Killeen homeowner shoots, kills burglar who was breaking into his home
KILLEEN, Texas — A homeowner shot and killed a man who tried to break into his house Friday morning, according to Killeen police.
Police spokeswoman Ofelia Miramontez said James Centron Taylor Mitchell, 18, forced his way into the home on Corinne Dr. a little before 10 a.m.
The homeowner fired multiple gunshots at the man who then ran away.
Police arrived a short time later and found Mitchell with a gunshot wound on Woodlake Dr.
He was taken to Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
Man sitting in his SUV shoots back at would-be robbers in Nashville
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A man fired shots at two would-be robbers after they confronted him as he was sitting in his SUV.
The call came in before 6 a.m. Thursday at an apartment complex on Selena Drive, located not far from Thompson Lane in South Nashville.
According to police, the man was sitting in his Nissan Rogue as it was warming up when two men got in the car. One of them hit him in the head before they ran off in different directions.
Police say one of the suspects fired a shot at the victim as he was running away. The car owner, who was also armed, shot back at him. No one was hit.
Police say the victim has a proper gun permit.
Because the ordeal happened so quickly, the victim couldn’t give police a good suspect description. Both were also wearing masks.
Police say this a safe neighborhood and will up patrols there now.
100,000 gun owners to fight new Virginia bans: ‘We’re not the problem.’
Some 100,000 Virginia gun owners who have rallied at county and town meetings for “gun sanctuaries” on Thursday began “bombarding” state Democratic lawmakers eager to use their new majority in Richmond to push through new restrictions and bans.
“Now it’s time. Now we’re going to melt down their phones, explode their inboxes on their email. We’re going to bombard them more than they’ve been bombarded,” said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which is leading the gun sanctuary movement.
On Thursday, he issued an “alert” to supporters to start lobbying lawmakers in Richmond against gun control. He said that the new anti-gun laws from Democrats are “pouring in like a waterfall.”
Later this month, his group is also organizing its annual “lobbying day” that is expected to draw dozens of buses full of supporters from around Virginia as well as from 13 states as far away as Texas, Florida, and Connecticut.
Latest map with 124 sanctuaries. I never realized how much I like green! So do the red and blue areas underneath ? pic.twitter.com/wnOQ3KaG5S
— Phil Van Cleave VCDL (@VCDL_ORG) January 8, 2020
“They picked a fight with a set of people who are tired of it. We’re tired of being the whipping boy. Every time somebody shoots up a bunch of people in a gun-free zone, they come after us, and we’re tired of it. We’re fed up, and we’re not giving up any more. We’re not the problem,” he told Secrets.
Curaçao can no longer handle the number of Venezuelans.
But surely they can’t be leaving a ‘socialist paradise’?
WILLEMSTAD – The number of Venezuelans in Curaçao will have risen to 21,000 by the end of 2020. That presence leads to such great pressure on general resources that Curaçao can no longer bear that.
Lesley Fer, director of Risk Management and Disaster Policy, said this yesterday during a presentation for the Interparliamentary Kingdom Consultation, IPKO.
Therefore, according to Fer, the problem must be tackled throughout the Kingdom.
“We are not only dealing with a humanitarian problem, but the Venezuelan refugees also bring drugs and weapons – even hand grenades. In addition, as a crisis controller, I have to monitor whether no members of Hezbollah or the Colombian guerrilla movement ELN are coming to the island. The closure of the borders led to a 20% reduction in tourism. Illegal Venezuelans have a substantial influence on employment (disruption of the labor market), medical costs (such as pregnancies for which they are not insured) and public health, partly due to illegal prostitution. Assistance and removal cost the government hands full of money,” said Fer.
“I am responsible for risk management on the island. Due to the problems with Venezuelans I spend 85 percent of my time on this. The coast guard and the police are also largely concerned with the Venezuelan problem, as well as customs, border police, the admission organization and various ministries. We are unable to do other important core tasks of the government.”
Why Journalists and Politicians are Frightened by Armed Defense
Armed citizens stopped a mass murderer at the West Freeway Church of Christ. When we plain folk in fly-over country heard that the attacker was stopped quickly, most of us thought, “Praise God.” In contrast, Joe Biden said it was irrational to allow anyone to be armed at any religious institution. Some journalists said they were terrified that ordinary citizens could be armed at church.
Why is the emotional response from politicians and journalists so different from ours? We know something that they don’t know. Those of us who live in fly-over country know Armed America, and the elites don’t.
We know real gun owners- We know real people people who own guns, rather than the two-dimensional cardboard-cutout characters portrayed by Hollywood and the media. With over a hundred million gun owners in the US, they are easy to find. Legally licensed gun owners are our friends, our co-workers, our associates, and our neighbors.
I have a news flash for Vice President Joe and the journalists. Ordinary people are armed. Millions of us carry a legally concealed personal firearm in public. Unless you live in one of the elite bubbles in the US, then you are standing shoulder to shoulder with Armed America.
We’ve seen their good judgement. We’ve met Armed America and we’ve seen their restraint. We’re not surprised to learn that individuals who are licensed to carry a firearm in public are among the most law abiding groups that sociologists can find. That makes us different from Joe Biden and Co. Most elites don’t have a friend who drives a pickup truck, much less a friend who is a licensed concealed carrier.
We know and trust our neighbors- We have a positive opinion of our neighbors, our community and our town. We formed this judgement through experience. We’ve seen our fellow citizens solve challenging problems. We’ve seen their character under challenging circumstances, like fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods. We’ve seen a broad segment of society rise to the occasion and do their best for themselves and for those around them.
We’re comfortable with our neighbors. The media elites are only comfortable with other elites. Select law enforcement officers can be armed, according to the elites. Select bodyguards can be armed, according to the elites. You and I, average voters, not so much.
We actually believe in “diversity:” Our circle of friends includes people of all ages, backgrounds, and races. If you want to see elitism, look at the makeup of the MSM and at our elite colleges. If you doubt me, try to find a conservative-Christian-Republican male in the Sociology Department at your local college.
Also, consider the “diversity” of the editors at the Huffington post.
Only young college-educated women need apply
We’ve seen bad people do bad things- We’ve seen what criminals do. We’ve seen their effect on our family, our neighbors, and our communities. In our world, violence doesn’t happen in slow motion at 35 frames a second on a 60 inch screen; it happens in the parking lot at the corner store after dark. Our connection to reality is stronger than a TV crime-drama where the bad guy is brought to justice in 42 minutes.
Ordinary citizens like us defend ourselves thousands of times a day. We are not the easy victims the criminals expected. The bad guy meets Armed America and runs the other way. In that way, Armed America is making me and my family safer every day, just like the defenders did at the Church of Christ in Texas.
Armed America frightens the elites. Maybe the elites like Joe Biden had better stay home and have their food delivered by Amazon so they feel safe. Don’t tell them the Amazon driver might be carrying. That might upset Joe and the mainstream journalists.
We’ll keep that truth to ourselves.
Students for 2A Tell Anti-Gunners to ‘Come and Take It
Not even three weeks ago the National Rifle Association (NRA) conducted a soft launch of the Students for 2A group at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit. In just a short period of time, the newly-formed organization has gained momentum amongst college students ages 18 to 24 and garnered more than 15,000 followers across various social media platforms.
The message is simple: the anti-gun left continually launches attacks at law-abiding gun owners. They want to ban commonly-owned firearms, like the AR-15, and make universal background checks a reality. But the young adults are fighting back for their Second Amendment rights.
A montage of various students explains exactly why the organization was started.
“Every day on college campuses across America, students like me are demonized, attacked and silenced by the ‘tolerant’ left,” students in the montage explain. “But we have something they don’t have: facts. So-called ‘universal’ background checks will never be universal because criminals do not comply with the law. Despite the narrative being pushed by the anti-gun left, unintentional firearm fatalities among young people are near historic lows.”
“Americans regularly use firearms for self-defense up to over one million times per year. There has never been a more important time for students like me to speak out,” the narrators explained. “We are law-abiding Americans and we demand the freedom to defend ourselves. So let us be clear to all anti-gun extremists trying to destroy our rights: you will never succeed. We will always fight back.”
“And, by the way, my rights don’t end where your feelings begin,” the students said. “Come and take it.”
A letter was published titled “Enact gun control without repealing the Second Amendment” (Mercurynews.com, Jan. 5) implying that the right of the people to keep and bear arms was subject to being within a “well-regulated militia.”
Good thing this letter-writer isn’t a lawyer. If that were the case, your right to freedom of speech is only protected while in the process of petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.
Stay in your lane, and out of constitutional law.
Neil Stokes
Redwood City
Appeals Court Allows Use of $3.6 Billion in Military Funds for Border Wall
A federal appeals court allowed the administration to use a certain set of Defense Department funds for the construction of the border wall after a lower court blocked the administration from dipping into them last month.
The ruling marks a victory for President Donald Trump, who has sought to shore up funds for his signature border wall. The money is separate from other funds that the Supreme Court allowed to be used last year.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of a Texas judge’s order, which the administration had appealed. The case is still ongoing.
The use of Defense Department funds for the President’s border wall has received pushback from numerous groups and states, which have argued the administration circumvented Congress to shore up wall funds.
The latest ruling applies to the military construction funds. Last September, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper authorized diverting $3.6 billion in the construction funds for 11 wall projects on the southern border with Mexico. The Pentagon said at the time that half the money was coming from deferred projects overseas, and the other half was planned for projects in the US.
The ruling doesn’t apply to the use of other funds, including counter-drug and Treasury Forfeiture Funds, that have been designated for wall construction.
Man killed while allegedly trying to rob ATM guards in North County ID’d; 2 suspects at large
ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KMOV.com) – Police have identified the suspect who was killed while allegedly trying to rob two armed guards who were servicing an ATM in North County Tuesday.
According to authorities, two suspects waited in the parking lot of Vantage Credit Union at 601 Greenway Chase Drive near New Halls Ferry for the guards to arrive. A third suspect waited inside a getaway vehicle.
When the guards showed up around 1:40 p.m. and began working on the machine, two suspects wearing ski masks approached them. Both guards fired their guns and at least one of the suspects fired his weapon, according to police.
“I thought [the guards] acted very quickly,” Lt. Matt O’Neill with St. Louis County police said. “That was very quick thinking on his part. He was actually going to give them the money and he started shooting.”
During the shooting, one suspect was shot and later died in the hospital. He was identified by police Wednesday morning as 19-year-old Jordan Pruitt, of St. Louis.
The guards were unharmed. They are reportedly cooperating with the police investigation.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. (KMOV.com) — The 20-year-old man who was shot and killed while allegedly robbing an ATM technician in North County Tuesday pleaded guilty to a similar crime at a bank just three miles away, according to documents obtained from the St. Louis County Prosecutors Office.
Jordan Pruitt pleaded guilty to robbing an ATM technician at the Vantage Credit Union on West Florissant at New Halls Ferry in December 2017. At the time of Tuesday’s alleged crime, Pruitt was out on bail awaiting sentencing.
In December 2017, police said Pruitt put a knife to the neck of the ATM technician, but was scared away by an armed eye witness.
Intruder shot and killed by resident in Grand Rapids
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Police are investigating after a homeowner shot and killed an intruder overnight.
It happened just before 2:30 a.m. Wednesday in the 600 block of Houseman Avenue NE Grand Rapids.
Grand Rapids police say a 51-year-old man showed up to the home to confront a woman inside.
The man pushed his way into the home where an argument ensued. A 38-year-old man inside the home then confronted the intruder and ended up shooting the intruder in the chest, killing him.
Police say it appears the victim is known by the shooter and another woman who lived inside the home.
There are no charges at this time and the investigation is on-going
Pascagoula homeowner shoots, kills armed burglar
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (WKRG) — A Pascagoula homeowner fatally shot an armed person who was burglarizing his home.
Pascagoula Police responded to 3202 Nathan Hale Ave at 11:44 a.m. Tuesday. When officers arrived, the homeowner said he shot an armed person who was burglarizing his home. The suspect was pronounced dead on scene.
Pascagoula Police are currently investigating.
2 dead, 2 wounded in shootout in the East Side neighborhood
Two people were killed and two others wounded in a shooting Sunday in the East Side neighborhood.
About 3:50 p.m., three men, 39, 27 and 20, were standing in the 10000 block of South Avenue M, when an unknown vehicle pulled up and two males jumped out, Chicago police said. Both males pulled out weapons and fired shots at all three men.
The 27-year-old man, who is a valid concealed carry license holder, pulled out his own weapon and returned fire, fatally striking one of the shooters, 17-year-old Michael E. Portis, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. Portis, who lived in South Shore, was dead at the scene.
The other male got back into the vehicle and sped off, police said.
Elvis Garcia, 39, was struck in the leg and abdomen and rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said. He lived on the city’s Southeast Side.
The 20-year-old man was struck in the right arm and taken to Trinity Hospital, where he was stabilized, police said. The 27-year-old was struck in the left arm and taken to the same hospital, where he is listed in good condition.
Area South detectives are investigating.
Missile attacks target US forces in Iraq
Talk about sucking all the oxygen out of the news cycle. If the President orders the strikes as promised, this is going to be 99% of what we’ll hear for the next whatever.
Iran fired “more than a dozen ballistic missiles” into Iraq, targeting U.S. military and coalition forces early Wednesday, Pentagon officials said, in a major retaliation by the rogue regime after the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week.
The missiles launched by Iran targeted military bases in Al-Assad and Erbil, the Pentagon added.
Initial assessments showed “no U.S. casualties,” a U.S. military official in Baghdad told Fox News, adding that the U.S. was continuing to look into possible damage.
President Trump did not immediately respond, and the White House eventually said he would not make an address to the nation or other on-camera statement Tuesday.
Ten missiles hit Al-Assad Air Base, one missile hit a military base in Erbil and four missiles failed to hit their targets, according to a U.S. military spokesman for Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East.
The attacks unfolded in two waves, each about an hour apart.
Good Guys with Guns highlights self-defense stories where people used a firearm to defend themselves and others from violent criminals and the impact it had on their lives. The book also discusses the debate over the right to keep and bear arm
excerpt:
Here’s a challenge. Using your favorite Internet search engine, type in the words “No charges were filed” and see what happens. When the authors did this as part of our research, using Google we were advised that there were 925 million results.
Or try “No charges were filed in shooting” and one will find a more modest 30 million references. Even considering that there will be a multitude of repeat reports dealing with the same incidents, you are still talking about millions of self-defense uses of firearms. Some of these cases are intriguing and involve armed private citizens, while many involve police officers shooting suspects.
Crosby gun shop owner kills burglar in shootout
A 79-year-old military veteran and Crosby gun shop owner shot and killed a suspected burglar early Tuesday, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
The owner was asleep in his home in the 2000 block of Kennings Road, just west of Bohemian Hall Road, around 4:30 a.m. when he heard someone breaking into the adjacent combination gun store/barber shop he owned, Gonzalez said. He awoke and spotted two cars in the roadway and went out to investigate.
He came upon a few men who had just broken into the store by pulling the front door open using a car and chains, Gonzalez said. The men saw the owner outside the business and opened fire – but missed, Gonzalez said.
The owner hid behind a tree and returned fire after bullets whizzed into the tree trunk. After coming back out, he saw a trail of blood, but the suspected burglars had fled.
About 15 minutes after the initial shootout, a man in his 30s was found shot to death in the 3800 block of Morales Road, about 10 miles south of the gun store on Kennings Road.
Two men were seen giving CPR to the injured man, both of whom were taken into police custody, Gonzalez said. Investigators also recovered three guns near the scene on Morales Road.
The gun store owner, a 79-year-old military veteran, was not immediately charged, Gonzalez said. A grand jury will likely determine if charges are necessary.
Monkey Junction homeowner shoots man during break-in
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – A homeowner shot a suspect who was breaking into her home near the Monkey Junction area Monday afternoon, according to the Wilmington Police Department.
According to Jessica Williams, a spokesperson for the police department, the incident happened around 12:35 p.m. in the 1500 block of Honeybee Lane in the Willoughby Park community.
Police said the victim arrived home and found her front door ajar. When she entered her home, she heard someone moving from room to room.
The homeowner grabbed her handgun and confronted the suspect, identified as 37-year-old Michael Jarvis, and shot him.
Williams said Jarvis was taken to the hospital and remains in critical condition as of Tuesday morning.
The homeowner will not be charged.
In one Ohio county, teachers now carry guns in 5 school districts
This year, school boards at Garaway Local Schools and Claymont City Schools approved the safety measure. They join Newcomerstown Exempted Village Schools, which started arming staff members in 2013, Indian Valley Local Schools (2017) and Tuscarawas Valley Local Schools (2018).
As 2019 draws to a close, the number of school districts in one northeastern Ohio county that have authorized staff members to carry guns on school property has grown to five.
This year, school boards at Garaway Local Schools and Claymont City Schools approved the safety measure. They join Newcomerstown Exempted Village Schools, which started arming staff members in 2013, Indian Valley Local Schools (2017) and Tuscarawas Valley Local Schools (2018). All are in Tuscarawas County.
Newcomerstown Superintendent Jeff Staggs continues to believe it’s a good idea.
“When seconds count in responding to a dangerous event, the faster the event is stopped more students and staff stay alive,” he said. “I’m still in favor of a highly trained armed staff along with multiple other layers in the school safety plan.
“We continue to train and tweak our school safety plan to meet the new issues that schools face every year. The sheriff’s office has been a huge help in our training program with our journey to get better at school safety.”
Garaway Superintendent James Millet agreed.
“I still think this is a valuable decision to protect Garaway students and staff,” he said. “At Garaway Schools, the safety of each and every child within this community is our district’s highest priority. We are continually examining safety measures for our school district and looking for ways to improve.
“We believe that armed staff is one way to provide a quick response and opportunity to protect people in an attack.”
He said the decision has been well-received at Garaway.
“There is not one perfect solution, but we will try to address all aspects of safety with vigor,” Millet said. “We will be adding a safety dog in January. This will provide another way to respond to an attack as well as prevent an attack by identifying weapons before they enter our school.”
A recent report by the Associated Press raised questions about the safety of arming teachers.
Experts say anyone carrying guns, including teachers, needs ongoing, intensive training to be able to handle their firearms proficiently and respond appropriately in stressful settings — and many law enforcement officers don’t even get that.
“The idea that anybody can go to Joe Smith’s School of Shooting for a day or a week and become proficient at shooting a handgun in a life-and-death situation is a little bit absurd,” Doug Tangen, firearms program manager at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the state police academy, told the AP.
Shooting a gun requires psychomotor skills that must be practiced over and over, he said.
Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell said he believes that area educators who have been armed have the training and skills necessary to keep everyone safe.
Teachers there have gone through FASTER training, provided by the Buckeye Firearms Association. FASTER stands for Faculty/Administrator Safety Training & Emergency Response.
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Police officers who go to a police academy receive 60 hours of training on firearms, and two days of that is in the classroom, Campbell said. By comparison, area teachers have been given three separate weeks of training.“I put guys through one of them, and it’s very good,” he said.
“All of them are qualifying at at least the same level as every peace officer (in Ohio), and all of them have kept up so far,” Campbell said.
The staff members are required to keep their gun on their person at all times. They are not allowed to talk about it, and they’re not allow to show their weapon, even to other teachers.
He noted that all of the districts have given his office the ability to say two things — that a staff member cannot carry now because that person is not ready, and that a staff member cannot carry at all because the sheriff’s office doesn’t think the person is skilled enough.
The sheriff said arming staff is a good idea because it’s rare to hear about a teacher running away when there is a shooting.
Republican leaders vow to ‘protect’ gun rights for Missourians ahead of session
As legislators prepare to head back to Jefferson City this week, Republican lawmakers are making a point to reaffirm their aversion to taking up strong gun control legislation during the upcoming session.
Gov. Mike Parson held multiple meetings with a handful of metro area mayors this year as Kansas City and St. Louis, in particular, have grappled with an abundance of gun violence. Following a November meeting, news reports suggested the Republican governor agreed to back the mayors’ call for stronger gun control — among other things.
But in a one-pager published Saturday, Parson said he has not “supported restricting law abiding citizens’ right to bear arms.” Instead, Parson said the three big takeaways from his meetings with the metro area mayors centered on witness protection, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and “keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals.”
“I have never wavered in my support of the Second Amendment,” Parson said. “I firmly believe in protecting Missourians’ Second Amendment rights and will continue working with federal, state, local, and community partners to protect the citizens of our state. Over the past months, we have rolled up our sleeves, gotten to work, and identified the immediate actions we can take at the state level to keep Missouri citizens safe, while still protecting their Second Amendment rights.”
Missouri Republican Party executive director Jean Evans defended Parson on a recent episode of “This Week in Missouri Politics,” noting, “Saying everything is on the table is completely different than saying, ‘I’m for gun control or I want red flag laws or I want any of those other things.’”
House Speaker Elijah Haahr and Majority Floor Leader Rob Vescovo, too, have vowed not to support policies that “infringe” on the “Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Missouri citizens.”
“Our federal and state constitutions hold the rights of gun owners sacred,” Haahr told The Missouri Times. “I take those rights seriously, as do the members of my caucus. We look forward to upholding those rights in this 2020 legislative session.”
In a lengthy December Facebook post, Vescovo said “if heavy penalties that already exist” for murder and assault “don’t effectively deter” people from committing them, then “how will any new laws produce better results, especially if they’re little more than window dressing.”
“Both gun grabbing laws and red flag laws do not get to the root of the problem, which is that criminals will still find ways to obtain weapons with these policies in place. Instead, those policies will create additional hurdles for law-abiding citizens, while those who wish to do harm will continue to obtain stolen weapons on the black market,” Vescovo said.
Several bills have already been filed by Democrats in an effort to increase regulations and hamper gun violence throughout the state. Sen. Jill Schupp pre-filed legislation that would require passing a background check by a licensed firearms dealer before purchasing a firearm; Rep. LaKeySha Bosley is championing a proposal that would highly regulate the sale of ammunition, including by requiring dealers to keep records of those who purchase ammunition and require transactions to be done face-to-face.
The legislative session officially gets underway on Jan. 8.
Slugs for Euro Thugs
French Police Shoot ‘Allahu Akbar’ Knifeman
French police shot a knifeman in the leg on Sunday, one of three police shootings in response to allegedly “Allahu Akbar” shouting knifemen in Europe in three days.
Officers were called to the scene after a man was seen walking out of a shop carrying a knife in the north-eastern French town of Metz on Sunday afternoon. The responding officers were threatened by the suspect when they arrived and attempted to attack with a knife, which the French prosecutor is investigating as attempted murder.
Germany: ‘Allahu Akbar’: Police Shoot Dead Turkish Citizen Who Attacked Officers With Knife
German police shot dead a Turkish citizen Sunday evening after he allegedly attempted to attack officers with a knife and other weapons in the western city of Gelsenkirchen.
Police officers came under attack Sunday night in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, when a man attacked officers standing with their patrol car with what local reports described only as an “object”. When the officers noticed the man was also carrying a knife, they ordered him to drop his weapons but he continued to attempt to attack the police.
The Martyrdom of Saint Greta of Sweden
So Meat Loaf caused a little kerfuffle this weekend by saying he thought Greta Thunberg had been “brainwashed.”
I don’t know that should be a surprise, but it got me thinking about her again. I have a lot of sympathy for the kid.
For me, it started with seeing her picture. She’s small, slight, even scrawny; her head looks out of proportion to her body. She’s now 17 (as of 3 January) but she still looks childlike, prepubertal, younger than her 14-year-old sister. Frankly, she looks like she’s been in a concentration camp: malnourished over the long term
Sure enough, reading a little about her, we find that she’s an Asperger’s child (I guess this month that’s now called “high-functioning autism”), she has obsessive-compulsive disorder, she stopped eating for months and still refuses to eat anything but certain specific things, in particular, a dish of pancakes filled with rice — but her OCD keeps her from eating if there’s a sticker or label on the package. She suffers from “selective mutism”, which means basically that there are situations in which she’s unable to speak……..
Her public career started when she took Fridays off from school to hold up a sign outside the Swedish Parliament; this grew into a movement that spread throughout Europe.
Through it all, things keep striking me as odd. I don’t know what it’s like in Sweden, but cutting classes one day a week isn’t normally feted as heroic in the US. And she hasn’t been attending school for months as she traveled. In the US, that’s called “dropping out”.
So, this is what we’re being asked to believe: that an autistic kid with OCD who often can’t speak on her own has
- organized a worldwide movement
- given TED talks, spoken to the UN General Assembly, and been named Person of the Year by Time Magazine
- managed to get a ride on a multimillion-dollar racing yacht so she wouldn’t have to fly (and bragged on how she wasn’t releasing CO2 on the trip, although it required seven plane tickets for the crew for the boat).
There’s a bucolic barnyard term for that — actually, several, depending on your choice of equine, bovine, or galline.
This isn’t a neurologically atypical high school kid arranging this: there are adults, and probably a lot of adults, using her as a front.
Trump Is Quietly Winning Bigly At The Border.
Before this policy went into effect, illegal immigrant families knew that if they crossed the border and claimed asylum, they’d effectively get a free pass. Immigration officials would release them into the U.S. within 20 days, on the promise that they would show up for their court date months in the future. Few bother to return. This policy was dubbed “Catch and Release” for a reason.
Now, they must wait in Mexico while immigration judges review their cases.
What “Remain in Mexico” revealed is how few asylum seekers have legitimate claims. In fact, judges granted asylum in less than 1% of the more than 10,000 MPP claims resolved so far, according to TRAC Research Center at Syracuse University.
The impact of this program has been little short of profound.
The number of apprehensions at the southwest border plummeted from 144,000 in May 2019 to just 42,649 in November – the last month for which the government has data. The number of families caught crossing illegally went from 84,486 in May to a mere 9,000 in November.
As the El Paso Times put it, “the policy has proved to be a virtual wall.”
Nearly 400K Anchor Babies Born in 2019, Exceeding U.S. Births in 48 States
Canada and the U.S are the only 2 ‘developed’ nations that have birthright citizenship, and there are only 28 more in world who also do so.
Close to 400,000 anchor babies were born in the United States in 2019 as an executive order to end birthright citizenship gets kicked down the road for another year by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Analysis conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies revealed in 2018 that about 300,000 U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are born every year. These children, often referred to as “anchor babies,” immediately obtain American citizenship and anchor their illegal or foreign parents in the country.
In addition, about 72,000 anchor babies are born to foreign tourists, foreign visa workers, and foreign students every year — all of whom obtain immediate American citizenship simply for being born within the parameters of the country.
Altogether, about 372,000 anchor babies are estimated to have been born last year despite a commitment by Trump to sign an executive order ending the nation’s “anchor baby policy” that incentivizes pregnant migrant women to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in the hopes of securing American citizenship for their children.
This indicates that there were more anchor babies born in 2019 than births in each of the 50 states except California and Texas. California residents deliver about 455,000 babies a year, while Texans deliver about 379,000 babies a year, just slightly more than the total annual number of anchor babies born.
For example, there were more than 34 times as many anchor babies born nationwide than American children born in the state of Delaware and nearly five times as many anchor babies born nationwide than the American children born in Arizona.
To date, the U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled that the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens must be granted automatic American citizenship, and a number of legal scholars dispute the idea.
Many leading conservative scholars argue the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not provide mandatory birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens or noncitizens, as these children are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction as that language was understood when the 14th Amendment was ratified.