Monday, September 26, 2022

Sanctimony Over Busing Illegal Immigrants

Swarms of illegal immigrants flooding across the Southern border have been deliberately ignored by the media to support the administration's lie about a secure border. But when 48 migrants arrived on a bus in the exclusive enclave at Martha's Vineyard, the news coverage was intensive and sanctimonious.   

All it took was a busload of 48 migrants for the pro-Biden media to condemn the exploitation of illegals as political pawns. The migrants spent 44 minutes on the luxurious island before they were whisked off by the national guard after residents discovered the illegals were not lawn service workers. 

Florida Governor Ron deSantis airlifted the illegals from Texas and then bused them to the exclusive vineyard. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been busing illegals nabbed at his state's border to Chicago and New York City, both sanctuary cities.  Mayors in those two cities are apoplectic. 

The president's spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre condemned the governors for sending illegals to Democrat-run sanctuary cities.  "What they are doing is a legal stunt, is a political stunt.  It's really just disrespectful to humanity." Her words oozed with hypocrisy.   

Apparently, Jean-Pierre forgot the administration's busing of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to cities throughout the nation. Migrants were dropped off in Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Florida.  Others were shipped to Houston and Dallas. There was no outrage.

Administration officials flew or bused immigrants to states and cities over their objections.  When the administration, dropped off 2,000 immigrants in Westchester County (N.Y.), even Democrat lawmakers questioned the move. Rep. Tom Suozzi griped the flights landed at night with no prior warning.

Dozens of flights shuttled immigrants from the Southern border to Jacksonville last year without prior notice.  In Iowa, the governor complained after two dozen immigrant children showed up in Des Moines, prompting law enforcement to investigate if they were victims of human trafficking.

Over the protest of Tennessee leaders, the administration began sending immigrants to their state. Four planes arrived in Chattanooga without prior notice.  These were not isolated incidents.  Many states had similar experiences.  Immigrants in most cases were unaware of their destination.  

Now that Governor DeSantis and Abbott are flipping the script it seems unfair to the political elitists responsible for the open border policy.  Biden has ignored the pleas of border states to fix the problem.  Democrats are begging Biden to sue Abbott and DeSantis instead of addressing the border crisis.   

Sanctimonious Democrats are denouncing the governors for treating the immigrants inhumanly.  Really? Every one of those immigrants paid a human smuggler from the Mexican drug cartel to get into the U.S. They weren't sent in an air-conditioned bus or an airplane. 

Fifty three illegal immigrants stuffed into a sweltering tractor trailer died earlier this year in Texas. Each put their lives in the hands of smugglers.  Just recently Border Patrol agents rescued more than a dozen migrants locked in a U-Haul truck.   This is what "disrespect for humanity" looks like  Jean-Pierre.

Biden's open border policy is inviting the cartel to exploit foreigners arriving in Mexico.  His policy is enriching drug cartels.  The Biden plan is inhumane and cruel.  

Thanks to Martha's Vineyard, more Americans are now aware the Border Patrol has apprehended more than 2 million illegal immigrants this fiscal year, which ends this month. The numbers do not include more than 500,000 getaways who avoided apprehension and escaped into the country. 

Think about that figure of 500,000.  The number of getaways are larger than cities such as Miami, Oakland, Tampa and Cleveland. Where have all those illegals gone?  The administration doesn't have a clue about their whereabouts or whether they are terrorists, gang members or drug runners. 

Open borders are facilitating a tide of lethal drugs into America. The Border Patrol  has seized 1,007 pounds of cocaine, 4,009 pounds of methamphetamine and 461 pounds of fentanyl at the border.  No one knows how many drugs swept undetected into the U.S. 

It is no coincidence that drug overdose fatalities are spiraling in the U.S..  More than two-thirds of overdose deaths involve fentanyl.  A trailer loaded with 1,337 pounds of meth, was recently seized. Meth is often mixed with fentanyl by the cartel. Two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a lethal dose.

It is open season for drug and human smuggling into Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Democrats control Congress, yet refuse to even acknowledge the problem much less address it.  Instead, they criticize governors dealing with the catastrophic invasion every day at the border.  

Democrats often deflect the border issue by insisting on immigrant reform first.  Why haven't Democrats acted?  They have the votes. The answer is obvious.  They prefer an open border irregardless of the consequences for the country. Their policy is killing immigrants and Americans.  

Monday, September 19, 2022

Biden's Twilight Zone Presidency

There have been an avalanche of surreal events involving President Biden but none more bizarre than a White House celebration on inflation reduction on the very day his government announced an 8.3% hike in the cost of living.  It eerily resembled a Twilight Zone television episode.  

While touting the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden boasted that gasoline prices are down an average of $1.30 since the beginning of summer. However, the cost per gallon is still 25.6% higher than a year ago. Russia's Putin was blamed for the price hike, so, facetiously, does he get credit for the decline?

Gas prices are dropping because demand for fuel has faltered 4.4% this year.  Another contributing factor  is some states have suspended gasoline taxes which lowers the average cost of a gallon.  Industry experts expect prices to escalate again when the release of Strategic Petroleum Reserves ends this fall.

During his back-slapping speech, the president said; "We're getting other prices down."  Exactly which ones is he talking about?   A Department of Labor report released the same day recorded the largest food price increases since May, 1979--an 11.4% jump over the past year. 

Here's some examples of soaring food prices: Eggs, 39.8%; flour, 23.3%; milk; 17%; bread 16.2%; chicken, 16.6%; meats, 6.7%; pork, 6.8%, fruits and vegetables, 9.4%.  A industry report shows lower-income households in particular are skipping nutritional food items because of the inflated price. 

Utilities are rising, especially natural gas, which climbed 33% since last year. With winter coming, prices will spike. New vehicle prices are 10.1% higher than 2021 and rent continues to skyrocket: the nationwide average for a one-bedroom apartment has mushroomed 27.1%.

Asked if he was concerned about 8.3% inflation, the president responded: "No, I'm not because we're talking about one-tenth of 1%," an apparent reference to a dip in some prices. Be assured average Americans are not fist bumping in joy at the check-out counter at their local grocery store.

But, of course, he is not the only person in the administration that does not allow facts to stand in the way of dubious pronouncements. In an interview, Vice President Kamala Harris twice claimed the porous southern border is "secure." The sycophant reporter did not challenge her obvious falsehood.

She said the following in a television interview: "We have a secure border in that that (sic) is a priority of any nation, including ours and our administration."  You can't make this stuff up.  

The vice president's claim is particularly egregious considering she is the administration's official Border Czar.  She hasn't  personally visited the border, so she might be excused for knowing so little about the current crisis. Although you might surmise, she could find out if she wanted. 

Southwest border apprehensions in fiscal year 2022, which ends in September, have already hit 1.9 million arrests.  This is the highest number ever recorded since the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol began tracking apprehensions in 1925.  That doesn't fit the definition of security at the border.  

But Harris' statement pales in comparison to the whopper told by Biden's Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.  Questioned about border security, she replied: "It's not like people are just walking across the border."  What alternative universe is she living in? 

There is a large cache of videos showing immigrants not only walking across the border, but climbing fences, swimming and being ferried across the Rio Grande River in boats operated by Mexican drug cartel members. Swarms of illegals are coming because they know the border is open.   

Cue the Twilight Zone music.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen can always be counted to deliver a Rod Serling gem. (Serling was the creator of Twilight Zone.) She assured Americans for months inflation was temporary, even as the data showed the pressure on prices was continuing to mount. 

Then after two quarters of negative GDP growth, Yellen delivered a non sequitur by calling the economic decline a "transition" not a recession, ignoring the long-established definition.  Two quarters of negative growth denotes a recession.  

Now Yellen is backtracking again by admitting the country faces "a risk" of recession as it battles inflation.  Even if the third quarter delivers negative growth data, it would not surprise if Yellen updated the term to "extended transition." This administration knows no shame.

There are two conclusions that can be drawn from this Twilight Zone administration: Either President Biden and his team believe Americans are stupid or they are convinced their lies will be accepted as fact by a compliant media prone to echo the administration's narrative.

Whatever the conclusion, Americans are not entertained nor fooled by Washington's Twilight Zone episodes. 

Monday, September 12, 2022

Unjust DOJ Cracks Down On FBI Criticism

Criticism of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is now off limits. President Biden, the Department of Justice and the FBI's top official have deemed it dangerous to question the agency's integrity. Their puffed up outrage comes after the FBI raided the home of former President Donald Trump.

No one in the administration appears concerned about the chilling effect of dispatching more than 30 armed FBI agents to carry out an unprecedented search at the residence of Biden's chief political rival. All the facts in the case are still being sorted, but that hasn't stopped damaging DOJ leaks to the media.

After the raid, Republicans castigated the FBI.  Democrats acted as if criticism of the agency was an act of terrorism.  Apparently, they do not recognize their own hypocrisy. The party has often been critical of the FBI when it suited their politics. 

Democrats were indignant when then FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress in 2016 about an investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails in the heat of a presidential election.  Comey was excoriated for attempting to influence and manipulate the election.  Clinton blamed Comey for her defeat.

Do you remember any Democrats grumbling that it is unpatriotic to critique the FBI?  Me neither.  The fact is the FBI's credibility already rests on thin ice. Just consider the agency's handling of former Secretary of State Clinton, who had classified emails on a server at her residence in New York state.

There were no armed FBI raids on her residence to seize the server. Perhaps there should have been. Clinton aides destroyed her mobile devices with a hammer and her attorney deleted about 32,000 emails which Clinton later claimed were "personal."  The FBI never examined those deleted emails.

Forget your Trump hated for a moment and ask yourself this question: Why did the FBI handle the Clinton and Trump cases involving classified information so differently?  Media fact-checkers have issued parsed explanations on why the two cases are not similar.  That doesn't answer the question about equal treatment by the FBI.

If this was the only example of politicized agents and questionable investigations, the FBI's motives might not be under extreme scrutiny. But it's not.  

The FBI and DOJ used opposition research from Hillary Clinton's campaign to gin up a bogus investigation about collusion between President Trump and Russia. The bureau issued warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on Carter Page, Trump's campaign manager.

In the wake of the Russian hoax, Former FBI Director Andrew McCabe was fired for misleading investigators about the Clinton connection and for perpetuating the fiction. McCabe was a top official, not some flunky.  

A couple of weeks ago GOP Senator Chuck Grassley revealed that whistleblowers inside the FBI had outed an agency employee who tried to discredit and shut down the investigation into Hunter Biden's business dealings.  The insiders allege the agent ran interference to halt further inquiries. 

Whistleblowers fingered high-ranking agent Timothy Thibault. FBI Director Christopher Ray called the allegations against Thibault "deeply troubling." He pledged that whistleblowers would be protected.  Apparently he didn't check with DOJ head Merritt Garland.

Within days, Merritt Garland issued a memo banning communications with members of Congress by Justice Department employees, including FBI agents. Garland's pretense was to protect the employees from "partisan or other inappropriate influences." No, his intent is to silence whistleblowers. 

Garland is clearly worried about leaks about his agency's bias against Republicans.  He has good reason to be after Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg revealed an attempt by FBI sources to quash stories about the Hunter Biden laptop during the 2020 election. 

A politicized FBI and Justice Department are imminent threats to democracy. Garland needs to reign in partisan FBI agents and avoid politicizing investigations.   If he refuses, the president should fire Garland and then clean house at the FBI and DOJ.