Pennsylvania Republican Party Plans Meeting to Discuss Possible Censure of Never-Trumper Pat Toomey over Impeachment Vote

On Saturday Senator Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania was one of seven Republicans to vote to impeach private citizen Donald Trump.

Already the Pennsylvania Republican Party is looking to censure the Never-Trump senator.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party shared their disappointment with Senator Toomey on Saturday night.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

Pennsylvania Republicans are heaping condemnation on Sen. Pat Toomey after their GOP senator voted to convict Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, signaling how fealty to the former president has come to define the party.

Republican state party chairman Lawrence Tabas has advised committee members that he will soon call a meeting to “address and consider actions related to the impeachment vote.” Though the notice didn’t specifically mention Toomey, four party insiders said Monday that there’s growing momentum behind a push to censure the senator.

County parties across the state are already doing so.

“The York County Republican Committee condemns, in the strongest terms, the actions of United States Senator Patrick Joseph Toomey, Jr. for his failure to defend the Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees,” read one censure resolution, passed Saturday before Toomey even voted to convict Trump.

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Bill Gates Goes Full Captain Planet, Wants To Change ‘Every Aspect Of Economy’ While We Dine On Fake Meat

Bill Gates Goes Full Captain Planet, Wants To Change ‘Every Aspect Of Economy’ While We Dine On Fake Meat

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is pushing drastic and ‘fundamental’ changes to the economy in order to immediately halt the release of greenhouse gasses – primarily carbon dioxide – and ‘go to zero’ in order to save the planet from long-prognosticated (and consistently wrong) environmental disaster.

Changes we’ll need to make in order to realize Gates’ vision include:

  • Allocating $35 billion per year on climate and clean energy research.
  • Electric everything.
  • Widespread consumption of fake meat, since cows account for ‘4% of all greenhouse gases.’
  • Retooling the steel and cement industries, which Gates says account for 16% of all carbon dioxide emissions, to inject up to 30% of captured C02 into concrete, and create a different type of steel.
  • Widespread adoption of next generation nuclear energy to supplement wind and solar.

And since producing plants to make fake meat emits gases as well, Gates has backed a company which uses fungus to make sausage and yogurt, which the billionaire calls "pretty amazing."

"When you say fungi, do you mean like mushroom or a microbe?" asked Anderson Cooper in a recent "60 Minutes" interview to promote Gates’ new book, "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster."

"It’s a microbe," replied Gates, adding "The microbe was discovered in the ground in a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Without soil or fertilizer it can be grown to produce this nutritional protein — that can then be turned into a variety of foods with a small carbon footprint."

(Speaking of which, it appears that we’re already rounding the corner on C02 emissions)

More via CBS News:

Gates isn’t just looking to cut future carbon emissions, he is also investing in direct air capture, an experimental process to remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere. Some companies are  now using these giant fans to capture CO2 directly out of the air, Gates has become one of the world’s largest funders of this kind of technology. 

But of all his green investments, Gates has spent the most time and money pursuing a breakthrough in nuclear energy — arguing it’s key to a zero carbon future.

He says he’s a big believer in wind and solar and thinks it can one day provide up to 80% of the country’s electricity, but Gates insists unless we discover an effective way to store and ship wind and solar energy, nuclear power will likely have to do the rest. Energy from nuclear plants can be stored so it’s available when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. 

Gates also admits he’s a hypocrite – telling Cooper "I probably have one of the highest greenhouse gas footprints of anyone on the planet," adding "my personal flying alone is gigantic."

He’s atoning for his climate sins by purchasing plant-based aviation fuel, switching to an electric car, using solar panels, and buying carbon credits to the tune of $7 million per year.

Gates’ climate pivot is getting a full-court media press. As Paul Joseph Watson of Summit News writes:

Bill Gates has been lauded as the man to “save the world” and help the planet reach zero carbon emissions in a new report by Wired Magazine, despite such standards not being reflected in the billionaire philanthropist’s own lifestyle.

The article investigates how Gates plans to achieve a “zero carbon” world and promotes his new book which argues “it’s time we make real societal, economic and logistic changes to our way of life to avoid disaster.”

According to Gates, the planet needs to reach zero carbon emissions in order to “avoid catastrophe.”

Gates’ efforts to reduce CO2 emissions may have an environmentalist sheen, but that goal also risks reducing living standards in the west, something that Gates isn’t likely to embrace for himself.

As we previously highlighted, while Americans are being told that the dream of owning private property is over under a future ‘Great Reset’, Gates and other billionaires have been buying up huge amounts of farmland.

Gates is now the biggest owner of farmland in America, according to a Forbes report.

While the mainstream media continues to champion Gates’ influence, he has received harsh criticism elsewhere.

As we highlighted last week, Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, wrote a comprehensive report accusing Gates of engaging in neo-feudalism.

Kennedy warns that, “To cloak his dystopian plans for humanity in benign intentions, Gates has expropriated the rhetoric of “sustainability,” “biodiversity,” “good stewardship” and “climate.”

He also accused Gates of attempting to monopolise and dominate global food production, labeling it “a dark form of philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy and corporate biopiracy.”

Kennedy was subsequently banned by Instagram after his report was published.

As we highlighted earlier, pro-Gates messaging has also found its way into children’s television programming.

*  *  *

Does Gates have a plan to force the rest of the world to adopt his vision?

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/15/2021 – 13:00

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Former ICE Director On Massive Surge At Southern Border: ‘This Isn’t By Accident, This Is By Design’

Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan told Fox News over the weekend that the recent surge U.S. officials are seeing on the southern border was not an accident but the result of a designed open borders strategy by the Biden administration. Fox News host Mike Emanuel highlighted recent numbers that border officials saw for the […]

via Conservative Review

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Texas Deploys National Guard As ‘Grid Chaos’ Leaves Millions Freezing In Darkness

Texas Deploys National Guard As ‘Grid Chaos’ Leaves Millions Freezing In Darkness

Here are the key takeaways from Texas rolling blackouts:

  • The Weather Channel Warns Of "Dangerous" Cold Temperatures  
  • Southwest Power Pool Says 17 States Limiting Energy Usage
  • 3.368 million Texans Without Power 
  • Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Calls Up Texas Army National Guard
  • Oncor Electric Delivery Continues To Warn About Extended "Controlled Outages" 
  • Texas Gov. Greg Abbott States Power Grid Not Compromised 
  • Power Crisis Hits Texas And 13 Other States 
  • Southwest Power Pool Declares Energy Emergency Alert Level 3
  • Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner Warns Of More Blackouts 
  • Houston Mayor Sylvester Suspends Air Travel In Houston 
  • ERCOT Wholesale Electricity Prices Plunged From Cap Of $9k per megawatt-hour to around $2.5k
  • Oncor Electric Delivery Extends Rolling Blackouts 
  • 2.7 Million Texans Without Power
  • ERCOT Wholesale Electricity Prices Exceed $9k per megawatt-hour

* * * 

Update ( 1755 ET): While millions of Texans are without power heading into Monday evening, the power grid may be strained once more as temperatures could reach "dangerous levels," according to The Weather Channel.

More record lows are expected for Tuesday morning across Texas. If ERCOT doesn’t secure additional power generation – more blackouts may occur. 

* * * 

Update ( 1612 ET): The Southwest Power Pool (SSP), which manages the electric grid and wholesale power market for the central US, including Kansas, Oklahoma, portions of New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, and Nebraska, released an update Monday afternoon saying 17 states have "curtailed energy usage to balance supply and demand." 

Frigid air continues to pour into the central US, overwhelming power grids, forcing operators to implement rolling blackouts like a third world country. 

America’s power grid is in shambles.

* * * 

Update (1605 ET): CBS Austin’s Melanie Torre reports Gov. Greg Abbott has called up the Texas Army National Guard "to conduct welfare checks and to assist local authorities in transitioning Texans in need to one of the 135 local warming centers across Texas." 

While Abbott said earlier the "Texas power grid has not been compromised," we find that hard to believe as the number of customers without power has significantly jumped 3.368 million. 

* * * 

Update (1534 ET): Oncor Electric Delivery, Texas’ largest transmission and electric distribution utility, published another statement on its Twitter account detailing how "unprecedented shortfall of electric generation" will continue to extend "controlled outages" due to "emergency grid conditions & severe cold weather." 

Full statement: 

The TX power system is currently facing an unprecedented shortfall of electric generation. @ERCOT_ISO has requested Oncor & utilities across TX to implement controlled power outages to reduce high demand & protect the integrity of the electric grid.

The length of these controlled outages have been significantly extended due to current emergency grid conditions & severe cold weather. These outages are taking place across the service territory & ERCOT has said they could be required through Tues

We are asking all Oncor customers to be prepared to be without power for an extended period of time.

* * * 

Update (1500 ET): Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted around 1431 ET, indicating that he’s been communicating with major power grid operators this afternoon and will provide an update "shortly." 

"The Texas power grid has not been compromised. The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen. This includes the natural gas & coal generators. They are working to get generation back on line. ERCOT & PUC are prioritizing residential consumers," said Abbott.

* * * 

Update (1453 ET): Bloomberg reports the power crisis in Texas has expanded to 13 other states. 

* * * 

Update (1425 ET): The Southwest Power Pool (SSP), which manages the electric grid and wholesale power market for the central US, including Kansas, Oklahoma, portions of New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, and Nebraska, declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 3 on Monday after reserve energy was used to keep the grid online. 

"In our history as a grid operator, this is an unprecedented event and marks the first time SPP has ever had to call for controlled interruptions of service," said EVP and Chief Operating Officer Lanny Nickell said.

Southwest Power Pool’s full statement: 

Meanwhile, Houston Sylvester Turner has just warned blackouts will increase in the coming hours as some emergency shelters have lost power. Due to the severity of the cold snap and winter weather, the mayor also said all travel in and out of Houston has been suspended. 

… and a ZeroHedge reader down in Houston had this to say: 

I live in Houston.  I am lucky.  I have never lost power…yet.  For those who have lost power…these are definitely not "rolling blackouts."  They are just flat out power outages.  This is per Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and other public officials.  Many people have been without power since the middle of the night.  It is unknown when they will regain power.  

* * * 

Update (1259 ET): By noon, ERCOT wholesale electricity prices for delivery plunged from their cap of $9,000 per megawatt-hour to around $2,500. To remind readers, ERCOT prices are normally around $25/MWh. 

Pricing across ERCOT still remains abnormally high. 

* * * 

Update (1110 ET): Oncor Electric Delivery, Texas’s largest transmission and electric distribution utility, serving more than ten million customers, released a rather disturbing statement Monday morning warning about extended rolling blackouts as temperatures hover around zero. 

Oncor asked people to prepare for the worse as the power grid experienced a systemwide failure due to historic winter conditions across the state.

Oncor’s full statement: 

Due to the severity of the electric generation shortfall, our expected outage length of 15 to 45 minutes has been significantly extended. Outages due to this electric emergency could last for hours & we ask you to be prepared.

In addition, we are responding to separate outages caused by the record-breaking winter storm that continues to impact our entire service territory. We are doing everything possible to respond to each of these power emergency events.

We remain in close coordination with ERCOT & we appreciate everyone’s patience as we do all we can to protect the integrity of the Texas grid.

Grid managers declared an emergency after unprecedented demand spiked strained utilities beyond capacity. Blackouts could last until Tuesday. 

As of 1110 ET, PowerOutage.US shows 2.7 million customers are without power. 

Texas’ grid failure could quickly morph into a public health crisis as millions freeze with temperatures near zero. 

* * * 

Rolling power outages are in effect across the state of Texas as the polar vortex split has poured some of the coldest air ever into the central US. There are nearly 2 million Texan customers without power as of Monday morning. 

Texas power grid operator ERCOT warned Sunday of an "energy emergency" and threatened "rotating outages." By Monday morning (0125 local time), ERCOT began "rotating outages" to "reduce demand on the electric system." It continued: "Traffic lights and other infrastructure may be temporary without power."

As of 0700 ET, PowerOutage.US shows 1.834 million customers are without power across the state amid frigid temperatures.

ERCOT officials said outages are expected to last between 15 and 45 minutes. They say blackouts are "necessary to maintain the system’s reliability." Power demand is expected to remain at record levels through Tuesday as record-low temperatures will stay in the region through the week. 

"Every grid operator and every electric company is fighting to restore power right now," said Bill Magness President and Chief Executive Officer of ERCOT. 

Temperatures across Texas and the central US are expected to be well below normal through the end of the week. 

ERCOT’s decision to implement rolling power outages comes after we first warned of an imminent grid crisis on Thursday, when we reported that natgas prices across the plains states had soared to never before seen levels as a result of a brutal polar vortex blast.

… which cut off natgas supply amid wellhead freeze-offs, cutting production receipts just when customers’ demand for heating most needed them. By Friday, frigid temperatures caused equipment failures, temporarily shutdowns in at least four natgas plants. 

Over the last 24 hours, hundreds of daily records for cold temperatures were broken as Arctic air pushed all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

"We would expect to be in emergency operations tomorrow through at least Tuesday morning," said Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT.

On Monday morning, ERCOT wholesale electricity prices for delivery surpassed the grid’s price cap of $9,000 per megawatt-hour, many multiples over the average costs of $25/MWh. 

Our trader contact at a Houston energy firm sums the situation up as eloquently and succinctly as ever:

"we’ve officially hit the ‘Holy Fucking Shit Levels’ here…"

Natgas supplies have been "limited" to some power plants, Ercot said. Cold temperatures restricted gas flow from wells to pipelines, helping to spark a jump in spot prices from below $3 to more than $100 per million British thermal units. 

President Joe Biden signed an emergency disaster order for Texas on Sunday. 

"The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 254 Texas counties," the statement from the White House said.

Late Sunday, ERCOT set a new winter peak demand record Sunday, reaching 69,150 MW it tweeted. 

If you are a retailer, obligated to, lets just say, 25MW, and did not hedge (meaning you left it to get filled by ERCOT at market clearing price), you just incurred a $7.1M cost on an around the clock basis for a single day.

Thousands of businesses will be facing millions of dollars in electricity bills… 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/15/2021 – 09:12

via ZeroHedge News

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Watch: Donald Trump Surprises Supporters at Presidents’ Day Rally in Palm Beach


Former President Donald Trump surprised attendees of a Presidents’ Day rally in Palm Beach, Florida on Monday.

Riding in a black SUV, the former president drove slowly through the cheering crowd, protected by members of the Secret Service.

Supporters waved Trump flags and American flags, chanting “USA!” as Trump’s familiar shock of blond hair was spotted in the window of the vehicle.

The pair of SUVs drove slowly through the crowd before continuing on down the highway. Police were spotted at the event to control the crowds.

Hundreds of Trump supporters joined the rally about a mile west of Mar-a-Lago to celebrate Presidents’ Day and the former president of the United States.

Right Side Broadcasting Network was present for the event and streamed it live.

Fans of the former president continue to show their affection.

On Sunday, a woman from San Antonio, Texas spent more than $1,000 to have a plane fly over Mar-a-Lago with the message, “We love you Prez Trump. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

On Monday, another message for Trump flew by that read, “We ❤️ Trump! The Best is Yet to Come.”

via Breitbart News

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Trump Lawyer UNLOADS on CBS Anchor on Doctored Evidence After Democrats Lose Again

Trump defense lawyer Michael van der Veen appeared on CBSN after the impeachment trial ended on Saturday, and launched into anchor Lana Zak over her implication that his charges of House Democrats doctoring evidence were trivial. It belongs on an all-time list of media smackdowns. 
Zak started the interview with a typical CBS approach, drawing the lawyer’s attention to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s dressing down of the former president as being responsible for the "insurrection." Then Zak tried to claim that he had denied there was an "insurrection," and then admitted there was. 
VAN DER VEEN: What happened at the Capitol on January 6th is absolutely horrific, but what happened at the Capitol during this trial was not too far away from that. The prosecutors in this case doctored evidence. They did not investigate this case, and when they had to come to the court, or the Senate, to put their case on, because they hadn’t done any investigation, they doctored evidence. It was absolutely shocking….
Zak then attempted to summarize, but made it sound like it was tiny faking around the edges: 
ZAK: To be clear for our viewers, what you’re talking about now is a checkmark that’s a verification on Twitter that did not exist on that particular tweet, a 2020 that should have actually read 2021, and the selective editing, you say, of the tapes. Is that how — is that the doctored evidence of what you’re speaking?
At that point, van der Veen lost his patience: "Wait, wait, wait, wait…that’s not enough for you? That’s not enough for you?" Zak claimed she was just dealing in facts: "I’m not a juror in this trial. I wanted to be clear for the viewers."
VAN DER VEEN: It’s not okay to doctor a little bit of evidence. The media has to start telling the right story in this country. The media is trying to divide this country. You are bloodthirsty for ratings, and as such, you’re asking questions now that are already set up with a fact pattern. I can’t believe you would ask me a question indicating that it’s alright just to doctor a little bit of evidence. There’s more stuff we uncovered that they doctored, to be frank with you, and maybe that will come out someday.
Van der Veen said the media should try sticking to facts: 
The media should be looking at that in a square, straight way. When I watch one news, I watch one station and it’s raining. I watch another station at the same time and it’s sunny. Your coverage is so slanted. It’s gotta stop! You guys have to stop and start reporting more like PBS does, rather than a TV news show that doesn’t have any journalistic integrity at all. What I’m telling you is that they doctored evidence, and I believe your question says that it’s only a Twitter check here and changing a date there….
The media shouldn’t be letting them get away with it, either. I’m tired of the biased media on both sides, left and right. 
Before taking off his mic and concluding the interview, van der Veen said that "the media has to start living by the truth, and not try to create a narrative."

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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Nearly Half Of Texas’ Wind Turbines Frozen In Winter Storm Limiting State’s Power Output

The overall power output of Texas has declined after nearly half of the state’s wind turbines were frozen in a winter storm over the weekend. “Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically […]

via Conservative Review

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Biden To Congress: Enact Major Restrictions On Constitutionally Protected Second Amendment Rights

Democrat President Joe Biden called on Congress to clamp down on Americans’ constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights on Sunday, demanding gun bans and new laws that will allow people to sue gun manufacturers.

“I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets,” Biden wrote to Congress.

In the statement, Biden’s call for “banning assault weapons” likely amounts to calling for a ban on semi-automatic firearms, and there was no language included in the statement about allowing gun owners who currently own those weapons to be able to keep those weapons. If gun owners are not allowed to keep those specific semi-automatic firearms under a Biden ban, that would effectively amount to a mandatory gun confiscation-type program.

Something similar happened several years ago when the Trump administration banned bump stocks following the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas shooting.

NPR reported on March 26, 2019:

Bump stocks — the gun add-ons that can dramatically increase their rate of fire — are now officially illegal in the U.S., after a Trump administration ban took effect Tuesday. Anyone selling or owning bump stocks could face up to 10 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 for each violation. …

The ban requires any bump stocks to be destroyed or turned in to law enforcement authorities. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has even posted instructions and diagrams showing how to destroy one of the devices and satisfy the new ban.

“In fact, no bump stocks will be ‘grandfathered in,’” as NPR’s Martin Kaste reported last month. “The new federal rule reclassifies them all as ‘machine guns,’ no matter when they were purchased, and owning one will become a felony.”

Biden’s call on Congress to enact legislation that would strip gun manufacturers of immunity from lawsuits who “knowingly put weapons of war on our streets” is essentially a backdoor way of trying to bankrupt the gun industry or force them to drastically change the types of weapons they are willing to sell.

When gun control activists use the term “weapons of war,” they are generally using it in such a way as to portray the weapons that they want to ban as “weapons” that are used in “war,” as in used by militaries. However, this is inaccurate because the types of weapons that gun control activists are referring to, usually AR-15-style rifles, are not used in war. The variants of those rifles that are currently sold by gun manufacturers in the U.S. are semi-automatic firearms, not the fully automatic versions that are used by military.

Biden’s call on Congress to restrict Americans’ constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights comes after his call for “unity.”

Approximately one out of every three Americans own a firearm, nearly half the country lives in a household where firearms are present, and there are more firearms than people in the United States. Gun sales smashed all-time records last year amid the pandemic and violent riots that broke out in major U.S. cities, which are largely run by Democrats. Nearly five million Americans bought a firearm for the very first time last year.

Forbes reported:

Civil unrest has served as a prime driver of gun sales during the coronavirus pandemic, as Americans buy firearms for self-protection. Federal background checks for gun purchases surged 40% to a record 39.7 million in 2020, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, while gunmakers Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger RGR +0.1% reported double-digit increases in sales.

Statistician Leah Libresco wrote in The Washington Post following the Las Vegas shooting that she used to think that gun control was the answer to reducing gun violence, but that her research eventually proved otherwise.

“A reduction in gun deaths is most likely to come from finding smaller chances for victories and expanding those solutions as much as possible,” Libresco concluded from her statistical research. “We save lives by focusing on a range of tactics to protect the different kinds of potential victims and reforming potential killers, not from sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves.”

There is seemingly little limit to what Biden wants to target when it comes to the Second Amendment, ranging from taxing gun owners, banning magazines “that can hold multiple bullets in them,” offering “no compromise” on the issue, and making other incoherent remarks like claiming that a “rational policy” on guns is making sure “you cannot have 20, 30, 40, 50 clips in a weapon.”

While on the campaign trail, Biden said that far-left gun control activist Beto O’Rourke was “going to be the one who leads this effort” for the Biden administration. O’Rourke has called for confiscating firearms from Americans.

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SNAKE: McConnell Uses Floor to Brutally Trash Trump Following Failed Impeachment Effort

Senator Mitch McConnell used the Senate floor to brutally trash Donald Trump after the former president was found not guilty at the impeachment trial.

The speech was so unhinged that it could have just as easily came from Nancy Pelosi.

McConnell did not hold back as he ripped Trump apart for a “disgraceful dereliction of duty” and attempting to “overturn the election.”

He claimed that the protesters stormed the Capitol because they had been “fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth,” and that Trump was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

“There’s no question – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said.

McConnell went on to say that “this was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories” by a president who seemed determined to overturn the will of the voters or “torch” institutions on the way out.

The anti-Trump Republican did vote “not guilty” before giving the ridiculous speech.

The post SNAKE: McConnell Uses Floor to Brutally Trash Trump Following Failed Impeachment Effort appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Clark: Senate Complicit in Providing Cover for Biden’s Open Border Plans


The just-completed impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Senate provided cover for the administration to move forward with plans to implement President Joe Biden’s open border policies.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans on Thursday to address the issue of migrants with active asylum claims, previously ordered to remain in Mexico under the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP) program implemented during the Trump administration.

As part of the plan, an estimated 25,000 migrants believed to still be in Mexico under MPP will be allowed to enter through three designated sites across the southern border. According to U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX), these sites will be in San Diego, El Paso, and Brownsville.

Daily, up to 300 migrants with active asylum cases pending action by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) will be allowed to enter at each designated site. The program kicks off next week. According to DHS, “This announcement should not be interpreted as an opening for people to migrate irregularly to the United States.”

While the U.S. Senate remained focused on a Presidential impeachment hearing, of a non-sitting President mind you, the security at our southern border was being dismantled step by step under this administration.

The trial did not result in a conviction. However, since its beginning, the trial dominated the national news cycle. The senate thus provided the “sleight-of-hand trick” needed to deflect focus of most national news media from the significance of recent border security policy changes.

DHS plans to address MPP seem simple enough at face value. They are, however, far from simple and the implications are wider than what is generally known about the process of ending it. The impact will severely affect an already stretched thin border security mechanism.

First, who will be responsible for the countless hours of administrative processing to admit and release the 300 migrants at each site per day? The answer to that question is mostly the U.S. Border Patrol.

Ports of entry must keep legitimate trade and travel flowing smoothly. According to CBP, over 6 billion dollars’ worth of imported goods entered the United States each day in 2020. The workforce that inspects and facilitates this trade will likely not be redirected to process asylum claims at the border.

USCIS is responsible for all legal immigration processes to include not only the asylum process but, on an average day, the adjudication of an estimated 30,000 applications for various immigration benefits. This leaves the Border Patrol holding the bag.

To meet the demands of this program, it is likely Border Patrol agents will bear the brunt of the administrative load of releasing MPP asylum applicants into the United States. Border Patrol agents from our nation’s northern border and surrounding southern Border Patrol sectors will likely be dispatched to meet the program goals. The processing procedures require an immigration officer with systems access and expertise to perform. Once in full swing, the odds of seeing more than a few Border Patrol agents patrolling the border will be slim.

Where exactly are the 25,000 migrants who have active cases under MPP? Many are not in the immediate border area. Sources report only 500 to 600 MPP migrants remain in a makeshift encampment in Matamoros, directly across from Brownsville, Texas. Many others have scattered across the city and some moved deeper into Mexico. A smaller number are said to have returned to their home country in Central America. This situation will probably cause a slow start to the program as DHS works the logistics to initiate the program in only a few short days.

Migrants who left the immediate border region will surely travel back to these three program areas — much to the benefit of human smugglers in Mexico. Cartels will not distinguish between the routine flow of migrants they normally extort and those traveling with pending asylum claims at the invitation of DHS.

Drug-smuggling cartels will also benefit from a reduced presence of Border Patrol agents on the border. The illegal drug trade will be a likely beneficiary of further reductions in enforcement activity by the Border Patrol.

The phrase “Catch and Release” will be replaced by “Alternatives to Detention” as the program unfolds.  Both phrases mean the same thing, the latter is more “palatable” and “politically correct.”  The cost of GPS ankle bracelets, most of which will be cut off and discarded during travel into the United States has proven problematic for ICE.  In a visit to a detention facility during my Border Patrol career recently, the devices averaged from 300 to 800 dollars each.  Many migrants would discard the device in a dumpster upon reaching their destination in the U.S.

As far as the program not being an “opening to irregular border traffic,” it is an announcement to the contrary. For tens of thousands of migrants who have been denied asylum, there could be a light at the end of the tunnel.

In one recent executive order signed by President Biden, the Secretary of DHS and the Attorney General must “evaluate whether the United States provides protection for those fleeing domestic or gang violence in a manner consistent with international standards”.

Current policy enacted under the previous administration removed domestic or gang violence from consideration on previous asylum claims. If this review results in the reversal of the current policy, an appeal will be likely for thousands whose asylum claims were denied based on fear related to domestic or gang violence. This would also give hope to thousands of others fleeing gang violence abroad. It will likely overwhelm an already stressed immigration system.

While all eyes were mostly focused on the impeachment trial of a former president, profound changes to our border security posture are largely going unnoticed.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas Sector.

via Breitbart News

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