(CNSNews.com) – The White House on Thursday condemned legislation approved by Oklahoma’s state legislature that would ban nearly all abortions, and Vice President Kamala Harris labeled as “outrageous” the fact that it seeks to protect unborn life from the point of fertilization.
“Just half an hour ago, in Oklahoma, the state legislature passed one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country – a ban that would outlaw abortion from the moment of fertilization,” Harris said during a virtual meeting on Thursday afternoon focused on the abortion issue.
“Now, think about that for a second: from the moment of fertilization,” she said. “It’s outrageous, and it’s just the latest in a series of extreme laws around the country.”
The text defines “unborn child” for the purposes of the prohibition on abortion as “a human fetus or embryo in any stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.”
It explicitly does not prohibit use of contraception or emergency contraception, including the so-called “morning-after pill.”
The measure also allows citizens to bring civil lawsuits against individuals who help a woman to procure an abortion – although not against the woman who sought or had the abortion herself.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has pledged to sign into law any pro-life legislation that reaches his desk. In March he signed a Texas-style bill banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, when a baby’s heartbeat can be detected.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, traveling with President Biden to Asia, issued a statement slamming the Oklahoma vote, calling it “the most extreme effort to undo these fundamental rights we have seen to date.”
“This is part of a growing effort by ultra MAGA officials across the country to roll back the freedoms we should not take for granted in this country,” she said. “They are starting with reproductive rights, but the American people need to know that other fundamental rights, including the right to contraception and marriage equality, are at risk.”
Jean-Pierre was echoing what has become a repeated talking-point for Biden since the leaking of a Supreme Court draft opinion which suggested that the court will overturn the 1973 decision that legalized abortion.
Harris in her remarks covered some of the same ground.
In the leaked draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
Princeton University is planning to fire one of the most distinguished classics professors in the country, Joshua Katz, after his criticism of the school’s racial politics made him the target of student protests and the subject of two separate university investigations.
University president Christopher Eisgruber—who in 2020 alleged that Katz had failed to exercise his free speech "responsibly"—passed his recommendation that Katz be stripped of tenure and fired to the university’s board of trustees last week, according to three sources with firsthand knowledge of the situation.
It is rare for a university to fire a tenured professor, and even rarer for a university to fire a professor with Katz’s record: By the university’s own admission, he did not commit fraud or sexual misconduct, two of the most common grounds for revoking tenure. Rather, the university is citing as grounds for dismissal a consensual relationship Katz engaged in with a student more than a decade ago, and for which he was already disciplined by the school in 2018.
The board is all but guaranteed to accept Eisgruber’s recommendation when it meets on Wednesday, the sources said. Board members include Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken, who has presided over several high-profile free speech-related scandals on her campus, including the intimidation of a second-year law student by university administrators.
Princeton University did not respond to a request for comment.
Katz’s dismissal is likely to spark a heated debate about the real reasons for his ouster.
The Ivy League classicist has been the subject of two separate investigations over the past two years, in part because he has been a vocal critic of the argument—advanced by Eisgruber and others—that Princeton is a systemically racist institution. The university had settled the matter of his relationship in 2018—with Katz taking a year’s unpaid leave as a suspension—but decided to investigate it again in the wake of his controversial remarks, leading to speculation the events are linked.
Katz is perhaps the campus’s most outspoken critic of the school’s backbreaking political correctness, including calls from faculty members to award their minority colleagues extra sabbatical time, "course relief," and "summer salary." His criticism has been frank and unsparing: "It boggles my mind that anyone would advocate giving people—extraordinarily privileged people already, let me point out: Princeton professors—extra perks for no reason other than their pigmentation," he wrote in July 2020 in an essay for Quillette . Eisgruber responded in the Daily Princetonian
"While free speech permits students and faculty to make arguments that are bold, provocative, or even offensive," Eisgruber said, "we all have an obligation to exercise that right responsibly. Joshua Katz has failed to do so."
It initially seemed like Katz would weather the blowback. On July 26, 2020, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal Quillette essay, which characterized a Princeton student group as a "local terrorist organization." That characterization came amid criticism of an open letter , signed by hundreds of Princeton faculty, that claimed "anti-Blackness is foundational to America" and demanded the university "acknowledge, credit, and incentivize anti-racist student activism."
Katz was describing Princeton’s Black Justice League, which in 2015 occupied Eisgruber’s office and demanded "cultural competency training for all staff and faculty." The group "made life miserable for many (including the many black students) who did not agree with its members' demands," Katz wrote.
Michael Flower, the chair of the classics department—as well as Eisgruber himself—subsequently denounced the essay. Katz’s "false description of a Princeton student group," Eisgruber said, "unfairly disparaged" Princeton students.
The university announced on July 12, 2020, it would "be looking into the matter," but informed Katz later that month that it had dropped its investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Though the university did not formally sanction Katz, it did include him on a list of racists —such as the notorious segregationist Woodrow Wilson—who have marred Princeton’s legacy, which was published on a university website and presented at a mandatory orientation session for freshmen in August.
The second investigation, conducted by the dean of the Office of Faculty, sealed Katz’s fate. In February 2021, the Daily Princetonian reported that Katz had engaged in a consensual relationship with an undergraduate student in the mid-2000s, violating the university’s ban on student-faculty relations.
The university had already adjudicated the violation confidentially, quietly disciplining Katz with a yearlong suspension after a separate investigation in 2018. Katz, who was in his 30s at the time of the tryst, admitted it was inappropriate and accepted the suspension without protest.
But when the liaison became public through the Daily Princetonian ’s report, Princeton launched a second investigation, telling Katz that certain details in the article "remain uninvestigated and unaddressed." Under pressure from students, the school tasked two separate bureaucracies—the Office of the Dean of Faculty and the Office of Gender Equity and Title IX Administration—with investigating the tryst. Though the former undergraduate declined to participate in the 2018 investigation, she did participate in the 2021 inquiry, alleging not just impropriety but sexual harassment.
Her allegations came as campus activists were demanding the university fire Katz. His "continued presence in the classroom," a petition in the Daily Princetonian read, "actively puts students in harm’s way."
But the Title IX office found that Katz hadn’t violated the school’s harassment policies. "Conduct must, among other things, be ‘unwelcome’ in order to constitute sexual harassment," Michele Minter, Princeton’s Title IX coordinator, said in a report reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon . But both Katz and his student "were willing and active participants" in the relationship.
"Accordingly," Miller said, "I am dismissing the formal complaint with respect to sexual harassment."
But the Office of the Dean of Faculty found other violations. It claimed that Katz hadn’t been fully forthcoming in the 2018 investigation and that he’d discouraged the undergraduate from receiving therapy—a charge Katz repeatedly denied.
In November 2021, Princeton dean of faculty Gene Jarrett recommended the school fire Katz, according to documents obtained by the Free Beacon . Katz appealed the decision, alleging that the investigation was effectively a "retrial" of the 2018 investigation.
"I was already punished—and rightly so," Katz wrote in his appeal. With the new inquiry, "I am being subject to double jeopardy," a classic due process violation.
The appeal went nowhere. Katz was informed last week that Eisgruber recommended his dismissal.
Looking back on the Roe v. Wade era.
Bruce Bawer is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
October 1974 was the month I turned 18. It was also the date on the issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction containing Philip K. Dick’s unforgettable short story “The Pre-Persons.” An avid subscriber to F&SF, I’d spent much of my teens devouring science fiction, including such classics as Arthur C.Clarke’s “The Star,” and the moment I finished reading “The Pre-Persons” I knew that this powerful story, with its deeply disturbing message, would also would become a classic.
In 1973, the Supreme Court had ruled, in Roe v. Wade, that women possessed a fundamental right to an abortion. During the preceding years, many states had rolled back restrictions on the procedure, giving America some of the most liberal laws in the world in regard to the termination of pregnancy. In the wake of Roe v. Wade, which took things to a new level, “The Pre-Persons” imagined an America of the not-so-distant future in which, the Supreme Court’s logic having been taken just a bit further, children under twelve are considered “pre-persons” and can therefore, upon their parents’ request, be picked up by the “abortion truck” and euthanized.
At the beginning of the story, a twelve-year-old boy named Walter sees the “abortion truck” in his neighborhood and freaks out - only to be mocked by his mother, Cynthia, who reminds him that he’s too old to be aborted. Later, we learn that she longs to get pregnant so that she can get an abortion. "Wouldn't that be neat?” she asks her husband, Ian. “Doesn't that turn you on?...it's the in thing now, to have an abortion." Suddenly, Ian realizes what he’s married to. And when Walter comes to him for the comfort he didn’t get from Cynthia, Ian explains to him: “It's a certain kind of woman advocating this all. They used to call them 'castrating females.' Maybe that was once the right term, except that these women, these hard cold women, didn't just want to - well, they want to do in the whole boy or man, make all of them dead, not just the part that makes him a man. Do you see?"
At the time I read the story, I was pro-life. During his years as a hospital physician, my father had been obliged to perform abortions involving deformed fetuses and mothers at risk, but he hated abortion, and when I was young he described the procedure to me in all its graphic horror to ensure that I wouldn’t have any pretty liberal illusions about it. At the time I read “The Pre-Persons” I’d just started college, and not long afterwards, at a dormitory meeting that drew about a hundred students, the topic of abortion came up. When somebody asked for opponents of abortion to identify themselves, mine was the only hand to go up.
In the ensuing decade or so, I developed close friendships with several women and was surprised to learn that every last one of them had her own abortion story. They told me the details, which were uniformly harrowing. For each of these women, having an abortion had been an unforgettable trauma. I couldn’t blame any of them for the decisions they’d made. For a while, then, I was pro-choice. At the time, the pro-choice line was that abortion is always a solution of last resort that takes a devastating psychological toll on a woman. Bill Clinton, every woman’s friend, famously said in 1992 that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” For a long time, pro-choice advocates parroted him religiously.
But some more years went by, and the stigma of abortion disappeared almost entirely. I saw women having serial abortions, taking them very lightly indeed, and using them as birth control. Abortions began to be described routinely as “health care” - a reprehensible whitewash. Again, my views shifted. And as even more years went by, pro-choice rhetoric - already a patchwork of euphemism and equivocation, not to mention an utter denial of basic biology - moved ever further from reality and responsibility. The very term “pro-choice,” of course, is a dodge; a few days ago, amusingly, the House Pro-Choice Caucus made headlines (and won jeers) by suggesting that it’s time to retire the word “choice” - not because it’s a dodge, but because it’s not enough of a dodge. (As Planned Parenthood explained, some women just don’t have a choice.)
As for “safe, legal, and rare,” it disappeared some time ago into the mists of history. To say that abortion should be rare, noted Atlantic staffer Caitlin Flanagan in a 2019 article, implies that there’s something wrong with it - and these days the mere suggestion that there’s anything at all wrong with abortion is deeply offensive to, well, a certain kind of woman. “Today’s young feminists,” wrote Flanagan, “are determined to rid abortion of any lingering stigma, including the stigmatizing notion that it should be rare. They share their stories publicly and take part in a culture in which abortion is recognized and celebrated in stand-up comedy, television shows, movies.”
Case in point: actress Lena Dunham, star of the HBO series Girls, who was asked on a 2016 podcast to recount “her own abortion story.” She didn’t have one, poor thing. And she later explained that when the question came up, she perceived that she “was carrying within myself stigma around this issue….I had internalized some of what society was throwing at us….Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.” In the same year, comedienne Natasha Leggero, who’d recently converted from Catholicism to Judaism, told Conan O’Brien in an interview that one of the pluses of being a Jew is that “abortions are cool.” She added: “I’m not saying I’m going to get an abortion, but it’s like AAA [The American Automobile Association]. You’re not going to use all those tows, but no, it’s just nice to know.”
The dictionary tells us that a woman is “an adult female person” and that a female, in turn, is “an individual that bears young.” Most women used to embrace their natural biological role. Whatever else a woman might do with her life, being a mother - for those who chose to become mothers - was viewed as the very essence of womanhood. It was the one thing women could do that men couldn’t. (This was before the era of “birthing persons.”) Even women who believed in a right to abortion under certain circumstances didn’t try to sidestep the fact that it amounted to the killing of a baby - an act that, they knew very well, should never be trivialized. Today’s woke mentality is utterly different. Woke women identify womanhood less with giving birth than with its exact opposite - with the absolute, inalienable right to have a baby vacuumed out of your womb, on command, at any point whatsoever during a pregnancy. The pride in one’s ability to bear a child has been widely replaced by a pride in one’s ability to kill it.
When it comes to the nuts and bolts details of abortion - the inconvenient truths, as it were - woke women manage to embrace the most extraordinary fictions. Feminist columnist Katha Pollitt doesn’t just deny that a fetus being killed is a human being; she considers such a contention intolerably offensive: “fetal personhood,” she says , “is maternal punishment.” (True enough, I guess, if a woman has pangs of conscience over having murdered her child.) Ethics professor Rebecca Gordon (who says that “choosing not to bring another resource-devouring, fossil-fuel-burning, carbon-dioxide-emitting American into the world might actually have been the most unselfish thing I’ve ever done”) dismisses “fetal heartbeat” - a thoroughly real phenomenon - as a term disingenuously applied by fanatical pro-lifers to “the throbbing of a millimeters-long collection of cells.” (Perhaps the silver lining to the cloud of Gordon’s abortion is that she’d obviously have been a horrible mother.)
A recent Facebook comment by a doctor named Rochelle Pudlowski Eissenstat provides an interesting contrast to the likes of Pollitt and Gordon. Eissenstat recalls that when she was a medical student she assisted at abortions. “Do you know what it feels like,” she asks, “to examine the little fragments of recognizable though tiny human beings[?] Hmmm, I see one femur here; but where’s the other one? These were first trimester abortions only back then. We had to make sure that no remnant was left in the uterus! AH, here’s the other part of the head! This was absolutely nightmarish.” In response, another woman on that Facebook threat told Eissenstat to “[s]top peddling this nonsense.” Alas, “deny, deny, deny” is the pro-choice mantra: if pro-choicers didn’t reflexively dismiss as “nonsense” the gruesome, candid testimony of people like Eissenstat, they probably wouldn’t be able to live with themselves.
Back in the days when more people went to church and took its rituals seriously, the baptism of one’s newborn child was a special moment. For many woke women today, the sacred aura that once surrounded baptism envelops abortion, and preserving one’s absolute right to an abortion - at any time, in any place - is as important, as precious, as having access to the sacraments is for a devout Christian. People used to tell anxious expectant mothers that having a baby was “the most natural thing in the world”; now, in the words of the “Shout Your Abortion” network, posted recently at the Nation website, “Abortion is normal. Our stories are ours to tell. This is not a debate.” (No, none of the left’s pet prevarications - whether about racism, say, or about gender identity - is ever up for debate, because if you confront these fantasies with facts, instead of assenting to them meekly, they’ll evaporate.)
Before Roe v. Wade, even states that permitted abortion restricted it after the second trimester. Ever since Roe v. Wade, it’s been a fundamental tenet of American leftist orthodoxy that perfect justice would require nothing short of universal, unlimited abortion rights on demand. By this logic, every restriction placed on abortion - however minimal by historical or international standards, and however reasonable and just when the fetus’s natural rights are taken into account - is perceived as sheer evil. What pro-choicers rarely acknowledge is that American abortion laws are, on average, considerably more liberal than those almost everywhere else on earth - a fact that won’t change appreciably after the Supreme Court decision takes effect.
Leftists love to compare America unfavorably with Europe. But In most of Europe, abortion is legal on request only during the first trimester. In Britain, it’s only permitted if necessary to save the mother’s life, prevent injury to her - or her children’s - health, or prevent the birth of a child with serious birth defects. (On May 10, the U.S.-based Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi ranted that American women’s civil rights were being wiped out - even though abortion laws in the U.S. will still be far more liberal than those in the U.K.) Seventeen European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, require waiting periods for women seeking abortions; in those three countries and several others, such women must undergo counseling. And in Andorra, Malta, and San Marino, abortion is illegal, period.
By contrast, in 19 U.S. states abortion is permitted up to the point of viability, while in Oregon, Vermont, New Jersey, Colorado, New Mexico, and Alaska, an abortion may be performed right up to the moment when a baby is about to be born. (The only European countries with comparable laws are Sweden and the Netherlands.) It’s been pointed out that some of these American laws would presumably allow a doctor to deliver a live baby and then let it die. Recall Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s enthusiastic promotion of a 2019 bill that would’ve permitted just that: “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Why all the rage, then, over the incipient and effectively all but meaningless overturning of Roe v. Wade? Because that Supreme Court decision has become a symbolic landmark in the history of the women’s rights movement, and a litmus test for leftism. Since half a century of euphemism and evasion has obscured the harsh reality of baby-killing, the issue can sometimes seem to have nothing at all to do with speculums and dilators and suction machines; like many other first-order left-wing dogmas - for example, the claims that whites are all oppressive racists and that a man becomes woman the moment he says he’s one - the sanctity of abortion rights seems oddly abstract, untethered from everyday reality. Which explains, I guess, how “reproductive justice advocate” Renee Bracey Sherman can say with a straight face that a “commitment to women’s abortion rights” is “profoundly life affirming.” Could anything be further from the truth, or from simple morality?
Obama and Michelle Call to Arms Over Roe v. Wade
https://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2022/05/gamer-sociopath-lawyer-barack-obama-im.html
Dr. Leah Torres , an OB/GYN in Salt Lake City, Utah, said that when she performs certain abortions she cuts the vocal cord of the baby so "there's really no opportunity" for the child to scream. Blacks make up slightly less than 13% of the American population – a percentage that’s diminishing daily as the Biden administration floods the country with illegal aliens from Latin America. However, Blacks are also doing their bit to keep their presence in American relatively small: They’re aborting their babies in extraordinary numbers. CNS News caught up with CDC statistics for 2018, based on data from only 31 reporting areas. They show that 117,626 Black children were aborted – or 33.6% of all reported 2018 abortions.
Planned Parenthood improperly took tens of millions of
dollars' worth of government loans intended to help
businesses during the coronavirus, according to a group of
Republicans who want to see the organization
investigated.
It is the handmaidens working for Planned Parenthood who have joked about selling aborted baby body parts. And it was Kamala Harris , when she was A.G. of California, who viciously prosecuted the young man who exposed that scandal, after she had received a hefty donation from Planned Parenthood.
9. Maxine Waters laments that her mother could not abort any of her 12 siblings Waters, speaking of civil rights marches, alluded her mother could not have any of her children aborted. Waters is the fifth of 13 children. “I have to march because my mother could not have an abortion,” she said .
Are We There Yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwocE3lvhkY
Archbishop Chaput: Pro-Abortion Joe Biden ‘ Should Not Receive Holy Communion ’ https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/three-gamer-lawyers-and-baby-butchers.html
Biden Justifies Abortion by Invoking Rights of ‘a Child of God,’ Then Declares National Day of Prayer
White House Still Cannot Explain Why ‘Devout Catholic’ Joe Biden Supports Abortion President Biden Claims Killing an Unborn Baby Who Has a Beating Heart is a ‘Private and Personal’ Decision (CNS News) -- After a Catholic deacon in Texas tweeted a post stating that "Joe Biden is a heretic" and an "apostate," the Catholic bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, retweeted the item and entitled it "Time for truth..."
Dr. Leah Torres , an OB/GYN in Salt Lake City, Utah, said that when she performs certain abortions she cuts the vocal cord of the baby so "there's really no opportunity" for the child to scream.
Senate Democrats vote for unfettered abortion
Senate Democrats recently voted in favor of a bill that would legalize abortion — nationwide — for all nine months of pregnancy . That's right — up to the very moment of birth, if necessary. The "Women's Health Protection Act" received support from 49 of the 50 non-Republicans in the Senate, though it ultimately failed. The bill would have given health care providers the "right" to provide "abortion services" with very few requirements or limitations.
In fact, according to the WHPA's text, health care providers would have been given the green light to commit abortions without "a prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability" or "a requirement that a patient seeking abortion services at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability disclose the patient's reason or reasons for seeking abortion services." No valid reason? No problem! No inhibitions, no prohibitions.
The measure would have removed protections for religious liberties, thereby going against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would have been unprecedented, as pro-abortion Maine Republican Susan Collins's office noted in a statement saying, "Congress has never before adopted legislation that contains an exemption to this religious liberty law."
What Collins's office fails to realize is that Democrats don't care about the religious liberty of others. They despise both religion and liberty, as practiced and enjoyed by those with traditional values. Moreover, their religion — the one true religion, mind you — holds baby-killing to be a sacrament. Abortion trumps baptism. And renders it unnecessary.
Nine-month-old fetus, post-birth.
So why limit abortion to the roughly nine months of pregnancy? Or even to the few short hours after birth? Why not permit "after-birth abortions" for a week, month, or year after a fetus has exited a birthing person's womb? Or a decade...or more? What a great defense this could provide for a person on trial for murder! "May it please the jury, I would just solemnly state that I did not murder those three people; I was just exercising my right to after-birth abortions ."
Given Democrats' concurrent desire to lower the voting age, I fully expect them to soon realize that they could combine the two issues in an effort to further solidify their power. They could raise the age of legal (after-birth) abortions to coincide with a new legal age to vote. A "twofer," as it were!
It would be a progressive Democrat's dream if they could abort children until they were, say, 9 years old, at which time they would be legally allowed to vote for them .
Only a racist, sexist, knuckle-dragging, ultra-MAGA bigot could be opposed to that, they would shout.
Democrats' policies are killing the economy; strangling free speech; obliterating life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for countless millions; and extinguishing hope. They are pregnant with malice and evil.
And they must be aborted.
WILL GAMER LAWYER AND BRIBES SUCKER KAMALA HARRIS MAKE AS MUCH OFF ELECTED OFFICE AS LAWYER JOE BIDEN, LAWYER BARACK OBAMA, OR LAWYERS BILLARY AND HILLARY?
WILL THE LOOT BE SIPHONED THROUGH HER PARASITE LAWYER HUSBAND’S HANDS???
https://kamala-harris-sociopath.blogspot.com/2022/04/will-kamala-harris-presidency-be-as.html
With Kamala Harris poised to take over if Biden finally resigns or shuffles off to try to work his con man magic on the biggest of Big Guys, no relief is on the immediate horizon.
HOW MANY OF THESE PIGS ARE GAMER LAWYERS?
“Protect and enrich.” This is a perfect encapsulation of the Clinton (LAWYERS-2) Foundation and the (LAWYERS-2) Obama book and television deals. Then there is the Biden (LAWYERS-3) family corruption, followed closely behind by similar abuses of power and office by the (LAWYER) Warren and Sanders families, as Peter Schweizer described in his recent book “Profiles in Corruption.” These names just scratch the surface of government corruption (YOU CAN ADD LAWYER KAMALA HARRIS AND LAWYER CHUCK SCHUMER TO THE PATHEION OF DEMOCRAT BRIBES SUCKING CORRUPT LAWYER POLITICIANS!) . BRIAN C JOONDEPH
WILL MEXICO ELECT ALL FUTURE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS? MARK ZUCKERBERG, THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY OF LA RAZA, AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY SAY Si,Si!!!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-democrat-party-and-mexican-fascist.html
The Democrats and their allies in Big Tech (THINK MARK ZUCKERBERG OF FACEBOOK) and the media regularly work to make this happen by subverting election integrity laws like requiring an ID, pushing for unregulated and unmonitored mail-in voting, providing support for one-sided ballot harvesting initiatives, repealing or fighting laws intended to allow states to revise voter rolls, and pouring enormous sums of money into Democrat districts to pay for election officials and ballot drop boxes.
IT'S ALWAYS THE SAME CORRUPT PEOPLE
FIGHTING THE AMERICAN WORKER TO
KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED!
The group was created in 2021 by elites and wealthy donors, including former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, as well as first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. In October, Breitbart News reported :
[T]he NGO is working alongside multinational corporations like Airbnb, Walmart, Starbucks, Instacart, Facebook , Microsoft, and Chobani to provide newly arrived Afghans with financial assistance. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also helping to funnel Afghans into American jobs.
THE NEVER ENDING BLACK LIVES MATTER HOAX
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-black-lives-matter-hoax-what-was.html
The tax documents as seen by numerous media outlets reveal BLM paid a company owned by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ child, nearly $970,000 to help “produce live events” and provide other “creative services.”
The facts that have emerged demonstrate that Black Lives Matter is largely a creation of the corporate media and the Democratic Party, not a genuine expression of insurgent popular opposition to the pervasive brutality and social inequality of American society. The revelations illustrate the venal and privileged social layers whose interests are expressed by the elevation of race, rather than class, as the essential dividing line in society.
Allegations of financial mismanagement among supposed leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM)—as well as questions surrounding the true character of the organization—continue to unfold following a recent New York Magazine report revealing the group purchased a $6 million luxury home in southern California with money that had been donated to the BLMGNF (Black Lives Matter Global Network Fund, the official title of the only actual national organization).
It's been almost two years since the summer of violent Black Lives Matter insurrections and cop-hating crusades. The actions of that summer inflicted $2 billion in property damage in 220 American cities, killed scores of people, and spiked record homicide rates in a dozen municipalities run by Democrat politicians and supporters. This unprecedented eruption of hatred and violence was fueled by a racial hoax claiming that there was an "open season" on black lives, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support this claim, whether statistical or circumstantial.
Apart from affirmative action, which was gi
Court nomination epitomizes the anti-American, anti-democratic agendas of Black Lives Matter's "trained Marxists." In addition, Moore has been a political consultant to the Clintons, Kamala Harris, and the race-hustler Jesse Jackson — an indication of how the Democrat Party has reverted to its roots as the party of slavery, racism and segregation.
One America News Video: David Horowitz Exposes Black Lives Matter https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/one-america-news-video-david-horowitz-exposes-frontpage-editors/
"BLM is just a criminal operation."
The reckoning over years of Black Lives Matter violence, backed by corporations and celebrities, has yet to arrive. But as violence by the extremists drawn to the racist movement continues, those who funded violence and terrorism will have to answer for the consequences. DANIEL GREENFIELD
KAMALA HARRIS: They expected her to be a clone of Joe Biden. And it happened!
https://kamala-harris-sociopath.blogspot.com/2022/05/what-ever-happened-to-kamala-harris.html
T he best-case scenario is that she’s a progressive who repeatedly violated her own principles so that she could promote her career. In the worst-case scenario, she’s just another corrupt, rotten, regressive prosecutor. JESSER HOROWITZ
Joe Biden, the corrupt, unaccomplished 47-year career politician, with a reputation of having been a proud segregationist , an unabashed plagiarist and liar , a resolute tale-teller , and a serial flip-flopper , is pretending to head up a radical social-democratic ticket for President of the United States that includes as his running mate the ambitious, disagreeable junior senator from California: Kamala Harris.
How Kamala Harris Made Her Millions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIipQxGdjYs
JOE BIDEN: AMERICA’S DRUG DEALER!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-biden-americas-drug-dealer-but-then.html
From April 2020 to April 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. An overwhelming majority of those deaths came from opioids, and fentanyl smuggling has surged at the southern border since the start of Joe Biden's presidency. Joseph Simonson and Collin Anderson
The Five’ react to America's fentanyl crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJzAsnWni6A
SHOCKING VIDEO!
They Need Counseling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGirVlyrUQ
" Along with Obama, Pelosi and Schumer are responsible for incalculable damage done to this country over the eight years of that administration." PATRICIA McCARTHY
SERVANTS OF RED CHINA: The Democrat Party of Bribes Suckers At Work
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/04/is-joe-biden-merely-traitor-or-is-he.html
IS JOE BIDEN MERELY A TRAITOR ? - OR IS HE ONE MORE SOCIOPATH PARASITIC GAMER LAWYER PUTTING IT IN HIS POCKET?
GAMER LAWYER JOE BIDEN’S LIFE OF CRIME
https://ca-judicial-performance-hoax.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-lawless-lawyer-class-is-gamer.html
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/04/gamer-lawyer-joe-bidens-life-of-crime.html
The discrepancy raises questions about where the nearly $5.2 million might have originated.
In April, Joe Biden claimed he doesn’t “think you should make money while you’re in office.”
However, emails from Hunter’s laptop appeared to show great sums of money were transferred to the Biden family via the scion’s shady overseas business.
WHERE DID ALL OF GAMER LAWYER JOE BIDEN’S BIG BUCKS COME FROM?
video
Where did Biden's millions come from?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlS88MKI-DA
I’d be inclined to disagree with Don except for one thing: Biden has proven to be a very adept criminal mastermind. For decades, he has funneled millions of dollars to his children and siblings and, especially, to his debauched, deviant son, Hunter. ANDREA WIDBURG
There it is. That's the issue. To begin, you have the corrupt family Biden. They've been scamming us and our system well for almost fifty years. The man is supposedly worth over 250 million dollars. How is this possible on his salary? It's not. So where did his wealth come from? Not from being a brilliant businessman. DAVID PRENTICE
It will be interesting to see if the NYT will actually publish a story that reveals Hunter Biden's shady web of international business relationships cultivated when his father was vice president RAJAB LAAD
Undeterred, on September 2, state lawmakers sent a budget to Governor Newsom calling for $600 million in spending increases and a reduction in state revenue with the extension of earned income tax credits for immigrants and illegal aliens. Balance sheet be damned, California must cater to illegal aliens. P.F. WHALEN
Biden lied about his undergraduate degree and his majors, lied about his rank in law school, lied aboutscholarships and educational aid he had received, lied about his stance toward the Vietnam war while in college, lied about his plagiarism of other politician's writings and speeches, lied about the circumstances around his first wife's fatal accident, lied about how he met his second and current wife, and lied about the affair they were having when they were both married. MARK CHRISTIAN
Most recently and dramatically, Biden lied about his knowledge of his son's shady dealings, lied about his own involvement in corruption and b ribery, and lied about his current presidential agenda and what he wants to implement in regards to energy, fracking, court-packing, health care, education, and COVID among other issues.
MARK CHRISTIAN
Democrats Don't Give a Damn About This BLM: 'Babies' Lives Matter' Who is coming up with the Left's ideas? Lucifer?
Wed May 18, 2022
Insanity. Everything President Joe Biden and his radical, treasonous, communist cabal does is pure insanity. But nothing is stranger than the Democrats' obsession with and hatred for children — whether it be murder in the womb, or much later.
I'm not just talking about their obsession with allowing abortion up until birth. This is a clear mixture of insanity and desire for the mass murder of living, breathing babies.
But give Democrats an inch, and they always want a mile.
Now these same Democrats are going after perfectly healthy babies, months or even a year after birth. Because of a harsh nationwide baby formula shortage, babies could starve to death, or certainly face diminished lives because of damaged immune systems.
But Biden and Democrats are clearly too busy and distracted from destroying the economy; killing the entire energy industry; whipping up hyperinflation to destroy the middle class; sending $40 billion of taxpayer money to Ukraine (which I believe is the most corrupt nation on earth); trying their best to start a nuclear WWIII with Russia; making sure every violent criminal is released without bail; opening up the border to every disease- and poverty-stricken person in the world; brainwashing kindergartners to hate white people and question their sexual identity; asking the Justice Department and FBI to persecute and prosecute parents at PTA meetings; and of course, allowing violent, illegal protests at the homes of conservative Supreme Court judges — knowing full well that one of these days a judge or their family may be murdered by an obsessed, abortion-crazed Democrat protester.
All of this obviously takes precedence for Biden and Democrats over something as unimportant as feeding babies.
Biden knew we were going to face a baby formula shortage. It was his Food and Drug Administration that shut down the biggest baby formula plant in America. The Biden administration knew what was coming. Biden did nothing. He warned no one. And to this moment, he has no plan.
Except to make sure there's plenty of baby formula for the babies of noncitizen migrants. Biden and his radical Marxist cabal have prioritized refugee babies over American-born babies. Have you seen the pallets of baby formula at border facilities, while shelves at supermarkets in Texas are bare?
But why would anyone be surprised at Democrats' twisted views about American children? Listen to the wild, radical, insane statements of Democrats in just the past week relating to their joy about and obsession with child murder...
First, our U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made the statement that banning abortion would "hurt the economy." The treasury secretary of the United States is insane.
Then Democrat Rep. Katie Porter said hyperinflation reinforces the need for abortion. A congresswoman was essentially saying that since Biden policies have made gas and groceries unaffordable, American women must have the option to murder their babies.
Finally, we heard about "the piece de resistance:" ABORTION TOURISM.
Yes, California Democrats are trying to "make abortion fun again." California legislators are poised to pass a bill that would pay pregnant women from anywhere in America to vacation in California, hit the beach, get a nice tan, drink a mimosa — and then murder their baby. What a vacation experience.
I'm surprised they're not setting up abortion clinics at Disneyland next to the roller-coaster.
Democrats are stark raving mad and pure evil. Who is coming up with these ideas? Lucifer?
Biden and his radical, treasonous, communist cabal have an obsession with killing babies. Tragically, it now extends to the living variety.
Except, of course, for refugee babies whose parents have illegally invaded our border. Those babies have "Democrat privilege." After all, in only 18 years they'll all be Democrat voters.
And obviously, if doctors could determine if a baby was born transgender, or gender-fluid, or gender binary, or gender neutral or gender expansive, Biden and his communist cabal would spare them too.
Democrats clearly see migrants and transgender people as the future of America.
We are living in insane times. Democrats' attempts to open the borders, kill our energy independence, spread violent crime to every big city and kill the economy are pretty darn insane.
But nothing compares to their bloodlust for hurting or killing innocent children. Democrats clearly don't give a damn about this BLM: "BABIES' LIVES MATTER."
New Documents Show How Drug Companies Targeted Doctors to Increase Opioid Prescriptions
A trove of documents published as part of a legal settlement offers an unvarnished look inside the financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and the medical community — from the perspective of drug companies themselves.
JOE BIDEN: AMERICA’S DRUG DEALER!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-biden-americas-drug-dealer-but-then.html
From April 2020 to April 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. An overwhelming majority of those deaths came from opioids, and fentanyl smuggling has surged at the southern border since the start of Joe Biden's presidency. Joseph Simonson and Collin Anderson
The Five’ react to America's fentanyl crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJzAsnWni6A
SHOCKING VIDEO!
They Need Counseling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGirVlyrUQ
" Along with Obama, Pelosi and Schumer are responsible for incalculable damage done to this country over the eight years of that administration." PATRICIA McCARTHY
Lawrence Jones follows bus of migrants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv0HaWimrxs
Biden administration truly a total dumpster fire: Rep. Cammack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18W_YpbgXiE
1700-Foot Drug Tunnel Found Connecting Tijuana with San Diego Homeland Security Investigations 2:42
Federal authorities announced the discovery of a 1,700-foot sophisticated narco-tunnel running from Tijuana to a California warehouse. Officials also seized a large volume of drugs and arrested six suspects.
This week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office from the Southern District of California announced the discovery. During a streamed news conference, U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman revealed the tunnel went to a warehouse about 300 feet north of the border, east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
Authorities revealed the tunnel stretched 1,744 feet long, is 61 feet deep, and 4 feet at its widest segment. The structure had reinforced walls and electricity for lighting and ventilation.
On May 12, federal agents were carrying out surveillance at a house in National City, California, where they had previously seized 28 kilos of cocaine. From that house, authorities followed two women identified as Luz de Luna Olmos and Vanessa Ramirez, who drove to a store to purchase hand carts and then made their way to the warehouse in San Diego. The women drove inside the warehouse and out a few minutes later. Authorities followed and arrested them.
During a search, they found the entrance to the tunnel, which had been carved out on the floor. Federal authorities did not identify the cartel responsible for the tunnel.
Other agents surveilling the warehouse spotted vehicles driving in and out of the location. Agents followed and arrested the other suspects and seized a total of 1,762.15 pounds of cocaine, 165 pounds of methamphetamine, and 3.5 pounds of heroin.
Court documents identified the other drug couriers as Juan Cruz, Mario Jaramillo, Manuel Perez Herrera, and Adrian Enriquez.
All six suspects live in or near the San Diego area and face drug conspiracy charges.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook . He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com .
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook . He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com .
900 Pounds of Meth Seized at Texas Border Crossing U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Laredo OFO 2:32
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to a border crossing in Laredo, Texas, seized more than 900 pounds of methamphetamine. The officers found the $18 million worth of drugs in a tractor-trailer attempting to enter the U.S. from Mexico.
CBP officers assigned to the World Trade Bridge in Laredo on May 6 observed a 2013 International trailer carrying a load of stainless steel scrap metal approach for entry inspection into the United States, according to information obtained from CBP officials in Laredo. An officer identified the driver as a 33-year-old male from Mexico. The officers referred the driver to a secondary inspection area.
During the secondary inspection, a CBP K-9 alerted to the possible presence of drugs in the load of scrap steel. A non-intrusive inspection scan of the load revealed containers hidden in the load.
A physical inspection of the trailer led to discovering 25 buckets containing 913 pounds of methamphetamine, officials stated. The street value of the load of drugs is estimated to be approximately $18,253,206.
“Officers assigned to CBP cargo facilities ensure effective border security by preventing and countering the flow of suspected narcotics entering the country,” Port Director Alberto Flores, Laredo Port of Entry, said in a written statement. “Large-scale seizures, such as this one, provide an excellent example of border security management and how it helps prevent illicit contraband from reaching our communities.”
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 What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face .
The Silent Invasion and War at Home
It has been chilling to watch the steady number of deaths, the territory invaded, the executions and rapes, the fear and the flight. It is especially shocking because we had peace for so long, but now we see all the possibilities of evil coming out.
I'm not talking about Ukraine — I'm speaking of an invasion right here in the United States. Migrants, mostly Hispanic, are entering the U.S. at the rate of at least 2 million per year — or 20 million in the next decade — and with them come hundreds of thousands of violent gang members. Meanwhile, our own inner-city gangs are spreading out into affluent suburban areas, invading high-end shopping areas and stealing from stores and individuals, often at gunpoint and with deadly consequences.
I am not being alarmist or racist. I am simply describing what is happening and pointing out the future state of affairs if we do nothing. If anything, my numbers are low, and my words cannot describe the horror of what is happening.
The most numerous victims of this invasion are blacks and Hispanics who are attacked by young men of their own race. These are the forgotten men and women in our society, and this is a topic that mainstream news won't cover because the killers are mostly black and Hispanic. Just in 2020, the year of the "defund the police" protests, murders of blacks soared by 32%, and they're only continuing.
We're seeing an explosion in the number of carjackings and car thefts, along with murders, home invasions, rapes, assaults, and other violent crimes, not just in our cities, but in suburban areas as well. And authorities cannot or will not do anything to stop it. There has always been violent crime in Chicago, but now there seems to be a crime wave , and it includes the murder of children, police officers, and the elderly. The authorities mumble about "root causes," but social work won't reduce the numbers. We are at war, and war requires the use of force.
The perpetrators are largely the same in every location: young black and Hispanic men, heavily armed and with no apparent conscience or morality. They prey on the weak and take what they want, which seems to be money, sex, drugs, and a certain kind of street cred that they mistake for status.
These thugs now control the streets, even in many smaller cities. Mayors like Lori Lightfoot seem to have given up. They attempt to change the subject and ignore the problem, just as the Biden administration does.
Biden ignores the fact that we have been invaded by a powerful army of young men of similar backgrounds and natures — ruthless gang members and repeat offenders with the same teardrop tattoos signifying their having committed murder, the same cold, haughty stare, the same hostile swagger and domineering speech. These criminals have become so familiar that even some middle-class whites, through popular culture and rap music, have mistaken them for Robin Hood–type heroes.
They are anything but heroes. They inflict suffering and death on everyone around them. Like half-starved lions released into the Coliseum, they exist only to murder and prey on the weak.
More Americans have died in this war over the past decade (some 200,000) than Ukrainians who have died in their war (13,000 according to a recent count), and American cities are beginning to resemble the bombed out shells of civilization we see in Mariupol and Kharkiv. The difference is that everyone notices the destruction in Ukraine, but few understand the magnitude of violent crime in the U.S. If the media coverage were honest and proportional, Americans would demand change.
We have been invaded by an army that is worse than that of Russia. Unlike the hapless conscripts who constitute those Russian forces, the thugs who roam America are remorseless. If anything, they enjoy killing since it inflates their sense of power, especially their power over whites, and particularly white police officers, though black victims are hardly exempt. They are lean, muscled, and street-tough, and they are not afraid of getting caught since in most places there is no real punishment for "common" crimes like stealing cars or home break-ins, and little punishment for violent crime as well.
The invaders we face are violent and lack all compunction, but they are not all that numerous. They fit a similar profile — a certain type of young minority drop-out, stealing or selling drugs — but according to several estimates, they constitute at most one quarter of their demographic and a smaller percentage of Hispanics. Indeed, most blacks and Hispanics live in fear of these invaders, just as most whites do.
The Ukrainian army has repelled Russian forces in many areas. If the Ukrainians had been properly armed, they might have turned back the Russians at the beginning and saved their country so much suffering and destruction. In America, we don't even realize we have been invaded, or else we refuse to admit it. It's not "woke" to say that young black men commit murder at 18 times the rate of the general population. Not woke to say, as is true, that twice as many whites are murdered by blacks as are blacks by whites. Not woke to point out that fully one quarter of black men "end up in the criminal justice system," as Bernie Sanders has it .
One does not defeat an enemy by allowing it to murder, steal, and rape without resistance. The only way is to recognize that we have been invaded, and we are at war. War requires its own way of thinking and its own tactics and strategy. At present, we arrest criminals (a few of them, since 54% of reported violent crimes and more than 75% overall go unsolved ), charge them with a lesser offense, release them (in many places without bail), and watch them go right back to committing crimes. That is the wrong strategy for a state of war.
It is possible to defeat our enemy, but it will take a change of attitude. We must be willing to fund our police at maximum levels, support our police in their dangerous work, and indemnify them against unreasonable prosecution in their use of force, and we must elect prosecutors who actually prosecute this army of invaders. The recall of L.A. district attorney George Gascón might be a good start.
We are under attack, and the situation is getting worse. The only way to defeat an invading army is with greater force. We need to provide that force so that we can live safely once again.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
Five Large Migrant Groups Cross into One Texas Border Sector U.S. Border Patrol/Del Rio Sector 5:06
Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents encountered five large groups of migrants who illegally crossed the border during a 31-hour period over the weekend. Three of the groups crossed within 10 hours of each other.
“Hundreds at a time. That is what agents of the Del Rio Sector are seeing almost daily,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Jason D. Owens tweeted. “This adds to the already record number of apprehensions.”
Border Patrol officials define a “large group” as more than 100 migrants crossing the border in a single incident. So far this fiscal year, which began October 1, 2021, the sector’s agents encountered 108 large groups. This accounts “for approximately half the large groups encountered by Border Patrol nationwide.”
Beginning on the morning of May 14, agents encountered a group fo 129 migrants who crossed into Texas from Mexico. The group included migrants from six unique nations including Colombia (28), Cuba (78), Mexico (1), Nicaragua (1), Peru (13), and Venezuela (13). The group included 76 single adult males, 32 single adult females, and seven family units, officials reported.
As darkness approached, another group of 126 migrants crossed the border and were taken into custody. This group consisted of 40 Colombians, 61 Cubans, 13 Peruvians, and 12 Venezuelans. The group included 69 single adult males, 27 single adult females, 29 family unit migrants, and one unaccompanied child.
The following morning, Del Rio Sector agents encountered a group of 107 migrants — 89 Cuban nationals, 14 Venezuelan nationals, two Ecuadorians, and two from Peru. The group consisted of 67 single adult males, 28 single adult females, and 12 family unit migrants.
A few hours later, another group crossed. This time, consisting of 122 migrants including 60 Cuban nationals, 19 Venezuelans, 38 Colombians, two Peruvians, two Nicaraguans, and one Dominican. The group’s demographics included 61 single adult males, 27 single adult females, 33 family unit migrants, and one unaccompanied child.
Finally, another group crossed the border from Mexico and entered Texas. The group of 147 migrants included 22 Cuban nationals, 21 Venezuelan nationals, 52 Colombians, 28 from Peru, 23 from Nicaragua, and one Honduran. The group consisted of 90 single adult males, 21 single adult females, and 36 family unit migrants.
Breitbart Texas reported over the weekend that another unaccompanied minor, a two-year-old girl, was placed into the hands of a migrant by human smugglers and told to take the child across the river where dozens of people, including small children, have drowned during the past two months.
In total, the agents apprehended 631 migrants in the five large groups.
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 What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face .
US overdose deaths rose to record levels in 2021, fueled by fentanyl, exacerbated by pandemic Deaths from drug overdoses in 2021, the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, rose to record-setting levels. Overdose deaths neared 108,000, fueled by an ever-worsening fentanyl crisis, according to preliminary data published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Hydrocodone pills, also known as Vicodin, are arranged for a photo at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. [AP Photo/Toby Talbot] Overdose deaths in the US have now surpassed a staggering 1 million since the CDC began collecting data about two decades ago. The surge over the past two years is a result not only of the proliferation of fentanyl, but has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has served to isolate growing numbers of people and restricted access to treatment programs.
The number of deadly overdoses in 2021 was similar to those caused by diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease and approximately a quarter of the official number of deaths from COVID-19 that year, according to the CDC.
Prior to the pandemic, the US was already coping with a groundswell of “deaths of despair” from suicides, overdoses and alcohol poisoning, as well as deaths from gun violence.
The 15 percent rise in overdose deaths in 2021 followed a rise of almost 30 percent in 2020. A growing share of these deaths were driven by fentanyl, a class of potent synthetic opioids that is as much as 100 times more powerful than morphine. Fentanyl and methamphetamines, synthetic stimulants, are often mixed with other drugs. Users are most often not aware of fentanyl’s presence in the drugs they are using.
According to state health officials, many overdose deaths appear to be the result of mixing fentanyl and methamphetamines. Deaths involving synthetic opioids rose to 71,000 in 2021, up from 58,000 the year before, while deaths from stimulants like methamphetamines increased to 33,000 from 25,000.
Alaska saw the largest percentage increase of any state in 2021. Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska’s chief health official, told the New York Times that of the 140 fentanyl overdose deaths recorded in 2021, over 60 percent also involved methamphetamines and nearly 30 percent involved heroin.
Fentanyl, introduced in the 1960s as an intravenous anesthetic, is a white powder that is now often combined with other drugs such as heroin and cocaine to be sold on the illegal market. It can be produced in a lab and can be cheaper and easier to distribute than heroin, making it more lucrative for drug dealers and traffickers. It is often unwittingly used by those who have moved on to heroin after becoming addicted to opioids that have been pushed by Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies.
A substantial share of illicit pills believed by users to be the opioid OxyContin, the benzodiazepine Xanax or the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Adderall now contain fentanyl, oftentimes in deadly doses. Individuals seeking prescription opioids, relief from anxiety, or a stimulant to stay awake for exams or work, become the unwitting victims of deadly doses of fentanyl.
Black Americas now have the highest fatality rates from drug overdoses, followed by American Indian and Alaska Native males, with significant increases seen among these groups in recent years.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), at the National Institutes of Health, overdose deaths among teens have doubled in the past three years, even though drug use is decreasing overall among teens. Teens are more likely to take pills they think are Adderall, Xanax or Percocet, seeking help to study, calm anxiety or treat pain, according to Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIDA.
“They’ve been doing this for decades,” the Guardian quotes Volkow saying. “What is now different is these prescription drugs that are illicitly manufactured containing fentanyl have increased 50-fold,” she said.
The proliferation of fentanyl is undoubtedly a significant contributing factor to the surge in overdose deaths. However, this epidemic of deaths cannot be separated from either the pandemic or the social crisis that it has exacerbated. The criminal government policy pursued by both the Trump and Biden administrations in relation to COVID-19 has led to an official death toll of 1 million Americans in just two years.
The government’s refusal to adopt a Zero-COVID public health strategy has created conditions in which the country is now in the third year of the pandemic with no end in sight.
The White House announced earlier this month that it expects the US to record 100 million new cases of COVID-19 during the coming fall and winter months, along with a “significant wave of deaths.” Using the accepted infection fatality rate from the virus of 0.5 percent, this translates into 500,000 additional deaths.
Last month, President Biden sent his administration’s inaugural National Drug Control Strategy to Congress which, according to the White House web site, “focuses on two critical drivers of the epidemic: untreated addiction and drug trafficking.” The Office of National Drug Control Policy has requested just over $450 million for fiscal year 2023 to fund this effort.
This sum—much of which will end up going to federal and local police—compares to the record $39.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine just authorized by the US House to fund the US-NATO proxy war. This goes beyond the $33 billion requested by the Biden administration and is being pushed through by a bipartisan effort, including from the “left” wing of the Democratic Party.
The geyser of money for war comes as $10 billion for COVID-19 relief was dropped by the Democrats, despite the Biden administration’s predictions of an approaching fall and winter of surging deaths from the coronavirus. Can it seriously be believed that this same Democratic Party will lead a war against overdose deaths that are almost certain to rise in 2022–2023?
The crisis of overdose deaths in the US is above all a social crisis that must be confronted by workers and youth in a struggle against a wealthy elite that is prepared to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives annually to overdoses and other deaths of despair at the same time as it forces the population into unsafe workplaces and schools and drives millions into poverty as prices soar and real wages plunge.
Only the working class has the power and position in society to fight for socialist policies in opposition to a ruling class that prosecutes war abroad while condemning the population at home to death and disease.
Drugs tunnel connecting US and Mexico found
A huge drugs tunnel has been found running from Tijuana in Mexico to a warehouse in San Diego in the US.
With a length of 1,744ft (531m), the passage had a rail track, electricity and a ventilation system.
US authorities had been carrying out surveillance at a property previously used as a stash house for smuggling cocaine when they made the discovery.
They seized cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. Six people are being held on drug-trafficking charges.
The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California said the tunnel was 61ft (18m) deep and 4ft (1m) in diameter.
Prosecutors say that before the discovery, officers saw several vehicles come and go from the property in Tijuana and the warehouse on Friday 13 May.
They were then stopped and searched, the drugs were seized and arrests were made.
When officers entered the warehouse, the cross-border tunnel exit point was found carved out of the floor.
The attorney's office said 1,762lb (799kg) of cocaine, 164lb (74kg) of methamphetamine and 3.5lb (1.5kg) of heroin had been seized.
The suspects, aged between 31 and 55, could face a life sentence in prison and a $1m fine if found guilty.
"There is no more light at the end of this narco-tunnel," said US Attorney Randy Grossman.
"We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities."
The last tunnel found in California was in 2020 . That one is also the longest to date, measuring 4,309ft (1,313m) in length. Since 1993, 90 of these types of secret passage have been discovered.
A picture of the drugs seized during this investigation
Big cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego Border Tunnel This undated photo provided by Homeland Security Investigations shows the inside of a cross border tunnel between Mexico's Tijuana into the San Diego area. Authorities announced on Monday, May 16, 2022, the discovery of the underground smuggling tunnel on Mexico's border, running the length of a football field on U.S. soil to a warehouse in an industrial area. The cross-border tunnel from Tijuana to the San Diego area was built in one of the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the limitations of former President Donald Trump's border wall. (Homeland Security Investigations via AP)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
S AN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a major drug smuggling tunnel — running about the length of a six football fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area in the U.S.
The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation systems, electricity and reinforced walls, authorities said. It was discovered near San Diego's Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where more than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been found in the last two decades.
U.S. authorities said it was unknown how long the tunnel had been operating and what amount of drugs, if any, got through undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.
Six people, ages 31 to 55, were charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine. All are Southern California residents.
The tunnel is in one of the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the limitations of border walls. While considered effective against small, crudely built tunnels called “gopher holes,” walls are no match for more sophisticated passages that run deeper underground.
The latest passage, discovered Friday, ran one-third of a mile (532 m) to Tijuana. It was 4 feet (1.2 m) in diameter and about six stories deep.
The type of drugs seized may signal a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were often found in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.
Hard drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry huge loads at lightning speed.
The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is busy with large semitrailers during the day but quiet at night. On Monday, armed guards watched over a small shaft with a ladder that descended into the tunnel.
After staking out a home that was recently used to stash drugs, officials began making traffic stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up boxes full of cocaine, according to a federal criminal complaint filed in San Diego.
They raided the properties — finding no other drugs at the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor, federal prosecutors said.
Authorities have found about 15 sophisticated tunnels on California’s border with Mexico since 2006.
Many tunnels, including the one announced Monday, are in San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial area, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cover.
The cross-border passages date back to the early 1990s and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in 2020 that they are generally found in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico's Sinaloa cartel.
Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory despite not knowing how long it had been operating.
“There is no more light at the end of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”
By federal law, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. side of tunnels with concrete after they are discovered.
___=
Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.
four feet at its widest point.
Feds find smuggling tunnel linking US and Mexico U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of an underground smuggling tunnel on the U.S.-Mexican border between Tijuana and San Diego. (May 17)
Drugs tunnel connecting US and Mexico found
A huge drugs tunnel has been found running from Tijuana in Mexico to a warehouse in San Diego in the US.
With a length of 1,744ft (531m), the passage had a rail track, electricity and a ventilation system.
US authorities had been carrying out surveillance at a property previously used as a stash house for smuggling cocaine when they made the discovery.
They seized cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. Six people are being held on drug-trafficking charges.
The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California said the tunnel was 61ft (18m) deep and 4ft (1m) in diameter.
Prosecutors say that before the discovery, officers saw several vehicles come and go from the property in Tijuana and the warehouse on Friday 13 May.
They were then stopped and searched, the drugs were seized and arrests were made.
When officers entered the warehouse, the cross-border tunnel exit point was found carved out of the floor.
The attorney's office said 1,762lb (799kg) of cocaine, 164lb (74kg) of methamphetamine and 3.5lb (1.5kg) of heroin had been seized.
The suspects, aged between 31 and 55, could face a life sentence in prison and a $1m fine if found guilty.
"There is no more light at the end of this narco-tunnel," said US Attorney Randy Grossman.
"We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities."
The last tunnel found in California was in 2020 . That one is also the longest to date, measuring 4,309ft (1,313m) in length. Since 1993, 90 of these types of secret passage have been discovered.
A picture of the drugs seized during this investigation
