NOVEMBER 2, 2018
James O’Keefe joins Alex to discuss the undercover footage of members from the Beto O’Rourke campaign claiming they use funds to support the illegal caravan heading towards the border.
Watch Owen Shroyer talk to Texans about the undercover Veritas video below:
Live On UT Campus: Do Students Care About Neto’s Campaign Violations?
By Ryan Saavedra
DHS released the report on Thursday in response to questions the department has received about the caravan, stating, “We continue to be concerned about individuals along the caravan route.”
“In fact, over 270 individuals along the caravan route have criminal histories, including known gang membership,” DHS reported. “Those include a number of violent criminals – examples include aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, sexual assault on a child, and assault on a female.”
“Mexican officials have also publicly stated that criminal groups have infiltrated the caravan,” the statement continued. “We also continue to see individuals from over 20 countries in this flow from countries such as Somalia, India, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. There is a large segment of this population that we know nothing about and we must be prepared to defend our border and enforce our laws to protect the citizens of our country.”
DHS’s report also included an October 29 statement from the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., who described some of the caravan members as “very violent,” saying, “Unfortunately, some of the people in the caravan have been very violent against authority, even though they have offered the possibility of entering in compliance with immigration law and refugee status.”
The report says that the caravan “is employing tactics to push women and children to the front to act as human shields as the caravan pushes against its military forces.”
The report also contained a statement from Mexican Interior Minister Navarrete Prida, who confirmed that criminal organization are embedded in the caravan, saying, “I have videos from Guatemala that show men dressed in identical clothing, sporting the same haircuts, handing out money to women to persuade them to move to the front of the caravan. … We know, for a fact, that some members of the caravan threatened [Mexican] Migration Institute personnel and we have images showing many of them preparing Molotov cocktails.”
By Chris Menahan
Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte dropped this gem on Thursday:
The comic didn’t go over so well:
The Babylon Bee had a great take on this whole situation:
NOVEMBER 1, 2018
Local and federal law enforcement are reportedly teaming up to strengthen border security in Texas southmost regions, where the caravan has been predicted to arrive.
“Our cameras witnessed a group of law enforcement officials conducting training at Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville. The uniformed men were seen training in anti-riot techniques and carrying shields,” CBS affiliate ValleyCentral.com reported Tuesday from Brownsville.
Footage shows several law enforcement members outfitted in swat gear, helmets and riot shields carrying out formation exercises.
Customs and Border Protection agents are also carrying out training exercises at the Rio Grande Valley’s various ports of entry.
“CBP is undergoing some training at the bridges in the event something should occur. They need to be prepared and we’re ready to assist them in any event,” Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. told Valley Central.
Further north on the South Texas border, contractors welded a chain-link fence to a pedestrian bridge connecting Mexico to the US at the Progreso-Nuevo Progreso International Bridge in McAllen.
“The gate, which measures about 8 feet by 11 feet, appears to be one of several expected to be erected along the bridge — apparently in anticipation of a caravan of Central American immigrants making their way through Mexico and to the U.S.-Mexico border,” The Mcallen Monitor reported Wednesday.
(Interestingly, every person interviewed by The Monitor, including Hispanic Rio Grande Valley residents, were in favor of the barricades with some asking for more fencing. One Brownsville woman claimed illegal aliens stole her truck last week.)
The preparations along the border contrast with the corporate media’s representation of the caravan as an “imaginary” invention created by Republicans to sway midterm voters.
“[Republicans have] been running on an imaginary caravan, false charges against a black candidate in Florida, almost anything to try and juice up their base,” CNN commentator Errol Lou claimed on Wednesday.
Fox News’ Shep Smith also attempted to allay invasion fears on Monday, telling viewers, “There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Meanwhile President Trump is deploying “more than 7,000” troops to the border and could increase that number to 15,000 in the foreseeable future as the caravan continues its march toward the US.
By Warner Todd Huston
The ad features actors such as Andy Ritcher of Conan O’Brien late-night show fame, The Big Bang Theory’s Simon Helberg and Melissa Rauch, Bradley Whitford from the series The West Wing, commercial actress Milana Vayntrub, and several others urging people to vote.
The ad is titled, “The Last Weekend,” and is aimed at getting Americans interested in voting.
The theme of the ad takes viewers through an action movie scenario called, “The Last Weekend,” but then segues into the fact that this really is the last weekend before Election Day. The stars then urge fans to volunteer for the partisan “Swing Left” campaign to get liberal voters to the polls by November 6.
Why should we vote? Well, according to these stars we are “fighting” against Russian bots, voting to secure “a woman’s right to choose” (as long as they don’t choose life), and fighting against “our government keeping children in cages.”
Of course, none of the stars mention that this policy of detaining children brought here illegally by foreign migrants is a policy that has been around since the late 1990s and that Barack Obama also kept “children in cages” as their status was cleared up.
In fact, one of the reasons children are separated from the adults that bring them into the country is because often these kids are being trafficked and used as shields by people who turn out not to be the kids’ parents. Indeed, during the Trump administration arrests for human trafficking have surged.
“Through late June 2018, human trafficking arrests for the year approached 6,000. That’s nearly double the year prior (which itself marked an all-time high), and triple the year before that,” Political Insider reported. “Human trafficking-related arrests never topped 2,000 under the Obama administration and were a paltry 300 in 2010.”
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