#the intelligent migrant man

[cleolinda]

Tuesday’s debate between Trump and his opponent Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had several eyebrow-raising moments but none moreso than when Trump, echoing his latest online-born conspiracy, baselessly accused thousands of legal migrants in Springfield, Ohio, of stealing, killing, and eating pet dogs off the street.

The conspiracy was fact-checked in real time by ABC’s David Muir, who noted that city officials had looked into the claim and found it to be baseless. But the damage was already done.

Nearly a week later, Vance found himself once again answering for his running mate’s actions after days of shocking fallout in Springfield, where residents have reported fliers dropped by the Ku Klux Klan as well as several threats of bombings or mass shootings — the latest of which, at Wittenberg University, occurred Saturday night just hours before Vance would go on the air.

[…] On CNN, he seemingly admitted that his claims were lies, then continued by saying that he would keep spreading such tales, even knowing them to be untrue, if they resulted in the media talking about issues he claimed were still just as real despite the deception.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do,” said the senator.

This is DANGEROUS shit aimed at the Haitian immigrant community for political gain

that is going to get people hurt if not outright killed, and this motherfucker just admitted it’s not true. Which is maybe the most important thing you will read about the whole ordeal.

“But I saw pictures!!!”

Spoiler: the geese were roadkill.

The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.

Backlash was swift, with replies ranging from, “I find it strange that a self-professed ‘hillbilly’ doesn’t know what whole chickens look like,” to, “HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT CHICKENS LOOK LIKE WITH THEIR LEGS ATTACHED YOU F****ING DIPSHIT.” Oliver Alexander, an open-source intelligence analyst, weighed in, sharing images of plucked chickens looking remarkably similar to whatever was being grilled in the video. “Clearly chicken you weirdo. Dude’s never seen chicken that wasn’t dino-nugget shaped,” he wrote.

[beautiful-basque-country]

Eighth extension of provisional prison for Pablo González: he has been in jail for more than two years now without trial or evidence

Polish Justice has decided for the eighth time to keep the Basque journalist behind bars without setting a date for his trial and without having presented any evidence against him in the two years he has been in prison.

Journalist Pablo González was arrested on the night of February 28, 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. In a few days, he will have served two years in prison and the Court of Appeals of Lublin (Poland) that is studying his case has decided this Thursday to extend the reporter's provisional detention for the eighth time. This means he will remain behind bars for at least another three months.

The reporter was detained by the Polish secret services at his hotel when he was reporting from the city of Przemyśl, very close to the border with Ukraine, about the migrant crisis that the conflict was causing. The Polish Justice then accused him of being a Russian spy: "He was identified as an agent of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU). He carried out espionage activities for Russia using his status as a journalist," the spokesman for the Ministry of Special Services, Stanisław Żaryn, said in 2022.

Since then, nothing more. In this two years no evidence has emerged against Pablo González. The courts have not reported on specific facts that serve to support the accusations and the journalist's defense has not exposed possible criminal actions by the journalist. Nothing. Pablo González is the only journalist in the European Union imprisoned in a Member State. An anomaly that has been denounced by various professional organizations of journalists, NGOs and civil society associations. In fact, Reporters Without Borders even reported that it was a case for which "there is no precedent in the European Union."

Most European States set two years as the maximum term of provisional detention for a prisoner who has not been tried, but this principle has exceptions.

In the Polish case, the criminal procedure law establishes that "the total period of preventive detention until the moment of the first sentence of the court of first instance may not exceed two years." However, in the same article there are exceptions that allow the country's appeals courts to extend preventive detention. Specifically, the rule states that it can be extended if the identity of the accused cannot be established or confirmed, if evidence must be obtained in a case of special complexity or outside the country, as well as if there is a deliberate prolongation of the procedure by the accused.

[x]

Long story short, Poland is stepping on a Basque man's basic human rights and it's perfectly okay. Europe the land of the democracy and rights.

Free Pablo González!!!

[notvv0ltz]

Please talk about increasing islamophobia and anti migrant racism from the police and people in general after terrorist attack in Russia. Literally no one said anything on western media

It's so god damn awful man (source: )

Text:

In Russia, after the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, pressure on migrants and non-Russian Russians is increasing, and migrant-phobic sentiment is spreading. Security forces create special groups for inspections. Politicians are demanding restrictions on entry into the country, and in some regions attacks on migrants have become more frequent.

State Duma deputy from occupied Crimea Mikhail Sheremet stated the need to limit the entry of migrants into Russia during the war:

“Unfortunately, foreigners who cross the border are a threat, first of all, to themselves, as they automatically become an object of interest for Western intelligence services to create conditions for terrorist acts in Russia, as well as tools for destabilizing the situation,” Sheremet said.

[mariacallous]

Poland has announced that it is building massive fortifications along its borders with Russia and Belarus. Serious money is going into this: 10 billion zloty (about $2.55 billion) will go into building the fences and planting forests. Poland’s undertaking raises an important point: Border fortifications can slow down the enemy’s advance, free up troops, and indeed save troops’ lives. More NATO countries ought to follow Poland’s example.

Some countries are blessed by nature. God may have put Finland next to Russia, but at least he also graced the small country with forests along large swaths of its border. During the 1939-40 Winter War, when the Finns valiantly tried to save their country from the invading Red Army, the defenders used the trees to their advantage and dramatically slowed what the enormous Red Army had thought would be a cakewalk.

But the Finnish military has added to the defenses nature provided. “We have a long history in building fortifications, especially for coastal defense and to protect our air bases,” said retired Maj. Gen. Pekka Toveri, a former chief of Finnish military intelligence and now member of the Finnish Parliament. “They protect troops and equipment, and troops in fortified positions can also defend key terrain with fewer troops compared to when you’ve got your troops in the open.”

Poland, too, has several hundred miles of border with Russia (combined with Belarus), but it has less forest than Finland, though it does have a few swamps. Indeed, until Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime decided to weaponize migration in 2021 and send thousands of migrants across Belarus’s border to Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, the three countries had little border fortification of any kind. Since then, the Polish government has built a steel wall along its border with Belarus, and Latvia and Lithuania have erected fences.

A steel wall may keep migrants out, but it certainly won’t deter Russian or Belarusian soldiers. Now, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced East Shield, a plan to do exactly that. “We want our border to be safe during peace and be impassable during war,” Tusk said at a World War II commemoration ceremony last month, Bloomberg reported. The project will “include the construction of new fortifications, fences, changes in landforms and special forestation along 400 kilometers (249 miles) of land border,” Bloomberg noted. Construction has already started.

Poles support the plans. When asked, just before Tusk’s announcement, whether Poland should “build fortifications (barbed wire, bunkers, trenches) on the border with Russia and Belarus,” 64.3 percent of Poles responded yes, while only 16.5 percent opposed such a move. Indeed, with Poland now spending more than 4 percent of its GDP on defense, allocating less than 10 percent of this year’s budget to fortifications seems worth a try.

$2.55 billion is a hefty sum, even in a country whose 2024 defense budget amounts to about $29 billion. But if forests, fortifications, and fences can keep the enemy out or at least cause a delay, this is money well spent. Fortifications can take blows that would otherwise fall on troops.

“Generally, a fortified border should provide us with more time to respond to any sudden attack, the likelihood of which is minimal, as things currently stand,” noted Marek Swierczynski, the head of the security and international affairs desk at the Polish policy analysis firm Polityka Insight. “It may provide a more robust defense posture against both land and—if sufficiently equipped—a low, slow air attack. The lessons learned from the Ukraine war suggest that a well-prepared and sufficiently manned defensive position may slow down the enemy’s attack to the degree it would culminate and break down much sooner than otherwise.”

In Finland, the fortifications are indisputably a source of strength. “The Army trains the troops in fortification … but we don’t build long trench lines like the Ukrainians do,” Toveri said. “Our fighting positions normally have two, three soldiers with overhead protection, which creates a mutually supporting network of positions protected by minefields. That’s much more difficult to destroy than the trench lines.” The bottom line, Toveri noted, is that “since the threat is heavy Russian artillery and now also drones, fortification gives the troops much better protection.” Better yet, Finnish industry can quickly build concrete and wood elements for such fortification. Indeed, Finland is building new fortifications. (Yes, their locations are classified.)

Poland’s plans and Finland’s good experiences, in fact, suggest every country that borders an increasingly aggressive Russia ought to erect fortifications along their borders. Trees and bollards are indisputably less valuable than soldiers. During the Cold War, the intra-German border, then also the NATO-Warsaw Pact front line, was heavily fortified. The installations were removed in the early 1990s, but anyone wishing to see a few examples for themselves can do so—in a museum on the border between the formerly East German region of Thuringia and the formerly West German Bavaria. And now fortifications may experience a renaissance. Imagine the burden lifted from the shoulders of NATO’s front-line soldiers—and, in the long run, the money saved.

But retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a career infantry officer who commanded U.S. Army Europe from 2014 to 2017, cautions that fortifications are only as effective as their human and air support. “Fortifications and obstacles such as minefields and tank ditches by themselves are only effective if they are covered with observed artillery or rocket fire,” he said. “Otherwise, the attacking force is able to take their time and conduct deliberate breaching.” And, he explained, “the fortifications have to be in-depth, and they must be properly integrated into NATO’s defense plans for that region. Otherwise, plans could be disrupted by obstacles and fortifications that are not complementary to the defense plans.”

Fortifications designed by an individual country could trip up soldiers from allied countries that come to its aid in a crisis—because defenders, too, have to operate near the border, especially as they try to push the invading forces out. Plus, Hodges added, fortifications consume considerable resources and are expensive.

That means Poland’s planned fortifications will only add benefit if NATO planners know all the details. It’s unclear how detailed Poland’s plans are, as the fortifications’ locations will most likely be kept classified. “We don’t have full clarity yet as to how deep, how wide, and how well armed that fortified line will be and what its aims will be,” Swierczynski said. “In terms of this being an opportunity to free up forces, I think it’s actually going to have a reverse impact. It will need to be manned, and this burden will fall on the armed forces.”

Such sentry duties are likely to be carried out by members of the Territorial Defense Forces, a branch of the armed forces that has particular responsibility for homeland defense and whose often part-time members are deployed in their home regions. “And it will require maintenance and supplies by army engineers and logisticians,” Swierczynski said.

As with all attempts at deterrence, though, what truly matters is whether the potential attacker is swayed. Signaling to Russia that Europe takes its threat seriously may be worth its weight in gold. If the plans merely cause a raised eyebrow in the Kremlin, they’re not worth pursuing. For now, most of us can only guess at the conversations inside the Kremlin—but if Russian media freaks out about the move, it may be one sign that it’s working.

[i-spaced-sorry]

Burzek wedding One Chicago One Shot.

Hi y'all! Today at work it was slow and I saw this headline on my phone.

Obviously my first reaction was "The only logical way this would happen is if something happened to Kevin" I wrote some ideas on what it would look like in that scenario and then since it was slow at work I kept building on those ideas and it turned into a weird 2010 style fanfic. I feel like this might offend some people in this fandom if I didn't say it's suppose to be like a bad fanfic, so there's your warning.

This is my take on why Voight would officiate the wedding:

“Kev, what are you doing right now?” asked Voight when Kevin picked up the phone. 

“Uh, nothing really, just going over my officiate speech for the wedding tomorrow” replied Kev while moving his laptop aside and sliding towards the edge of the couch, ready to jump up the minute his boss told him so. 

“Alright, well, I need you to run to the 31st and pick up a packet that I need from them for our next case.” 

Kevin crinkled his eyebrows in confusion. “Sarge with all due respect, but why am I going and not you? Or better yet why are they not just dropping it off the next day we are at the district. It’s 11pm. And Burgess and Ruze are getting married tomorrow so we all aren’t in the office anyway.”

Kevin could hear his boss sigh and could envision him throwing a hand down his face. 

“I need you to go now, I’m stuck at the district doing last minute paperwork before we all take off tomorrow for as you said the Burgess’ wedding.”

Sighing, Kevin got up and replied, “Okay, I’m going now. But this packet better be worth the trip.”

“Thanks” and before he knew it  his boss was hanging up on him. 

As Kevin approached the 31st, he was reminded of Kim’s recent shift at the district and how there was a drive by. Praying that didn’t happen while he was inside, he got out of his car and walked towards the entrance past the migrants.

“Hi, I’m here to pick up a packet for the Intelligence unit out of the 21st” stated Kevin while walking up to the desk Sergeant. 

Confused, the desk Sergeant looked at Kevin and replied, “I wasn’t made aware of any packet, if you just wait here a minute I’ll go take a look.” 

“Uh yea sure” stated Kevin. 

While he waited he turned around and looked out the window at the migrants. That’s when he noticed something and sure enough heavy fire happened just like with Kim. But this time, all the migrants ran into the building and the doors got locked and barricaded before he could start a chase. Great, he was now stuck inside a different district the night before his friends were supposed to be married. 

“What do you mean he’s not here!” cried Kim into her phone. She was talking to Hailey about how she needed to go over something in her vows with Kevin before the ceremony. It was 9am, a little early for a traditional wedding. But this wasn’t just a traditional wedding, this was a miracle wedding between two people who had tried various times to get married. So to them a morning wedding was perfect. 

“He texted me saying he was stuck at the 31st. They had taken really bad fire late last night and the migrants came into the district and a guy who blended in with the migrants has now taken it upon himself to tie up every officer who was there and has taken over the district. Apparently the 1st shift officers got there around 7 this morning and are right now trying to negotiate with the man.” replied Hailey over the phone. She was on her way to the venue and wished she could drive faster to be there for her friend. 

“Ugh!” replied Kim before hanging up the phone and tossing it to the side and beginning to sob. 

“Darlin? Are you alright?”  called Adam. Kim looked up from her sobbing and turned her head towards the door. 

“No, you can’t come in here! It’s bad luck” sniffled Kim. 

“I know, but I wanted to let you know we will work this out.” soothed Adam from behind the door. 

“How? We only have the venue for 2hrs and Kevin’s not here! Who is going to officiate the wedding?”

Kim sobbed some more but could hear some rustling behind the door and then she heard, “Kim, I can officiate your wedding.”

“Voight, I don’t know, do you even have your license?” asked Kim hesitantly.

“Yes, I have my license. Let’s get the two of you married!”

“Are you okay with that darlin?” asked Adam, checking his soon to be wife was okay with it. 

“Yea, that’s okay.”

Hailey looked at the church room where her friends were about to get married and she smiled. It was an intimate enough space but also had exactly the vibes of her friends. It was perfect. As she walked down the aisle to her seat, she looked up and noticed her boss standing at the front with Adam. She was confused for a second but then realized that since Kevin was held up at the 31st, that he was filling in. ‘Even though my marriage fell apart, I at least knew not to get our boss involved in our wedding or marriage….Well at the beginning, he obviously snuck his way in later.” she thought to herself. 

Soon the wedding began and the bridal shower, which consisted of Adam’s cousin and Kim’s cousin and that was it, came down the aisle. Next was Mack in her flower dress. She threw the petals and smiled extra big at Hailey. And then finally, Kim herself came down the aisle in her beautiful wedding dress and redone makeup. 

On the other side of town, The negotiators were still at work trying to get the man inside to cooperate. “Come on man, just take the plea deal.” begged Kevin while checking his watch again. He was missing his best friends’ wedding for this shit. 

After 10 more minutes of back and forth the man finally agreed to the terms and opened the doors. Kevin ran out, hung onto a responding officer's arms and pleaded his reasoning to get his statement at a later date. The officer was sympathetic to the fellow officer in blue and allowed him to go. Kevin got in his car and sped off for the church. 

Back at the church, Adam had just finished his vows, when the chapel doors slammed open and Jay ran in, “No, I object to the wedding of these two!”

Kim and Adam stood there mouths agape. Hailey looked at her ex and exclaimed, “My guy! My brother from another mister, my ex husband who will forever be my best friend, what in God’s green Earth are you doing?” 

Jay shook his head and stated, “I don’t really, I’ve just always wanted to do that. Carry on.” and with that he walked to sit next to Hailey, who smacked him upside the head rightfully so. 

“Why is Voight officiating and not Kev?” stage whispered Jay to Hailey. 

“He got caught up at a district and is now in a lockdown, I don’t like Voight officiating either”

“He’s bad news.” stage whispered Jay again. 

Looking to her right, like in a sitcom, Hailey deadpanned, “You don’t say”

“Uh, guys?” coughed Adam from his spot at the front. 

Looking up, the two hummed. 

“Can we get back to getting married?”

“Sorry” replied the two while looking at their feet like lost puppies.

Whipping into a parking space, he shut the engine off, opened and slammed the door shut and ran up the church steps. Opening the door, he opened the second set of doors leading to the chapel and he heard the words, 

“....Burgess take Adam Ruzek to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

As he heard his best friend reply yes, he dropped to his knees and screamed “no, I missed my best friends getting married” and sobbed. 

Quickly when the small group turned his way, he got up and made his way into the pew behind Hailey and Jay.

The wedding finished up and the happy couple walked down the aisle. 

Later at the reception, after Kevin apologized to his friends, he walked up to his boss. 

“Sorry about what happened at the district” apologized Voight. 

Looking mad, Kevin stated, “Me too. Especially since after all that, the Desk Sergeant claimed you already picked up the packet early that day. 

Voight stared at his officer before responding, “hmm. I guess I did. Oh well, sorry for the trouble.” Then he shrugged and walked away leaving Kevin pissed.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Radley Balko at The UnPopulist:

Donald Trump and his allies constantly complain that they are regularly targeted, singled out for abuse, and deliberately humiliated by the criminal justice system. They claim that there are “two tiers of justice”—a strict, unrelenting one for MAGA, and a loose, deferential one for the migrants, rapists, and killers that George Soros-funded prosecutors refuse to punish. But even before the conservative justices in a party-line ruling handed Trump virtual immunity from fomenting an insurrection, he had been getting the criminal justice system’s “platinum door” treatment. His cases are unusual in that he’s a former president. But his status and political position have helped him far more than they have hurt him. I want to compare and contrast some of Trump and his supporters’ complaints with how the criminal legal system operates in the real world.

Treating Trump With Kid Gloves

Trump has complained that his criminal trials have been a huge inconvenience for him—keeping him from using that time to campaign for president, potentially keeping him from attending his son Barron’s high school graduation. Typically, people facing criminal charges have to show up when court begins and then sit for hours until their case is called. They’re required to take off work, or find someone to watch their kids. And those are merely the people lucky enough to be released before trial. In many courts, they aren’t allowed to have cell phones. Over the last few years, I’ve watched dozens of people wait in a courtroom, staring at the wall for half a day or more, only to learn that their case has been continued, so they'll have to do it all again in a month. I don’t know if any of them had to cancel a political rally, but many have certainly been fired, missed doctor’s appointments, or lost other opportunities. I suppose it’s possible that a judge at some point let a defendant charged with 34 felonies delay a trial to attend a graduation ceremony, but I imagine if you asked a public defender if that’s a regular occurrence, you’d need to set aside some time for the laughter to die down. Incidentally, Trump was permitted to attend his son’s graduation.

Trump and his supporters have also complained about the tactics the FBI agents used when serving the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene described the raid as “the rogue behavior of communist countries,” and Steve Bannon insisted that the GOP will move to incarcerate officials who approved it. Trump himself accused FBI agents of not taking off their shoes while walking through his bedroom. As someone who has written about aggressive police raids for over 20 years, it’s hard to image a more pathetic complaint than that. The FBI gave Trump’s Secret Service detail a heads-up that they were coming. They deliberately conducted the search when Trump would be out of town, to save him embarrassment. When National Security Agency intelligence officer, William Binney, a whistleblower, tried to point out problems at the agency by going through internal channels, FBI agents raided his home unannounced, entered without authorization, and pointed their guns at him after finding him in the shower.

Far-right media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have also suggested that Robert Mueller’s office may have tipped off the media to maximize publicity around the raid. But of course tipping off the press about a pending arrest is a time-honored tradition among publicity-seeking prosecutors. The amusing thing about this complaint is that a carefully staged perp walk as a publicity stunt is a technique first popularized by … Trump’s personal attorney and bag man Rudy Giuliani, who used it to humiliate the International Monetary Fund’s chief. We now know that Mueller’s office did not tip off CNN. The network’s reporters had staked out Stone’s house after noticing unusual activity in court fillings from Mueller’s office. It was just good reporting.

MAGA world has also been critical of how search and arrest warrants were served on other Trump-adjacent personalities. FBI agents were accused of “manhandling” Paul Manafort and his wife during an early morning raid, which legal commentator Jonathan Turley called “excessive.” In response to the FBI’s raid on Roger Stone, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said: “I’ve been busting down doors for 50 years and I’ve never sent that many units to the baddest murderer.” (Arpaio once sent a small army of cops to raid a guy accused of cockfighting. That raid ended with actor Steven Seagal, cosplaying as a cop, driving an armored vehicle into the poor guy’s living room.) But of course the FBI and other federal agencies routinely conduct volatile, aggressive raids on people suspected of nonviolent or low-level crimes.

[...]

Jan. 6 Rioters More Equal than BLM Protesters

Then there’s January 6th! Increasingly over the past couple of years, Trump and his allies have complained that the Jan. 6 rioters have been singled out for abuse, especially when compared to those accused of rioting and looting during the George Floyd protests. The Jan. 6 rioters are frequently referred to as “political prisoners”—Trump himself calls them “hostages.” Let’s look at the facts.

About 70% of people arrested and charged with Jan. 6-related crimes were released on bond or under their own recognizance, including everyone charged with crimes that would qualify as “peaceful protest,” such as trespassing. Just 25% of federal criminal defendants are released pre-trial overall. If we factor in both state and federal courts, the number of people routinely detained while awaiting trial in this country is so large that there are actually more people behind bars who have yet to be convicted than people who have. But seven in 10 Jan. 6ers were released. It is true that the conditions in Washington, D.C. jails are terrible. They’re under-supervised, unsanitary, and hellish, and have astronomical rates of suicide. When Trump was booked at the jail in Fulton County, Georgia, he complained that the facility was “poor and disgraceful,” adding, “It’s worse than you could even imagine. It’s violent. The building is falling apart.” But Trump was quickly booked and released. He didn’t spend any time in an actual jail cell.

All of the Jan. 6 defendants who were not released prior to trial were charged with serious felonies. Federal public defenders have made clear that the federal courts have been far more likely to release Capitol rioters pre-trial than other defendants. And, in fact, the D.C. federal public defender’s office went all out to make sure that Jan. 6ers received a robust defense. They ramped up staffing and enlisted attorneys from other federal offices to help. We can contrast the extraordinary efforts to make sure the Jan. 6ers were well defended to the ongoing crisis in public defense I’ve been regularly documenting. There are parts of the country where people sit in jails for weeks or even months before ever seeing a lawyer. Some meet their attorney for the first time just minutes before they’re due in court. Many public defenders have no access to investigators. Most are severely overworked.

[...]

The System Has Gone Way Easy on Trump

Trump has been treated far better and received more preferential treatment than just about anyone ever ensnared in the criminal justice system. He’s the only person in U.S. history to have his criminal case appear before a judge he appointed—and one he could promote to a higher court should he retake the White House. He’s also the only person in U.S. history to have his criminal case appear before the U.S. Supreme Court after having appointed a third of that court’s justices. Consider how his classified documents case compares to similar cases against non-former presidents. The Justice Department became aware that Reality Winner had leaked a single classified document to a media outlet—a document she believed served an important public interest—in May 2017. She was arrested the following month. By August 2018, 16 months later, she had been sentenced to five years in prison. Trump was indicted for hoarding around 200 classified documents, lying about them, refusing to turn them over, and then obstructing the government’s attempts to recover them. Whatever his motivation was for all of this, it definitely wasn’t whistleblowing.

Trump illegally took the documents in January 2021. The first indication that the government became aware of them was in May of that year. The National Archives then gave Trump repeated warnings. Instead, he showed off and boasted about top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago visitors. The FBI didn’t open an investigation until March 2022. The search of Mar-a-Lago didn’t take place until the following August. Trump wasn’t indicted until June 2023. It has now been 37 months since the government became aware of Trump’s 200 documents, and it’s unlikely that his trial will happen any time soon.

[...]

Trump Monetizes Criminality When Others Lose Their Shirt

People with criminal convictions also typically struggle to pay court fines and fees, probation or parole fees, child support, and private debts accumulated while they were incarcerated. It can be difficult to find housing, and they’re far more likely to experience homelessness. Trump himself faces significant fines and fees. He owes $450 million to the state of New York for crimes committed by his company, and $90 million to E. Jean Carrol after a jury found him liable for defaming her after he sexually assaulted her. Trump also has a habit of not paying his creditors, though in his case it’s usually more a matter of not wanting to pay than the inability to do so. Still, unlike others with felony convictions, Trump will not end up homeless or destitute. It’s unlikely he’ll even need to alter his lavish lifestyle.

[...] Over the years, I’ve interviewed more people treated unfairly by the criminal justice system than I can count. They often say that the experience changed them. It made them more empathetic, less trustful of police and prosecutors, and more willing to entertain the notion that the system sometimes gets it wrong. Most understand that any system capable of the injustice inflicted on them has certainly done the same or worse to others. Powerful people who encounter the justice system can be particularly effective agents of change. But that isn’t going to happen here. That’s partly because Trump has experienced only the most glancing of consequences from his criminal convictions. But it’s also because MAGA revels in victimhood. Conceding that the system is fundamentally unfair would merely make Trump one victim among many. The false narrative that courts and prosecutors are hellbent on targeting him and his supporters—while showing outrageous leniency toward scary drug dealers, rapists, and killers—only amplifies the outrage and victimhood.

MAGA’s beef with the system isn’t that justice has been weaponized, it’s that it has been weaponized against them. Their answer isn’t to insulate the system from politics, it’s to ratchet up the politicization, then aim it at their enemies.

Radley Balko wrote in The UnPopulist expertly debunking the MAGA lie that the so-called "weaponization" of the criminal justice system is being used to rightly prosecute Donald Trump and his allies for their crimes.

In fact, the criminal justice system has gone soft on Donald Trump and his allies.

Balko said it best here: "MAGA’s beef with the system isn’t that justice has been weaponized, it’s that it has been weaponized against them. Their answer isn’t to insulate the system from politics, it’s to ratchet up the politicization, then aim it at their enemies."

[queermediastudies]

God's Own Country: A Happy Ending for Gay Film

In Yorkshire, northern England, 24-year-old Johnny Saxby lives with his father, Martin, and grandmother, Deirdre, and runs a family farm together. Johnny has to do endless farm work day in and day out, so in his free time, he often numbs himself with alcohol and sex. One day, a Romanian migrant worker, Gheorghe Ionescu, was hired by Martin to help with the busy lambing season. Johnny does not get along well with this quiet and handsome 27-year-old young man until one day he tackles Johnny to the ground and warns Johnny not to call him "gypsy" again. On the next day, they have a rough and passionate sex in the dirt and later gradually become closer. When Martin suffers a second stroke, Johnny realizes the responsibility of running the farm falls entirely on his shoulders. He asks Gheorghe if he can stay with him and maintain the farm together, but Gheorghe believes if they cannot redefine their relationship, this plan will not survive. Johnny then gets upset and drinks to excess and has a random sex with another man, which is found out later by Gheorghe, so Gheorghe leaves the farm with sorrow and anger. But in the end, Johnny brings Gheorghe back and Gheorghe moves into the house from the original caravan.

The above description is about the British film God's Own Country, written and directed by Francis Lee in 2017, which won the world cinema directing award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival as the only UK-based production. This film is partly based on Lee's own experience, who is a gay people used to live in Yorkshire. As an uncommon gay film with a happy ending, God's Own Country expands queer media territory into the countryside and migrants. While God's Own Country presents a new perspective to view gay people, it also reinforces problematic narratives through its depiction of traditional masculinity, representation of migrant, and "normalization" of gay identity. With three main themes presented, this review post also discusses the connection between masculinity and gender performativity, migrant and intersectionality, and gay identity and homonormativity.

From the character setting, and storyline, to the environment, God's Own Country is permeated with a traditional and binary "masculinity". The protagonist, Johnny, is a young sheep farmer living in the Yorkshire countryside who often engages in binge drinking and furtive casual sex. When he finds the one he wants to stay with (Gheorghe), he messes up since he does not know how to deal with this romantic relationship. And when he tries to bring Gheorghe back, it seems very difficult for him to express his apology. The depiction of such character is easily connected to a kind of traditional "masculinity" that is unemotional, violent, strong, high self-esteem, etc. Or, to put it in another way, an aggressive young man lives in a wild farm who does now know how to start an emotional communication.

Judith Butler (2006) argues that "there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results" (p. 34). In other words, "our gender is our expressions and behaviours (rather than those expressions and behaviours being the result of some underlying gender identity)" (Barker & Scheele 2016, p.79). People's gender then is more like an expression that is believed to be appropriate and correct within their cultural environment rather than a fixed nature within their bodies. In this sense, the masculinity of Johnny is more like an "intelligible" way to perform within his condition - a young sheep farmer in the countryside. The "good" thing may be Johnny, as a gay man, is not depicted in a stigmatized or stereotypical way that happens in many shows, but its depiction seems to reinforce the binary understanding of gender.

God's Own Country was released in 2017, which coincides UK's attempt of withdrawing from the European Union. Gheorghe, as a Romanian migrant worker in the film echoes the issue of migrants in Britain. Both as gay men, the nation, race, and class of Gheorghe is quite different from that of Johnny. Such demographic factors are greatly influencing the way Gheorghe interacts with Johnny who is a white, work-class, native British. When they first met, Johnny called Gheorghe a "gypsy". Later when they are in the bar, a white racist there also deliberately teases Gheorghe because of his identity.

Intersectionality refers to the overlapping of social categorization and how it is linked to the interconnected oppression. Doty (1993) also argues that cultural factors such as "class, ethnicity, gender, occupation, education, and religious, national, and regional allegiances influence our identity construction" and "can exert influences difficult to separate from the development of our identities queers" (p. 5). Although Gheorghe's identity of being gay does not bring him too much direct discrimination in the film, his race and class affect how he interact with Johnny and other people (such as the white racist in the bar mentioned above). And Gheorghe's conflict with Johnny is raised due to his identity, i.e. how Gheorghe as a Romanian migrant worker has a romantic gay relationship with a white, British farmer.

Moreover, how the film represents Gheorghe and his relationship with Johnny is also problematic. "The formal axe around which the film functions is the act of looking and being looked at, in particular the suspicious staring of the foreign 'outsider' by the white 'insider'" (Williams 2020, p.77). That is to say, the presentation of a Romanian migrant is from the viewpoint of a white British man. Although Gheorghe as a migrant seems to be depicted as the "savior" of British white man Johnny, Gheorghe's intersectional identity is actually not fully represented but more portrayed as the support or supplement of the main white character. For example, it is Gheorghe who saves Johnny from the heavy workload and mental loneliness, and teaches him how to "love" someone instead of just having brutal sex.

Unlike Brokeback Mountain (2005) or Boys Don't Cry (1999), queer characters do not struggle too much with their identity and social discrimination in God's Own Country. The gay identity of Johnny and Gheorghe seems to be very "natural" and "ordinary". Even when Deirdre, Johnny's Grandmother, finds a used condom in Johnny's room and realizes that her grandson may have sex with another man Gheorghe, she only emphasizes to Johnny that "he is only here to work". Johnny's family seems to accept their gay identity and relationship very well, or in another way, their gay identity and relationship are somehow "normalized" in the film. Furthermore, within their own relationship, Gheorghe is depicted as a gentle lover who is trying to tame his aggressive partner. And their relationship from the hostile beginning to the happy ending is very similar to traditional Hollywood romantic heterosexual films.

Homonormativity "is a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions, but upholds and sustains them, while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized, depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption" (Duggan 2002, p. 50). In other words, although gay people may seem to be accepted and included in the mainstream or heteronormativity dominated system, they are actually framed and hidden under the heteronormativity and thus lose their identity. Although it may be good that the gay identity and relationship of Johnny and Gheorghe are treated as nothing special, the essence behind that may be the gay culture is depoliticized and thus loses its nature of being gay. Even gay couples may no longer be depicted as gay couples but heterosexual couples.

As an Asian, heterosexual college student, I may not be able to resonate with the film too much. Probably the scene where Gheorghe is discriminated against by a white racist can trigger some of the experiences around me. And although this film tells a story of a gay couple, the way this film puts their relationship yet is quite "familiar" to me, because of the last point I discussed above (homonormativity).

Originally, the explicit sex scene in this film makes me feel a little bit "awkward" and I feel like such scene is not very necessary. However, my knowledge in queer media studies makes me reconsider the role of sex in this film and I find that it is actually very "meaningful". Johnny used to be very aggressive in sex, but after the "tameness" of Gheorghe, Johnny gradually enjoys the touch and understands that there can be "love" (or emotion) in sex instead of just fulfilling the sexual needs. That is to say, the sex scene in this film actually sees the growth of a young man, the understanding of love, and the finding of oneself.

--- Miles

References

Barker, M. & Scheele, J. (2016). Section on Butler. In Queer a graphic history (pp. 73-83). Icon Books.

Butler, J. (2006). Identity, sex and the metaphysics of substance. In Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (pp. 22-34). Routledge.

Doty, A. (1993). There's something queer here. In Making things perfectly queer (pp. 1-16). University of Minnesota Press.

Duggan, L. (2003). Equality, Inc. In The twilight of equality: Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy (pp. 43-66). Beacon Press.

Williams J. (2020). Queering the cinematic field: Migrant love and rural beauty in God's Own Country (2017) and A Moment in the Reeds (2017). In Queering the migrant in contemporary European cinema (pp. 72-86). Routledge.

[kierrasreads]

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck Review

Plot

A riveting novel of labor strife and apocalyptic violence that maps the frontier where the masses become a mob

At once a ruthlessly fast-paced, admirably observed novel of social unrest and the story of a young man's struggle for identity, In Dubious Battle is set in the California apple country, where a strike by migrant workers against rapacious landowners spirals out of control, as principled defiance metamorphoses into blind fanaticism. Caught up in this upheaval is Jim Nolan, a once aimless man who finds himself in the course of the strike, briefly becomes its leader, and is ultimately crushed in its service.

Discussion

This was a great read! Granted, it took me a while to get through it, but I'm glad I finished it. Jim is a tragic character- full of potential, the intelligence and reason to Mac's leadership, yet it's he who's killed in the end. Honestly, if Jim were to live, I think he would've made an excellent leader of the party.

I couldn't have read this book at a more fitting time, as the California Faculty Associaton and Teamsters union is going on strike in a couple of weeks- fighting for fair wages, so they can not only help students but support themselves. On that, I say they should go for it! I would join them if I could...

Rating

4/5

[wanderingthedesertalone]

Finding and Identifying Archeological Antisemitism

It’s bewildering that seemingly intelligent men believe that Jews never were enslaved in Egypt when oral traditions, which do have some validity although not ultimately, and historic records demonstrate a Jewish population in a land where slavery was the norm. Certainly, like all immigrants, this migrant population was given, unless they came with coins in hand, less desirable career options, to understate the milieu of exiled Jews during the Middle to Ptolemaic periods of Egyptian history (2040–30 BCE). I will do my best to demonstrate that there was slavery in Egypt, which isn’t disputed, and Jews were among those who were enslaved.

It’s believed, in antisemitic archaeological circles, that there’s a lack of evidence for Jewish slavery in Egypt during the Middle (2000–1700 BCE) and Intermediate Period (1700–1550 BCE), the era that scholars believe that Exodus is making reference to(14). However, a dearth of findings doesn’t rule out Jewish slavery, this hypothesis can’t be disproved until there is concrete evidence to say that there weren’t any Semitic slaves in Egypt. The onus of this lays on scholars to prove inequivalently that lack of certain materials, that may yet to be unearthed, such as Judaic coins (I highly dispute the notion that slaves would have been buried with coinage or rituals object), demonstrates that there wasn’t an enslaved Jewish population in Egypt.

As a note, I’m not looking into anything later than 2000 BCE, the written record before this time has mostly, if it existed at all, been lost to the sand of time, not to mention this era may predate the ability for the Israelites to explore any further than Assyria and Mesopotamia.

If not slaves, what were Jews in ancient Egypt? Free and dangerous. Unsurprisingly, many scholars are quick to believe that there was an influential Jewish population in Egypt during the Middle and Intermediate Period (1700–1550 BCE) who tried to overthrow the government, left with stores of gold in hand and returned to bring war upon the Egyptians but no Jewish slavery(17). These scholars come to this conclusion through the same method they claim to be inaccurate, a few written records, namely Exodus 12:36 and the Histories of Manetho. However, The Torah isn’t our guide as to the facts, merely a pointer in the right direction. I would be remiss to base any evidence solely on the Torah, a document that is flawed by generations of a game of telephone, before scribes wrote the passages down, and a mixture of magico-folklore and historical record. Scripture alone, to the chagrin of many Rabbis, can’t be solely relied on as proof of slavery in Egypt, research must use the art of synthases. Returning to the point at hand, this notion echoes of 1860’s America, freed black would become the Black Brute, lurking in the shadows and waiting for any opportunity to inflict violence on the white man or foster the fall of civilization.

What if the Torah is completely inaccurate or outright lying about the exodus from Egypt? It’s noted that passages that refer to Exodus were written hundreds of years after the fact. For instance, Song of the Sea, one of the oldest passages in the Torah that refers to the Exodus was written around 1000 BCE(3), yet, the Exodus is considered, by Jewish historians, to have happened around 1400(14) BCE. Four hundred years is a long time for a story to evolve, however, the natural evolution of folklore doesn’t imply lying on part of the culture that retells that story nor does it imply that that specific narrative is void of truth. There’s been many cases where a piece of text that remains in the collective unconscious has been used to find the truth it hides, notably, the Gullah people of South Carolina identified their African roots through a funeral dirge.

Most importantly, even if Jews are wrong about their sojourn in Egypt, they aren’t, no ill intent is implied.

What about an alternative theory to a monolithic exodus? Although I don’t doubt Semitic slavery occurred in Egypt, I, for one, don’t believe that 600,000 Semites exited Egypt at once. Slavery was, and continues to be in countries like Mauritania and Saudi Arabia, ongoing in the region and perhaps exodus happened in waves. In the Jewish collective unconscious these waves are recollected and cause an insistence that exodus was a monolith and happened in 1400 BCE. It could be that the Song of the Sea refers to one wave and other passages refer to other waves in the continual Semitic exodus, something that, in many ways, continues until this very day. Yet, this is purely a hypothesis.

Something that rarely comes in up these discussions is that Jews were, according to a number of tablets and papyri like the Lachish relief(25), Sennacherib’s Annals(27), Nebuchadnezzar’s Chronicles(25) and ETC enslaved in Assyria, a region that may have been conflated with Egypt due to the plastic nature of folklores before scriptures were committed to tablets or papyri becoming cannon and the habit of scribes accidentally copying the notes of Rabbis into scripture or other mistakes that can alter Hebrew. Simply, Rabbis may have scribbled notes in the margins of scrolls comparing events and those notes could’ve been copied into later addition of scripture binding what was previously known to be waves in exodus into one event. This doesn’t suggest that Jews never were enslaved in Egypt, just that

The aforementioned tablets and papyri were written between 700–400 BCE, much after scholarly consensus on the date of The Exodus. Considering these events happened after The Song of the Sea had been committed to tablets and papyri, it certainly couldn’t have been what the author was referring to when they wrote this portion of scripture. Despite Rabbis attesting that the Torah was written at once by Moses, it’s an anthology of writing and some Linguists have noted that, based on the various ways in which YHWH is spelled in manuscripts of Exodus, portions of it could’ve been written as recent as 750 BCE(28).. It could be that Jews were enslaved in Egypt as well as other places and Exodus, existing in many iterations prior to the Council of Jamnia, the council that set the writings of The Torah in stone, combined a number of writings from different times and authors to construct the text. The fact is, folklore is plastic and dates details change over retelling of a narrative. Nonetheless, an outright denial of Semitic slavery in Egypt remains an act of antisemitism.

So, what is the point of going against scripture to find evidence of a downtrodden Jewish population in Egypt? And, I am aware that I’m bucking the system with these theories. It’s not that I strongly desire that my ancestors were enslaved idol worshippers, I simply desire to establish that it’s antisemitism that blinds archaeologists from considering the evidence. Without a doubt, contextual evidence suggests that Jews were among those enslaved in Egypt, giving credence to the fact that a Semitic people hail to the region and possess ancestral rights to land.

Upon examination, it’s easy to see antisemitism brewing among those who work with histories of the region, whether they be archaeological, religious or socio-political figures, so many organizations attempt to silence any talk of Jews legitimately making claims of homestead to the Middle East, Asia or North Africa. The plain fact is that even among members of the UN:

“Israel routinely faces more criticism and condemnation at the United Nations than any other country, including those that systematically kill their citizens or deny them the most basic human rights. Even today, both the [UN] General Assembly and Security Council continue to pass one-sided resolutions that single out and condemn the Jewish State(22).”

Not to mention, an overwhelmingly powerful bloc of Arab nations promotes a slanderous docket meant to isolate Israel that has met little resistance. What influence the politics or the region have over archaeological inquiry is yet to be discovered. However, influence over the general western zeitgeist can be seen in a shift in the ways in which Israel is portrayed in media(8). Jews are considered the oppressor and Palestinian and Muslims the oppressed. Certainly, this is cause for cognitive bias among archaeologists.

To be clear on the subject of the widespread subjectivity of Jews in Egypt when it comes to archaeology, especially when it comes to the past there’s not much we can be sure of, neither history nor the archaeological record can exist unadulterated by politics and human perception. The entirety of our knowledge of historical events is filtered through human interpretation and politics. As many have noted, the winners write the history books. In the milieu of 2023 all sympathy goes to the Islamic world, so much so that geopolitical histories have been revisioned, by many, to exclude Jews as the inhabitants of their homeland, demonstrating that antisemitism has become the norm. Or, as Alexander Cudsi, Professor Emeritus on Middle East Politics states “history finds no evidence of any people, race, tribe or culture known as Palestinian who attempted at any time to reclaim any lost land to any domestic or foreign colonizer. The anthropological miracle called the Palestinians only came into existence in the 1960’s.” Today’s Palestinians are invaders from Greece and the Philistines, not an indigenous group who predated the Canaanites(2). These invaders first arrived in the region around 500 BCE. Despite this, the narrative and general zeitgeist, at least among westerners, has shifted. Nowadays, Palestinians have been granted the role of the oppressed and Jews the villains.

Archaeological antisemitism has been long in the works, so long it’s a reflex for many. Cudsi also notes that the The Roman Emperor Hadrian, after ransacking Jerusalem, believed that renaming the area after the Jews’ immortal enemy, the Philistines, would be the ultimate act of hostility(2). Yet, this fact has been intentionally forgotten, almost reflexively. It has been quietly swept under the rug that the region was renamed by a man who destroyed The Second Temple, banned circumcision and reading of the Torah(10) and possibly encouraged the migration of the Greek to the Palestinia as a means of erasing Jews from the archaeological record and memory. Why not, based on this washing of history, for political reasons, deny Jews were enslaved in Egypt as well as deny their right to a homeland? Antisemitism is so ingrained in the current milieu, those so inclined to believe that Jew weren’t enslaved in Egypt and consequentially have no right to lands in Israel never consider their actions or words to be those of hatred.

Originally, the attempt at removal of Jews from the archaeological record and denying rights to the region was enacted through destruction of toparchies (administrative districts made up of central towns and the rural areas surrounding them, a system that dates back to the reign of King Solomon)(19), razing of The Second Temple and etymology. Yet, not even Emperor Hadrian was completely successful at this. The fact is thus, the typology of ceramic shards found in Palaestina, although there are few intact pottery shards, are glazed with Northwest Semitic epigraphy(26). However, this is ignored as a fluke in the archaeological record just like those papyri, written as inventories of slaves owned, are dismissed as too vague.

Findings of pottery shards in North America, for example, are used to identify which tribe inhabited the examined region. But somehow this, along with papyri and oral tradition, falls short when establishing Palestine as the Jewish homeland. Still today there are many who attest that Jews never inhabited the region and that the region had been inhabited by a non-semitic tribe called the Palestinians. A desire to completely remove Jews from the region, dating back to the time of Emperor Hadrian and continuing into the modern era of Muslim theocracies, denying Jews any claims to a homeland in the Middle East or North Africa, may be the original motivation behind archaeological antisemitism.

Most dishearteningly, antisemitism is perpetuated by today’s media. A growing Western love of all things Islam perpetuates this prejudice, as I’ve noted. This symptom, which without a doubt effects at least American born archaeologist, has been exacerbated by the Black Lives Matter movement, member of can be seen, during the protests of 2020, demanding that Jews who showed up to the demonstration as an act of solidarity “get the [expletive] out of here, this isn’t your fight, Revelation Two and Nine synagogue of Satan(16).” Hatred is casually baked into the western zeitgeist affecting archaeologists and everyone in equal measure. I, for one, have experienced both overt and covert antisemitism, made to feel as though I should apologize for being a “Zionist” to other members of my political party.

Despite an attempt to erase Jews from Egypt and the surrounding lands, pottery fragments found in Tell El-Dab’a were chemically derived from Palestine(20). The fragments dated to between 1663–1555 BCE and demonstrate that a population who hailed from Palaestina was at least in Egypt during the Intermediate Kingdom (1700–1550 BCE), if not enslaved, as merchants. It’s known that trade between Israel and Egypt has been going on since the beginning of the Middle Period, around 2000 BCE. To demonstrate, the tomb of the high priest Khnumhotep II depicts a Semitic traders bringing offerings to the dead(1). There isn’t much dispute of a Semitic population in Egypt during the Intermediate and Middle Kingdoms, history has, as a small consolation prize, awarded a consensus that the burial and religious practices of Tell El-Dab’a were influenced by Canaanites. I guess in the antisemitic mind it’s somewhat OK if Jews were there as long they were nothing more than Bedouin, if they were landowners or enslaved, they might have ancestral rights to the region’s land.

How did the majority of Jews end up in Egypt? I feel that the best answer is in the book Egypt and the Exodus. Some arrived as family units, some were brought to Egypt as captives, as indicated by Harris I Papyri (a document that calls Jewish slaves The Sea People and numbers them in the thousand), during the reign of Ramesses III. Most were exploited as a ready labor force in the Nile’s eastern Delta. Interestingly, The Harris I Papyri is undisputed, a document that accounts for 2000 slaves, yet archaeology continues to deny the existence of Semitic captives in Egypt(3). Too often, those who’ve lived in the dark refuse to see the light, the light, after such a long sojourn in the dark, hurts their eyes.

What’s most fascinating about the migration pattern noted in Egypt and the Exodus, which I find to be more plausible than Exodus’s account, all Jews in Egypt descending from Jacob (Exodus 1:1–1:3), is that the Jews entered Egypt in waves, among them were both free men and slaves, creating a socio-cultural system that contained both free and enslaved Semitic peoples. In sum, both arriving at and leaving Egypt happened in waves. Those who entered, entered for a number of reasons, both reputable and nefarious (ancient Jews were, afterall, human) and as various socio-economic classes.

This notion is certainly supported by Egyptian customs. Egyptian slavery is identified as corvée labor(29), a system in which a workforce is organized for specific projects from among the available people, which could include both locals and foreigners.

Although it’s debated whether or not Jews were enslaved during Egypt’s Middle (2000–1700 BCE) and Intermediate Period (1700–1550 BCE) there exists plenty of records documenting slavery in Egypt. According to Dr. Mark Janzen the Satire of the Trades outlines the dangers and misfortunes that accompany seemingly every occupation but that of the scribe.” Various phrases referring to a types of forced labor are found in the Satire:

w Hr bAk.f (“drawn/made to work”),

w Hr bAk.f mni.ti (“made to work in the fields”),

tw.f m Ssm 50 (“beaten with 50 lashes” for a day’s absence), etc(23).

Although these terms don’t directly name Semitic peoples as slaves, possibly as a form of dehumanization or the fact that details about the lowest of socio-economic status are typically left out of the annals of antiquity (consider the burial practices of women in orthodox Islamic countries that continue till this very day). These terms do establish that there was slavery in Egypt during the aforementioned period. Interestingly, a reference is made to “Western Asiatics” in The Satire of Trades which is possibly a translation of Hyksos, Manetho’s term for Semitic peoples. There’s little to no dispute whether or not slavery occurred in the ancient world. It’s simply a question of where Jews enslaved there and why would anyone in this day and age care if they were.

The Hyksos(17), whose history was written down by the scholar Manetho, although hundreds of years after the fact, gives an alternate story of the Jews in Egypt. Manetho claims that the Hyksos established a capital in Tell el-Dabʿa, the eastern Delta and controlled the Nile Valley as far south as Hermopolis. Although this is most likely a revisionary history by an armchair scholar, most of the Hyksos personal names are west-semitic(17). However, this only states that names of Canaanite origin were known during the lifetime of Manetho, the reign of Ptolemy I. The only other point of interest in The Histories of Manetho is that early archaeological antisemitism can be seen. The document states that the Hyksos inherited their religion from a leprous Egyptian priest and insinuates that the Jews were the Black Brute of their day. Just as the Torah is disregarded as solid evidence, The Histories of Manetho should be as well, after all, they are merely a record of folklore.

Moreover, I’m not here to dispute the origins of Judaism, but in short, I’m certain that concepts were borrowed from regional folklore, Baalism and Zoroastrianism, not handed down by a sickly Egyptian Magi. Yet, there are some who believe that the tetragram YHWH originated with the Edomites, descendants of modern Jordan, and migrated to Israel ``Edomites split from the main body of Edomites, moved northwest, and became one of the tribes of the Israelites, taking their god YHWH and YHWH became the G-D of the Israelites(21). Although I find this disagreeable, I am certain that, despite biblical and Talmudic edicts against it, Jews of antiquity practised exogamy(5) and adapted customs from other cultures along the way.

Lastly, The Brooklyn Papyri gives an interesting inventory of Asiatic slaves captured during war:

[O]f the seventy-nine servants presented in the list on the verso side of the Brooklyn Papyrus as belonging to a single owner, at least thirty-three were Egyptians(23)!

Taken as a whole, both native-born Egyptians and foreigners could be compelled into slavery. Yet, the trouble with defining a “slave” status in ancient Egypt and thus declaring concrete evidence of Jewish slaves is that there is no consensus as to the precise legal statuses of those called “slaves/servants” (Hm.w) or “workers” (bAk.w)(23). Just as women in conservativity Islamic countries are buried in unmarked graves, those without rights weren’t often described in depth in legal documents, legal documents typically boiling down to ‘a nameless slave was sold to so and so.’

Aside from circumstantial evidence, what proof of Jewish slavery do archaeologists intend to find in the Egyptian sands? What would be concrete evidence? Archeologically speaking “any notice of slavery was done through historical written records. It was believed to be the only way of seeing slavery, that there was no way to know that slaves existed unless you knew they were there. Ropes deteriorated over time, and chains were often repurposed(11),” not to mention, the sands of Egypt are a monster with a voracious appetite, the pyramids were engulfed by sand for thousands of years. Moreover, the desert may be an excellent environment for preserving papyri, but so much is lost beneath the sand and anything of value was pillaged by the intermediate years between burial and archaeological excavation. What remains in the ground are objects that most considered to be useless or cursed. Finally, the places in which Jewish slaves inhabited, the east bank of the Nile, was prone to seasonal flooding, water, like sand storms, is a destructive force that man is useless in fighting against.

If any artefacts of Jewish slavery remain, where would they be found? The setting described in Exodus is most likely Egypt’s east Delta, on these fertile grounds, the Nile floods yearly. Although, as I mentioned, the desert readily preserves objects, even naturally mummifying the dead, the shores of the Nile do not. Perennial flooding destroys almost everything not buried. Moreover, the area has no source of stone, and mud-brick structures, the kind that would’ve housed slaves, fortified merchant tombs and were used to make storehouses, melted back into the mud and silt from which they were formed(9). Besides the lack of available material, slave quarters, as they are globally known to be, wouldn’t have been made of lavish or durable materials. Heavy limestone was used to construct pyramids, not the houses of peasants. At best, archaeologist may find hearths, sacrificial pits or other circumstantial evidence that more than anything else points to habitation along the east banks of the Nile or scrolls, like the Papyrus Bologna 1094, from the Ramissede Period (1292 BC to 1189 BCE). Papyrus Geneva D 187(30) tells how two workers fled their taskmaster because he beat them. On its own, not the most compelling evidence. Moreover, due to damage, the papyrus is largely unreadable, but some speculate that it is referring to Semitic slaves. All in all, it seems that little concrete evidence of slavery exists under the Egyptian sands. Worst of all, no other culture is expected to produce concrete evidence of slavery because asking for these artefacts is like asking for a shoehorn with teeth, it just doesn’t exist. But, this is the ever changing nature of antisemitism.

Perhaps, graves of Jewish slaves are yet to be discovered, where DNA testing can be conducted, but slaves may have been thrown into the Nile as a final insult. For these reasons, and the repurposing of tools of slavery along with pillaging of graves (though slaves were most likely not buried with tools or ritual items if they were buried at all) no physical evidence of slaves working along the east Delta is likely to have survived the ravages of millennia seasonal flooding and man’s need to repurpose objects that are no longer of use. I feel no need to defend the notion of continual repurposing aside from this one note, even temples in the region were recommissioned to serve new deities with the coming and going rulers and religious customs.

Besides, what trinkets were the Jewish slaves allowed, bits of cloth to cover their nakedness and a few Shekels? In 1981, Mauritania became the world’s last country to abolish slavery. But, it wasn’t until 2007 that the government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted(7). Yet, the ownership of slaves continues to this very day. In this land, there’s an unknown quantity of slave graves. Perhaps, archaeologists should inspect the slave graves of Mauritania to find if the region’s downtrodden are buried with anything more than the clothes they were wearing upon death. My hypothesis is that the slaves are buried in shallow graves, against local Islamic custom, without the mandatory funeral shroud(12). At least no one denies that ex–slaves rest beneath the sand of Mauritania.

Why exhume the slave graves of Mauritania? Mauritania is relatively close to Egypt, shares a commonality in dialect of Arabic spoken (many speak Arabic in an Egyptian fashion), is known for burial rites as rich as those practised during the Egypt’s Middle Period (both regions are known for cultural heteronomy) and these peoples culturally and biologically share ancestry along with a long history of slavery with Egypt(15). Degraded peoples have little or no belonging and what they did possess may be lost to the sands of time. Looking at the slave graves of Mauritania will demonstrate that expecting to find concrete evidence of slavery is either an oversight by archaeologists or antisemitism disguised as a dilemma in archaeological practices. As noted before, archaeologically speaking, any notice of slavery has been gathered through historical written record, which, when it comes to Jews in Egypt, there is a plethora of.

Furthermore, to say that a lack of physical evidence of a denigrated people inequivalently proves that said people never inhabited the region or fell to servitude there is remiss. In fact, it seems counterproductive to not rely on both documentary and archaeological sources to find the remains of people who were treated as subhumans. As I’ve noted, remains might not have been interred with either the Judaic or Egyptian burial traditions. To reiterate, it’s a false sense of intellectualism and modernism that says that oral traditions have no validity and, although admittedly flawed, of no use in scientific inquiry. In man’s collective unconscious heroes become gods and exact dates become obscured but free men don’t become slaves. It is our human, and especially Jewish, nature to celebrate those, even if small, victories that have kept our ethno-religious group extant. After all, we are purportedly the founders of The Protocols of Zion and the murders of the only incarnation of the Abrahamic G-D. Thus being, we are villainized by all, including both of the dominant political parties of America (see Beri Weiss: How to Fight Antisemitism) and large portions of the Islamic world, we have more than enough reason to celebrate those small victories over those who wish another holocaust upon us. For a reference, apocryphal writings, those texts, like the Maccabean Revolt and Enoch, in which the Jews were victorious over an almost unstoppable force, in the above cases the force being a Roman invasion and death demonstrate that Jews, like all peoples, create heroes of the fallen not slaves. This just goes to show that among the downtrodden, formidable enemies may become nepheline, but again free men don’t become slaves in the annals of history, not when those free men control the narrative. There certainly wasn’t a global flood, as it’s said in the Torah, but a number of events noted in other folklores, notably, The Fires of Queensland have been demonstrably proven. There is a kernel of truth to Jewish slavery in Egypt, it’s contemporary media enforced antisemitism that continually denies this truth and resists further inquiry.

A piece of Gugu Badhun folklore, an Aboriginal people, has been passed down through 230 generations. A tape recording made in the 1970s documented an elder talking of a huge explosion shaking the land, followed by the forming of a massive crater. An acrid dust swept through the skies and if people walked into the haze, they were never seen again(6). It was later found that a meteor had struck Queensland and such a fire did occur. Is it just a coincidence that the Gugu Badhun mentions a fire and a fire occurred? I’m not here to say, but most oral traditions include tales of fire, famine and flood because throughout human history these events have occurred and these tales serve to warn that these events will occur again.

It is antisemitism that causes archaeology to find the folklore of Oceania and Asia as endearing and worth investigating, but dismisses Jewish oral traditions. It’s antisemitism that causes archaeology to declare that “there’s substantial evidence to suggest that the Gugu Badhun oral tradition is about an actual fire but Jewish slavery is a myth, when there is enough evidence to at least admit the possibility that among the inhabitants of Egypt there were both free and enslaved Jews and those Jews assisted in constructing large scale projects. Those who worked on these projects, granaries and palaces, may have been a combination of out of work farmers, free and enslaved Jews. For a project this size, this is a plausible explanation.

Transitioning from folklore to written text, Exodus makes two basic assertions, Jews were forced to make mud-bricks and they built “supply cities.” There exists documentation of forced Semitic mud-brick making, Louvre Leather Roll 1274(13), from the time of Ramses II, between 1279–1212 BCE, reads “Paherypedjet son of Paser is one of the brickmakers who fails to deliver his quota of 2,000 bricks.” This scroll predates Semitic references to Exodus, the oldest verse about the Exodus, The Song of the Sea, was written between 1125 and 1000 BCE. The date of The Song of the Sea was derived via textual considerations, the historical and cultural context presented in the hymn. This may not be the strongest piece of evidence, but as a piece of the whole, the fact that this does mirror the Torah, the inventories of Asiatic or Hyksos slaves and, murals that depict slave life in Egypt (especially those that present Jewish slaves as smaller than their Egyptian counterparts) and text that mention a Semitic forced labor population.

It must be antisemitism that causes an irrational denial of Jews being in the region and some of the Jew having been forced into labor. If they didn’t contribute to building the pyramids, which may have been nothing but a Hollywood trope and isn’t supported in scripture, it was other projects at least, palaces, storehouses and works made of, As Jews in Egypt were noted to work with, mud-brick. It’s no stretch of the imagination that texts that predate the oldest known portions of Exodus and collaborate with the Torah, combined with other evidence, stands as fairly sound evidence. It’s simply personal incredulity that causes archeologists to deny Jewish slavery in Egypt with absolute certainty.

The second assertion of Exodus 1:11, as mentioned above, is that the Jews must build supply cities. Archaeologists had been puzzled by the potential location of the biblical supply city, properly known as Pithom, until it was identified by E. Naville. The city is just as expected to be, a group of granite statues representing Rameses II standing between two gods, a city wall encircled the compound, a ruined temple and the remains of a series of brick buildings with very thick walls that contained rectangular chambers of various sizes and opened only at the top and without any communication with one another were unearthed at the site(18). However, archaeologists continue to refuse to find this compelling evidence on the grounds of lack of implements of slavery, this is simply antisemitism, again, what would they expect to find? Shackled remains holding a shekel?

Evidence like The tomb of vizier Rekhmire, circa 1450 BCE, shows foreign slaves fashioning bricks for the workshop-storeplace of the Temple of Amun at Karnak in Thebes as well as building a ramp. They are labelled “captures brought-off by His Majesty for work at the Temple of Amun(9).” Yet, antisemitism continues to act as a blinder in the archaeological community. Even more textual evidence, The Harris Papyrus I, a writing from the reign of King Ramses III, during the Middle Period reads:

“I brought back in great numbers those that my sword has spared, with their hands tied behind their backs before my horses, and their wives and children in tens of thousands, and their livestock in hundreds of thousands. I imprisoned their leaders in fortresses bearing my name, and I added to them chief archers and tribal chiefs, branded and enslaved, tattooed with my name, their wives and children being treated in the same way(3).”

The author refers to the conquered people as the Sea People. They are those who hail from Israel. It’s not just scrolls and folklore that indicate Jewish slavery in Egypt. As I’ve noted, pottery fragments found in Tell El Dab’a are of Palestinian origin, murals depict Semitic slaves and a recent discovery, a mass grave, may contain the remains of Jewish slaves.

In Akhenaten’s City, two biblical era workmen mass burial grounds have been unearthed, the South and North Tombs Cemeteries. The graves contain youths of 3–25 years old and “paint a picture of poverty, hard work, poor diet, ill-health, frequent injury and relatively early death,” stated Archaeologist Mary Shepperson. The South Tombs Cemetery has almost no grave goods for the dead and only rough matting used to wrap the bodies, exactly what one might expect to find in the graves of Semitic slaves. However, the origins of the inhabitants of these tombs are debated, but the debate is one of the most transparently antisemitic arguments for not investigating if the remains are of enslaved peoples. Shepperson stated that as far as I’ve seen, the inhabitants of the tomb are heterogeneous, the type of population one might find in a metropolitan, according to bone structure, so none of the interred could be of Jewish descent(4). This just goes to show how blinded even archaeologists are by their biases. In the end, only DNA testing can inequivalently determine origin. Sure, Anthropology, by examining skull bones may take a stab at a person’s origin, but it’s not a perfect science and the results, especially in this instance, may be obscured by interpreter bias.

Pottery fragments, oral tradition, papyri and murals made for pharaohs all attest that Jews were enslaved in Egypt. When combined with the writings of Manetho, we see that there was a socio-economic system that contained both free and enslaved Jew in Egypt between 2000–1000 BCE. Why would any intelligent man who is able to extrapolate data based on synthesizing findings deny there were Jewish slaves in Egypt along with the free, those who either lead a revolt or simply left with gold and silver, I can only attribute to the antisemitism the began with Emperor Hadrian and continues, through the media, to be disseminated until this very day. It seems that fools will only coincide to an enslaved population in Egypt if shekels and shackles are found, two things most likely pillaged and reused, not the type of artifacts left in the unceremonious burials of second class citizens. Most frustratingly, this is not the standard applied to other cultures when it comes to proof of historical servitude.

One final piece of evidence of Jewish slavery in Egypt is the presence of a four room house(3), dating back to Ramses III or IV, built in a Jewish style. However, I don’t find this as compelling as others do. Architectural styles change and the genesis of an aesthetic may pop up in several cultures at about the same time, notice how many cultures claim “we invented the number zero.” Yet, I do find documents like The Harris Papyrus I to be undeniable proof of Jewish slavery in Egypt. Unlike other writers, the author of this papyrus had no intention of telling a good story, it’s simply an inventory of what Ramses III believed to be his, thousands of Semitic slaves. Those who deny the proofs either have something to gain by it or themselves are slaves to the media which has been on a smear campaign since the time of Emperor Hadrian.

Was there an enslaved Jewish faction who were compelled to build the storehouses of mud-brick. I’m sure there were. Were there Jews who led a rebellion against the Pharaoh, I’m certain that this happened as well, although they were freedom fighters not villains not the villainous murderer, intent on grabbing as much power and gold as they can, that Manetho makes them out to be . Most likely, just as there were free Blacks and enslaved blacks before 1865 in the US there were both enslaved and free Jews in Egypt.

As I’ve noted, folklore makes everything bigger. The role of a storyteller is to tell a good tale, not accuracy and so when looking into the past through folklore we must carefully pull apart the feasible from the magical. I do believe that we’ve broken down the facts and established that Jews were compelled into labor in ancient Egypt. In the end, the Jewish collective unconscious recollects waves of entering and exiting Egypt, conflating these collective memories with the story of exodus. However, it’s archaeological antisemitism, caused by a long history of politically based hatred, that causes the archaeologist to outright dismiss that Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt.

Bibliography

1 Articles de Presse. (n.d.). ARCHEOLOG-HOME /INDIana-UNIversitas. http://www.archeolog- home.com/pages/content/were-hebrews-ever-slaves-in- ancient-egypt.html

2 Baum, P. (2021, October 22). History finds no evidence of any people, race, tribe or culture known as Palestinian. BLiTZ. https://www.weeklyblitz.net/opinion/history-finds-no-evidence-of-any-people-race-tribe-or-culture-known-as-palestinian/

3 Bietak, M. (n.d.). Egypt and the Exodus.

4 Borschel-Dan, A. (2017, June 9). In ancient mass graves, archaeologists find child slaves of biblical Egypt. Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-ancient-mass-graves-archaeologists-find-child-slaves-of-biblical-egypt/

5 Bryn Mawr Classical Review. (n.d.). https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2002/2002.07.37

6 Cadet-James, Y., James, R. P., McGinty, S., & McGregor, R. (2017). Gugu Badhun: people of the Valley of Lagoons. In Aboriginal Studies Press eBooks. https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/49419/

7 Campbell, G. B. F. J. (2016, October 14). The State of Slavery in Mauritania. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/blog/state-slavery-mauritania

8 Cornish, A. (2021, May 21). Liberal American Attitudes Are Starting To Shift On Israelis And Palestinians. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/21/999241551/liberal-american-attitudes-are-starting-to-shift-on-israelis-and-palestinians

9 Dospěl, M., & Dospěl, M. (2023, June 7). Pharaoh’s Brick Makers — Biblical Archaeology Society. Biblical Archaeology Society -. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-egypt/pharaohs-brick-makers/

10 Hudson, M. (n.d.). What was Hadrian’s relationship with his Jewish subjects? Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/story/what-was-hadrians-relationship-with-his-jewish-subjects

11 Kmulvehill. (2017a, April 24). The Archaeology of Slavery | Real Archaeology. https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/04/24/the-archaeology-of-slavery/

12 Lagdaf, S. (2017). The cult of the dead in Mauritania: between traditions and religious commandments. The Journal of North African Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2016.1269230

13 Leather Scroll: Quota for Brick-making, 1274 BCE : Center for Online Judaic Studies. (n.d.). https://cojs.org/leather_scroll-_quota_for_brick-making-_1274_bce/

14 Marotta, K. (2020, October 19). When did the Exodus happen? https://www.wednesdayintheword.com/when-did-the-exodus-happen/

15 Mauritania | History, Population, Capital, Flag, & Facts. (2023, May 24). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Mauritania/Plant-and-animal-life

16 New York Post. (2020, October 29). BLM mob violently chases Jewish men showing ‘solidarity’ at Philadelphia protest | New York Post [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1bBmeagZAI

17 Pinpointing the Exodus from Egypt. (n.d.-a). Harvard Divinity Bulletin. https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/pinpointing-the-exodus-from-egypt/

18 PITHOM — JewishEncyclopedia.com. (n.d.). https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12192-pithom

19 Schiffman, L. H. (2022). The Land of Israel Under Roman Rule. My Jewish Learning. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/palestine-under-roman-rule/

20 Sons of Jacob — New Evidence for Presence of Israelites in Egypt — Associates for Biblical Research. (n.d.). https://biblearchaeology.org/research/patriarchal-era/3317-the-sons-of-jacob-new-evidence-for-the-presence-of-the-israelites-in-egypt

21 The Name Yahweh in Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts. (2010, March 8). https://biblearchaeology.org/research/topics-by-chronology/exodus-era/3233-the-name-yahweh-in-egyptian-hieroglyphic-texts

22 The UN Relationship with Israel. (n.d.). Copyright 2023. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-u-n-israel-relationship

23 What We Know about Slavery in Egypt — TheTorah.com. (n.d.). https://www.thetorah.com/article/what-we-know-about-slavery-in-egypt

24 Wikipedia contributors. (2023a). Assyrian conquest of Egypt. Wikipedia.��https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_conquest_of_Egypt

25 Wikipedia contributors. (2023b). List of inscriptions in biblical archaeology. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inscriptions_in_biblical_archaeology

26 Wikipedia contributors. (2023c). Levantine archaeology. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levantine_archaeology

27 Windle, V. a. P. B. B. (2020, July 3). Sennacherib: An Archaeological Biography. Bible Archaeology Report. https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2020/07/03/sennacherib-an-archaeological-biography/

28 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (1998, July 20). Exodus | Definition, Summary, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Exodus-Old-Testament

29 Wikipedia contributors. (2023c). Corvée. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv %C3%A9e

30 Wente, E. F. (1967). Late Ramesside Letters.

[dankusner]

Goodbye to the Most Powerful Man in Texas Government You’ve Never Heard Of

You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of the most powerful unelected man in Texas politics.

Steve McCraw, the longtime director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, is not exactly a household name.

And even his legions of fans and critics at the Capitol routinely botch his name, calling him Steve McGraw.

Yet McCraw, who abruptly announced last week that he would retire by the end of the year, has changed Texas government and politics far more than most of the elected officials he theoretically answers to.

He is the J. Edgar Hoover of Texas—a lawman-politician whose power grew alongside his longevity and usefulness to the Republican Party.

And like Hoover, he seems preternaturally gifted at escaping accountability.

Over time, he became too big to fail.

In 2004, Governor Rick Perry plucked McCraw from the FBI to serve as state homeland security director.

In that role, McCraw alarmed civil libertarians and some lawmakers by overseeing the construction of the Texas Data Exchange (TDEx), a massive intelligence database controlled by the governor’s office.

McCraw also helped Perry launch the state’s giant experiment of taking on the heretofore federal responsibility of policing the border.

Perry appointed him to lead DPS in 2009.

McCraw brought with him his post-9/11-era focus on intelligence gathering and obsession with “spillover violence” from Mexico.

Law enforcement traditionalists watched McCraw’s transformation of DPS with some alarm.

Would the agency still be able to effectively perform its core crime-fighting functions—highway enforcement and major state criminal investigations—if its leader was more attuned to Al Qaeda and Los Zetas?

When McCraw took the lead at the agency, he inherited one of the most high-profile criminal cases in modern Texas history—the Governor’s Mansion arson.

In 2008, someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the stately mansion while Perry and his wife, Anita, were in Europe.

Three years later, DPS released tantalizing details about persons of interest—with links to anarchists—the agency was looking into.

“We don’t believe in coincidences,” McCraw told reporters at the time.

For a while, it looked as if McCraw would solve the crime of the decade, proving to his critics that DPS could still solve major criminal cases the old-fashioned way.

But the case fizzled and remains unsolved sixteen years later.

If lawmakers were concerned that DPS had missed a step in solving a major crime, they didn’t show it.

McCraw’s bosses—Perry and the Legislature—had bigger concerns than arson.

By the time Perry ran for his third term, in 2010, border security had emerged as the sine qua non of Republican politics.

(Sine qua non is Latin for “ain’t nuthin’ better.”)

Perry developed a fetish for militarizing the border—and McCraw was happy to oblige, overseeing the build-out of the nation’s first full-blown state border-security apparatus.

Suddenly, DPS gunboats equipped with mounted .30-caliber guns were roaring up and down the Rio Grande while an army of state troopers flooded Texas border communities, especially in the Rio Grande Valley.

“We’re using tactics and equipment that you will see in war zones,” a DPS captain told a documentary film crew in early 2012.

Six months later, a DPS sniper, operating from a helicopter, opened fire on a speeding F-150 near the border town of La Joya.

He assumed, wrongly, that the truck was carrying drugs.

Six Guatemalan migrants were hiding in the bed under a tarp.

The sniper shot three of them, killing two.

McCraw called the killing “very tragic” but insisted that the “recklessly speeding” truck posed a threat to an elementary school several miles away.

Why was DPS the only domestic law enforcement agency in the country to allow cops to shoot at moving vehicles from helicopters?

What responsibility did the DPS director bear for the consequences of waging a deadly war in Texas communities?

GOP lawmakers seemed curiously uninterested in such questions.

“There’s no need for a hearing,” said state representative Sid Miller, who was the chair of the Texas House Committee on Homeland Security & Public Safety.

(Miller is now the state agriculture commissioner.)

Not long after Greg Abbott became governor, in 2015, he doubled down on border militarization.

And then tripled and quadrupled.

Today the Texas-Mexico border is arguably the most important stage in the world for American politicians—the photo op that has launched and sustained a thousand Republican careers.

If the border was theater, the DPS director was the prop guy, stage manager, and supporting actor all in one.

In front of TV cameras and at hearings at the Capitol, McCraw often appears in uniform—Texas tan, cowboy hat—and delivers a blizzard of homeland security–inflected cop talk about “force multipliers” and the “vertical stack” of “detection coverage” offered by drones, cameras, and “tactical” boats.

For a time, during Abbott’s first term, lawmakers and the press took a critical look at what the data said about the success rate of the state’s border operations.

The results were dismal.

What they found was that DPS was trying to take credit for drug seizures made by other agencies and classifying routine police work hundreds of miles from the border as part of its border efforts.

DPS troopers seemed to spend a lot of their time writing tickets to RGV motorists in overwhelmingly Hispanic counties while neglecting traffic enforcement in other parts of the state.

In a report to the Legislature in 2015, McCraw offered a utopian vision of success:

“[The border] will be secure when all smuggling events between the ports of entry are detected and interdicted.”

That could be achieved, the report said, with “the permanent assignment of a sufficient number” of troopers and Texas Rangers, along with a network of security cameras and surveillance aircraft.

On the face of it, this is a wild claim.

Anyone with a passing familiarity with Texas’s 1,254-mile border with Mexico knows that catching every smuggler is the stuff of fantasy.

But the accountability moment in the Legislature quickly passed.

The politics of cracking down on a supposed border “invasion”—Abbott’s preferred term—were too good to let facts get in the way.

Lawmakers showered the DPS director with more money, more responsibilities.

In 2023, the Legislature gave DPS $1.2 billion for border operations, a 28 percent increase.

Though apprehensions of unauthorized migrants have plummeted across the Southwestern border in recent months, there is no evidence that Texas’s efforts are responsible.

A measure of McCraw’s importance is the fallout—or lack thereof—from his agency’s handling of the Uvalde shooting.

Lest we forget, close to 400 law enforcement agents, including 91 DPS officers, took more than an hour to confront the gunman responsible for the deaths of 19 fourth graders and 2 teachers.

While children pleaded with 911 for help, heavily armed cops stood around in the hallways.

Afterward, various agencies and officers would blame one another.

But in the moment, parents knew exactly what to do.

Several tried to rush into the school but were physically blocked by police officers.

One mother was arrested.

Subsequent investigations found that the police prioritized their own safety over saving lives.

In the aftermath of the shooting, high-ranking DPS personnel provided misleading information about the police response, with McCraw initially telling reporters at a press conference the next day that officers did immediately “engage” the shooter.

This was, we would later learn, totally false.

Abbott mused that “it could have been worse” without the “amazing courage” of the police.

Abbott has never said who gave him the misinformation.

Soon after the shooting, the governor sternly admonished DPS and the Texas Rangers—the iconic agents are a unit of DPS—to get to the bottom of what went wrong.

This was a bit like asking the livestock guardian dog to investigate how the fox got into the henhouse.

What were the chances that McCraw was going to incriminate his own agency and, by extension, himself and the governor?

The grieving Uvalde parents calling for his resignation might have earned the attention of the press, but he had the ear of the governor.

For the next two years, DPS engaged in a tireless effort to point the finger at Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde CISD police chief, while casting a veil of secrecy over a mountain of information that could shed full light on the shooting.

To this day, a coalition of media outlets is engaged in litigation to pry records loose from DPS, though at this point it’s not clear what else there is to learn about the ways the authorities failed those children and teachers.

In 2022, McCraw called the law enforcement response an “abject failure” and vowed to resign if DPS had “any culpability.”

Subsequent investigations found plenty of culpability.

A U.S. Department of Justice report blamed one Texas Ranger for not challenging Arredondo on the lack of urgency.

The report also faulted DPS South Texas director Victor Escalon for failing to establish a perimeter outside the classrooms to preserve the integrity of the crime scene and for compromising the integrity of the crime scene by wandering around without purpose.

As for the investigation into the 91 DPS officers?

To date, McCraw has done very little to hold his employees accountable.

One trooper, Sergeant Juan Maldonado, was served with termination papers but quit before his firing was finalized.

McCraw had initially tried to fire another Ranger, Christopher Ryan Kindell, but then, in early August, McCraw quietly reinstated him.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, McCraw said the Uvalde County DA had requested the reinstatement after a grand jury declined to charge any DPS officers with crimes connected to the shooting.

In reinstating Kindell, McCraw also avoided a public appeal hearing—and further scrutiny—into the roles played by high-ranking DPS officials.

McCraw, of course, did not resign.

Instead, he got a raise.

Last year his overseers at the Texas Public Safety Commission—all Abbott appointees—gave him a roughly $45,500 boost to his salary, bringing it to more than $345,000.

On the day of his retirement announcement, August 23, McCraw’s press team made available a cache of photos to commemorate his service.

There’s a shot of McCraw riding in a DPS gunboat with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick—a classic photo op.

One of him serving food to troopers and guardsmen deployed to the border.

But there’s one that seems to best capture the moment.

Abbott is in the foreground of the photo, but he’s blurry.

McCraw, looking contemplative in his uniform and cowboy hat, is the focus of attention.

The same day those photos were released, Abbott kept the spotlight on his appointee.

Steve McCraw, he said, is “a leader, visionary, and the quintessential lawman that Texas is so famous for—big, white cowboy hat and all.”

Brett Cross, the father of a boy who died at Robb Elementary, had a different take.

“Good riddance,” he wrote on X. “You’re an embarrassment to this state. You’re an embarrassment to this country.”

[liesmyteachertoldme]

Destroying Villages In Order To Save Them

A salient feature of the last decade or so has been the steady rise of bizarre cults with legions of fervent true believers, even though we have virtually zero rational grounds for believing in the central tenets of these secular religions. The weirdest thing about these cults is the way in which their true believers ardently sacrifice the very things they claim they wish to save. Consider the following:

1). COVID-19 illness presents close to ZERO risk to healthy children, but this hasn’t stopped the Vaccine Cult from demanding that children receive the dangerous, experimental shots that are neither effective nor safe. The most spectacular irrational outcome is the high incidence of vaccine-induced myocarditis among young athletes from whom COVID-19 posed zero risk.

2). Wind turbines are extremely inefficient producers of electricity that kill hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, wreak havoc in the marine environment when they are placed offshore, and ruin the physical beauty of the landscape. Nevertheless, the bizarre Climate Cult insists that wind turbines are a key weapon in our arsenal for reducing carbon emissions, which the Climate Cult fervently believes to be causing a rise in the earth’s temperature. Destroy nature in order to save it!

3). A human male will obviously have an unfair advantage over a female in almost all competitive sports. And yet, in their fervent proselytization of the bizarre Transgender Cult, votaries have largely succeeded in destroying women’s sports and the dreams of the girls and women who train for them.

4). Importing legions of young men from Arab countries into European countries in which these young men struggle to integrate and find gainful employment has resulted in a marked reduction of public safety in European cities, especially for young women. Yesterday here in Vienna, I had lunch with the former chief of police, who told me that stabbings are indeed much higher in certain districts of Vienna than they ever were in the past. The perpetrators are almost always young males who came to Vienna during the 2015 European migrant crisis.

And yet, the Diversity Cult persists in its bizarre, fetishistic belief that racial diversity per se is necessarily a good thing. Yesterday evening, while pondering the irrationality of the Diversity Cult, I saw the news that a young, foreign-born man stabbed 11 people and killed three at the "Festival of Diversity" that was underway in Solingen, Germany. Diversity will purportedly strengthen and revitalize Germany in the 21st century, even when it results in mass homicide.

5). Already in the year 2015, I began to perceive that the oligarchs who run Ukraine were making a huge mistake by getting into bed with the oligarchs who run the U.S. intelligence agencies, military-industrial complex, and Biden Crime Family. Cozying up with the U.S. military and intel establishment would certainly frighten the Russian Bear and make him aggressive. Far better for the poor people of Ukraine to tone down the nationalism and seek friendly and cooperative relations with Russia.

Note that the exact same reasoning has applied to every country in the Western Hemisphere in their relations with the United States government since President Monroe announced his Monroe Doctrine. As the former Mexican President, Porfirio Diaz once lamented: “Poor Mexico—so far from God, and so close to the United States.”

Imagine if the government of Mexico had, in the year 2014, starting welcoming Russian military and intel agency guys to set up shop in Mexico near the U.S. border. While anyone with a shred of common sense could immediately recognize the folly of this, the bizarre Sacred Territory of Ukraine Cult insists that the poor Ukrainian people fight till the last cartridge is fired instead of negotiating with Russia. Again, destroy Ukraine in order to save it!

[history-matters]

A real CIA prototype of WIROGUE

Otar Jakeli and his second wife Eteri Rukhadze (m. 1955)

Here we tell you the story of one man, who was taken away from Georgia, but who eventually came back to his homeland.

His claim to fame is that he once built a house for the famous French actress Bridget Bardot. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to where he started.

Otar Jakeli was born on February 16, 1920 in Chiatura, Georgia, in the family of Alexander Jakeli, a well-known Georgian businessman and president of "Chemo" joint-stock company. Immediately after Sovietization, the Jakelis family moved to Istanbul. However, during the period of "NEP" (a new economic policy announced by the Bolsheviks in 1921), the Soviet government asked Alexander Jakeli to return and continue the business, because the foreign customers of Chiaturi Manganese recognized only him as their partner and refused to do business with the Bolsheviks, which led to significant currency losses for the government. In 1926, Stalin personally advised to voluntarily transfer the ownership of the joint-stock company to the Soviet government, which was refused. Alexander Jakeli was arrested, but soon they were convinced that they would not be able to sell manganese without him and sent him to the USA to start dealings. During the meeting with President Hoover, Alexander Jakeli gave him objective information about the annexation of Georgia by Bolshevik Russia. It became dangerous for 9-year-old Otari and his mother Nino Khujadze to stay in their homeland. Therefore, in 1929, Nino Khujadze secretly left Georgia with his son and arrived in Paris.

Alexander, by this time was living in the USA. Otar and his mother decided to settle in Brussels, Belgium. Both his parents passed away when he was 16 and he took refuge in a monastery in Brussels.

He eventually went on to study architecture.

When WWII started, Otar as a foreigner could not serve in the Belgian army, so he enrolled a volunteer in the French "Foreign Legion", where he became friend with Prince Henri of Orleans.

After the war, he worked in the design bureaus of Georges Lamry and Mario Knougre; from 1948 he headed his own architectural bureau. In 1955 he was offered a job in Africa. Otar moved to the Congo and opened office there; and built airports, schools and hospitals. Everything was funded by the Americans (perhaps by U.S. Economic Cooperation Administration)

Otar had been working in the Congo for 5 years. In 1960 after Lunumba's ascesion in power Otar had to leave the country. He had become quite wealthy through his work in the Congo, but due to the revolution, he left everything behind and arrived in France with a single suitcase. Because of the absence of a passport (he was considered to be a migrant and did not have citizenship) there were lots of problems. But finally he was hired to work for the chief architect of Paris.

After a while Otar opened his own architects offices. Bridget Bardot visited the offices and asked him to design a house for her and arrange for it to be built. So this is what happened.

In 1968, Otar Jakeli returned in Georgia with his second wife, pianist Eter Rukhadze, and three children - Givi, Tamara and Alexi, and worked as a leading architect in the design institute. His wife initially worked in a conservatory, then she was sucked and gave private lessons to students. However Soviet intelligence never left him and his wife out of their attention and there was always an agent spying on them wherever they went.

Otar Jakeli died in 2000.

[mariacallous]

The Czech Republic threw open its doors to Ukrainians after Russia’s invasion and today hosts over 300,000 refugees. Yet attacks on Ukrainians are rising, encouraged by radical political forces, disinformation and, it’s claimed, Russian intelligence.

“Are you Ukrainian?” 48-year-old Zdenek H. asked as he stopped his car in front of Lilia Kostysyna and Tetana Tolsttihina in Plasy near the Czech city of Pilsen in August. When they nodded he leapt out and brutally beat them in front of their young children. Lilia spent three days in hospital.

In contrast to the mood of defiance towards Moscow and solidarity towards Ukraine that persists among the majority of the population, summer has been awash with incidents of intimidation and violence towards refugees from the war-torn state. An alarming report by the legal organisation In Iustitia highlighted how hate crimes directed at Ukrainians are continuing to “significantly increase”.

While Lilia Kostysyna was still recovering in hospital, a 35-year-old Ukrainian man died after being beaten outside a nightclub in Teplice. The Luna Club swiftly announced a ban on Ukrainians. Police charged a Czech man with the murder in mid-September.

Fertile ground

Since the end of COVID-19 restrictions, populist and radical political forces and peddlers of disinformation have been busy whipping up anger.

The fiscally conservative policies of the government, the war in Ukraine, the influx of refugees, and the cost-of-living crisis have provided fertile ground. Protests with a reactionary and nationalist flavour have punctuated the past 18 months or so.

Adding to the pressure, the populist political opposition, picking up where they left off during the 2015 migrant crisis, insists that the government’s enthusiastic support of Kyiv comes at the cost of neglecting citizens at home.

“The widespread aid to Ukrainians by the current government is disproportionate to the aid to our socially vulnerable citizens,” claims Tomio Okamura, leader of the radical-right Freedom and Direct Democracy, or SPD.

This narrative has helped drain support for hosting Ukrainian refugees across Czech society. Data from CVVM shows that 75 per cent of people were happy to accept people fleeing the war in spring 2022; a year later that number had fallen to 56 per cent.

The antipathy extends from parliament’s nationalist populists and radicals to the margins, where an array of extremist forces, sometimes operating as non-parliamentary political parties, preach a cocktail of authoritarian, anti-democratic and pro-Russian narratives.

The rise in violent attacks on Ukrainians “reflects the influence of critics of the involvement of the Czech state in supporting Ukrainian refugees and the Ukrainian government in defending its territory,” In Iustitia stated. “It is… violence intended to express intolerance towards refugees or support for Russian imperialism.”

The government’s vocal boasting of its generous donations of weapons and military equipment to Kyiv, and of hosting more Ukrainian refugees per capita than any other state, have offered these reactionary forces grist for their mill.

Disinformation networks pumping out fake news have run with such topics to rouse anger among poorer and less-educated Czechs, and to extend the series of increasingly pro-Russian “patriot” protests over the last year or so.

“Rallies are organised where Euroscepticism is propagated, calls for the current government’s change are made, and calls to withdraw the Czech Republic from NATO, along with protests against providing military aid to Ukraine and against support of Ukrainian refugees,” noted a report by the Ukrainian Support and Cooperation Centre (USCC).

Crime and punishment

Czech disinformation networks will tell you that Ukrainian refugees are stealing identity cards in order to access social services, or that shops are banning them to avert theft.

The In Iustitia report highlighted “misleading information disseminated about the newcomers, including references to their allegedly higher crime rates.”

The attack on Lilia and Tatiana did not come out of the blue. Days before, radicals had been busy rousing anti-Ukrainian feelings in Pilsen over the rape and attempted murder of a 15-year-old girl by an 18-year-old Ukrainian man.

Demonstrators, bedecked in Czech flags and chanting “My jsme doma!” (This is our home!), marched through the city in protest.

Reports that a 16-year-old Ukrainian was responsible for raping a woman in Prague compounded the situation, fuelling claims of rife criminality among Ukrainians.

Senior government officials leapt to try to quash the growing narrative. President Petr Pavel warned against those seeking to whip up fear for political ends.

Interior Minister Vit Rakusan pledged that the police would deliver justice in the cases regardless of nationality, while cautioning that hate speech would also be prosecuted.

“Czechia remains one of the safest countries in the world. The crime rate in this country is not growing with the growing number of foreigners,” he insisted at a press conference.

According to In Iustitia, 0.4 per cent of Ukrainians in the Czech Republic committed a crime in 2022. The figures for Slovaks and Poles run from 2-3 per cent. Ukrainians were, however, the target in 22 per cent of all hate crimes in the first half of 2023.

Strange bedfellows

Ironically, the extremist networks have had some of their biggest impact among the Roma, a minority, numbering around 250,000, that ordinarily is the most common victim of hate crime in the Czech Republic.

Anger against Ukrainians was sparked by the tragic death of a Roma man during a fight on a tram in the second city of Brno in June.

Despite efforts by community leaders to calm the situation, anger has sizzled throughout the summer with protests and marches, at times flavoured with intimidation of Ukrainians.

Extremists, including political figures more used to pumping out racist rhetoric against Roma, have encouraged the anger, while disinformation networks have made false claims of further Ukrainian crimes against this minority.

Roma social media influencers like David Mezei, who talks of knife-wielding Ukrainians who should “go back to where they came from”, have worked to deepen the antipathy.

“These figures have a huge impact among the most economically deprived sections of the Roma community, which, as in mainstream Czech society, is the most vulnerable to radicalisation,” explains Miroslav Broz, a veteran Roma rights campaigner from the Konexe NGO.

Income and education are the main factors that influence the perception of refugees, notes Martina Kavanova from PAQ Research. “The poorer population… has a less positive attitude towards accepting refugees,” she says. “This is related to the fear of a reduction in support from the state [and] competition on the labour market.”

This competition has pushed some Roma to adopt the symbols and language of Czech nationalists, points out Broz.

Weakness

Activists, government officials and the security services all note that the targets and tactics suggest Russian involvement. That the long history of discrimination afflicting the Roma is not only being exploited by nationalists, anti-system activists and conspiracy theorists, but by the Kremlin also.

“Russian intelligence knows that these social divisions are one of Czech society’s weaknesses,” asserts Marketa Kocmanova, a radicalisation expert at Charles University.

“Both the Roma and Ukrainian communities have experienced discrimination and unequal access to resources, contributing to feelings of frustration and resentment,” says Lucia Fukova, government commissioner for Roma affairs. “The influence of disinformation campaigns and foreign propaganda, particularly Russian narratives, has added a volatile dimension.”

The direct involvement of Russia in spreading disinformation in Czechia was confirmed in September by Security Information Service (BIS) chief Michal Koudelka. The head of the counterintelligence agency claimed that Moscow had sought contact with leading figures of the anti-government demonstrations and paid huge sums to Czech personalities to spread the Russian narrative.

[head-post]

Sweden becoming “haven” for mafia gangs and capital of gun crime in EU amid surging migration

As violence escalates, police and politicians say Sweden is at a crisis point in part because of migration, according to The Daily Mail.

Last year, three people were killed in a single night in separate attacks across Sweden. The first victim was an 18-year-old man who was shot dead in a Stockholm suburb on 27 September. Just a few hours later, one man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the city.

In a series of interviews, Swedish academics, a politician, and a senior police officer spoke to MailOnline about the multi-faceted crisis. They described a country at a crisis point that was ill-prepared to deal with this scale of violence.

Jale Poljarevius, a senior police officer and chief of intelligence for Sweden’s Mitt region, described the “deadly violence” as “very serious.”

That was a bad period in Sweden – September to October last year. Today it’s a little bit better, but it’s very insecure still because it can turn on and start with a new wave of violence at any time. Sometimes we make arrests of gang members and when they are put away, a vacuum opens, and then new gang members try to take over.

Black September in Sweden

Deadly violence linked to gang warfare has increased in recent years amid high levels of migration into the country. Meanwhile, Sweden’s non-Western population has grown from 2 per cent to 15 per cent in just 20 years.

Foreign mafia groups call the country a “haven” for their activities. Moreover, organised crime groups have infiltrated the business sector and found ways to smuggle military weapons into the country. In response, Swedish police have been given new powers, such as the ability to declare “visitation” or “safe zones.” Officers there have more temporary powers there to increase their presence, as well as to search people, homes and vehicles.

However, many, including in the government, have gone so far as to call for the complete closure of Sweden’s borders to asylum seekers. In September 2023, more than 40 episodes of violence and 12 deaths were recorded in just 20 days, making it nicknamed “Black September.”

Several factors contribute to the violence, experts say: wars over spheres of influence between gangs, a growing drug market, an influx of weapons into the market, growing inequality, high levels of immigration, and the failed integration of migrants into society.

However, gang activity in Sweden is not limited to street violence and drugs. Organised crime has also gained a foothold in the country, with many gangs also involved in fraud.

Read more HERE

[arpov-blog-blog]

"House lawmakers in both parties joined forces Saturday to send a massive package of foreign aid to the Senate, ending a long and bitter stalemate over the fate of the legislation and all but ensuring the delivery of billions of dollars in new help to embattled allies across the globe.

The rare weekend votes were the culmination of months of fierce debate within the House GOP conference over how — or even if — Congress should step in with another round of military help for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan while providing humanitarian aid for civilian victims in Gaza and other war-torn regions around the globe.

The debate had split House Republicans into warring factions, pitting Reagan-minded traditionalists — who support strong interventions overseas to counter the imperial designs of Russia and China — against a newer brand of “America First” conservative who fought to limit the foreign spending and focus instead on domestic problems, particularly the migrant crisis at the southern border. 

In the end, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) defied his conservative critics, pushing to the floor a series of four bills providing the overseas assistance but detaching those funds from a separate border security bill, which failed on the floor during Saturday’s votes. He framed the aid as a simple, but crucial, continuation of America’s responsibility to democratic allies under siege from despots. 

“I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important,” Johnson said this week. “I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten. I believe Xi and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil.”

“To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” he added. “My son is gonna begin in the Naval Academy this fall, this is a live-fire exercise for me as it is so many American families. This is not a game. It’s not a joke. We can’t play politics with this, we have to do the right thing.”

Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said Johnson had reached the decision to charge ahead by a method that’s become routine for the devoutly evangelical Speaker: he turned to prayer.

“I think he was torn between trying to save his job and doing the right thing,” said McCaul, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee who has pushed for months for more Ukraine aid. 

“We’ve told him what’s at stake here, and you want to be on the right side of history. And he’s a man of faith. He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve, but he, obviously, the night before he made a decision, reached out for guidance, and the next day he made the call.”

Passage of the foreign aid bills marked a moral victory for the inexperienced Speaker, who took the gavel less than six months ago. The package — passed with four separate votes — includes roughly $61 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel, $8 billion for allies in the Indo-Pacific, and a package of additional national security measures that features a potential ban on the uber-popular TikTok app.

But it’s come with political risks, provoking conservatives who were already furious with his penchant for reaching across the aisle to seal deals with President Biden on major legislation opposed by the Speaker’s right flank, including bills to fund the federal government and extend the spying powers of Washington’s intelligence agencies.

Those mounting frustrations have spurred a pale — but not powerless — effort to remove Johnson from the top job, which has gained steam in recent days as the Speaker made steps toward sending aid overseas. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a motion to vacate late last month, which Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) endorsed this week.

Greene has not yet said when she plans to force a vote on her ouster resolution, and her path forward was muddied last week after former President Trump endorsed Johnson’s leadership — dealing a blow to the Georgia Republican, who considers Trump a close ally.

Still, even some of Johnson’s allies are bracing for the possibility that Greene might pull the trigger."

[therealcrimediary]

Federal law enforcement officials are investigating after a man was apprehended at the Texas border claiming to be a member of a foreign terrorist organization and stating he came to the US to build a bomb. The individual, identified as Lebanese national Basel Bassel Ebbadi, was detained at the El Paso Border Patrol Sector on March 9 and interviewed by a tactical terrorist response team after making threats to border personnel. Ebbadi allegedly admitted to intending to make a bomb while being checked by medical staff. The individual is currently in US custody, and a federal investigation is ongoing. US Customs and Border Protection stated that individuals who pose a potential threat to national security or public safety can be denied admission, detained, removed, or referred to other federal agencies for further vetting or investigation. CBP, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, works to screen and vet individuals entering the US and collaborates with agencies like the FBI to monitor threats. FBI Director Christopher Wray reported an increase in the number of "known or suspected terrorists" attempting to cross into the US from the southern border over the past five years. However, not all individuals encountered at the border with records on the terror watchlist are necessarily terrorists. The percentage of known or suspected terrorists attempting to enter the US through the southern border is small, and federal authorities use biometrics and law enforcement databases to screen migrants for any red flags before their release with an immigration court date. The Annual Threat Assessment report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence does not specifically address the risk of known or suspected terrorists entering the US from the southern border. Border security and the migrant crisis are key concerns for voters in the current election cycle, with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both visiting Texas border communities on the same day. Some Texas mayors are critical of the political tensions between state and federal governments regarding border issues. Federal authorities conduct thorough screenings of migrants at the border, including collecting biometrics and checking databases for any derogatory information before determining their release or further action. The increasing number of individuals with links to terrorism attempting to cross into the US highlights the importance of robust border security measures and cooperation between different law enforcement agencies to address potential threats effectively.