Ted Cruz's Cancun Trip Could Doom His Re-Election in 2024
Ted Cruz ‘left behind’ pet poodle, Snowflake, at ‘freezing’ Texas home during Cancun trip
Texas senator Ted Cruz at Cancun’s airport
(REUTERS)Tens of thousands of Texans were without power or running water for a fourth day as senator Ted Cruz took off for Cancun on Wednesday evening, while reportedly leaving behind the family pet poodle, Snowflake.
A picture taken by a reporter for New York Magazine on Thursday showed the pet poodle looking out of a window of Mr Cruz’s home in Houston, Texas, while the senator, his wife, and daughters were away.
Mr Cruz said he was trying to be a good father by taking his two young daughters out of the state in a written statement released after the short vacation was widely criticised on Thursday.
A security guard said he had been tasked with looking after the poodle while the family were away from the home — which appeared to have electricity restored on Thursday afternoon, according to the reporter.
“Like millions of Texans, our family lost heat and power too,” the senator said in the written statement. “[And] with school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon.”
Mr Cruz, in an appearance on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Thursday, added that his house was “freezing” after the power went out on Tuesday night, and that he stayed at home for “two days” before travelling to Cancun.
“It was dark, we had no heat. Actually the fireplace behind me, we were all huddled around the fireplace ‘cause it was the only heat in the house,” said Mr Cruz, who also admitted to broadcaster ABC13 that with “hindsight” the vacation was a “mistake”.
After saying he always planned to return as part of a round-trip, the senator told Mr Hannity: “I had initially planned to stay through the weekend, but as I was heading down there, you know, I started to have second thoughts almost immediately because the crisis here in Texas, you need to be here on the ground.”
Just drove by Ted Cruz’s house in Houston. His lights are off but a neighbor told me the block got its power back last night. Also, Ted appears to have left behind the family poodle. pic.twitter.com/TmLyGQkASy
— Michael Hardy (@mkerrhardy) February 18, 2021
Temperatures reached as low as 0F (-18C) in Texas on Sunday, causing widespread power outages, burst water pipes, and wider disruption, as well as more than 20 deaths in weather-related incidents.
Democratic lawmakers have called on Mr Cruz to step down over his handling of the crisis, with some accusing the senator of failing to show leadership while thousands were still suffering.
He added on Thursday that: “My staff and I are in constant communication with state and local leaders to get to the bottom of what happened in Texas. We want our power back, our water on, and our homes warm. My team and I will continue using all our resources to keep Texans informed and safe.”
Snowflake, which appeared to be poodle or similar breed, was adopted as a rescue puppy by the Texas senator in 2014, as he wrote in a Facebook post at the time.
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AOC announces that she's raised $2 million for Texas relief efforts in under 24 hours
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has raised more than $2 million for Texas relief efforts in under 24 hours, her office told Yahoo News on Friday.
Early Thursday evening, the New York Democrat encouraged her 12.4 million Twitter followers to donate money to five Texas charities working on the frontlines there. A rare winter storm brought snow and freezing temperatures to the state this week, costing dozens of Texans their lives and knocking out power and water for millions more.
Related: How to help people in Texas battered by winter storms
According to her office, the fundraiser crossed the $2 million threshold just before 11 a.m. ET Friday, securing hundreds of thousands of donations for Family Eldercare, Feeding Texas, Houston Food Bank, ECHO (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition) and the Bridge Homeless Recovery Center. The fundraiser has since added five more groups.
“Team AOC is launching relief efforts for Texas starting today,” the congresswoman tweeted. “Our first effort is a partnership w/ 5 Texas orgs getting on-the-ground relief to Texans ASAP. If you’re able, please donate here - it’ll split your contribution to all 5.”
Celia Cole, the CEO of Feeding Texas, told Yahoo News that the group has been “humbled” by the donations it’s received.
“Feeding Texas is humbled by the outpouring of support from people across the country. Hundreds of thousands of Texans are going to need help from their food bank in the days and weeks to come, on top of the millions already struggling to feed their families during the pandemic,” Cole said.
“We are particularly grateful to our elected leaders in Texas and Washington who are helping raise money for Texas food banks. These donations are critical to helping food banks keep their communities nourished and resilient through this crisis.”
The haul is a sign of the congresswoman’s social media reach. She tweeted the call for donations at 5:42 p.m. ET Thursday and announced she had reached $1 million just four hours later.
The fundraising efforts were launched the same day Texas Sen. Ted Cruz returned early from a vacation to Cancún, Mexico. In his initial statement, Cruz said he made the trip because his daughters and their friends were out of school and wanted to take a last-minute vacation. He went back to Texas amid fierce criticism and eventually admitted the trip was a bad idea.
Cruz and Ocasio-Cortez are both prolific social media users and have repeatedly clashed since the congresswoman was elected in 2018. Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly called on Cruz, who objected to the certification of President Biden’s victory, to resign for his role leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, telling the senator last month that “you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago.”
Ocasio-Cortez has announced she will be traveling to Texas this weekend along with Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat who represents a Houston-area district. Biden said Friday he is planning to visit Texas but didn’t want to be a “burden” so he would make a decision early next week.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who lost to Cruz in the 2018 Senate race, has leveraged his organization in the state to reach out to senior citizens, noting that his group had made hundreds of thousands of calls to older Texans. On Thursday morning, O’Rourke told MSNBC of Cruz, “I understand he’s vacationing in Cancún right now when people are literally freezing to death in the state he was elected to represent and serve.”
“I don’t know how much we were expecting from him, to begin with,” O’Rourke told Vanity Fair in an interview. “That guy wants nothing to do with government, or at least our form of it.”
Senate GOP: Biden Amnesty Floods U.S. Workforce During Coronavirus Crisis
Senate Republicans are lining up to oppose President Joe Biden’s massive amnesty plan that would legalize between 11 to 22 million illegal aliens and increase legal immigration levels, all while more than 17 million Americans remain jobless.
On Thursday, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) introduced Biden’s amnesty plan to Congress, seeking to hugely inflate the United States labor market at a time when the nation faces a mass unemployment crisis.
The plan, among other things, would:
- Put nearly all illegal aliens in the U.S. on an eight-year path to citizenship
- Provide $4 billion in foreign aid to Central America
- Expedite green cards for foreign relatives, otherwise known as “chain migration”
- Potentially add 52 million foreign-born residents to the U.S. population
- Eliminate per-country caps, ensuring India monopolizes employment green cards
- Increase the Diversity Visa Lottery program where visas are given out randomly
- Provide green cards to foreign students who graduate in advanced STEM fields
- Bring already deported illegal aliens back to the U.S. to provide them amnesty
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) called the plan “a disaster.”
“It would devastate our economy by flooding our workforce with millions of new workers during a pandemic,” Cotton said. “And it does nothing to secure our borders, yet grants mass amnesty, welfare benefits — even voting rights — to over 11 million people who came here illegally. It’s a nonstarter.”
Likewise, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said the plan “will encourage more illegal immigration and reduce opportunities for American workers during a pandemic-induced recession when so many are already struggling to find jobs.”
“Why are we placing the interests of non-citizens over the interests of Americans?” Hagerty asked in a statement.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) said he is “disappointed” with Biden’s executive orders “to undo the ‘America First’ immigration agenda” that sought to boost U.S. wages by reducing overall immigration:
Between halting construction of the wall on our southern border and a partisan immigration proposal that offers American citizenship to illegal immigrants, it’s clear Joe Biden is not serious about fixing our broken immigration system that rewards illegal behavior.
Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) spokesperson pointed to the lawmaker’s previous statement on Biden’s plan, where he said Congress should prioritize the Chinese coronavirus crisis, reaching full employment for Americans, and taking on China’s global dominance before negotiating an immigration deal. Rubio said weeks ago:
America should always welcome immigrants who want to become Americans. But we need laws that decide who and how many people can come here, and those laws must be followed and enforced. There are many issues I think we can work cooperatively with President-elect Biden, but a blanket amnesty for people who are here unlawfully isn’t going to be one of them.
In the House, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said “the economic result of granting amnesty and citizenship to illegal aliens is horrific for American citizens.”
“American workers will be pummeled as they suffer from lost jobs and suppressed wages,” Brooks said:
American taxpayers will be further burdened, inasmuch as households with illegal aliens in them are far more likely to be on welfare than are households without illegal aliens in them. American workers are already suffering the effects of tsunamis of cheap foreign labor who suppress American worker wages and take American jobs.
To pass the Senate, Biden’s amnesty plan would need the support of at least 10 Senate Republicans, as well as every Senate Democrat and those who caucus with the Democrats. While a number of Senate Democrats remain silent on the plan, many have indicated in recent votes where they may stand on the issue.
In the first week of February, eight Senate Democrats — including Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Gary Peters (D-MI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) — voted with Senate Republicans to block giving stimulus checks to illegal aliens.
The White House, though, has downplayed the plan’s potential lack of support among swing state Democrats who face tough re-elections in 2022 and 2024. About 28 vulnerable House Democrats, for instance, have stayed mostly quiet on whether they would support or oppose the plan.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Migrant Rescues Continue in Freezing Conditions Along Border in Texas
Border Patrol agents in South and West Texas continue to rescue migrants as human smugglers push them across the border during the record winter freeze.
“Big Bend Sector Border Patrol Agents have risked their own lives in the on-going effort to patrol the sector despite the winter weather,” Border Patrol officials said in a written statement. “Agents have successfully rescued over 200 people in recent days from dangerous conditions in the area, saving life and limb.”
Officials said 10 migrants were admitted to regional hospitals due to exposure, frostbite, and other serious medical conditions.
“Many people rescued by Big Bend Sector agents were found to have been abandoned by alien smugglers with some calling 911 operators seeking help or flagging down motorists as they reached area highways,” officials stated. “Family members have reported their loved-ones missing to Border Patrol resulting in additional searches and lives saved.”
#USBP Laredo South agents and the Mobile Response Team responded to a 911 call and rescued seven lost subjects suffering from the cold weather. Since the start of this fiscal year, Laredo Sector agents have rescued over 2,600 individuals in the field. #savinglives @CBPSouthTexas pic.twitter.com/2wY9Cu13H5
— Chief Patrol Agent Matthew J. Hudak (@USBPChiefLRT) February 17, 2021
In the Laredo Sector, agents rescued 40 migrants from freezing conditions in the past two days, Laredo officials stated. In one incident, agents rescued 7 migrants who crossed the border south of Laredo, Texas.
“The individuals stated they were lost and in distress due to the rainy conditions and temperatures that were near 31 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill factor of 23 degrees,” officials stated.
In a separate incident, Laredo West Station agents responded to another 911 call from a lost migrant. Agents responded to the area located about 30 miles northwest of Laredo and found the man, a Mexican national illegally present in the U.S., officials stated.
The agents said the man was not properly dressed for the frigid temperatures. They provided first aid to the man and determined he did not require additional medical attention.
“Despite the difficult weather conditions, our agents remain steadfast in their commitment to protecting our country and saving lives. I am proud of their lifesaving work and the sacrifices they endure to carry out these often dangerous rescues,” said Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak in a written statement.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.
THE CONSPIRACY TO SABOTAGE HOMELAND SECURITY
The Democrat Party’s secret agenda for wider open borders, more welfare for invading illegals, more jobs and free anything they illegally vote for…. All to destroy the two-party system and build the GLOBALISTS’ DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR WIDER OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/11/frontpage-hidden-agenda-of-pueblo-sin.html
Demonstrably and irrefutably the Democrat Party became the party whose principle objective is to thoroughly transform the nature of the American electorate by means of open borders and the mass, unchecked importation of illiterate third world peasants who will vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats and their La Raza welfare state. FRONTPAGE MAG
Surge in Illegal Aliens, 500% Increase in Some U.S. Ports of Entry
Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, December 30, 2015
The agency’s own statistics certainly contradict that, showing that the southern border region is as porous and vulnerable as ever. Other entry ports that saw large hikes in Central American illegal immigrants during the first two months of this fiscal year include Del Rio, Texas (269%), El Centro, California (216%) and Rio Grande Valley, Texas (154%). The Border Patrol breaks the stats down by “family unit” and illegal immigrants under the age of 18, referred to as “Unaccompanied Alien Children” or UAC. The Rio Grande Valley port of entry topped the list in both categories with 8,537 family units and 6,465 UACs during the two-month period. In all, the nation’s nine southern border crossings saw an average of 173% increase in family units and a 106% increase in minors during the short period considered.
Some of the illegal immigrants are Mexican nationals, but the overwhelming majority comes from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The government records show that somehow 4,450 family units from El Salvador evaded our topnotch border security and entered the United States in a period of only two months. Guatemala and Honduras had 3,934 and 3,203 respectively. Mexico had 538 family units. Of interesting note is that, during this period, the Border Patrol reports 35,234 apprehensions in the region of foreigners labeled by the government as “Other Than Mexican” or OTM. This is a term used by federal authorities to refer to nationals of countries that represent a terrorist threat to the U.S.
. . .
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/12/surge-in-illegal-aliens-500-increase-in-some-u-s-ports-of-entry/
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