Editor’s note: This week, we will be taking a brief break from Simon Hankinson’s originally scheduled Part 3 of his series on the three reasons President Joe Biden’s border chaos is intentional. Instead, we bring you lightly edited excerpts from his breaking testimony Thursday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability at a hearing on “Security Risk: The Unprecedented Surge in Chinese Illegal Immigration.” —————— I served as a Foreign Service officer in seven countries. I have adjudicated thousands of visa applications to facilitate lawful visits, commerce, and immigration to the United States while excluding aliens who were legally inadmissible. The visa process I worked with overseas stands in total contrast to what happens at the U.S. border today.  Over the past two years, I have visited the border in Arizona, California, New York, and Texas. On those visits, I saw nationals of many countries apprehended by the Border Patrol. In San Diego last March, I watched Border Patrol dropping off dozens of aliens, including Chinese, at a bus stop to release them into the country. Mass release of people who entered the country illegally happens nearly every day, multiple times, at multiple locations. At best, this is a mockery of U.S. immigration law and sovereignty. At worst, it is a huge national security and community safety risk. In addition to many Chinese aliens with connections to the Chinese Communist Party, People’s Liberation Army, and other state entities, it is statistically probable that the Department of Homeland Security is releasing people with serious criminal records. According to U.S. law, DHS is supposed to detain aliens who enter the country illegally. But the Biden administration has replaced border control with mass processing, parole, and release. DHS has also abused immigration parole at an unprecedented scale. In January 2021, which included the first 11 days of the new Biden administration, the Border Patrol encountered 17 Chinese aliens between ports of entry. By January 2024, it was 3,700 in that one month alone. As of April 30 this year, DHS had already encountered 48,501 inadmissible Chinese aliens in fiscal year 2024 (which began Oct. 1, 2023); 27,583 of them between ports of entry. Nearly all are being released into an asylum process that will take years to conclude. At the end of that process, those ordered removed are extremely unlikely to be deported, because the Chinese government does not cooperate in accepting their nationals back. In fiscal year 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed only 288 Chinese aliens, leaving up to 100,000 still in the U.S., despite final orders of removal. Most Chinese entering illegally are seeking employment. They use asylum claims to enter, remain, and work in the United States. Illegal immigration ebbs and flows corresponding to a risk-reward calculation. Today, Chinese are coming in great numbers simply because they can. Worldwide awareness of our open border, spread by social media, shows them how. For example, Chinese citizens do not need a visa to fly to Ecuador, after which they can continue by land north to the U.S. And starting on May 17, Air China will begin direct flights from Beijing to Havana. If Chinese aliens are willing to take the dangerous trek by land from Ecuador to the U.S. via the Darien Gap, why wouldn’t they also be willing to traverse the 90 miles by water to Florida? Overseas, an in-person interview by a U.S. consular officer is the first line of “vetting” for foreign visa applicants wanting to come to the United States. This is buttressed by consular staff who know local languages, customs, and news. Larger embassies host other federal agencies that can assist with vetting investigations. The second line of vetting is through automatic checks of U.S. government databases. Applicants are frequently refused entry based on adverse information that would not have been discovered had the person arrived illegally with no identity documents at the border. Meanwhile, at the border today, most “national security decisions” of who gets into our country are no longer made by American officers. Under President Joe Biden’s policies, what was once a privilege for aliens has become a right. Despite what the Biden administration wishes the public to believe, there is no real “vetting” of those released at the border, nor of those allowed in under parole programs, much less of the “gotaways” who enter covertly between ports of entry without inspection. The official visa “front door” competes with a wide-open back door at the border, where there are no routine criminal background checks using records from the person’s home country. Unless a foreign national has a record held by U.S. agencies, DHS is flying blind. Concerning China specifically, Customs and Border Protection agents have reportedly reduced the number of standard questions asked of inadmissible Chinese aliens at the border from 40 to five. But, however many questions, the process relies on an alien telling the truth and agents taking them at their word. Even if Customs and Border Protection requests additional information on an individual, China routinely ignores U.S. requests for verification of nationality, and they reportedly hide records of criminal and corruption cases.    DHS releases most aliens caught at the border with a Notice to Appear in immigration court—at a date far into the future. Aliens are then free to go wherever they want, with no way for ICE to easily find them. There are more than 6 million aliens on ICE’s Non-Detained Docket, of whom only about 184,000 are tracked using what’s called Alternatives to Detention, which uses passive methods to track them, such as having the alien check in with ICE by phone every day. Only 2% of aliens tracked using Alternatives to Detention have actual GPS monitors. To close this dangerous loophole, the U.S. needs to re-implement agreements with Mexico and Northern Triangle countries of Central America so that inadmissible aliens are not released into the interior of the U.S. pending the decision in their asylum cases, but instead remain in those countries as they await their determinations (the vast majority of which will result in their asylum applications being rejected). Given the population, economy, and politics of China, the U.S. can never meet the demand for those seeking to enter our country illegally. The U.S. will at some point have to remove those who are ineligible to enter or remain, or else abandon the rule of law that made this country so attractive for so many immigrants in the first place. The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more. Read Other BorderLine Columns: The Ways the Left Exploits Illegal Immigration for Electoral Gain The Ideological Roots of the Open Borders Push US Should Adopt UK’s ‘Rwanda Plan’ to Address Illegal Immigration Biden’s Precarious Parole Programs for Illegal Immigrants My Look Inside Biden’s Illegal Immigrant Catch-and-Release Craziness The post Unprecedented Surge in Chinese Illegal Immigration Raises Security Concerns: The BorderLine appeared first on The Daily Signal.

No New Cars Available? Thank Antisemitic PhD Students at the University of California

Is the Commission on Presidential Debates Toast?

In a world where the internet often serves up the unexpected, a recent viral video has captured hearts worldwide. It features Bailey, an energetic beagle, and her owner Wendy Berenguer, grooving to the vibrant beats of Puerto Rican reggaeton. The charm of the video lies not just in the dance itself but in the visibly... The post Beagle watches grandma dance and decides she wants to match her moves step for step appeared first on Animal Channel.

ABC’s The View was pulsing with anti-Catholic bigotry during Thursday’s show, as pretend-moderate co-host Sara Haines lashed out and smeared Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker and his Catholic faith as “extremists” and “cult-like.” His crime? Giving a commencement address at Catholic, Benedictine College where he talked about – among other things – how some women find fulfillment in being homemakers. In addition, “comedian” Joy Behar claimed he had “big mother issues.” Haines’s bitter anti-Catholic hatred gushed like a firehose. She claimed that Butker was a member of “a very extreme religion” because he attended “the traditional Latin mass,” which she treated like a separate sect of Catholicism. Without evidence, she claimed he was practicing something “cult-like and extremist like some religions in the Middle East and Asia.” She then proceeded to lecture Butker about how he doesn’t “walk with Jesus” and oppressed people: So, what I can say to him, as a Christian, is if you're using this to oppress people or hold them down you're not walking with Jesus. If you are using the religion, if you're more obsessed with the religious rituals and practices than you are with the word of Jesus, you're not walking with Jesus. And if you’re using it for the judgment of others and as a weapon to beat people down you're also not walking with Jesus. “So, I would really encourage him, really encourage him to find the best parts of faith and not diverge into extremist beliefs,” she chided.     Faux-conservative co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin got in on the Butker bashing (likely because he also made a joke about her idol Taylor Swift, referring to her as ‘my teammate’s girlfriend’). She chastised him for daring to talk about politics in his commencement address, as many speakers do. She decried how he called out President Biden, but then she turned around and whined that he didn’t say anything against former President Trump: ...he steps further by wading into the political. He took a swipe at Joe Biden, he brought up DEI, which has nothing to do with anything I’ve ever read in scripture, and then he leaned really heavily into talking about, like, the ideal man and being a godly man, an example; missed the opportunity to talk about the man who might be the leader of the free world, Donald Trump, and his many shortcomings. Behar chimed in to diagnose Butker with Freudian “mother issues.” Without evidence, she claimed he was big “angry” because his “super-duper,” “very accomplished physicist” mom was “probably” not home “because she was busy with her career.” Also, without evidence, she claimed he had “nothing but disdain” for Swift because he told the joke. “So get a therapist!” she shouted. Their cognitive dissonance was deafening. Later in the show, they brought on actor Nick Offerman and his female farmer friend. They praised how she went from working in the world of fine art to being a farmer and… a homemaker. “Her masterpieces are on the dinner table or in their kids' values rather than on a canvas," Offerman touted, after mocking Butker earlier in the interview.   Cognitive dissonance: After denouncing Butker for promoting women being homemakers, The View promotes a woman who studied fine art then became a farmer after she became a mom with four kids. "Her masterpieces are on the dinner table or in their kids' values," Nick Offerman adds. pic.twitter.com/aGL1bQrx5D — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) May 16, 2024   Shockingly, the only person making a lick of sense on the entire set was moderator Whoopi Goldberg. She pointed out the obvious that Butker was “at a Catholic College. He’s a staunch Catholic. These are his beliefs and he's welcome to them.” Goldberg compared Butker with the saga of former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. “The same way we want respect when Colin Kaepernick takes a knee, we want to give respect to people whose ideas are different from ours,” she argued. “So, I'm okay with him saying whatever he says and the women who were sitting there, if they take his advice, good for them, they'll be happy. If they don't, good for them, they'll be happy a different way. That's my attitude,” she declared. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View May 16, 2024 11:04:58 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: So, the NFL released a statement that he gave this speech in his personal capacity and they do not -- the NFL does not share his views. So, you know, listen, I like when people say what they need to say. He’s at a Catholic College. He’s a staunch Catholic. These are his beliefs and he's welcome to them. I don't have to believe them. I don't have to accept them. The ladies that were sitting in that audience do not have to accept them. The same way we want respect when Colin Kaepernick takes a knee, we want to give respect to people whose ideas are different from ours, because the man who says he wants to be president, you-know-who. He says the way to act is take away people's right to say how they feel. We don't want to be that. We don't want to be those people. So, I'm okay with him saying whatever he says and the women who were sitting there, if they take his advice, good for them, they'll be happy. If they don't, good for them, they'll be happy a different way. That's my attitude. [Applause] SARA HAINES: I agree with you and I disagree with you. GOLDBERG: That's okay. HAINES: So, I agree with you that – in the spirit of freedom speech, I don't want people shut down or fired for things they’re willing to say. I will break with you on the comparison to Colin Kaepernick, for this reason: Colin Kaepernick was standing up for the rights of many and saying in a social justice moment, this is a reminder that we're not there yet. What this man is doing is not just a devout Catholic, this is someone who’s practicing something called the traditional Latin mass, which is divergent to the majority of Catholics. It’s compared to being cult-like and extremist like some religions in the Middle East and Asia. So, this is a very extreme religion. And what bothers me about that, as a Christian, is that when people abuse Christianity, they often not only cherry-pick from the Bible, they misinterpret and lie by omission, by taking out parts that would have explained something a little better. So, what I can say to him, as a Christian, is if you're using this to oppress people or hold them down you're not walking with Jesus. If you are using the religion, if you're more obsessed with the religious rituals and practices than you are with the word of Jesus, you're not walking with Jesus. And if you’re using it for the judgment of others and as a weapon to beat people down you're also not walking with Jesus. So, I would really encourage him, really encourage him to find the best parts of faith and not diverge into extremist beliefs. [Applause] GOLDBERG: But if this is -- if this is his belief system, there are many Catholics who are staunch this way. HAINES: A small, small percentage go to the Latin mass. GOLDBERG: I’m just telling you there are many people who believe this way and I'm simply saying rather than write a petition to get him fired because this is – HAINES: Don't get him fired. GOLDBERG: That's what I'm talking about. HAINES: The Pope discourages it. Just so you know, In the Catholic Church the Pope diverges from this belief. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Just one thing, if I may. I don’t know if you guys now this, I went to a very religious college [Patrick Henry College] and a lot of what he was talking about here was largely Christian Catholic orthodoxy, but he steps further by wading into the political. He took a swipe at Joe Biden, he brought up DEI, which has nothing to do with anything I’ve ever read in scripture, and then he leaned really heavily into talking about, like, the ideal man and being a godly man, an example; missed the opportunity to talk about the man who might be the leader of the free world, Donald Trump, and his many shortcomings. (…) 11:11:14 a.m. Eastern JOY BEHAR: I was going to say something completely out of the field. I don't think that this is a political issue. I think he has mother issues. [Laughter] HAINES: He may! SUNNY HOSTIN: Yes! Yes! He Does! BEHAR: Wait. His mother is a very accomplished physicist. HAINES: Went to Smith College. BEHAR: I mean super-duper accomplished woman. His mother, now he probably was left alone because she was busy with her career. He's angry. HOSTIN: Do the therapy. Do the therapy. BEHAR: This is my armchair therapist. I agree. I'm not a professional therapist but I play one on TV. And I think that's the real issue. He has big mother issues. He refers to Taylor Swift as that so-and-so. What did he say? FARAH GRIFFIN: His teammate's girlfriend. BEHAR: Another hugely accomplished woman he has nothing by disdain for, because of mommy! So get a therapist! (…)

If your life is missing an entire immigrant family in it, then you’re in luck. Just open your phone and that hole in your life can be filled. “Now, if you’re interested in learning more about hosting a migrant family, all you’ve got to do is take out your phone, dial 211, it’s as easy as that. You’re going to be asked a few questions, things along the lines of, ‘How long are you able to host somebody? What kind of space are you available to provide?’” Reporter Nate Belt said with a smile on Fox 31. Alex Stein is concerned. “Well, this is actually a very serious thing because it’s in the Constitution,” Stein says, referencing the Third Amendment. “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law,” the Amendment reads. “This is the conspiracy theorist in me,” Stein says, “and this is pure speculation that they’re going to, and I know it sounds totally impossible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t try to militarize all of these illegal immigrants.” “I wouldn’t be surprised if they make it mandatory for some people to house some of these immigrants,” he continues, adding, “they kind of give you this predictive programming stuff.” “Alex, I like how there’s an app called ‘Adopt an Illegal Immigrant Family,’” Jimmy jumps in, laughing. “Like there’s an app if you want to host a migrant.” “I wonder if it’s like Tinder where you can swipe and pick your favorite one,” he adds.Want more from Alex Stein?To enjoy more of Alex's culture jamming, comedic monologues, skits, and street segments, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

A district attorney in one New York county wants to help some pro-Hamas protesters avoid jail and will allow them to enroll in a crime prevention course instead.Around 5 p.m. on May 2, a group of pro-Hamas protesters set up an encampment on the campus of SUNY Purchase, located in Westchester County, about 25 miles north of Columbia University, which recently had pro-Hamas protests as well. The Purchase protesters were reportedly warned at least 10 times that evening that they had to leave the area when quiet hours began at 10 p.m.Members of Raise the Consciousness cheered after they heard that school administrators had supposedly agreed to 'every single demand' they had made.They refused, and Purchase College President Milagros Peña claimed in an email that some protesters even "repeatedly" pulled campus fire alarms, causing further disturbances to their fellow students and area residents. So, by 10:15 that night, police broke up the encampment and arrested 68 individuals, all said to be students and faculty members. As the vast majority of those 68 individuals are first-time offenders and have been charged with trespassing, Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah has offered them a deal. They can avoid jail time so long as they complete a three-hour “Fresh Start” course.Rocah first developed the Fresh Start course in 2021 to help non-violent, first-time offenders. The Fresh Start program consists of a three-hour group discussion regarding "the nature of the criminal justice system" and how group members "came to be involved in it," Lohud reported.Rocah reiterated that only those arrestees who are first-time offenders are eligible for the program. Rocah's office will decline to prosecute those who complete the program, effectively dismissing the charges against them, Lohud said. It is unclear whether any students or faculty members have accepted the arrangement.Many in the Purchase community certainly seem to believe the arrestees' civil rights had been violated on the night of May 2. Sabrina Thompson, a junior at the college and a member of the student protest group Raise the Consciousness, called the arrests "unconstitutional," and a letter sent to the school on behalf of campus faculty likewise slammed the "violent and disproportionate actions" of law enforcement.President Peña has since met with protest representatives and agreed to a continued dialogue about their respective concerns. Members of Raise the Consciousness later cheered after they heard that school administrators had supposedly agreed to "every single demand" they had made. Peña, however, emphasized that she has not agreed to divest Purchase from Israel."Our progress together must be built on a relationship of trust," Peña said in a statement. "We reaffirm that everyone on this campus has the right to work and learn in a safe environment, free from discrimination and harassment. Our commitment is to provide an equitable educational environment, as per our legal, moral, and ethical duty, and I will continue to partner with all in the campus community who share this commitment."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

It feels extremely strange that Baldur's Gate 3 only came out a few months ago. It's been a hell of a not-quite-year for the RPG, winning more awards than I can shake a stick of +3 shaking at, selling tons, and becoming renowned as one of the greatest RPGs of all time. With all that going on it hasn't been discounted too often, but it's just hit a new historical low on Steam in a brand new sale. Continue reading Baldur’s Gate 3 gets biggest Steam discount yet in new sale MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Baldur's Gate 3 builds, BG3 mods, Baldur's Gate 3 classes

The motion centers on Shafik’s decision to call in New York police last month to clear out an encampment of anti-Israel protesters at the university.

Donald Trump’s defense attorney repeatedly asked Michael Cohen about both of his guilty pleas and anti-Trump commentary leading up to the criminal trial.