As you can see, most of these governors reside in states Trump carried by overwhelming margins. That is the result of Trump voters lulled into a false sense of security that Trump alone can stop the open-borders movement. However, the other elected GOP officials have not become more Trumpian in recent years.
Not only are GOP governors consenting to refugee resettlement, but even Republican-controlled counties are lining up for the social transformation. Pursuant to Trump’s executive order, refugees cannot be settled in a given county without the consent of the county’s governing body, in addition to the governor’s overall statewide consent. While most counties have remained silent, Twin Falls County, Idaho, just sent its consent to the State Department. Trump carried this county by 46 points, the same margin by which he carried Burleigh County, North Dakota, another red county that agreed to resettle more refugees. Who needs Democrats?
Just nine of the 27 GOP governors remain on the sidelines, and none have definitively rejected resettlement. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is the biggest remaining fish, given that Texas has been the largest refugee resettlement state. How hard could it be for him to announce that in light of record high illegal immigration straining local Texas communities beyond belief this year, the state will not accept more refugees? Remember, what we must deal with from south of the border is just as costly as refugee resettlement and greater in numbers than what Europe deals with in terms of either refugees or illegal immigration. It makes no sense to bring in more people from another hemisphere when we are dealing with our own refugee problem from Central America.
As of last year, the Taliban controlled or contested 46 percent of the districts in Afghanistan’s civil war. That was enough justification for us to keep our military perpetually engaged there in combat. What if you were told that 80 percent of Mexico’s territory is controlled by dangerous cartels, including all of the key smuggling routes at our border, and that the cartels are orchestrating all of the illegal immigration into our territory and bringing their members back and forth across our own border?
Several weeks ago, the Mexican investigative journal Contralínea posted a map of Mexico prepared by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), showing that 80 percent of the country’s 266 districts recently targeted for enforcement by the Mexican National Guard in a new counter-cartel operation are either controlled (57.5 percent) or disputed (23.3 percent) by the cartels. “Only 53 (19.92 percent) enjoy a low level of violence, which means that control is exercised by the authorities,” reported Contralínea on May 4, citing the data on the color-coded map.
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It’s important to note that according to Jaeson Jones, retired captain of Texas’ Department of Public Safety Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division, the priority areas color-coded on the map are mainly the areas where people live, and the ones left out are simply not a priority, not because the cartels don’t control most of those areas, but because there is little infrastructure or population in those areas.
For example, the areas color-coded at the border are all the cities where people live, such as Tijuana, Mexicali, San Luis, Nogales, Juarez, Piedras Negras, Loredo, Miguel Alimen, and Reynosa (going west to east). And notice how every one of them is controlled by the cartels. All of the major smuggling areas leaning into California, Nogales, Arizona, El Paso, Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas are fully controlled by the cartels. The other areas are deserts with few people and no infrastructure, so they weren’t a priority for the Mexican government’s campaign, but they still affect our security because the cartels are sending large flows of migrants in areas like Antelope Wells, New Mexico, which are absolutely controlled by Sinaloa.
Thus, we now see from an internal document of the Mexican government an admission that Mexico has essentially lost control over every important populated area in Mexico outside Mexico City and a few others, and particularly the most sensitive areas of the U.S.-Mexican border.
So why do we not have Special Operations Command engaged in protecting our border from the cartels? Unlike the Taliban, cartel operatives come over our border all the time. Why do the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the State Department refuse to recognize the border issue as a military problem and agree to target the cartels as terrorists?
If the Taliban were orchestrating a flow of mass migration across parts of Afghani-controlled territory, strategically shutting down our security, and profiting from it, we would instantly take military action. When Mexican cartels are placing our own country in mortal danger, why is that not reason enough to treat this is a military threat instead of an immigration issue?
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Our government is fully aware of this dynamic. This map of control was sent out by a federal agency to Border Patrol in a daily intelligence briefing on May 9. CR has obtained a copy of this briefing from a Border Patrol agent who must remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the press. Why the relevant government agencies refuse to recognize the border as an insurgency conflict rather than simply an immigration issue remains a mystery.
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The cartels have long passed the stage of simply profiting from drugs. They are international organizations that are engaged in endless criminality, most prominently human smuggling, but they seek to control territory and terrorize populations as well. Mexican drug cartels seek to replace local governments by imposing their own law. The Mexican cartel culture is similar to the ideology of ISIS and al Qaeda in the sense that they seek “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) or to effect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping,” which is the definition of international terrorism defined under 18 U.S.C. § 2331.
The day we solve our sovereignty issue will be the day our government finally prioritizes the security of America the way it prioritizes the security of the Afghani government. That will not happen until we take our sovereignty as serious as we do the sovereignty of the Mexican government’s ever-diminishing control over a handful of cities.
Border agents can qualify for "comp time," but “this comp time has to be prescheduled with the supervisors... "
The message being conveyed to Border Patrol agents is that their most important job is to care for lawbreakers and smugglers, not to patrol against the cartels and previously deported criminal aliens. The job of “diaper patrol” is being prioritized over the job of protecting Americans from national security concerns. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pay incentives given to agents.
Due to complaints of abuse in the overtime pay system among some agents, Congress passed the Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Act (BPAPRA) in 2014. The law abolished standard overtime pay for Border Patrol, and in its place, agents were given three options for their five-day work weeks. They could work standard eight-hour shifts and receive base pay only, or they could work nine-hour shifts and receive 12.5 percent over base pay, or 25 percent over base pay if they opt for 10-hour shifts. Any time agents work outside the scheduled shift, i.e. 10 hours, they are not paid for the work but are given “comp time” instead.
Given the crisis of hundreds of thousands of migrants surrendering at the border while thousands of “runners” get away, there is a need for all hands on deck. Yet thanks to the supplemental bill passed by Congress in June, agents only receive overtime for working at the processing centers babysitting the illegal aliens, not for actually patrolling the line.
The duo are joining TheBlaze and CRTV to create Blaze Media, which they say will reach 165 million people via television, digital platforms and social media.
Paul Bond at THR:
The duo are joining TheBlaze and CRTV to create Blaze Media, which they say will reach 165 million people via television, digital platforms and social media.
Glenn Beck and Mark Levin are teaming up by merging TheBlaze and CRTV to create a conservative-media entity dubbed Blaze Media, which they say will reach 165 million people via television, digital platforms and social media.
Beck and Levin are set to officially announce what they are calling a merger of equals on Monday, but Beck tells The Hollywood Reporter that the move could be just a next step at building a powerhouse, independent media company.
“This is the beginning of scale,” he says. “Anyone who loves the Bill of Rights and pursues honesty, I want them all in. We’re an open book. Let’s talk,” he says.
Beck founded TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News, where his show drew a large audience though was constantly attacked by progressive groups that discouraged advertisers. TheBlaze grew quickly, but in recent years has scaled back in order to preserve money.
TheBlaze is seen on Dish Network, Verizon Fios, Roku, SlingTV and several regional cable outlets, and it is heard on Sirius XM Radio, iHeartRadio and elsewhere. Next year, it will launch a live tour with the working title, Blaze Live.
Levin, a former attorney in Ronald Reagan’s presidential administration, is a nationally syndicated radio host, and he hosts Life, Liberty & Levin on Fox News. He founded LevinTV and the digital outlet morphed into CRTV, the “CR” standing for “Conservative Review.”
Beyond Levin, some of the talent at CRTV includes Michelle Malkin, Steven Crowder, Matt Kibbe, Deneen Borelli, Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame and Gavin McInnes, the co-founder of Vice Media who hosts a show called, Get Off My Lawn, at CRTV.
Blaze Media will be run by Tyler Cardon and Gaston Mooney, who were named co-presidents of the merged company. Previously, Mooney was president of CRTV and Cardon was president of TheBlaze.
“Tens of millions of Americans have had it with the biased, ideologically driven mainstream media outlets that sanctimoniously advance their own agendas under the guise of ‘news’ and ‘journalism.’ Conservatives actually believe in a free press and the rest of the Constitution,” said Levin.
He added that his intention with the merger is “to further expand and offer the public an alternative to liberal media group-think.”
Blaze Media will compete with conservative outlets like Breitbart News, The Daily Caller (co-founded by Tucker Carlson) and Salem Media Group, a publicly traded company that is considered the industry leader in talk radio. It will also compete with Daily Wire, founded by Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor who had also considered merging with Beck’s company.
“I’d still like to do that,” Beck said. “I’m a big fan of what Ben has built.”
Blaze Media will be headquartered in Dallas at Beck’s facilities, but he says that that’s only a technicality as it will operate all over the country. “Dallas will be the epicenter, but we’ll be like a movie studio, like United Artists. It’s a much better system for the talent.”
The Blaze has been going through a rocky stretch, laying off about 20 percent of its staffers and losing talent like NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch and Tomi Lahren, the latter after publicly feuding with Beck over pro-choice remarks she made on her former show. Beck says, though, the incident was mis-reported without context.
“We’re a different kind of media company, without a centralized command and control,” he says. “There’s no network you have to confer with. Talent is free to express their opinions, whether I agree with them or not.”
Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed, but Beck acknowledges his company had bled some red ink, though it has been profitable for about 12 months.
“We worked hard to make sure we’re in the black. If we had spoken to CRTV a couple of years ago, it would have been a different story,” he says. “We talked about a merger when neither of us need it. That’s the best time.”
Beck said four years ago he was moving into movie production, though it hadn’t been financially feasible, until now.
“The merger will help those efforts,” he said. “First and foremost, I’m an artist and a storyteller.”
This isn’t just our season finale but also episode 100 of the Remso Republic! Is our country going to crap or is there a chance the millennial generation could make a comeback for free markets and individual liberty? To discuss that with us Remso is joined by author and libertarian superstar Matt Kibbe, founder of Free the People and contributor to Conservative Review. This action packed episode…
