At the top of the list of people who should be all over this is Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security which oversees FEMA. Unfortunately, the American citizens who are in the most dire of circumstances are being put on hold as Mayorkas spends his time buying luxury clothing at Sid Mashburn, a high-end menswear store.
Twitter user Joe Gabriel Simonson noticed Mayorkas there for the second time in a month, this time snapping a photo:
For context about all the FEMA stuff, I saw Alejandro Mayorkas this afternoon at Sid Mashburn, which is the second time I’ve seen him there on a Saturday afternoon in about a month. So, suffice to say, the guy isn’t working around the clock pic.twitter.com/NC5yNzikET
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) October 5, 2024
Elon Musk wasn’t impressed:
He’s shopping for fancy clothes while people are suffering from hurricane damage. This is some Hunger Games shit.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2024
According to The Gateway Pundit:
The photo, first uploaded to the X platform, caught the attention of Elon Musk, who was less than impressed by Mayorkas’s actions.
“He’s shopping for fancy clothes while people are suffering from hurricane damage,” Musk wrote. “This is some Hunger Games shit.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, who represents a district in the neighboring state of South Carolina and has led efforts to force the federal government to provide additional funding to the hurricane’s victims, suggested that Mayorkas should be impeached again.
Already voted to impeach @SecMayorkas once.
Who thinks we need to do it again?
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 4, 2024
The UniParty Swamp and their subsidiaries in the Bureaucratic State know Americans are suffering. Not only do they not case, but they also don’t care that we know they don’t care.
]]>Samantha Vinograd, until recently of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), also asserted that these days, because of what she considers to be election disinformation, “there is an unprecedented level of physical threats” while the US information ecosystem is “incredibly vulnerable.”
Dramatic and alarmist statements like this may be necessary to justify the rest of Vinograd’s message, which in effect attacks free speech, as it is legally protected in the US.
Appearing on CBS, Vinograd – who was until last December Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention – warned that the First Amendment might protect free speech, but that engaging in free speech is apparently not “cost-free.”
The Face the Nation hosts framed the problem as, essentially, federal laws (the Constitution) protecting speech, but the damage being done at the state level – and then what states, who organize elections, can do to fix that “problem.”
Spreading lies about candidates, as they put it, was given as an example of legal, protected speech becoming an issue by having the ability to create “a threat at the state level” – and asked Vinograd who she thought was supposed to correct the situation.
Vinograd – who has been bouncing between various administrations (including those of Bush and Obama, and private companies like Goldman Sachs and Stripe before landing at Biden’s DHS) – seemed to suggest that Big Tech (i.e., social media companies) should be assisting the government.
The federal government said Vinograd, “should not be the omnipresent fact checker for the American people.”
And even though, according to her, the government is debunking information about elections that is deemed to be inaccurate, social media companies “should be thinking about what kinds of election disinformation violate their terms of service.”
It’s difficult not to take this as a not-so-veiled added pressure on social platforms to not only continue with censoring content but perhaps expand it in terms of what qualifies as election disinformation.
Either way, Vinograd is in favor of enlisting “every American” to help out as well (although it is not clear in what specific way), invoking even the concept of patriotic duty.
And Vinograd did not miss the opportunity to assert that election misinformation threats are now of such magnitude as to present a national security issue.
If you’re tired of censorship and surveillance, join Reclaim The Net.
]]>But it’s not just fatigue. Many who are adamantly opposed to the invasion at our southern border do not discuss it much because there’s very little we can do as long as the Biden-Harris regime is in power. Republicans on Capitol Hill can complain about it all day but until they get the testicular fortitude to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, we’re stuck with a heavily publicized open border for the world to disregard.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his administration are trying to take matters into their own hands with a floating border wall in the Rio Grande River. The Biden-Harris regime isn’t happy about it, so they’re coming after Abbott. But he has both the moral and likely legal high ground, and while we cannot take judiciary fairness for granted, it seems unlikely the regime can stop Abbott’s attempts to mitigate damage along the Texas border.
At a time when far more needs to be done to slow the invasion, Abbott is demonstrating the the proper path to fight federal tyranny. Unfortunately, the stolen Arizona gubernatorial election means Abbott’s efforts will likely only shift the surge westward, but it’s something. I’ve never been a fan of Abbott’s but sometimes he does shine with the proper light. This is one of those cases.
Here’s the news about what’s happening in Texas reported by Truth Based Media:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took to Twitter on Sunday to taunt the Biden administration in a pair of tweets as he faces a lawsuit from the Department of Justice over the state’s effort to secure its international border with Mexico.
In one tweet, Abbott praised his border security for seizing more than 422 million deadly doses of fentanyl, which he claimed were able to cross the U.S.-Mexico border because of the president’s poor performance.
“Texas Has Seized More Than 422 Million Lethal Doses of Fentanyl Since 2021. More than enough to kill all Americans,” the Texas governor wrote. “We have also made 394,200 illegal-immigrant apprehensions and 31,300 criminal arrests. All because Biden is not doing his job.”
In another tweet, Abbott said Biden would “face the consequences” should the Department of Justice take the state of Texas to court. The DOJ previously said in a letter to Abbott that it intends to sue him over the use of a floating buoy border barrier to stop illegal immigration into the state.
Abbott, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard, released a statement on Friday highlighting the efforts of Operation Lone Star, a coordinated effort by border personnel to “secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between ports of entry.”
“Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to over 394,200 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 31,300 criminal arrests, with more than 29,100 felony charges reported. In the fight against fentanyl, Texas law enforcement has seized over 422 million lethal doses of fentanyl during this border mission,” the joint statement read.
The statement also highlighted the state’s efforts to send migrants who crossed the southern border to Democratic cities across the country, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles.
In total, over 27,000 migrants have been sent to those cities.
“Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border. Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies,” the statement added.
Texas is also staring down a legal bout with the Biden administration over its use of barriers erected at the border, which administration officials claim have created a dangerous path for potential migrants. Some border officials have recalled migrants suffering from cuts and lacerations as they crawled through barbed fencing.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division confirmed that the DOJ “sent a letter to the Texas Governor and Attorney General providing notice of our intent to pursue legal action related to unlawful construction of a floating barrier in the Rio Grande River, pursuant to section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act, 33 U.S.C. § 403.”
The letter sets a July 24 deadline for a response from Abbott.
Abbott initially responded to the letter in a series of tweets on Friday, when he again blamed President Biden’s handling of the border crisis and unashamedly said Texas was “stepping up to address this crisis.”
“Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border, under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution,” he wrote. “We have sent the Biden Administration numerous letters detailing our authority, including the one I hand-delivered to President Biden earlier this year.”
“Texas is stepping up to address this crisis,” Gov. Abbott continued. “We will continue to deploy every strategy to protect Texans and Americans — and the migrants risking their lives. We will see you in court, Mr. President.”
On Sunday, Abbott doubled down, adding, “Under Biden’s policies the UN declared the U.S.-Mexico border the deadliest border crossing in [the] world. Biden must now face the consequences.”
The White House responded Friday, saying that Abbott is endangering the lives of migrants and agents with his actions, and accused him of undermining President Biden’s border plan.
“President Biden’s plan to manage the border through deterrence, enforcement, and diplomacy after the Title 42 public health order lifted is working,” assistant press secretary Abdullah Hasan said in a statement.
Hasan also pointed to a drop in border encounters in June to levels not seen since February 2021.
“Unlawful border crossings are down to the lowest levels in over two years,” he said. “Governor Abbott’s dangerous and unlawful actions are undermining our effective border enforcement plan and making it hard for CBP to do their jobs of securing the border. The governor’s actions are cruel and putting both migrants and border agents in danger.”
“The Department of Justice made clear that it is prepared to take the governor to court if he doesn’t immediately remove the unlawful structures in the Rio Grande,” he said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has also criticized Abbott over the new security measures.
]]>As Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas is in charge of security of the homeland. It’s in the name of his department. It doesn’t take extended investigations and dozens of congressional hearings to realize we don’t have security in our homeland. It’s not that we have poor security or that there are gaps in our border. It’s that we do not have anything that resembles security. Not a bit.
For those who missed it, here is a Customs and Border Patrol officer cutting razor wire in Texas to HELP illegal aliens enter the country. I offer this to the Republican Party as enough evidence to begin the process of impeaching Mayorkas immediately.
They, of course, will not accept it. They’ll declare that they need a “serious investigation” in order to decide whether or not it may be an acceptable option to kinda maybe sorta consider the possibility that Mayorkas has failed enough at his one job to warrant losing it. By the time they get around to actually impeaching him, the next president will be inaugurated and Mayorkas will be collecting fat paychecks as a consultant or Fox News contributor.
Let’s be crystal clear, just in case my attitude toward this subject isn’t coming through properly. Alejandro Mayorkas is doing everything he can to subvert his own department and this nation. He is actively and aggressively making the southern border as wide open as possible. If you put a starving lion in a sealed den with a brood of chickens, there would be less carnage there than what Mayorkas has done to border security. At least there would be bones in the den as evidence that the chickens previously existed. There is no evidence of border security. CBP has been turned into a team of receptionists who greet and process anyone and everyone who walks across the meaningless line on the map.
Here’s an article by Jennie Taer at Daily Caller that explains the current state of the non-existent impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas. Read through it and try not to seethe over the utter weakness on display. I’ll wrap up after Jennie’s article with some thoughts…
A faction of House Republicans are awaiting the results of a thorough investigation into Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas before supporting his impeachment, according to three House Republican staffers who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
While some Republican members of the House are ready to impeach Mayorkas now, many others are waiting on a more lengthy investigative process, the Republican staffers, who spoke on background to have a more open and candid conversation, told the DCNF. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green has launched a weeks-long investigation that is focusing on Mayorkas’ alleged “dereliction of duty” over his handling of the southern border, and the surge of illegal immigration into the U.S. that has occurred under his leadership.
The initial findings of the investigation include instances of Mayorkas allegedly lying to Congress under oath on multiple occasions and allegedly lying to the American public dozens of times. “There is undeniably a catastrophic crisis raging at our Southwest border, a crisis that has been raging for more than two years. The American people are suffering, not just in border states, but in communities all across this country, as the consequences of an unprecedented crisis impact Americans of all walks of life,” the initial report states.
Green previously told the DCNF he had evidence of “potential fraud” committed by Mayorkas. “We’ve got some people that are sharing some information with us that there’s potential fraud, so we’re going to look very hard at all of these things, prepare a packet, show it to the American people, and then if it warrants impeachment, we’ll hand it off to Chairman Jordan. I think it will, based on the information I know,” Green told the DCNF at the time.
Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul is “interested in a thorough investigation” and will follow Green’s lead, one of the staffers said. “If they get to an impeachment, it will be after a thorough process. I think this is a serious investigation compared to maybe some in the House that have been a little more rushed,” the Republican staffer said.
“I think it just is gonna take more time for a bunch of people to get on board,” the staffer added.
A second staffer believes that House Republican leadership wants to ensure they don’t politicize the process and follow Green’s lead rather than immediately follow the lead of the several members of the party who have filed articles of impeachment in recent months.
“Leadership has been very clear that they’re not against impeachment, but that they want to make sure that they can draw a contrast in the way they handle it to the way that the Democrats handled impeachment during the Trump administration. I think they’re extremely concerned about ensuring that there’s a thorough investigation and that charges come out of the right committees with the right background,” the second staffer told the DCNF.
Some House Republicans believe Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s ongoing push to impeach President Joe Biden is distracting from the investigation into the DHS secretary, the staffer added.
“All of this is totally going out the window … because now the committee is going to have to handle the Biden impeachment, at least on some of the border stuff, as well. But our plan was basically just be unilaterally focused on dereliction of duty for the month of July, and, at least on the committee level, not on the sub level, there are offices that are upset with people like Boebert right now for moving away from the priority here,” the staffer said.
A third staffer said the push to impeach Biden may delay a potential Mayorkas impeachment. “It also depends on the Biden impeachment thing because that’s kind of just like a mess that is happening and if the Democrats are able to tie it successfully to Mayorkas it could be a problem. With Mayorkas, it’s much easier to make a case,” the staffer said.
For some offices, Mayorkas’ possible impeachment is moving too slowly, the staffer said. “Right now the Homeland strategy basically is to lay the groundwork for it.”
“As long as McCarthy is behind it and tells them to do it and Chairman Green is behind it and tells them to do it, I think that they’ll get there eventually. I think that the usual suspects like Tony Gonzalez and whoever else may not vote for it,” the staffer added.
McCarthy doesn’t want impeachment to be based on “political reasons,” he told CNN in May. “I know people are very frustrated with [Mayorkas],” McCarthy said.
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The process as it currently sits can be summed up with one quote from the DCNF article: “…we’re going to look very hard at all of these things, prepare a packet, show it to the American people, and then if it warrants impeachment, we’ll hand it off to Chairman Jordan.”
Do you know what warrants impeachment? Millions of illegal aliens entering our nation, stealing our sovereignty, and being released into the interior by a Department of Homeland Security that is working more for the cartels than for the American people. That’s what deserves impeachment, and the case can be made with statistics alone.
Lest we forget, impeachment for “dereliction of duty” is demonstrable by the results. They don’t need to prove fraud to impeach Mayorkas. They don’t need to follow a paper trail or question 400 witnesses. They have enough evidence to demonstrate Mayorkas is the greatest failure in DHS history, and that’s saying a lot.
The Republican Party reminds me of bystanders watching a violent crime, filming it with their smartphones, then posting on social media how traumatic their experience was while doing nothing to help the victim.
Impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas is a slam dunk with the border numbers alone. The House GOP needs to stop pretending to they’re pursuing it and just do it now.
]]>The rapid evolution of the threat environment requires the Department to evolve along with it, said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas in an April 21 press release.
The task force will seek to integrate AI to enhance the integrity of America’s supply chains, identify and interdict the flow of precursor chemicals to counter the flow of fentanyl, and target criminal networks, the statement said. According to U.S. authorities, China is the primary source of precursor chemicals.
The department will also use AI tools to rescue victims of online child sexual abuse and exploitation as well as apprehend the perpetrators of such crimes, according to the statement.
The department will work with academia, industry, and other government partners to assess how AI can be used to secure critical infrastructure, it said.
“The profound evolution in the homeland security threat environment, changing at a pace faster than ever before, has required our Department of Homeland Security to evolve along with it,” said Mayorkas.
The United States must address the multiple ways in which AI will “drastically alter the threat landscape,” he said on April 21.
“Our department will lead in the responsible use of AI to secure the homeland and in defending against the malicious use of this transformational technology. As we do this, we will ensure that our use of AI is rigorously tested to avoid bias and disparate impact.”
The Homeland Security Department’s integration of AI into government operations comes as experts warn about the tech being a threat to human freedoms in the hands of oppressive administrations.
“AI-enabled tech will be capable of surveilling, micro-targeting, and influencing democratic populations in ways that were previously impossible through traditional state monitoring and privately-developed social media algorithms,” Anders Corr, principal at Corr Analytics, said in a Jan. 4 commentary.
“Through micro-targeting, micro-production, and micro-delivery of subtle propaganda, AI could determine democratic decision-making outcomes like at no other time in history, thereby making those formerly democratic processes undemocratic.”
The Biden administration has already begun integrating AI with biased ideologies in government operations. In February, Biden approved an executive order directing federal agencies to use AI to achieve “equity” objectives.
“When designing, developing, acquiring, and using artificial intelligence and automated systems in the Federal Government, agencies shall do so, consistent with applicable law, in a manner that advances equity,” the order states.
Derived from Marxist ideology, equity is different from the concept of equality, where everyone in a society is treated on an equal footing, and given the same level of treatment regardless of differences in race, religion, and other factors.
Equity, on the other hand, focuses on the forced redistribution of resources. In a socialist equitable scenario, privileges are distributed based on perceived imbalances. Such decisions are typically undertaken by an unelected group of progressive advocates.
Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, a founding editor of pro-free speech publication Reality’s Last Stand, has warned against such initiatives.
“Biden is not a moderate. This is a legal sprint to inject as much radical ideology as broadly and as deeply as possible in our government. This cannot be allowed. If Republicans take office, they must fully root out all of this ideological and social cancer,” he said in a Feb. 21 Twitter post.
In the field of AI, the United States could face significant threats from China. A March 2021 report (pdf) issued by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NCSAI) warns that “America is not prepared to defend or compete in the AI era. This is the tough reality we must face. And it is this reality that demands comprehensive, whole-of-nation action.”
The report points out that the competition in the field of artificial intelligence is also a “values competition.” China’s domestic use of AI is a “chilling precedent for anyone … who cherishes individual liberty,” it said.
China’s “employment of AI as a tool of repression and surveillance—at home and, increasingly, abroad—is a powerful counterpoint to how we believe AI should be used.”
“We must win the AI competition that is intensifying strategic competition with China. China’s plans, resources, and progress should concern all Americans. … We take seriously China’s ambition to surpass the United States as the world’s AI leader within a decade,” the report said.
Biden had earlier called this decade a “decisive” one for the world where generative AI and threats posed by the Chinese regime would influence the world.
While announcing AI integration, the Homeland Department also introduced new measures to counter Chinese threats, including defending critical infrastructure, disrupting the global fentanyl supply chain, and protecting against Beijing’s “malign economic influence.”
Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
]]>Article by Mark Tapscott from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
The Heritage litigation stems from the conservative non-profit foundation’s April 18 FOIA request to DHS for all agency documents in which appear the terms “Babel X,” “Babel,” “Babel Street” or “PanAmerica.”
Babel X is a controversial software program that allows users to monitor social media posts around the world in 200 languages, as well as listen to smart phone conversations in a specified geographic location.
The FOIA also requested copies of all DHS emails in which appears the term “@babelstreet.com” addressed to or from a lengthy list of agency officials, including Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, John D. Cohen, DHS’s Acting Under Secretary and Chief Intelligence Officer, and 11 other officials in the agency’s Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) operation.
Finally, the FOIA sought all communications “regarding the procurement, award and implementation of the award to PANAMERICA COMPUTERS, INC. regarding award 70T02021F7554N002.”
The FOIA request was submitted, according to the complaint, because “Heritage understands DHS uses Babel X to monitor unknown entities, groups, and individuals in a manner similar to that of the FBI.” The FBI spent $5 million earlier this year to buy 5,000 user permits for Babel X from PANAMERICA COMPUTERS, INC., with an option for further purchases up to $27 million.
The maker of Babel X claims, according to the Heritage suit that the powerful scraping software is capable of multiple avenues of digital surveillance, including “persistent cross-lingual search and discovery across multiple data sources with advanced statistical and crowd-sourcing techniques,” deciphering “relevant insights across 200+ languages with state-of-the-art, linguistics technology,” performing “sentiment analysis in 50+ major world languages,” filtering “by a wide range of variables including keywords, hashtags, language, authors, emojis, dates/times, regular expression,” conducting “ad-hoc research for in-depth insight on entities,” analyzing “themes, entities, and categories as well as detect relationships,” and “integrating all available data on a single platform.”
The complaint added that “DHS has purchased and continues to purchase a large number of Babel X products and uses those products for a variety of functions.”
The Heritage complaint said the FBI contract indicates that “the FBI solicited for a product that was able to gather and analyze information from the dark web and a number of common applications, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
“The FBI expects to run 20,000 discrete keyword searches a month through the collected data. The FBI contracting documents stated that the FBI’s ‘intent’ was to look at past events, but that ‘predictive analytics’ that would allow the FBI to ‘point to possible actions of a subject or group’ were ‘desirable.’”
The software’s maker told The Washington Post that the product does not listen to cell phone calls, according to the complaint.
In response to the Heritage FOIA, DHS officials acknowledged receiving it but then asked the foundation to narrow its request because its initial review indicated that a huge number of responsive documents were potentially involved.
After further delays, the complaint said the litigation was necessary because DHS “has failed to promptly review agency records for the purpose of locating and collecting those records that are responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA Request.”
In addition, DHS is “wrongfully withholding non-exempt records requested by Heritage by failing to produce any records responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA Request,” and is further “wrongfully withholding non-exempt-agency records requested by Plaintiffs by failing to segregate exempt information in otherwise non-exempt records responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA Request.”
The suit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, asks that DHS be ordered to conduct another search for all relevant records, as well as to “produce, within 20 days of the Court’s order, or by such other date as the Court deems appropriate, any and all non-exempt records responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA Request and indexes justifying the withholding of any responsive records withheld in whole or in part under claim of exemption.”
A spokesman for DHS could not be reached for comment in time for publication of this news story.
Joining Heritage as a plaintiff in the litigation is Heritage Senior Adviser Mike Howell, who manages the foundation’s oversight project. Howell joined Heritage in 2018 after serving at DHS in the General Counsel’s office, where he was “the chief legal point of contact for the department’s 3,000-lawyer office for all congressional oversight and investigations that concerned any of the department’s headquarters or component offices,” according to the foundation.
Before going to DHS, Howell worked on Capitol Hill from 2013 to 2017 as an attorney for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
The present FOIA lawsuit is only the second one ever filed by the nonprofit since its founding in 1973.
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