Biden’s Campaign Message 2024

posted by Richard McDonough at American Thinker 

President [from 1857-1861] Buchanan would not confront the evil of slavery. … [He] sat in the Executive Mansion doing nothing [leading to the Civil War].

President Biden's mandate is to solve difficult problems like illegal immigration and racial animus [but] has made [them] far worse, just as Buchanan did with the slave issue.

[The Biden] administration says there is no crisis at the border and in [Biden’s] clouded mind, there isn't.  Like Buchanan, Biden … will not even try … to confront the problem.

Buchanan was a dangerous incompetent whose apathy led to massive death and destruction.

So is President Biden.

--Bill O’Reilly, The Two Worst Presidents, April 23, 2023

Joe Biden’s poll numbers are now in the toilet (36% approve and 54% disapprove).  

His DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been insulting the American people by lying under oath to Congress and the American people for years that the border is secure even as Americans can see the people and drugs streaming across the border on their television screens. But since he is a Democrat, there will be no charges. 

Even Biden’s protectors at CNN and NBC have now been forced to admit that the southern border is a mess, and that there were record number of deaths (853) at the southern border in 2022, placing an immense cost on the American people. 

The Biden’s administration’s agents in social media censored his political opponents before the 2020 election, including censoring the true Hunter Biden laptop story.  The Biden administration has still been working with social media to censor Americans after the election.  

Biden was sold as the most experienced foreign policy candidate ever [laugh track here] but has presided over the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal in which 13 U.S. military personnel were needlessly blown to bits, hundreds more injured, and hundreds of Afghans killed, some of them even falling from airplanes as they tried desperately to escape from Afghanistan.  

It was under the great foreign policy expert Biden’s watch that the bloody wars in Ukraine and in Israel erupted, while Venezuela is threating to invade its tiny neighboring country of Guyana, while, by contrast, the allegedly inexperienced Trump (Putin’s puppet according to Democrat partisans and buffoonish comedians), was the only one of the last four presidents on whose watch Putin did not invade one of its neighboring countries.  Biden has insulted the American people by claiming that his Afghanistan withdrawal was an “extraordinary success,” a view not shared by the families of all the people needlessly killed and injured that day.  

Biden saw his inflation rate rise to a 40 year high of 10% in April of 2022 and the current inflation rate is 3.1%, more than double what it was (1.4%) at the end of the Trump administration.  Biden passed the enormously expensive “Inflation Reduction Act” but now must admit that it failed to reduce inflation, perhaps because, as John Kerry admits, it was really about his climate obsession and had little to do with inflation.  

Biden’s Secretary of State Blinken was humiliated by China on American soil and made no response to his Chinese masters.  

Violent crime is exploding all across the U.S. and massive business destroying shoplifting is taking place in “blue” (Democrat) cities like San Francisco across the country while Biden’s occasional vice president, Kamala Harris, has in the past called to defund the police. (How about we start with Kamala’s security detail first?)  

While calling Trump an authoritarian dictator, and while numerous distinguished liberal legal scholars like Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley and (other experts) again and again and again and again and again and againand again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again point out massive legal problems with the Trump prosecutions, Biden’s “Justice” Department is attempting to imprison Biden’s chief Republican political rival before the 2024 election.  Biden promised his administration would be the “most open and transparent in history” but his mechanical White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, regularly insults the intelligence of the American people by refusing to answer questions, as apparently the peasants do not deserve answers.  

Biden repeatedly releases many billions of dollars to America’s sworn enemy, Iran, even as Iranian proxies attack U.S. allies and interests and troops and ships in the Mideast with minimal pinprick responses by Biden.  

After assuring us that he was going to unite the nation, Biden constantly uses divisive language dismissing 74 million American Trump-voters as “MAGA extremists.”  We were told that Biden is a nice cuddly grandpa but he calls a young reporter a “stupid son of a b***h,” uses Veterans Day, which should be an apolitical tribute to veterans, to launch “disgusting” political attacks on Trump, yells at his staff for his dreadful poll numbers when these are the natural result of his absurd policies, and threatens to take Trump behind the gym and beat the hell out of him. 

As Anthony Bialy at Medium.com writes:  “The notion that Biden is a nice guy is as bogus as Bidenomics.” 

Biden makes appointments, his vice president, his SCOTUS pick, etc., based on the anti-American principle of skin color, gender, and sexual orientation instead of picking the best person for the job, leading to predictable disasters.  

Biden engages in disturbing behavior towards children and little girls, even touching or sniffing them.  

Biden ignores SCOTUS rulings, e.g., that forgiving student debt without congressional consent is unconstitutional, but repeatedly tries to do so anyway to buy votes of young people with taxpayer dollars.  

Biden regularly speaks gibberish and needs to be led around like a baby, etc.  

For these and for many other reasons, Biden will need an outrageous Orwellian strategy for his 2024 campaign.

Despite the fact that another 15,000-person caravan is heading for the southern border, Biden just departed for St. Croix Virgin Islands for some rest and relaxation.

The comical storyline Democrats have come up with is that Trump is Hitler, or, more precisely, that Trump is Hitler and a fascist authoritarian who is going to destroy our democracy, about which, allegedly, they care so much [laugh track here], even as they try, “banana republic”-style, to imprison Biden’s main political opponent (Donald Trump).  One can be certain that the decibel level of Democrats' shouting will be directly proportional, not to Trump’s alleged sins but to the magnitude of the Biden’s disaster. 

Biden 2024 campaign is, therefore, going to be based on a “hate Trump” message grounded largely on their comical January 6 insurrection myth, comical because the FBI said there was “scant evidence” the Capitol attack was an organized effort to overturn the 2020 election, which did not stop the Democrat’s media poodles from describing it as an “insurrection” for years. 

Unfortunately, getting people to hate Trump does nothing to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.  Unfortunately, the Democrats, once the party of the working man and the poor, has now become the party of rich elitists who despise ordinary Americans in favor of “the relentless pursuit of power and control.”  

One would not think a campaign based on hate for one man can possibly succeed, but the Democrats know their stenographers in what passes for our “news media,” helped by banana republic “lawfare” in the courts, will push their destructive anti-American message.  Given Biden’s disastrous record, what choice do they have? 

And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- December 30

Upcoming U.S. Presidential Election Could Fuel Global Instability in 2024

by Fred Fleitz for American Greatness 

A failed, last-minute visit to Mexico by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week perfectly reflected the Biden Administration’s dismal foreign policy record in 2023 and what may lie ahead in 2024.

Blinken and Mayorkas traveled to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discuss how to stem the surge in illegal migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico. But instead of offering constructive proposals to address this crisis, López Obrador mocked Blinken and Mayorkas by dismissing the border crisis as a U.S. problem, called for opening border crossings, and urged the U.S. to strengthen its ties with Cuba and Venezuela.

This latest Biden Administration foreign policy debacle reflected how world leaders increasingly view Joe Biden as a weak and indecisive leader with an incompetent foreign policy. This debacle also reflected the incompetence of Biden’s foreign policy team because López Obrador was allowed to ambush Blinken and Mayorkas. A competent state department would have ensured this visit was a scripted affair, with differences between each country resolved privately and in advance during lower-level meetings.

Blinken and Mayorkas traveling to Mexico without knowing what López Obrador would offer was a rookie mistake one would expect during the first few months of a new U.S. administration, not from one that has been in office for almost three years.

The outcome of the Blinken/Mayorkas Mexico trip and Biden’s refusal to implement serious measures to stem the flow of illegal migrants crossing the U.S. southern border will have major security implications for the United States in 2024. Given a growing perception that Biden may be a one-term president who will be succeeded in January 2025 by a new president who will take aggressive action to close the border, the United States will likely see the largest surge of illegal immigration in history in 2024 as migrants from around the world rush to Mexico to take advantage of Biden’s weak border security policies.

This means the number of criminals, drug dealers, Islamist terrorists, Chinese spies, Russian spies, drug dealers, and people transporting fentanyl in the United States is certain to skyrocket in 2024.

U.S. security interests in the Middle East have also been gravely undermined by President Biden’s weak leadership and foreign policy and are likely to further deteriorate in 2024. Many experts believe the horrific October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel would not have occurred if the Biden Administration had a coherent national security policy that was not appeasing Iran and coddling the Palestinians.

As I wrote in a recent Newsmax article, the Palestinians have received more than $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars since Biden took office, even though Biden officials knew these funds would boost Hamas. By contrast, the Trump Administration cut off all U.S. aid to the Palestinians.

In addition, the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal assessed that Iran received approximately $71.02 billion more in revenue (mostly from oil sales) under the Biden administration than it did under the Trump presidency.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden, worried about how growing protests against the Israel-Hamas war by his progressive supporters will affect the 2024 elections, has begun to turn on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to pressure him to end the war quickly and put the corrupt Palestinian Authority in charge of running Gaza. Biden continues to claim he is solidly behind Israel’s right to defeat Hamas but also lectures Israel on the way it is conducting the war and human rights violations. Although the Netanyahu government has been careful to avoid criticizing Biden officials for such contradictory statements, it will not prematurely end the war because of the U.S. political calendar.

Iran’s nuclear weapons program made major advances during the Biden Administration, including enriching uranium to the near-weapons grade level of 60% uranium-235 for the first time. Iran’s nuclear weapons program was greatly assisted by a secret, unwritten deal that the Biden Administration agreed to in the spring of 2023 that allows Iran to continue to enrich at the 60% level, keep its advanced enrichment equipment, and promised Iran at least $20 billion in sanctions relief.

Under pressure from Congress, the Biden Administration on October 12 froze a $6 billion payment to Iran after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, a transfer that was actually a ransom payment to release five innocent Americans imprisoned in Iran. But incredibly, the Biden Administration agreed the following month to a sanctions waiver that gave Iran access to more than $10 billion.

The consequences of Biden’s feckless Middle East policy have been demonstrated by the surge in attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria over the past two months by Iranian-backed militias and attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The U.S. response to these attacks has been weak, causing such attacks to grow in number. Neither Iran nor its terrorist proxies are worried the U.S. will make them pay a price for these provocations that are endangering U.S. troops and global shipping.

The Middle East will remain volatile in 2024. Israel will continue the war to defeat Hamas and promote its security, despite growing demands by the Biden Administration to end the war. Attacks by Iranian-backed terrorist proxies in Iraq and Syria, the Houthi rebels, and Hezbollah in Lebanon will probably increase unless there is significant pushback from the United States. Israel will continue to respond militarily to some of these attacks, while Biden probably will not during an election year.

The 2024 U.S. elections and President Biden’s weak leadership and foreign policy will also affect other global hot spots.

Ukraine. Despite claims by the Ukrainian and U.S. governments that the Ukrainian army would turn the tide of the war in 2023 with its counteroffensive, this didn’t happen. Russian forces dug in, and the conflict has become a long-term war of attrition. With Republican House members and Biden allies like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough saying the war is no longer winnable, Congressional support for arming Ukraine is likely to be sharply reduced in 2024. Although Congressional Republicans are currently blocking additional U.S. military aid for Ukraine unless President Biden agrees to take significant action to stem the flow of illegal migrants at the U.S. southern border, even if an agreement can be reached to break this deadlock, growing bipartisan concerns in Congress over the trajectory of the war may finally force the Biden Administration and Ukrainian President Zelinsky in 2024 to pursue a cease-fire and an agreement to end the war and secure Ukraine from a future Russian invasion.

Russia/China “Axis.” The U.S.-led global order will take a hit in 2024 as Russia and China continue to build their security and economic relationships at America’s expense. This will include further improving their trade and defense relationships with North Korea, Iran, and the Persian Gulf states. Iran and North Korea will probably step up their arms sales to Russia for the war in Ukraine. There will be some progress in “de-dollarization,” mostly with more agreements to not use dollars for bilateral trade.

China/Taiwan. Chinese President Xi told President Biden at the November 2023 APEC Summit that Beijing intends to reunify Taiwan with China, but the timing has not yet been decided. However, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is unlikely in 2024 for two reasons. First, the Chinese military is probably not prepared to invade the island nation. But second, and more importantly, Xi is worried that President Donald Trump could be reelected in November 2024. Xi believes Trump will have a much tougher China policy and prefers to continue to deal with Biden, whom he views as a considerably weaker president than Trump. Therefore, although Chinese provocations against Taiwan and in the South China Sea will continue in 2024, Xi will try to improve relations with the U.S. to help reelect Biden. If this happens, China could possibly plan to invade Taiwan during a second Biden term.

North Korea. A surge in missile tests and nuclear weapons development caused by the Biden Administration’s neglect of North Korea will continue to rise in 2024. North Korea might conduct a seventh nuclear test next year to embarrass Biden, help reelect Trump, and resume Trump’s partially successful personal diplomacy with Kim Jong Un.

With the prospect of a major political change in the United States next November, 2024 could be a very unstable and dangerous year for American and international security. Sensing that Biden could be a one-term president, illegal immigration will surge, and America’s adversaries will employ all possible means to exploit what could be a final year of exceptional American weakness. This could result in a major terrorist attack, possibly by terrorist organizations like ISIS that have been relatively quiet recently. Iran could begin to enrich uranium to weapons-grade. China and Russia will try to expand their influence at America’s expense with new trade deals, especially with the Persian Gulf states.

Now more than ever, it is clear that a strong and decisive U.S. president with a competent foreign policy is essential to American and global security, and that a weak American president with a weak and frivolous foreign policy can have a disastrous effect on global security. Therefore, it will be far more apparent in 2024 than in previous years that U.S. presidential elections matter for global security.

200 Years Later, The Monroe Doctrine Is Still The Best Protector Of U.S. Interests

The Monroe Doctrine is the blueprint for returning to a realistic grand strategy that can preserve American liberty from threats foreign and domestic.

posted by Casey Wheatland at The Federalist

This month marks the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine. If celebration (or even acknowledgment) seems muted, that may be because policymakers and the public know little about the principles and grand strategy underlying the doctrine.

Few likely understand the doctrine because its meaning has been distorted throughout American history, especially in the Progressive Era by Theodore Roosevelt’s corollary. Some see it, for better or worse, as the beginning of America’s commitment to maintaining an international order by arms and diplomacy. But this is incorrect.

The Monroe Doctrine was not a blueprint for establishing an international order, or even for American involvement throughout the Western Hemisphere. It was an expression of the moral principles and strategic thinking that animated foreign affairs for the first century of our national existence. It is also the blueprint for returning to a realistic grand strategy that can preserve American liberty from threats foreign and domestic.

The Monroe Doctrine’s Origins

President James Monroe articulated what later became known as the Monroe Doctrine in his seventh annual message to Congress on Dec. 2, 1823. Its topic was the collapse of the Spanish Empire and the subsequent rise of independent nations in Latin America. Henry Clay and other leading statesmen saw this as an opportunity to push American-style republicanism abroad.

President Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams took a more cautious stance. Monroe declared a policy of neutrality in the wars between Spain and the newly independent republics of Latin America.

He also promised not to interfere with existing European colonies or the affairs of the Old World, warning that any European attempt to reassert control over those republics would be treated “as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.” The Western Hemisphere would be off limits to any European nation that wished to maintain amicable relations with the United States.

Monroe was not promising to wage war on behalf of the new Latin American nations or republicanism. The Monroe Doctrine was rooted in two fundamental principles, one moral, the other strategic.

The Moral Principle of National Self-Rule

The first was the moral principle of national sovereignty. Monroe believed the right of a nation to govern itself was an axiom of the law of nations. He speaks of the “just principles” on which the United States recognized the independence of new Latin American republics, who elevated themselves to an equal status with the other powers of the Earth. By recognizing this equal status, nations can maintain peaceful relations with one another: “It is by rendering justice to other nations that we may expect it from them. It is by our ability to resent injuries and redress wrongs that we may avoid them.”

Nations can expect peace if they are willing to respect the citizens, territory, and commerce of other nations and are prepared to defend their own. Echoing the Declaration of Independence, Monroe wished that the Greeks, who were fighting a war of independence against the Ottomans, “would succeed in their contest and resume their equal station among the nations of the world.”

Yet kind words are all Monroe was willing to offer the Greek revolutionaries. It is up to each nation to secure sovereignty for itself. Monroe declares that “only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced [do] we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense.”

America will not serve as the policeman of the world, nor as the guarantor of a community of nations. Monroe had no intention of imposing our form of government on any other part of the world, but only to protect Americans’ life, liberty, commerce, and sovereignty.

The strategic principle at the heart of the Monroe Doctrine is that a great power has an interest in keeping other great powers out of its immediate neighborhood. Different regions of the globe have unique strategic interests and concerns.

President Monroe warned the Europeans that “any attempt … to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere” would be considered “dangerous to our peace and safety.” Monroe’s hemispheric thinking animated westward settlement: Americans were eager to reach the Pacific to close off the continent to future European colonies.

An American Principle Since the Founding

President Monroe was articulating a preexisting American grand strategy. As secretary of state, Quincy Adams had already expressed the administration’s commitment to restraint and neutrality in his famous address of July 4, 1821.

Adams praised the young American nation for having “abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings… [America] goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

America cannot intervene on behalf of foreign causes, even just ones, because the “fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.” Republican government requires restraint abroad. One that goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy would soon find a new monster at home: imperial government.

Adams’s exhortation for restraint and detachment from foreign wars followed President Washington’s advice in his Farewell Address. The first president similarly warned Americans to steer clear of permanent alliances and avoid permanent attachment or animosity toward any nation, which could obscure our true interests and make us unwitting servants of foreign governments.

“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible,” Washington said.

A False Justification for Nation-Building

The strategic principle embedded in the Monroe Doctrine can be traced back to the beginning of the nation. Arguing in favor of a firm constitutional union backed by a powerful navy in Federalist No. 11, Alexander Hamilton outlined what could be called a proto-Monroe Doctrine. He writes: “The world may politically, as well as geographically, be divided into four parts each having a distinct set of interests.”

Europe, he goes on to say, has successfully extended its power over the other three parts — Asia, Africa, and the Americas — and could continue to do so if left unchecked. Hamilton’s solution was not to wage preemptive war or impose sanctions against Europe, but to create “one great American system” — a union of states powerful enough to control the Atlantic seaboard and counter European economic and political influence in the hemisphere.

How, then, did the Monroe Doctrine come to be interpreted as a justification for nation-building and intervention abroad? As Walter McDougall argued, 1898 marked the decisive turning point with the Spanish-American War. The United States embarked on a moral crusade to end the Spanish colonial government in Cuba and assumed imperial ambitions by the end of the war.

With the acquisition of the Philippines and other Spanish colonies, America for the first time governed territory that was never intended to gain statehood. Progressive imperialists like Sen. Albert Beveridge claimed the principles of consent and national sovereignty in the Declaration of Independence applied only to civilized nations, and that we have a moral duty to “administer government among savage and senile peoples” for their own good.

Today’s interventionists may not speak of savage peoples, but modern nation-building follows the spirit of early Progressive imperialism in assuming that the founding principle of national sovereignty is outdated.

The Roosevelt Corollary

Amid the Progressive transformation of foreign and domestic policy, President Theodore Roosevelt issued his 1904 corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in his fourth annual message to Congress. Roosevelt claimed the right “to the exercise of an international police power” over Latin American nations that failed to uphold the standards of civilization. Although the president claimed we can better promote “the general uplifting of mankind” by tending to our own affairs, he also spoke of rare, extreme cases “in which we could interfere by force of arms as we interfered to put a stop to intolerable conditions in Cuba.”

While Roosevelt’s message contains some elements of moderation and restraint, it is wrong to call it a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. “Transformation” would be a more accurate term. Roosevelt stripped the doctrine of its moral core — the right of national sovereignty — and created a new right for the United States to interfere in the domestic politics of other nations. Once a republic assumes the right to impose upon other nations its own standard of civilization, it no longer has a moral safeguard to prevent its slide into empire.

The Roosevelt Corollary cemented the interventionist turn in American foreign policy. It is a short walk from Roosevelt’s assertion to Woodrow Wilson’s quixotic call to make the world “safe for democracy” through armed intervention in the First World War. From there, it is another short walk to George H.W. Bush’s commitment to use American firepower “to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order” and to his son’s promise “to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”

Lessons From the Monroe Doctrine

What lessons can we learn from the Monroe Doctrine today? Some have called for invoking the doctrine to counter the threat of Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere. No doubt, there are good reasons to keep powerful rivals out of our backyard, and the Monroe Doctrine does speak to the strategic need to maintain our sphere of influence.

However, the more relevant lesson from the Monroe Doctrine is the need to return to the moral principle of national sovereignty. Once American policymakers lost sight of this principle, they lost sight of the limits of intervention.

Wilson’s war to make the world safe for democracy paved the way for an even bloodier world war. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives and failed to build liberal democracies in the Middle East. Interventions in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars created a protracted migrant crisis and, once again, failed to deliver on their humanitarian promises. The billions of dollars of American armaments sent to Ukraine have only prolonged a brutal war between two Eastern European oligarchies and driven Russia further into China’s arms.

The moralistic internationalism that has animated much of the last 125 years of American foreign policy has also opened the door to foreign influence. From the British government’s Bryce Report in 1915 to Nayirah Al-Sabah’s phony testimony of Kuwaiti babies being ripped from incubators in the lead-up to the Gulf War, foreign governments have fabricated atrocities to drag America by its heartstrings into costly wars. Reasserting national sovereignty as a moral principle and detachment from foreign conflicts as a strategic imperative are the necessary preconditions to a sensible foreign policy. 

America First Foreign Policy

The ultimate aim of the Monroe Doctrine was to secure the conditions for liberty in our own nation. Intervention abroad sets the stage for imperial politics at home.

As Angelo Codevilla noted, the national security state acts as a praetorian guard, subverting the will of elected officials (and, by extension, the people), whenever it believes its preferences are threatened. Protracted engagement overseas feeds the budgets and political capital of unaccountable agencies and bureaucrats.

The CIA has spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee out of fear of civilian oversight. Unelected officials such as Miles Taylor in the Department of Homeland Security and Jim Jeffrey in the State Department have covertly disrupted presidential policies that conflicted with their policy preferences. Quincy Adams warned our governing principles could change from liberty to force, and the escalating use of surveillance, infiltration, and repression against opponents of the Biden administration prove him right.

Some will undoubtedly argue the Monroe Doctrine is outdated in a globalized age. Yet the oceans that insulated America from her great power rivals in the 19th century continue to do so today. Our fleets and nuclear umbrella deter peer competitors from threatening our soil. Whatever risks may come with returning to the restrained geopolitics of the Monroe Doctrine are outweighed by the proven consequences of going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

ICE Detains Iranian National With Terror Ties at US-Canadian Border

Susie Moore reporting for RedState 

With all the focus of late on the southern border and the record number of illegal crossings taking place there, it may be easy to overlook the U.S. border with Canada. But there are illegal crossings happening in the north, too. On Friday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the recent apprehension of a Canadian fugitive — who also happens to be an Iranian national with known terror ties — and who attempted to enter the U.S. illegally...twice.

The Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Buffalo announced that the man, wanted by Canadian authorities in relation to assault charges, first attempted to enter the U.S. at the Rainbow Bridge Pedestrian Walkway on October 10. 

The man was refused entry at that time but made a second attempt to gain entry to the U.S. two days later, this time at the Whirlpool Bridge Port of Entry. ERO Buffalo subsequently served the man with a removal order and then removed him to Canada on December 21 and turned him over to Canadian law enforcement authorities. 

ICE issued a statement regarding the situation on Friday, which can be read in its entirety below. 

ERO Buffalo uses the Safe Third Country Agreement to remove Iranian national, national security priority

Fugitive wanted by Canadian authorities for assault

BUFFALO, N.Y. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Buffalo removed an unlawfully present Iranian national with ties to terrorism, Dec. 21.

The Iranian national is also a permanent resident of Canada and a national security priority who is wanted by Canadian authorities on assault charges.

The fugitive attempted to enter the United States on Oct. 10 by presenting himself to U.S. immigration authorities at the Rainbow Bridge Pedestrian Walkway in Niagara Falls. Customs and Border Protection officers refused him entry into the United States and returned him to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) the same day. Two days later, on Oct. 12, U.S. Border Patrol arrested him as he unlawfully entered the United States from Canada on or around the Whirlpool Bridge Port of Entry in Niagara Falls without being admitted or paroled by a designated immigration official.

On Nov. 8, ERO Buffalo served the unlawfully present man with an expedited removal order. On Dec. 21, ERO Buffalo removed him to Canada based on the Safe Third Country Agreement and turned him over to law enforcement authorities with CBSA.

“The strong law enforcement partnership between ERO Buffalo and Canadian law enforcement authorities is imperative to increasing national security and preventing dangerous individuals from fleeing justice,” said ERO Buffalo Field Office Director Thomas Brophy. “The Canadian resident’s return to Canada to face charges is due to the dedicated officers on both sides of the border, working in tandem, to provide public safety for our communities.”

ERO conducts removals of individuals without a lawful basis to remain in the United States, including at the order of immigration judges with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). EOIR is a separate entity from DHS and ICE. Immigration judges in these courts make decisions based on the merits of each individual case, determining if a noncitizen is subject to a final order of removal or eligible for certain forms of relief from removal.

As one of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) three operational directorates, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) is the principal federal law enforcement authority in charge of domestic immigration enforcement. ERO’s mission is to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of those who undermine the safety of U.S. communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and its primary areas of focus are interior enforcement operations, management of the agency’s detained and non-detained populations, and repatriation of noncitizens who have received final orders of removal. ERO’s workforce consists of more than 7,700 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel across 25 domestic field offices and 208 locations nationwide, 30 overseas postings, and multiple temporary duty travel assignments along the border.

No additional details regarding the man's identity or the nature of his reported terror ties have been released as of this writing. However, his detention highlights the dangers of a porous border, whether to the north or the south. 

Great American Family Year 3 review: More growth and progress 🌲

 

(No, I wasn't NOT planning on writing another yearly review of the network, I've just been a bit busy lately!).

---------------------

Despite what the haters and trolls wanted, Great American Family is still going, and is doing better then a year ago!

Ratings were up each month, Varity says that it's ratings were up 77% this year while Hallmark's ratings went down. 😂 There were more movies aired this year then last, and also more Christmas movies made as well.

This year, it also merged with Pure Flix and redubbed it Great American Pure Flix. A very good merger, if I may say. They also renamed their sister channel, Great American Living, into Great American Faith and Living.

I've probably said this before and it bears repeating: Having a place to go to where normal people just want a cozy movie to watch is a real blessing, especially in these hard times.

Yeah, it doesn't have the live ratings (as irrelevant as they get every year) like Hallmark, or the flashy looking trailers, but that's okay. Looking ordinary can be a good thing. Not everything needs to try and out-different everything else.

Movies on this network are made with love and respect, not out of pure hate for anyone who isn't white or abnormal like some jerks think. What is there to really hate about this network really? If you ask any pinhead on social media, they would some crap like 'WE'RE NOT REPRESENTED IN THE WAY THAT WE WANT!!' or 'THAT ACTOR IS A RAVING HOMOPHOBE OR A TRANSPHOBE!', or whatever pedestrain excuse you can think of. But in all seriousness, is any movie made by this network really all that bad? 1 might ask if some haters just hate romance in general!

This network existing is a true blessing for anyone who feels like tradition is fading away, alongside many other things. Everyone who works for the network is kind, loving, and all strive to do great things for others. I don't see any kind of hatred in any of that.

This was an amazing year for GAF, and I look forward to continue to report on it in 2024!

My rankings of all their Christmas movies this year:

#1 (tie), Paris Christmas Waltz, My Christmas Hero, A Christmas for the Ages
#4, A Royal Date for Christmas
#5, A Christmas Blessing
#6, 12 Games of Christmas
#7, Our Christmas Wedding
#8, Christmas in Maple Hills
#9, Bringing Christmas Home
#10, Peppermint and Postcards
#11, A Royal Christmas Holiday
#12, Designing Christmas with You
#13, Twas the Text before Christmas
#14, Meet Me under the Mistletoe
#15, The Jingle Bell Jubilee
#16, Christmas keepsake
#17, A Dash of Christmas
#18, Destined 2: Christmas Once More
#19, Christmas on Windmill Way
#20, Journey to Christmas
#21: Santa Maybe