Fox News Cameras Show the Real Impact of Biden’s Border Executive Order

After President Joe Biden issued an executive order to tighten illegal immigration at our southern border, Republicans criticized the language of the measure, arguing it would do next to nothing to stop the flood of migrants pouring over into the United States from all corners of the world.

That turned out to be inaccurate. Instead, it appears that the executive order has done absolutely nothing, full stop.

Don’t just ask me, though. Ask Bill Melugin, the national correspondent for Fox News whose on-the-scene reporting at the nation’s southern border has been an invaluable resource for those who don’t just want sugar-coated statistics about the border crisis spoon-fed to them by the Biden administration.

In a series of posts on Thursday, Melugin said there had been “zero impact” at the California border site he was covering, and he brought the receipts.

So, in case you’d missed it — what with the media chattering about one rigged trial that reached a verdict last week and another trial Biden’s Department of Justice appeared to wish it could have rigged starting this week — on Tuesday, the president announced he was temporarily shutting down asylum requests due to a heavy illegal immigrant influx, NBC News reported.

The order is part of Biden’s promise to shut down asylum seekers at the southern border if the number of encounters tops 2,500 a day.

Considering that millions of illegal immigrants have already crossed the border under Biden’s watch, this isn’t just closing the barn door after the horse has left the stable, this is closing it when he’s already galloped four states over.

Administration officials said Tuesday that “individuals who cross the southern border unlawfully or without authorization will generally be ineligible for asylum, absent exceptionally compelling circumstances, unless they are accepted by the proclamation,” and that those who don’t meet the “credible fear” threshold for applying for asylum will be removed “in a matter of days, if not hours.”

Again, this is what they should have been doing in the first place, so no plaudits for suddenly realizing it’s an issue — and just five months out from the election. Imagine that!

And, as it turns out, the effect on border crossings seems to be a solid zero, as Melugin noted on X.

“Mass illegal crossing of approximately 200 from around the world just happened here in Jacumba, CA,” he posted Thursday, along with a series of photos that Biden and his retinue definitely don’t want voters to see.

“Day number two of Biden’s executive order – & we see zero impact here at the border. Large groups continue to cross without fear here in San Diego sector,” Melugin said.

BREAKING: Mass illegal crossing of approximately 200 from around the world just happened here in Jacumba, CA. Day number two of Biden’s executive order – & we see zero impact here at the border. Large groups continue to cross without fear here in San Diego sector. pic.twitter.com/iQiqvoIxyb

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 6, 2024

Also, as we’ve come to expect, these weren’t just Mexicans or Guatemalans taking a quick hop over the border.

“Just talked to some of them. Countries include China, Mauritania, India, Peru, & many others,” Melugin said in a subsequent post:

More: pic.twitter.com/3ogHgmD6B1

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 6, 2024

Another “mass crossing” he and his team witnessed included “many Egyptians, Chinese, & Turkish,” he said in a post:

NEW: We just witnessed yet another mass illegal crossing into Jacumba, CA. It’s been crazy busy in San Diego sector this morning. This group has many Egyptians, Chinese, & Turkish. Meanwhile, we have a camera crew in San Diego where BP is mass releasing migrants to city streets. pic.twitter.com/3fEZpv5hdj

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 6, 2024

And, lo and behold, the Border Patrol was apparently “mass releasing migrants to city streets,” Melugin wrote.

Apparently, everyone has a credible fear of something. Who would have thunk it?

In a remote appearance on Fox News from the border, Melugin said there had been “no change whatsoever” since Biden issued the order.

“Again, there is no fear of this new executive order which bans asylum for most illegal crossers with certain exceptions,” Melugin said.

As he pointed out, “more than 70 percent of them are released,” and the ones Melugin talked to “are not here to claim asylum.”

As to the number of encounters by Border Patrol, that hadn’t slowed either, with Melugin citing reports that 4,000 crossings had taken place on Wednesday — the first day the order took effect.

In other words, this is every bit the farce that we’ve come to expect from this president.

What more does this man need to say or do to prove to Americans that he has no intention of enforcing border security?

Do the millions of people who have crossed into the United States illegally not speak for themselves?

Are we to believe that, once border crossings hit the magic 2,500 number, the administration is finally going to do something?

Of course not. This is a play-pretend president. He pretends to fix the problems he’s caused, and his chums in the establishment media pretend to believe him.

If only Democrats would just pretend to vote for him instead of actually casting a ballot for this impotent, senescent figurehead, maybe the problem would finally get solved.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

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Apparent Olympics Terror Plot Foiled with Only Weeks to Go Before Games

Terrorism has already marred two Olympic games. Will it affect a third?

Unfortunately, even with perspicacious law enforcement, that’s looking increasingly likely. At the very least, officials in France say that they’ve headed off one terror plot before it got to the critical stage: on Friday, The Associated Press reported, an 18-year-old was charged with planning to target spectators at the soccer tournament at this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris, which open on July 26.

The man, unnamed by authorities, was supposedly looking to carry out a “violent action” on behalf of the Islamic State group at Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in Saint-Etienne, the home of several matches during the tournament.

The man, police said, was motivated by the wish “to die and become a martyr.”

It’s unclear what tipped security off to the man, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in a statement that the suspect, who is from Chechnya, was detained on May 22 on suspicion of plotting the terror attack.

The committee organizing the games said it was aware of the man’s arrest.

“Security is the highest priority of Paris 2024. We are working daily in close coordination with the Interior Ministry and all stakeholders — and will continue to be fully mobilized,” the organizing committee said in a statement, which praised France’s intelligence and security services for their response.

The coach of Canada’s women’s soccer team, which is scheduled to play at the stadium where the attacks were supposedly planned, said she trusted the organizers to keep her safe

“That’s a concern to hear, but I think a little bit like in Tokyo, the Olympic Committee, I would imagine that they’re going to step in and I think our faith and trust will be in making it a secure and safe environment for our players,” coach Bev Priestman said.

However, there are numerous worries before the games, particularly given the high profile of the event at a time of heightened global political tension.

“Security concerns are notably high for the the exceptional opening ceremony, which brings more than 100 world leaders to the French capital,” the AP noted. “It involves boats carrying athletes along the Seine River on a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) open-air parade and huge crowds watching from the embankments.

“In April, French President Emmanuel Macron said the July 26 opening ceremony could be moved instead to the country’s national stadium if the security threat is deemed too high.”

Two prior Olympic games have been affected by terrorist attacks.

In 1972, the Summer Games in Munich, Germany were overshadowed by the death of 11 Israeli athletes at the hands of Palestinian militant group Black September. In 1996, a white supremacist involved in the Christian identity movement planted a bomb at the Centennial Olympic Park during the Summer Games in Atlanta, Georgia, killing one.

Perhaps more worrying, however, is that Iran — arguably the world’s most dangerous state terrorist actor at the moment — is reportedly increasing support of its proxy groups throughout Europe in the run-up to the games.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s Mossad released a report on Thursday which “highlighted in particular the activities of two criminal groups — FOXTROT and RUMBA” in the lead-in to the games.

These two groups, which receive funds from Iran, are “directly responsible for a violent activity and the promotion of terrorism in Sweden and throughout Europe,” Mossad said in the statement.

Mossad’s report also alleged that Tehran was behind the actors responsible for violence outside of two Israeli embassies in Europe, one in Belgium and one in Sweden, in the past month alone.

“FOXTROT, known for its murders and large-scale drug trafficking, is the largest criminal organization in Sweden and operates in other European countries,” the Post reported.

“It alleged that FOXTROT head Rua Majid, a Swedish citizen of Kurdish origin nicknamed the “Kurdish Fox,” had been arrested in Iran for criminal activity and then recruited for terror activity and released to carry out terror for Iran.”

“FOXTROT’s rival gang RUMBA, headed by Ismail Abdo, was behind the May 17 gunshots near Israel’s embassy in Sweden, the Mossad said.”

Mossad’s report also alleged that Tehran was looking to expand its proxy groups via the heightened anti-Semitism since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent response of the Israeli government.

While the Islamic State group is hardly an ally of Iran’s, it’s worth noting, they also have fewer resources than the Iranian government does and a diminished reach compared to the terror group’s mid-’10s peak. Given the environment and the openness of Europe, then, it’s not a question of if but when and where the attacks are planned and whether authorities are quick enough to step in to stop them.

That fact — combined with the willingness of a state actor to get stuck in with these terror cells — is something that should give every athlete, spectator, and world leader pause.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

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Sign of a Sick Society: Many of the People in Airport Wheelchairs Could Be Part of a Disgusting Scam

Have you been witness to a popular social-media scam? If you’ve been in an airport and seen a suspicious number of travelers in wheelchairs, you might have.

According to CNBC, the CEO of a major ultra-low-cost carrier was the latest airline executive to call out what he says is a common practice: Able-bodied individuals using wheelchairs meant for the disabled.

Thanks to the 1986 Air Carrier Access Act, airlines are required to provide wheelchairs for those who need them. However, according to the CEO of Frontier Airlines, plenty of travelers are faking disability or injury to get someone to wheel them to or from their flight.

“There is massive, rampant abuse of special services. There are people using wheelchair assistance who don’t need it at all,” Biffle said Thursday during an industry event in New York City, CNBC reported.

Biffle told the crowd that he’d seen some flights with 20 wheelchairs present at departure, with only two or three upon arrival at destination.

“We are healing so many people,” he quipped.

Frontier Airlines CEO urges crackdown of ‘rampant abuse’ of airport wheelchair service.

“We are healing so many people,” he joked.

CNBC: https://t.co/dTz9v7vKXj pic.twitter.com/95u8ntwEdU

— Greg Angel (@NewsGuyGreg) May 23, 2024

Now, there might be legitimate reasons for the disparity between wheelchair use at different ends of a flight, as John Morris — a triple-amputee who founded WheelchairTravel.org — noted to CNBC.

For instance, at bigger airports like New York City’s LaGuardia or Dallas Fort-Worth, it may be daunting for those with disabilities to make it through the airport. Smaller cities or airports may not present the same challenge, he said. So, for passengers taking off from a major airport and landing at a much smaller one, a wheelchair might not be necessary at the destination.

“Disability impacts people in a lot of different ways,” Morris told the outlet.

“I think there’s a good case to be made that abusers should face some consequence, but I’m not sure how we do that in a society when our disabilities aren’t [always] visible,” he added.

But that isn’t what Biffle was talking about. And he’s not the first person in the industry to remark on the trend.

Back in 2022, for instance, London Heathrow Airport CEO John Holland-Kaye told a British radio outlet, as the U.K. Mirror reported, that travelers were “using wheelchair support to try to get fast-tracked through the airport.”

“If you go on TikTok, that is one of the travel hacks people are recommending,” he told LBC Radio. “Please don’t do that. We need to protect the service for people who need it most.”

And, as he pointed out, this is something that’s gone viral on social media as of late:

A friend shares a not-uncommon sight from Puerto Rico:

55 “handicapped” during pre-boarding, including 25 wheel chairs

On his return flight, 15 used wheelchairs to board, only 1 to deboard pic.twitter.com/gHgIsnzsq7

— Bachman (@ElonBachman) February 19, 2023

Disability may impact different people in different ways, but not that differently.

This is the sign of a sick society — the idea that taking advantage of a wheelchair meant for the disabled is a “travel hack,” not shamefully dishonest behavior.

It’s sad that we should be such a low-trust society that we start to consider asking those in wheelchairs for their credentials and banning those who have a history of faking it.

Yet, that’s exactly what one is tempted to do here. Perhaps a goodly dose of shame heaped upon these malingerers thanks to Biffle’s comments — combined with the reminder that getting on a wheelchair won’t get a traveler to the destination any quicker — will be all it takes for TikTokkers to take their pathetic wheelchair-hack videos down.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

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Liberals Are Smearing Alito with Upside-Down Flag Story – Here’s the Real Point

If you want a TL;DR description of the to-do over the upside-down flag at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house, I can sum it up for you in one sentence: Same old witch-hunt, different witch.

As those who’ve followed the news over the past year or so know, that the left has been engaged in a secular jihad against Justice Clarence Thomas, part of which has to do with the statements of his wife in regards to the outcome of the 2020 election. Somehow, liberal pundits seem genuinely shocked that Americans have mostly tuned them out, believing that husbands and wives can have differing opinions. The nerve of the right-wing ghouls!

So Clarence-Thomas-as-traitor was a bit like “fetch”: despite leftists trying to make it happen, it wasn’t going to happen. But suppose they tried the same tactic on a different conservative justice? That’s the ticket!

A headline from The New York Times last week brings critical news about Justice Samuel Alito’s exterior home decor just three years after it happened:

“At Justice Alito’s House, a ‘Stop the Steal’ Symbol on Display; An upside-down flag, adopted by Trump supporters contesting the Biden victory, flew over the justice’s front lawn as the Supreme Court was considering an election case.”

The Thursday story by Jodi Kantor was what we’ve come to expect from the Times when it comes to a story about a supposed misdeed allegedly committed by a conservative: A touch of truth larded up with slanted conjecture and pull-quotes obtained from sympathetic scholarly types recruited to say whatever the reporter can’t if a patina of objectivity is to be maintained.

So first, the basics, as per Kantor: “After the 2020 presidential election, as some Trump supporters falsely claimed that President Biden had stolen the office, many of them displayed a startling symbol outside their homes, on their cars and in online posts: an upside-down American flag,” she wrote.

“One of the homes flying an inverted flag during that time was the residence of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in Alexandria, Va., according to photographs and interviews with neighbors.”

Indeed, a photo published by the Times indicates the flag was present outside the Thomas home on Jan. 17, 2021, just days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The upside-down flag is a violation of U.S. federal flag code, which notes the stars and stripes “should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”

The New York Times obtained a photo of an American flag being flown upside down at the home of Justice Samuel Alito in the days leading up to President Biden’s inauguration. Alito denied any “involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag”, and instead blamed his wife. pic.twitter.com/LzZG0JW5sT

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) May 17, 2024

Now, a few paragraphs into the story, you get a plausible explanation from Alito as to why it was displayed that way:  “I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” he wrote in an emailed statement to the Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

Given that Alito and the rest of the Supreme Court were pretty busy around that time, this is a plausible explanation. That said, the “judicial experts” the Times was able to scrounge up told them “that the flag was a clear violation of ethics rules, which seek to avoid even the appearance of bias, and could sow doubt about Justice Alito’s impartiality in cases related to the election and the Capitol riot.” Because of course it could.

“It might be his spouse or someone else living in his home, but he shouldn’t have it in his yard as his message to the world,” University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost told the Times. She added that it was “the equivalent of putting a ‘Stop the Steal’ sign in your yard, which is a problem if you’re deciding election-related cases.”

“You always want to be proactive about the appearance of impartiality,” said former federal judge Jeremy Fogel, currently the director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute.

“The best practice would be to make sure that nothing like that is in front of your house.”

It’s somewhat ironic that, in the selfsame week the left is having a meltdown over Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker suggesting to female graduates at a Catholic college that their most fulfilling role might be as a wife and a homemaker, the Times manages to scrape together enough legal scholars who suggest a conservative Supreme Court justice ought to be in complete control of managing his wife’s opinions.

If you’re searching for ideological consistency, you couldn’t find less of it than the faux outrage over the upside-down flag, which no real evidence ties to the justice himself.

In fact, those the outlet talked to seemed to indicate it was Mrs. Alito who was responsible for it: “In recent years, the quiet sanctuary of his street, with residents who are Republicans and Democrats, has tensed with conflict, neighbors said. Around the 2020 election, a family on the block displayed an anti-Trump sign with an expletive. It apparently offended Mrs. Alito and led to an escalating clash between her and the family, according to interviews.”

But leave it to the left-wing media to seize upon Alito’s upside-down flag as the new witch-hunt du jour. Take Newsweek, which had this article the day after the Times’ piece: “Republicans Slam Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.”

Make that “Republicans” — in very prominent quotation marks.

First, Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former Trump administration aide who’s become a NeverTrumper since her exodus to “The View,” wrote in a social media post that “a SCOTUS Justice would allow this to be displayed at his home days before a peaceful, lawful transition of power is deeply disturbing.”

“My conservative friends: imagine for a minute if Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor displayed an upside down flag at her residence when Trump won in 2016. There would outrage & calls for her resignation,” she wrote in another.

Then there was anti-Trump former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the Democrats’ Jan. 6 committee. He called it “a huge issue.”

Newsweek also cited a former adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and the American Enterprise Institute, none of which are major players in the Republican Party of May 2024. So two (2) big-name kinda-sorta Republicans — who are best known for bashing former President Donald Trump — are pretending to be aggrieved over the fact Alito’s wife maybe violated the flag code. Whoop dee doo.

And tucked away in between these quasi-Republicans going off on Alito was this little disclaimer: “An upside-down flag has been used to protest the results of a U.S. election before. On January 20, 2001, a demonstrator was photographed waving an inverted flag in the streets of Washington, D.C., in protest of then-President-elect George W. Bush who was being sworn in that day after a contested election between him and former Vice President Al Gore.” (Emphasis added.)

In fact, a People magazine article published roughly two months before the Times dug up the 3-year-old Alito smear chronicled “How Flying the American Flag Upside Down Became a Bipartisan Act of Rebellion.”

“These days, however, hanging the Stars and Stripes upside down is seen as more of a symbol — a symbol Republicans and Democrats alike are beginning to use more and more,” the article stated.

“Since June 2022, progressive activists have begun flying their flags upside down, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade,” the article noted. “Months later — amid fury over the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Aug. 8, 2022 — it became a symbol used by the former president’s most loyal allies.”

There may be Timesian hand-wringing over the latter, of course, but not the former — another signal that, if it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.

In fact, if those flying the flag upside-down were merely supporting the causes the Times usually does, nobody would be giving them lectures on flag code or seeing whether their husbands had high-profile positions in the world of governance or corporate America.

That’s the real point here.

The rest, as Dan McLaughlin noted in a piece at conservative outlet National Review, is much ado about nothing.

In the reaction piece, published the day after the Times launched its unlikely crusade against flying upside-down American flags, McLaughlin wrote that conservatives “can freely acknowledge that this response to profane provocation and personal invective is disrespectful to the flag and a display of injudicious temperament on the part of Mrs. Alito, but then, Mrs. Alito is not a judge or the holder of any political office whatsoever.”

Alas, if the invective aimed at Clarence Thomas is any indication, this isn’t going to stop anything anytime soon.

The witch hunt lives on, in search of a witch leftists can finally burn to somehow nullify the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

We can at least take solace in the knowledge that, if this moves the needle on Alito as scantly as it did with Thomas, it’s a big fat waste of time.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

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