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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Thursday, May 06, 2021
Kenosha Residents Demand to Know Why Outsiders Helped Run Wisconsin Election
by M.D. Kittle: MADISON, Wis. — Six Kenosha residents have filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission alleging the city allowed liberal outside groups to take over running November’s election.
The action is the latest in a growing number of election law complaints against the “famous WI-5”—the cities of Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine.
But unlike in Green Bay, where the city’s clerk challenged the infiltration by the outside groups and meddling city officials, emails obtained by Wisconsin Spotlight show that election officials in the other four Democratic Party strongholds were glad to go along for the well-funded ride.
The emails show how deeply entrenched the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life’s network of left-wing “partners” was in administering elections in the five Wisconsin cities—and how partisan the activists were.
‘Democracy a Design Problem’
The six residents filed the complaint against Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, City Clerk Matt Krauter, and Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.
They allege that the city violated the U.S. Constitution’s elections and electors clauses by signing contracts with third-party groups that allowed those groups to take over large facets of election administration.
Residents of Green BayandRacine have filed similar complaints.
“You are the famous WI-5. Congrats on successful administration of last week’s state primary!” Whitney May, Center for Tech and Civic Life’s director of government services, wrote to local election officials in the five cities after the statewide primary elections in August. “Excited to see November be an even bigger success for you and your teams.”
With November in mind, May wanted to connect the election officials to a CTCL partner, the Center for Civic Design, which is a Maryland-based policy organization focused on election administration that partners with left-of-center organizations such as Pierre Omidyar’sDemocracy Fund. Omidyar is founder of the multinational e-commerce corporation eBay and a generous donor to Democratic causes and candidates.
Center for Civic Design likes to say that “democracy is a design problem.”
“The center focuses efforts on the nearly 30 million voters that are not fully fluent in English. It seeks to shape the voting experience and voting materials to ease voter comprehension and increase their voter participation,” InfluenceWatch notes.
The center’s designers crafted, among other election-related materials, the city of Madison’s Voter Pocket Guide, according to an Aug. 28 email to the group of local election officials from Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl.
In her email, Witzel-Behl also notes Madison’s “Democracy in the Park” events in late September and early October. Advocates of election security have described the events as ballot harvesting campaigns.
Connecting With Chew
May introduced Michelle Nelson, Kenosha’s information coordinator, to Ryan Chew, Wisconsin state lead for the elections group, as one of the Center for Tech and Civic Life’s “technical assistance partners” available to support the city clerk’s office.
“He and his team will be connecting with you in the coming days regarding [absentee ballot] drop boxes for November,” May wrote in an Aug. 11 email.
May said Chew wanted Kenosha election officials to get video footage of poll workers “handling mail ballots,” adding that the images could be “used for public messaging in November.”
She sent a follow-up email Aug. 17 to Nelson, laying out precisely what Chew could do for Kenosha elections.
Chew, long the deputy director of elections for Cook County, Illinois, appears to be a critic of President Donald Trump and a supporter of his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, based on his tweets in recent months.
“Congressmen @dgvaladao and @RepTomRice, thank you for your votes on impeachment, no doubt difficult for you, but important for the future of democracy,” Chew wrote on his Twitter account Jan. 13, the day the House impeached Trump for a second time and a week before Biden’s inauguration. “As I understand it, this was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.”
Congressmen @dgvaladao and @RepTomRice, thank you for your votes on impeachment, no doubt difficult for you, but important for the future of democracy. As I understand it, this was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.
— Ryan Chew (@ElectionsRyan) On Nov. 4, the day after a presidential election that remained in doubt in key battleground states, Chew tweeted to two liberal pundits—Nate Silver, founder of political website FiveThirtyEight, and Josh Marshall, founder of Talking Points Memo.
— Madison WI Clerk (@MadisonWIClerk) October 1, 2020Clear Coordination
Nelson did not return a call seeking comment, nor did Krauter, the city clerk-treasurer. Antaramian, the mayor, did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
In a one-sentence email Wednesday morning to Wisconsin Spotlight, Kenosha City Administrator John W. Morrissey said: “We believe the complaint filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission is frivolous.”
Asked to explain why, Morrissey replied in a second email: “No, we will let it follow the process.”
The emails show that Kenosha, like the four other “WI-5” cities, signed a contract with the Center for Tech and Civic Life for the $862,779 in grant money that the city received.
That’s the real rub, legally speaking, say the lawyers representing the complainants in Kenosha, Green Bay, and Racine. Binding city election officials to the terms of an outside groups’ “election safety and security” contract, they say, is at odds with the U.S. Constitution. That document designates municipal clerks and the Wisconsin Elections Commission as the only overseers of elections in the state.
The hefty grants issued to each of the five Wisconsin cities came with “clawbacks,” meaning the Center for Tech and Civic Life could take back the funding if the cities didn’t do what CTCL asked.
Coordination and interconnections among the five cities and the outside, third-party groups is clear in their communications.
In an email with the subject line “Center for Tech & Civic Life Next Steps, Kenosha,” Vicky Selkowe, manager of strategic initiatives and community partnerships for the city of Racine, introduces Nelson and other members of the city clerk/treasurer’s office to Tiana Epps-Johnson, CTCL’s founder and executive director.
“Tiana will be sending you a draft grant agreement for your review and approval on Monday,” Selkowe wrote in the July 10 email. “Tiana and her team have arranged for extensive expert technical assistance from fantastic and knowledgable [sic] partners across the country, to help each city implement our parts of the Plan.”
The “plan” is the so-called Safe Voting Plan that the five cities put together to rake in more than $6.3 million in combined CTCL grants at the time. That amount ultimately would exceed $8 million.
The question that no one from four of the five “Wi-5” cities seems to ask or be concerned about: Why are “experts” from all over the country coming into their cities to “help” with the Nov. 3 presidential election?
In the end, Wisconsin’s five largest cities saw massive turnout, with Biden substantially benefiting from it.
The Democratic nominee won Milwaukee with nearly 79% of the vote to Trump’s 19.6%. In Milwaukee County, Biden claimed more than 69% of the vote.
In Dane County, home to far-left Madison, the state’s capital, Biden beat Trump 76% to 23%.
Biden won by more than 6,000 votes in the city of Kenosha, but lost Kenosha County to Trump, 50.8% to 47.7%.
Biden won Green Bay by about 4,000 votes, but lost surrounding Brown County to Trump, 52.8% to 45.6%. Trump also won Racine County with 51.3%, although Biden picked up more votes in the city of Racine.
In final statewide official results, Biden defeated Trump by 49.6% to 48.9%, flipping a state with 10 electoral votes that Trump won in 2016.
Extra Help
The Center for Tech and Civic Life received $350 million from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife to “help” local election offices across the nation administer “safe and secure elections.”
As a Wisconsin Spotlight investigation uncovered, local election officials in Wisconsin worked with the center’s partner organizations, such as the National Vote at Home Institute. Emails show longtime Democratic operative Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, Wisconsin lead for the institute, was intricately involved in administering both Green Bay’s and Milwaukee’s elections, offering to “cure” or correct absentee ballots.
Spitzer-Rubenstein’s organization shows up in the Kenosha emails, too. They also reveal that Kenosha city officials were not shy about asking for additional help from CTCL.
“I’m preparing to discuss with [city] administration the need for full time election specialist staff for our upcoming budget. I realize this is not grant related; however, I thought maybe someone in your group could provide some insight as to why that is useful in a city clerk’s office,” Nelson, Kenosha’s information coordinator, wrote to CTCL’s May in an Aug. 19 email.
May apparently was happy to oblige, sending back “language” she drafted that “may help you frame the need for more staff.”
Robert Spindell, a Republican-appointed member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said he is troubled by the developments.
“What we see from this is the Golden Rule, which is basically the man or woman who has the gold makes the rules,” Spindell said. “I don’t think anyone in Wisconsin buys that this is a good idea.”
As with the previous complaints, he said, Wisconsin Elections Commission staff attorneys and Wolfe, the administrator, will not be able to participate in reviewing the complaint since it names Wolfe.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice will have to appoint outside counsel, as was the case in the complaints filed against Green Bay and Racine.
------------------------- This report was updated May 5 to include the city administrator’s comment. Article published by by M.D. Kittle Tags:M.D. Kittle, Kenosha Residents, Demand to Know Why, Outsiders, Helped Run, Wisconsin ElectionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:editorial cartoon, AF Branco, CrackpotsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Tom Balek: Yesterday we pulled into a burger joint drive-through. We were in kind of a hurry. “Good,” I told my son. “There’s only one car in line ahead of us.” It was before fast food rush hour, so we expected to sail right through and be on our way.
We pulled up behind the first car, and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, the guy in front of us got to place his order through the speaker box, and pulled forward. We got up to the speaker, and waited. And waited. And waited. The drive-through kid finally got on the speaker box and took our order – no explanation or apology. But the guy in front had not received his order, so we waited. And waited. And waited.
Cars were piling up behind us, half way around the block. After fifteen minutes, several drivers behind us gave up, pulled out of line and drove away. Five minutes later, we got to pull up to the window. “This is not my idea of fast food,” I complained to the window kid. “Do you know we waited 20 minutes?”
“I’m the only one here,” was his defense (meaning it was just him and the cook in the kitchen). Still, he was clearly operating in slow motion – it appeared to be a “slow-down” strike.
I wish this was just a one-time anomaly, but sadly, it isn’t. This same drama has been playing out for months in our neck of the woods, at every fast food drive-through. And don’t even think about eating inside, because almost none of the restaurants with drive-throughs still provide inside dining.
This seems to be a permanent and unwelcome change in the restaurant business model. We may never again be able to enjoy little things like fast, courteous service, napkins and condiments cheerfully provided, free self-served soft drink and coffee refills, and indoor seating.
Why?
China Virus • After nearly two years of hysteria by the government, the media, the schools, and the rest of the “establishment”, customers are still willing to trade comfort, fun, and value for a false sense of security. Many businesses use the China Virus as an excuse for everything they don’t want to do. The fast food guys sell as many burgers as they did before the pandemic (maybe more), but without the cost of cleaning tables and restrooms and providing free condiments and refills. Plus they can significantly reduce staffing.
Like the government mandates, their China Virus “safety” practices are hilariously unscientific. My favorite local Chinese food joint, for instance, changed from full-service to carry-out only, keeping ten feet of separation between the customers and the cashier. Rather than take cash or credit card from your hand, she pushes a “tray” across a long table for you to drop your payment. When she retrieves your money, she places your order in the tray and pushes it back to you. The tray, like the door, the table, the pen, and most of the restaurant, has not been cleaned once in the two years it has been in use! Not to mention the cash and cards that are home to billions of bacteria.
Endless Unemployment and Stimulus Checks • Businesses, especially those in lower-paid service industries like fast food, find it impossible to get and keep employees at any rate of pay. Every single fast food restaurant around here has a “help wanted” sign, and the going rate at the more successful ones is $16 per hour – that’s $33k per year, plus benefits, not exactly an after-school gig. Many former restaurant employees are using the same China Virus excuse to stay home and receive government funds. Our current administration promises more of the same on a massive scale, in a naked attempt to buy votes from laborers, entice illegal immigrants, and cause an economic crisis that ostensibly only their brand of fundamental societal change can solve.
Sneak preview: expect shortages and big prices for Biden-gas this summer as the gas truck driver shortage hits. They went on unemployment when the China Virus tanked the economy, and they ain’t coming back any time soon. Biden’s abandonment of pipeline construction and energy production won’t help either, long-term.
I’m going to save my gas, stay home and barbecue my own burgers. Without major pushback, we won’t stop the slow freight-train of woke fundamental change.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
----------------------- Tom Balek (@TomBalek) is a fellow conservative activist, blogger, musician and contributes to the ARRA News Service. Tom resides in South Carolina and seeks to educate those too busy with their work and families to notice how close to the precipice our economy has come. He blogs at Rockin' On the Right SideTags:Tom Balek, fast food, burgers, endangered speciesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Americans for Prosperity Activates Grassroots in Support of Spending Restraint
by AFP: There’s an explosion of spending going on in Washington, with lawmakers competing to waste today’s tax revenues and borrow even more from future generations.
Before 2020, the federal government had never spent more than $4.5 trillion in a single fiscal year.
But in 2020, Congress appropriated approximately $4 trillion just to address the coronavirus pandemic, and the U.S. government ran a record deficit of $3.1 trillion.
Even though a significant portion of those funds remained unspent, and the U.S. economy had begun to recover, Congress and the president approved another $1.9 trillion COVID-19 spending bill earlier this year — one that even includes provisions to keep spending by the states at elevated levels.
And now, as if all that weren’t enough, many in Washington are pushing for an additional $4 trillion.
Talking to people where they live to warn of wasteful Washington spending
The staff and volunteers at Americans for Prosperity are working to show policymakers that the American people favor responsible budgeting and fiscal restraint.
We know hardworking taxpayers don’t want to see their money wasted, which is why just 36 percent of Americans support the so-called infrastructure spending package being debated in Congress.
President Biden's enormous infrastructure spending plan calls for TRILLIONS of dollars for a partisan wishlist that has little to do with roads, bridges, or trains.
People understand that amid this roughly $6 trillion in emergency funding so far, about $650 billion has gone to “extraneous” policies.
That includes such things as a private-sector pension bailout and an expansion of the Affordable Care Act. The last thing they want is for lawmakers to add another wasteful multitrillion-dollar tab — especially when consumer prices are rising and inflation may be coming back.
With so many concerned about our nation’s fiscal future, AFP President Tim Phillips was recently in Iowa to talk with people about what’s happening in Washington.
Americans are fired up over the so-called "infrastructure" spending bill coming out of the @WhiteHouse.@TimPhillipsAFP spoke to motivated Iowans in Des Moines this week: "This is nothing more than an attempt to push through failed ideas and special interest pet projects." pic.twitter.com/VrI0gNgduc
In an interview with the Washington Times prior to the event, Phillips said:Part of the message will be, ‘enough is enough here.’ Let’s rein this in and here’s the chance for you to vote ‘no’ and show your district that you’re … looking through the impact on the folks back home,There are likely to be other stops as well, according to another report:Tim Phillips…is going on the road to fight major elements of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan and the potential tax increases to help fund it … The stop in Des Moines is a sign of what’s to come across the country as the Biden administration and congressional Democrats craft a $2 trillion infrastructure-jobs-tax package.
AFP has long recognized the importance of efforts at a grassroots level to drive better policy. Our staff and volunteers inform people about the issues that affect them, both at the state and federal level. That’s certainly true now, when so many are concerned about the growing cost of spending and debt.
Free Speech Under Siege, Cheney's Challenge, Biden's Blunders
Gary Bauer
by Gary Bauer: Free Speech Under Siege
If we needed more evidence of the threat America faces from the totalitarian left, we got it this morning.
As you may recall, Facebook banned President Trump from its platforms on January 7th. Facebook swallowed hook, line and sinker the left's lie that Trump was a dangerous dictator.
Today, the company's Oversight Board, sometimes referred to as Facebook's "Supreme Court," upheld that decision. As a result, Trump's accounts will remain blocked, at least for now.
The Oversight Board, however, scolded Facebook for "violating its own rules" when it banned President Trump for allegedly inciting the violence that occurred on January 6th. Trump did no such thing. He urged his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically" make their voices heard.
The board gave Facebook six months to develop clear and consistent rules. Maybe then, Trump's accounts will be restored.
That's outrageous! It's utterly inconceivable that a sitting or former president of the United States could be censored. No president is above the law, but no president is beneath it either.
If Big Tech social media giants have the power to suspend the First Amendment rights of a sitting president, then no citizen is safe from censorship. Sadly, that is precisely the Orwellian, Big Brother regime that the intolerant, totalitarian left is creating.
Once again, we see just how far Big Tech will go to suffocate conservative speech and the America First movement that is personified by Donald Trump. All the Big Tech social media platforms are censoring conservatives. If we want freedom to flourish, this threat to free speech must be defeated.
Trump Responds
President Trump responded to Facebook's decision with a bold defense of free speech. Trump declared:
"What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country. Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before. The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process."
Trump also announced the launch of his own social media platform yesterday, which you can visit here. It's still a work in progress, but it provides the former president with an opportunity to post regular statements.
Cheney's Challenge
Rep. Liz Cheney, a member of the House Republican leadership team, has continued to go out of her way to attack Donald Trump and the America First agenda that attracted 75 million votes last November. At a fundraising event Monday night with Paul Ryan, Cheney again ripped the former president and de facto leader of the Republican Party.
Her repeated barbs have roiled the GOP caucus and frustrations are boiling over. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy was caught on an open mic yesterday telling Fox News host Steve Doocy, "I think she's got real problems. I've had it with her. You know, I've lost confidence."
Some House Republicans are now predicting that Cheney will be ousted from her leadership position by the end of the month or even sooner.
Predictably, establishment politicians inside and outside the GOP are rushing to Cheney's defense. Nancy Pelosi praised Cheney's "courage and patriotism." John Kasich hailed her as a "martyr." Mitt Romney tweeted his support too.
But rather than presenting a conservative alternative to the radical left, Cheney is constantly making herself the issue. She's hurting the GOP's chances of succeeding in 2022 and 2024. As one House conservative put it, Cheney "seems very focused on the past and tearing down other Republicans like myself."
Rep. Cheney is a well-known cheerleader for pouring more blood and treasure into the mountains of Afghanistan. But that's just not where the country or the GOP is right now. Twenty years after 9/11, the vast majority of Americans are done.
And when Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) published a detailed memo about how the GOP could appeal to working-class voters, Cheney blasted it as "neo-Marxist and wrong."
Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall her ever saying that about Joe Biden's radical agenda or the real Marxists who run the Black Lives Matter organization. Instead, she's giving Joe Biden fist bumps!
Not surprisingly, President Trump today announced his "complete and total" endorsement of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to replace Liz Cheney as House GOP Conference Chair.
Speaking Of Joe Biden. . .
What exactly is Joe Biden's message when it comes to masks?
During Biden's visit to Georgia last week, Joe and Jill Biden met with former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter at their home. The photo of their meeting is bizarre. It makes the Bidens look like giants.
But they were inside a home with two people in their 90s and they aren't wearing their masks. Yet as soon as they left the house and went outside, the Bidens put their masks on.
That's the exact opposite of the science! You mask up inside with vulnerable elderly individuals, and the mask is completely unnecessary outside.
This constant resistance to getting back to normal is not helping the effort to achieve herd immunity. And, sadly, the president seems befuddled when he's talking about this critical issue.
While attempting to update the nation yesterday on his new national vaccination goal, President Biden repeatedly instructed Americans to register for their inoculations at "Vaccines.gum," instead of vaccines.gov.
He also urged them to follow the "CCD guidance." I'm pretty sure he meant the CDC's guidance, which he isn't following.
And Biden seemed to suggest that people could die multiple times if they weren't vaccinated. Undoubtedly, those deaths would be counted among the 200 million Americans Biden thinks have already died from COVID.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to mock Biden. But it's clear that our president increasingly struggles to make simple statements. That should concern all of us.
By the way, where's that health report on Biden that Jen Psaki promised to release? She might need to circle back on that one.
------------------------- Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer) is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working FamiliesTags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Free Speech, Under Siege, Cheney's Challenge, Biden's BlundersTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Judd Garrett: “Drink the Kool-Aid” has become so much of a cliche in our culture that many of the people who say it, don’t even know its origins. On November 18, 1978, in the Jonestown settlement in Guyana, South America, at the orders of their leader James Jones, 909 people lined up and drank a cup of Kool-Aid that had been laced with cyanide. All 909 people who drank the Kool-Aid that day died.
What would cause 909 people to drink poisoned Kool-Aid? Why did none of those 909 people ask the obvious questions, why am I listening to this guy? Why would I drink Kool-Aid that’s going to kill me? The answer; blind devotion to their leader, refusing to question his irrational requests. Where did this devotion come from? These people had been following James Jones blindly for years. His first request of them offered something more promising than drinking poisoned Kool-Aid; it was a chance at something glorious. That’s the way it works. The first ask of compliance is never mass suicide. It’s never destructive. It’s always something good. They get you to comply with more palatable requests first in order to build a compliance of trust.
Five years earlier, Jim Jones promised these people, a utopia, that’s what Jonestown was supposed to be, a heaven on earth. All they had to do for this utopia was give him their money, give up their freedom, their rights, and follow him. It seemed like a fair exchange, money, freedom, rights for utopia. And these people did it willingly. They brought their children. They convinced their friends. They blindly followed their leader and his vision. The most dangerous leaders ask their people to give up fundamental rights for their own good. And when they do that, buckle up, something bad is about to happen.
Over time, many people living in the Jonestown community realized that it was no utopia, that all they had given up was not worth what Jonestown was giving them. Some spoke out, others wanted out. But people weren’t allowed to speak against Jim Jones and the community, and no one was allowed to leave. When a contingent of Americans, led by California Congressman Jim Ryan and some reporters visited Jonestown, some potential defectors secretly asked Ryan to help them leave. Ryan and the reporters were subsequently gunned down by the Jonestown guards. When military forces closed in on the community because of these murders, Jones convinced the people to drink the Kool-Aid and commit mass suicide by telling them the authorities were coming to get them. Most complied, only a few people escaped with their lives.
In America today, we are being asked to give up some of our freedom, surrender some of our fundamental rights, hand over more of our money to our leaders, and they promise they will protect us, and produce their utopian vision of equity. And people comply willingly; they demand their fellow citizens obey government mandates; they cheer the raising of their taxes; they pump their fists approving the gutting of our Constitution. Think about it, there are American citizens who believe restricting rights and freedoms, and raising taxes are good things. They argue for giving more of our freedoms and money to some of the most corrupt people in the country. This is the mentality of people who would eventually line up and drink the poisoned Kool-Aid.
For the last 14 months, the vast majority of Americans have blindly followed what the government asked, whether it was locking down their state, shutting down schools and businesses for almost a year, destroying people’s lives and livelihoods, stripping us of our rights.
Our leaders told us to do this, and like the people in Jonestown, we complied at our own peril. We are continually told we must wear a mask, even when outside where the chance of getting or spreading the virus is so small that it’s statistically insignificant, but many people still blindly comply. We are told we must have a vaccine injected into our bodies because it prevents us from getting and spreading the virus, but at the same time we are still mandated to wear a mask to stop the vaccinated people from getting and spreading the virus they have been vaccinated against, and people blindly comply to these contradictory commands and shun those who question them.
I’m not against wearing a mask inside or the vaccines. What I am against is government mandates that we, the people, are not allowed to question. What I am against is citizens bullying and shaming other citizens into blindly complying with these government mandates.
This is the type of mentality that results in 909 people lying motionless in Guyana, South America from mass suicide. Many of the people who drank the Kool-Aid in Jonestown were not forced at gun point, they were pressured by the other members of the community into complying with the leaders’ irrational wishes. People were so afraid to stand up to the crowd that they chose death over defiance.
‘Shut-up and do it’, they were told, as we have been told for the last 14 months. We should be able to question the mandates of our leaders without being shamed, shunned, canceled, or fired. And those who disagree with that would probably have been one of the first in line holding the Dixie Cup filled with red Kool-Aid, shaming others to do the same. It is a scary mentality that we see these days. People are so scared to stand up to our leaders or the mob that they will sit by and allow the death of our country rather than questioning unfounded mandates.
We are humans. We are adults. We require more than telling us, ‘just get the vaccine’, or ‘just do as you’re told’. Convince us. But that requires the use of logic, reason, and facts. But when our medical leaders such as Dr. Fauci and the CDC have been wrong, or contradicting themselves and science for the last 14 months, logic and facts cannot be summoned to convince us, so they shame us, ‘get the vaccine or you’re a bad person’, and ‘wear a mask or you’re evil’. They are not using logic and reason; they are using fear and emotion. People who ask questions get bullied, shamed, or shunned, which creates more obstinance.
The vaccines are not poisoned Kool-Aid designed to kill us all, but they may be the precursor to that Kool-Aid. Our blind compliance has shown our leaders what they can mandate the citizens to do without question. Even though I believe the vaccines are good, I also believe the United States citizens should be allowed to question them, they should be allowed to decide for themselves not to take the vaccine. I and my children have been vaccinated many times. Even though the Covid-19 vaccines were the quickest brought to market, and they only have emergency use authorization from the FDA, they are the only vaccines that the patient receiving are not allowed to question, and about which the medical professionals administering are not forthcoming. All the other vaccines that I or my children have received, the doctors and nurses giving the shot were overly transparent and informative about their pros and cons. They were extremely patient in answering my questions, making it clear it was my choice. There was no pressure, no secrecy. The pressure and secrecy surrounding the Covid-19 vaccines are what fosters the non-compliance.
What is at stake here is much more dangerous and deadly than Covid-19. Questioning our leaders is a fundamental principle of a free society. We should be allowed to question everything our leaders say, everything. Once we lose that, we will lose our rights, we will lose our country, we will lose ourselves, and many of us will lose our lives.
------------------------------------ Judd Garrett writes for Objectivity is the Objective. His most recent non-writing job was as Director of Advanced Scouting with the Dallas Cowboys. He is a frequent contributor on the topics of sports and politics to Real Clear Politics.Tags:Judd Garrett, Objectivity is the Objective, Drinking the Kool-AidTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Bill Donohue: President Biden is getting high marks for his overall performance, but if there is one issue that is dogging him, it is the crisis at the border. He even refuses to call it a crisis. Indeed, neither he nor his border-in-chief vice president has shown any interest in visiting the border.
Two new surveys spell disaster for the president on this subject. The Pew Research Center poll found that almost 7 in 10 Americans say Biden is doing a bad job dealing with the increasing number of migrants who are crashing our border. Most want more staffing and resources made available to handle the throngs of people, often unaccompanied children, who are seeking asylum. The majority also favor improving the safety and sanitary conditions facing these people.
The public knows that the situation is worse now than before. In fact, over the past year there has been a 20% increase in the share of Americans who say illegal immigration is a “very big” national problem.
A poll by tippinsights (TIPP), commissioned by the National Sheriffs’ Association, found that 55% of Americans think the border crisis is making matters worse for migrant women, many of whom are forced into indentured servitude and prostitution. Almost 6 in 10 say that the increase in migrants who are suffering (e.g., drowning) is preventable. Half believe the southern border crisis is contributing to the spread of Covid.
Since Biden took office, he has issued almost 100 executive orders on immigration, approximately half of which reversed initiatives taken by the Trump administration. According to Rep. Scott Franklin, “What’s happening to our border is unprecedented. We are on track for more illegal border crossings in 2021 than any time in the past 15 years—perhaps ever.”
Biden is not only out-of-step with the public; he is at odds with the bishops as well.
The bishops along the border of the United States and northern Mexico released a joint statement last month saying, “Undoubtedly, nations have a right to maintain their borders. This is vital to their sovereignty and self-determination. At the same time, there is a shared responsibility of all nations to preserve human life and provide for safe, orderly, and humane immigration, including the right to asylum.”
The Pew survey suggests that the public and these bishops are pretty much on the same page. We need to protect our borders and improve conditions for migrants. It is Biden who is out of sync.
A Lexis-Nexis search of Donald Trump and “we must protect our borders” turned up 884 instances where his name appeared with these words in a news story. A search of Joe Biden on this measure turned up one (that was over a year ago, and it was conditional in nature).
We need to know why. Why is there such reluctance on the part of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to speak forthrightly about this issue? Why do they seemingly want to have more illegal aliens in our country? Moreover, Harris needs to stop with talk about “root causes.” It is a dodge: If we treated every problem this way, it would be a prescription for paralysis.
At the very least, Harris needs to speak directly to those who are suffering, as well as to border patrol agents who are burdened by current policies. That, however, cannot be done from Washington, D.C.
------------------------------ Bill Donohue writes for Catholic League.Tags:Bill Donohue, Catholic League, President Biden, Border Problem Is ExplodingTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:AF Branco, editorial cartoon, Fishy Bureau of InvestigationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Inflation will grow because the Biden administration has no other technique for paying for the massive spending its various allies require. by Newt Gingrich: Every American is going to pay higher taxes due to the Biden administration’s policies.
Remember that inflation is a hidden tax. It is a powerful (and often unseen and unstoppable) way for a government to pay for its goods and services without raising visible taxes that make people angry.
Warren Buffett is widely regarded as the best long-term investor in America. He clearly has moved from concerns about unemployment to concerns about inflation.
“We are seeing substantial inflation,” Buffett said at the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway. “We are raising prices. People are raising prices to us, and it’s being accepted.”
Buffett’s private sector experience is reinforced by former Secretary of the Treasury and Ph.D in economics Larry Summers, who warned during a forum that inflation indicators were “flashing red alarm” and that “all the signs are for inflation starting to break out.
“We were providing demand well in excess over the next couple of years of any plausible estimate of the economy’s potential to produce, and that meant substantial price increases,” Summers said.
As my daughter Jackie Cushman (who holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation) wrote in a recent column:
“There might soon be an opportunity for those who are younger to learn more about inflation, and possibly stagflation. The U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index was up 1.6% in February from over a year ago. The expectation for March is 2.3%. The Consumer Price Index was 2.6% in March and the Producer Price Index, which measures wholesale prices, was 4.2% that month. Food is more expensive, housing is through the roof and I was shocked at the gas prices just this week.”
Inflation will grow because the Biden administration has no other technique for paying for the massive spending its various allies require.
The Teachers Unions must be paid off. Government employees must be paid off. Blue states with impossible pension burdens and enormously inefficient bureaucracies and work rules must get money from Washington. Left-wing activists must be given federal money to increase their efforts to radically change America. Trying to train Americans to give up work and join a dependency society so they rely on government instead of themselves takes an enormous amount of money. It also cuts revenues from taxes (since people quit working) while increasing the cost of taking care of those who decline to work.
What makes this program of massive spending so difficult to sustain is the fact that the American people are profoundly against tax increases.
According to Scott Rasmussen, Americans favor less government and lower taxes. In fact, while President Biden is fighting for a tax increase – which he claims would apply only to people making above $400,000 – their instinctive distrust of politicians leads Americans to favor cutting federal income taxes by a 75 percent to 25 percent majority.
Governing America must start with the reality that America was founded through a revolution triggered in part by people angry at government for taxes which were seen as unfair and oppressive.
Faced with popular hostility to taxes and the intense demands from the left for more government spending, the classic answer has been a deliberate policy of inflation.
Inflation will be the key byproduct of the Biden administration’s desperate strategy of spending beyond its means.
Government cheating by inflating currency is as old as government itself.
Back when coins were all metal, governments would begin to shave off part of each coin which would then provide precious metals to mint more light coins. Gold and silver coins were also debased by mixing cheap metals in with them. This led to the habit of biting coins to make sure they were real.
With the invention of paper currency, it became easier to cheat people by simply printing more paper money than there were reserves to back them up. The result is the dollar would lose value every year as there was more paper money than goods and services. The scarcity would lead to price increases.
Inflation is especially bad for the poor, the retired, and small businesses. They do not have the resources to absorb inflation. So, their standard of living drops with each year of inflation.
When President Biden promises not to raise taxes on people who make less than $400,000 a year, he is profoundly misleading the American people. His big spending, big deficit program will raise the price of everything – and everyone will pay the hidden Biden tax.
Most of us are already paying the hidden Biden tax every time we go to buy gasoline. This is thanks to the combination of killing the Keystone XL Pipeline, restricting exploration on federal land, and a weakening dollar raising the price of oil on the world market (where it is measured in dollars and therefore goes higher when the dollar declines).
As you shop, keep watching for the hidden Biden taxes.
---------------------------- Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.Tags:Newt Gingrich, Biden's, Hidden Tax IncreaseTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
World Trade Organization Is Allowing Trade Cheats to Hide Their Cheating for Many Years
Seton Motley
by Seton Motley: Unlike the United Nations and World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO) can and should be an actually useful international entity. When it’s doing the things it is supposed to be doing.
As America First as I am, I do want US to engage in trade with other nations. I’d just like US to not get royally rooked when we do.
We want actual free trade. As in free from government impediments, tariffs – and subsidies. The latter being the most damaging to global free – and fair – trade.
A country tariffing and limiting imports – damages trade with that country. A country subsidizing its exports – damages trade with every country. Because they are artificially undercutting the actual market prices of the subsidized items.
“Missing notifications from WTO members outlining the subsidies they give to their enterprises continues to be an irritant in discussions in the WTO’s Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM).
“In a meeting on 27 April, the chair of the committee, Erik Solberg of Norway, once again highlighted the problem of absent notifications.
“The chair noted that despite reminders to members to submit their notifications in time, 80 members have still not submitted their 2019 notifications. In addition, 67 members still have not submitted their 2017 subsidy notifications, and 57 have still failed to submit their 2015 notifications….
“The committee continued to discuss the revised proposal submitted by the United States for ensuring timely responses to questions posed by members under Article 25.8 of the SCM Agreement.”Guess who is in arrears in their subsidy reporting? If you guessed massive subsidizer Brazil – congratulations, you win a cookie.
Brazil hasn’t reported its massive subsidy regime since 2018. Which means for all we know, Brazil has increased its already massive subsidy regime.
We do know Brazil has been exceedingly active in filing WTO complaintsagainst other, relatively minuscule subsidizers. Which is a joke. It’s like a Democrat owning nearly the entirety of the US news media – while incessantly whining about Fox News.
The US is right to try to get the WTO caught up on its members’ subsidy reporting. Their WTO colleagues are correct to back the play. We need to mend the WTO – not end it.
There is no other way of which I can think to monitor the global trade cheat landscape. So that we can then address it.
------------------------------ Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes articles to ARRA News Service.Tags:Seton Motley, Less Government, World Trade Organization, Allowing Trade Cheats, to Hide Their Cheating, for Many YearsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Paul Jacob: When an LA County Sheriff’s deputy pulled over a woman driving a Mercedes, she went on a tear that quickly become infamous. “You’re always gonna be a Mexican,” she scolded the cop, “you’ll never be white, you know that, right?”
Undoubtedly, this racist taunt from a black female motorist, confirmed by Fox News to be an area teacher, was in the name of anti-racism. Wokely, assuming that to be Latino and a cop must mean he “wants to be white.”
She claims that she became afraid of the deputy, who she kept calling a “murderer,” so she started recording him. Indeed, he pulled her over because she had been using her cell phone to record . . . while driving! After the stop, she continued to record him, which she (correctly) said she had every right to do. He persevered and gave her a ticket for having used her phone while driving.
He had a bodycam on, which his department does not require. The video he sent Fox journalist Bill Melugin no doubt got in front of The Narrative.
The woman, a serial complainer about police, did indeed file a complaint about his behavior.
Folks who earnestly worry about police abuse — and not, like this woman, who did so in a paranoiac and ideological and racist manner — might consider getting something for road altercations themselves: one for the dash, but also one on their very own person. And something that is not a phone! At least when driving.
Has the utility of the “cop cam” ever been better demonstrated?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
---------------------------------- Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.Tags:Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Bodycam vs. PhonecamTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Biden Administration has Declared War on Trump Supporters
Every American should tell their representatives in Congress to stand up to the Biden DoJ abuses of power. by Catherine Mortensen: Since the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice has engaged in what appears to be a pattern of civil rights abuses against anyone who doesn’t accept the woke agenda or is a Trump supporter. Most recently, the FBI raided the home of former Mayor and Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani. In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Giuliani said the government is trying to frame him.
Giuliani said the agents showed him a search warrant that “sought the electronics in my apartment and purported to be about an alleged violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA, for failure to file as a foreign agent on behalf of an unnamed Ukrainian official.”
Giuliani added, “They are trying to find something they can make into a crime, some technical violation, some mistake I made. They’ll take anything.”
Giuliani also accused the feds of illegally leaking information about the probe and described the FBI raid on his Manhattan apartment last week as “out of control.”
“Usually a person who has been a former assistant U.S. attorney, a U.S. attorney, a mayor, the associate attorney general, usually they receive a subpoena — not have their home raided,” Giuliani said. “The only lawyers they raid are lawyers for Donald Trump. I can’t think of another lawyer that has been raided other than lawyers for Trump.”
In an amateurish, but potentially dangerous raid on an Alaska homeowner, the FBI conducted a no-knock warrant at the home of a woman who had attended President Trump’s peaceful Jan. 6 rally near the White House.
According to the Alaska Watchman:Paul and Marilyn Hueper, owners of Homer Inn & Spa, woke with a start at 9 a.m. April 28 when a dozen armed FBI agents kicked down their front door in an investigation associated with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s stolen laptop, which was taken during the Jan. 6 siege of the nation’s Capitol.
Speaking April 29 to Kenai-based radio host Bob Bird of the Bird’s Eye View, Paul recalled that he was alarmed and shocked to come out of his bedroom with seven guns pointing at him and his wife.
“It was a little alarming when I turned around the corner,” Paul said. “The first thing they did was start barking out commandments.”
Ultimately, the couple was handcuffed and interrogated for the better part of three hours before being released. In the end, it was a case of mistaken identity.
Tragedy was only averted by the victims of the FBI intrusion not grabbing guns to defend their home.Americans for Limited Government condemned the Jan. 6 Capitol breach urging Trump supporters to reject violence. ALG President Rick Manning predicted that “any aggressive actions will be utilized by the radical left which will soon control the White House as an excuse to engage in draconian measures and to curtail liberties.” And that is exactly what is happening today.
We are seeing emboldened, weaponized Departments of Justice and Homeland Security based on the false narrative the left is pushing about what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6. They have created what appears to be a national drag net that seeks to ensnare Trump supporters, both high profile ones, and every-day, average American citizens.
This abuse of government power that cannot be tolerated.
America is worth fighting for. Our basic constitutional liberties including the Fourth and Fifth Amendments have been eviscerated by the administrative state at the DoJ that has been put on steroids by President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Citizens of the United States have a right to the presumption of innocence, a right protecting them from the government engaging in malicious prosecutions against political opponents and to be free from the surveillance state snooping into personal business with no probable cause.
In light of recent actions by the Biden administration including the Alaska, which fortunately did not end up in gunfire and death as happened with Breonna Taylor, it’s time that Congress wake up regardless of party and stand against executive branch abuses of power and the ongoing politicization of federal law enforcement agencies.
ALG has launched a site where anyone can go to send a message quickly and easily to their representatives in Congress to stand up against Biden’s civil rights’ abuses. If the executive branch becomes a hit squad to go after the president’s political opponents, then there will be no more liberty. After all, the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments prescribe that the federal government should protect individual liberties from any government encroachment. When it comes to individual rights, there can be no compromise.
--------------------------------- Catherine Mortensen is Vice President of Americans for Limited Government.Tags:Catherine Mortensen, Americans for Limited Government, Biden Administration, Declared War on, Trump SupportersTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Former Acting Homeland Security Chief Weighs in on Biden Border Crisis
Border Patrol agents apprehend a group of illegal immigrants near downtown El Paso, Texas,
by Rachel del Guidice: Personnel with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and with Customs and Border Protection are being directed by the Biden administration to stop using the terms “illegal alien” and “assimilation.”
Chad Wolf, a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former acting secretary of homeland security in President Donald Trump’s administration, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss that and other aspects of the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border under President Joe Biden.
We also cover these stories:
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to allow 12- to 15-year-olds to get the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine for the first time.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., admits Tuesday that Republican members of the House lack confidence in the House Republican Conference chairwoman, Rep. Liz Cheney, amid an ongoing rift between the Wyoming congresswoman and Trump.
House Republicans are asking their Senate Republican colleagues to vote against confirming David Chipman, Biden’s choice to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Rachel del Guidice: I’m joined today on The Daily Signal by Chad Wolf. He’s a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former acting secretary of homeland security. Chad, it’s great to have you on The Daily Signal.
Chad Wolf: Well, great. Thanks for having me.
Del Guidice: What is your perspective on what’s happening at the border right now? We’ve seen a lot happen in only about four months since Jan. 20, when President [Joe] Biden was inaugurated. So what’s your perspective on what we’re seeing?
Wolf: Well, it’s truly a crisis that we see on the border today. And it’s disheartening for those of us that served under President [Donald] Trump over the last four years, trying to get that border in order, trying to put a number of policies and procedures in place that, at the end of the day, enforced an immigration consequence to those who came across the border illegally.
So what you have today is back to the “catch and release” policy, failed catch and release policies that we’ve seen over the years. Unfortunately, that doesn’t serve anyone here in the U.S. or the communities along that border. It makes law enforcement’s job more difficult at the end of the day as well.
So not real excited about what I see on the border, and I don’t see it getting better anytime soon.
Del Guidice: The Biden administration has asked both [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and [Customs and Border Protection] to stop using the term “illegal alien.” What’s behind this and what kind of terminology, in your opinion, should be used?
Wolf: Yeah. Well, again, this is just another set of their misguided attention. Their focus should be on securing the border instead of … wordsmithing certain phrases and terminology.
When we talk about aliens or illegal aliens, those are actually terms used in federal law. So it’s not a matter of anyone making up the terms, or [the Department of Homeland Security] or CBP making up those terms. That’s actual wording in statute that Congress has passed.
It’s very simple how we use it because there are various different types of folks that come into the country, illegal aliens vs. aliens, vs. U.S. citizens, and they all have a different connotation because they all require different rules and procedures to them. So simply calling everyone one term is going to be not only extremely confusing, it just turns on the head of decades of immigration law.
So again, the priorities should not be on, “How do we make people feel better by calling them a different name?” Their attention should actually be focused on trying to fix the crisis that’s currently on the border.
Del Guidice: I think a lot of people are asking across this country, especially when they’re seeing news and everything else, is, “Does the Biden administration have a border policy?” Do they? What is your perspective and opinion?
Wolf: Well, I think they do. I think it’s one that’s extremely ill-conceived and does nothing for the security of the homeland. I mean, their policy at the moment is, again, reverting back to that catch and release policy that we’ve talked about.
So the idea is to let everyone into the U.S. that is claiming asylum, give them a free ticket into the interior, hope that they show up for their immigration court proceedings—which we know they don’t do, based on historical data—and that’s their policy at the end of the day.
They’ll talk about how they’re removing families and how they’re doing this and that, but they’re doing that in such low numbers that it’s having a negligible effect.
So whether we see it from family units or minors, their policy right now is obviously the catch and release, but it’s also encouraging these folks to take a very dangerous journey from the Northern Triangle up here to the U.S., knowing, again, that 90% of them don’t qualify for asylum and therefore will have to be removed at some future point.
So what has the Biden administration done on that part? They’ve restricted ICE’s ability to remove individuals that are here illegally as well. So it’s very troubling. If you’re a law enforcement officer at the department these days, your hands are tied, you can’t do your job, and you can’t enforce immigration law at the end of the day.
Wolf: Sure. I think it’s a symptom of, they have broken the system. We had 172,000 illegal apprehensions in the month of March alone. Usually that’s a four- to five-, maybe even a six-month period where you get that many illegal apprehensions. They had that in one month alone.
So you have this historic surge of children and families going into shelters. They’ve run out of shelter space, capacity, so they’re increasing shelters at a rapid, rapid pace. And when you do that, you have to go outside the system, so you’re looking at shelters that don’t have any federal oversight, that may not be the best from a condition standpoint.
That’s what occurred in this case, in the Houston case, is they opened up a shelter and then they quickly had to close it because it didn’t meet standards, and it was pretty bad at the end of the day.
And again, when we talk about what we did under the Trump administration versus this administration, I think the hypocrisy that we see in the news media, mainly in the news media and others, is if this would have occurred in the last four years, you would have seen any number of members of Congress down there, press would have been swarming the area. Instead it was a one-day story and it’s gone away, and it’s unfortunate.
Del Guidice: Vice President Kamala Harris has been appointed as the point person for the border crisis. She hasn’t yet gone to the border. What’s your perspective on what she’s doing? Because nothing’s happened yet. So what’s your perspective on what should happen?
Wolf: It’s another missed opportunity from the administration to actually get serious about the crisis that’s occurring on the border. So she keeps talking about how her role is more higher level, talking to the Northern Triangle countries about root causes of migration, and I think that’s OK, but that’s a two-, three-, four-year problem, maybe even longer.
What she needs to do or what the president needs to do is actually go down to the border, talk to the law enforcement, the men and women that are doing that border, the folks that are interviewing the asylum-seekers, the folks that are processing the medical folks, and to understand and hear from them firsthand the difficulties and challenges that they’re having on the border. It’s only then do you really understand the magnitude of the situation.
And then you can talk to Mexico. You can talk to our foreign partners about how to resolve this. But if you have no context and you have none of those discussions, it’s very hard to represent the U.S. in this crisis when you’re talking to a foreign country.
Del Guidice: Something else that really isn’t being talked about too, what’s the financial cost to the taxpayer when it comes to all of these immigrants coming in, and health care, and other things that are incurred? What does that cost look like for the average American?
Wolf: I would bucket these into two different costs. One are the immediate costs. So there’s a tremendous amount of resources right now that we’re throwing at the problem, and that’s a capacity problem. [The] Biden administration, instead of enforcing the law on the border, they simply are opening up more and more centers. And as you do that, you have to pay.
The federal government’s paying [nongovernmental organizations] and private contractors to continue to open up more and more facilities. They wouldn’t have to do that if they would address the surge, what’s causing the crisis. They don’t want to do that, so they’re spending more and more money.
And then, of course, the long-term effect is, what does this do for health care and education? All of these unaccompanied alien children will go into U.S. school systems, will go [into] health care systems, the family units that are being released. Is there a welfare impact?
So there’s short-term and then there’s sort of longer society impacts as well.
Del Guidice: You mentioned when the migrants come in, a lot of them are given a court date. A lot of times they don’t show up for that court date. So where are these migrants being released to? Is it just in border areas or is it anywhere in the country?
Wolf: Yeah. So, I would actually back up. What we’ve heard from the Biden administration is they’re not even issuing court dates any longer in places in Texas because they’re so overwhelmed.
What they would normally give them is a “notice to appear,” what we call an NTA, which is to say, “We’re going to release you into the interior, but you need to show up at this specific court on this date, on this time, and then we’ll start the immigration proceedings.”
Because they’re so overwhelmed with the number of folks, they’re not even issuing that. They’re simply opening the door, saying, “Please return to a court near you, wherever you go.” Well, we know they’re not going to do that. They have no incentive to do that at the end of the day because no one’s tracking them. No one knows where they’re at. So it’s very, very disconcerting.
But again, what we do know is the ones that do show up, they may show up for their first court case, but this is usually several steps in the process. They don’t show up for latter court dates, which is very problematic. And then where are they going?
What we say is every community in America is a border community because the traffic or the illegal activity doesn’t just stop at the border. It doesn’t stop in McAllen or Tucson or San Diego. It goes everywhere.
So a lot of these folks that are coming in and being released are going to every major metropolitan city across the country. Detroit, Dallas, Chicago, New York. You name it, they’re traveling there.
Del Guidice: Who’s paying for the travel of those who cross the border? Is it their families? Is it the government in some cases? How does that work out?
Wolf: It’s a combination of both. What we see, again, in this administration, because they have let contracts here recently, the federal government’s paying more and more of those expenses. They usually do that indirectly. So we’ll give contracts out to NGOs for quote-unquote “humanitarian assistance,” and that sometimes goes toward transportation costs.
So at the end of the day, the federal government becomes that last link in that human smuggling chain because they are reuniting, whether it’s a child or a family, with relatives here in the country, and that’s exactly what the smugglers are counting on. That’s how they continue to advertise. They advertise, “If we get you to the U.S., the federal government will finish our process and will unite you with your parents or your relatives.”
Del Guidice: So in some cases, is the government deciding where these people are sent? Or is it always the families and those who are coming across the border?
Wolf: Yeah. Usually they’ll come into either Border Patrol facilities or [Department of Health and Human Services] facilities, but mainly Border Patrol, and then they’ll be released. They’ll usually be released to an NGO in El Paso or McAllen or wherever they crossed the border.
And then the NGO will talk to them and say, “Do you have family here?” And almost all of them have some type of family somewhere, whether it’s in Los Angeles, it’s in Seattle. Again, pick your major metropolitan city. And they’ll say, “Here’s a phone number.” And then the NGO calls, and then they try to figure out how to get them to that location.
Del Guidice: When it comes to the national security impact of the situation at the border right now, how prevalent would you say are foreign nationals from other countries, despite Mexico and Central America? So other countries, are they coming in and how frequent is that?
Wolf: Absolutely. I would say every day Border Patrol apprehends anywhere from 25 to 35 different nationalities. Obviously, the Northern Triangle and Mexico are the largest that they see, but there’s folks from Cuba, there’s folks from Central Africa, and others that they pick up and apprehend.
So when we talk about the security on the border, obviously there’s a humanitarian crisis that we see today, but there’s also a security aspect to that because the more and more people that get into Border Patrol stations, the more and more agents DHS has to pull off the line and put them in those stations to care for those migrants, to feed the migrants, to do a lot of hand-holding, that we say. And so they’re not on the border actually doing their national security mission.
So today you have between 5,000 and 6,000 illegal apprehensions a day that’s occurring on that southwest border. You probably have another 1,000 to 1,200 what we call “got aways.”
Those are folks that we don’t have the personnel, and we never see, and they slip in, they go into the interior of the country. The question is, we don’t know who they are, so they could just be illegal migrants looking for economic opportunities or they could be more nefarious. They could be some bad actors, but we just don’t know who they are.
Del Guidice: When you hear the rhetoric that walls are immoral and that having some sort of immigration system, that that’s immoral, that’s wrong, that’s not welcoming, we’ve heard that in different places, what is your response to that?
Wolf: I think it’s absurd. The whole idea of a country, of a nation, is to have a border, and you have to enforce that border. Otherwise, you’re letting anyone and everyone in, and then we’re not a country of the rule of law. That’s how the country was founded. It’s how we should remain.
And you disincentivize folks coming here the right way, the legal way, where they go through a process, they get vetted, they come into the U.S., and if you don’t have some integrity in that process, meaning that you keep out folks that come here illegally, and if there’s no integrity there, then there’s no incentive, and then the whole structure breaks down.
So this idea that borders are immoral, that we should let in everyone, that’s not how the country works. It’s not the rule of law.
And then I would say, when we talk about a border wall system, I would encourage anyone who’s against it to come down here and talk to the men and women who actually have to patrol the border. And they will tell you—I’ve talked to thousands of them over the years, every single one, I haven’t met one that doesn’t want an effective border wall system. It helps them do their job better.
So as we look at our military and we give them the best tools and equipment to fight our battles overseas, we should do the same to the Border Patrol and the men and women of DHS. We should listen to what they need and then give them what they need. President Trump was very good at that. And what we’ve seen, unfortunately, with the Biden administration is they’re ignoring law enforcement and they’re making political decisions with the security of the homeland.
Del Guidice: On a more personal note, as someone who worked in the Trump administration to develop border policy, seeing what’s happened in the course, as we said, over a couple of months, is it frustrating to you? How do you respond when you see everything you did?
Wolf: Sure. It’s not only frustrating, it’s disheartening, and it’s something that didn’t have to happen.
I’ve talked with Border Patrol officers, agents, and officials since I’ve left, and they are beside themselves. They can’t believe that all the work that we had accomplished over the last several years has just been undone in a matter of weeks, following Inauguration Day here in January. And they are so frustrated with it.
And they hear their leadership, whether it’s coming from the leadership of the department or the White House, and I quote, says that, “The border is secure. The border is closed.” And they know, because they work it every day, they know that’s a lie.
When you have 6,000 people coming across the border illegally, you have another 1,200 that they never even catch because it’s overwhelming, of course the border is not secure. Of course it’s not closed. So when you have leadership saying that line to the American public on national television and anywhere else, you start to lose the confidence of law enforcement. And once that happens, it’s very, very dangerous.
Del Guidice: What needs to be done to turn around the situation at the border?
Wolf: Well, there’s a couple of different things. I don’t think the Biden administration will do any of them, but there’s a couple of things.
Obviously, you can finish construction of the border wall system. You can reinstitute what we call our Migrant Protection Protocols, which are individuals that are seeking asylum here in the U.S., they wait in Mexico until their court proceeding date is upon us. Title 42 for [unaccompanied alien children]. We can turn those individuals around as well.
And again, we’re not just turning them around back into the desert, as President Biden—actually, that was a quote. We’ve never done that. So I’m not sure where he’s getting his information. We would actually turn them around, put them on airplanes, and send them back to the Northern Triangle, reunite them with their family at the end of the day.
And then our asylum cooperative agreements were actually working, so I would encourage them to reinstitute those as well.
Del Guidice: Looking at the big picture, what kind of risk does the country run in total, as well as for your children, grandchildren, if this immigration situation isn’t turned around?
Wolf: I think, at the end of the day, we continue, and we’ve seen bills here in the House of Representatives just recently talking about amnesty, talking about amnesty for [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], and then a few other populations.
… If we don’t fix border security, and we don’t close some of these loopholes that we know the cartels and the smugglers and the traffickers are taking advantage of, we’ll be back here in five to six years from now talking about amnesty for all the thousands and perhaps millions of folks that entered the country in 2021.
Mark my word. In five years, we’ll have members of Congress talking about, “We need to provide these folks amnesty.” And that just can’t be the way that the immigration system works. You can’t continue to do this year over year over year.
You have to enforce your border, you have to enforce the law, and then you have to remove individuals that have no legal right to be here. And that’s it at the end of the day.
Del Guidice: Former Secretary Wolf, thank you for being with us on The Daily Signal. It’s great to have you.
Wolf: All right. Thanks again.
------------------------------------- Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal.Tags:Rachel del Guidice, Chad Wolf, Former Acting Homeland Security Chief, Weighs in. Biden Border CrisisTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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