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Reports on Monday indicate that President Donald Trump will order an expansion of the U.S. military deployment to the U.S. southwest border. The order is expected to increase the number of troops being deployed from 800 to 5,000.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday morning that the U.S. military plans to deploy 5,000 troops to the southwest border region in response to the caravan of “would-be asylum seekers.” The plans reportedly call for 1,800 troops to deploy to Texas, 1,700 to Arizona, and 1,500 to California.

A Pentagon spokesman did not appear to deny the reported deployment expansion. Rather, the spokesman said the discussion of the actual figures is “premature.”

Under “Operation Faithful Patriot,” troops are expected to be assigned to ports of entry in the early phase. They are expected to support Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in dealing with the anticipated migrant caravan arrivals.

The troops are expected to come from about ten U.S. Army installations. The composition of the forces is expected to include military police, engineers, and medical personnel.

CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said his agency is updating “longstanding plans to deal with a mass migration situation.” Those plans include temporary holding and processing facilities, he said.

McAleenan said he plans to ensure the CBP can “secure the ports (of entry) and prevent a large group from coming at one time.”

While speaking to reporters on Saturday, President Trump reacted to the synagogue shooting in Pennsylvania by stating, “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country,” saying “protection” inside the synagogue could have limited the number of casualties, and calling for the death penalty for the shooter.

Trump said, “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country, frankly, and all over the world. And something has to be done.”

He later stated, “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect. But if they had some kind of a protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation.”

Trump also commented on what punishment he believes the shooter should receive, stating, “When people do this, they should get the death penalty. And they should have to wait years and years.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

President Donald Trump fiercely condemned anti-Semitism in response to a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday.

“This was an anti-Semitic act,” Trump said in response to reports of eleven deaths at the Tree of Life Synagogue. “You wouldn’t think this would be possible in this day and age, but we never seem to learn from the past.”

The president invited a pastor and a rabbi to offer a prayer at the beginning of his speech at the Future Farmers of America convention in Indiana.

“Anti-Semitism and the widespread persecution of Jews represents one of the ugliest and darkest features of human history,” he said.

Trump acknowledged that the event occurred at a baby-naming ceremony at the synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath day.

The gunman reportedly shouted: “All Jews must die!” after he entered the synagogue.

Trump stated that anti-Semitism should never be tolerated in America.

“The vile hate-filled poison of anti-Semitism must be condemned and confronted everywhere and anywhere it appears,” he said.

The president said that he spoke with the mayor of Pittsburgh and Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, promising to investigate the attack and to pray for the victims.

“Today, with one unified voice, we condemn the historic evil of anti-Semitism and every other form of evil,” he said. “And, unfortunately, evil comes in many forms.”

He urged Americans to rediscover a common unity on shared values, despite political disagreements.

“It doesn’t mean that we can’t fight hard and be strong and say what’s on our mind, but we have to always remember those elements of love and dignity and respect,” Trump said.

He also praised law enforcement for their swift response to the shooting, acknowledging that some officials were wounded severely during the attack.

“Our hearts go out to the wounded law enforcement officers in Pittsburgh,” he said. “Very badly wounded and very brave.” 

Swing and a miss.

Via Daily Wire:

An NBC reporter who interviewed one of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers, and who admitted to sitting on evidence that two of his accusers were not credible, is now trying to defend herself and her network.

It’s not working.

Kate Snow interviewed Julie Swetnick on Oct. 1. Swetnick claimed in a sworn statement to her attorney, Michael Avenatti, that she saw Kavanaugh act aggressively toward women, spike punch with drugs to get women drunk, and line up outside of rooms to gang-rape women. On NBC, Swetnick walked back her most important claims: She didn’t see Kavanaugh spike any punch and she never saw men lined up to gang-rape women (they were just “huddled by doors.”

Kavanaugh said he doesn’t even know Swetnick. One of the people Swetnick named to corroborate her story also didn’t remember anyone with that name.

Snow opened her interview by acknowledging the network couldn’t verify any of Swetnick’s claims. Yet the network still chose to give her a 13-minute primetime interview.

Keep reading…

Producers of The Simpsons have announced that their long-running Indian character, Apu, will be written out of the show due to increased complaints that he reflects an insulting racial stereotype, NME reported.

The nearly 30-year-old animated sitcom has featured Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon as a wise-cracking, and sometimes clueless, father of eight children.

Apu first appeared in 1990, early in the series. But criticism has been mounting over the depiction of the character. With the character being a convenience store owner and sporting a heavy accent, it has been deemed a “racist” depiction of an Indian-American. People of Indian heritage have slammed the heavily accented cartoon character for reinforcing stereotypes they insist can lead to bullying and self-loathing.

The series has acknowledged that the character has become a problem. Indeed, The Simpsons did make a small attempt to wink and nod at the issue with the Apu character. In the April episode titled, “No Good Read Goes Unpunished,” one segment dealt with the stereotypes that were once accepted in society but have become problematic today.

In the episode, Lisa Simpson tells her mother, Marge, “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” As Lisa delivered the line, a framed photo of Apu is seen sitting on a bedstand next to her.

But now, that problem is about to disappear into thin air. And some are not happy with the plans.

Indie film producer and Indian-American Adi Shankar attempted to raise fan support for a Simpsons episode that would deal with the show’s “Apu problem.”

However, that idea is set to die, as Shankar has reported, “I’ve verified from multiple sources now: They’re going to drop the Apu character altogether. They aren’t going to make a big deal out of it, or anything like that, but they’ll drop him altogether just to avoid the controversy.”

Shankar, however, says the sudden disappearance of a near 30-year-old character is a mistake. “If you are a show about cultural commentary and you are too afraid to comment on the culture, especially when it’s a component of the culture you had a hand in creating, then you are a show about cowardice,” Shankar said.

Shankar concluded that just dropping the character without explanation is “a step backward” for race relations.

Some actors on the series have also expressed unease with the Apu character.

Only a few months ago, Hank Azaria, the actor who has voiced the character since its debut, announced that he would no longer provide Apu’s voice for the animated series.

During an April appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Azaia said he hoped producers of the series would make a change over the character.

“I’m perfectly willing and happy to step aside or help transition it into something new. I really hope that’s what The Simpsons does,” Azaria proclaimed.

Azaria added that if anyone was bullied because of Apu, he would be mortified. He said he only wanted to “spread laughter and joy with” the character.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought, and as I say my eyes have been opened,” Azaria exclaimed:

I think the most important thing is we have to listen to South Asian people, Indian people in this country, when they talk about what they feel and how they think about this character, and what their American experience of it has been … Listening to voices means inclusion in the writers’ room. I really want to see Indian, South Asian writers in the writers’ room, not in a token way, but genuinely informing whatever new direction this character may take, including how it is voiced or not voiced.

Comedian and Indian-American Hari Kondabolu, also recently expressed his distaste over the character with a documentary titled, The Problem With Apu. Kondabolu said that growing up as an Indian in the U.S., he was often made fun of by other children with the Apu catchphrase: “Thank you, come again.”

“Sure, growing up in New York City everyone tries to be funny. If you grow up there, you learn to make jokes and how to make comebacks, but it’s hard to counter an accent – what’s your comeback for an accent?,” Kondabolu told the BBC late last year.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.

The left is on a warpath to be offended by everything — including spooky skeleton Halloween decorations.

The left-wing NPR published an article with a warning in their headline: “This Halloween: Be Careful How You ‘Hang’ Your Decorations.”

This time they are targeting hanging skeletons, if you couldn’t tell by their wordplay in the headline.

I’m not a horror fan or expert by any means, but it seems to be a common horror trope for skeletons to be hanging by a rope.

It’s one of the most generic and widely used Halloween decorations possible, just after jack-o’-lanterns and spiders — but apparently it’s now racist.

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The author, Mayowa Aina, recalled growing up and seeing a lot of decorations but never realized how “racist” they are.

“But while terrifying, it never occurred to me that any of those decorations might have racist undertones,” the author wrote.

She probably never realized they were “racist” because they aren’t. The people who put up the decorations didn’t have racist intentions and the people viewing the decorations don’t perceive them as racist.

“Hanging anything with a noose conjures up a legacy that continues to haunt us today,” Aina wrote.

She cited Tananarive Due, a “black horror scholar” at the University of California, who said, “Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean that we can forget the visual impact of lynching imagery.”

I think it’s safe to say that nobody except for racists and people looking to be offended perceive hanging skeleton decorations as racist lynchings.

Hangings have a history that goes far beyond the terrible lynchings of the reconstruction era.

How many “wild west” movies have had cruel judges who use hanging as a means of execution for renegade cowboys?

Even the popular movie series Pirates of the Caribbean had a hanging scene.

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If you want to be safe, the author offered an alternative use for the skeleton decoration.

“She suggests using spider webs instead of rope,” Aina wrote. “You could even sit the skeleton up in a tree so it looks like someone died and decomposed while sitting in that spot.”

I think the author is trying to tell you to throw the skeleton up in a tree on a dark Halloween night so nobody can see it. If nobody can see the skeleton then nobody can get offended.

This left-wing war on Halloween is getting absurd.

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