DELEITURAS

 

by Molly Prince

• Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke avoided providing a policy stance regarding how the migrant caravan should be handled upon its arrival in Texas.
• Immigration and border security are the top issues for voters in Texas prior to the midterm elections.
• The Dallas Morning News’s editorial board urged O’Rourke to provide details on his policy stances and do more than just call for unity.

The Dallas Morning News’s editorial board called on Democratic Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke on Friday to provide clarification regarding where he stands on the migrant caravan that is heading towards the U.S border.

O’Rourke, who is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, has been dodging the issue, despite immigration and border security overwhelmingly being the top issues for voters in Texas. Cruz urged reporters on Friday to probe O’Rourke into what he intends to do if elected to the Senate on Nov. 6.

“Two basic [questions] every reporter should ask Beto today,” Cruz tweeted. “(1) should the “caravan” be allowed to cross illegally into Texas? (Beto refuses to answer.) And (2) did your campaign dollars illegally fund their doing so?”

Cruz’s second question was in reference to undercover footage that was released on Thursday by Project Veritas. In the video, O’Rourke’s campaignstaff alluded to campaign resources that were being used to assist the migrants on their way to the Texas border, a move that would violate federal law. O’Rourke later claimed that the spending will be appropriately reported to the Federal Election Commission as a charitable expense.

O’Rourke addressed the issue during a rally in Lewisville, insisting that it is “part of an effort to try to stoke fear and anxiety about immigrants.” However, he notably did not provide clarification on how he intends to handle the migrant caravan upon its impending arrival.

“We’re looking at this, but anyone who is trying to politicize this is trying to win an election base on fear,” O’Rourke told the crowd. “I want to make sure that we’re focused on the issues that matters most to Texas.”

When Cruz was confronted with O’Rourke’s response, the Texas senator pushed back, noting “that’s not an actual response.”

“The [question] is “should the ‘caravan’ be allowed to cross illegally into Texas?”,” Cruz replied. “That’s a simple yes or no question. Screaming “paranoia” and refusing to answer is an obvious dodge, and reporters all know that.”

The Dallas Morning News, who endorsed O’Rourke in October, agreed with Cruz, writing an editorial titled simply “Beto O’Rourke needs to offer specifics on the migrant caravan.”

“Beto O’Rourke wants a promotion. He wants to go from the House to the Senate and go from representing a constituency of 743,000 in the 16th congressional district to the entire state of Texas and its 30 million residents.

“With days to go before the election and President Donald Trump along with Ted Cruz ramping up the immigration rhetoric, O’Rourke has managed to stake out an opposition stance without offering much detail of his own. It’s time he stepped up and delivered.”

The editorial board did not pull its endorsement, stating that he received it primarily due to the “tone and manner in which he’s conducted his campaign” over policy stances, but asserted that O’Rourke has an obligation to provide detail on what his position is and how it should be handled.

“The debate about immigration is so critical to the nation and particularly Texas,” the editorial board wrote. “It is imperative that O’Rourke do more than just offer counter-statements to Trump and Cruz about unity and bringing people together.”

O’Rourke’s campaign did not reply to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request to comment.

Democratic Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib of Michigan revealed for the first time publicly that she supports a growing anti-Israel movement, however, she remained silent on the issue until weeks after she was elected to congress.

Tlaib expressed her support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which seeks to punish the nation-state of Israel by economically starving the country for its alleged mistreatment of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

“I personally support the BDS movement,” Tlaib said during an interview with The Intercept published on Monday.

The BDS movement has been metastasizing through college campuses, initially promulgated by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and still the movement’s most visible arm. SJP has been linked to the Islamic terror group Hamas. Moreover, The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the American umbrella group of the BDS movement has reportedly given money to terrorist organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Tlaib’s comments come in response to her rejection of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) invitation to visit Israel. For decades, newly-elected members of Congress have traveled to Israel to tour the land and meet with statesmen. Rather, Tlaib has decided to forgo the tradition in lieu of a trip to what has been referred to as ‘Palestine.’ Her stated goal is to “humanize Palestinians.”

Speculation that Tlaib supported the BDS movement emerged after she urged Congress to cut the United States’ military aid to Israel, however, her stance was not confirmed until she went on record with The Intercept. The Michigan congresswoman-elect has explicitly stated her support for a one-state solution, however, according to Haaretz, prior to her midterm election one of Tlaib’s senior adviser contended that she supported a two-state solution.

The revelation that Tlaib supports anti-Israel legislation comes only weeks after fellow freshman Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota made the same announcement. Tlaib and Omar together are the first Palestinian-American women elected to Congress.

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by Henry Rodgers

Nineteen foreign nationals were indicted after it was discovered they had illegally voted in the 2016 presidential election, The Department of Justice announced Friday.

Of the 19, nine illegally claimed they were U.S. citizens in order to vote. The foreign nationals charged were citizens from El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Nigeria, Dominican Republic, Philippines, Grenada, Guyana, Japan, Germany, Poland, Italy, Korea and Haiti.

The news comes after a federal grand jury in Wilmington, North Carolina, returned indictments charging the 19 foreign nationals with false claims of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote, as well as voting by an illegal immigrant, the DOJ said in a statement.

President Donald Trump and other Republican lawmakers have been pushing for stricter voter ID laws, since Trump took office in 2016. The effort has received pushback from Democratic leaders such as Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, who suggested that Republicans want to suppress voters.

The 19 foreign nationals will now face a maximum penalty of six years in prison, as well as a $350,000 fine and a term of supervised release after getting released from prison.

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SALTON CITY, Calif. – El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Highway 86 checkpoint arrested an 18-year-old-male and 17-year-old juvenile male in possession of various types illegal narcotics and a rifle Wednesday evening.

 

The incident occurred at approximately 10:30 p.m., when two males in a Volkswagen Jetta approached the Highway 86 checkpoint.

 

A Border Patrol canine detection team alerted to the vehicle.  Agents referred the vehicle to secondary for further investigation.

 

At secondary inspection, Border Patrol agents discovered several bags containing illegal narcotics.  The narcotics found totaled 1.07 grams of fentanyl, 5.34 grams of methamphetamine, 729.6 grams of marijuana, 76 alprazolam pills, 4 oxycodone pills, and 2 clonazepam pills.  Agents also discovered an AR-15 type rifle, not registered to either of the subjects in the car. 

 

“Many times when law enforcement officers encounter narcotics, firearms are present,” said Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez.  “This type of situation highlights the dangers our Border Patrol agents could face on any given day.”

 

Both subjects are United States citizens. Custody of both males, the narcotics, and rifle was transferred to the California Highway Patrol for further investigation of state crimes. 

A minister fled an Atlanta courthouse before the judge pronounced his conviction for child rape, prompting a police manhunt for the newly minted convict.

Don Martin, minister of The Cathedral of Faith Church of God in Christ, sat through testimony for five days at the courthouse, then left Tuesday and failed to return for closing arguments and the verdict. Authorities are now searching for Martin, whose whereabouts are unknown.

The presiding judge convicted Martin of rape, first-degree child cruelty, child molestation, and aggravated sexual battery, according to Atlanta Journal Constitution. A girl accused Martin of sexually assaulting her repeatedly from age 7 to 13. Authorities arrested Martin in 2014. He was released on a $15,000 bond, required to wear an ankle monitor, and indicted on 2015. A superior court judge changed the conditions of Martin’s bond in 2017, however, which allowed him to take off the ankle monitor.

The judge presiding over Martin’s current case has postponed his sentencing out of respect for the victim, who said that she wants to face Martin in court.

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A Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee is calling for an investigation of House Republicans he claims have colluded with the Trump White House to derail Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse did not cite evidence to back up his allegations. But speaking to the hosts of the “Skullduggery” podcast, the Democrat said that an investigation should be opened into whether President Donald Trump’s Republican allies sought to “impede and throw sticks into the spokes of the Mueller investigation.”

“It definitely needs to be investigated, in my view,” Whitehouse said on the podcast, which is hosted by Yahoo’s Michael Isikoff.

“Whether it amounts to criminal conduct or not, clearly the efforts of the House Republicans were designed to impede and throw sticks into the spokes of the Mueller investigation.”

While many Democratic lawmakers have criticized House Republicans for questioning the premise of the Russia probe, Whitehouse is the first Democrat to specifically call for an investigation of his GOP counterparts.

GOP leaders like Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows have asserted that there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. They’ve also led an independent investigation into the FBI’s use of the unverified Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The Republicans have accused FBI leaders of misleading the federal surveillance court by failing to reveal that the dossier was opposition research and was funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC.

House Republicans have also led the charge against former FBI officials like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were caught sending anti-Trump text messages while working on the Russia investigation.

Of the Mueller probe, Whitehouse asserted that House Republicans sought to “discredit it, to slow it down, to foul it up, to provide alternative narratives, potentially even to communicate to potential witnesses and jurors their alternative narratives, and thereby influence the proceedings.”

“If that is what they did, the only thing that stops that being a crime is the contact with Trump’s lawyers and the corrupt intent,” he continued.

President Donald Trump proposed an immigration deal to reopen the government Saturday, which included a three-year extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Trump’s overture to congressional Democrats comes as the Supreme Court considers whether it will intervene in ongoing litigation over the president’s attempts to rescind DACA, an Obama-era amnesty initiative that extends temporary legal status to 700,000 foreign nationals who came to the U.S. as children.

The administration initiated DACA’s termination in September 2017. Those maneuvers were immediately challenged in federal court. A federal district judge in California ordered the government to continue administering DACA in January 2018.

At that juncture, the government broke from normal judicial process and appealed directly to the Supreme Court, instead of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The justices rejected that appeal, returning the case to the 9th Circuit with orders to resolve the case quickly.

Over eight months passed without a ruling from the 9th Circuit, so the Trump administration returned to the Supreme Court in November 2018 and asked the justices to take their case. The government’s petition has been pending before the Court since that time. The 9th Circuit issued a decision upholding the district court’s order three days later.

Challenges to the president’s attempts to rescind DACA are also pending before appeals courts in New York and Washington, D.C.

In the short term, Trump might command a stronger negotiating position if the justices intervene in the DACA cases, since the government can reasonably expect to prevail in the high court. Therefore, Democrats might wish to strike a deal with Trump that includes DACA protections, lest the Supreme Court affirm the president’s power to end the program unilaterally.

That the justices have not yet acted on the petition does not bode well for the administration, however. The high court hears arguments from October until April and disposes of its cases by June. As a general matter, the docket for each term is finalized in the middle of January.

If the Court intended to grant the administration’s request and hear the case, it likely would have done so by now. As such, the prospect of Supreme Court action on DACA looks dim as of this writing.

The high court will next announce action in pending cases on Tuesday.

Virginia House Speaker Kirk Cox revealed on Monday that he has no intention to force Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam out of office through impeachment over a racist photograph that surfaced in his medical school yearbook.

“I think there’s a rightful hesitation about removal from office,” Cox told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “Obviously you have to consider that to some degree you’re overturning an election.”

Northam faced massive backlash after a photograph was uncovered on Friday showing an individual dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member aside a man donned in blackface. The photograph appeared on Northam’s yearbook page in his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook.

Hours after the photograph emerged, Northam confirmed that he was one of the figures and apologized for his behavior. However, during a press conference the following day, the Virginia Democrat flip-flopped and vehemently denied being in the photograph.

Interestingly, Northam acknowledged that he used “a little bit of show polish” to blacken his face while dressing as singer Michael Jackson.

There has been a widespread call for Northam’s resignation across both sides of the aisle. Multiple 2020 presidential contenders, including Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand, issued statements that he should step down. Abortion organizations and the Congressional Black Caucus also called for his resignation.

Cox stated that while he believes Northam is no longer able to adequately govern the Commonwealth of Virginia, he is not convinced that the controversy meets the constitutional threshold for a forced ousting through impeachment.

“That’s why we have called for the resignation,” Cox explained. “We hope that’s what the governor does. I think that would obviously be less pain for everyone.”

“This is just heartbreaking,” Cox added.

A federal judge skewered Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), California’s largest utility, for their role in starting deadly wildfires across California in the past two years.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup opened a Wednesday court hearing by comparing PG&E to a drug dealer who violates his probation by allowing its equipment to ignite massive fires. PG&E filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, facing more than $30 billion in wildfire-related liabilities.

“Those fires killed 22 people, burned alive in their cars and homes,” Alsup said in court Wednesday, the Chico Enterprise-Record reported that evening.

“There is one clear pattern here: PG&E is starting these fires. Global warming is not starting these fires,” Alsup said.

California officials blamed PG&E for 17 northern California wildfires in 2017 and investigators are looking into whether or not the utility’s equipment sparked last year’s Camp Fire. That fire killed 86 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.

In the wake of the fires, PG&E lobbied California lawmakers to change wildfire liability laws , arguing global warming increased wildfire risks beyond what utilities could handle. State law holds utilities liable for wildfire damages even if there was no negligence.

Alsup ruled PG&E violated its probation regarding the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion. The judge found the company didn’t adequately notify its probation monitor of the investigation into its role in the 2017 fires.

However, state officials did clear PG&E of liability in the Tubbs Fire, which killed 22 people in Sonoma County. Officials determined private electrical equipment sparked the fire.

“You’ve got to be on your absolute best behavior — no more crimes,” Alsup warned.

Alsup could require PG&E to shut off power to electric lines during high-wind events, and could order the utility to embark on the costly effort of trimming trees and removing debris from around its power lines.

“In two years, 3 percent of California burned up,” Alsup said. “Think about that. Three percent of the whole state burned up. We cannot continue to sustain these kinds of catastrophic injuries to the state, death and destruction.”

“PG&E is not the only source of these fires, but it is a source and to most of us it’s unthinkable that a public utility is causing that type of damage,” Alsup said.

A twice-deported illegal immigrant felon killed a man and injured numerous others Sunday, and authorities are blaming the criminal’s violent actions on California’s sanctuary state law for allowing the violence to occur.

Gustavo Garcia, 36, shot a farm worker in Tulare County in California Sunday before stealing $2,000 from an AA Gas and Grub mini mart in Exeter, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Garcia went on to shoot a woman in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in Tulare, spray bullets into a Shell gas station, shoot and kill a man at a second gas station in Visalia, and finally attack his ex-girlfriend’s house, the Post reported.

The farm worker and motel occupant are expected to survive, according to the Post.

Authorities describe Garcia’s 24-hour violent rampage as a “reign of terror,” according to the Post.

Garcia stole a truck and drove at speeds exceeding 100 mph in an attempt to evade police following his shooting spree, according to Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux. Garcia collided with multiple vehicles before flying through the car’s windshield.

Four people were taken to the hospital with injuries, and one remains in critical condition, according to the Post.

Garcia was arrested on Dec. 13 for erratic behavior. He tested positive for drugs and spent 10 hours in custody before he was released.

“[I]f we could have reached out to our law enforcement counterparts, these acts of violence could have been prevented,” Boudreaux said, according to the Post.

“That tool has been removed from our hands,” he added. “And because of that, our county was shot up by a violent criminal.”

The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office was forced to release Garcia because it is prohibited from enforcing detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), under California’s sanctuary state law. The law, Senate Bill 54, passed in September 2017.

Law enforcement may only act on detainer requests if ICE presents an arrest warrant signed by a federal judge.

Garcia was deported in 2004 and again in 2014, ICE said in a Wednesday statement. Following his second entry into the U.S., Garcia spent 27 months in prison for illegal reentry.

He had also previously been convicted of armed robbery, according to authorities, the Post reported.

Garcia’s violent spree is “an unfortunate and extremely tragic example of how public safety is impacted with laws or policies limiting local law enforcement agencies ability to cooperate with ICE,” ICE officials said a statement, according to the Post.

Authorities are investigating a second homicide that Garcia may be responsible for.