Saturday, November 27, 2021
OPEN BORDERS FOR MORE CHEAP LABOR - THAT IS THE NAFTA GLOBALIST DEMOCRAT LA RAZA SUPREMACY PARTY DOCTRINE
Democratic Lawmakers Sign onto Letter to Ignore Parliamentarian, Ram Through Immigration in Reconciliation
Source: AP Photo/Mark Tenally
Earlier this month, the House voted to pass President Joe Biden's reconciliation spending bill, which now heads to the Senate. As Jordain Carney highlighted for The Hill on Saturday morning, however, it is expected to go through several changes.
Carney references Medicare expansion, inclusion of paid family leave, changes to the SALT deduction cap, potentially more cuts to climate change proposals, and immigration.
The only reason Democrats have a shot of passing this spending bill is because they are complying with the reconciliation process so that they will only need 50 votes for it to pass.
One specific provision where the Senate parliamentarian has had to weigh in on is on the immigration issue.
As Carney reported:
...Senate Democrats previously pitched the Senate parliamentarian on two plans that would provide permanent residency to millions of immigrants, but they were rejected for not complying with the rules for what can be included in legislation passed under reconciliation.
Still, House Democrats and some immigration groups are urging Senate Democrats to add the broader policy back into the legislation when it hits the Senate floor. Nearly half of the House Democratic Caucus signed on to a letter urging their counterparts to add a pathway to citizenship in the bill, arguing the “role of the Parliamentarian is an advisory one, and the Parliamentarian’s opinion is not binding.”
Senate Democrats don’t have the votes to formally overturn the parliamentarian, but advocates instead are urging them to put someone in the chair who would ignore the parliamentarian. Senate Democrats could also try to add the immigration language back into the bill as an amendment, but that would likely fall short.
Not surprisingly, House Democrats in question include squad members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
The letter emphasizes that the current proposals are only forms of "temporary" relief.
Lest one think that the Democrats do not have radical tricks up their sleeves, the Biden administration, and not without much confusion, has indicated illegal immigrants who crossed the border during the Trump administration and were separated from family members may be awarded up to $450,000, each.
Stephen Miller has been warning about the Democrats' immigration plans for some time now, too, especially as it applies to this bill.
It's also worth mentioning that another change the bill is likely to go through, which Carney did not mention, is the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayers from having to fund elective abortions. The budget rider has passed every year with bipartisan support since 1976. Democrats cannot afford to lose any members and if they want support from Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate, pro-life Democrat from West Virginia, it will need to be included. It was purposefully left out of the House version.
BOOKS - GREAT GIFTS SOMEONE ELSE CAN SHIP FOR YOU!
AMERICAN HISTORICAL FICTION
You can read this free on ebook tablet
The Blog has frequently promoted non-fiction books that document or further expose the issues we share with our readers.
Today we share an inspirational true story of a woman who overcame more odds than any of us can imagine.
The Air Between Our Tubs explores the depths of human depravity, and the resilience that enables us to triumph over it. In situations of the most dire violence and inhumanity shines a gleam of love, endurance, and commitment to a belief in the possibility of goodness. The novel is a testament to the capacity of these values and beliefs to persist and overcome in the face of the evil they encounter. Despite the heart-wrenching realities it explores, The Air Between Our Tubs is a book of profound hope and ultimately a love story.
The Air Between Our Tubs
BORROWED DREAMS
synopsis
The Air Between Our Tubs, set in the American South in the years following Emancipation, depicts with unflinching clarity the violence, degradation, and dehumanization that constituted the very core of the social systems African Americans encountered wherever they turned—and the effects of which remain apparent throughout the nation, as a wide range of recent events make painfully clear. The novel is narrated by the protagonist herself, in a style infused with all the wit and wisdom she needs to draw on to survive the trials she encounters. The music of the prose captures the verve and passion of the lives it traces, and the arc of the narrative follows an epic trajectory, encompassing a vision as broad and embracing as the love that animates her awareness.
The novel follows the life of Sarah Breedlove. Born to a sharecropping family who are finding the new Jim Crow system every bit as punitive as the slavery it replaced, each step of Sarah’s life is overshadowed by the specters of the history in which she finds herself trapped. At an early age, Sarah’s father dies, worn out by the unceasing toil imposed by the owners of the estate on which they sharecrop, and her mother follows him the next day. She and her brother Alex are sent to live with an older sister, Louvenia, in nearby Vicksburg. There they are faced with urban deprivation, and the exploitation that attends on it like a vulture. Louvenia lives with Jesse, an alcoholic whoremonger who keeps her in a state indistinguishable from slavery through the force of his physical abuse and the threat of turning her over to the authorities should she ever try to escape from him. Louvenia is convinced she can be conscripted to the chain-gang should he make good on his threat, and she therefore faces indentured servitude whichever way she turns. Sarah begins helping Louvenia with the laundry she washes to earn a living. It is exhausting, poorly paid work, and most of their income goes to keeping Jesse in drink and women.
Alex finds work in a stable. The owner, Mr. Harold knows Alex has no recourse if he is not paid for his labor, and accordingly takes advantage of him continuously. There he meets Jeffery McWilliams, also know as Riverman. When the two men visit Sarah and Louvenia, there is instant attraction between Sarah and Jeff. Despite Sarah’s resistance, Louvenia and Alex conspire to kindle a romance between the two, and soon their mutual intentions are established. Not long after, Jeff arrives at the house to find Jesse about to rape Sarah. He intervenes, saying that Sarah has agreed to marry him.
They are married soon after, but having nowhere to live, Sarah moves into the loft with Jeff at the stables. Jeff explains his dream to Sarah: to own a piece of land on which he can grow fruit and vegetables, and provide for his family. It seems unattainable, but then Mrs. Harold informs Jeff she is selling the stables, and she gives him a buggy and pair of horses as a parting gift. She also informs him of a cabin outside of town with a small piece of land. It belongs to a friend of hers, who is willing to let it for a small fee, in exchange for the tenants maintaining the place.
Jeff and Sarah move to the cabin outside of the town. They plant fruit trees which evoke Sarah’s memories of The Orchard with her mother at the Burney Plantation. Jeff begins to distill moonshine, to make extra income, as part of his plan to buy the property. Sarah is apprehensive, knowing what the Klan do to Black bootleggers, but Jeff assures her everything will be okay. Sarah continues to help Louvenia with her laundry business, and their home starts to take shape.
When Sarah falls pregnant with their first child, Annie the pastor’s wife, her neighbor in Vicksburg, moves out to the cabin to help her with the preparations and the delivery. After a complicated labor, a baby daughter is born, whom they name Lelia. Jeff and Sarah can see their dreams materializing, where once they seemed entirely unattainable.
One night when Sarah is returning some laundry to Louvenia, she finds Louvenia in her familiar state: beaten black and blue by Jesse, bleeding, sitting at the kitchen table almost senseless. While not an unusual situation, Sarah can see that something is different this time. She convinces Louvenia to escape with her to the cabin. As they are returning, they come upon three Klan members lynching Jeff for distilling moonshine. Sarah is unable to save Jeff. Her dreams shattered, she decides to move to St. Louis with her daughter.
The Air Between Our Tubs explores the depths of human depravity, and the resilience that enables us to triumph over it. In situations of the most dire violence and inhumanity shines a gleam of love, endurance, and commitment to a belief in the possibility of goodness. The novel is a testament to the capacity of these values and beliefs to persist and overcome in the face of the evil they encounter. Despite the heart-wrenching realities it explores, The Air Between Our Tubs is a book of profound hope and ultimately a love story.
Product details
ISBN BOOK 978-1-7374087-0-3
· ASIN : B09F1DKHQW
· Publisher : LEWARO ROAD (August 29, 2021)
· Publication date : August 29, 2021
· Language : English
· File size : 1693 KB
· Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
· Text-to-Speech : Enabled
· Screen Reader : Supported
· Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
· X-Ray : Not Enabled
· Word Wise : Enabled
· Print length : 326 pages
· Lending : Enabled
JOE BIDEN - FOLKS, DON'T BE MAD AT THE LA RAZA MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS BECAUSE THEY SUPPLY YOU WITH CHEAP OPIOIDS! - THEY ALSO SUPPLY ME WITH 'CHEAP' DEM VOTING ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS
JOE BIDEN PAYS CONTRACTORS $2 BILLION DOLLARS ! NOT ! TO BUILD THE WALL AGAINST NARCOMEX!
Lankford Criticizes Biden For Halting Border Construction, While Still Paying Contractors
First, the criminal elements in Mexico have been emboldened by President Biden's border policy. They are doing lots of business bringing people to the border and charging them a nice fee. Furthermore, who knows what deal they are making with these people once they get here. In other words, what future payments, cash or "services," are due once they settle into the U.S.?
Texas deploys National Guard to border as caravan approaches
US drug overdose deaths surged to 100,000 in first year of pandemic
More than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States during the 12-month period ending April 2021, according to new provisional data published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This staggering number, a dismal record for human misery, coincides roughly with the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 killed about 509,000 people during that same timeframe, from May 2020 to April 2021.
The drug overdose death toll jumped 29.5 percent from the same period a year earlier and has nearly doubled over the past five years. Synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, caused 64 percent of these overdose deaths, up nearly 50 percent from the year before, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Fentanyl was introduced in the 1960s as an intravenous anesthetic. Cheaper, legally or illegally produced fentanyl is often mixed with other drugs like heroin, cocaine or marijuana by drug dealers and sold to users who may not be aware of its presence.
Increases in overdose death counts were almost universal across states, while varying in magnitude. Year-over-year increases of 50 percent were seen in California, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky. Increases in deaths in the range of 40 percent were seen in Washington state, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Alaska, Nebraska, Virginia and the Carolinas.
Although the numbers were small, cases in Vermont increased by 85 percent during the year studied. Only New Hampshire, New Jersey and South Dakota saw overdose deaths drop.
Overdose deaths from methamphetamine and other psychostimulants also increased dramatically, up 48 percent in the year ending April 2021 compared to the year before, accounting for more than a quarter of all overdose deaths in the 12-month period studied. While previously fentanyl had been more widely used on the East Coast and methamphetamines on the West Coast, both drugs are now proliferating nationwide. Deaths from cocaine and prescription pain medication have also increased, although not as drastically.
The latest data from the CDC suggests that drug overdose deaths now kill slightly less than Alzheimer’s disease, which claimed about 121,000 lives in 2019, and slightly more than diabetes, about 88,000 lives. Heart disease was the leading cause of death in 2019, killing nearly 660,000 people, while cancer killed nearly 600,000.
Referring to the coming together of the COVID-19 pandemic and drug overdose deaths, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told CNN, “In a crisis of this magnitude, those already taking drugs may take higher amounts and those in recovery may relapse. It’s a phenomenon we’ve seen and perhaps could have predicted.” The rise of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is as much as 100 times more powerful than morphine, has exacerbated this deadly explosion of opioid deaths.
The death toll of 100,000 Americans from overdoses was more than deaths from car crashes and guns combined. This number was up almost 30 percent from the 78,000 deaths the previous year and more than double since 2015. Most of these deaths occurred among people aged 25 to 55, the so-called prime of life.
By contrast, of the more than 787,500 who have died from COVID-19 to date in the US according to Worldometer, three-quarters have been over the age of 65. It is likely that among American adults under 50 years of age, more died from opioids last year than from the worst pandemic the world has seen in a century.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a perfect storm for the proliferation of drug overdose deaths. In the early stages of the pandemic, when lockdowns, school and business closures, and mask mandates were put in place in many states, resources to treat substance abuse were scaled back. Many suffering from addiction, particularly young adults, were isolated from their support systems and unable to access treatment. Many were left to overdose alone with no one with them to administer Narcan (naloxone) or call for help.
However, the loosening of restrictions—which has allowed the coronavirus to spread and kill—has not resulted in an improvement in access to care for substance abuse. “Even if COVID went away tomorrow, we’d still have a problem. What will have an impact is dramatic improvement to access to treatment,” Dr. Andrew Kolodny, medical director of opioid policy research at the Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy and Management, told CNN. “These are deaths in people with a preventable, treatable condition,” he said “The United States continues to fail on both fronts, both on preventing opioid addiction and treating addiction.”
Due to the chaotic, unplanned character of the for-profit health care system and lack of resources, there is also no coordinated program to distribute naloxone (Narcan) widely and at no cost to health departments nationwide. This is also the case with fentanyl test strips, which can tell a user if the deadly opioid is present.
Substance abuse continues to be stigmatized in the US. Those suffering from addiction are chastised by the right and those in authority for their moral failings while programs and treatments are starved for cash. Presidential candidate Biden pledged to “Hold accountable big pharmaceutical companies, executives and others responsible for their role in triggering the opioid crisis,” but this was just hot air.
Lawsuits against such legal drug dealers have yielded a slap on the wrist or less. Earlier this month, a California judge said he would rule against several large counties in the state that accused four drug makers—Johnson & Johnson, Teva, Endo International and AbbVie—of fueling the US opioid epidemic, saying they failed to prove their $59 billion case.
In August, a bankruptcy judge approved a settlement by OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family that the company values at more than $10 billion—a drop in the bucket for the mega-wealthy drug company owners and cold comfort for the millions of Americans who have suffered due to their marketing of deadly opioids.
Over the past three years, the Department of Health and Human Services, through the Health Resources and Services Administration, has invested a paltry $384 million in community-based grants and technical assistance on prevention, treatment and recovery services in rural communities to fight opioid use and other substance abuse disorders.
Speaking on the release of the new overdose death figures, President Biden claimed, “We are strengthening prevention, promoting harm reduction, expanding treatment, and supporting people in recovery, as well as reducing the supply of harmful substances in our communities. And we won’t let up.” He added, “Together we will turn the tide on this epidemic.”
Biden’s false and cynical statements cannot hide the reality. The United States will no more “turn the tide” in opioid deaths than on COVID-19 deaths, although in both cases, there are practical solutions at hand, if the necessary resources were provided.
Instead, the White House turns a blind eye to the enormity of the crisis. Anne Milgram, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said, “This year alone, DEA has seen enough fentanyl to provide every member of the United States population with a lethal dose and we are still seizing more fentanyl each and every day.”
In a call with reporters Wednesday, in support of his anti-China campaign Biden attempted to shift the blame for the opioid crisis from the US to Mexican drug cartels sourcing drug-making chemicals from China.
Contrary to suggestions that the surging overdose deaths have come because health care resources have been diverted from substance abuse treatment to the pandemic, the US ruling elite and the profit-based health care system are responsible for both catastrophes. Those dying from drug overdoses and those cut down by COVID-19 are both victims of the homicidal policies of corporate America and its political representatives.
WE CAN'T SAVE OUR COUNTRY UNTIL WE RID OURSELVES OF BIDEN!
A Border Sheriff's Reality
Mark Dannels is the well-known and respected sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, a large jurisdiction that put its first county seat in the iconic frontier town of Tombstone and took its name from one of the most famous and feared war chiefs of the Chiricahua Apache. He is the chair of the Border Security Committee of the National Sheriff’s Association and was a member of the select DHS Homeland Security Advisory Council until removed by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a sweeping political purge of its membership. Dannels’ department patrols eighty-three miles of the state’s four hundred mile boundary with Sonora, Mexico, halfway down a narrow ribbon of thirty-one counties stretching from California to Texas.
Border sheriffs in Arizona have long reckoned with illegal immigration, trodden for decades over the same sagebrush routes now used by the Sinaloa Cartel to ensure its majority share of the American drug trade. Unlawful waves of migration have waxed and waned over the years, contingent upon the party in power. Bush 43 wrestled with it, leaving it to flourish under Obama. Trump brought it to an all-time low behind hundreds of miles of new and replacement wall fortified by Title 42 and Migrant Protection Protocols that kept the phalanxes of border crashers inside Mexico. The Biden doctrine on unlawful migration has been to put a match to all things Trump while continuing to chip away at any regulatory headwinds that might slow the invasion.
For years Dannels and his fellow sheriffs have relied heavily on federal grants and state support to hold the line. Operation Stone Garden represented a longstanding bipartisan funding effort to enhance police presence in embattled border towns. Strong opposition to the effort arose in the Democrat stronghold of Tucson. Police Chief Chris Magnus, an Obama acolyte who took every opportunity to editorialize against Trump’s denunciation of sanctuary cities, withdrew from the grant program when the government denied his request to repurpose monies from enforcement to funding room and board for illegals. Magnus’s immigration activism and coddling up to anti-police groups are the right stuff for another calamitous Biden appointment. Over the objections of the sheriff’s associations, his nomination to head the Customs and Border Patrol now sits before the Senate.
If elections have consequences, 2020 predetermined a retreating American frontline both domestically and abroad. Biden’s Inauguration Day executive actions wrenched the reins of public safety from the hands of the border sheriffs. One of those fiats declared the southwest border a non-emergency, giving pretext to stop border wall construction and swing open America’s back door to huge pedestrian caravans pushing hordes of sick and abused migrants from more than 150 countries through gaps in the bollards.
In early 2020, things were looking up for cops and beleaguered residents in Cochise County. CBP was set to put up 32 miles of wall, filling in the open spaces and replacing worn and ineffective fencing. The wall was only the first line of defense. An installed network of fiber optics, hidden cameras, sensors, and lighting would allow federal and local authorities to sense and respond promptly to breaches along the line.
No sooner had he secured the nomination than Biden began spurring illicit migration into America. Dannels saw illegal immigration numbers jump from three hundred per month to 1,500 over the summer and topping 2,500 by year’s end. To many, those were the good ‘ol days. To date in 2021, enforcement in the Tucson sector have arrested 183,000 illegals, eighty-five percent of whom were single adult males. More than 115,000 are estimated to have evaded capture.
On Inauguration Day, pressure by wildlife conservation groups and Democrat activists to halt wall construction was relieved by a single stroke of Biden’s pen. Alternatively, Biden promised to invest in drones and smart technology. Eleven months later, the Biden administration has yet to install a single light fixture or flip the switch on the high-tech equipment already installed by the Trump administration. A quarter-billion in leftover border funds have been redirected to military projects, such as overseas schools, housing, and shops.
For Dannels, small gaps in the wall next to idled construction equipment and unassembled bollards quickly turned into express lanes for a year-to-year increase of two hundred percent in illegal migration. Instead of facilitating vehicle patrols, unfinished dirt roadways on the American side offer migrants smooth passage into the arms of border agents handcuffed by presidential proclamation to do anything but catch and release.
From field interviews, Cochise deputies learned that many are headed to New Jersey, a deep blue state with lax immigration policies, hamstrung enforcement, and run by a progressive Wall Street type with a fondness for mixing business attire with lounge footwear and a conviction to put his half million undocumented residents on the taxpayer’s dole.
In early March, Biden further obstructed county enforcement efforts in Cochise County by shutting down three federal checkpoints near Wilcox and reassigning the three hundred border agents to immigrant childcare and processing duties. Dannels was now on his own, increasingly dependent upon a principal deputy, Tim Williams, who commands the county’s Southeast Arizona Border Region Enforcement (SABRE) task force. Singlehandedly, SABRE has labored long hours to stem the migrant flood, bolstered by a few state troopers and several dozen national guard personnel sent by the governor.
Success in suppressing Cochise border migration doesn’t account for the getaways. With the help of hundreds of county-installed cameras in the desert, Dannels estimates that out of five thousand alien border crossings in October 2021, more than 3500 aliens may have eluded his thinned patrol ranks. During 2021 to date, SABRE has encountered 33,000 aliens, arresting forty-seven drug mules and seizing more than eight hundred pounds of marijuana and other drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin. Across the whole southwest border, authorities estimated 300,000 getaways in 2021, 100,000 of which occurred in the four Arizona counties comprising the Tucson sector.
Crime and trespassing complaints in the border towns have skyrocketed. Ranchers walkabout their property well-armed, often bumping into small groups of migrants and drug couriers dressed in military-style camo and sporting heavy backpacks laden with belongings or narcotics. SABRE’s covert cameras dispersed across the desert terrain have recorded taildraggers flying under American radar and conducting daytime drug drops.
Rampant COVID infection rates and other diseases picked up along the northward trek soon take their toll. Cartel coyotes, who view delay as lost profit, abandon the sick or overheated to die in the desert. Dannels’s deputies often make rescues of forsaken migrants. Ranchers stumble over dead bodies, sometimes huddled in groups of three or four. Since Biden took office, the Tucson sector has seen 162 migrant deaths, ninety-one in the past couple of months.
It is Democrat wordsmithing to imply that the Biden’s border strategy is humanitarian. To claim that moral high ground is antithetical to its true purpose, to expand the blue electorate at the terrible cost of enriching the drug cartels, endorsing human trafficking and child abuse, killing hundreds for their efforts, and putting thousands more into forced labor, poverty, and crime on America’s streets. It is a willful crisis of humanity and an insult to all Americans if the Biden regime believes it can varnish it over with a few teleprompted speeches and scripted pressers.
If you’re in Cochise County, those ramifications are existential. You can just watch from your doorstep or talk to your local sheriff.
Image: Pixnio
EXCLUSIVE: Border Patrol Migrant Got-Away Count Reaches 75K in 47 Days
2:35
A law enforcement source within Customs and Border Protection revealed the number of migrants escaping apprehension reached 75,000 in Fiscal Year 2022, which began in October. The source says between 1,800 and 2,000 migrants are managing to elude apprehension daily along the southwest border.
On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) questioned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the issue. In a tense exchange, Mayorkas failed to provide the number.
Sen. Cruz: Now, you told another Senator, you don’t know how many ‘got-aways’ there have been?
Sec. Mayorkas: I will have to circle back, Senator, with that information.”
Cruz: So, that wasn’t a fact that you thought was relevant to this hearing?
Mayorkas: Oh, it is absolutely relevant. I understand why the question is posed. It’s a fact of great—
Cruz: But you’re not prepared to answer it. How about this — how many deaths? How many illegal aliens have died crossing illegally into the United States under Joe Biden’s Administration?
Mayorkas: I don’t have that data.
The known got-away count is updated daily by the Border Patrol, according to the source. The data is entered into a system of record easily accessible to agency leaders.
At the current pace, the source says the migrant got-away count this year is likely to exceed the more than 400,000 as reported in Fiscal Year 2021.
The metric is usually not released by DHS. It is achieved by counting migrants who ultimately escape apprehension after being observed by aircraft and camera systems. Agents also use traditional sign-cutting techniques to identify footprints.
Sources report the got-away count is usually lower than reality. Another issue impacting the accuracy of the got-away count, according to the source, is the number of Border Patrol agents relegated to processing, transport and humanitarian care for the thousands of migrants apprehended daily.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
How Long before Mexican Cartels Set Up Their Own States in the USA?
A few days ago, The Daily Caller released its first investigative documentary: Cartelville USA. The film is short — only 36 minutes — and you can watch it here with a subscription or free trial. There is also an interview on the Federalist Radio Hour with the director, Jorge Ventura, which is nearly as long as the documentary itself.
In case the title doesn't give it away, the topic of Cartelville USA is a string of communities in the California desert that have been taken over by drug cartels. The cartels grow marijuana in hoop houses on land that may or may not be theirs, using slave labor and stolen water. They pack heavy weapons and gun down whoever looks too much like a rival or a threat, and they generally do as they wish.
"These drug cartels are wreaking havoc on the entire antelope valley, and nobody is talking about it," says the narrator near the beginning of the film. "This is the cartels. We are very, very close to driving down the freeway, and seeing bodies hanging from the overpasses. That is what's coming."
Ventura's disturbing look into the growing power of drug cartels on this side of the border caught my interest because it has two important political ramifications, one short-term and the other long-term. But before I discuss those in detail, a summary of what I learned from the documentary is in order.
The setting is, for the most part, in rural Los Angeles County, though it extends into neighboring counties as well. The inhabitants are, for the most part, old, working-class conservatives who settled there in their twilight years to get away from the bustle of city life, only to be rudely surprised by what is going on. And you can tell that something is deeply wrong from the get-go by the fact that most of the people Ventura interviews (the sheriff and Congressman Mike Garcia being notable exceptions) have their faces blurred to avoid recognition.
Ventura and his crew reveal how a combination of Mexican, Chinese, and Armenian organized crime syndicates are growing marijuana in hoop houses in the California desert. Some growers own the land or are in league with absentee landlords, while others are just squatters. The hoop houses, complete with lights and irrigation systems, can be set up in just a day or two, and even when police get a search warrant, the law usually allows them to take only the marijuana plants, while leaving everything else, so the whole enterprise carries surprisingly little risk.
Labor is provided by illegal aliens brought from Mexico or China and forced to work by their traffickers; water is simply stolen, often from fire hydrants.
Most Californians are unaware of the severity of the problem: in their minds, since their state already legalized marijuana, they shouldn't have to worry about this kind of thing anymore. "People just shrug their shoulders," says Ventura. "Who cares, it's just pot, like, why are we even wasting our tax dollars fighting this issue?"
Yet Proposition 64, which passed in 2016, was in many ways a half-measure. While Californians can now legally grow weed under some circumstances, there are enough licensing requirements, regulatory requirements, and production limits to ensure that it's still much more profitable to do it illegally — and that's before you add in the fact that, due to federal law still frowning on everyone involved in the cannabis trade, no money earned by selling the stuff can be deposited into a bank account. Then tally up the costs saved by using stolen water and forced labor, and it's easy to see why working outside the law is still the most profitable option.
The ultimate takeaway from all this is that things that Americans are used to hearing about on the other side of the border are going to start happening on our own side, too, if enough people don't wake up to the gravity of the situation.
Or, as an interviewer from The Federalist put it when he began querying Ventura: "The Cartels generally know you can kill as many Mexicans as you want in Mexico, you can slave-trade as many humans as you want from foreign countries, but you don't mess with Americans, [or] Americans start to freak out. It seems to be one of the very few remaining ideas of Pax Americana in the world as cartels know that's bad for business. But you worry that might be changing?"
Yes, Jorge Ventura does worry that might be changing.
The immediate takeaway is that the leftists who govern the United States in general and California in particular are completely blind to serious national problems — even problems with high human costs borne largely by the people they claim to care about the most — when those problems don't fit into their political worldview.
If you're a Democrat, then one of the ways you prove to your party's base that you're a good Democrat is by going soft on crimes involving politically sensitive classes of people — in this case, Hispanics and illegal aliens. (And it is of no consequence that Hispanic people who have to deal with these crimes up close — like Jorge Ventura and Mike Garcia — are often vehemently opposed to your nonchalance).
The same goes for reporters in the mainstream media. If you work for the New York Times, CNN, NPR, or the like, you will not advance your career by drawing attention to the fact that the wide open border and the lenient attitude toward crime that gave rise to "Defund the Police" has nasty consequences for poor people and racial minorities.
It is rather disturbing that this has become a partisan issue; after all, in a healthy republic, defending the lives and property of one's countrymen would be something that all office-holders feel strongly about. But at the moment, it isn't, and unless more voters start supporting people like Mike Garcia instead of the rabble who talk about defunding the police, we're going to get more of the same.
One can argue, quite convincingly, that the road to Cartelville USA starts with the kind of politicians who are willing to let BLM burn down police stations, and then say the important thing is that none of the "protesters" was harmed by the cops.
As for the long-term ramifications: if the U.S. government doesn't somehow get put into the hands of people who really, really want to turn things around — and by now, a turnaround is looking increasingly unlikely — then we are looking at the beginning stages of state formation.
This is a concise way of saying that, the longer this goes on, the more and more the cartels will take on the attributes of being sovereign governments in their own right. They will hold undisputed authority over their territory and its inhabitants; they will make and enforce laws; they will collect taxes; they will wage war; and, if victorious, they will dictate the terms of the peace treaty, just as their counterparts already do in Mexico.
Perhaps you are familiar with the Battle of Culiacán, fought in October of 2019, in which 700 Sinaloa gunmen, wielding 50-calibre rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, and armored vehicles, defeated the Mexican National Guard, seized control of a city of 700,000 people, and demanded that the Mexican government release the imprisoned son of the Sinaloa Cartel's leader or else face a massacre. President López-Obrador complied, as many people expected him to; he had, after all, run for office on a platform of rapprochement with the drug cartels.
America's Culiacán moment is still a long way off — decades away, in my opinion — but the longer politicians ignore events like the ones that Jorge Ventura is trying to bring to light in Cartelville USA, the closer that moment gets.
Twilight Patriot also writes at www.twilightpatriot.com.
Image: Bureau of Land Management California via Flickr, Public Domain.
Mexico's cartels did not get AMLO's 'hugs, not bullets' memo
A couple of years ago, President Lopez-Obrador said something about promoting hugs rather than bullets as his plan for halting Mexico's notorious cartels.
It went like this:
Prior to becoming president, AMLO promised “hugs, not bullets,” a demilitarization of security, an end to high value targeting and a focus on social spending and anti-corruption to reduce the root causes of violence.
It was "woke mexicano" and did not work any better than "woke americano." Mexico recently surpassed the 100,000-deaths milestone in its war with cartels, Jorge Ramos of Univision wrote. Not even Ramos, a lefty, thinks the 'hugs not bullets' strategy, is working.
A couple of days ago, the Mexican cartels sent a message about Cancun. This is from The New York Post:
The hand-printed signs, in neat block letters, appeared in the Tulum marketplace the morning after two tourists were shot dead and three others wounded at a roadside eatery in the bohemian Mexican resort town.“Attention merchants of Tulum … this was a warning,” said the sign, which went on to threaten “managers and owners” of bars and restaurants on the “Mini Quinta” tourist zone. That’s where the foreigners, visiting the Malquerida Bar last month, had the bad luck of getting caught in cartel crossfire.The signs were photographed by a local citizens’ advocacy group, which posted them to social media. The message threatened death to merchants who refuse to fork over bribes to the drug trafficking gangs and was signed by Los Pelones — “the bald ones.”
It caught the Mexican government's attention because they sent the armed forces to secure the area.
What we are seeing, according to a friend in Mexico, is several very interesting developments:
First, the criminal elements in Mexico have been emboldened by President Biden's border policy. They are doing lots of business bringing people to the border and charging them a nice fee. Furthermore, who knows what deal they are making with these people once they get here. In other words, what future payments, cash or "services," are due once they settle into the U.S.?
Second, we are watching a battle for territory between the cartels. This is a gang fight not too different than what we see in Chicago every weekend.
Last, but not least, the Mexican government knows that violence involving tourists is bad news for a country desperately needing cash after the pandemic. So they will use whatever force is necessary to keep the gangs out of Cancun. My fear is that the cartels have simply grown to a point where they can't be stopped by Mexican authorities.
Should you go to Cancun? Be very careful.
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