Tag Archives: Texas

The Problem Of Illegal Immigrant Gangs Is Spreading

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On Friday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a problem a Texas oil company is having with Venezuelan gangs who are in America illegally.

The article reports:

It’s only going to get worse from here, as the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous open border policies have now come to a ‘neighborhood near you’ (for some of you). In the past week, we saw armed Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua members terrorize the northern Denver suburb of Aurora and other sanctuary cities run by far-left Democrats. New concerns out Thursday afternoon indicate critical infrastructure is now under threat from migrant cartel members. 

According to Libs of TikTok, a Texas-based oil/gas company issued a memo to employees informing them that police and the FBI have warned armed Cuba and Venezuela migrant gangs are committing thefts in the Permian Basin (America’s highest producing oil field). 

Here’s the memo:

Industry peers and law enforcement in West Texas (WTX) are aware of a recent increase in organized criminal activity inclusive of violent crimes, gang activity and oil field thefts in and around WTX operational areas. Specifically, regional law enforcement and the FBI advised that gang members emanating from Cuba and Venezuela are organizing and working in concert to commit thefts within the Permian Basin. These individuals and groups are armed, violent in nature and will not hesitate to use force.

Crimes associated with these groups include the theft of oil, diesel fuel, copper wire, and catalyst elements. Recent incidents have also included two assaults by water haulers who were attempting to steal oil from WTX oilfield sites. After the thieves were observed by witnesses who drove up to investigate, the thieves attempted to use their vehicles to run the witnesses off the road. In another incident, a thief, acting as a spotter and following a water hauler who had stolen oil, also attempted to run a witness off the road. There have been numerous reports of second vehicles acting as spotters for water haulers committing oil thefts.

This is what happens when you have no southern border.

Texas Is The Example

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On Saturday, Just the News posted an article highlighting the actions of Texas in dealing with the gang violence in Uvalde County.

The article reports:

Thirty-three members of violent gangs were arrested as part of a multi-agency operation targeting transnational and organized crime in the border town of Uvalde, Texas, and surrounding area in Uvalde County.

“Gang violence has no place here in Texas, we will bring the full force of justice down on these famous criminals,” Gov. Greg Abbott said when directing Texas Department of Public Safety to surge resources there to root out organized crime in September 2022.

Nearly two years ago, a multi-agency operation began, made possible through additional state funding and criminal investigative oversight from DPS targeting an extensive organized crime network operating at the Texas-Mexico border. The investigation focused on the selling and distribution of narcotics, weapons, extortion, aggravated assaults and organized criminal activity of multiple gangs associated with transnational criminal organizations, including Mexican cartels.

The article notes:

After an extensive investigation, 33 gang members were arrested, including from the Latin Kings, West Texas Tango, Tango Blast, Tango Orejon, Tango Aguilon, Texas Syndicate, Paisa, Texas Mexican Mafia, Maniac Latin Disciples, and San Antonio Walked Down Gang, according to a statement from the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office.

The 38th Judicial District handed down 68 state indictments related to narcotics trafficking and engaging in organized criminal activity. The U.S. Western District, Del Rio Division, handed 17 federal indictments related to racketeering and conspiracy.

Texas DPS criminal investigators have identified gang activity “as a growing and serious problem in Uvalde and the surrounding area.”

Joining them in the investigation were investigators with the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office, Uvalde Police Department, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations. The 38th District Attorney’s Border Prosecution Unit and the U.S. Attorney’s office are prosecuting the case.

The investigation targeted the Uvalde area nearly 10 years after a joint operation in 2015 vanquished major gang operations there resulting in the Latin Kings being disbanded, the sheriff’s office said. Since that time, gang activity increased with the “most recent gang activity involve[ing] some of the children of those former incarcerated gang members.”

The only way to deal with the problem of the open southern border is to arrest the people who are involved in the criminal activity related to the open border. We need to arrest them, deport them, and seal the border. None of that will happen under a Biden-Harris administration or under a Harris-Walz administration.

Protecting Election Integrity

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On Wednesday, Breitbart reported that Texas Governor Greg Abbot has removed more than one million people from the Texas voter rolls. The people who were removed were considered to be ineligible to vote because they had moved, died or were not American citizens.

The article reports:

Newsweek reports the removal of 1.1 million people from the voter rolls, which include those who have moved out of state, are deceased, or aren’t American citizens, came since the signing of Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) into law in September 2021.

At the time, the law was seen as one of several efforts driven by Republican-led states to ensure voter integrity following the 2020 presidential election.

According to Abbott’s office, among the people removed from the Texas voter rolls are over 6,500 noncitizens; over 6,000 voters who have a felony convictions; over 457,000 deceased people; over 463,000 voters on the suspense list and over 134,000 voters who responded to an address confirmation notice that they had moved.

Another 65,000 voters who failed to respond to a notice of examination have been ruled out along with over 19,000 voters who requested to cancel their registration.

The article concludes:

“Voter fraud is real. Especially in Houston,” the governor posted on X. “The court has found that 1,430 illegal votes were cast in the race for the 180th District Court.”

The ruling was sparked by Republican candidate Tami Pierce who filed a legal challenge against the results after narrowly losing to Judge DaSean Jones (D). Jones won by only 449 votes.

There will be serious cheating in the 2024 elections. From what I understand, the Republican party is taking preemptive actions to limit the amount of cheating. The expression “too big to rig” will have real meaning this year. Remember, according to the vote totals, in 2020 President Biden got more votes that President Obama had received after campaigning from his basement.

This Is How You Secure The Border

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On Tuesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about what has happened on the Texas-Mexico border since Governor Abbott implemented his state-level border security mission.

The article reports:

According to a statement released by Mr. Abbott’s office on June 14, the initiative has resulted in a 74 percent decrease in immigrants crossing into the state illegally in Texas since Operation Lone Star was launched in March 2021.

As part of the initiative, the Republican governor has deployed floating border barriers, installed wire fencing, and used the Texas National Guard to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.

Since the program was launched, the multi-agency effort has led to nearly 514,000 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 44,000 criminal arrests, with more than 38,600 felony charges, the statement said.

His office also emphasizes that law enforcement officials have seized over 489 million lethal doses of the synthetic opioid fentanyl during this period, noting the quantity seized is enough to “kill every man, woman, and child in the United States and Mexico combined.”

If closing the border is that simple, why are the politicians in Washington leaving it open? It is open because the uni-party in Washington wants it open. The influx of illegals provides cheap labor for the Republican corporate types and future voters for the Democrats. Many American voters have realized that the Democrat party does not represent mainstream America, so the Democrat party is importing new voters. The Republican corporate types are so greedy (and possibly too dumb) to see the danger and put a stop to the open border.

The article notes:

The Republican governor, meanwhile, criticized the Biden administration for its poor handling of the border situation, saying the new border executive order President Joe Biden signed earlier this month “will do little to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the country.”

“As long as the Biden Administration refuses to provide any type of enforcement, any type of blockage, of people crossing illegally, all that this new Biden policy is going to do is to actually attract and invite even more people to cross the border illegally,” he said in the statement, citing his appearance on Fox News.

Mr. Abbott referred to President Biden’s new executive order suspending asylum requests at certain times to deter illegal border crossings.

The Democrats Are Trying This Again

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Remember Beto O’Rourke? At one point he was going to be the future of the Democrat party. His real name was Robert Francis O’Rourke, but Beto was added to appeal to the ethnic population in Texas. The campaign to make him the future of the Democrat party was unsuccessful–there was just too much there that didn’t work. So they are doing it again with someone new.

On Sunday, Newsbusters reported:

If you thought that the effort to make Pete Buttigieg into a thing has waned or diminished in light of his tenure as Secretary of Transportation, think again. CBS Sunday Morning leveraged a treacly Father’s Day profile of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and husband Chasten into an infomercial hyping a 2028 presidential run. 

The article includes an interview of Pete Buttigieg by correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti. Somehow I doubt there were any questions regarding the Department of Transportation’s handling of the trail wreck in Palestine, Ohio.

The article concludes:

From there the interview goes into the adoption process and into exaggerated puffing up of Buttigieg’s tenure as Transportation Secretary, leading viewers to infer the construction of a private railway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles as an accomplishment of his own. It is then that the interview winds down at the Department of Transportation, and with Buttigieg’s emotional nonanswer on 2028.

The 2024 presidential campaign is in full swing but CBS, with its gross campaign infomercial, is enabling 2028 ambitions. Expect more of this as we get deeper into the cycle.

The silly season for 2028 has already begun.

 

When The Courts Limit The Bureaucracy, Life Is Good!

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On Friday, The Epoch Times reported that a Texas judge has struck down a regulation that was issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 2023.

The article reports:

The rule was issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 2023 as part of President Biden’s efforts to slash carbon emissions in half by 2030.

Specifically, it required state transportation departments and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to both measure their transportation-related emissions on the U.S. highway system and set their own emission reduction targets.

Additionally, the measure required state DOTs and MPOs to report biennially on their progress in meeting the declining targets. FHWA would also assess the state’s progress toward achieving those targets, according to the rule.

Texas sued the DOT in December, arguing the agency lacked legal authority from Congress to enact the rule, and that it violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

In his ruling, Judge James Hendrix of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreed, stating that the Biden administration lacked authority under law to impose the greenhouse gas emissions performance measure.

“When a regulation attempts to override statutory text, the regulation loses every time, regulations can’t punch holes in the rules Congress has laid down,” the judge wrote, citing a previous case, Djie v. Garland.

The article concludes:

In finalizing the rule in December last year, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the performance measure would provide states with a “clear and consistent framework to track carbon pollution and the flexibility to set their own climate targets.” Officials also said transportation is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

A spokesperson for the highway administration, which is part of the Transportation Department, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement: “ The Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) remain committed to supporting the Biden-Harris Administration’s climate goals of cutting carbon pollution in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”

“We are reviewing the Texas court’s decision and determining next steps,” the spokesperson added.

When are we going to go back to the time that the people who were elected to make the laws made the laws. We are being governed by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, and that is not what our Founding Fathers designed. It’s time for Congress to read the Constitution and take their responsibilities seriously.

 

 

The Intimidation Of Conservative Journalists Continues

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On Friday, Blaze Media reported that  investigative journalist Steve Baker has been released from a federal courthouse in Dallas after his arrest earlier Friday over his Jan. 6 reporting.

On Wednesday, The Federalist reported the following:

The FBI is expected to arrest a Blaze Media reporter on Friday for what appears to be his coverage of demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, without informing him of what charges he’s facing.

On Tuesday, investigative reporter Steve Baker revealed that following months of delay, federal authorities informed his legal team there is a signed warrant for his arrest and that he is to self-surrender for “alleged J6 crimes” in Dallas, Texas, on Friday morning. Baker has been at the forefront of reporting on the more questionable aspects of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

According to Baker, he is to turn himself over to the FBI at 7 a.m. on Friday, at which point federal officials will “transport [him] to the Dallas courthouse, where [he] can meet [his] attorney at 9:30 am.” An unnamed federal prosecutor reportedly told Baker’s attorneys that he is to wear “shorts and sandals” during his surrender, representing an effort by the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) to give Baker “a dose of the personal humiliation treatment.”

Steve Baker reported to the FBI dressed in a suit and looking businesslike. The FBI then placed him in handcuffs and shackles. This is disgusting. They later released him, but not before treating him like a common criminal.  Every day America looks more like a banana republic and less like the republic our Founding Fathers founded.

Please follow the link to the article at Blaze Media. It includes a number of Twitter screenshots that are very interesting.

When Those Who Are Supposed To Enforce The Law Break The Law

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On February 21, The Houston Chronicle reported the following:

A Houston college student prosecuted for his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection was one of people robbed by a Houston-based FBI agent, according to newly released court records.

Alexander Fan’s complaint about missing cash and silver helped lead to the January indictment of FBI agent Nicholas Anthony Williams, according to court records.

Fan, 27, was sentenced to 12 months probation in connection to the riot. Fan was found guilty of entering and remaining a room in the Capitol building. He was accused of climbing into an office through a broken window after his entry was blocked by a closed door.

The article continues:

Fan’s home was searched on the day he was arrested and the next day he reported to the FBI that items, including $2,500 and silvers bars, were missing from his bedroom. The items were not seized as part of the warrant served on his home, according to court records.

Months later, the FBI announced that one of its own agents, Nicholas Anthony Williams, had been indicted on theft charges, over accusations he stole money and property while executing search warrants between March 2022 and July 2023.

One of the three charges related to thefts is over the missing items at Fan’s home.

Remember when the FBI was the gold standard of law enforcement agencies? Evidently their recruiting standards are not what they used to be.

Congress Strikes Back

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On January 26th, the Biden administration announced a temporary pause on pending approvals of liquefied natural gas exports, claiming that natural gas, as a fossil fuel, is partially responsible for climate change.

On January 27th, World Net Daily reminded us:

Natural gas is considered to be the cleanest variety of energy-dense fossil fuels, and and U.S. LNG is about 30% cleaner than Russian LNG, for example, according to ClearPath.

“Despite the White House’s claims to the contrary, it is profoundly absurd to claim this action will do anything to curb emissions. The natural gas to meet global demand will come from somewhere — either from the US, where it is produced more responsibly than anywhere else on earth, or from other nations with far fewer environmental regulations,” David Blackmon, a 40-year veteran of the oil and gas industry who now writes and consults on the energy sector, previously told the DCNF (Daily Caller News Foundation).

I am sure that Russia appreciated the pause.

Well, Congress has had enough.

On February 15th, The Daily Caller posted the following headline:

‘Easy Vote’: House Passes Bipartisan Rebuke Of Biden Admin’s ‘Radical’ Natural Gas Restriction

The article reports:

The House passed a bill Thursday that would effectively lift the Biden administration’s pause on new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals.

The lower chamber of the legislature passed the “Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act,” introduced by Republican Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, by a 224-200 bipartisan vote, with nine House Democrats crossing the aisle to join Republicans in voting in favor of the bill. The bill would remove the Department of Energy (DOE) from the process of approving LNG export terminals and give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) exclusive discretion over whether or not to green light LNG export hubs, according to its text.

All of the Republicans in the House who were present voted for the bill. Nine Democrats also voted for the bill.

The article at The Daily Caller also notes:

“President Biden was pretty clear when, as a candidate, he said, ‘I guarantee you. We’re going to end fossil fuel.’ He has used every weapon and every tool available to make it more difficult on this industry,” Pfluger told the DCNF. “This export ban is just the latest strike in his efforts to appease his radical climate interest groups who refuse to accept the reality that American energy is the cleanest, most secure option for the U.S. and our allies. If you care about energy, about the security of the country, and about what the energy industry has done to lower prices for American households and strengthen our allies and partners, then this is an easy vote.”

If the  American economy is going to survive the Biden administration, we need to be able to harness domestic energy.

 

 

Why We Need Voter Identification Laws

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As of January 2024, 34 states required voters to present identification in order to vote at the polls on Election Day. The states vary on exactly what that identification should be, but some identification is required.

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article that illustrates why requiring voters to show some form of identification is a good idea.

The article reports:

Here’s a story that shows a political prank can turn into a good case for the need for voter identification when registering to vote. It involves five recording artists and a house in Katy, Texas.

Katy is a city west of Houston, in the Houston metro area. Katy’s population at the time of the 2020 census was 21,894. The point is that it is a small city, most often thought of as a suburb of Houston. There is a story out today that recording artists  Drake, 50 Cent, Chris Brown, Trey Songz, and The Game are all registered to vote with the same address in Katy. 

The house is described as “a beige, $300,000 house in a modest new development in Katy.” The homeowner had no idea why the men were registered to vote at that address. Neighbors said they had not seen the performers. 

It’s a prank that uses a federal loophole in voter ID laws. 

…The apparent prank shines a spotlight on a potential loophole in federal voting registration law that allows virtually anyone to register friends, enemies or celebrities to vote. Whether the intent is malicious or not, experts say it is still illegal.

The article concludes:

What is this federal loophole that allows people to register to vote without an ID? It is the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Eligible voters without a driver’s license or a Social Security number are able to take advantage of it. There are some people who are eligible to vote but don’t have either. It might be someone born outside the United States who never applied for a Social Security number. 

When they go to vote, they have to show some other form of identity, like a utility bill. For example, Drake wouldn’t be able to do that. 

Don’t worry. This doesn’t pose a threat to the singers’ actual voter registrations if they are registered in Texas. 

This story, odd as it is, is a good example of the need to close the federal loophole that allows voter registration applications to be presented without identification. It invites shenanigans and creates extra work for election officials.

It is particularly urgent to get voter identification in place because of the number of illegal aliens currently in America that may be encouraged to vote.

Avoiding The Chickens That Have Come Home To Roost

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On Friday, Breitbart reported that President Biden is considering a plan that would require all illegal immigrants to remain in Texas. I guess all of those Democrat cities and states that declared themselves sanctuary cities and sanctuary states didn’t really mean it.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden is reportedly considering a plan to require illegal aliens with dubious asylum claims to remain in Texas — a move that would see the Lone Star State absorb tens of thousands of illegal aliens every week.

Biden administration officials who spoke anonymously to the Los Angeles Times said the plan is being considered so that if newly arrived border crossers fail their initial asylum screenings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can more easily locate and deport the illegal aliens within Texas since they would be close to the United States-Mexico border.

Translated loosely, what he is saying is, “Let’s destroy Texas. It’s a red state. Maybe we can turn it blue if we do this.”

The article concludes:

Under Trump, the Remain in Mexico policy effectively helped end Catch and Release at the southern border by requiring border crossers to stay in Mexico while awaiting immigration hearings in the U.S. The overwhelming majority, more than 70 percent, in the program who had their cases adjudicated as of June 2022 were deported after filing invalid asylum claims.

A fixture of the Biden administration’s lax enforcement of federal immigration law has been to oppose policies that seek to limit the movement of border crossers and illegal aliens — opting for an expansive Catch and Release network that has released millions into American communities in the last two and a half years.

Most recently, at a Senate hearing on asylum law, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) estimated that at least five million border crossers and illegal aliens had been welcomed into the U.S. interior since Biden took office — a foreign population that exceeds the size of half of all the states.

One of the specific duties of the President as listed in the U.S, Constitution is to “…take care that the Laws by faithfully executed….” There are laws on the books that require our borders to be secured. It would be nice if President Biden would uphold those laws.

Exacerbating A Problem Rather Than Solving it

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On Wednesday,  The Conservative Review reported that federal District Judge David A. Ezra has ruled that the floating border barrier that Governor Abbott had installed in Texas had to be temporarily removed.

The article reports:

“Governor Abbott announced that he was not ‘asking for permission’ for Operation Lone Star, the anti-immigration program under which Texas constructed the floating barrier,” wrote federal District Judge David A. Ezra in his ruling.

“Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation’s navigable waters,” he added.

Illegal alien activists have called Abbott’s efforts to end illegal immigration inhumane and unjust.

“The buoys are a symbol of the hate-filled and inhumane policies Gov. Abbott has embraced as he continues to wage war on immigrants seeking to make better lives for themselves, as millions of other immigrants have done for hundreds of years in this country,” said activist Carolina Canizales.

Abbott’s office immediately said that it would appeal the ruling.

“Today’s court decision merely prolongs President Biden’s willful refusal to acknowledge that Texas is rightfully stepping up to do the job that he should have been doing all along,” read a statement from Abbott.

According to the specific case, the judge’s ruling is correct. He merely reinforced what the law said regarding the barriers. He ruled within the limits of the case. However, there are larger issues involved. What about the nation’s obligation to protect its borders? Again, I would like to remind you that if either party wanted the border crisis solved, it would have been solved by now. The establishment Republicans want cheap labor and the Democrats want future voters. Until one of those groups is voted out of office, we will have an open border.

Protecting America’s Farmland

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On April 25th, The Washington Examiner posted an article about China’s continuing purchase of American farmland–particularly near American military bases. Even on the surface that sounds questionable.

The article reports:

A spy balloon floated over most of the continental United States. A Chinese government-linked corporation purchased a plot of land near a sensitive military base.

The recent brushes with China have crystallized a challenge for lawmakers and defense experts that has long sat in the shadows — Beijing’s steadily increasing share of U.S. land poses a serious “national security threat.”

On April 25th, Houston Public Media reported:

Senate Bill 147 was approved by Texas lawmakers Tuesday afternoon. The legislation is a watered-down version of the original proposal, which would have banned citizens of China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from buying land and homes in Texas.

…The new version would ban governmental entities, along with companies headquartered in one of the countries listed on the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community put out by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, from buying “real property” in Texas.

That list only names China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Were the bill to become law, citizens of the four countries who are not lawful residents, dual citizens or people seeking asylum would be able to buy homes in Texas. However, they would only be able to buy up to 20 acres of land.

The bill clarifies that “real property” means “agricultural land, an improvement located on agricultural land, a mine or quarry, a mineral in place, or a standing timber.”

The article at Houston Public Media also notes:

The measure needs to clear one more procedural vote before it’s sent to the Texas House for consideration.

According to the Associated Press, the legislation comes two years after the Texas Legislature passed a bill banning deals on infrastructure with countries like China.

It also comes after news reports of a Chinese real estate billionaire purchasing land for a wind farm in Val Verde County, the home of Laughlin Air Force Base.

The billionaire is a veteran of the People’s Liberation Army, and has ties to the Chinese Communist Party, Forbes reported in 2021.

Please follow the link above to The Washington Examiner article. It further explains the reason more states need to follow the example of Texas.

One Consequence Of An Open Border

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Texas has been the state that seems to be most effected by America’s porous southern border. A recent report posted by the Center for Immigration Studies show the negative impact of that open border on the
State of Texas.

This is the summary of the report:

Activists and academics have been misusing data from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) in studies claiming that illegal immigrants have relatively low crime rates. These studies do not appreciate that it can take years for Texas to identify convicts as illegal immigrants while they are in custody. As a result, the studies misclassify as native-born a significant number of offenders who are later identified as illegal immigrants.

Facts About the DPS Data:

    • Due to delays in identification, the number of illegal immigrants arrested or incarcerated in Texas is undercounted at any given time.
    • Recently convicted illegal immigrants are the most likely to be undercounted.
    • Conversely, Texas is more likely to ascertain the immigration status of offenders who have served long prison terms for serious crimes.
    • The illegal immigrant conviction rate for “any crime” — which would be dominated by offenses requiring little or no prison time — is not meaningful due to undercount.

Properly interpreted, the DPS data suggests that illegal immigrants in Texas are convicted of homicide and sexual assault at higher rates than the state average. Significant uncertainties remain, however, especially regarding lesser offenses.

The report includes the following chart:

As illegal immigrants are being shipped around the country, these statistics are coming to your town. If you want the border closed, you need to vote for conservatives in November. Democrats and Country-Club Republicans will not close the border. If either party currently serving in Congress wanted the border closed, it would have been closed by now.

A Victory For Freedom Of Speech

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Having been routinely shadow banned on Facebook (there is a Right Wing Granny group on Facebook, please join), I appreciate the fact that Texas is fighting the censorship that Big Tech has imposed on conservatives in recent years. It seems that there may be an end to that censorship. As I write this, a friend’s post has been thoroughly blacked out because Facebook didn’t think anyone should be allowed to see it.

On Tuesday, Fox News reported the following:

A federal appeals court upheld a Texas law on Friday that seeks to curb censorship by social media platforms. The ruling, a major victory for Republicans who charge companies like Twitter and Facebook are limiting free speech, is a step in a major legal battle that could end up at the Supreme Court.

The lawsuit is challenging HB 20, a Texas bill signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott that regulates social media platforms with more than 50 million monthly users, which includes Google, Facebook and Twitter, and says they cannot censor or limit users’ speech based on viewpoint expression. 

In his opinion, Federal Judge Andrew S. Oldham of the Fifth Circuit said the platforms argued for “a rather odd inversion of the First Amendment” that “buried somewhere in the person’s enumerated right to free speech lies a corporation’s unenumerated right to muzzle speech.”

“Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say,” Judge Oldham continued.

The article notes:

Friday’s ruling created what is known as a “circuit split,” since the eleventh circuit struck down a similar social media law in Florida. A circuit split generally increases the likelihood of the Supreme Court taking up a case.

It will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court will take the case and what their ruling will be. It is also interesting to see if this case settled  before the mid-term election.

The Future If The Extreme Environmentalists Get Their Way

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On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported that wind power in Texas has again failed to help Texans deal with extreme weather.

The article reports:

Wind power is failing Texas during a record-setting heat wave with turbines producing only 8% of their potential energy output, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Energy use is skyrocketing as Texans are desperate to cool their homes due to triple-digit temperatures across the state, which reached 108 degrees Fahrenheit in Waco on Saturday, exceeding the previous record set in 1917 by 4 degrees, according to The Guardian. However, wind speeds remain low, neutering Texas’ collection of wind farms as the electrical grid struggles to cope with soaring demand, according to The Dallas Morning News

The article concludes:

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) warned of potential blackouts relating to the grid’s failure to keep up with demands and asked Texans to slash their energy use on Monday.

The company, which accounts for 90% of the state’s power supply, and Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott were criticized following severe winter storms that resulted in hundreds of deaths and left millions without power in February 2021.

“After the big freeze and blackout in 2017, the Texas Legislature and governor have taken only half-hearted and ineffective steps to address the causes of the Texas grid’s over-dependence on unreliable and intermittent wind power,” Ebell said.

ERCOT told the DCNF that it “expects sufficient generation to meet forecasted demand.”

The problem with wind power is that the wind does not blow 24/7. The problem with solar power is that the sun does not shine 24/7. In both cases, you need a reliable backup energy source–generally fossil fuel or massive storage batteries. The extreme environmentalists also choose to overlook the fact that although the blades on wind turbines have a projected lifespan of 20-25 years, the actual data shows that they generally do not last 20 years (article here). They are very large and are quickly filling up our landfills. There is far more pollution going on with windmill blades and old solar panels than there is with modern techniques using fossil fuels.

Finally!

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On July 7th, The Daily Caller reported that Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order allowing the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas National Guard to arrest and return illegal migrants to the border. That is the proper way to secure a border.

The article reports:

“While President Biden refuses to do his job and enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress, the State of Texas is once again stepping up and taking unprecedented action to protect Americans and secure our southern border. The cartels have become emboldened and enriched by President Biden’s open border policies, smuggling in record numbers of people, weapons, and deadly drugs like fentanyl,” Abbott said in a statement.

The article concludes:

Abbott cited Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution, which states “‘[t]he United States . . . shall protect each [State in this Union] against Invasion,” but his office didn’t respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s inquiry on whether he will similarly declare an invasion.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nor did Customs and Border Protection (CBP) respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

Whether anyone chooses to declare it or not, this is an invasion. No country can reasonably expect to assimilate this number of people coming into the country who speak a different language and have a different culture. I fear that within the next five years, America will no longer be recognizable as America. Remember, that to become a citizen you have to take a citizenship test that talks about our founding documents. People who come into our country illegally do not have to take that test. When you combine that with the fact that most of our school children are not taught the founding documents, the future outlook for America is not good. People will not work to preserve what they don’t know.

Important–A Little Late, But Important

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On Thursday, Just the News posted a list of twenty significant problems with the 2020 election. I realize that this does not seem current, but in view of the fact that we have an election coming up in November, we need to correct these problems. I am posting half of that list. Please follow the link to the entire article to read the rest of the list and the details.

The article lists the problems:

1. A Foreign Intrusion. Federal authorities have confirmed that two Iranian nationals successfully hacked into a state computer election system, stole 100,000 voter registrations and used the data to carry out a cyber-intimidation campaign that targeted GOP members of Congress, Trump campaign officials and Democratic voters in the November 2020 election in one of the largest foreign intrusions in U.S. election history.

2. Alleged Bribery. The former state Supreme Court justice appointed by the Wisconsin Legislature to investigate the 2020 election concluded that millions of dollars in donations to election administrators in five Democrat-heavy municipalities from the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life violated state anti-bribery laws and corrupted election practices by turning public election authorities into liberal get-out-the-vote activists.

3. Illegal ballot harvesting in Wisconsin. Gableman also exposed an extensive vote collection operation, known as ballot harvesting, in nursing homes in which third-party activists illegally collected the ballots of vulnerable residents, some of whom lacked the mental or physical capacity to vote or were forbidden from voting by guardianship agreements.

4. Ballot harvesting probe in the Peach State. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has announced he has opened a criminal investigation into allegations that liberal activists engaged in illegal ballot harvesting, collecting ballots from voters and delivering them in violation of state law. Raffensperger said he is planning to issue subpoenas to identify a whistleblower who admitted he engaged in the operation, and there could be prosecutions.

5. Bad voter signatures? A review of Maricopa County’s mail-in ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election estimated that more than 200,000 ballots with signatures that did not match voter files were counted without being reviewed, more than eight times the number the county acknowledged.

6. 50,000 Arizona ballots called into question. An extensive audit by Arizona’s Senate officially called into question more than 50,000 ballots cast in the 2020 election, including voters who cast ballots from residences they had left.

7. Illegal ballot drop boxes. A Wisconsin judge has ruled the widespread use of ballot drop boxes in 2020 was unlawful, and the state Supreme Court let that ruling stand. 

8. Foreign voters found on Texas rolls. An audit of Texas voter rolls identified nearly 12,000 noncitizens suspected of illegally registering to vote and nearly 600 cases in which ballots may have been cast in the name of a dead resident or by a voter who may also have voted in another state.

9. Foreign voters found on Georgia  rolls. An audit by Georgia’s Secretary of State has identified more than 2,000 suspected foreigners who tried to register to vote in the state, though none reached the point of casting ballots. 

10. Unconstitutional mail-in voting. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has concluded the state law that opened the door to no-excuse mail-in voting in 2020 was unconstitutional and that mail-in voting can only be enacted by a constitutional amendment.

The article also includes links to further information on the subject including  indictments and court decisions.

The Proper Solution To The Computer Chip Shortage

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The Daily Wire reported yesterday that Samsung s planning to build a $17 billion semiconductor factory in Taylor, Texas.

The article reports:

A statement from the office of Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) says that Samsung chose the Lone Star State due to its business-friendly climate:

The new manufacturing facility will produce advanced logic chips that will power next-generation devices for applications such as mobile, 5G, high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence (AI).

The project will create over 2,000 high-tech jobs, thousands of indirect jobs, and a minimum of 6,500 construction jobs. Construction will begin in early 2022 with a target of production start in the second half of 2024. The $17 billion in capital investments includes buildings, property improvements, machinery, and equipment.

A Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) grant of $27,000,000 has been extended to Samsung for their job creation. In addition, Samsung has been offered a $20,000 Veteran Created Job Bonus.   

The article concludes:

Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reports that firms across the globe are racing to produce more semiconductors:

Samsung’s doubling down on Texas where it already has a footprint comes amid a year of historic spending for the semiconductor industry, spurred by government incentives seeking to attract local production. A global chip shortage has undercut many industries from smartphones and home appliances to cars.

Samsung, the world’s largest semiconductor maker by revenue, plans to invest more than $205 billion over the next three years, with chip-making a priority. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has earmarked more than $100 billion over the next three years to build new chip factories. Intel Corp. has also unveiled more than $100 billion worth of semiconductor factory investments plans in the U.S. and Europe over the coming decade.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said earlier this year that he has “never seen anything like” the semiconductor shortage.

“Our biggest challenge is supply chain, especially microcontroller chips,” Musk said on social media, comparing his company’s decision to “overorder” various products to the “toilet paper shortage” that occurred at the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States.

Bringing industry back to America will help America economically and will add to our national security. To have outsourced computer chips and pharmaceuticals to countries that are not our allies is foolishness.

Do Harsh Coronavirus Measures Work?

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Fox News posted an article today that included the statistics on coronavirus cases in California and Florida. California has mask mandates and other mandates impacting the freedom of the unvaccinated. Florida has no mask mandates and has pretty much been open since the original ‘two weeks to slow the spread.’

The article reports:

Watcher (Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of the medical department at the University of California-San Francisco) added that with low booster shot rates and waning immunity, “the end result is that we’ve plateaued in our improvements, both nationally and in California, and it’s likely we’ll soon see some significant upticks.”

“California has done very well over the past few months, but we still have too many unvaccinated people,” he added. “People are spending more time inside and being more active, and masking is going down.”

Florida, meanwhile, hit another new benchmark last week. The first hospital in the state to treat a COVID patient last year, Doctor’s Hospital, announced that for the first time since the pandemic, it has no virus patients in its care.

“This is great news! For two weeks and counting, Florida has had the lowest rate of new COVID-19 cases in the entire country – with no mandates, vaccine passports, or lockdowns. Overall, COVID hospitalizations have been declining for more than 70 days straight, and we’re at an all time low in terms of the number of COVID patients hospitalized statewide,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, told Fox News on Monday when asked for comment about Doctor’s Hospital in Sarasota.

The article also notes:

Cases in California are no longer falling, with the rate increasing to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s red “high” level of virus transmission stemming from the delta variant, the outlet reported.

But Southern states such as Texas and Florida – where state leaders do not enforce face mask policies or support other strict mandates – are in the CDC’s orange “substantial” transmission level.

California’s vaccination rate is higher than states such as Texas and Florida, but that still hasn’t stopped the outbreaks. Sixty-two percent of California’s total population is fully vaccinated, while Florida reports 60% and Texas 54%.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the ‘science.’

 

A Reasonable Plan

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The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday that Senator Ted Cruz has filed legislation on Tuesday that would establish processing centers for illegal immigrants in areas such as Martha’s Vineyard and other Democrat-led communities. Now realistically we understand that this will never be passed, but the bill makes a statement about life in America for ordinary people and life in America for politicians and the wealthy. People who own ranches in Texas have had their property destroyed, littered, and overrun on a regular basis during the Biden administration. People in places like Martha’s Vineyard, Greenwich, Connecticut, and other places where our politicians and wealthy live have not been touched by the crisis at our southern border.

The article reports:

Cruz stated that the Texas government was forced to proclaim a state of disaster and dedicate its law enforcement and financial resources to dealing with the problem. “Local Border Patrol Sectors in Texas continue to be overwhelmed by the volume of illegal aliens at the border. The Texas government has been forced to declare a state of disaster and provide its law enforcement and fiscal resources to address the crisis.”

Cruz reported that he encountered human traffickers and cartel members while traveling to the border in early March. One of his recordings showed him saying, “That’s Mexico and you can see there are three smugglers right there standing on the Mexican side looking at us.”

The proposed bill makes the point that what is happening at our southern border is a national problem–it has consequences. There is no way that those making our laws should be exempt from those consequences.

When States Do What Needs To Be Done

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Our southern border is a mess. People are coming through in droves with no coronavirus tests or vaccines, drugs are flowing through, the Mexican cartels are making a fortune, terrorists are coming through, and human traffickers are entering America without being stopped. That’s really not good for our country, and the people living along the southern border are paying a high price for the lawlessness there.

Yesterday The Patriot Daily Wire reported the following:

Texas is expected to award a contract this week to begin construction of a barrier along its southern border with Mexico.

In an early-September statement on its website, the Texas Facilities Commission announced that a design firm and an engineering firm had been selected to oversee the project’s construction, The Texas Tribune reported last week.

That statement noted that the contract is expected to be awarded by mid-September — or sometime this week.

“The Texas Facilities Commission, which oversees state contracts, said in a statement it anticipates awarding the border wall project with more than $1 billion in available funding by mid-September,” the Washington Examiner reported.

“The commissioners must vote on the decision before the contract for a program manager can be awarded, and the final monetary amount has not yet been determined. The program manager will handle the budget and determine where to build.”

Donations to fund a border wall being built by the state of Texas have already surpassed $54 million, according to the Texas Governor’s office. In August, the state legislature passed a $1.8 billion bill for efforts to fight illegal immigration, with almost half that amount going toward wall construction, the Examiner reported.

The article concludes:

The project follows a disaster declaration Abbott issued June 1 covering 34 counties, later revised to 28 counties, to deal with the immigration crisis.

“President Biden’s open-border policies have paved the way for dangerous gangs and cartels, human traffickers, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to pour into our communities,” Abbott said in the June 1 declaration.

“Meanwhile, landowners along the border are seeing their property damaged and vandalized on a daily basis while the Biden Administration does nothing to protect them. Texas continues to step up to confront the border crisis in the federal government’s absence, but more must be done,” he added.

…“Texans agree with me over Biden on border response,” Abbott wrote.

“They want action, not empty words.

“While Biden does nothing to secure the border, Texas will get the job done.”

It is the job of the federal government to secure our borders. However, it is good to see Texas step up to the plate when the federal government fails to do its job.

This Is Only The Beginning

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NewsMax is reporting today that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block a Texas ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The decision was a 5-4 decision.

The article reports:

By a 5-4 vote, the justices denied an emergency request by abortion and women’s health providers for an injunction on enforcement of the ban, which took effect early on Wednesday, while litigation continues.

One of the court’s six conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined its three liberals in dissent.

“The court’s order is stunning,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.

“Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

In an unsigned explanation, the court’s majority said the decision was “not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law” and allowed legal challenges to proceed.

The decision illustrates the impact of former Republican President Donald Trump’s three conservative appointees, who have tilted the court further right. All were in the majority.

The conservatives thought that they were supporting a conservative when Justice Roberts was appointed. Obviously we were wrong.

The article concludes:

Texas is among a dozen mostly Republican-led states to ban the procedure once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, often at six weeks and sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Courts have blocked such bans, citing Roe v. Wade.

The court’s action over the Texas ban could foreshadow its approach in another case over a 15-week ban by Mississippi in which the state has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The court will hear arguments in the term beginning in October, with a ruling due by the end of June 2022.

Keep in mind that if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, it simply means that the issue of abortion is left up to the individual states. It does not automatically make abortion illegal. Also consider the fact that a large percentage of the babies that are aborted every year are minorities. In America, there is a genocidal aspect to abortion. Those who support abortion need to consider that. Unfortunately, there is also a lucrative market in the sale of aborted baby body parts. That also should be considered by those who support the practice of abortion. Abortion may be necessary if the mother’s life is truly in danger (tubal pregnancy, etc.), but it should never been seen as a simple procedure to be used as birth control. There is nothing simple about it, and there are many women who have had abortions that suffer physical and mental consequences for years afterward.

Common Sense

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Yesterday The Daily Wire reported that a federal judge has ordered the Biden administration to reinstate the Trump administration policy of having illegal immigrants wait in Mexico while their asylum requests are evaluated by the courts.

The article reports:

Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk ordered Biden to “enforce and implement [Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly referred to as ‘Remain in Mexico’] in good faith until such a time as it has been lawfully rescinded in compliance with the [Administrative Procedure Act] and until such a time as the federal government has sufficient detention capacity to detain all aliens subject to mandatory detention under Section 1255 without releasing any aliens because of a lack of detention resources.”

Considering the fact that our detention centers on the southern border of America are overcrowded, this is the compassionate thing to do.

The article notes:

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who filed the lawsuit with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, celebrated the win on social media, tweeting: “Big win for border security!”

“We just won our second immigration lawsuit against the Biden Admin! They unlawfully tried to shut down the legal and effective Remain-in-Mexico program, but Texas and Missouri wouldn’t have it,” Paxton’s office wrote in a tweet. “Together we sued, and just handed Biden yet another major loss!”

The judge’s order comes after Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released new statistics yesterday showing that the Biden’s border catastrophe worsened for the sixth consecutive month as U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 212,672 illegal aliens—the worst month ever recorded by DHS, which was created in 2002.

This is a win for American sovereignty.

When The Cancel Culture Meets The Internal Revenue Service

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Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent decision by the Internal Revenue Service regarding the tax-exempt status of a religious organization.

The article reports:

An IRS official denied tax-exempt status to a Texas group that encourages church members to pray for state and national leaders, regardless of their party affiliation, because it benefits “the private interests of the [Republican] Party.”

“You do not qualify as an organization described in IRS Section 501(c)(3). You engage in prohibited political campaign intervention,” wrote Stephen A. Martin, director of the IRS Office of Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements, in a May 18 letter (pdf) to Christians Engaged, the Garland, Texas-based prayer group recognized by Texas officials as tax-exempt.

“You are also not operated exclusively for one or more exempt purposes within the meaning of Section 501 (c)(3), because you operate for a substantial non-exempt private purpose and for the private interests of the D party.”

The “D party” is a reference to the Republican Party, according to a novel “legend” that Martin provided at the top of his letter to the Texas group.

The article then explains:

Martin also noted that the group’s activities “educate believers on national issues that are central to their belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.

“Specifically, you educate Christians on what the Bible says in areas where they can be instrumental, including the areas of sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, biblical justice, freedom of speech, defense, and borders and immigration, U.S. and Israel relations,” he wrote.

“The Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the D party and candidates. This disqualifies you from exemption under IRS Section 501(c)(3).”

The D party in this case refers to the Republican party. This is a blatant attempt to keep Christian values (and those who hold them) out of the public discourse. It is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the group and should be treated as such.

The article includes the following:

First Liberty Institute is appealing Martin’s decision on behalf of Christians Engaged.

“The IRS states in an official letter that Biblical values are exclusively Republican. That might be news to President Joe Biden, who is often described as basing his political ideology on his religious beliefs,” First Liberty Institute counsel Lea Patterson said in the statement.

“Only a politicized IRS could see Americans who pray for their nation, vote in every election, and work to engage others in the political process as a threat. The IRS violated its own regulations in denying tax-exempt status because Christians Engaged teaches biblical values.”

The IRS believes that Biblical values are exclusively Republican. Wow. Considering the role that Biblical views played in the founding of our nation, that idea should send Americans to the polls to vote for Republicans. Stay tuned. I suspect we haven’t heard the last of this.