Among the dangers that come along with the thousands of illegal border crossings that occur every month, which include human trafficking, drug smuggling, potential terrorism, death at the hands of coyotes, bandits, and harsh weather, significantly complicating the challenges border patrol and law enforcement face is the COVID-19 pandemic, the association said in a draft border security resolution set for a vote at a meeting in Arizona in June, according to The Washington Examiner.
Up to 50 percent of illegal immigrants are testing positive for COVID-19, the disease the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus causes, the sheriffs association wrote.
“We are already seeing strains to the public health system of border communities. The suspension of deportations has led to the release of undocumented persons into border communities. We then have an affirmative responsibility to provide medical care for them if they are infected with COVID,” the statement reads. “This at a time when our communities are already grappling with this public health emergency and desperately trying to roll out the vaccines. We now face a serious potential public health crisis along the border.”
Border Patrol agents arrest seven illegal immigrants who tried to evade capture near Penitas, Texas, on March 15, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
“In any other construct, infection rates that high would be cause for alarm by public health officials. Yet, we are currently engaging in policies that have potentially opened, rather than restricted, undocumented traffic into the U.S.,” the sheriffs said in the resolution.
In February, Border Patrol apprehended over 100,000 illegal immigrants at the southern border, and about 26,000 evaded capture, according to Jaeson Jones, a former Texas Department of Public Safety captain who received the provisional Border Patrol data from internal sources, which was reviewed by The Epoch Times.
Many of those crossing now are unaccompanied minors (9,457 in February), who are meant to be passed to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) within 72 hours, but the sheer number of minors has overwhelmed the system.
HHS has just opened a second facility for the burgeoning number of minors.
When asked what he thought was driving the trend, Miller said, “There’s certainly economic instability in the region that’s unparalleled.”
“All you have to do is look at the pandemic … the COVID rate infections down in South and Central America,” he said. “We recently had a hurricane, continued violence, unemployment. So if you put all those issues together, … you’re going to see folks looking for a better way of life.”
A Milwaukee County Children’s Court judge and former president and CEO of the Cream City Foundation, which runs the city’s drag queen story hour program, has been arrested on seven counts of child pornography.
Brett Blomme, 38, was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly uploading 27 images and videos of children being sexually abused on the messaging app Kik.
Blomme was held overnight and released with a signature. He has been ordered to stay off social media and file-sharing services and is not allowed near any children except the two that he adopted with his husband.
“The couple has two adopted children. Court records do not suggest they are part of any of the illegal images. Child Protective Services is involved with their current placement, defense attorney Christopher Van Wagner said during the court hearing,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
lomme is accused of uploading the images both from his home and from the judge’s chambers.
The alleged pedophile judge was the president and CEO of the Cream City Foundation, which runs the Milwaukee Drag Queen Story Hour for local children. As of early Thursday morning, however, all articles and mentions of him had been scrubbed from their website. The links were still cached by Google’s search engine and his role remained detailed on his LinkedIn page.
Theme parks in California are set to re-open next month but visitors are being warned that they’re not allowed to sing, shout, scream or engage in heavy breathing while on rides.
Yes, really.
“The California Attractions and Parks Association (CAPA) advises in the new guidelines for its “Responsible Reopening Plan,” that theme park visitors should avoid activities that increase the spread of COVID-19, such as singing, shouting, heavy breathing and raising one’s voice,” reports People.
Visitors will also be mandated to wear masks on rides in order to “mitigate the effects of shouting,” according to the guidelines.
The rules appeared to be inspired by Japanese theme parks, which also introduced a ‘no screaming’ rule when they re-opened last summer.
From April 1 onwards, theme parks in California are allowed to re-open at just 15 per cent capacity. When Disneyland opens on April 30, only California residents will be allowed to enter.
As we previously highlighted, the CDC itself published a list of guidelines telling Americans not to sing and to limit alcohol consumption during Thanksgiving gatherings.
They followed that up shortly after by also telling Americans to restrict the spread of coronavirus by not cheering during the Super Bowl.
The “new normal” sure looks like a barrel of laughs, doesn’t it?
The Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed Xavier Becerra as President Joe Biden’s health secretary.
The 50-49 vote puts the 63-year-old Becerra in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The $1.4 trillion agency encompasses health insurance programs, drug safety and approvals, medical research, and the welfare of children, including hundreds of Central American migrants flooding the U.S.-Mexico border.
Religious and social conservatives opposed Becerra’s confirmation over his support for abortion — including partial-birth abortion.
During his confirmation hearings, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota called Becerra an “extremist who has used the offices he has held to advance an aggressively pro-abortion agenda.”
On the Senate floor on Thursday, Republicans mostly closed ranks against Becerra. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the sole Republican who voted for him.
“Although there are issues where I strongly disagree with Mr. Becerra, I believe he merits confirmation as HHS secretary,” she said. “I look forward to working with the department to achieve bipartisan results on behalf of the American people.”
Becerra has been California’s attorney general since 2017. He sued the Trump administration 124 times on a range of policy issues. Before that he represented a Los Angeles-area district in the U.S. House for 24 years.
A lawyer, not a doctor, his primary experience with the health care system has come through helping to pass the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and defending it when Donald Trump was president.
“I understand the enormous challenges before us and our solemn responsibility to be faithful stewards of an agency that touches almost every aspect of our lives,” Becerra said at his hearing. “I’m humbled by the task, and I’m ready for it.”
The American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association supported his nomination.
A powerful drug industry lobby, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, congratulated Becerra on his confirmation and said it looks forward to a collaborative working relationship.
But to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “the distinguishing feature of this nominee’s resume is not his expertise in health, medicine or administration — that part of the resume is very brief. What stands out are Mr. Becerra’s commitment to partisan warfare and his far-left ideology.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said GOP arguments against Becerra “almost verge on the ridiculous.”
Several agencies under the umbrella of HHS have played a part in the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A new poll set to be released Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports indicates that 75% of Americans support voter ID laws that require voters to show photo identification before voting — including 60% of Democrats. Only 21% oppose such laws.
Democrats are currently pursuing federal legislation to override state voter ID laws. H.R. 1, the so-called “For the People Act,” has already passed the Democrat-controlled House and will soon be introduced in the Senate.
Many Democrats are calling for the filibuster to be eliminated or reformed so that H.R. 1 can pass by a simple majority vote, ending voter ID.
Rasmussen said:
75% Support Voter ID Laws
As the U.S. Senate considers legislation that would revamp America’s election laws, voters still overwhelmingly support laws requiring that voters show identification before casting a ballot.
Seventy-five percent (75%) of Likely U.S. Voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. Only 21% are opposed to such a requirement.
Thirty-six states have enacted some form of voter ID law, but those laws would be nullified if the Senate approves H.R. 1, which passed the House on a party-line vote. Critics say H.R. 1 “would force states to allow anyone to vote who simply signs a form saying that they are who they claim they are.”
Support for voter ID laws has actually increased since 2018, when 67% said voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote.
Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans support voter ID requirements, as do 60% of Democrats and 77% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
Preliminary cross-tabs shared with Breitbart News show that black voters also favor voter ID, 69% to 25%, and were evenly split (43% to 43%) on the question of whether voter ID is discriminatory. (51% of Democrats as a whole said that it was, as did 59% of self-identified liberals; 60% of overall voters said that it was not, versus 31% who said that it was.)
Voter ID is standard in much of the rest of the world — including poor, war-torn regions such as Uganda and Iraq, below.
Musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi (C), shows his voter ID card before casting his ballot as he stands next to his wife Barbara Itungo Kyagulanyi (R) during the presidential and parliamentary at a polling station in Magere, Uganda, on January 14, 2021. – Ugandans began voting in a tense election on January 14, 2021 under heavy security and an internet blackout as veteran leader Yoweri Museveni pursues a sixth term against a former pop star half his age. The internet went down on the eve of the vote, with some parts of the country reporting complete disruptions or significant slowdowns, after one of the most violent election campaigns in years. (Photo by SUMY SADURNI / AFP) (Photo by SUMY SADURNI/AFP via Getty Images)An Iraqi man displays his electronic voter ID card he received from election commission officials in the capital Baghdad on February 25, 2014, ahead of legislative elections in April. AFP PHOTO / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (Photo credit should read AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images)
Democrats, such as Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL), the number two-ranked member of his caucus, said Monday that the filibuster needed to be reformed because it is “being misused by some Senators to block legislation urgently needed and supported by strong majorities of the American people.”
However, a strong majority opposes parts of H.R. 1. — at least the voter ID provisions, which contradict the preferences of three out of four likely U.S. voters, according to Rasmussen.
H.R. 1 says states “may not require an individual to provide any form of identification as a condition of obtaining an absentee ballot” and lets voters to use a “sworn written statement” rather than photo ID, which it calls a restriction on the right to vote.
Following Limbaugh’s death last month, Bongino said ‘every conservative I know, everyone has had that Rush Limbaugh moment where they were listening and heard an idea for the first time ever’
Conservative commentator Dan Bongino will take over Rush Limbaugh’s radio time slot, Fox News reported, citing a Wednesday announcement from Cumulus Media’s Westwood One.
What are the details?
Starting May 24, “The Dan Bongino Show” will broadcast 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET in markets around the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., the cable network said.
“The Dan Bongino Show will tackle the hot political issues, debunking both liberal and Republican establishment rhetoric,” a press release noted, Fox News said. “As a former Secret Service agent and NYPD officer, Bongino is uniquely positioned to provide commentary and analysis that directly questions the philosophical underpinnings of both the Left and Big Government Republicans.”
Bongino is a Fox News contributor and has his own daily podcast, which has become wildly popular. He said he is “excited to embrace the immense power of radio to connect with my listeners live for three hours every day. This is an incredible privilege, and I pledge to honor the trailblazing work of those who came before me,” the cable network said.
“Dan is passionate and relatable, with a natural ability to connect with his audience,” Westwood One President Suzanne Grimes said in a statement, according to Fox News. “Dan has been on a meteoric rise since his podcast launched in 2019, and we look forward to watching his star continue to soar.”
Following Limbaugh’s passing, Bongino appeared on “Fox & Friends” and praised the conservative radio icon: “Every conservative I know, everyone has had that Rush Limbaugh moment where they were listening and heard an idea for the first time ever.”
A judge ruled that an upcoming general election must be rescheduled so it can be held in person as opposed to relying on mail-in ballots.
“A tribal court judge ruled Thursday that mail-in voting is against the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s constitution and ordered that the upcoming general election be rescheduled so it can be held in person,” a local news outlet summarized.
In the decision from Amanda L. WhiteEagle, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Alternate District Court Judge, she noted “the Constitution is the supreme law, and ordinances are to be consistent with the constitutional letter and spirit,” WhiteEagle said in the order.
The case, filed by tribal members including chairman candidate Aaron Tobey Jr, centered on whether or not ballot drop boxes could be viewed as polls in a manner consistent with the tribe’s constitution.
WhiteEagle ruled in favor of Tobey, noting that the defendants attempted a “linguistic somersault” by conflating a U.S. Postal Service a mailbox to a poll.
“As elected officials, we have the duty to do the right thing, and mail-in voting is not one of them, I’m glad the courts are enforcing the laws of the constitution. This is not the time to experiment with mail-in voting. Voting in person gives more confidence to the voters that the election will be a fair process,” Tobey noted.
“The election can be held safely, Tobey said, by following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines,” the outlet adds.
Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday his decision to make another run at the White House will hinge on Republicans regaining the majority in the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.
“Based on every poll, they want me to run again,” Trump told Fox News’ “Primetime” with Maria Bartiromo in a 22-minute interview via telephone. “But we are going to take a look and we will see.”
In the meantime, Trump vowed to work hard for the GOP to regain the majority in the House, and flip the Senate. Democrats currently hold a 219-211 edge in the House (with five vacant seats) and the Senate is a dead heat at a 50-50 split.
“First thing is for us, we have to see what we could do with the House,” Trump told Bartiromo. “I think we have a very good chance at taking back the House. We were going to lose 15-25 seats the last time, [until] I got involved. I worked very hard.”
As for the Senate lead, Trump pinned the blame of two Georgia Jan. 5 runoff election losses on then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., failing to deliver $2,000 COVID-19 impact payments to individuals in the stimulus package passed at the end of the Trump administration, instead settling for $600 per individual.
“Mitch McConnell made a tremendous mistake,” Trump said. “He lost to those two seats.”
“I think we have a chance of taking back the House; I think we have a chance to do better in the Senate,” Trump continued. “We need leadership in the Senate, which frankly we don’t have. We need better leadership in the Senate. We have a good chance to take back the Senate. And frankly, we will make our decision after that.”
President Joe Biden is helping Trump’s decision, too, he said, with massive mistakes on spending and immigration policies that are opening the borders and creating a migrant crisis at the border.
“When you add it all up, I think we will do very well in 2 years, and I think we are going to do very well in four years,” Trump said, teasing an official return to the campaign trail.
It is imperative for Senate Republicans to stop House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s H.R. 1 election bill that would ostensibly rubber stamp elections for Democrats going forward.
“If it’s allowed to happen, I think your Republicans will have a very hard time getting elected,” Trump said. “What will happen is the Democrats will be able to do what they did in the in the 2020 election and even worse, potentially even worse.
“It is set up they can’t believe [they got away with], and it is because of the fact that the Republicans lost two seats that they never should have lost in Georgia.
“When you look at what they did and when you look at the dishonesty and all of the things that took place in that election, they should have never happened. They have to stop that bill.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) on March 17 led 40 Republican colleagues to sign a letter asking the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate whether President Joe Biden’s suspension of funding and construction of the southern border wall was justified under federal law.
On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order that halted construction on the wall and ordered a suspension of congressional funds allocated for the project. Biden also signed an order that canceled the emergency designation at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The senators wrote (pdf) that despite the progress being made to control illegal immigration, with additional funds being authorized by Congress for the wall, Biden still signed a proclamation directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of Management and Budget to “pause immediately the obligation of funds related to the construction of the southern border wall” and “pause work on each construction project on the southern border wall.”
Biden’s proclamation stated that the wall was a waste of money and isn’t a “serious policy solution.”
The group of Republican senators believes the actions violate the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) but they want a legal evaluation from Comptroller General Gene Dodaro.
“They are also a blatant violation of federal law and infringe on Congress’s constitutional power of the purse. We are writing regarding these actions. We believe they violated the ICA, as interpreted by your office, and we request your legal opinion on the matter,” wrote the senators.
The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 reconfirmed Congress’s power of the purse. In addition, the law established ways to prevent the sitting president and other government officials from single-handedly replacing their own funding preference for that of Congress.
“The president is not vested with the power to ignore or amend a duly enacted law, instead he must faithfully execute the law as Congress enacts it,” the GOP letter continued.
The senators said they believe the freezing of the border wall funds and constructions contributed to the “humanitarian and national security crisis” at the border.
A border patrol agent told Full Measure News that the halting of the southern wall construction was hasty and has left wide roads that drug cartels can now use for illegal activity.
“Now what we have is an infrastructure that the cartels can benefit from,” said the border patrol agent.
Meanwhile, border states such as Texas are trying to work around Biden’s border wall policies. Texas, which shares 1,200 miles of border with Mexico, is one of the states that bears the brunt of the huge influx of illegal immigrants.
On March 15, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton, a Republican, filed HB 2862, which would fund the completion of the border wall in Texas with state funds.
Apprehensions at the southern border have climbed every month since April 2020 and reached 96,974 in February, according to new data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency that includes Border Patrol.
Opponents to Biden’s immigration policies say that his other decisions to reverse Trump-era policies, such as the remain-in-Mexico program, which required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico until their claims could be heard, are contributing to the surge in migrants at the border.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) took to Twitter on March 16 to comment on the crisis at the border.
“Halting border wall construction, reducing enforcement, pausing deportations—Biden sent the message loud and clear that our border is open. Now, we’re seeing a predictable crisis of Dems’ own making, on pace to break 20-year records,” wrote Thune.
In George Stephanopoulos’s very short interview with President Joe Biden – billed as “extensive,” “expansive,” and “wide-ranging” – the president denied the situation at the border, took a swipe at Americans who don’t “listen,” and bragged on his macho encounter with Vladimir Putin.
Asked when Americans might return to normalcy, Biden had stern words for people who would ease up on COVID-19 mitigation measures and exercise their freedom to decline the vaccine.
“I won’t be able to meet the July 4 deadline unless people listen,” Biden said. “I just don’t understand this sort of macho thing about, ‘I’m not gonna get the vaccine, I have a right as an American, my freedom to not do it.’ Well, why don’t you be a patriot, protect other people?”
“How about emphasizing the positive?” Stephanopoulos jumped in, prompting Biden to share that since he got the vaccine, he can hug and spend time with his grandchildren.
Biden first tried to deny the ongoing catastrophic surge was irregular, then denied that he sent the wrong message on immigration, then denied that children are held in cells, then finally said “quite clearly, don’t come.”
On the surge: “There was a surge the last two years in ’19 and ’20, there was a surge as well.”
“This one might be worse,” Stephanopoulos chimed in.
“No—well it could be,” Biden replied. (His own DHS chief confirmed this week that the biggest surge in 20 years is underway.) “But here’s the deal. First of all, the idea that Joe Biden said ‘come’ is—I heard the other day that they’re coming because they know I’m a nice guy, and I won’t do what Trump did.”
“Well, here’s the deal: they’re not. The adults are being sent back, number one. Number two, what do you do with an unaccompanied child that comes to the border? Do you repeat what Trump did? Take them from their mothers? Move them away? Hold them in cells, et cetera? We’re not doing that!” (False. They are doing that. And he did invite them to.)
Biden 2021: “I never said they should surge the border!”
Finally, Biden said, “I can say quite clearly, don’t come.” BUT—Biden previewed schemes in progress to (1) install DHS and HHS facilities—concierge immigration services—in foreign countries to process asylum cases and (2) boost foreign aid to “change the circumstances on the ground” and “diminish the reason why people want to leave in the first place.”
Biden responded to U.S. intelligence reports that Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin pushed disinformation about Biden to his allies during the 2020 election: “He will pay a price… If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.”
Stephanopoulos quizzed Biden about a 2014 encounter in which Biden supposedly accused Putin of not having a soul, a story that Biden relishes telling.
“I did say that to him, yes. And his response was, we understand one another. I wasn’t being a wise guy, I was alone with him in his office, that’s how it came about… I said, ‘Looked in your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul.’ Looked back at me and said ‘We understand each other.’ Look, most important thing dealing with foreign leaders, in my experience, and I’ve dealt with an awful lot of them in my career, is just know the other guy.”
While Biden apparently takes pride in having met with Putin alone, President Donald Trump was excoriated for doing so.
On Afghanistan: It Would Be “Like Sanskrit To People Listening Here”
Will U.S. troops leave Afghanistan by May 1? Unclear, Biden said, blaming it on a disorderly transition. (It’s worth noting that Presidential transitions are a relatively new concept.)
When he doesn’t want to answer questions, Biden often implies the audience is too stupid to understand the answers. He did that on ABC:
“The fact is that it was not a very solidly negotiated deal that, uh, the president—the former president worked out . . . Look, one of the drawbacks, George, and this is gonna be like Sanskrit to people listening here, but uh, it is the failure to have an orderly transition from the Trump presidency to my presidency, which usually takes place from Election Day to the time you’re sworn in, has cost me time and consequences. For example, we didn’t realize how bad things were in terms of lack of vaccine, we were not able to get access to this information. That’s part of one of the issues we’re talking about now in terms of Afghanistan.”
This reply is not in fact “like Sanskrit to people listening”; it’s Biden’s predictable explanation for anything that is unpopular.
On Cuomo: Women’s Claims Should Be “Taken Seriously.”
If the investigations into Gov. Andrew Cuomo find that he sexually harassed women, should he resign?
“Yes, I think he’d probably end up being prosecuted too.” Biden did not join calls for Cuomo to resign now, but said, “A woman should be presumed to [be] telling the truth and should not be scapegoated and become victimized by her coming forward, number one. But there should be an investigation to determine whether what she says is true. That’s what’s going on now . . . I start with the presumption, it takes a lot of courage for a woman to come forward, so the presumption is, she be taken seriously.”
Oh and by the way, the entirety of the “extensive” interview lasted… 14 minutes.
