calling a neighbor before the FBI told them to drop their phones, which ended up recording the first few minutes of the raid.

Agents entered the house and threw a flash-bang that frightened their dogs, causing one to run away, DeWolfe said.

Agents split them up and began questioning them. They showed Kennemer a blurry photo of a man at the Capitol with facial hair similar to his, according to Kennemer. They asked him about breaking a window, which he denied as well.

Hours later, the agents came out with a black coat, a dark Trump beanie, and a scarf. They also took the couple’s phones, which had photos from Jan. 6. Luckily, DeWolf said she had some of them printed.

Daughter’s Response

Later that day, DeWolf was able to call her daughter, Ricci Bratton, to tell her what happened. Bratton, who served in the U.S. Airforce, said her mom called her around 1 p.m

“You want to talk about surreal—my first instinct was you’re kidding. There’s no way,” Bratton told The Epoch Times.

Bratton said she thought her mother was in shock but was trying to remain calm.

“It wasn’t a knock at the door. That’s for sure,” Bratton said. “I can’t believe this is happening. You don’t believe it’s happening to your family.”

The FBI did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-raids-home-of-retired-texas-couple-who-attended-jan-6-capitol-rally_4557650.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-25-2&utm_medium=email&est=EQVE0e5foBbMaXxIYxooZns%2Fwk2FOPzG3oDkVcqpE8yE%2BHy1fHKWzUxFZMD56Iuzkg%3D%3D

With an open border, there’s no telling who is responsible for all of the sabotage.

Russia had the motive, the means, and perhaps the opportunity to sabotage an American liquified natural gas plant — but did it?

Tom Rogan, national security writer at the Washington Examiner, made a compelling case that it just might have.

In his report Tuesday, Rogan suggested Russian hackers may have had something to do with an explosion at the Freeport LNG plant on Quintana Island in Texas on June 8.

Amid a burgeoning energy crisis across the globe spurred on by the war between Russia and Ukraine, the disaster has taken the facility offline at least until the end of the year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long seen the facility, which is located in the Gulf of Mexico and just 70 miles south of Houston, as a threat to his nation’s energy industry because it gives the U.S. the ability to sell gas to European nations.

Moreover, Putin has been friendly to hackers and would certainly welcome an attack that cut America’s supply, which would, in turn, force the European Union to think twice about sanctioning Russia.

These possible motives are bolstered by evidence that there was already a plan in the works shortly after the Russia-Ukraine conflict began.

“According to two sources, around the time of Russia’s late February invasion of Ukraine, a cyber unit of Russia’s GRU military intelligence service again conducted targeting-reconnaissance operations against a major U.S. liquefied natural gas exporter, Freeport LNG,” Rogan wrote.

One of the sources also told Rogan that the FBI’s Cyber Division was investigating the incident, though the agency told him it could “neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation into this matter.”

Preliminary data in the days following the explosion revealed that high pressure caused a section of a transfer line to burst and allow the highly flammable vapor cloud of natural gas to escape and ignite.

“However, what was not explained is how a critical overpressure event could have occurred without safety systems kicking into action,” Rogan pointed out.

While Rogan’s unnamed LNG pipeline experts said there were issues such as corrosion that could have naturally led to the explosion, the author contended that “the FBI’s investigative involvement, the specific nature of this explosion, and the scale of damage incurred do raise major questions.”

Notably, one expert said that these pipelines that flow from the storage tank into the terminal are “undertaken from a networked control facility.”

This means Russian hackers that breached the network would have had the means and opportunity to eliminate or circumvent these safeguards through a cyberattack to initiate the disaster — and it wouldn’t be the first time.

Related:

After What Russia Just Announced About American POWs, Anything Less Than Immediate Action from Biden Is Unthinkable

It’s a well-established fact that Russian cyberattacks have created mayhem for American businesses and that the government has had difficulty doing anything to effectively stop them.

Moreover, the energy infrastructure was proven vulnerable just last year after a ransomware attack against the Colonial pipeline ended only after a $4.4 million payout was made to hackers to resume flow through America’s largest refined-oil pipeline.

And this is exactly the kind of action the Russian cyber attack unit dubbed XENOTIME would undertake.

Rogan claims the unit was likely behind the reconnaissance mission in February and previously “has utilized boutique TRITON/TRISIS malware developed by the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics,” according to Rogan.

“That malware is designed for the seizure of industrial control systems and the defeat of associated safety systems,” he continued. “In 2017, GCHQ (Britain’s NSA-equivalent signals intelligence service) outlined the need for network compartmentalization to protect safety systems against this malware better. In March 2022, the FBI warned that TRISIS malware remained a threat.”

An attack against the Freeport LNG plant falls in line with XENOTIME’s “modus operandi” that takes aim at these “industrial control systems and supervisory control systems in order to effect unilateral control of a network.”

It even specifically targets “safety systems,” which precisely fits the bill for a system that regulates pressure for flammable substances.

Rogan conceded that it will be difficult “attributing Russian culpability” if Freeport LNG didn’t detect the attack. “Deficient cyber forensics is an issue that afflicts many private sector organizations,” Rogan concluded.

Though not directly related, this theory about the Freeport LNG explosion plays into growing suspicions about the possibility of intentional attacks on the necessities of life.

Several food-processing plants have caught fire this year and 10,000 cattle dropped dead earlier this month in Kansas, leaving many to question whether the nation’s food supply is under attack.

Over 10,000 cattle “spontaneously” dropped dead between Kansas and Nebraska over the last 48 hours. This is not normal, folks.

— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) June 17, 2022

What the hell is going on? 25 food processing plants “caught on fire”, a liquified gas facility, “caught on fire”…Dead cattle on ranches throughout the Midwest. One ranch in Kansas has 10,000 plus dead cattle. The government’s reason is “seveer heat”,the ranchers say, “Bullshit” https://t.co/umxtFAWVOZ

— Janie Johnson – America is Exceptional (@jjauthor) June 17, 2022

Is Joe Biden also behind the 10,000 cattle dying in Kansas and the random fires at food processing plants or is he just sticking to destroying the energy sector and leaving food destruction to a friend?

— Blair Brandt (@BlairBrandt) June 15, 2022

Why are so many food processing plants randomly catching fire?

Is this going to become the new “conspiracy theory” that’ll turn out true a few months down the line?

— Lewis Brackpool (@Lewis_Brackpool) June 15, 2022

It’s undeniable that several circumstances have pushed the U.S. toward serious shortages, and it’s not unreasonable to connect the dots where they exist.

Whether these incidents are intentional or just a series of unfortunate coincidences, it’s clear that America is on the brink of disaster on many fronts.

The only question now is what, if anything, can be done to stop it.

Closing the border would be a start, though any imported terrorists/activists have already had plenty of time to arrive here, and Biden is flying them all over the country on taxpayer airfare. [US Patriot 6-24-2022]

The Supreme Court agreed on June 21 to hear an appeal from a Romanian-American businessman who was fined $50,000 for failing to file tax forms on time, but whose penalty ballooned to $2.72 million when an appeals court ruled the fine should be imposed based on the number of bank accounts he held, instead of on the number of forms he failed to file.

The Biden administration, which wants to beef up enforcement efforts by the IRS, favors the larger penalty and had asked the high court to refuse to take the case.

The case is Bittner v. United States of America (court file 21-1195) an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

The justices did not explain in their unsigned order why they agreed to hear the case, as is their usual practice when deciding the granting of petitions for certiorari, or review.

Alexandru Bittner was born in communist Romania. He moved to the United States in his youth, working as a dishwasher and later as a plumber. Eventually, he was naturalized in the United States and has been a dual Romanian-U.S. citizen ever since.

Bittner returned to Romania after the collapse of Soviet bloc communism in 1990 and lived there for more than 20 years until late 2011.

He was a successful businessman and had several non-U.S. personal bank accounts and owned stock in a number of Romanian corporations that also had foreign bank accounts.

While living abroad, Bittner had limited contact with the United States.

“Like many dual citizens, he was unaware that he was required to file U.S. income tax returns reporting his foreign income,” according to the petition (pdf) Bittner filed with the high court.

Bittner was also not aware of the existence of the FBAR form, that is, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) on Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Form 114, or his duty to file such forms.

Soon after coming back to the U.S. in 2011 he realized he should have filed U.S. tax returns while living in Romania to report his worldwide income.

Bittner retained a professional accountant, who advised him on the requirement to file FBARs, to prepare and file the needed documents.

But the IRS found Bittner had failed to timely file FBARs for five years, 2007 through 2011. In that period, because he had more than 25 foreign accounts, he was not required to detail those accounts, but was permitted merely to state the total number of foreign accounts in which he had a financial interest.

His corrected forms nevertheless volunteered the full information.

The IRS sought to impose the maximum penalty under the Bank Secrecy Act, even though Bittner’s delinquency was non-willful.

Despite failing to file five annual forms on time, the IRS took the position that Bittner had violated the Act a full 272 times—once for each account that was not reported in each of those five years.

The IRS assessed a $2.72 million penalty, representing a $10,000 fine for each account Bittner disclosed on his untimely FBARs. The IRS sued Bittner in federal district court in Texas, which determined the tax collection agency erred.

The court ruled the total fine should be capped at $50,000, or $10,000 maximum for each annual FBAR.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed the decision, finding fines should apply “on a per-account, not a per-form, basis,” and restoring the $2.72 million penalty figure.

The decision conflicts with precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for 9th Circuit, Bittner argued in his petition, and needs to be resolved by the Supreme Court.

“[T]here is no reason to think the conflict will disappear on its own: the IRS is applying one rule in the Ninth Circuit and a different rule everywhere else, leaving the conflict entrenched—and ensuring that tax penalties vary greatly based entirely on the happenstance of where a taxpayer is located.”

“That disparate treatment of identically situated parties undermines the proper administration of the tax system and interferes with sound tax policy,” he stated in the petition.

The filing added: “This critical issue arises all the time, and the act’s penalties for identically situated parties will now turn on whether the taxpayer is from California or Texas.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had urged the Supreme Court to throw out Bittner’s appeal, according to a brief (pdf) filed May 17.

When Bittner filed the untimely FBARs the forms were inaccurate and incomplete. The IRS, she stated, had accused Bittner of concealing cash and of not cooperating with the agency.

The IRS also claimed that when the man filed U.S. income tax returns for six of the taxable years in which he was living in Romania, he did provide accurate answers to the question “regarding whether he had foreign financial accounts and whether he had a requirement to file an FBAR.”

Bittner’s attorney, Daniel Geyser of Haynes and Boone in Dallas, was pleased the Supreme Court will hear the case.

“This case presents exceptionally important questions for taxpayers nationwide,” Geyser told The Epoch Times by email.

“The IRS is profoundly misreading the act to impose breathtaking penalties for non-willful conduct. We’re grateful for the grant, and we look forward to litigating the case on the merits.”

Contacted by The Epoch Times, the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.

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Eva Mireles was one of two teachers who lost their lives during the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

As bad as that is, the story that emerged about her death this week is even worse.

And the picture it paints of law enforcement’s bungled response to the emergency approaches the unforgivable.

According to testimony Tuesday by Texas Department of Public Safety Director Col. Steven McCraw, Mireles called her husband, Ruben Ruiz, who is an officer with the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, to tell him she’d been shot.

As NBC’s “Today” show reported, McCraw said Ruiz raced to the school and made it to the hallway outside his wife’s classroom, when he was detained, his gun was taken, and he was removed from the school.

McGraw, who was testifying at a Texas state Senate hearing about the law enforcement response during the shooting, described the police actions as an “abject failure.”

McGraw told lawmakers, “one of the biggest problems that’s reflected in the timeline, to your point, is not only the lack of leadership, but also the misinformation that’s being provided.”

“What officers were being told was, ‘The subject is contained, the chief is in the classroom or the office, negotiating or talking to the subject.’ So everyone is treating it, that comes in afterwards, you’re in the hallway and you’re looking at it, and you’re being told this, there’s no reason to discount that,” McGraw said. “Now, certainly if you heard, ‘Well, wait a minute, we’re getting 911 calls from children in the classroom.’ And we didn’t know the timeline.

“We got an officer, Officer Ruiz, whose wife had called him and said she had been shot and she’s dying. What happened to him as he tried to move forward into the hallway, he was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”

Imagine Ruiz’ devastation. He was on the scene of his own wife’s killing, but was detained, and his firearm was confiscated.

After hearing his wife’s voice, calling to him on the phone in her dying moments, he was powerless to help her thanks to an obstacle, apparently of fellow law enforcement officers. It’s jaw-dropping.

As more and more information is revealed about events that took place as the shooting progressed, what’s becoming known about the actions of police, or rather their non-actions, particularly those of school district police chief and City Councilman Peter Arredondo, make them look increasingly like a bunch of cowards.

McGraw’s office is just one of several investigating the sequence of events that took place on that deadly day. Investigators are trying to determine what took the police so long to shoot the gunman.

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There was a discussion on the Tuesday edition of the “Today” show about a New York Times report that said officers at the school allegedly waited over an hour for protective equipment to arrive. But surveillance video showed the officers were “heavily armed” before the additional equipment arrived and that “more than a dozen children” were still alive.

BREAKING: Multiple officers were inside Robb Elementary School with rifles and at least one ballistic shield at 11:52 a.m. the day of the shooting, new video and other evidence shows. They didn’t enter the classroom for another 58 minutes. More soon via @statesman and @KVUE. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/0BcYgq2hcQ

— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) June 20, 2022

“More than a dozen of the 33 children and three teachers originally in the two classrooms remained alive during the 1 hour and 17 minutes from the time the shooting began inside the classrooms to when four officers made entry, law enforcement investigators have concluded. By that time, 60 officers had assembled on scene,” the Times reported.

Austin American-Statesman reporter Tony Plohetski told NBC News correspondent Gabe Gutierrez, “Investigators really believe at this point, based on my understanding, that that was certainly enough firepower to try and take on the gunman.”

With every passing day, as stories of almost baffling incompetence come to light, it’s looking more and more like police have a lot to answer for.

And it keeps getting worse.

The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said that there is evidence suggesting the police response to the mass shooting at a Uvalde school was an “abject failure.”

“However, we do know this: There’s compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre,” DPS Director Steven McCraw told a Texas Senate panel on Tuesday.

Elaborating, McCraw suggested that the officers could have stopped gunman Salvador Ramos “three minutes” after he entered the school because there “was a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract, and neutralize the subject.

“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” he claimed.

Eight minutes after Ramos entered, police reported that they had a crowbar that could be used to break open the classroom door, he said. Nineteen minutes after Ramos entered, officials brought their first ballistic shield into the building, he remarked.

It comes as documents obtained by local news outlets suggest that several police officers armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield were in Robb Elementary School within minutes of the suspect entering. KVUE-TV also released an image showing several officers in the building 19 minutes later, although they did not enter the classroom Ramos was in for nearly another hour.

During his testimony, McCraw again noted that Ramos entered Robb Elementary through an unlocked door. A teacher previously told news outlets via her attorney as she went inside the building to report a car crash involving Ramos, and when she saw Ramos approaching, she kicked the door shut after propping it open with a rock.

“It was closed, but unlocked,” McCraw said, saying it allowed the gunman to “walk straight through it.”

McCraw added that regardless of whether the door was locked, the windows to the side could have been shot, which could have allowed Ramos to enter the school. But the classroom that Ramos went to could not have been locked from the inside, McCraw said, further impugning previous accounts that he was barricaded inside the room.

Since the May 24 shooting, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, there have been questions about the role the school police chief, Pete Arredondo, played in the response.

“It has been reported that he didn’t have a radio with him. That’s true. He did not,” McCraw said of Arredondo on Tuesday.

Arredondo later told news outlets that he didn’t consider himself the individual in charge and assumed someone else had taken control of the response.

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Corporate executives tell workers stick to business, leave politics at home

In an indication that corporate progressivism may be reaching its high-water mark, CEOs for the first time are pushing back against activist employees, in some cases going so far as to fire them rather than steer their companies into the mire of “woke” politics.

Last week, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell became the latest executive to say he has had enough. He invited employees who felt “triggered” by controversial ideas to accept a severance package and leave the company.

The cryptocurrency technology company’s new mission statement says that it “will never ask that our employees adopt any specific political ideology as a requirement for our workplace … We recognize that hurt feelings are inevitable in a global organization that is optimizing for team outcomes above individual sentiment. The ideal Krakenite is thick-skinned and well-intentioned.”

Powell told “Fox & Friends” that of the company’s 3,000 employees, about 30 have chosen to accept the four-month severance pay and leave, citing their need to express political or social beliefs in the workplace. Comments from the remaining 99 percent of Kraken employees regarding the policy to keep politics out of the workplace were “overwhelmingly positive,” he said.

“I think everyone is ready to get back to work and stop being distracted.”

“Suddenly, nobody has any interest in this anymore, and companies are responding accordingly and starting to drop ‘woke,’” said Scott Shepard, director at the National Center for Public Policy Research. “I don’t think this is the end of woke, I don’t even think it’s the beginning of the end, but to borrow from Mr. Churchill, I do think it might be the end of the beginning.”

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company, joined the chorus on June 16. After several employees publicized a letter denouncing Musk’s campaign to acquire Twitter and steer the social media platform away from censorship, SpaceX responded by firing them.

The employees publicly criticized Musk’s efforts as “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment” for SpaceX. After firing those responsible, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell emailed employees that the efforts against Musk’s Twitter acquisition “made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views. We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”

The Athletic, a sports news website owned by The New York Times, told its staff this week to stick to sports and drop the political activism.

“We don’t want to stop people from having a voice and expressing themselves,” Paul Fichtenbaum, the publication’s chief content officer, said in a directive. “We just need to keep it from tipping over into the political space.”

Some employees disagreed. A staffer quickly responded in protest. “What about Black Lives Matter? Is that a social cause? Who will write about athlete protests? What about trans athletes in sports?”

Political activism can take a toll on companies, both internally and externally. Walt Disney Co. has proven to be a cautionary tale for corporate leaders. In March, CEO Bob Chapek bowed to activist employees and announced that the family entertainment company would fight to support sex education for children in elementary school, while company executives revealed the intention to add LGBT content to kids’ movies and shows.

That action sparked a backlash from conservative employees and led to parents canceling subscriptions and theme park visits.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded to Disney’s harsh criticism of a state law banning sex-ed in kindergarten through third grade by revoking the tax-advantaged status of the company’s theme park in Orlando. Meanwhile, shareholders watched with alarm as Disney stock fell from $130 per share in March to about $94 currently, a 28 percent drop that’s well in excess of the 18 percent decline in the S&P 500 over the same period.

Citibank’s pro-abortion and anti-gun advocacy also drew the attention of state lawmakers. Texas passed legislation in June 2021 that barred banks that discriminate against fossil fuel companies or gun makers from underwriting state bonds. And Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain threatened Citibank with similar treatment in March over its policy of paying travel expenses for employees who go out of state to circumvent Texas’s anti-abortion laws. Texas is the second-largest issuer of municipal bonds in the United States. Other states such as West Virginia have passed similar laws.

In response to employee protests over controversial programs, such as comedian Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy show “The Closer,” Netflix told employees in May that it would no longer tolerate efforts to censor content that staff find objectionable.

“We support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with; we program for a diversity of audiences and tastes; and we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices,” the company stated. “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”

Netflix took that action after it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of this year and projected that it would lose 2 million more in the second quarter.

“It turns out that alienating the majority of your customer base is terrible for business,” Shepard said. “You can sort of get away with that when the market is reaching new highs and interest rates are nothing, so you can borrow and make up for the lack of profits.”

But in today’s environment, with markets tumbling, interest rates rising, and a potential recession looming, “suddenly the luxury of alienating your customer base doesn’t exist anymore.”

In addition to efforts at SpaceX to refocus employees toward company business, Musk is also working to revamp his target acquisition, Twitter, into a more inclusive platform. Last week, he communicated to employees that the platform must be open to all political points of view and that conversations that represent legal free speech, however offensive, should be permitted on Twitter. He’s expected, if the sale of the company goes through, to fire many of the progressive pro-censorship executives.

Many organizations, even the most progressive ones, are finding that taking up divisive racial and gender agendas is causing employees to turn on each other. Politico reported in November 2020 that “following a botched diversity meeting, a highly critical employee survey, and the resignations of two top diversity and inclusion officials, the 600,000-member National Audubon Society is confronting allegations that it maintains a culture of retaliation, fear, and antagonism toward women and people of color, according to interviews with 13 current and former staff members.”

Left-wing internet publication The Intercept lamented that the election of resident Joe Biden was supposed to mark the start of a golden era for the progressive moment. Instead, “Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and other reproductive health organizations had been locked in knock-down, drag-out fights between competing factions of their organizations … It’s also true of the progressive advocacy space across the board, which has, more or less, effectively ceased to function.”

The Washington Post fired reporter Felicia Sonmez in early June for incessant public attacks on a fellow staff writer and on the paper itself, accusing them of racism and sexism. In response to Sonmez’s critical tweets, Executive Editor Sally Buzbee initially issued an advisory to all staff that “we do not tolerate colleagues attacking colleagues either face to face or online.”

When that failed to rein in Sonmez, the Post fired her for “insubordination, maligning your coworkers online and violating the Post’s standards on workplace collegiality and inclusivity.”

Companies are learning that they are often hurting their own brands and losing customers by taking up highly controversial political positions. And like Chapek, many CEOs are finding themselves unprepared for the harsh world of social-justice politics.

The executives of Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Microsoft, Levi’s, and Major League Baseball chose to protest voter ID laws in Georgia, with MLB even removing its All-Star game from Atlanta. Delta CEO Ed Bastian first supported the law, then turned against it in response to left-wing threats to boycott the airline.

But few companies followed Disney into the fight over child sex education, and so far, few companies have waded into the abortion debate, despite indications that the Supreme Court could decide to overturn Roe v. Wade, sending decisions on abortion law back to state legislatures.

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Texas Republicans passed a resolution on June 18 stating that resident Joe Biden was “not legitimately elected,” and that “substantial” election fraud in key metropolitan areas influenced the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden.

“We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that various secretaries of state illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple ways, including by allowing ballots to be received after November 3, 2020,” stated a resolution passed on Saturday, the last day of a three-day biennial Texas GOP convention held in Houston, the Texas Tribune reported.

“We believe that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr,” the resolution continued.

“We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting resident Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” it added.

The state’s GOP, the largest in the nation, passed the resolution after delegates sat through a Thursday screening of “2000 Mules,” a documentary directed by conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza.

The movie features the undercover investigative work of David Lara, a citizen investigator, and Arizona State Senate candidate Gary Snyder, as well as investigations conducted by the election integrity organization “True The Vote” on an alleged coordinated ballot trafficking operation during the 2020 election.

Described as an exposé of “widespread, coordinated voter fraud in the 2020 election,” the movie draws on cell phone location data paired with video surveillance footage that allegedly showed a cohort of people dropping ballots off at drop boxes situated outdoors on average more than 20 times each. Those people were dubbed by the investigators as “mules.”

While some states allow people to gather ballots from certain people and drop them off, the volume of ballots inserted into the boxes, and the fact that the people went to multiple boxes to drop ballots off, showed what happened was illegal, filmmakers say.

“The mules are instructed to do three votes over here or five votes over there, 10 votes over here, they spread it around so as not to raise eyebrows and not to raise suspicion,” D’Souza previously said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads.”The scale of the operation was enough to tip the 2020 election, he added.

The Texas GOP passed the resolution on Saturday afternoon during a voting session on the party’s platform and legislative priorities.

The approved platform also recommends numerous measures to bolster election integrity, including by implementing voter photo ID and in-person voting, and tightening the voter registration process.

Other issues endorsed in the state Republican’s latest platform include a call to abolish abortion, preserve gun rights, remove Marxist ideology and critical race theory from schools, and ban gender modification of children.

James Wesolek, communication director for the Republican Party of Texas, told The Epoch Times that 5,500 delegates attended the convention, which offers Republicans an opportunity to set priorities for the next legislative session in 2023 and elect party leaders.

“Remember, the Republican Party of Texas is a grassroots party,” Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, told attendees of the contention, Houston Public Media reported. “It doesn’t belong to me, the governor, or senators or congressmen, or any elected official. This is your party.”

According to the U.S. National Archives, Joe Biden received 306 electoral votes in the 2020 election and Donald Trump received 232 electoral votes. Trump and conservative figures across the country have alleged since then that substantial fraud influenced the 2020 election results. Democrats and mainstream media have vociferously denied such allegations, claiming them to be unfounded.

The Texas GOP, in the resolution, called on voting conservatives in the state to work to “overwhelm” any possibility of voter fraud.

“We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and to show up to vote in November of 2022, bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans, and overwhelm any possible fraud,” the resolution stated.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.

Zachary Stieber and Darlene McCormick Sanchez contributed to this report.

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Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr bolstered the Jan. 6 House committee’s case that the 2020 presidential election was the “most secure in history.”

He also did his best to debunk former President Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, the Trump-appointed Republican testified in a recorded deposition that aired nationwide on June 13.

He told the committee he hadn’t seen any evidence of voter fraud on a scale that could have affected the outcome of the presidential election.

Documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza couldn’t disagree more.

D’Souza’s latest movie, “2000 Mules,” contains detailed evidence of an organized illegal vote-harvesting scheme operated in Democratic-dominated cities in key swing states in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election—a crime that many voters and the Trump campaign want independently investigated to determine if it could have altered the result.

Teaming with True the Vote, a public interest election watchdog organization, D’Souza and a squad of investigators purchased 10 trillion cellphone pings (unique identity signals) to reconstruct the movements of suspected ballot traffickers.

The states included in the study were Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Texas.

The group also obtained and reviewed thousands of hours of government surveillance tape of the drop boxes where the alleged traffickers, whom they called “mules,” could be seen depositing multiple ballots on multiple occasions.

Four million minutes of drop box video were reviewed in Georgia alone.

The painstaking and costly 15-month study was funded by donations from the human rights organization First Freedoms.

The video review was part of the process the group used—along with personal interviews with traffickers and information from tipsters—to estimate the number of fraudulent absentee ballots that were likely deposited in the drop boxes.

True the Vote cyber-expert Gregg Phillips estimates that 4.8 million votes were trafficked nationally in 2020.

During his deposition, Barr laughed as he mentioned “2000 Mules.” He said the film’s cellphone tracking investigation and photographic evidence were “unimpressive,” and that its conclusions were “indefensible.”

According to Barr, the documentary “didn’t establish widespread illegal harvesting.”

True the Vote spokesperson Catherine Engelbrecht told The Epoch Times, “Over 80 percent of Americans are concerned about election integrity.

“Bill Barr took some cheap shots with his fellow Beltway buddies, but America isn’t laughing.”

Engelbrecht said the Department of Justice under Barr did very little to investigate the 2020 election.

“Instead, he mocked President Trump and disregarded nationwide entreaties for help.

“Now, he’s supporting the January 6 Committee and their use of cellphone data—so reliable they rush to jail Americans without trial.

“Yet, when the same data is used to expose patterns of drop box abuse and election fraud, he is totally disinterested,” Engelbrecht said.

On Twitter, D’Souza challenged Barr to a public debate on election fraud, writing, “What do you say, Barr? Do you dare back up your belly laughs with arguments that can withstand rebuttal and cross-examination?”

Engelbrecht told The Epoch Times: “We have not been asked to present our findings to the committee, nor will we be. They will never risk giving us that platform.

“Their interest is not in getting to the truth. Never has been.”

D’Souza told The Epoch Times, “The hearings are one-sided propaganda, not an attempt to get to the truth.”

He has repeatedly said that the evidence presented in “2000 Mules” is “indisputable,” and invites people to judge for themselves.

Trump responded quickly to the June 13 hearing, firing off a 12-page rebuttal.

He wrote that the Democrats “are desperate to change the narrative of a failing nation. … They own this disaster. They are hoping that these hearings will somehow alter their failing prospects.”

Michigan grassroots conservative activist Robert Gelt told The Epoch Times, “Jan. 6 would never have taken place if it wasn’t for the adamant refusal of the primary law enforcement officer of our federal government, Bill Barr, to get the Department of Justice involved in investigating the Nov. 3, 2020, election.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/barrs-jan-6-committee-testimony-provokes-push-back-from-election-watchdog-group_4536667.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-16-2&utm_medium=email&est=WwJ7RxOBaJ4Gshxyl%2BfjO%2F%2BnTs07TXAQuBNm6wEMGs2kzuwVGDciYQilMk%2BOsj2kuQ%3D%3D

Elon Musk on June 15 said he is leaning toward voting for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in the 2024 election and predicted that a “red wave” is coming in 2022.

In response to a question from a popular Tesla fan account on Twitter, Musk said it remains to be determined whether he will vote for a Republican for president. When asked who he is leaning toward, Musk replied, “DeSantis.”

DeSantis, a Republican, has not said he will run for president in 2024. Former President Donald Trump is widely expected to run again.

At a press conference later on Wednesday, DeSantis said he is focused on his gubernatorial reelection bid in November 2022.

“I’m focused on 2022,” the governor said. “But always appreciate the support from African Americans!”

The brief exchange was part of a conversation on Twitter that Musk started by revealing that he had cast the first vote for a Republican in his life in the special election in the 34th Congressional District in Texas. Musk voted for Mayra Flores, who won the election in the heavily-Hispanic district which has voted for Democrats for decades.

“I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican,” Musk said. “Massive red wave in 2022.”

With more than 95 percent of the votes counted at 11:09 p.m. ET on June 14, Flores received 51 percent of the vote in the special election, according to Decision Desk HQ. Democrat rival Dan Sanchez received 43.3 percent of the vote.

Flores will serve the remainder of the term in the seat vacated by former Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who resigned this spring to work for Akin Gump, a Washington law and lobbying firm.

“I’m forever grateful,” Flores said in a victory speech on June 14. “For 100 years we have been taken for granted.”

Republicans at the national level have committed money and effort to the Flores race, believing that South Texas Latinos share conservatives’ concerns about border security and the economy.

The opportunity to break the South Texas blue barrier has emboldened Republicans, who aim to flip the region red and regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Musk first revealed that he is planning to vote Republican in a Twitter post last month.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk wrote on May 18. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.”

Musk is in the process of acquiring Twitter and taking the company private.

The billionaire further revealed that he supported Democrat Andrew Yang for president in the 2020 election.

“I supported Yang last time, but DeSantis has a better chance of winning,” Musk wrote in a Twitter post.

Darlene Sanchez contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/elon-musk-reveals-his-likely-choice-for-president-in-2024_4534608.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-15-1&utm_medium=email&est=XE9R5TcCPhkBE4iHfugZrG42NX6BvebDPxeNP9LPHfurWRHzJ%2BaEty%2FQbSl9%2BdRj1A%3D%3D

Defending the Republic, a Texas-based non-profit filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration for refusing to turn over records related to the approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines.

The group filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the production of records relating to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) internal review process of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine marketed as “Spikevax.”  Given that the forces impacting the FDA’s decision to authorize the vaccine could have influenced Americans’ decision on whether or not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Defending the Republic requested expedited processing of relevant records.

“Please provide all data and information submitted by Moderna relating to the FDA review and approval of Spikevax. This includes, but is not limited to, all safety and effectiveness data and information; all data and information in the biological product file; and all ingredients,” outlined the initial FOIA request.

On February 9th, less than a week after the initial FOIA was filed, the FDA refused the request for expedited processing, prompting Defending the Republic to appeal the decision.

“The FDA declined the appeal, leaving Defending the Republic with no choice but to file this action seeking a court order requiring the FDA produce the requested records on an expedited schedule— just as those who obtained a court order for the expedited production of records relating to the FDA approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” explains a complaint filed by Defending the Republic.

Defending the Republic was especially interested in better understanding the review process for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, as data has shown its risk were not adequately explained to those receiving it and data surrounding its efficacy remains obscured. As Defending the Republic explains:

Despite the FDA’s promises, a closer inspection of the Spikevax approval reveal there may be glaring issues in the approval process. The Spikevax package insert concedes “[a]vailable data on SPIKEVAX administered to pregnant women are insufficient to inform vaccine-associated risks in pregnancy.” And while the FDA publicly pronounced that the “data demonstrated that Spikevax was 93% effective in preventing COVID-19,” the Spikevax fact sheet for recipients and caregivers provides important context omitted by the public officials: “The [Spikevax] duration of protection against COVID19 is currently unknown.

The lawsuit comes amidst several National Pulse exposés revealing how lobbyists from pharmaceutical companies including Moderna have entrenched themselves within Washington, D.C.

MUST READ: Mask Mandates Caused MORE COVID Deaths, Study Alleges.

A Washington law firm has filed a federal lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for interfering with the use of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.

The lawsuit was filed by Boyden Gray & Associates on behalf of three doctors who were disciplined for prescribing human-grade ivermectin to patients.

The firm’s founder, attorney Boyden Gray, is a former legal adviser to the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Gray told The Epoch Times that the FDA had violated well-established law that allows doctors to prescribe an FDA-approved drug as an off-label treatment.

Ivermectin was no different, he said. It was approved by the FDA in 1966.

“Congress recognized the importance of letting doctors be doctors and expressly prohibited the FDA from interfering with the practice of medicine,” Gray said.

“That is exactly what the FDA has done time and time again throughout this pandemic, assuming authority it doesn’t have and trying to insert itself in the medical decisions of Americans everywhere.”

The three plaintiffs in the case are Dr. Paul Marik of Virginia, Dr. Mary Bowden of Texas, and Dr. Robert Apter of Arizona.

Marik is a founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care 21 Alliance (FLCCC), a national nonprofit that promotes alternative COVID-19 treatments to the government-touted vaccine.

“The FDA has made public statements on ivermectin that have been misleading and have raised unwarranted concern over a critical drug in preventing and treating COVID-19,” Marik told The Epoch Times. “To do this is to ignore both statutory limits on the FDA’s authority and the significant body of scientific evidence from peer-reviewed research.”

According to Marik, more than 80 medical trials conducted since the outbreak of COVID-19 show that ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for the virus.

Gray said the FDA has engaged in unlawful interference with the use of ivermectin and should be held accountable for that.

The lawsuit included several statements made by the FDA that Gray said show that the administration interfered with the use of ivermectin.

They include an Aug. 21, 2021, Twitter post by the agency: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

The post, with an image of a horse and a doctor, has a headline that reads, “Why you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.”

Marik, Bowden, and Apter are among a number of U.S. doctors across the United States who have been disciplined for prescribing ivermectin.

Marik, a critical care specialist, was suspended by Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for prescribing ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. Bowden, an ear, nose, and throat specialist, was suspended from the Houston Medical Hospital. Apter was under investigation by both the Washington Medical Commission and Arizona Medical Board for prescribing ivermectin.

Marik was recently informed that he was under investigation by the medical licensing board in Virginia.

Gray filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Texas.

The doctors are seeking a permanent injunction that would prohibit the FDA from interfering with the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/doctors-suing-food-and-drug-administration-over-ivermectin_4515103.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-07-1&utm_medium=email&est=TohG11%2BOLcosbYFhDcio7YfPS%2BBsn5gBJ7R2a%2Bry5AhdxbHJUv2unItu7C2l7ipkeA%3D%3D

Treasurers work to expose what they consider a misuse of state retirement funds

After failing to advance their agenda by passing laws in Congress, progressives have found that they can impose their will on Americans just as effectively through our financial system. And while some state officials have recently started to fight back, they are heavily outgunned.

The world’s largest asset managers, BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard, have signed on to the global Net Zero Asset Management Initiative and together use the $20 trillion of other people’s money that they manage to pressure companies whose shares they own into pursuing environmental and social-justice causes. Progressive state pension fund managers in California, New York, Maryland, and even Texas are doing the same with the trillions in retirement funds that they manage.

The various elements of this ideology have come together under the umbrella of “environmental, social and governance” finance (ESG), and its advocates now include the world’s largest banks, asset managers, pension funds, rating agencies, proxy agents, as well as numerous international corporate clubs including Climate Action 100+, the Global Investors Statement to Governments on Climate Change, the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

ESG also has the support of the Biden Administration’s Securities and Exchange Commission, which announced it will require all listed companies to provide extensive reporting on their greenhouse gas emissions. It has the support of the Department of Justice, which just declared it would focus on “environmental justice,” and the Department of Labor, which announced it will no longer enforce a Trump-era regulation that barred private pension managers from including political causes such as ESG in their investment decisions.

The collective goal of these groups is to leverage their financial power to enforce the behavior that they want to see, targeting in particular fossil fuel producers and the gun industry. “Behaviors are going to have to change,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated in a panel discussion last March. “You have to force behaviors and, at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors.”

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with $10 trillion in assets under its management. In his 2022 letter to CEOs, Fink wrote that “every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net zero world.” Bloomberg News reported that ESG financial assets are growing exponentially and will reach $50 trillion by 2025, representing more than one-third of the $140 trillion in assets under management worldwide.

But some state officials see the ESG movement as a misuse of money that was entrusted to asset managers by pensioners. A study by the Boston College Center for Retirement Research reported that ESG investing reduced the returns to pensioners by 0.70 to 0.90 percent per year, largely because ESG investment funds, which are actively managed, charge higher fees than non-managed index funds. This means higher profits for asset managers, less money for retirees.

And for all the added costs, many question whether ESG investing is doing much for the causes it claims to support. A research report by Columbia University and the London School of Economics stated that companies in ESG funds have “worse track records for compliance with labor and environmental laws, relative to portfolio firms held by non-ESG funds.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently called ESG “an outrageous scam,” adding that “it has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”

“If BlackRock has their own money and they want to be activist investors, I think people have the right to deploy their own capital as they see fit,” said Scott Fitzpatrick, Missouri State Treasurer. “The problem here is that it’s other people’s money they’re using, and people don’t want their retirement money used for political purposes.”

Increasingly, state officials are discovering how state pension money is being used to support “the religion of global climate change,” said Derek Kreifels, CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation. “Now we’re seeing the veil drop on how they’re weaponizing it. Now they’re starting to include all these other [social] issues as well.”

Activist asset managers vote the shares they manage to influence corporate executives, and this explains to a great extent why Disney, a producer of family entertainment, now advocates for sex education in elementary schools; why Delta, Coca Cola, and Major League Baseball fought against Georgia’s voter I.D. law; and why Citibank has fought against laws restricting abortion in conservative states and has curtailed lending to gun makers and retailers—all of which are political causes that have nothing to do with running their businesses. The Wall Street Journal reports that activist asset managers are now putting pressure on Walmart, Lowe’s, and TJ Maxx to take a stand against abortion restrictions.

But for all the headline-grabbing statements from CEOs on political and social issues, progressive asset managers have been content to operate quietly behind the scenes in boardrooms, shareholder meetings, and global conferences.

“If they were ever to admit what they’re really doing, they would be creating untold liability for themselves,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s inviting lawsuits galore for people who can say, ‘you have violated your financial duty to us.’”

“As an asset manager, the only thing you have is trust,” said Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks. “If you violate that trust, your business is gone. The investment managers that are pushing this agenda are ultimately risking the very franchise that they’re using to drive it.”

By colluding against fossil fuel companies, Oaks said, banks and asset managers “are actively implementing economic sanctions. We need more capital going into oil and gas production and there are great opportunities there to make money. Why isn’t the money going there? Why aren’t capital markets working, like they have in the past? It’s because of ESG.”

One by one, conservative states are starting to push back through legislation and legal actions. Kreifels said that 23 states have taken some form of action, 13 of which have introduced formal legislation, to prevent state money from being used to support political causes. This, The New York Times wrote, has had a “chilling” effect on progressive initiatives, though how much of an effect remains to be seen.

In May, Oklahoma passed the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act, modeled on laws that were passed in Texas last year, which bars the state from conducting business with banks or asset managers that discriminate against fossil fuel companies. A similar bill in Oklahoma does the same for those that discriminate against gun manufacturers.

Last week, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron issued a legal opinion, stating that the use of state pension money for “environmental, social and governance” was a conflict of interest and was “inconsistent with Kentucky law governing fiduciary duties.” Cameron criticized the “increasing trend among some investment management firms to use money in public and state employee pension plans – that is, other people’s money—to push their own political agendas and force social change.”

In December, Florida revoked proxy authority for asset managers, meaning they no longer have discretion to vote the shares that they manage for Florida pensioners. Gov. Ron DeSantis stated that this “will clarify the state’s expectations that all fund managers should act solely in the financial interest of the state’s funds.”

In November, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich launched a formal investigation into progressive financial institutions’ “anticompetitive conduct,” accusing them of “threatening and intimidating companies if they do not comply with their left-wing agenda.”

Also in November, Louisiana barred JPMorgan from underwriting its municipal bonds because of its policies against gun manufacturers. West Virginia and Texas recently passed legislation blocking finance companies that discriminate against fossil fuel producers from municipal contracts.

“Next week, we’ll be sending out letters to financial institutions that are going to be put on a list that is going to bar them from contracts in the state of West Virginia,” said Riley Moore, West Virginia’s State Treasurer. “We’re an energy state and this is an existential threat to our economy.”

“We need energy independence in this country,” Moore said. Countries in Europe are now realizing that their green energy policies have caused unaffordable price spikes for fuel, led to a risk of blackouts when the wind doesn’t blow, created a dangerous dependence on countries like Russia, and in many cases actually increased the carbon footprint. “It’s because they rushed into this ESG nonsense,” he said “You can call it sustainable, but it can’t sustain a grid.”

In addition to what many see as a misallocation of state pension money, there are the bigger legal and societal issues around using the financial system to “force behaviors.”

“This seems to me to be using Wall Street to accomplish what the left was unable to accomplish through democratic means,” said Nebraska State Treasurer John Murante. If progressive policies had public support, they could enact laws democratically through Congress, he said. Instead, “they’re going around the democratic process and attempting to do indirectly what they were incapable of doing through persuasion and logic and reason.”

ESG investing would lose in the court of public opinion “because it’s incredibly unpopular. ESG is the 2023 version of CRT,” Murante said, referring to Critical Race Theory in schools. “It has been integrated into institutions without people knowing about it, but when they become aware of it, there is genuine national outrage.”

Going up against the world’s largest financial institutions and the Biden administration is a formidable task for state finance officials, however, and they have a long and difficult road ahead. But Murante says he’s feeling optimistic.

“We have three profound advantages on our side,” he said. “First, we’re right on the issues; second, we’re right on the law; and third, we have the people with us.”

“It’s a David and Goliath situation,” Kreifels said. “But David won.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/state-officials-fight-wall-street-to-protect-pensioners-from-esg-scam_4512853.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-07&utm_medium=email&est=8KfclgYz1mtoM562vJ7ko0XiREnyZJjhdHeY%2BpO0VbK9wnt0XsAX%2BagYGcmGy4ibsA%3D%3D

New Jersey voter registration records contain more than 8,200 duplicate names, making it possible for one person to cast two ballots, plus another 61 triplicate registrations, seven quadruplicates, three pentaplicates, and one sextuplicate, according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).

“New Jersey’s voter registration system, like nearly every other studied by PILF, can be tricked into registering a person multiple times with extremely similar biographical data inputs at the same addresses,” states the PILF analysis published on June 6.

“These serve as an administrative challenge to be resolved as we see more automation to vote-by-mail. Otherwise, ‘John Public’ and ‘John Q. Public’ could each vote once, while the actual John is voting twice.

“The most common finding error type, clerical/typographical error, can be as subtle as transposed letters. As an example, Julia Rose and Juila Rose are the same person, but she has duplicate registrations with unique voter identification numbers.”

The Virginia-based PILF alerted the New Jersey Secretary of State to the problems uncovered by the firm’s analysis of the voter rolls, which was only made possible by a federal court suit.

“Tens of thousands of other voter records were highlighted for missing or fictitious biographical information like dates of birth. These represent current and future problems with voter roll list maintenance that the Garden State needs to address,” the report states.

“To get to the root of the problems, PILF also filed a federal lawsuit to access copies of list maintenance procedural guides after the NJSOS denied requests for fear of hacking risks.”

Other registration problems uncovered by PILF in the New Jersey rolls include nearly 2,400 individuals listed as active voters whose birthdays make them more than 100 years old.

“There are 2,398 registrants showing dates of birth in 1917 or before across New Jersey. Given that the most recent average life expectancy data show to be 80.7 years in the state, the thousands of registrants aged well beyond 100 years deserve closer examination,” the report states.

The report also found thousands of registrations with inaccurate dates of birth, fictitious registration dates, fictitious registration dates and birth dates, and even dates of birth from centuries ago or years into the future such as Jan. 14, 2028, and Sept. 30, 2029.

“New Jersey has some explaining to do in how it collects and maintains basic voter information. As we have already demonstrated, PILF will pursue available remedies to correct often long neglected government records,” PILF President J. Christian Adams states in the report.

Earlier this year, PILF reported similar problems in the voter rolls of Arizona and North Carolina, as well as the fact that 44o,000 mail-in ballots went missing or were rejected as undeliverable in Pennsylvania in 2020 and there were 27,000 uncounted mail ballots in Georgia in 2020. President Joe Biden carried Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes and Georgia by 11,000 votes.

In September 2020, PILF released an analysis of the voter registration rolls of 42 states that identified nearly 350,000 dead registered voters still on the rolls in 41 states, with more than half of those in just five states, New York, Texas, California, Michigan, and Florida.

The analysis also identified nearly 44,000 duplicate registrants who appeared to have voted twice in 2016 and another nearly 38,000 in the 2018 balloting. Tens of thousands of the duplicate votes were with mail-in ballots, according to PILF.

The PILF analysis was done using the firm’s Safeguarding America’s Votes and Elections database, which it describes as having “comparison capabilities against itself and against other useful data sources like the Social Security Death Index … It can identify deceased and duplicate voters. It can identify registrations at ineligible addresses like post office boxes or mailbox stores, and even people registered in multiple states simultaneously.”

The New Jersey report follows the release of “2000 Mules,” a documentary produced by Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative columnist and cinematic producer. The D’Souza documentary looks at how legions of left-wing political activists made innumerable deposits of drop-off ballots during the 2020 election.

At least one state, Georgia, has issued subpoenas to hundreds of individuals who served as mules, as described by the D’Souza production. And an Arizona sheriff who was featured in the documentary has opened an investigation that has to date produced 16 open cases.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/more-than-8000-double-registered-voters-found-on-new-jersey-rolls_4514764.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-07&utm_medium=email&est=%2BZOKdYFI9WB%2FFXXgRDq2nG%2BdiNV8CeLV7MZvr0qhdECGXbhhLZnvffNXdYHeOJFf7Q%3D%3D

A mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers on May 24. At least 17 others, including children, sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

The massacre is the country’s second-deadliest K-12 school shooting on record, following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.

Authorities identified Salvador Ramos, 18, as the shooter responsible for the attack. He was shot and killed about 90 minutes after he arrived at the school around 11:30 a.m. that day.

Reportedly a high school dropout, Ramos did not have any criminal or mental health history known to authorities. His motive remains unknown as authorities continue to investigate the events of the deadly shooting.

At a press conference on May 26 at Robb Elementary, an official from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), South Texas regional director Victor Escalon, said that Ramos appeared to have walked unobstructed into a school building before the attack, in contrast with previous reports that he had been confronted by a school security officer outside the school.

Below is an approximate timeline of what is known so far, including details about the events surrounding the massacre and conflicting reports.

Before May 24

Ramos turned 18 on May 16 and purchased two semi-automatic rifles separately, on May 17 and May 20, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed on May 25 in a briefing to Texas state senators, reported KHOU. ATF authorities said he also bought 375 rounds of 5.56 ammunition on May 18.

Day of the Attack

On May 24, earlier in the day, students and their parents had been at Robb Elementary for an honor roll ceremony.

11:00 a.m.

Ramos posted on Facebook three times in the 30 minutes before reaching Robb Elementary school, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told a press conference on May 25. The first Facebook post indicated that he would shoot his grandmother. The second post said that he had shot his grandmother, and the third said that he would shoot an elementary school, without specifying which. The third post was published within 15 minutes before Ramos arrived at the school, Abbott said.

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has said the posts were actually messages.

“It actually on a message … to somebody else that he had had conversation with,” Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw said Friday.

Ramos, who had moved in with his grandmother in March, shot her in the face and left her in critical condition before leaving the residence and traveling about 2.29 miles to Robb Elementary, McCraw said on May 25.

The grandmother, 66, ran across the street to a neighbor to get help after she was shot. She also reported Ramos to the police department, he added. She was medevaced to a San Antonio hospital, McCraw said.

11:28 a.m.

Ramos, traveling in his grandmother’s pickup truck, crashed into a ditch near the school, according to law enforcement. He emerged from the passenger’s side of the truck and was carrying what witnesses say was a long gun and a bag that authorities later determined contained the ammunition.

Ramos shot at two witnesses outside a funeral home across the street before he continued toward the school. He then climbed a fence into a parking lot and fired shots at the school “multiple times,” Escalon said.

The two witnesses ran away uninjured.

The Texas DPS around this time received calls from local law enforcement that Ramos was making entry into the school, Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez told CBS News on May 25.

11:30 a.m.

A 911 call is made about a car crash and a man with a gun.

The suspect reaches the school parking lot and begins shooting at the school, McCraw said during a briefing on May 27.

Police vehicles arrive at the funeral home.

The school resource officer—initially said to have confronted the suspect, then reported not to be on campus—actually confronted a person, but it was a teacher, not the suspect, according to McCraw. The officer drove right by the suspect.

11:33 a.m.

The 18-year-old shooter entered the west side of Robb Elementary school, McCraw said.

The door had been propped open by a teacher.

The suspect begins shooting into a room, either room 111 or room 112.

He soon enters adjoining classrooms, gunning down teachers and children.

Over 100 rounds were fired in total.

11:35 a.m.

Three police officers enter the same door Ramos used, followed by another team of police officers and a sheriff’s deputy. The first officers received wounds from bullets grazing them.

None of the officers try breaking down the door to get into the classroom.

11:44 a.m.

Other officers entered the building, Escalon said. Some evacuated people who were inside.

As many as 19 officers were in the hallway at one time.

“There was plenty of officers to do whatever needed to be done with one exception: the incident commander inside believed they needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that point,” McCraw said Friday. The commander “believed that, in fact, it was a barricaded subject that we had time there was no kids at risk,” he said.

While hearing the gunfire, teachers in other classrooms began “breaking windows trying to evacuate children to prevent any further loss of life,” Olivarez told CBS News.

12:03 p.m.

A 911 caller said she was in room 112, where Ramos had entered.

The call lasted one minute, 23 seconds.

12:10 p.m.

She called back, telling of multiple dead people.

12:13 p.m.

The caller called again.

12:15 p.m.

Border Patrol Tactical Unit members arrive, along with shields several minutes later.

12:16 p.m.

Same female called, saying eight or nine students were still alive.

12:19 p.m.

Another caller called 911 from the room. Three shots could be heard through the phone.

12:36 p.m.

Another 911 call. Lasted 21 seconds.

12:43 p.m.

Another 911 call.

12:47 p.m.

Another 911 call.

12:50 p.m.

Officers breach the classroom door and kill the suspect.

Aftermath

The 21 victims who perished in the attack were later all found in the same classroom. All of them were identified by May 26.

The gun used by Ramos in the shooting was a Daniel Defense DDM4 V7 rifle, the ATF confirmed on May 25, reported KHOU. On May 24, after the shooting, The Daily Dot obtained a receipt of the purchase. Daniel Defense, a gun manufacturer based in Georgia that sells guns online, appears to ship weapons to registered dealers which then complete the purchase, the outlet noted.

The other rifle, a Smith & Wesson M&P 15, was found on the ground after the shooting, outside the pickup truck, state and federal law enforcement officials said, reported NBC News.

Escalon was asked by reporters on May 26 about why officers were unable to stop Ramos sooner, and what officers were doing between 11:44 and 12:45. He responded that he had “taken all those questions into consideration” and hoped to provide updates later.

McCraw told reporters at a news conference on May 27 that it was the “wrong decision” to not engage Ramos sooner.

He said that “the on-scene commander at the time believed that it had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject.”

He also revealed that Ramos entered the school through a door that was propped open by a teacher just minutes before.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/timeline-of-texas-school-shooting-what-we-know-so-far_4494907.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-27-3&utm_medium=email&est=GbiYIbFX%2Bo%2BCaPD1BF5kAjxzpRiPVm7HuWPfQCdckBMJqamgM5woqKk2g4JM1D10QQ%3D%3D

The husband of one of the teachers slain in the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school this week died on May 26 from an apparent heart attack, family members said.

Joe Garcia, the husband of Irma Garcia, “tragically passed away this morning as a result of a medical emergency,” Debra Austin, Irma Garcia’s cousin, wrote on GoFundMe. “I truly believe Joe died of a broken heart, and losing the love of his life of more than 25 years was too much to bear.”

According to the teacher’s official biography, the Garcias had been married for 24 years and had four children.

“I love to BBQ with my husband, listen to music, and take country cruises to Concan,” Irma Garcia wrote in the bio.

Family members took to social media to lament the newest loss.

“Lord god please on our family, my [tia’s] husband passed away this morning due to a heart attack at home,” Joey, one of Irma Garcia’s nephews, wrote on Twitter.

Joe Garcia visited a memorial for his wife in the morning on May 26 to drop off flowers, and when he returned home, he “pretty much just fell over,” John Martinez, another nephew, told The New York Times.

“I’m really in shock right now,” he added.

Martinez said on Twitter that Irma and Joe Garcia were high school sweethearts and leave behind children aged 13, 15, 19, and 23.

“No child should have to go through this. My heart breaks for them,” he said.

Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles, another teacher at Robb Elementary School, and 19 children were killed on May 24 by a shooter identified by authorities as Salvador Ramos, 18. Ramos was killed by officers, according to Texas authorities.

Family members have said Garcia and Mireles died trying to protect their students.

Garcia “sacrificed herself protecting the kids in her classroom,” according to Martinez.

Adalynn Ruiz, Mireles’s daughter, said on Facebook that her mother “selflessly jumped in front of her students to save their lives.”

“Mom, I have no words to describe how I feel right now, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life,” Ruiz wrote. “Mom, you are a hero. I keep telling myself that this isn’t real. I just want to hear your voice.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/husband-of-teacher-who-died-in-texas-attack-passes-away-days-later-family_4492914.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-26-4&utm_medium=email&est=rd9sLgeFhKhn2rrzF7p21jilOTvPvbWcQtZEz2biDpr560IISlnJX4LYfPaI3rhK1w%3D%3D

I’m getting the feeling these shootings are orchestrated. How about you? [US Patriot]

Several witnesses at the scene of the Texas mass shooting said that police waited to enter, as videos surfaced of parents telling officers, “Go protect the kids!”

“What are you doing—get inside the building!” a person yelled in one of the videos, while another screamed, “Go protect the kids!”

Law enforcement authorities faced questions on May 26 about how much time had elapsed before they stormed a classroom in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where an 18-year-old gunman opened fire, killing two teachers and 19 children on May 24.

Investigators were also unable to say with any certainty whether an armed school district security officer outside Robb Elementary in the town of Uvalde exchanged fire with the attacker, Salvador Ramos, when Ramos first arrived.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw confirmed to news outlets on May 25 that 40 minutes to an hour had elapsed between when Ramos opened fire on the school security officer to when the tactical team shot him. Ultimately, officials confirmed that a Border Patrol agent shot and killed Ramos.

“The bottom line is law enforcement was there,” McCraw said. “They did engage immediately. They did contain [Ramos] in the classroom.”

However, several videos were captured outside the school, apparently as Ramos was inside, including a person saying to an officer, “Half of these [expletive] parents here, dude, they want to go in there—without vests, without guns—to get their [expletive] kids.”

Javier Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn was fatally shot during the incident, told news outlets that police were not prepared.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said.

“We didn’t care about us. We wanted to storm the building. We were saying, ‘Let’s go’ because that is how worried we were, and we wanted to get our babies out,” he said, according to The Washington Post.

McCraw said Ramos had run down a hallway into two adjoining classrooms and barricaded himself inside.

“And that’s where the carnage began,” McCraw said, according to reports.

Juan Carranza, 24, who watched the scene from outside a house across the street, said officers should have entered the building sooner. Carranza had seen Ramos crash his truck into a ditch outside the school, grab his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, and shoot at two people outside a funeral home, who ran away uninjured.

“There were more of them. There was just one of him,” he said.

Despite the criticism, McCraw defended the response.

“The bottom line is law enforcement was there,” he said. “They did engage immediately. They did contain [Ramos] in the classroom.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/police-waited-to-enter-texas-school-as-shooter-opened-fire-witnesses_4493029.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-26-3&utm_medium=email&est=t9FFPHz0KMHlSXhfekKibJYGioX%2BP55JaoUTC5r0YE9gcTKqQGo8P%2BETs%2FlOI8lpIw%3D%3D

Every student who was killed in a mass shooting in Texas on Tuesday was in the same classroom, according to a law enforcement official.

Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety told the “Today Show” and CNN on Wednesday that the child victims were in the same fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. At least 19 students were killed in the incident, which also left the suspect and another adult dead, officials have said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday identified the gunman as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who attended a high school in the city.

Ramos “barricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,” Olivarez said. “It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.”

“It’s a small classroom, you can have anywhere from 25 to 30 students in there, plus there were two teachers in there. … So don’t have exact number of how many students were in that classroom, but it could vary … It was a classroom setting, a typical classroom setting where you have mass groups of children inside that classroom altogether, with nowhere to go,” Olivarez added.

There are still many unanswered questions, Olivarez said.

“That’s why we’re working with FBI right now to kind of look back to see if there were any indicators, any red flags, looking at social media. What we know about the shooter is that he is a resident here in Uvalde, he did attend one of the local high schools, he lived with his grandparents, was unemployed, no friends, no girlfriend that we can identify at this time, no criminal history, no gang affiliation as well,” he said.

Dillon Silva, whose nephew was in a nearby classroom, said students were watching a movie when a bullet shattered a window. Moments later, their teacher saw the armed assailant walk past the door.

“Oh, my God, he has a gun!” the teacher shouted twice, according to Silva. “The teacher didn’t even have time to lock the door,” he said, reported The Associated Press.

Ramos legally bought two AR-style rifles just days before the attack, soon after his 18th birthday, state senators briefed by law enforcement said.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden responded to the incident and pushed for gun control laws. In a Twitter post, the president noted that gun-control measures won’t “prevent every tragedy” but still wants them passed.

“We know common sense gun laws can’t and won’t prevent every tragedy. But we know they work and have a positive impact. When we passed the assault weapons ban—mass shootings went down. When the law expired—mass shootings tripled,” Biden wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/police-recount-disturbing-details-of-texas-elementary-school-shooting_4490297.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-05-26&utm_medium=email&est=%2B5vsUZIpUrfTGpbzUo%2FgcUjFocIMWWE5LzujLNnAU5iZpVW1JdP%2BkUG6OD00W9xBJg%3D%3D

UVALDE, Texas—The man who killed 19 children in a Texas elementary school on May 24 posted three times to Facebook before arriving at the facility, Gov. Greg Abbott said during a press briefing on May 25.

About 30 minutes before Salvador Ramos, 18, entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and opened fire, he wrote on social media, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.”

Another post, minutes later, “I shot my grandmother.”

A third, around 15 minutes before the massacre began, “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”

Apart from the posts, there was “no meaningful forewarning” of the mass shooting, Abbott, a Republican, told reporters during the briefing.

Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook parent company Meta, said in a statement that the posts were private one-on-one text messages. The messages “were discovered after the terrible tragedy occurred,” he said, adding that the company is closely cooperating with law enforcement in their ongoing investigation.

The posts were located by the FBI, which is assisting local and state authorities with the investigation, according to Texas officials.

An online search turned up no criminal history, and authorities have so far found no indication of prior criminal incidents.

Ramos was a dropout who had attended Uvalde’s high school. It’s unclear if he attended Robb Elementary School.

After Ramos shot his grandmother, 66, at her home where he lived, his mother called the police. She also ran for help for her mother, who was airlifted to a hospital in San Antonio, where she’s listed in critical condition.

Ramos then took his grandmother’s car and drove about three miles before crashing. He exited the vehicle with a backpack and one of the semi-automatic rifles that he purchased legally from a local sporting goods store in March, before moving to the west side of the school campus. As he was approaching, a school resource officer engaged with him. No gunfire was exchanged, and Ramos was able to make it into the school.

He turned right, then left, before reaching two adjoining classrooms and gaining access to them, where he opened fire.

Ramos tried entering at least one other classroom but moved on after finding a locked door, Joe Daniel, a Uvalde resident who lives near the school, told The Epoch Times. Daniel’s 8-year-old daughter was inside that classroom.

Chris Vasquez, a teacher at a nearby private school, said she spoke with a parent whose child was shot during the mayhem. The child, a boy, told his parents that the shooter walked into the classroom and said, “Okay everybody, goodnight.”

A tactical team of law enforcement officers, including Border Patrol SWAT agents and a Uvalde deputy, breached the classroom door and killed Ramos.

In addition to the shooter and 19 children, two teachers were killed. Other individuals were wounded.

The motive remains unclear, officials said.

Texas leaders largely framed the problem as a mental health issue, as opposed to one regarding access to firearms.

Any person who conducts such an attack has mental health issues, Abbott said.

“We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and do something about it,” he said.

“There are ‘real gun laws’ in New York. There are ‘real gun laws’ in Chicago. There are ‘real gun laws’ in California. I hate to say this, but there are more people that were shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas. And we need to realize that people who may think we just need to implement tougher gun laws, it’ll solve it—Chicago and LA and New York disproves that thesis.

“Our job is to come up with real solutions that we can implement.”

The state legislature will, when it reconvenes, discuss legislation to tackle mental health issues, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, said.

Abbott said that laws that were passed in 2019 aimed at preventing school shootings would be closely examined to make sure there were no shortcomings in the language or implementation.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-elementary-school-shooter-posted-to-facebook-three-times-before-massacre-governor_4490873.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-25-4&utm_medium=email&est=%2BbdkW%2FNtT6PIrrhAcLUyGclrvAdur9D5v4Ta756nXW41SUznSjZjwtQ%2F4etQkGgyHA%3D%3D

The 18-year-old suspect who allegedly shot and killed 19 children at a Texas school allegedly messaged a stranger, saying: “I’m about to” hours before Tuesday’s incident.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott identified Ramos as the suspect of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday afternoon. He was slain by law enforcement officials, according to the governor’s office.

Ramos is also accused of shooting his grandmother before driving to Robb Elementary armed with a handgun and possibly a rifle, said Abbott. The suspect had attended Uvalde’s high school.

A manager at a local Wendy’s in Uvalde confirmed Ramos had worked at the establishment but “kept to himself mostly.”

“He felt like the quiet type, the one who doesn’t say much. He didn’t really socialize with the other employees,” Adrian Mendes, the manager, told CNN. “He just worked, got paid, and came in to get his check.”

And a young woman who had worked with Ramos said he appeared to be aggressive.

“He would be very rude towards the girls sometimes, and one of the cooks, threatening them by asking, ‘Do you know who I am?’ And he would also send inappropriate texts to the ladies,” the former co-worker, who was not identified, told The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity.

Without elaborating, the female worker said, “At the park, there’d be videos of him trying to fight people with boxing gloves. He’d take them around with him.”

Santos Valdez Jr. told the Washington Post that they had been friends until Ramos’ behavior started to “deteriorate,” adding that Ramos was often bullied because of a stutter and a lisp. At one point, Valdez recalled, Ramos cut his own face with a knife “just for fun.” He added: “He’d cut up his face with knives over and over.” Another person who knew him said Ramos allegedly would shoot at strangers with a BB gun from a car.

Just hours before the shooting, Ramos allegedly messaged a young woman, who said that Ramos was a total stranger who tagged her in a gun photo.

“You gonna repost my gun pics,” his alleged account, “@sal8dor_,” direct messaged the girl on May 12, according to screenshots of the messages. The account appears to have been deleted.

The woman then told him “what your guns gotta do with me (sic).” Ramos then allegedly replied: “Just wanted to tag you,” as reported by the New York Post.

That Instagram account also posted several images three days ago of two rifles, including one that appears to be a Daniel Defense AR-15-style rifle. Another image showed an individual holding a magazine.

A former classmate, Nadia Reyes, told the Washington Post that he posted videos to Instagram showing Ramos screaming at his mother and cursing at her as she tried to kick him out of the house.

“He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there,” Reyes said. “He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.”

Another classmate of Ramos said that he texted him photos of ammunition and firearms. “He would message me here and there, and four days ago he sent me a picture of the AR he was using… and a backpack full of 5.56 rounds, probably like seven mags,” the unidentified friend told CNN, adding: “I was like, ‘Bro, why do you have this?’ and he was like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’”

“He proceeded to text me, ‘I look very different now. You wouldn’t recognize me,’” the friend said, adding that Ramos “slowly dropped out” of school after he was allegedly bullied.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/what-we-know-so-far-about-salvador-ramos-alleged-texas-school-mass-shooter_4490113.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-25-2&utm_medium=email&est=yBmMPhGeFQI6jynzGFXOfQo3WY9j4hWlMi6evILjwKNsc0DV5jAJDYAa%2B%2B5LkhiJbw%3D%3D

Update: At least 20 people, including 18 children, have passed away from the shooting. 

At least 14 students and one teacher were killed during a shooting at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday afternoon, according to Governor Greg Abbott.

“Uvalde Memorial Hospital had said 15 students were being treated in the hospital’s emergency department in the wake of the incident,” ABC News reported. “University Health in San Antonio said it had two patients from the shooting incident — a child and an adult.”

There were initial reports that the suspect was in someway tied to something at the border, however, those reports do not appear to be accurate.

The Department of Homeland Security said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel had “immediately responded to the scene to provide support, including medical aid.”

.@SecMayorkas has been briefed on the shooting in #Uvalde, Texas. @CBP immediately responded to the scene to provide support, including medical aid. DHS is actively coordinating with federal, state, and local partners, and will continue to provide the Department’s full support.

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) May 24, 2022

Abbott identified the suspect as an 18-year-old male. The Daily Wire is not naming the suspect due to company policy about not giving notoriety to mass murderers.

The suspected reportedly murdered his grandmother before he stormed Robb Elementary School, which has an enrollment of nearly 600 students.

The shooting happened in the city of Uvalde, which is approximately 85 miles west of San Antonio and has a population of roughly 16,000 people.

“Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime and for the community of Uvalde,” Abbott said. “Cecilia and I mourn this horrific loss and we urge all Texans to come together to show our unwavering support to all who are suffering.”

“We thank the courageous first responders who worked to finally secure Robb Elementary School,” he continued. “I have instructed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers to work with local law enforcement to fully investigate this crime. The Texas Division of Emergency Management is charged with providing local officials all resources necessary to respond to this tragedy as the State of Texas works to ensure the community has what it needs to heal.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who represents the district where the tragedy occurred, responded by saying that he was “heartbroken” by the day’s events.

“It is devastating when our innocent children become the victims of senseless violence. We are devastated,” he wrote. “While we monitor this situation, we remember that Uvalde, while rocked by today’s events, is strong and resilient. In this time of trepidation, our office is always here to do whatever we can to help. We are family and we will continue to be here for each other.”

While we monitor this situation, we remember that Uvalde, while rocked by today’s events, is strong and resilient. In this time of trepidation, our office is always here to do whatever we can to help. We are family and we will continue to be here for each other.

— Rep. Tony Gonzales (@RepTonyGonzales) May 24, 2022

https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-shooting-at-texas-elementary-school-leaves-at-least-15-dead?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cnemail&seyid=3198

A U.S. Border Patrol agent who was near the Texas elementary school that was attacked on Tuesday did not wait for backup as he rushed into the school and killed the assailant.

The tragedy unfolded when an 18-year-old male stormed Robb Elementary School and began opening fire on students. The Daily Wire is not naming the suspect due to company policy about not giving notoriety to mass murderers.

“A Border Patrol agent who was nearby when the shooting began rushed into the school without waiting for backup and shot and killed the gunman, who was behind a barricade,” the Associated Press reported. “The agent was wounded but able to walk out of the school.”

Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin confirmed the report, writing that the agent was “an elite BORTAC Border Patrol agent.”

The number of victims who were killed during the shooting has reportedly reached at least 20.

Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez (D) told CNN that he was informed by Texas law enforcement officials that 18 children were killed along with three adults.

Democrats immediately seized on the tragedy as many called for new gun control laws, while other Democrats used it as a cudgel to attack Republicans.

The shooting happened in the city of Uvalde, which is approximately 85 miles west of San Antonio and has a population of roughly 16,000 people.

“Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime and for the community of Uvalde,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said. “Cecilia and I mourn this horrific loss and we urge all Texans to come together to show our unwavering support to all who are suffering.”

“We thank the courageous first responders who worked to finally secure Robb Elementary School,” he continued. “I have instructed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers to work with local law enforcement to fully investigate this crime. The Texas Division of Emergency Management is charged with providing local officials all resources necessary to respond to this tragedy as the State of Texas works to ensure the community has what it needs to heal.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who represents the district where the tragedy occurred, responded by saying that he was “heartbroken” by the day’s events.

“It is devastating when our innocent children become the victims of senseless violence. We are devastated,” he wrote. “While we monitor this situation, we remember that Uvalde, while rocked by today’s events, is strong and resilient. In this time of trepidation, our office is always here to do whatever we can to help. We are family and we will continue to be here for each other.”

This is a developing news story; refresh the page for updates.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/border-patrol-agent-rushed-into-texas-school-and-killed-shooter-without-waiting-for-backup?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cnemail&seyid=3198

A Texas-based company wants to build a large-scale carbon capture system across five states in the Midwest to help its customers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Navigator Heartland Greenway, of Dallas, announced it had entered into contracts with two industry affiliated companies to begin site development for the proposed multi-billion dollar pipeline project.

A series of public meetings in communities located across the project’s path will take place in late November 2021 through January 2022. The first meeting is scheduled in Rock Rapids, Iowa, on Nov. 29.

The Heartland Greenway pipeline will span 1,300 miles across five Midwest states—South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois—to nearly 20 receipt points.

Navigator says the goal is to reduce carbon output in order to meet global greenhouse-gas emission targets.

“By providing an economic means to reduce the carbon footprint of homegrown biofuels, the Heartland Greenway will enable producers to create a more sustainable, premium product to bring to market,” the company said in a fact sheet.

The project is described as “multi-faceted,” and will assist customers in building CO2 capture equipment.

The liquified CO2 will then be transported over the pipeline for storage in Illinois.

Once fully expanded, the system will be able to hold up to 15 million metric tons of CO2—the emissions-equivalent of 3.2 million passenger cars—per year.

“This is the first inning of a long game, and we are 100-percent aligned with our customers’ focus on executing a highly scalable platform that can respond to increasing customer demand and industry change,” said Navigator CEO Matt Vining in a press release.

The first phase of the project is expected to begin service in early 2025.

Navigator said the benefits of the project will include property tax revenue for communities along the pipeline, 8,000 new contract jobs during construction in Iowa, and 80 new permanent jobs after project completion. At the same time, the new technology will increase the “viability and competitiveness” of biofuels and fertilizers.

“The Heartland Greenway is the first substantial, fully integrated CO2 handling system to reach a final investment decision, and we could not be more excited for the path ahead for all stakeholders,” Vining said.

Navigator’s customers include rural agricultural processors from the ethanol and fertilizer industries.

Following the informational meeting, Navigator right-of-way representatives will begin contacting landowners regarding survey activity and easement negotiations, said Ann Marie Welshans, director of right of way for Navigator, in a Oct. 29 letter to stakeholders.

“Our goal is to reach voluntary agreements with the landowners along the project route, though, if we are unable to do so we may need to request the right of eminent domain” through each state’s utilities board, Welshans said in the letter.

A construction easement is an acquired right of use over the property of another for building purposes. Eminent domain is the compulsory purchase of land by a government entity, or private company, with authorization.

“This is a big deal,” said Linda Hasche, whose husband, Daryl Hasche, is president of D & D Hasche Grain and Livestock based in Rock Rapids.

“This is way bigger than people can understand. Right now, there are a lot of unknowns.”

Linda Hasche said the Heartland Greenway project appears to cross two of her family’s three working farms, which comprise 355 acres. The fifth-generation operation produces corn, soy, hogs, and cattle.

The Hasches say that they, and other impacted farmers, are concerned the project may cause harm to the environment and hurt agriculture by preventing CO2, which allows vital photosynthesis to occur, from going into the atmosphere.

Navigator has offered to pay farm owners a one-time settlement of 100 percent crop loss value for the first year during construction, 80 percent for the second year, and 60 percent for the third year.

“You can’t even vote” on the project, Linda Hasche said. “If you say no, they’ll pull the eminent domain card, (but) they still have to compensate the farmers.”

Welshans and media contact Andrew Bates did not respond to requests for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-company-proposes-massive-co2-capture-pipeline-in-midwest_4109526.html

KINNEY COUNTY, Texas—Charging an illegal immigrant with a misdemeanor such as criminal trespass sounds simple enough.

But throw 1,008 cases at a small county with a jail that has 14 spaces and a court system that usually handles six or seven cases per month—using Microsoft Word—and the wheels start to fall off.

On June 10, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed state troopers to start arresting illegal aliens—on charges including trespass, criminal mischief, and evading on foot—officials in Kinney County jumped on the idea.

County Sheriff Brad Coe was keen to stick illegal immigrants with any charges he could to deter them from coming to his county.

“We’re going to try to hold these people accountable,” Coe said. He also wanted to get them in the system because the illegal aliens captured in Kinney County have evaded Border Patrol, so they’re unknown.

Since January, ranchers and local law enforcement had seen an unprecedented increase in the number of illegal aliens traversing the county, and they’d given up on expecting federal solutions. Local ranchers, tired of cut fences and property damage, signed affidavits allowing the sheriff and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to press charges on their behalf.

Although Abbott announced the Operation Lone Star border security initiative in June, it took almost two months to secure enough jail space and for the DPS to work out the process. The state set up a temporary 100-bed detention center in neighboring Val Verde County and cleared out the 1,000-bed Briscoe Unit in Dilley.

Meanwhile, in July, almost 10,000 illegal aliens evaded Border Patrol in the Del Rio Sector, according to preliminary Customs and Border Protection numbers.

By August, DPS was ready to start the initiative in Val Verde and Kinney counties. In Kinney, DPS assigned a small team to work the brush near the U.S.–Mexico border in areas of high foot traffic. The officers quickly started arresting an average of 25 illegal aliens per day from private ranches, often at night.

At the sheriff’s office, state troopers and local jail staff took about two hours to complete the paperwork and magistrate seven Mexicans who were arrested late on Aug. 7. They’d been walking for two days before being caught on a ranch.

Two said they had already tried crossing a month ago but got caught by Border Patrol and expelled. Another man, who said he was aiming to get to New York, said this was his third time trying to get through. He said his cousin intended to pay the $4,000 smuggling fee upon his delivery to New York.

Several said they’ll probably try again, while others weren’t as enthusiastic. They all said a “travel agent” on the Mexican side of the border directed them on where to cross, gave directions of where to walk, and had planned to coordinate a vehicle pick-up for them.

At first, Kinney County Justice of the Peace Narce Villarreal came down to the sheriff’s office in the middle of the night to magistrate the groups before DPS transported them the 30 miles to the Val Verde facility. But the hours became untenable and the sheriff’s office parking lot was overwhelmed with detainees, so the whole process was moved to Val Verde.

From Val Verde, the illegal aliens would eventually be transported 126 miles to the Briscoe Unit in Dilley while they waited for their court hearing. Subsequently, some were then transported another 200 miles to the Segovia jail facility in Edinburgh.

The Prosecution

Meanwhile, Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith was scrambling to take up the flood of new cases. He had started the job in January and was building the backend process on the fly. He had to go to the county commissioners to request a software system that would streamline the paperwork on the cases—Word documents had become too unwieldy under the volume. He contacted two other county attorneys to double-check that his complaints were solid.

Smith said he’s filed around 900 charges for criminal trespass since August, with more pending, and has had to rely heavily on Mason District Attorney Tonya Ahlschwede, who is part of Texas’s border prosecution unit, to keep up.

Former chief of the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector Austin Skero, who retired at the end of July, also joined the unit as an investigator.

After a misdemeanor arrest, Smith examines the evidence in the case file from the sheriff’s office or DPS. If it’s determined that trespass occurred, he’ll file a complaint against the individual for trespassing, which is a Class B misdemeanor. The charge is elevated if the individual has a deadly weapon, is found more than 100 feet past the property line on agricultural land, or if the alleged crime took place during a disaster (the county has been in a perpetual state of disaster since April).

Once charged, the suspect will make a plea, and if he pleads guilty, he’ll most likely get time served and be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

It’s not a hefty penalty, but “we’re hoping they avoid our county,” Smith said.

The maximum punishment for a Class B misdemeanor in Texas is 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, whereas a Class A is one year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

As the cases have piled up, it has become a race against time for Smith.

“If they don’t make bail, they’re in jail the whole time until trial,” he said. From the time of the arrest, he has 30 days to file a Class A misdemeanor complaint against a detained individual before the habeas corpus statute requires a personal recognizance (PR) bond to be set and the individual released.

In some cases, Smith received the arrest files from DPS on day 29, or even beyond day 30. In other cases, the complaints were filed within the 30 days, but the inmate had bonded out of jail and was nowhere to be found.

Logistics and lack of manpower were the bottlenecks, he said.

“Because what the state did, when they planned on this process, they got the jails set up, they got defense attorneys funded, but not one prosecutor was there to get the prosecution set up for this,” he said.

“So we’re playing catch up, trying to get the resources at the same time to do everything—versus the defense had everything set up from the very beginning.”

On Oct. 14, Abbott announced $36.4 million in grant funding toward border prosecutions and 12 border counties, including more than $3.1 million in grant money to Kinney County, as part of Operation Lone Star.

But the money doesn’t just appear in the county bank account. It’s grant money that requires an application process, and the county must carry the costs in the meantime.

Smith has already spent more than his annual office supplies budget (about $1,200) on file folders for the trespass cases.

Court Proceedings

The first of Kinney County’s cases came up on the court docket during the last week of October. They were conducted over video conference with retired judges coming in to fill the gaps.

On Oct. 26, Judge Vivian Torres sat on the virtual bench. The cases proceeded slowly, with frequent pauses for the translator to ensure the defendant understood the goings-on.

Defense lawyer Sylvia Delgado had arranged a plea deal for several defendants that reduced their charge from a Class A to a Class B misdemeanor and a sentence of “time served,” with court costs being waived.

The defendants pleaded guilty, and the judge agreed to the plea deal terms, which included a 72-day sentence, which had been served.

Delgado said she’s been assigned about 190 cases so far by the Lubbock Public Defenders’ Office and has been focusing on getting the first ones out of jail because they’d been detained so long.

She said she meets her clients via Zoom video conference. “And I tell them specifically: ‘You have not been forgotten. I’m your attorney, I’m going to work to get you out,’” Delgado told The Epoch Times on Oct. 28.

Delgado said she lets them know that she’ll attempt to get them released on a no-fee PR bond, try to get charges reduced, and, if they want to plead guilty, ask for time served.

“And then, unfortunately, when I go back to see them before docket, a lot of them are gone,” she said. Of her 18 clients for the Nov. 2 court docket, she has only been able to follow up with the six who are still in jail.

“I met with Joselito, and Joselito had told me, ‘Well, Ms. Delgado, I just want to plead guilty and get sent back to Mexico. I just want to go back to Mexico.’

“So I was looking for Joselito. And he’s nowhere to be found.”

She was told by the other inmates that Joselito was transferred to ICE, while others had returned to Mexico after bonding out.

Other defense attorneys have also said they had no idea where their clients were after they bonded out.

The region’s district attorney, Suzanne West, told The Epoch Times that she believes inmates who bond out are released to ICE.

ICE didn’t confirm that it was taking custody of the inmates, or what happened next. A spokesperson said the agency is following the enforcement priorities set out by the Biden administration.

“In Texas and elsewhere, ICE conducts an individualized determination in each case to assess whether arrest and removal is warranted. This determination includes an assessment of aggravating and mitigating factors, as well as a determination of whether the person is removable under the law,” ICE spokesperson Monica Yoas stated in an email to The Epoch Times.

“ICE fully respects the civil rights and liberties of all people when conducting this assessment.”

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which operates the Briscoe and Segovia jails, said that as of Oct. 29, the Briscoe unit held 654 illegal alien inmates, with 536 from Kinney County, 105 from Val Verde, 10 from Zavala, and three from Frio County. In Segovia, all 291 illegal alien inmates are from Kinney County.

Delgado said she has asked for an investigator to help on the ground to find the missing people and has meanwhile obtained a continuance in court for their hearing dates.

“If they’re truly lost, like we don’t ever hear from them again, we don’t know what happened. If I can’t really find out, then they’re probably just going to keep getting reset,” she said.

“So I suppose a warrant may issue, but we’re not there yet. We’re just not there in that system yet.”

Most of the defendants on the next several dockets, totaling about 60 cases, had their cases dismissed because defense lawyers argued that the complaints were deficient as they lacked the landowner’s name.

Smith later said he was disappointed that the name of the ranch wasn’t sufficient for the court, as he was hoping to avoid naming the landowner in public records. The landowner’s name is usually included in the arrest file, which the lawyer can access.

“A lot of ranchers are concerned about cartel retribution, possibly, if their name comes up in complaint after complaint after complaint” he said.

“So we can still refile it and prosecute once we correct that information. But you know, they’re not going to show up.”

Smith’s office scrambled to amend the 900 complaints already filed to include the landowner name and the GPS location of the alleged offense.

Defense lawyers appeared to change tack on the Nov. 2 docket and entered “not guilty” pleas for all their clients who were still present.

The judge subsequently ordered the release of each defendant on a no-fee PR bond and set a pre-trial hearing for Nov. 18.

Ahlschwede, from the border prosecution unit, told the court on Nov. 2 that several illegal aliens who had been released from jail after paying a cash bond have since been arrested again for criminal trespass in Kinney County.

Smith said one man was released after paying a $4,000 cash bond. “Then we re-arrested him 10 days ago. And despite it being a multiple offense, they gave a $500 bond. Well, we filed the motion to revoke [the bond] once we got the case file—which was 10 days after it occurred,” Smith said.

The man had been released three days prior to receiving the motion.

“By the time we got the file, he was already gone. Who knows where he’s at now,” Smith said.

Coe said his office has been juggling a steady stream of people coming in to pay cash bonds with wads of crisp $100 bills.

“Some of them are $5,000. Where are they getting the money?” he said. At one point, he had more than half a million dollars in cash sitting in his vault.

“I’d bet there’s a 99 percent chance that they don’t show up [to court],” Coe said of the released illegal alien defendants.

“They’ll probably end up in places like Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, Washington—we’ll never see them again. So are we doing this all in vain? I mean, it’s doable. It’s very, very new. It’s just getting the mechanism rolling.”

Impact

Coe said he hoped the convictions might be a roadblock for illegal aliens if they ever tried to file for some type of assistance or become U.S. citizens.

“That’d be a check mark against them. Some type of consequence has to be there,” he said.

However, in reality, having a trespass conviction on record will act more like a speedbump, according to former immigration judge Andrew Arthur, who is now a resident fellow in law and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies.

“Generally, this isn’t going to have any effect on them from an immigration standpoint, but again, sleeping in a room with 30 guys for six months really does have a way of concentrating one’s attention,” Arthur told The Epoch Times on Oct. 27.

Even if the Texas legislature passes a bill that would enhance punishment to a third-degree felony for illegal alien trespassers, the impact on future immigration status would be negligible, Arthur said.

“But again, anything that impedes people’s ability to enter the United States, anything that’s going to require them to be detained pretrial, or imprisoned post-trial, is going to be a deterrent,” he said.

“Now, how strong a deterrent effect that is remains to be seen.”

Arthur said the deterrent effect was worth the taxpayer dollars spent on the trespass prosecutions.

“The problem is that Texas is doing the job that the federal government should be doing.”

Volume

The majority of Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border occur in Texas. Of the more than 1.6 million illegal alien apprehensions in fiscal year 2021, Border Patrol apprehended almost 958,000, or 58 percent, crossing into Texas.

Customs and Border Protection doesn’t publish the number of illegal aliens that Border Patrol agents have detected but who subsequently evade apprehension, but the internal numbers have sat at around 50,000 per month this year, according to an inside source. It’s impossible to estimate the number of those who aren’t detected at all.

Within the Operation Lone Star border effort, the DPS had made 7,744 criminal arrests as of Oct. 14, including 1,300 for criminal trespass and 6,339 on felony charges. State troopers had been involved in 822 vehicle pursuits, mostly chasing smugglers who were transporting illegal aliens.

Kinney County has charged significantly more illegal aliens with trespass than Val Verde County so far, which started the initiative at the same time. Other counties, such as Frio and Zavala started prosecuting more recently, while Uvalde and Brooks counties are considering getting started but are strapped with the same lack of resources that Kinney County has experienced.

Smith said the volume of prosecutions coming from Kinney County were a result of the county officials caring about the issue.

“They want to do something more about it than just close your eyes and not watch what’s happening to your county,” he said.

Smith said he’s been accused by a defense lawyer of being racist for prosecuting illegal aliens.

“The criminal complaints make no mention of immigration status or hinge on race. If you come down to Kinney County and trespass on private property, we’ll arrest you too,” he said in a statement on Oct. 26.

Delgado, the defense lawyer, said she hadn’t seen any malfeasance, despite the scramble to pull everything together.

“It’s a big ship and it’s making a large turn in a small canal. And so we are all working really hard to get things moving. And I believe it is starting to unclog,” she said.

Smith predicted that the system will be much more robust within a couple of months.

“What we’re working on right now is tweaking the language of the complaints, researching everything, making sure there’s nothing else they [the defense] can pick at,” he said.

“Now, will this Operation Lone Star continue for the next three years? Probably so. Unless the federal government decides to actually follow the laws passed by Congress—which at the moment they’re not doing.

“The only realistic solution to this crisis will require deploying all of the Texas military on the border and actually prevent the illegal entries from occurring. Right now, it’s like trying to build a dam after the flood gates have already been opened.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/in-pursuit-of-a-secure-border-small-texas-county-leads-charge-against-border-crime_4084276.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Rep. Troy Nehls, former Texas sheriff, applauds plan to use shipping containers as border barriers

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has begun taking matters into his own hands, installing makeshift border walls created from repurposed shipping containers in strategic locations where migrants are likely to cross.

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, who previously served as a sheriff in the Rio Grande Valley for eight years, called the new border structures “a great idea” Thursday on “Fox & Friends.” 

“It’s a tool that the governor is using to try to help slow down, curb this invasion, this invasion that we’re seeing at our southern border,” said Nehls.

TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT: ‘WE ARE BUILDING OUR OWN BORDER WALL’

Nehls described the border wall construction as a “defensive position” to “channel” migrants into areas with larger law enforcement and Border Patrol presences. 

“We have 1,250 miles of border in Texas. That’s a lot of area to cover and we’re doing the federal government’s job for them because they refuse to do it on their own,” Nehls added. 

Workers continue the assembly at the Mission Levee Phase II border wall construction site off Abram Road in Mission, Texas, Oct. 6, 2021. (REUTERS/Jason Garza)

The Texas representative said that inaction from the Biden administration and Congress has forced governors in southern states to “augment” border enforcement with their own resources. Texas’ Department of Public Safety [DPS] and National Guard have been dispatched to help overwhelmed Border Patrol agents.

Nehls said the current circumstances at the border are costing Texans billions of dollars. 

On Oct. 28, Abbott spoke with Tucker Carlson, where he laid out the specifics of the border wall plan. 

Workers continue the assembly of a border wall at a construction site in Pharr, Texas, Oct. 5, 2021.  (REUTERS/Jason Garza)

“We begin dropping these large containers that you see on 18 wheelers, you also see on these ships that are going across the ocean,” Abbott said. “We’re dropping them down on locations that could be crossings that would be used by these caravans to serve as a blockade to prevent them from coming across the border.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Abbott told Carlson that he has also dispatched 6,500 National Guard and DPS troopers to the border to contain the surge in migrant caravans crossing into the U.S.

The agents have been tasked with identifying possible points of entry and installing razor wire to deter those who wish to enter illegally, he explained.

Fox News’ Yael Halon contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/texas-border-wall-shipping-container-troy-nehls

Four of the firms are based in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Eight Texas companies defied the pandemic and earned spots on Fortune’s 2021 ranking of the nation’s 100 fastest-growing companies. That includes four Dallas-Fort Worth firms, with Plano-based homebuilder Green Brick Partners leading the way.

It’s the third consecutive year Green Brick has appeared in the ranking. It builds homes in North Texas under five subsidiaries — CB JENI Homes, Normandy Homes, Southgate Homes, Trophy Signature Homes and Centre Living Homes — and owns controlling interest in The Providence Group in Atlanta and GHO Homes in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

The list ranks companies based on a combination of revenue growth rate, earnings per share growth rate, and three-year annualized total return for the period ended June 30.

“We are incredibly proud to be recognized by Fortune as … the No. 1 fastest-growing public homebuilder in the United States,” said Green Brick CEO and co-founder Jim Brickman in a statement.

Green Brick climbed 36 spots to finish 19th overall. Only San Antonio-based Victory Capital Holdings placed higher among Texas companies.

Other North Texas public companies in the ranking are engineering giant Jacobs, bank holding company Veritex and home health care firm Addus HomeCare.

Veritex Holdings recently acquired North Avenue Capital, a Florida-based lender specializing in U.S. Department of Agriculture loans, for $57.5 million.

Texas companies on Fortune’s fastest growing list

Four Dallas-Fort Worth companies are among the eight Texas firms to score spots on the 2021 fastest growing companies ranking.

Table: The Dallas Morning News  Source: FortuneGet the data  Created with Datawrapper

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2021/11/02/10-texas-companies-score-spots-on-fortunes-fastest-growing-companies-ranking/

All across America, parents are fighting back against school boards. They are getting more and more outraged that our public schools would defy their concerns and teach their kids a revisionist version of our history. Parents have spoken up, confronting these liberal-controlled school boards.

Biden struck back by having the DOJ brand these parents as criminals. But that hasn’t stopped patriotic parents from fighting for their children’s educations. And in Republican-controlled Texas, they are taking steps to take out one poisonous form of curriculum.

From The Hill:

The chairman of a Texas state House committee tasked with conducting investigations is launching a probe into books that school librarians keep on their shelves in the wake of a measure the legislature passed earlier this year to bar teaching of critical race theory in public schools.

Texas state government is launching investigations to probe the kinds of books available on public school shelves. They are searching for anything that teaches the previously barred “critical race theory” curriculum being pushed by Democrats in our schools.

Texas banned this kind of teaching in the classrooms. But it’s possible that schools found loopholes by putting these books in their libraries. Teachers and liberal librarians could easily encourage kids to read these books on their own, circumventing the law.

Critical race theory has been widely panned by many historians and conservatives. Many believe the ideology twists American history by branding our founding fathers as villains over slavery and other issues. It removes the merits of our leaders and the incredible work they did to found the United States.

Many, including leaders like Ben Carson, fear how this teaching can warp the minds of millions of young people. At least in Texas, their leaders are taking the steps to eliminate this toxic teaching and restoring accurate, honest historical curriculum.

But in many other states, parents have to fight to get their voices heard. Meanwhile, the DOJ and the media branding Americans for simply speaking their mind. The only way CRT will fail is if Americans refuse to back down.

Key Takeaways:

• Texas state legislature is investigating to take CRT books from school libraries.
• The state banned the teaching of “critical race theory” and is ensuring it isn’t in the libraries.
• American parents have fought school boards to remove this teaching from schools.

Source: The Hill

BRACKETTVILLE, Texas—Days after a militia made its presence known in a rural Texas town, the county sheriff said he received a call from a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) official who threatened to pull all its resources from the county.

Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe said that during the call, the official said they “didn’t know who these people were” who were wanting to come help on the border.

“He basically said, ‘I’ll pull all my resources out,’” Coe said.

Coe said he understood the call to mean that all state troopers assigned to the county would be relocated, and other resources including jail space could be made unavailable to Kinney County if militia personnel were operating in the county, even on private ranches.

“I said, ‘They’re not working for me. They’re not deputized. They’re just here on their own accord. And they have that right to be here,’” Coe told The Epoch Times.

Sam Hall, leader of the militia Patriots for America, said the group planned to operate as a deterrent in areas of high traffic.

“As a militia, we can’t detain or arrest people. We can disrupt and frustrate until the county or DPS can get there,” Hall told The Epoch Times.

Border Patrol agents recorded almost 4,000 illegal aliens who evaded capture in the Del Rio Sector in the seven days from Oct. 18, according to provisional Customs and Border Protection numbers provided to The Epoch Times. Most have to pass through Kinney County to get from the border cities of Del Rio and Eagle Pass to San Antonio.

“What we’ve seen is an invasion of this county,” Hall said during a county commissioner’s meeting on Oct. 18. “What we’ve seen is residents that are scared to death right now, and they don’t feel like they have support from the state.”

Coe said he had spoken to Hall and requested to know where they’d be operating, for safety purposes. The sheriff said he understood the concerns DPS might have of a “friendly fire” incident if they don’t know where people are working.

DPS has had a significant impact in Kinney County since the governor’s Operation Lone Star border enforcement effort began in March, especially with the extra state troopers on the roads arresting human smugglers and on the ranches apprehending illegal aliens for trespassing.

DPS didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Possible Kidnapping Charge

It’s not the first time DPS has threatened to pull back.

Rancher Cole Hill figured he was being proactive when he invited four men onto his ranch to help guard the property against trespassers one night in September. He was fed up with the constant illegal alien traffic, damage to his property, and slow (or no) response from overwhelmed law enforcement agencies.

The men ended up detaining a group of seven illegal alien men for DPS to subsequently pick up and charge with trespassing.

The next day, Hill told The Epoch Times, he received a phone call from DPS.

“Almost verbatim it was, ‘Look, you can’t do that. That’s not even legal what you guys did. That’s technically kidnapping. You cannot do anything to impede the travel of any other human being. And if you do so, if you try to detain somebody against their will, that is kidnapping, and you can be charged with kidnap for that,’” he said.

Hill said the DPS officer told him that they will no longer come to his ranch to pick up detained illegal aliens because it would reflect badly on the agency to transport illegal aliens that had been “technically kidnapped.”

Hill’s ranch sits about 35 miles from the U.S.–Mexico border on a main thoroughfare for illegal immigrants who have evaded Border Patrol and are traversing his land on foot to skirt a highway checkpoint. The usual plan is to then be picked up by a smuggler who will drive them to a big city, often San Antonio.

Hill said he’s dealt with illegal aliens traversing his land for years, but only about 25 people a year, on average;  sometimes months would go by with no activity.

Until January.

Since then, he’s had men in full camouflage clothing on his front porch; a group surrounding his house, banging on the walls and peering in the windows; his ranch worker house broken into; and his truck ignition destroyed during a theft attempt.

The damage to his property is also increasing. In the past few months, he’s had his perimeter fence cut seven times, most of the time from top to bottom, and in three cases, an entire section was pulled out.

“Sure, there’s probably some good apples in there as well. But I don’t think the good apples are 35 miles off the river trying to evade every law enforcement they can as aggressively as they are,” Hill said.

He said he’s lost count of the number of confrontations he’s had with groups of five or six men while working alone on his ranch. The idea of having a group of men out on security one night seemed appealing.

“All they were doing was giving me a better night’s sleep,” he said.

He was shocked to get the call from DPS.

Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith said ranchers have been detaining illegal aliens for years for Border Patrol and the sheriff’s office to pick up.

“No one’s ever brought this issue up until now with DPS,” Smith told The Epoch Times.

“Any citizen can arrest someone, or detain them, for breach of peace or a felony committed in their presence. And trespassing has been found to be a breach of peace before.”

Smith said that most of the time when a group of illegal aliens is walking through a ranch, one of them is the guide, or coyote, which constitutes a felony.

“So one of those guys is committing a felony. Can you detain all 10 of them until you find out who that one is? How do you know which one the guide is unless you detain them?” he said.

DPS didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment by The Epoch Times about this incident and about whether the agency has warned other ranchers in Texas that they could be charged with kidnapping.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/border-sheriff-says-state-threatened-to-pull-resources-if-he-didnt-stop-militia_4072144.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

“Operation Lone Star,” ordered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, has resulted in 7,744 migrants arrested on criminal charges.

The announcement came from the Texas Military Department (TMD) and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). The figures are as of Oct. 14 and include 1,300 arrests for criminal trespassing and 6,339 arrests for felony charges.

In addition, there were 73,031 migrant apprehensions and referrals and 822 vehicle pursuits.

Abbott earlier this year ordered the National Guard to help local law enforcement with arresting migrants who break state laws amid the border crisis.

“We’re not doing catch and release; we’re doing catch and jail,” Lt. Chris Olivarez of the DPS said in a Fox News interview posted on Twitter by Abbott in September.

In a Tuesday tweet that included a Fox News clip of Texas law enforcement officials arresting migrants hiding in rail cars, Abbott said immigrants who commit crimes, “will be put behind bars not sent to Border Patrol for catch & release. TxDPS, along with the Texas National Guard, have made thousands of arrests this year through #OperationLoneStar.”

Brig. Gen. Monie Ulis, Operation Lone Star commander, said in a statement announcing the arrest figures last week, “The Texas National Guard is surging personnel, equipment, and capabilities to the Texas and Mexico border region in support of Operation Lone Star. As we build our force, we remain ready to detect, block, and apprehend individuals and groups conducting illegal activity.”

The statement noted that in “addition to manpower, TMD also has hundreds of items of tactical equipment assigned to help securing the border, stretching from Del Rio to Brownsville, as well as air assets. Additional pieces of tactical equipment will be brought to the border in the next few weeks to help with the mission.”

Officials also pointed out one recent arrest, in Cameron County by the DPS Strike Team, after a traffic stop where the driver fled on foot. He was later found to be hiding in a garage.

It turned out the man was a deported felon who had 32 packages of cocaine and was transporting four migrants in the vehicle.

“We will remain at the border and focus on the core mission of OLS (Operation Lone Star) as long as is needed,” said DPS Director Steven McCraw. “We are still making numerous arrests and seizing large quantities of drugs and guns, showing our presence there is necessary.”

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/texas-migrants-arrests-abbott/2021/10/28/id/1042356/

A Texas House committee is investigating school library books in the wake of a new law that bans the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in public schools.

State Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on General Investigating, wrote on Oct. 25 to the Texas Education Agency and a group of unnamed superintendents, notifying them of the inquiry.

In the letter (pdf), Krause said a number of school districts across the state have recently removed books from libraries and classrooms after receiving objections from students, parents, and taxpayers. The letter cites five incidents as examples, which mostly involved concerned parents who complained that certain books are sexually explicit or teach CRT.

“In accordance with the Committee’s jurisdiction and my authority as Chairman, I am initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content,” he said.

Attached to the letter is a 16-page list (pdf) containing more than 840 books, published between 2021 and as early as 1969. It includes titles that are popular among social and racial justice activists, such as “Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” and “How to Be An Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander, and books about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Also on the list are books focused on transgender, gender identity, homosexuality, adolescent sexuality, pregnancy and abortion, including those discussing the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade. It also includes “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore, likely because of the graphic novel’s portrayal of homosexual characters.

Specifically, Krause asked school districts to report on how many copies of each listed book they possess, and how much money was spent on those books.

Krause further asked that school districts identify any other books that cover topics including “human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or HIV or AIDS, sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law,” or contain material that might violate the anti-CRT law by conveying that students are inherently racist or sexist or should feel guilt because of their sex or race.

The school districts will have until Nov. 12 to respond to those questions, according to the letter.

The initiative faced almost immediate opposition from Texas’s teachers’ unions. In an Oct. 26 statement, Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina said Krause’s letter “smacks of a witch hunt.”

“This is an obvious attack on diversity and an attempt to score political points at the expense of our children’s education,” Molina said.

Molina was joined by Zeph Capo the president of Texas American Federation of Teachers, who called the move “akin to the Red Scare” and a waste of taxpayer’s dollars.

It is unclear what Krause is planning to do once the school districts provide him with the information. The Epoch Times has reach out to his office for comment and will update this article accordingly.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-house-republican-investigates-school-library-books-about-race-sex_4072228.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

UVALDE, Texas—A trio of small border locales have banded together in a bid to compel the state of Texas to provide the resources they need to secure their citizens against an unprecedented flow of illegal alien traffic.

Officials from Uvalde County, the city of Uvalde, and Kinney County formed a subregional planning commission on Aug. 2 under a unique Texas statute that gives small entities the teeth to force state agencies to the table to solve problems.

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants pass through the area—via car or train, or on foot—to get from the border cities of Del Rio and Eagle Pass to San Antonio. The counties have declared themselves in a perpetual state of disaster since April.

Two officials from the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) attended the commission’s first meeting on Oct. 21. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, tasked TDEM with providing resources to beleaguered border counties, after issuing a state disaster declaration on May 31.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has dedicated more state troopers to the area, but the 391 commission members complained to the two TDEM officials about nonaction and communication issues that have left them feeling ignored and frustrated.

Uvalde County Commissioner John Yeackle said one of his county’s biggest problems is finding jail space for illegal aliens and smugglers.

“We’re getting verbal commitments—as I understand from the sheriff’s office—for DPS to move them to Del Rio, but that’s not happening in reality,” Yeackle said. The facility in Del Rio is a temporary state-run detention center that’s holding illegal alien inmates arrested for trespass and other crimes, but it’s 70 miles from Uvalde.

Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe said several formal requests he’s made to TDEM and DPS have gone unanswered or unresolved, including radio communications between his deputies and state troopers while on duty.

“Right now, Kinney County seems to be at the epicenter of all this,” he said. Between Val Verde and Kinney counties, he said, 12 human smuggling loads had been intercepted in the previous 24 hours.

One case involved a 21-year-old U.S. citizen out of Brownsville, Texas, who was transporting three Guatemalans and one Mexican to San Antonio. While deputies were arresting him and the illegal alien passengers, another vehicle drove past that state troopers subsequently stopped. The driver and passenger—U.S. citizens out of Fort Worth, Texas—were transporting three Guatemalans to San Antonio from the border.

“To get to San Antonio, you have to go through Kinney County,” Coe said. While he said DPS has helped arrest 1,100 illegal aliens in Kinney County on trespass and other misdemeanor charges, he estimates that at least another 3,000 have slipped past.

Kinney County also has a jail space problem.

“I’ve got on my desk right now about 100 to 150 [arrest] warrants that I can’t serve because I don’t have a place to put these people. I’ve got a 14-bed facility,” Coe said.

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said local schools went into lockdown 48 times in the spring because of high-speed vehicle pursuits and bailouts of illegal aliens. He said some citizens won’t let their children play in their yard unless an armed adult is supervising.

“We’re not getting any help. We’re not geared up for this. They’re doing a great job, but we need help,” he said, referring to DPS and local law enforcement.

“We’re still averaging three to four bailouts every day. And then they spend most of their time trying to round these people up.”

McLaughlin said law enforcement is finding firearms in smuggling vehicles, and some of the illegal aliens are murderers, pedophiles, and sex offenders.

The county reached out to TDEM over the summer to get extra capacity to store bodies after several illegal aliens died.

“We had two that jumped off the train that got killed. We found one in a farm field. We got another one that got run over by a combine,” he said.

Uvalde has the capacity to hold seven bodies, and McLaughlin said sometimes it takes up to six months before someone claims the body of an illegal immigrant.

TDEM Assistant Chief Tony Pena apologized during the commission meeting for the agency’s failure to respond to the request at the time. He said he would seek answers to all the complaints presented and promised better communication.

“This has to be likened to building an aircraft while it’s in the air,” he said.

“We didn’t create this problem as the state. It was created elsewhere and by somebody else, and the answer lies with them,” Pena said, referring to the Biden administration.

“All I can say is, the state of Texas is using the resources that they have available at the moment to at least slow down this invasion.”

The meeting took place as tens of thousands of illegal immigrants were traveling from southern Mexico on their way to the U.S. border.

“There’s a human tsunami on its way,” Kinney County Judge Tully Shahan said. “We do have a grave concern for Texas and our country.”

Four days after the meeting, McLaughlin told The Epoch Times that he had since talked to TDEM Chief Nim Kidd three times and was positive that things were moving in the right direction. He is submitting a new request for vehicles, extra personnel, and equipment. A temporary detention center is next on the list.

Meanwhile, the White House on Oct. 24 rejected Abbott’s appeal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reimburse the state for millions of dollars it has spent on the border crisis.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-border-region-pushes-state-to-do-more-against-illegal-immigration_4069788.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

A November vote on whether Austin should hire hundreds of new police officers is shaping up as a test of Austinites’ appetite for police reform.

After Austin officials slashed the city’s police spending amid nationwide protests over police brutality last year and drew the ire of Gov. Greg Abbott, Austin’s voters could wind up putting hundreds of new police officers on the streets.

If passed on Nov. 2, Proposition A would compel Austin officials to drastically increase the ranks of its police force — more than a year after the city first embarked on a mission to re-examine its police department in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Ramos, an unarmed Black and Hispanic man, by an Austin police officer and George Floyd’s murder by a white officer in Minneapolis, which sparked a summer of protests in Texas cities and across the nation.

The fight over Prop A is shaping up as a referendum on Austin’s new scaled-down approach to policing — and a test for Texas’ most liberal major city amid a surge of homicides.

Cries of “defund the police” at protests inflamed the national culture wars as several major cities cut their police spending in one way or another. Nowhere in the country were the cuts as deep as in Austin, the only major Texas city that cut huge sums from its police budget — albeit temporarily.

Among the results were a state law that punishes cities that cut police spending and now a petition drive that could force Austin to spend millions more on policing indefinitely.

Leaders of Save Austin Now, a group that successfully pushed a referendum that restored the city’s ban on homeless encampments in May, forced the issue by gathering enough signatures to add Prop A to the November ballot — betting that residents across the political spectrum will force city officials to hire more officers as homicides increase along with police response times.

Austin, like nearly every major U.S. city, has seen more homicides during the COVID-19 pandemic — which crime experts have speculated stems in part from stress and economic anxiety cause by the pandemic. Austin has recorded 61 homicides so far this year — resulting in the city’s highest homicide rate in two decades — but other kinds of crime have dropped.

On average, it takes an Austin police officer a minute longer to make the scene of a high-priority call than it did last year.

“We have a (city council) that simply has not demonstrated any regard whatsoever for public safety,” said Matt Mackowiak, a co-founder of Save Austin Now and Travis County Republican Party chair. “Council’s not going to do this on their own.”

Opponents have said the measure would spell doom for the city’s finances — more than a third of the budget is already dedicated to the Austin Police Department. More police officers would mean fewer firefighters, medics and librarians, they say.

“We know it would lead to consequential cuts to other things that we care about,” said Laura Hernandez Holmes, campaign manager for No Way on Prop A. “We need to have a conversation about comprehensive public safety reform, and this is not the way to do it.”

More than anything, November’s vote will test Austinites’ appetite for police reform.

Austinites by and large regard the police department as a necessity, said longtime Austin political consultant David Butts, who helped elected mayors Steve Adler and Lee Leffingwell. But that doesn’t mean voters think the police should get a blank check.

“I think people believe we need to have the police,” Butts said. ”Does that mean that everything the police do, we should stand up and salute it? Well, the answer to that is ‘no.’”

Austin City Council cut 150 officer positions from the 1,959-member police force and canceled a trio of cadet classes last year as part of a $150 million round of police budget cuts. Some police functions were moved to other city agencies.

This year, council members reversed the cuts to the police budget — which now sits at a record $442 million, more than a third of the city’s $1.15 billion operating budget. The council paid for three new cadet classes but didn’t restore the 150 positions.

And once Austin raises its police budget, it can’t bring it down because of a new law passed earlier this year by Abbott and state Republican legislators that punishes major cities that cut their police budgets. Under the law, if a city cuts its police spending, it can’t raise property taxes.

After last year’s protests, activists pushed local officials to boost spending on social services like housing, homelessness prevention and mental health assistance as the city re-evaluates policing tactics.

Now police reform advocates are worried Proposition A could upend those efforts, said Chas Moore, an organizer who leads the Austin Justice Coalition.

“I don’t know if the type of police reform and transformation and change that we’re talking about can live within this idea that we put all this extra money into a police department [if Proposition A passes], just to boost it up to these astronomical levels,” Moore said. “I don’t know if those two things can coexist.”

What Proposition A would do

Big bucks have flowed into the Proposition A fight, pushing the cost of the race past $1.5 million.

Save Austin Now raised more than $720,000 in the months leading up to the election, according to recent campaign finance filings — drawing $100,000 from Charles Maund Toyota, a local car dealership, and $50,000 from Philip Canfield, who heads the investment firm Ariet Capital.

Equity PAC, which funds No Way on Prop A, got a huge infusion of cash in September from two big backers: $500,000 from liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Policy Center and another $200,000 from The Fairness Project, a progressive group based in Washington, D.C.

If Austin voters pass Prop A, the city would have to hire enough police officers to have two on patrol for every 1,000 residents — which is the statewide average, but a level Austin hasn’t had since 2012. Last year, Austin had 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, fewer than Dallas and Houston, but on par with El Paso and Fort Worth and more than San Antonio.

APD has also experienced a stream of officer retirements in recent months. The department had 184 officer vacancies as of Oct. 7, a police spokesperson said. About 25 to 50 vacancies is considered a manageable level, according to the Austin Police Officers Association.

Prop A would force the city council to more quickly fill those vacant police positions, Mackowiak said.

“This council’s not serious about recruiting,” Mackowiak said. “They’re not serious about addressing the staffing crisis.”

But while experts in policing generally agree that increased officer presence results in lower crime rates, the effect on violent crime is not as clear.

An analysis spanning five decades by former Austin city council member Bill Spelman, an opponent of Prop A, showed no correlation between the number of sworn police officers in Austin and the local homicide rate.

“Murder is committed by people who are really angry and have a gun in their pocket,” Spelman said.

Overall crime ticked up in Austin from 2019 to 2020, but is down from the start of the 2010s, according to FBI data.

Dispute over the cost

The proposition also calls for officers to spend at least 35% of their shifts on “community engagement time” — meaning time not responding to calls.

To allow that, Austin would have to drastically ramp up the number of officers on the force to make sure it has enough officers to cover shifts, according to projections from the city’s budget office — anywhere from 400 to 885 additional officers over the next five years.

A city estimate predicted the cost of implementing the proposition could climb as high as $600 million in the next five years. That surge of spending would force Austin to lay off hundreds of municipal employees including firefighters, medics and librarians, figures circulated by council member Greg Casar show.

Prop A’s supporters have disputed the city’s cost projections and rejected opponents’ cries that the proposition would bring about the city’s financial ruin. Council member Mackenzie Kelly called the notion that Austin officials would cut the city’s firefighting budget “absurd” but suggested the city could look elsewhere for cuts.

“We see a large sum, millions of dollars, going towards homelessness in the community,” Kelly said during a town hall on news station KXAN. “We see it towards social services and those sorts of things that really don’t need to be funded by municipal government.”

Ken Casaday, head of the Austin Police Officers Association, put it differently.

“They’ve wasted and shit money away … They’re just going to have to tighten their belt,” Casaday said.

The dire financial predictions, however, were enough to drive the unions that represent Austin firefighters and paramedics — often allies of Austin’s police union — to publicly oppose the proposition.

“We just think it’s a bad law,” said Bob Nicks, president of the fire union. “It’s going to harm us and it’s going to harm our public safety as a whole. But it’s not an indictment against the police.”

Some Austin neighborhoods would likely welcome more police boots on the ground, said Justin Irving, head of the Austin Neighborhoods Council. But the sentiment isn’t universal, Irving said, and worries abound that the proposition would “erode quality of life in other areas” while doing little to prevent crime.

“I think a lot of people are beginning to question whether or not police are the only answer to that equation,” Irving said.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/18/Austin-police-hire-budget/

The White House rejected Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s request that the federal government reimburse the state for millions of dollars on the border crisis, according to a letter sent to his office.

“After a thorough review of all the information contained in your initial request and appeal, we reaffirm our original findings that supplemental federal assistance under the Stafford Act is not warranted for this event. Therefore, I must inform you that your appeal for an emergency declaration is denied,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell told Abbott’s office in a letter dated Sunday.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in response to the letter, criticized the Biden administration.

Biden, the Republican official argued, “created the crisis on our southern border and now they refuse to pay for the endless and ongoing damage,” adding that “Texans should not have to foot this bill.”

Abbott had asked FEMA to reconsider a denial to approve a request for an emergency declaration, which would then free up federal funds. The Republican governor first asked the Biden administration for assistance in a letter (pdf) on Sept. 20 and sent a subsequent letter on Oct. 7, again asking for aid.

Immigration is solely within the purview of the federal Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Later in October, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) issued a joint letter to President Joe Biden asking him for more federal assistance.

“State and local communities in Texas bear direct and indirect costs of the increasing volume of illegal immigration along the southwest border,” they wrote, “and federal assistance is necessary to further protect the lives, property, public health, and safety of the communities along the border.”

Biden’s recent denial of Abbott’s request comes as the CBP released data on Oct. 22 showing that Border Patrol agents apprehended a record-breaking total of 1,666,167 illegal immigrants along the southwestern border in the fiscal year 2021.

The number of illegal crossings has dramatically increased since Biden took office and after he dismantled many of President Donald Trump’s border security initiatives, including stopping border wall construction and stopping the “Remain in Mexico” program in January.

Amid the surge, Biden has received significant criticism from Republicans and some Democrats whose districts lie along the U.S.–Mexico border.

A day before the CBP report was released, Biden was asked by Anderson Cooper during a CNN interview about whether he is planning to visit the border. Vice President Kamala Harris visited El Paso, Texas, in June.

“I guess I should go down. But the—but the whole point of it is: I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down,” Biden said on Oct. 21.

Colorado health system UCHealth explained that transplant patients who contract COVID-19 have a 20 to 30% mortality rate

With hospitals in Colorado denying unvaccinated patients organ transplants, more people are looking to Texas in the hopes of getting the potentially life-saving procedures. 

Colorado’s UCHealth recently told Dawn McLaughlin, a woman with polycystic kidney disease, she was being kicked off the wait list to receive a transplant because she hadn’t gotten the COVID vaccine, CBS4 reported.

And earlier this month, another Colorado woman, Leilani Lutali, despite having stage 5 kidney disease, found out her hospital won’t approve her kidney transplant surgery until she’s gotten the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Leilani Lutali, foreground, and Jaimee Fougner pose for a photo, Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021 in Colorado Springs, Colo. Lutali recently found out her hospital wouldn’t approve her kidney transplant surgery until she got a COVID-19 vaccine. She has stage 5 kidney disease that puts her at risk of dying without a new kidney. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Colorado health system UCHealth explained that transplant patients who contract COVID-19 have a 20 to 30% mortality rate. 

“This shows the extreme risk that COVID-19 poses to transplant recipients after their surgeries,” UCHealth told Fox News in a statement.  

UCHealth said patients who have undergone an organ transplant procedure require a lifetime of specialized management to ensure the organ is not rejected, which, in extreme cases, can lead to death. 

LOS ANGELES MAYOR TO CITY EMPLOYEES: BE PREPARED TO LOSE YOUR JOB IF YOU AREN’T VACCINATED BY DEADLINE

“Physicians must consider the short- and long-term health risks for patients as they consider whether to recommend an organ transplant,” UCHealth said.

It noted that other transplant hospitals have been putting similar policies in place. 

Now, many Texans – including the governor himself – are saying those denied transplants will be welcome in the Lone Star state. 

FILE: A health care worker fills a syringe with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, Fil)

“Here in Texas, vaccines remain voluntary and never forced,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office told Fox News in a statement. “Anyone being denied critical, life-saving organ transplants is welcome here in Texas, where one’s rights and freedoms are always protected.” 

Texas State Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Republican, told Fox News he was happy that Texas hospitals have, for now at least, “chosen to put patients before politics.” 

“It seems too many in the medical profession have forgotten their oaths,” Cain said. 

Meanwhile, the Niklas Organ Donor Awareness Foundation, based in Grand Prairie, Texas, is offering to help people like McLaughlin and Lutali find housing while they await organ transplants in Texas. 

HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER OF THE YEAR FACES TERMINATION OVER VACCINE MANDATE

Rodney DeBaun, vice president of the foundation, told Fox News he is personally not against the vaccine, having gotten it himself. But he believes vaccines are “a personal choice.” 

“It’s not up to the government to dictate whether you do, whether you don’t (get the vaccine),” DeBaun said. 

He remains unpersuaded by UCHealth’s data showing that unvaccinated patients are at higher risk of mortality if they contract COVID after an organ transplant.   

“If someone’s waiting for an organ transplant, if they don’t get a transplant, they’re going to die,” DeBaun said. 

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DeBaun received a heart transplant in 1993 and said he is grateful for the years he was given. 

“I’ve been given 28 years of life. My boys were 8 and 11 years old, and I’ve gotten to see my kids grow up. I now have grandkids,” DeBaun told Fox News. “My philosophy is that I need to earn every single day that I’ve got. So, we just try to help any way we can help.” 

Fox News’ Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.Bradford Betz is an editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @bradford_betz.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-welcomes-patients-denied-lifesaving-organ-transplants-in-colorado-because-of-covid-vaccination-status

The attorneys general of Texas and Missouri teamed up to sue the Biden administration on Thursday, seeking to resume construction of the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a lawsuit (pdf) against President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the U.S. district court in Victoria, challenging the administration for refusing to spend money appropriated to continue construction of the border wall amid a worsening “border crisis.”

They argue that the president’s refusal to use the more than $1.3 billion appropriated for “construction of barrier system along the southwest border” is a violation of the separation of powers and the Take Care clause of the Constitution.

“[It] is arbitrary and capricious, and fails to spend appropriations mandated by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 and 2021,” the attorneys general, both Republicans, said in a news release.

“Time and again, the Biden administration has refused to take concrete action to quell the worsening border crisis, inviting the cartels and human drug smugglers to take advantage of our porous border,” Schmitt said in a statement. “Without a border wall, illegal immigrants, coyotes, and bad actors can simply march across our southern border and into the interior. The border wall needs to be built, the funds have been appropriated to continue to build the wall, and yet the Biden Administration outright refuses to do so.”

Schmitt noted that the same amount of funds was also appropriated by the FY2021 DHS Appropriations Act.

“The Biden Administration’s flat refusal to use funds that have already been set aside by Congress to build the border wall is not only illegal and unconstitutional. It’s also wrong, and it leaves states like Texas and Missouri footing the bill,” Paxton said in a statement.

He added, ”I will not sit idly by while this Administration wreaks more havoc on our state.”

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House and DHS for comment.

Since taking office in January, Biden has signed dozens of executive orders rescinding President Donald Trump’s policies, including border wall construction and the “remain in Mexico” protocols.

In issuing an order suspending border wall construction—a project that has been long championed by Trump—Biden described it as wasteful and ineffective, although DHS has spent funds on repairing some areas along already-built wall sections.

The Biden administration in recent weeks has faced mounting criticism for its handling of border security and a surge in illegal immigration along the southern border.

Late last month, thousands of illegal aliens of Haitian origin created a makeshift encampment underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Later, Mayorkas said that about 12,000 of the Haitians were released into the interior United States with pending court dates.

The crisis triggered calls from Republicans and even some Democrats to restart the construction of the border wall, which was a major campaign promise of Trump’s during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Biden’s pick to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Chris Magnus, acknowledged during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that the influx of illegal immigration at the southern border is an urgent matter.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-missouri-ags-sue-biden-admin-to-resume-border-wall-construction_4062501.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

If President Joe Biden isn’t going to do his job, there are plenty of hardworking Americans out there willing to do it for him.

Perhaps the most neglected of Biden’s many presidential responsibilities has been his duty to protect the country’s southern border.

The problem has deteriorated exponentially, with detention facilities filled to the brim and large caravans of migrants continuing to cross over.

Sam Hall, the founder and president of a militia group called Patriots for America, has decided to take it upon himself to right Biden’s border wrongs.

According to a Tuesday report from The Epoch Times, Hall will be dispatching his militia of roughly 100 men to Kinney County, Texas, in order to “operate as a deterrent in areas of high traffic.”

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Kinney County shares a mere 16 miles of the border with Mexico, but — given its location between Del Rio and Eagle Pass — it serves as a prime destination for migrants to cross over illegally.

The Times reports that over the past several months, ranchers in the county have been faced with “a relentless stream of illegal aliens traversing their property, cutting fences, breaking into their homes, and threatening them.”

“What we’ve seen is an invasion of this county,” Hall said, according to The Times. “What we’ve seen is residents that are scared to death right now, and they don’t feel like they have support from the state.”

Is Biden to blame for the crisis at the southern border?

As the militia sets up in Kinney County, reports indicate as many as 85,000 migrants — reportedly made up of mostly Haitians — are on their way to the border.

“As a militia, we can’t detain or arrest people. We can disrupt and frustrate until the county or DPS can get there,” Hall said.

Hall further stressed that his men aren’t there to hurt anyone, but rather to simply “keep people safe.”

“We’re not leaving as a militia until we know that this county is safe,” Hall said.

Hall isn’t the only American that has taken it upon himself to help curb Biden’s border crisis.

On Monday, Sheriff Brad Coe — also of Kinney County — announced he would be putting together a small team to help tackle the problem.

Texas Sheriff Will Deputize Local Citizens to Fight Border Crisis, Plans to Build Fence Around County

“As far as taking it into our own hands, the border patrol … we didn’t have much a choice,” Sheriff Coe said, according to The Gateway Pundit.

“The border patrol was completely overwhelmed at the time, thousands of people coming, just turning themselves in, that wanted to get caught, created this problem.”

Americans aren’t going to stand by any longer — as Biden neglects his presidential duties.

Instead, they’re going to do what any good American should do. Rather than rely on big government, they’re going to find a solution themselves.

Sheriff Brad Coe of Kinney County, Texas, has taken it upon himself to handle President Joe Biden’s border crisis — a crisis that continues to spiral out of control.

The United States’ southern border has indeed seen an unprecedented surge in traffic, mostly due to illegal aliens attempting to cross over in record numbers.

Coe has decided if Biden’s not going to put together a team to handle the crisis, the sheriff will do it himself.

During an interview with The Gateway Pundit on Monday, Coe announced he would be deputizing 10 local citizens to help rescue his county from the crisis.

To fill out the 10 spots, Coe is looking for “those that have some kind of either police or military experience.”

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Coe further pointed out that the federal government’s failures have left local law enforcement at the border with no choice but to take the matter into their own hands.

“As far as taking it into our own hands, the border patrol … we didn’t have much a choice,” Sheriff Coe told The Gateway Pundit.

“The border patrol was completely overwhelmed at the time, thousands of people coming, just turning themselves in, that wanted to get caught, created this problem.”

The last few months have seen the border crisis continue to deteriorate.

In August, the use of catch-and-release policies used for illegal immigrants under the Biden administration was up 430,000 percent from the previous year.

In August of 2020, the Trump administration caught 47,000 migrants at the southern border and released only 10 of them into the United States immediately.

Conversely, in August of 2021, the Biden administration detained 195,000 migrants and released 43,941 of them into the United States.

The increase from 10 to 43,941 is staggering and fails to account for the many illegal immigrants the Biden administration fails to catch due to its lax border enforcement policies.

Biden’s border crisis has also allowed drugs to filter over into the United States from Mexico.

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According to Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County, Arizona, “This fiscal year we’ve had 10,000 pounds of fentanyl, 180,000 pounds of meth, 86,000 pounds of cocaine, 5,000 pounds of heroin and 311,000 pounds of marijuana” enter the country through the southern border.

With his empty words and inaction, Biden has made it clear his administration will not be stopping this border catastrophe any time soon.

If there is any hope in stopping this crisis, that hope lies with Sheriff Coe and other local officials doing their best to protect their people.

Black lives matter unless they’re dressed in blue, apparently.

This became all too clear in the early hours of Saturday morning, when police say an ambush-style attack hit three black off-duty deputies working a side job together.

The attack happened at a Houston, Texas, nightclub and left one of the deputies, Kareem Atkins, dead according to KTRK-TV. The other two men survived, but are now fighting to recover from serious injuries. Atkins’ best friend, Deputy Darryl Garrett, was also shot in the same attack.

Garrett’s fiance says the two men were like brothers and she is keeping the news of Atkins’ death from him so as to not jeopardize his recovery. A third deputy, Juquaim Barthen, was also injured in the shooting with non-life-threatening wounds.

The incident started as Atkins and Garrett were responding to a suspected robbery in the nightclub’s parking lot. Once they had the suspect on the ground, a second man emerged and gunned the deputies down. Barthen responded to the resulting commotion and was hit in the leg by gunfire.

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Atkins had just returned from paternity leave for his second child.

The suspected shooter is still on the loose.

If there was ever a place for Black Lives Matter to stand up for someone, this is it. One black man was killed and his family left without a father, while two other black men were hit in the same apparent ambush.Is Black Lives Matter a divisive organization?Yes No

Unfortunately, the organization has been completely silent on the matter.

The last couple of posts on the BLM’s Twitter account celebrate an award given to the group and another urges for “true justice” on George Floyd’s 48th birthday. These posts predate the shooting, and nothing has been uploaded to the account since.

Today is George Floyd’s 48th birthday. Remember: true justice means that he would still be here today, celebrating with his friends and family. Follow @GFMFoundation to stay up to date on how you can honor his birthday this week pic.twitter.com/ABowDMD1KZ

— Black Lives Matter (@Blklivesmatter) October 14, 2021

The group’s Facebook page did make a post after the shooting, however.

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Instead of bringing attention to the senseless anti-cop violence in Houston and the lives it has destroyed, Black Lives Matter was instead pushing for the full removal of police from schools.

Thankfully, Americans can step up for their own countrymen where Black Lives Matter fails to do anything but utterly divide.

According to KPRC, The 100 Club, a group that helps the families of fallen law enforcement and firefighters, is giving $20,000 to the wife of Atkins and will continue to help with education and other finances.

Donations to The 100 Club’s “Survivor’s Fund” can be made here.

It’s another day ending in “Y,” so there’s more upside-down, crazy stuff from the left.

As in — let’s all be Holocaust deniers.

That’s what Gina Peddy last week told Texas teachers in a school district near Fort Worth.

Peddy, an executive director of curriculum for Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, was training teachers on how to stock their classroom libraries in light of new legislation requiring schools to present varied viewpoints on controversial subjects, according to the Southlake podcast of NBC News Digital.

The details are contained in Texas Senate Bill 3, set to go into effect in December, and in House Bill 3979, which went into effect last month. The laws require the teaching of essentially traditional civics in Texas schools. They allow teachers to opt out of addressing controversial subjects, but if they choose controversy, they must present a balanced viewpoint.

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That’s where Peddy decided that, somehow, the Holocaust is controversial. Peddy, in effect, said there’s more than one viewpoint to genocide.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said, as she was secretly recorded, with the recording given to NBC. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust that you have one that has an opposing … that has other perspectives.”

Right.

Does Peddy really believe there’s more than one viewpoint on whether or not the Holocaust was justified? Or was she just using a juvenile way to object to the new Texas legislation, which tempers indoctrination in topics like critical race theory? Education professionals are supposed to teach the children, not act like them.

Actually, there’s a backstory to Peddy’s nonsense. At the macro level, it’s about what’s going on nationwide in public schools — parents are realizing the indoctrination that is taking place and are objecting.

And the priests and priestesses of Big Education are responding by telling parents to butt out.

At a local level, in Southlake and elsewhere, some parents have been concerned about the school district’s elevation of diversity and inclusion teaching.

Texas law prohibits teaching that could make individuals feel “guilt or anguish,” regarding their race, according to NBC.

There has been concern about the teaching of CRT, and some Southlake teachers are incensed that the school board voted to reprimand a fourth-grade teacher who had in her classroom a book on “anti-racism.”

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(For those having trouble keeping up, you can consider the term anti-racism to be as against racist attitudes as Antifa is against fascism).

Not surprisingly, Peddy’s Holocaust comment has brought reaction.

Karen Fitzgerald, a spokeswoman for the school district, said the district is trying to aid teachers in compliance with the new legislation, not only in teaching but in books they provide students, according to NBC.

“Our district recognizes that all Texas teachers are in a precarious position with the latest legal requirements,” she said. “Our purpose is to support our teachers in ensuring they have all of the professional development, resources and materials needed. Our district has not and will not mandate books be removed nor will we mandate that classroom libraries be unavailable.”

Union spokesman Clay Robinson of the Texas State Teachers Association said the new legislation doesn’t cover classroom libraries. And he criticized what Peddy had said.

“We find it reprehensible for an educator to require a Holocaust denier to get equal treatment with the facts of history,” Robison told NBC. “That’s absurd. It’s worse than absurd. And this law does not require it.”

Republican State Sen. Bryan Hughes, who wrote Senate Bill 3, concurred. Schools don’t have to present both sides of “good and evil,” and there’s no requirement to ban books with only one perspective of the Holocaust.

“That’s not what the bill says,” according to Hughes.

Following publicity surrounding Peddy’s teacher training, Carroll school superintendent Lane Ledbetter posted on Facebook: “We recognize there are not two sides of the Holocaust,” and said the district would work to clarify expectations for teachers.

Some teachers have expressed concern over what they have in their classroom libraries. One anonymous interview conducted with two teachers by NBC addressed the statement that the district is not pressuring teachers to purge their bookshelves. “That’s a lie,” one responded. “It is a flat-out lie … How could you even make that statement?”

Asked by NBC what was at stake, the anonymous teacher said: “In books, children see what the world can be. And to have that taken away because we’re afraid of a few parents getting upset about a word or two or an idea that they have imagined is in a book is unthinkable.”

And true to form for ongoing militancy among those in the education establishment, one teacher’s classroom library has been covered with yellow caution tape, similar to what is seen at police or construction sites.

Ever think that maybe what we call public schools are really private schools, as in what Big Education thinks is its own private domain?

All student athletes in Texas public schools would be required to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth, under a bill that cleared the state House on Thursday.

House Bill 25, which was approved in a party-line 76–54 vote, would restrict public school students to playing on sports teams matching the biological sex listed on their birth certificates received at or near the time of their birth. It now heads to the state Senate, where it is expected to pass.

The text of the bill says it is intended to ensure that “sufficient interscholastic athletic opportunities remain available for girls to remedy past discrimination on the basis of sex.”

“The bill I’m bringing before you today protects girls’ safety and their right to equal access to athletic opportunities,” state Rep. Valoree Swanson, the Republican who introduced the bill, said on the House floor. “This is a right guaranteed to our girls under Title IX.”

The current version of the bill allows legally modified birth certificates to be accepted, but only if the changes were made to correct “scrivener or clerical error,” according to the bill’s text.

State Rep. Mary E. González, a Democrat who chairs the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus, argued that the measure could cause mental harm to transgender students.

“If you care about mental health, and I know you do, then do this simple thing and not advance this piece of harmful legislation,” González said. “We actually also know that this is a nonissue, that there is no issue with transgender and intersex students playing sports.”

House Bill 25 also faced criticism from pro-transgender advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which called the bill “cruel” and “unconstitutional.” It also alleged the bill would “deny transgender youth the right to play sports,” although the bill allows any student to play on sports teams that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificates.

Earlier this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would sign into law Senate Bill 29 if it cleared the state legislature. The bill, the language of which was identical to that of House Bill 25, was killed by House Democrats who avoided debating it until it missed a midnight deadline.

“For five years the University Interscholastic League (UIL) in Texas has had a rule in place prohibiting boys from playing girls in girls’ sports,” Abbott said at that time on Fox News Town Hall with several other Republican governors. “But the Texas Legislature is working on a bill to codify that, which I will sign.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-house-passes-bill-requiring-students-compete-on-sports-teams-matching-sex-assigned-at-birth_4051505.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The federal government won’t secure the border — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t governors who are picking up the slack.

Take Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The Republican’s Operation Lone Star has been running for seven months now to combat the border crisis. According to USA Today, hundreds of state troopers, Texas Rangers, National Guard soldiers and other authorities have backed up the Border Patrol, arresting more than 4,600 border crossers as of late August.

That might not compare to the hundreds of thousands of border crossings during the crisis brought on by President Joe Biden, but it’s an example for the rest of the country — an example illegal immigrant activists are furious about.

“The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration,” Abbott said a statement in March, while launching the operation, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

“Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis.”

After Deputy Stops to Help Her, 96-Year-Old Woman Demands to Speak with His Supervisor

Texas National Guard Soldiers identify & apprehend illegal immigrants on land and in water crossing into Texas from Mexico.

Through Operation Lone Star, the State of Texas is working night and day to combat Biden’s border crisis & secure our border. pic.twitter.com/3wa6bgDsQQ

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 29, 2021

Texas National Guard Soldiers deploy tactical vehicles to the border in support of Operation Lone Star.

As Biden does nothing, the Lone Star State continues to surge manpower & equipment to put an end to the chaos at our southern border. pic.twitter.com/IrDH8fN3AO

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 23, 2021

Granted, the program has seen some pushback from left-wing activist groups who have hoped to challenge the legality of Operation Lone Star in court. They say since the Constitution delegates immigration enforcement to the federal government, the plan is unconstitutional. Critics have also charged the plan leads to racial profiling.

“Whenever you ask untrained law enforcement officers to engage in immigration enforcement efforts, they are going to revert to racial profiling,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “That’s exactly what an initiative like this invites.”

The program has also faced problems in court.

On Tuesday, charges of criminal trespassing against two illegal immigrants arrested as part of Project Lone Star, Ivan Nava and David Muñoz, were dismissed by a Texas district court judge because prosecutors were “unprepared to present probable cause,” USA Today reported. Both men remained in custody as of late last week, however, and immigration activist groups were concerned the two could still be deported.

Both had crossed into the U.S. illegally in June, according to USA Today. (In USA Today terminology, they “crossed without permission.”)

DHS Leak Shows Mayorkas Fears Border Crossings About to Be Higher Than You Can Imagine

“Operation Lone Star relies on racial profiling and systemically violates due process,” Kevin Herrera, the men’s attorney, said in a statement, according to USA Today.

He wanted President Joe Biden’s administration to allow the men to stay in the United States pending a hearing on their immigration case — and more: “We demand … that [Department of Homeland Security] cease any collaboration with this unconstitutional program.”

The same day the charges against Nava and Munoz were dismissed, the same judge ordered 243 more illegal aliens arrested under Operation Lone Star to be released under “no-cost bonds,” USA Today reported.

However, proponents of border security contend programs like Operation Lone Star could be a blueprint for other governors to enforce border laws when the federal government is unable or unwilling to do so.

Jessica Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter controls on immigration, said Operation Lone Star mostly picks up illegal immigrants who want to sneak past Border Patrol and who aren’t turning themselves in to seek asylum.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out,” Vaughn told USA Today. “We could end up with a blueprint from the courts on exactly what can be done by states to address illegal immigration.”

Whatever the case, it gives a whole new meaning to “don’t mess with Texas.” And if any actor is going to address illegal immigration, it’ll have to be in state governments for now — especially since last month’s crisis involving an encampment of Haitian migrants that swelled to over 15,000 individuals at Del Rio, Texas proved how quickly the Biden administration will capitulate on border security when faced with the slightest breeze of opposition from the left wing of the Democratic Party.

After footage showed Border Patrol agents using horses to prevent Haitian migrants from entering the United States via the Rio Grande — with some lawmakers and social media pundits erroneously stating they were using whips or lassos — administration officials quickly condemned the agents, foreswore the use of horses at the border and promised an investigation that could lead to the agents’ termination.

Abbott responded by telling Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace on Sept. 26 that the Biden administration was “in dereliction of duty” because they have “abandoned any pretense of securing the sovereignty of either Texas or the United States by having these open border policies.”

Abbott on Biden’s investigation into Border Patrol agents: “I want them to know something. If they are risk of losing their job by a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas. I will hire you to help Texas secure our border.” pic.twitter.com/gzVtv5iKgt

— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) September 26, 2021

For instance, Abbott said, the crisis at the Del Rio flashpoint was brought under control only after Texas surged state troopers to the area, with hundreds of vehicles creating a “steel barrier” aimed at keeping out illegal immigrants.

“That’s exactly what the Biden administration could do if they wanted to,” Abbott said. “But, Chris, it’s the kind of thing that Texas is going to have to continue to do in addition to the other policies that you did not announce and that is, as opposed to catch and release, Texas has imposed a policy where we are going to arrest and jail people who come across the border for trespassing into areas into the state of Texas.”

The Biden administration has made it clear it won’t enforce immigration law at the southern border. In fact, it’s more likely to come down hard on Border Patrol agents who were trying to enforce the law — which is why Gov. Abbott has an offer for anyone who suffers the consequences for simply doing their job.

“I have worked side by side with those Border Patrol agents,” Abbott said. “I want them to know something, if they are at risk of losing their job, got a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas. I will hire you to help Texas secure our border.”

Why not? After all, I’m assuming those who joined the Border Patrol did so to enforce the law.

If they lost their job for doing it at the federal level, they could always get a job doing it for the state that has the longest border with Mexico.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-cant-secure-border-abbotts-operation-lone-star-caught-thousands-criminal-migrants/?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=westernjournalism&utm_campaign=telegramfeed&utm_content=2021-10-04

The Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) and API recently released a new analysis of the oil and natural gas industry’s vast economic impact on Texas’ economy and highlighted its importance to the state’s post-pandemic recovery. 

The study, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and based on the latest government data available, shows that Texas’ oil and natural gas industry directly and indirectly supported over 2.5 million total jobs across the state’s economy in 2019. Texas ranked as the state with the highest share of total economic contributions by the oil and natural gas industry, generating $411.6 billion toward the state’s GDP – including $251.2 billion added to total labor income.

“Texans understand the essential nature of oil and natural gas, and this analysis confirms the indispensable role the industry plays in providing jobs and investment that benefits every community and all Texans,” said TXOGA President Todd Staples. “As leaders in domestic energy production, our member companies’ efforts ensure reliable products are available to power modern America and serve as the underlying foundation of Texas public school, university and public infrastructure funding.”

“As America’s economy comes back, the natural gas and oil industry will serve as the foundation for long-term growth and prosperity in Texas,” said API President and CEO Mike Sommers.

As economic activity, travel patterns and consumption continue to grow during the post-pandemic recovery, the EIA expects global oil and liquid fuels consumption to surpass 2019 levels in 2022. The PwC report reinforces how the oil and natural gas industry — in Texas in particular — is critical to economic revitalization and opportunities for job creation. According to the findings, in 2019 the industry directly and indirectly:

• Supported 2,508,870 total jobs (620,330 direct and 1,888,540 indirect) or 13.9 percent of Texas’ total employment.
• Generated an additional three jobs elsewhere in Texas’ economy for each direct job in the state’s oil and natural gas industry.
• Provided $251.2 billion in labor income ($134.3 billion directly and $116.9 billion indirectly) to Texas, 21.8 percent to the state’s total.
• Contributed $411.5 billion to Texas’ GDP ($230.9 billion directly and $180.6 billion indirectly), 22.3 percent to the state’s total.

In 2019, the U.S. led the world in oil and natural gas production, and the benefits of that leadership permeated throughout nonproducing and producing states alike. At the national level in 2019, the oil and natural gas industry:

• Supported more than 11.3 million total jobs (2.5 million directly and 8.8 million indirectly) or 5.6 percent of total U.S. employment.
• Generated an additional 3.5 jobs elsewhere in the U.S. economy for each direct job in the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.
• Produced $892.7 billion in labor income ($318.6 billion directly, $574.1 billion indirectly), or 6.8 percent of the U.S. national labor income.
• Contributed nearly $1.7 trillion to U.S. GDP ($763.3 billion directly, $925.3 billion indirectly), accounting for 7.9 percent of the national total.

For more information, visit www.txoga.org or www.api.org.

A week after Sept. 11, 2001, I spoke with a disaster-response expert about terrorist targets in Texas. The Houston Ship Channel, “with all those refineries,” was his first reply. How to protect it? He said: “You tell me.”

In December 2020 Forbes magazine published an article by David Blackmon addressing the vulnerability of offshore oil and gas infrastructure to criminal and terrorist attack.

Worldwide pirates and terrorists routinely attack tankers and oil facilities. Nigeria is an example. Drug cartels have seized platforms in Mexican waters. Their thugs demand ransom to return the platforms to production and free the crews.

Blackmon is an expert in offshore vulnerabilities. “For Americans,” he wrote, “ … tankers and facilities being damaged or coming under attack seem like someone else’s problems … the fact is that these key assets and infrastructure are vulnerable to water-borne and airborne assault.” Airborne includes drone strikes.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon offshore platform debacle cost BP around $70 billion and threatened the entire Louisiana coast. Terrorists and crooks could intentionally cause a Deepwater Horizon disaster.

So could an enemy nation-state. My 2001 Houston Ship Channel expert made that point.

In 2020, despite pandemic production drops, Corpus Christi, Texas, handled 55 percent of market share of U.S. crude exports. The canal from Corpus to Port Aransas to the Gulf of Mexico can be blocked in several places. Close Houston’s or Corpus Christi’s connecting channel and American energy and chemical supplies suffer an instant blockade, without the enemy risking naval forces. The entire U.S. economy suffers. The May 2021 Colonial Pipeline cyberhack’s economic costs would pale in comparison.

Who perceives our vulnerability? Communist China does. China doesn’t need an Atlantic navy to conduct the operation, just saboteurs with position.

So, what do we do?

Some American leaders have real answers. At the moment, the most demonstrable reside in Texas.

This is legislative and executive fact, not Hollywood Texan brag: Texas has begun shouldering a defense burden that Biden Administration Beltway Washington (BABWA) has refused to bear.

Exhibit 1: The Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act, SB 2116, authored by Republican Sen. Donna Campbell (mother of four and M.D. physician, of Texas Senate District 25) and Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound). The bill became law June 18.

Bureaucrat lingo: “Relating to prohibiting contracts or other agreements with certain foreign-owned companies in connection with critical infrastructure in this state.”

Beyond jargon, there’s serious national defense energy. About three years ago a Chinese energy company purchased around 130,000 acres near Laughlin Air Force Base, located near Del Rio, Texas. Thanks to the Biden administration’s Haitian migrant border fiasco, Del Rio has national visibility. Laughlin is a U.S. Air Force Air Training Command field. That makes nearby land an intelligence-gathering site.

But there’s more! The Chinese company, fronted by billionaire Sun Guangxin (with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party), also wanted to build a wind farm. War bingo: The wind farm would have access to the U.S. power grid.

Would the CCP hack the Texas electrical grid? I ask you.

When the bill became law, Parker said it sent “a clear message that we will not allow hostile foreign actors to access these vital elements of our great state.”

I read recently that mainland Chinese actors are trying to acquire land near Yuma, Arizona. That’s land in the vicinity of both weapons-testing and big-league intelligence training sites.

Exhibit 2: Gov. Greg Abbot’s Operation Lone Star. The official description: “directing state military and police resources to the border to aid local and federal authorities in fighting the smuggling of people and drugs across the border.”

Texas has a 1,254-mile border with Mexico.

On Sept. 17 Abbott secured $2 billion more in state border defense funding.

After signing the bill Abbott said: “It is the federal government’s job to secure our border, but the Biden administration has failed to do its job, so Texas is stepping up to do what the federal government is supposed to do.”

For the record, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has written a national bill very similar to the Campbell-Parker bill. Good on you, Congressman Roy.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-decides-to-defend-america-fact-not-brag_4024980.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

The Texas Secretary of State’s office is carrying out a forensic audit of 2020 election results in four large counties, including Dallas and Harris counties.

The office announced the audit last week but declined to provide more details until Sept. 28.

Phase one of the review is already underway, the office says. This phase involves verifying the accuracy of voting machines, assessing cybersecurity, and pinpointing and removing from voter rolls any people who cast votes illegally in 2020.

State officials have received reports from the Electronic Registration Information Center regarding voters who may have voted twice or who illegally voted in Texas despite living in another state. In addition, officials have identified votes they say were potentially cast by non-U.S. citizens and alerted counties to review each case. Once that’s done, any instances of possible illegal voting will be referred to the state Attorney General’s Office for investigation.

Phase two of the audit, estimated to take place in the spring of next year, is centered on examining the election records from various counties, including Tarrant and Collins counties.

The Secretary of State’s office plans to examine all chain-of-custody forms concerning equipment and all logic and accuracy-testing records for voting machines.

Depending on the results of the examination, there could be a full manual recount in the affected precincts or polling locations.

“The purpose of this audit is to ensure all Texas voters can have confidence in the elections systems in our state, and to address any outstanding issues county election officials may face that undermines the integrity of our elections,” the office said in a statement.

A spokesman said in an email that the office won’t be hiring or contracting with any outside firms to conduct the audits. The position of Texas secretary of state is currently vacant.

Election offices in the four counties didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat, told reporters last week that “the sensational announcement of an audit by the state is nothing more than a political ploy by a former president and someone who’s trying to curry favor.”

“I’m working to do everything in my power to stop this not only because complying with a sham audit will take us away from serious work we have to do but also, and most importantly, because it will take trust away from our election systems here in Harris County and here in Texas,” she said.

The review was announced shortly after former President Donald Trump called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, to carry out a forensic audit of the 2020 election, and shortly before an audit in Arizona was announced to have uncovered multiple inconsistencies.

Trump won Texas in the 2020 election by about 630,000 votes but said in a letter to Abbott that he heard Texans want an audit.

“Your citizens don’t trust the election system,” he wrote. “Texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties.”

Abbott defended the audit over the weekend.

“There are audits of every aspect of government. We have a state auditor. There’s a federal auditor for the way that government operations work. Businesses that are public companies are subject to an annual audit,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Why do we audit everything in this world, but people raise their hands in concern when we audit elections, which is fundamental to our democracy?”

He also said the audit began months ago, although that hadn’t been previously disclosed.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-launches-audit-of-2020-election-results_4023621.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced his state has obtained its own supply of monoclonal antibodies, a type of treatment for COVID-19, in a move that bypasses the Biden administration’s limits.

“Texas has obtained its own separate allocation of these monoclonal antibody treatments working around the limitations that President Biden has put on us so that we will be able to ensure that anybody in the state of Texas that wants access to these special treatments, that they will be able to get it,” Abbott, a Republican, said during an interview with radio host Dana Loesch.

The governor also wrote on Twitter that Texans who get the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus and get a referral from a doctor are eligible for monoclonal antibody treatment.

Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) moved to ration COVID-19 treatment via monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies distribution sites previously could order the treatment directly from manufacturers.

The federal government-directed change now requires states to use HHS as a middleman to obtain the antibody treatments and places caps on how many each state can obtain.

The Texas Department of State Health Services told news outlets this week that it obtained some 4,700 doses from drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. The Epoch Times has contacted the agency for comment.

Previously, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, announced he ordered thousands of doses of the treatment from GlaxoSmithKline after HHS’s rule change. The governor then called on the Biden administration to restore Florida’s supply of the drug.

“We should be doing everything we can to get patients monoclonal antibody treatments, not cutting allocations of treatment like the Biden Administration has done,” he said in a statement issued last week. “Despite the cuts by the federal government, we want any Floridians that could benefit from this treatment to have access to it. Florida is going to leave no stone unturned when finding treatment for our state, and we are encouraged to have secured a shipment of monoclonal antibody treatments from GlaxoSmithKline.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) proposed legislation that would prevent HHS from creating rules to block health care providers and hospitals from purchasing monoclonal antibody treatments.

But the White House said that the change is necessary to make sure states all across the country get access to the treatment.

“Just seven states are making up 70 percent of the orders. Our supply is not unlimited, and we believe it should be equitable across states across the country,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said earlier in September.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-acquires-covid-19-monoclonal-antibodies-bypassing-biden-hhs-limits-governor_4023111.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Texas Attorney General Paxton announced on Sept. 20 that he is leading a coalition of 10 states in filing an amicus brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Florida’s law that attempts to regulate censorship on Big Tech social media platforms.

Paxton signed on behalf of Texas, joining the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and South Carolina who have also filled an amicus brief in support of Florida’s law.

“The regulation of big tech censorship will inevitably suppress the ideas and beliefs of millions of Americans,” Paxton said in a statement. “I will defend the First Amendment and ensure that conservative voices have the right to be heard. Big Tech does not have the authority to police the expressions of people whose political viewpoint they simply disagree with.”

Florida’s SB 7072 law allows Floridians to take legal action against Big Tech platforms if they censor a user’s content without consistent standards.

The new bill also prevents Big Tech from banning Floridian political candidates. Social media companies that deplatform candidates for statewide office will be fined $250,000 a day. The fine is $25,000 per day when deplatforming candidates for other offices.

Big Tech companies that violate the law can be brought to trial for monetary damage, and the state’s attorney general can litigate companies that don’t comply with the law under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in May but District Judge Robert Hinkle in June granted a temporary injunction preventing the governor from implementing the law after two Internet trade groups—NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association— filed a lawsuit.

The trade groups argued the law may violate the First Amendment by compelling social media platforms to host offensive speech they otherwise would not and by interfering with their editorial policies.

The coalition in its amicus brief said the district court’s First Amendment analysis is “riddled with errors.”

“It veered off course from the outset by concluding that S.B. 7072 regulates speech, when that law instead regulates conduct that is unprotected by the First Amendment: social media platforms’ arbitrary application of their content moderation policies,” the coalition wrote.

Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’s House Bill 20—similar to Florida’s law—which protects Texans from wrongful censorship on social media platforms.

House Bill 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, from banning users based on their political beliefs. The attorney general would also be able to take legal action on behalf of Texas residents that were banned or blocked by a platform due to such discrimination.

“We will always defend the freedom of speech in Texas,” Abbott said. “Social media websites have become our modern-day public square. They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely—but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas. That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas. I thank Senator Bryan Hughes, Representative Briscoe Cain, and the Texas Legislature for ensuring that House Bill 20 reached my desk during the second special session.”

Texas Attorney General Leads 10-State Coalition Supporting Florida Ban on Big Tech Censorship (theepochtimes.com)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would hire any Border Patrol agent fired by the Biden administration after several top White House officials said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would investigate images of agents on horseback blocking Haitian illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said his agency would probe claims that the agents whipped Haitian aliens with the horse’s reins, despite Border Patrol union officials and the Getty photographer who captured the images saying they didn’t whip anyone.

Those agents, Abbott said, “wouldn’t have been in that situation had the Biden administration enforced the immigration laws.”

If President Joe Biden “takes any action against them whatsoever—I have worked side by side with those Border Patrol agents—I want them to know something,” Abbott said. “If they are [at] risk of losing their job by a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas. I will hire you to help Texas secure our border.”

During a news conference on Sept. 24, Mayorkas dedicated a significant amount of time answering questions about the images of agents on horseback, while White House press secretary Jen Psaki previously said that horseback patrols would be suspended. The agents were responded to a surge of illegal immigrants from Haiti who had amassed in Del Rio, Texas, and camped underneath a bridge before DHS moved them elsewhere.

“I promise you, those people will pay,” Biden told reporters at the White House hours before Mayorkas held his press conference. “There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. But beyond an embarrassment, it’s dangerous. It’s wrong.”

In describing the scene near a river crossing area in Del Rio, Getty photographer Paul Ratje said that Haitian men were running and “trying to go around the horses.”

“I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” he told KTSM, referring to the agents. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”

Brandon Judd, an official with a Border Patrol agent union, told The Epoch Times in an interview last week that the agents “did not use those reins in any way, shape, or form to try to strike anybody.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has received significant criticism from progressive and pro-immigration activists, who claim that DHS’s plan to deport some illegal immigrants back to Haiti violates U.S. protocols on refugees. However, Republicans and local elected officials who represent municipalities along the Texas border have said the Biden administration’s messaging and policies are confusing and are triggering the surge in illegal immigration.

Mayorkas, during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, confirmed that more than 12,000 Haitian illegal immigrants who have been moved from the bridge area were relocated to other parts of the United States for processing.

Texas Governor Vows to Hire Any Border Patrol Agent Fired by Biden Administration (theepochtimes.com)

With the recent flood of Haitian illegal immigrants a constant reminder of the precarious nature of border safety in Joe Biden’s America, Texas is calling for volunteers to help secure its border.

Officials of the Texas Military Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety have issued a call for National Guard members to volunteer to protect Texas through Operation Lone Star, a state-funded effort launched this spring by Gov. Greg Abbott to pick up the slack when federal officials allowed the border to become a sieve.

“We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are #securingtexas Lodging and per diem included,” the department wrote in a Twitter post last week.

We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are #securingtexas
Lodging and per diem included.

Click here for more information https://t.co/F3itNkXZar pic.twitter.com/bUZuZ6uc2S

— Texas Military Dept (@TXMilitary) September 23, 2021

“Texas continues to work diligently to secure our southern border under the leadership of Governor Abbott,” DPS Director Steven McCraw said, according to a news release posted on the department’s website.

He said that there is “tangible evidence of how combined local and state operations being conducted are protecting communities across the nation.”

McCraw said, “Operation Lone Star is preventing crime despite the federal government’s failure to provide the brave men and women of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection [with] the infrastructure, technology and personnel needed to secure the border.”

Through Operation Lone Star, Texas forces are “confronting the crisis and cracking down on the cartels and human traffickers daily. Texas Guard soldiers provide boots on the ground, and other valuable assets, to help identify illegal activity and apprehend illegal immigrants,” he said.

“The Texas Military Department is made up of Texans who come from communities across our great state; we are always ready and always there to support our partner agencies in protecting our home and preventing criminal elements from entering Texas,” Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, the adjutant general of Texas, said in the news release.

“We have a long history of enduring relationships with local, state and federal agencies in conducting Homeland Security missions that dates back more than 100 years and we are proud to continue this legacy as Texans serving Texas.”

Through early September, Operation Lone Star referred  64,900 illegal immigrants to federal officials, according to Breitbart.

Texas law enforcement has also made more than 5,000 criminal arrests and seized more than four tons of illegal drugs, Breitbart reported.

DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez said the work is not easy, according to KVEO-TV in Brownsville, Texas.Rela

Biden Admin Has Released 12,000 Haitians Into US with Thousands More in Processing

“Troopers that work along the border, they deal with this day in and day out,” Olivarez said.

“But the numbers that we are seeing this year have been historic, just the surge of migrants that have been coming across, the criminal activity, the increase in vehicle pursuits, we have never seen that before in prior years.”

Texas DPS Regional Director Victor Escalon told KVEO that children are often used by smugglers.

“The adults were getting away with driving the narcotic but more so driving the human smuggling, the migrants,” Escalon said.

“And we’re seeing juveniles, we’re still seeing juveniles being more aggressive and wanting to fight with our personnel.”

Olivarez said Texas needs help.

“The federal government needs to help Border Patrol and provide them with more resources because right now they are being stretched thin,” Olivarez told KVEO.

“We’re the ones filling those gaps along the border because they are being taken away from the field and processing all the migrants that are coming across.”

Escalon said constant vigilance is essential.

“We’ve got to be out there every day, we have to be visible, they’ve got to see us in those areas of interest,” Escalon told KVEO.

“The airplanes, your helicopters, your boats that are in the water, that is a great deterrence, and having fencing, that is a great deterrence.”

Operation Lone Star: Texas Calls for Volunteers to Hold the Line at Southern Border (westernjournal.com)

Texans are doing the job America won’t do. At least, what the Biden administration won’t do.

The state Department of Public Safety and the National Guard used hundreds of state-owned vehicles — most of them apparently SUVs — to create a barrier to help stop the surge of illegal immigrants into Texas, according to the KXAS-TV in Fort Worth.

Gov. Greg Abbott said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon that Texas must use “unprecedented” measures to stop the influx. The SUV barrier appeared outside Del Rio, where about 15,000 migrants, mostly Haitians, have entered the U.S. from Mexico in recent days.

“They have created a steel barrier preventing people from being able to cross the border,” the Republican said, according to KXAS.

“One day there were countless people coming across the border, then the DPS put up all these DPS vehicles, and suddenly, in an instant, people stopped crossing the border in this location,” he said. “That strategy is working.”

Trump’s Surgeon General Says He Tried to Refinance His Mortgage, But Biden Admin Pulled a Dirty Move to Stop It from Happening

Abbott was critical of the Biden administration for not securing the border and said Texas is putting up $2 billion more for border protection, The Washington Post said.

“When you have an administration that is not enforcing the law in this country, when you have an administration that has abandoned any pretense of securing the border and securing our sovereignty, you see the onrush of people like what we saw walking across this dam that is right behind me,” the governor said in Val Verde County, according to KTVT-TV in Dallas.

Initially, there were 14,600 Haitians in Del Rio, according to Abbott, the number eventually declining to about 8,600.

The Daily Mail, citing a Department of Homeland Security source, said 1,083 of them had been returned to Haiti and more deportation flights were scheduled Wednesday.

Up to 5,000 Haitians were released into the United States, Abbott said. That’s contrary to a Biden administration pledge to prohibit Haitian entry into the U.S. from Mexico.

“If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a Monday news conference, according to The Associated Press.

Despite the statement that the migrants would immediately be deported, many were released and told to report to an immigration office within 60 days, according to Abbott.

Officials Blow the Lid on Biden Admin’s Lie, Reveal Haitians Are Being Released Into US on Large Scale

Of course.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s desire to project a kinder-gentler image regarding immigration (especially against the profile of its villain, former President Donald Trump) hit a snag with pictures of Border Patrol agents on horseback using whips to round up migrants — according to many establishment media outlets, at least.

The “whips” were actually long reins on the horses.

HORSE LESSON FOR NOVICES: The horse-mounted Border Patrol guys down in Del Rio are riding “western” style so they are using what’s known as a “split rein” to control the horse. It’s where the reins are attached to the bit but aren’t attached to each other. (1)

The reins are held in the rider's hands. They are usually long enough to perhaps APPEAR whip-like and occasionally a rider will use it to spur the mount a bit. But reins are not whips. Border Patrol doesn't carry whips. (2-END)

Originally tweeted by Mike Glenn (@mrglenn) on September 20, 2021.

But image is everything with some people, and some Democrats were aghast that while their party is in charge, border agents could be seen acting like … acting like … well, Republicans or something.

Actually, border agents were just doing their jobs, using horses, long known to law enforcement as effective in crowd control.

And nobody was being whipped.

Except the sovereignty of the nation.

Republicans, by the way, expressed some sympathy toward the Haitians, according to the Daily Mail, because the migrants were led to believe they would receive asylum in the U.S.

And why not?

In May, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Haitians could receive Temporary Protected Status in the country, meaning they wouldn’t be deported and could apply for authorization to work.

In July, Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated, and in August, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti killed some 2,000 people.

Late last week, 12,000 migrants showed up at Del Rio; some had been refugees in Brazil and Chile following a 2010 earthquake.

On Monday, the Biden administration said they couldn’t come in. Some were deported, but by Wednesday — no surprise — there were reports that thousands had been released into the U.S.

The great tragedy of U.S. immigration policy — such as it is — is its ongoing inconsistency. Obey our laws, we say, but if we need Democratic votes, or cheap labor, or whatever, we can always (wink, wink) make some special arrangements.

Oh, and no matter what the Biden crew says, it’s always wise to trust your lyin’ eyes.

That’s just what Abbott’s people did.

Which is why they created a steel barrier to protect the southern border.

Thank you, Texas. Well done.

For nearly two decades, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, BEA, has ranked Texas as the No. 1 exporter among U.S. states.

”Texas shipped $279.3 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2020,” said Luis Ribera, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist, Bryan-College Station. “The state outperformed all other states, with the value of its exports accounting for 19.5% of overall U.S. exported products for 2020.”

Texas’ 2020 exports amounted to more than the sum total of goods exported by the next three largest exporting states.

Mexico and Canada received the largest portion of Texas’ exports, with Mexico accounting for almost 32% of the total and Canada for just over 8.3%. However, goods from the Lone Star State are exported all over the world.  

“The COVID-19 pandemic had a detrimental effect on 2020 exports nationwide, but this impact was less on Texas due to the state’s diverse and resilient economy,” Ribera said.

He also noted while the economic impact of Winter Storm Uri had a negative impact on first-quarter 2021 exports, the state is poised for a quick recovery and to provide not only sufficient commodities and consumables for its own residents but to also export to others. 

“Texans saw some supply chain disruptions and temporary shortages of food and other needed supplies during the winter storm and in its aftermath,” he said. “But once issues affecting fuel availability, transportation, workforce availability, stymied agricultural production and other challenges normalize once again, the state more than likely will remain ranked as the top exporting state in the country.”  

A resource-full state

Many of the products Texas exports literally come straight out of the ground.  

“Natural resources, whether renewable or nonrenewable, are found throughout the world and have been extracted for human use for tens of thousands of years,” said Roel Lopez, Ph.D., director of the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, San Antonio. “They are valuable not only in the development of commodities for providing income and revenue, but also for sustaining life and improving the quality of life.”

Texas is a large state with an abundance of natural resources, Ribera said. And from an energy perspective, primary fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas are among the state’s most exportable natural resources.

“Crude petroleum oils account for about 22.2% of total Texas exports,” he said. “Crude oil, along with miscellaneous petroleum-based products and liquified propane, are among the state’s top exports, contributing greatly to our total economic output or real gross domestic product, or GDP.”

Agriculture exports smaller but still vital sector

Ribera also noted that while other items that come out of the ground, specifically agricultural products “don’t crack the top 10” in export sectors contributing the most to the state’s overall economic output, Texas still ranks fifth overall among U.S. states for those exports.

“Our energy resources and agricultural production are of great importance — not only to the state, but also to the nation and to people throughout the world,” he said. “Texas leads the nation in number of farms and ranches. And the fact that it has so much agricultural production, yet agricultural exports are no longer near the top for contributing to the state’s GDP, shows just how diverse and exceptional the Texas economy has become.”  

Ribera said while over time agriculture has become a smaller portion of the state’s exports as the Texas economy has evolved and become more diverse, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agriculture Service estimated its agricultural exports in 2020 at an impressive $6.5 billion-plus.  

Among U.S. states, Texas is second in total animal product exports and sixth in total plant product exports. In terms of revenue generated, Texas’s top five agricultural products are cotton, beef cattle and veal, feed grain products, dairy products and sorghum.

“We are the No. 1 cotton exporter in the U.S. and rank second in both beef and wheat exports,” Ribera said. “We are also first in sheep and goat production, second in overall animal exports and among the top five U.S. states in exportation of pecans, sorghum, rice and dairy products.”

The leading fruits produced in Texas are watermelon, cantaloupe and grapefruit, which is also the official state fruit. Texas is also a top producer of onions, potatoes and spinach, and is the nation’s No. 1 producer of cabbages.

Ribera said the state also ranks among the top 15 exporters in the nation for animal feed as well as broilers, fruits, corn, pork and vegetables.

“About 37% of our agricultural exports go to Mexico, making it our largest international trading partner for agricultural products,” Ribera said.

Ribera also noted that the state’s food processing sector is the third largest manufacturing sector in the state, producing beverages, baked goods, preserved fruits and vegetables and meat as well as other consumables for export.

Beyond oil and cattle: [Micro]chips with your salsa?

When most people think high-tech, they typically think California and, in particular, Silicon Valley.

“But Texas has also been the No. 1 exporting state for technology products for several years in a row,” Ribera said. “In 2020, we had $44.8 billion in technology-related exports, while California was in second place with $37.5 billion in those exports.”

He said other top 10 exports include aircraft and computer parts, integrated circuits, modems and other reception and transmission devices, and semi-conductor manufacturing equipment.  

“Texas has been growing steadily as an exporter of high-tech-related products and equipment,” Ribera said. “Technology is one sector people don’t often associate with Texas because they tend to associate us primarily with oil and cattle. And while those are important to the state and a source of great pride, we manufacture, produce and export of a wide variety of other products and goods needed and desired by consumers worldwide.”

Ribera also noted other reasons for Texas being the leading exporter among U.S. states.

“The size of the state, its business-friendly environment and solid infrastructure, the fact it has no state income tax and boasts the nation’s second largest workforce, as well as the can-do attitude of Texans, all help keep Texas in this enviable position,” he said.

Texas tops all U.S. states in exports for 19th consecutive year (amarillo.com)

The state of Texas sued the Biden administration on Sept. 20 over guidance issued this summer requiring employers to make certain exceptions for transgender workers.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit (pdf) against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the commission’s chair Charlotte Burrows, and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Paxton argues that the guidance issued by the EEOC on June 15 this year “misstates the law” and that “Burrows did not even have authority to issue it.”

“Texas and its constituent agencies, including the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA), have the sovereign right to set their own policies on bathroom usage, dress codes, and pronoun usage within their workplaces,” the lawsuit states. “The June 15 Guidance is invalid on its face.”

The EEOC and the Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.

On June 15, the EEOC issued a guidance document related to the recent Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. The Supreme Court ruled that the protections against sexual discrimination in the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 apply to people with subjective gender identities.

Title VII applies to all private employers with 15 employees or more. The EEOC’s guidance went beyond the language in Title VII and staked a position on issues, including transgender access to bathrooms and that “repeatedly using the wrong name and pronouns to refer to a transgender employee” amounts to harassment.

“States should be able to choose protection of privacy for their employers over subjective views of gender, and this illegal guidance puts many women and children at risk,” Paxton said in a statement.

“If the Biden Administration thinks they can force states to comply with their political agenda, my office will fight against their radical attempt at social change. These backdoor attempts to force businesses, including the State of Texas, to align with their beliefs is unacceptable.”

The lawsuit argues that the EEOC’s guidance is arbitrary and capricious while violating the First and Eleventh Amendments as well as Title VII itself. The plaintiffs further allege that the commission violated its own rules and failed to follow proper procedures before issuing it.

Paxton is asking the court to declare the guidance unlawful, block the defendants from enforcing it, and award the state of Texas attorneys’ fees.

A group of 20 state attorneys general sued the Biden administration in August over the issuance of interpretations of the Bostock v. Clayton County decision. The plaintiffs, led by Tennessee, argued that the EEOC and the Department of Education flouted “procedural requirements in their rush to overreach, issued ‘interpretations’ of federal antidiscrimination law far beyond what the statutory text, regulatory requirements, judicial precedent, and the Constitution permit,” according to the lawsuit (pdf).

Texas Sues Biden Administration Over Transgender Worker Right Guidance (theepochtimes.com)

Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) is sounding alarm after after spending a day in the border town of Del Rio, Texas, where the illegal immigrants crisis, he said, “has reached a boiling point.”

Pfluger posted on Twitter new photos showing the makeshift campsite full of individuals who illegally entered the United States and took shelter underneath the border bridge connecting Del Rio to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. He noted that there the crowd has grown to 15,000 on Saturday from 12,000 just the day before, with “hundreds more gathering every hour.”

Devastating scenes from Del Rio today.

I’ve talked to local leaders and seasoned law enforcement officers—the number 1 thing I’m hearing is this the worst they have ever seen it.

Where is the Administration? What is it going to take to get @POTUS and @VP‘s attention on this? pic.twitter.com/W8sOzZ4rk8

— Rep. August Pfluger (@RepPfluger) September 18, 2021

“Most were military aged males between the ages of 18-35. The majority of migrants were Haitian, but I talked to migrants from 6-7 countries including Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, and more,” he wrote.

According to Pfluger, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have been overwhelmed by the influx of illegal crossings, as undeterred migrants were “being pushed over the border.” The CBP has already closed the port in Del Rio, making Eagle Pass, which is located 60 miles southeast, the nearest port of entry.

“400 more CBP agents are being sent to Del Rio and CBP is utilizing flights to repatriate Haitians back to their home country, but based on what’s happening on the ground, this is not nearly enough to tamper the chaotic situation,” he added. “This crisis has reached a boiling point—Del Rio officials are not equipped to handle nearly 15,000 migrants pouring into their community.”

Pfluger’s visit comes as Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano called out President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, demanding that they pay attention to what is happening in his town.

Harris, who in March was tasked with handling the border crisis, on Saturday made an appearance at Howard University, where she led a coin toss at the university’s football event.

“The VP is able to visit the fun events across the country, while American communities continue to grapple with failed immigration reform. Where is the visit to Del Rio, TX?” Lozano, a Democrat, commented on Harris’ post of her coin toss.

He also responded to another post by Harris where she said, “The U.S. is falling behind, on a global scale, on investing in childcare. We invest fewer public dollars in early childhood education and care relative to GDP than almost all other developed countries. With our Build Back Better Agenda, @POTUS and I are determined to change that.”

“The US is failing to protect its borders. Why aren’t you here? @POTUS,” Lozano wrote.

The mayor of Del Rio, Texas, has closed the international U.S.–Mexico bridge after thousands of illegal immigrants arrived in the area and set up camps underneath and around the bridge.

Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano, a Democrat, declared a local state of disaster and said his city is closing toll booths on the international bridge to the Mexican city of Ciudad Acuna to halt traffic, while adding that he has requested state assistance to deal with the burgeoning crisis. City officials, he said, are expecting about 8,000 more illegal aliens to arrive in the area in the coming days.

“Dire circumstances require dire responses,” Lozano said during a news conference, saying that such measures are done as a security precaution.

“There’s people having babies down there [under the bridge], there’s people collapsing out of the heat,” the mayor said. “They’re pretty aggressive, rightly so—they’ve been in the heat day after day after day.”

He added that “it’s something that [is] very challenging to describe in words, but it’s extremely chaotic.”

In all, there are about 12,000 illegal immigrants amassed around the international bridge, the mayor said. Highlighting the significant increase in illegal aliens over the past week, Lozano said there were only 2,000 under the bridge on Monday.

“We’re hearing reports that there [are] unauthorized bus systems transporting individuals to the border states” such as Texas, Arizona, California, and New Mexico, he said.

10,503 illegal aliens are under this bridge tonight because Joe Biden made a political decision to cancel deportation flights to Haiti.

The Border Patrol is overcapacity. It’s indefensible, it’s inhuman, and it was entirely caused by Biden & Harris. #BidenBorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/LmWV52nmJc

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 17, 2021

Journalists on the scene say that the majority of those assembled under the bridge are Haitian nationals who are seeking asylum amid political instability. Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens said that he believes the vast majority are Haitian, adding that some families have been under the bridge for six days, according to The Associated Press.

Amid the crisis, Republicans in Congress have gone on the offensive against President Joe Biden, accusing him of not doing enough to prevent the surge in illegal immigration at the border. Since taking office, Biden has signed dozens of executive orders to rescind Trump-era policies, including suspending construction of the border wall.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a judge’s order to reinstate the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy, although the Justice Department said in court filings this week that discussions with the Mexican government are underway.

On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who traveled down to Del Rio to observe, released a video from beneath the bridge. The footage showed thousands of illegal immigrants behind a metal fence.

“The reason they’re here is simple,” Cruz says in the video. “Eight days ago, the Biden administration made a political decision, a political decision to cancel deportation flights to Haiti. They did that on Sept. 8. Eight days later these numbers appear.”

“On Sept. 8, underneath this bridge, there were between 700 and a thousand people,” Cruz continued, adding: “But when the word got out that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were no longer deporting people who came from Haiti, suddenly everyone who was here called their friends, called their family, and the numbers surged to 10,503. That’s what’s here today. It is more than the capacity of the Border Patrol to handle.”

The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment.

Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said during an MSNBC segment Friday that the administration “will address it accordingly.”

Texas Border Mayor Declares Disaster, Closes US–Mexico Bridge After Thousands of Illegal Immigrants Arrive (theepochtimes.com)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shut down six ports of entry with Mexico amid a surge of illegal immigrants trying to cross into the United States in recent months. However, hours later, Abbott said that the Biden administration changed course and decided against closing down the border crossing areas.

“I have directed the Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to surge personnel and vehicles to shut down six points of entry along the southern border to stop these caravans from overrunning our state,” said Abbott, a Republican, in a statement to news outlets on Thursday.

But Abbott later said that the decision was reversed by the federal government.

“Six hours after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested help from Texas to close ports of entry and secure the border, the Biden Administration has now flip-flopped to a different strategy that abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border,” the governor said in a statement to news outlets. “The Biden Administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuations from Afghanistan,” Abbott said.

It’s not clear what ports of entry were shuttered by Abbott’s order. The Epoch Times has contacted Abbott’s office and CBP for comment.

Dennis Smith, a CBP spokesman, said the agency has received no directive from the federal government to close ports of entry.

BORDER NOW: Heard from sources last night that there’s 6,000 illegal immigrants under this international bridge in Del Rio now.

Chatter about another 20k on the way, unconfirmed. Mostly Haitians, some Cubans, Venezuelans.

Most transported to BP station, processed, released. pic.twitter.com/mK3e1d07Ov

— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) September 16, 2021

“I couldn’t comment on anything the governor said, I don’t have any information on that,” Smith told the Texas Tribune.

Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Victor Escalon earlier in the day said that all points of entry in Del Rio would be closed due to the large numbers of illegal aliens in the area.

“Six, seven days ago, Del Rio saw 400 migrants sitting, underneath the bridge, the (point of entry) in downtown Del Rio … there’s about 6,000 sitting there right now and more are coming,” Escalon told CNN. “Before I came here today, my last instructions are, we’re going to shut down all the POEs in Del Rio,” he continued.

Images captured by The Epoch Times this week showed thousands of illegal immigrants amassing under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. A source with the Border Patrol said that about 8,000 illegal aliens, including Haitian, Cuban, and Venezuelan nationals, are in the area.

Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, meanwhile, said that Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed by the sheer number of illegal immigrants who arrived in the area.

“They just can’t process them fast enough, so there’s a backlog of these individuals underneath the bridge. They’re not detained, they’re just gathered there waiting their turn to get processed,” he told the Tribune.

Texas Governor Says White House Reversed Course in Border Crossing Closures (theepochtimes.com)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law on Sept. 13 that requires cash bail for suspects who have allegedly committed violent crimes.

The measure, Senate Bill 6, was approved in the Texas House and Senate in August, following a delay that was triggered by dozens of House Democrats fleeing the state to deny Republicans a quorum over a Republican-backed election overhaul bill.

Known as the Damon Allen Act, the legislation was named after a Texas state trooper who was killed in 2017 during a traffic stop by a suspect who was free on $15,500 bond. The law now mandates that people accused of committing violent offenses can’t be released on personal bonds, which don’t require a defendant to pay money, but require other measures such as monitoring.

Suspects believed to be involved in violent crimes will now have to post cash bail set by a court, the text of the legislation reads. They can also pay a percentage to a bail bonds company to be released.

“The Damon Allen Act makes it harder for dangerous criminals to be released from jail on bail,” Abbott, a Republican, said on Sept. 13 before signing the bill.

Some cities that are controlled primarily by Democrats, including Seattle, Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon, have enacted bail reform laws that have rescinded cash bail. Critics of such measures, including police unions, have said such laws increase the violent crime rate in an area.

“Texas cities will not follow the lead of Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis; Texas will remain a law-and-order state and continue using every tool available to preserve the safety that Texans deserve,” Abbott said. “That is why I am proud to sign the Damon Allen Act into law, which will reform our broken bail system in the Lone Star State.”

The law will go into effect on Dec. 2. Other measures included in the measure will create a new system of court officers to review a defendant’s criminal history before bail is set.

Before signing the legislation, Abbott suggested that an overall decline in morality is the reason why crime is on the rise, arguing that Texas needs “better parenting,” and it needs to “restore God in our communities.”

“If we do that, we will be able to reduce crime in this region,” he said.

Democrats and left-wing organizations have largely opposed the measure and say that it will lead to overcrowded jails.

“SB 6 is built on right-wing hysteria that violates Texans’ rights, not on public safety,” Laquita Garcia with the Texas Organizing Project said in a statement. “If implemented, this bill will lead to more overcrowding in jails and further criminalize poverty in our state.”

However, family members of victims who were killed by offenders who were released on personal bond praised the move.

“I am beyond pleased that the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 6,” Melanie Infinger, the mother of Caitlynne Infinger Guajardo, whose estranged husband allegedly killed her right after he was released on personal bond, said in a statement to the Texas Tribune.

Guajardo was pregnant with a child when she was killed.

“Since my daughter Caitlynne’s murder in 2019, I vowed to do whatever possible to save other families from the excruciating preventable pain of losing a loved one in the manner in which I lost my girl and her unborn child,” Infinger said.

New Texas Law Requires Cash Bail for Suspects Accused of Violent Crimes (theepochtimes.com)

Rep. Jim Langevin said he made decision after Supreme Court did not interfere with Texas’s heartbeat law

A Democratic congressman who campaigned as pro-life for years pledged to support a bill to permanently legalize abortion. 

Rep. Jim Langevin (D., R.I.) on Thursday said he will vote to codify Roe v. Wade in a Thursday op-ed in the Providence Journal, despite insisting on the campaign trail that he is a committed pro-life Christian. Langevin said he made this decision after the Supreme Court decided not to interfere with the enactment of a six-week abortion ban in Texas.  

“In light of this inaction by the Court—and as the conservative majority seems increasingly likely to take the extraordinary step of overturning Roe v. Wade—I have reconsidered my position on reproductive rights,” Langevin wrote. 

Langevin’s announcement drew sharp rebukes and cries of betrayal from activists and longtime supporters. Kristen Day, executive director of the Democrats for Life of America, said Langevin seemed passionate about representing pro-life Democrats in Congress when she met him. But his views on abortion shifted more toward pro-choice the longer he was in office, which she attributed to the radical leadership in the party. 

“I think a lot of these members still do believe life begins in the womb,” Day told the Washington Free Beacon. “The political pressure is brutal.” 

Langevin said in his op-ed that he will support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D., Calif.) drive to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would make legalized abortion permanent in federal law. Pelosi said she will soon introduce the bill in response to the enactment of Texas’s heartbeat law. 

Langevin was elected in 2000 with the support of prominent abortion opponents. He entered office with a 0 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, which shifted to 100 percent by 2007 and has fluctuated slightly since then. The National Right to Life Committee rated him at 88 percent during his first year, then dropped him to 0 percent by 2008. Langevin has consistently supported expansion to abortion access in the past decade. He did, however, support the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortion, as late as 2016. 

The Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life organization, donated to Langevin’s original campaign in 2000 when he opposed abortion. Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications for the group, said the Rhode Island Democrat should be ashamed for allowing his once pro-life views to flip in the most radical manner possible. 

“Langevin once supported common sense, common ground pro-life proposals including stopping taxpayer funding of abortion—but how the times have changed,” she told the Free Beacon. “Rep. Langevin is now a pro-abortion extremist who votes in lockstep with Speaker Pelosi.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote in favor of a provision to keep the Hyde Amendment in August. The House voted to remove the Hyde Amendment from appropriations bills in the same month. Day said the key for pro-life Democrats moving forward is to make their voices known and support the few elected officials they have left. A quarter of Democrats identify as pro-life.

“It’s very unfortunate that my party says we need to include everybody then takes this position against pro-life Democrats,” Day told the Free Beacon. “That’s exactly against what they’re for, which is diversity and inclusion.”

The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments over a Mississippi abortion ban in the coming weeks. State officials have asked the Court to not only uphold the law, but overturn Roe v. Wade and subsequent federal rulings preventing states from restricting abortion.

Former Pro-Life Dem Wants To Enshrine Abortion in Federal Law (freebeacon.com)

Actress Rose McGowan is not afraid to speak her mind when it comes to Democratic politicians, and one of her latest tweets takes aim at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“@HillaryClinton You are a shadow leader in service of evil. You are the enemy of what is good, right and moral,” McGowan said.

“You represent no flag, no country, no soul. You eat hope, you twist minds. I’ve been in a hotel room with your husband and here comes the bomb.”

@HillaryClinton You are a shadow leader in service of evil. You are the enemy of what is good, right and moral. You represent no flag, no country, no soul. You eat hope, you twist minds. I’ve been in a hotel room with your husband and here comes the bomb. https://t.co/K3ZDQYBXPn

— Rose 🌊McGowan (@rosemcgowan) September 3, 2021

Trending

White House Staffers Can’t Bear to Watch ‘Gaffe Machine’ Biden, So They Mute His Speeches: Report

In the tweet, the actress linked a Breitbart story titled “Hillary Clinton Rages over Texas Abortion Law: ‘We’ll Fight’ for Abortion.”

She is certainly not winning the trophy for politeness, but McGowan has not shied away from sharing what she truly thinks in recent months.

Although McGowan is not a conservative, she has stood tall against Hollywood elites and the Democratic Party — referring to them as a “cult.”

Following the Texas heartbeat bill, which has banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, the left has lost its collective mind.

McGowan has called out the faux outrage from both Clinton, a seasoned politician, and celebrities when it comes to the Lone Star State’s pro-life legislation.

“This is really going to help for sure- absolute moron achievement unlocked,” she tweeted with a screenshot of a Deadline article headlined “Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, and Alyssa Milano Among More Than 100 Stars Expressing Outrage Over Texas Abortion Law.”

This is really going to help for sure absolutely moron achievement unlocked pic.twitter.com/eVxnapMNWm

— Rose 🌊McGowan (@rosemcgowan) September 3, 2021

The “Charmed” and “Scream” star publicly said in 2019 that she had an abortion and is “not ashamed”, so it appears that her anger is catered toward the lack of authenticity liberal elites have when expressing outrage over social issues.

Related:

Hillary 2.0: Biden Used Private Email While VP to Send Government Intelligence to Hunter Biden – Report

I do not regret my decision and it was not made lightly. If you do not want an abortion, don’t get one. My body, my choice, my life. Have you had to make a choice? Let’s talk and use hashtag #HonestAbortion

— Rose 🌊McGowan (@rosemcgowan) March 1, 2019

However, based on her comments toward Clinton, it would not be surprising if McGowan is now against abortion.

McGowan should be applauded for her courage to speak out against the Democratic establishment and its grip on the entertainment industry, as much of Hollywood’s political fervor is staged.

There are plenty of non-leftists in entertainment, but the mob mentality of the industry has left them terrified to share their opinions for fear of being cancelled and blacklisted.

While her comments are certainly provocative, hopefully McGowan is prompting others to make their voices heard.

A new law in Texas has removed a major barrier to prosecuting human smugglers, who are most often caught driving illegal aliens from the U.S.–Mexico border to larger cities.

As of Sept. 1, prosecutors need not prove “pecuniary gain,” which was often the reason cases were thrown out.

“We don’t have any way to track cases declined for particular issues, but there were a noticeable number,” Suzanne West, district attorney based in the border city of Val Verde, Texas, told The Epoch Times. “The changes … absolutely do make these cases easier to prosecute.”

Pecuniary gain is the money, or benefit, a driver is paid to smuggle illegal aliens from one place to another. To prove it required a confession on most occasions and often a defendant would simply say they were giving the passengers a lift for free.

In reality, cartels recruit smugglers through social media websites and messaging apps promising thousands of dollars for transporting illegal aliens. The drivers tend to be a mix of U.S. citizens and illegal aliens.

Smuggling of humans is a third degree felony offense, punishable for up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $2,000 per person being smuggled. The new law lifts the degree of felony if pecuniary gain is proven, if a smuggled person is a minor or if the smuggler has a firearm.

The law also adds a felony charge to anyone who “assists, guides, or directs two or more individuals to enter or remain on agricultural land without the effective consent of the owner.”

Texas State Senator Juan Hinojosa, who sponsored the bill before it became law, represents the Rio Grande Valley, one of the main hubs for human smuggling in Texas.

“There is no doubt that we have a critical situation at the state’s southern border and I have heard firsthand the difficulties that human smuggling brings to local officials and landowners,” Hinojosa stated in a June release.

The state’s Senate Research Center, in its bill analysis, stated that local authorities, law enforcement agencies, and landowners had expressed concern that the current penalties for human smuggling were “inadequate.”

Since President Joe Biden took office, illegal border crossings have hit record-breaking numbers and have increased every month. Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than a million illegal aliens along the southern border since February.

Agents have expressed concern over the unknown number of illegal aliens who have evaded apprehension and are loose in the country.

Border Crime

Texas has been hit by a deluge of border-related issues this year, including a spike in vehicle pursuits and bailouts (which is when a driver slows down or stops and everyone jumps out of the vehicle and scatters to avoid capture).

As of Sept. 7, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe has 10 suspected smugglers in jail. He has dozens more arrest warrants sitting on his desk, waiting for jail space to free up so he can find and arrest them.

Many other rural counties have been grappling with the same issues, particularly the critical shortage in jail space.

Small counties aren’t set up for the overwhelming increase in cross-border crime, and smugglers who are here illegally are often passed to Border Patrol to be repatriated without being charged.

“From those of us in the arena of border crime, we truly appreciate the assistance provided by all,” West said.  She said any additional tools will be employed to protect communities “from crime and the ripple effects that large scale criminal operations trigger.”

In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott surged the state’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) resources to border regions. State troopers have since been involved in the apprehension of more than 11,000 illegal aliens, according to information obtained from DPS.

In addition to local law enforcement efforts, state troopers have stopped approximately 750 vehicles suspected of smuggling 3,154 illegal aliens in Texas from March through mid-August.

Officers have been involved in 694 vehicle pursuits since March, according to DPS statistics.

Texas Makes It Easier to Prosecute Human Smugglers (theepochtimes.com)

Once again, popular opinion of pro-murder is surrendered to… (US Patriot)

The CEO of an American video game developer stepped down after he issued a statement supportive of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of a law in Texas that bans abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat.

The company, Tripwire Interactive LLC, announced in a statement on Monday that John Gibson “has stepped down as CEO” of the company, effective immediately.

Gibson said via Twitter on Saturday, “Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat.”

He added, “As an entertainer I don’t get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer.”

Two days later, Tripwire issued a statement distancing itself from Gibson’s views.

“The comments given by John Gibson are of his own opinion, and do not reflect those of Tripwire Interactive as a company,” said the statement.

“His comments disregarded the values of our whole team, our partners and much of our broader community. Our leadership team at Tripwire are deeply sorry and are unified in our commitment to take swift action and to foster a more positive environment.”

Alan Wilson, the current vice president of Tripwire, will take over as interim CEO.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Texas Heartbeat Act (Senate Bill 8), signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in May. It bans doctors from performing or inducing an abortion unless he or she has determined whether the unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat, which can be detected as early as six weeks after conception.

If a heartbeat is found, the doctor can only carry out the abortion in a medical emergency. The measure does not have an exception for a pregnancy due to incest or rape.

Under the law, state officials cannot enforce the measure.

The legislation bans state officials from enforcing the provisions. Instead, private citizens—except for an individual who impregnated a woman through incest or rape—may file lawsuits against doctors, clinics, and anyone who is allegedly involved in an abortion that violates the law.

Those found to have violated the law would have to pay $10,000 to the private citizen who filed the lawsuit.

The law went into effect on Sept. 1. The Supreme Court on the same day denied an effort to stop the measure from taking effect, in a 5-4 ruling. A district court and an appeals court had also previously declined to intervene.

“The applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue,” the majority said. “But their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden” to get a preliminary injunction issued.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

Game Developer CEO Steps Down After Pro-Life Tweet on Texas Abortion Law (theepochtimes.com)

In the matter of a new Texas law banning abortions six weeks after gestation, when a fetal heartbeat can usually be detected by vaginal ultrasound, suppose the headlines had been different? Instead of words like “most restrictive in nation” (The Wall Street Journal) and “Supreme Court refuses to block Texas law” (The Washington Post), along with four stories splashed across the front page of The New York Times that seemed to be written from the perspective of pro-choice writers, what if the headlines had instead reflected another point of view that took the side of babies and the women who carry them?

Those headlines and stories might have read: “Supreme Court decides to protect babies, recognizing Thomas Jefferson’s writing about endowed life coming from God.” Or, if that’s too long for headline writers, how about “Supreme Court takes side of the unborn”? Might that have changed the perception about abortion by people who are on the fence, or conflicted? Information, including sonograms for abortion-minded pregnant women, has been shown to change minds. So has compassionate counseling and adoption services at pregnancy help centers.

Much has changed since 1973 when a court majority found in Roe vs. Wade that a “penumbra” was hidden in the Constitution, which translated into a “right to privacy” so that a woman could legally terminate her pregnancy without interference from anyone, including the father. Since that ruling, the “right” to an abortion has been extended to include second-trimester abortions and to cover babies born alive after an attempted abortion.

Gov. Ralph Northam (D-Va.), a pediatrician, has suggested that a baby who survives an abortion should be “kept comfortable” and “resuscitated” and then “a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” Does this not infanticide?

The definition of “penumbra” is revealing: “the partial or imperfect shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body.” If that sounds unclear when applied to the Constitution, that’s because it is. Then-Justice Harry Blackmun, who used the word, clearly was not a textualist in the way Antonin Scalia was. It appears he read his own bias into the Constitution when he could find no justification for abortion elsewhere.

Judges reading into the Constitution their own biases, even prejudices, has long been a problem. It is a power the Founders never intended the courts and especially the Supreme Court to have.

The Texas law will still be challenged in other ways, as will a Mississippi law the Supreme Court has decided to hear this fall. That law, if passed, would ban most abortions after 15 weeks.

National Right to Life, which tracks figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, estimates there have been more than 62 million abortions since 1973, and the number of abortions each year has been steadily declining.

Many women have said they regretted their decision to have an abortion, many uphold that difficult decision. It seems we long ago shifted from doing what might be best for others to doing what was best for self, perhaps a reflection of the spirit of the modern age.

Abortion and refusing to take personal responsibility for one’s actions have contributed to a general coarseness and disrespect for life at all stages as witnessed by the shooting sprees regularly occurring in Chicago and other major cities. The Texas and Mississippi laws seek to reverse, or at least slow down the process of squandering human life.

The question remains: Is abortion the cause of our increasingly decadent culture, or a reflection of it?

Deep in the Hearts of Texas Babies (theepochtimes.com)

Hollywood celebrities are up in arms over pro-life legislation in Texas, which effectively bans most abortions after six weeks, when an unborn baby’s heartbeat can be detected.

The legislation took effect Wednesday morning after both the Supreme Court and a lower federal court of appeals refused to rule on a demand from Texas abortion providers to stay the law pending further litigation, The Daily Wire reported.

The news cued Hollywood to react on social media, which included cries about a supposed lack of women’s rights and shows of support for taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion mill.

Feminist actress Patricia Arquette warned of a Hollywood “boycott.”

“We will not stop until women have full equal rights in every state in America. We will boycott you. We will out organize you. We will strike you,” she wrote via Twitter.

It is not over. We will not rest. We will not stop until women have full equal rights in every state in America. We will boycott you. We will out organize you. We will strike you. We will win your seats of power from you. #RoeVWade

— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) September 1, 2021

“I stand in solidarity with people in TX who, as of today, face an extreme 6-week abortion ban. This ban, #SB8, will be the blueprint for bans across the US. Unless we do something about it,” singer Pink posted, linking to Planned Parenthood. 

Comedian and left-wing activist Amy Schumer claimed, “The newest Texas abortion ban, #SB8, gives politicians, neighbors, and even strangers the right to sue those who provide — or just help patients get — abortion after 6 wks. The time to fight for our reproductive health & rights is now!” She, too, then linked to Planned Parenthood. 

Left-wing activist and frequent abortion promoter Alyssa Milano tweeted, “Let’s stop calling it an anti-abortion law and call it what it really is— #ForcedPregnancy.”

Let’s stop calling it an anti-abortion law and call it what it really is—#ForcedPregnancy

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 3, 2021

In another apparent attempt to defend abortion, Milano claimed Texas has a law banning a woman from “owning six dildos.” Except, the law she is presumably referring to relates to the promotion of obscene devices and was ruled unconstitutional more than a decade ago.

Friendly reminder. pic.twitter.com/dCatKNt1Gy

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 3, 2021

“Big Little Lies” actress Reese Witherspoon promoted Planned Parenthood during her condemnation of the pro-life legislation.

“This ban is ridiculous and it’s part of a RECORD number of abortion restrictions passed this year. We’ve declared today a Day of Action — because it’s on all of us to step up and fight for reproductive freedom. … #BansOffOurBodies,” wrote Planned Parenthood. 

“I stand with the women of Texas who have the Constitutional right to make decisions about their health and their own bodies,” Witherspoon quote-tweeted the post, adding, “#BansOffOurBodies.”

I stand with the women of Texas who have the Constitutional right to make decisions about their health and their own bodies. #BansOffOurBodies https://t.co/J7aDur4uEQ

— Reese Witherspoon (@ReeseW) September 1, 2021

Actress and Democratic activist Eva Longoria Baston claimed the legislation is a “blatant violation to all women, especially women of color.”

“It’s crazy to witness my home state of Texas pass our nation’s most restrictive abortion laws & in doing so, take many strides in the wrong direction. This is a blatant violation to all women, especially women of color,” Longoria Baston wrote. “Texas is among the seven states & territories where […] the non-Hispanic White share of the population is below 50%, according to the Census Bureau. There were 11.4 million Texans who identified as Hispanic in the 2020 Census, making the group nearly as large as the non-Hispanic White demographic group in the state.”

The actress posted additional tweets directing her followers to donate to “abortion funds.”

(2/4) the non-Hispanic White share of the population is below 50%, according to the Census Bureau. There were 11.4 million Texans who identified as Hispanic in the 2020 Census, making the group nearly as large as the non-Hispanic White demographic group in the state. Source: @CNN

— Eva Longoria Baston (@EvaLongoria) September 3, 2021

Related: Strict Texas Abortion Law Goes Into Effect After Supreme Court Refuses To Rule On Emergency Stay

Celebrities Outraged Pro-Life Legislation Stands In Texas: ‘We Will Boycott You’ | The Daily Wire