Joy Alonzo, a respected opioid expert, was in a panic. The Texas A&M University professor had just returned home from giving a routine lecture on the opioid crisis at the University of Texas Medical Branch when she learned a student had accused her of disparaging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick [photo] during the talk. In the few hours it took to drive from Galveston, the complaint had made its way to her supervisors, and Alonzo’s job was suddenly at risk.
Alonzo was right to be afraid. Not only were her supervisors involved, but so was Chancellor John Sharp, a former state comptroller who now holds the highest-ranking position in the Texas A&M University System. Less than two hours after the lecture ended, Patrick’s chief of staff had sent Sharp a link to Alonzo’s professional bio. Shortly after, Sharp sent a text directly to the lieutenant governor: “Joy Alonzo has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation re firing her. shud [sic] be finished by end of week.”
The student who made the complaint is the daughter of GOP state Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who was endorsed by Patrick in the last election. Earlier this year, Buckingham attended the wedding of Chancellor Sharp.
Fearing retaliation, three other students who were at the lecture won’t allow their names to be published, but say that Alonzo mentioned Patrick’s opposition to policies that would mitigate opioid-related deaths.
Per the linked report, Alonzo has brought millions in federal research dollars to the university and was last year named its researcher of the year.
Texas A&M investigated professor for criticizing Lt Gov Dan Patrick in lecture. Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t find a reason to fire her. But as is typical in these cases, the investigation is the punishment. And it’s intended to chill speech on campus. https://t.co/F2SzQqpWfo
— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) July 25, 2023
Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in lecture https://t.co/0jB2KASRXt
No… It isn’t cancelling or censorship if the GQP does it, only if one tries to balance or disagree, or, heaven forbid, hold accountable someone who agrees with their Christo-fascist worldview. Remember the Dems are the snowflakes.
Sadly, she won’t get to take the funding she’s already secured, but the major funders will follow her and the chilling effect on academic freedom will make NSF and other foundations the support university research will make it harder for all Texas programs to secure funding.
When one of our faculty members left and went to the Big Flagship University in the capitol, he was able to take much of his funding with him. Unless the rules have changed since then.
My experience is that it depends in part on whether the research is tied to the research of an individual or to a lab.
Humanities funding may trail after a researcher (e.g., funding for a project to do archival work for a book), but science funding usually doesn’t because it’s heavily dependent on a team and on infrastructure.
Either way, of course, as madknits notes, the uni gets a cut.
My experience working with academic social researchers has been that the funding stayed with the institution (which typically takes 50% of the total off the top), but it would be great if the dollars stay with the researcher – I hope that’s what happens in this case.
The student who made the complaint is the daughter of GOP state Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who was endorsed by Patrick in the last election. Earlier this year, Buckingham attended the wedding of Chancellor Sharp.
Losing a job for criticizing Dear Leader, or, in this case, Dear Lt Leader, is how I picture North Korea, the USSR, Saudi Arabia (at least she hasn’t been cut into pieces in an embassy), or Russia under Putin.
In most states, a lieutenant governor or vice-governor is also the president of the state senate, just like the VP and the US Senate. Usually this is effectively a ceremonial position used only to break ties, with day to day running operations in the hands of a president pro tempore and the agenda set by the majority leader, just like in the US Senate.
As I recall, the Lt. Gov of Texas actually acts as the senate president, overseeing operations and setting the agenda (which has been awkward when he is not in the senate majority party.) In effect, the Executive Branch controls half the Legislative Branch as well, making Texas one of the more fascist states in the country never mind Republican control.
A third student who also spoke on the condition of anonymity said Alonzo talked about how policies, like the state’s ban on fentanyl test strips, have a direct impact on the ability to prevent opioid overdoses and deaths. A push to legalize the test strips died earlier this year in the Patrick-led Senate despite support from top Republicans, including Abbott.
Sounds like she will be fired for making a truthful statement.
Fentanyl kills ‘those’ people so GOPers don’t really care about test strips or narcan. Sure there are a few death among the country club set but you’re always gonna catch a couple of dolphin in the tuna nets. — christian gop logic
You’re exactly right. Use fentanyl to smear Biden, but not really do anything to help, even low hanging fruit like test strips. The deaths are punishment for those people, just like women who die because they can’t get an abortion deserve it for being all slutty and female.
Fentanyl is a GQP talking point about how awful the Biden admin is. The GQP has never been about life or liberty. They’re about power and control. Without the control of the news cycles about how terrible fentanyl is they have one less talking point to take control
Abbot claims that his murder balls in the Rio Grande are also to prevent fentanyl deaths, even though the fentanyl that is smuggled across the southern border isn’t carried by migrants crossing rivers, its smuggled in through ports of entry.
Actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry is hoping to find answers in the killing of Josiah “Jonty” Robinson, offering $100,000 to anyone with information that leads to a conviction.
Perry announced the reward Wednesday on Instagram after 24-year-old Robinson, an openly gay singer in Grenada, was found dead on a local beach last month. Perry, a writer, director and producer known for wholesome comedies featuring mostly Black casts, said his friend Yvette Noel-Schure was in tears when she told him about the killing.
“My soul ached as she shared that he was a young, gifted singer who was murdered because he was gay,” he wrote. “Yvette and I are offering a $100,000 dollar reward to anyone who brings forth information that leads to the conviction of the murderer.”
Tyler Perry likened Josiah “Jonty” Robinson’s death to that of Matthew Shepard in 1998.
Robinson’s body was reportedly discovered in the same area of Grenadian town Morne Rouge where he had performed songs the day prior.
Speaking to The New Today, a source close to the Royal Grenada Police Force said an autopsy concluded that Robinson was strangled and thrown into the ocean. The local outlet later reported that police had questioned several people without making a breakthrough in the case.
Elsewhere in his Instagram post, Perry reflected on how Robinson’s death echoed similar tragedies from recent years.
“My mind immediately went to … [Matthew] Shepard, and all the other victims of racist, homophobic, antisemitic, xenophobic, senseless violence,” he said, referring to a gay student at the University of Wyoming whose 1998 killing sparked calls for stronger protections against hate crimes.
“While Pride month is celebrated annually in metropolises such as New York … his approach to activism in the Caribbean as a member of the LBGTQ community – his voracious desire to live in his simple, beautiful truth – often became a cyclic matter of life or death,” she wrote.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Royal Grenada Criminal Investigation Division at +1 (473) 440-3921.
The murders keep happening just for being gay. Tears… Here is a photo of 24 yr old Josiah https://www.huffpost.com/en…
These white men won’t quit until the US is a Christian theocracy policed by Christian Taliban moral police thugs. Some important quotes that show their mindset. Regardless of the legislative strategy, the panelists agreed changing the culture of America to take on a Christian biblical worldview, which will require all pastors to take the same position on abortion as their own. Also week-long series of events hosted by Operation Save America, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim religious group that wants all Americans to follow “God’s law” and their interpretation of the Christian gospel. The panel was part of a week-long series of events hosted by Operation Save America, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim religious group that wants all Americans to follow “God’s law” and their interpretation of the Christian gospel. The moderator of the panel, Derin Stidd, opened by asking, “Why do you all hate women?” to which the men laughed. Hugs
Florida's new African American history standards include a requirement that middle schoolers learn "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." @goni_lessanhttps://t.co/DCjauBVLbV
Enslavers defended slavery by claiming it was a “positive good” for Black people. Today Florida’s Board of Education approved new Black history standards that note enslaved Black people developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”https://t.co/xNEIZoK4o3
^ That captures it in a nutshell. The education of slaves was to benefit the people holding them in bondage as property.
Some of his fans are disappointed they don’t get to see him in action.
So DeSantis and his followers trash talk and urge boycotts against a company in which the trust fund HE oversees invests; and when his followers boycott the company and crash the sales, he threatens to sue the company. What a maroon.https://t.co/UcBeyANmTL
If I’m understanding this correctly, DeSantis praised the Bud Light boycott, claimed he’d never drink the beer again, and now wants to sue because … the boycott he endorsed and engaged in had consequences? https://t.co/cKJyHkvZVB
It seems entirely premature, but the looming Oct. 1 deadline for state parties to submit delegate changes to the RNC has the Trump team moving to lock down their support now—and know where they might stand if there’s a 2nd ballot on the floor. https://t.co/E4LE7i5we6
Texas A&M University said on Friday that its president would retire “immediately” after fallout surrounding political pushback of a new director of its journalism program because of her work promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
Germany’s 1933 civil service law applied to university professors as well as elementary and secondary-school teachers. … Scholars who were Jewish or supported left-leaning parties struggled to find research and teaching positions in public, government-supported German universities and often worked in private ones instead. With the passage of the new law, the Nazis attempted to root out any dissent to their policies and ideology that remained in German higher education.
They call it other things, like “Protecting Children” or “Academic Freedom”. None of which is their actual goal, but it’s just bigotry and racism repackaged to make it more palatable.
Honestly, who would be against diversity? Racists… that’s who.
🚨BREAKING: Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signs new congressional map that does NOT contain the second majority-Black district that the U.S. Supreme Court required.
Again this shows the republicans in congress don’t care about national security, about law enforcement, intelligence assets, or even justice. Instead they want power and to destroy their enemy at any cost. They are teens playing a video game holding nothing back. They can’t see past their petty trolling and snarky insinuations. Hugs
‘We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,’ the FBI tells The Messenger
Published 07/21/23 02:08 PM ET|Updated 07/21/23 03:45 PM ET
Stephen Neukam
The FBI repeatedly warned lawmakers not to share the contents of a sensitive document related to a Department of Justice investigation of Hunter Biden, The Messenger has learned.
In spite of those warnings, congressional Republicans have made the document a central focus of their investigation of President Joe Biden and his son. One senior Senate Republican on Thursday publicly released a semi-redacted version of the FBI report, which contains an informant’s allegations of bribery against the Bidens.
FBI officials cautioned lawmakers on several occasions about the dangers that releasing the document could pose to confidential informants and others, according to materials obtained by The Messenger.
“We have repeatedly explained to you, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this information confidential,” the FBI said in a June 9 letter, obtained by The Messenger, to the Democratic ranking member and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who has been scrutinizing the Biden family.
“We are concerned that Members disregarded the Committee’s agreement that information from the document should not be further disclosed,” the FBI said in the letter, which came one day after lawmakers on the Oversight Committee were permitted to view the document in a secured room.
Other documents obtained by The Messenger show that the FBI’s warnings not to release the confidential information extended back to May — before Comer and others were allowed to view the FBI form.
The FBI told lawmakers that protecting the secrecy of the FBI form is “critical” to the “physical safety” of the source and others, according to a May 30 letter sent to Comer.
The letter cited a May 22 meeting the FBI had with Oversight Committee staff, in which “the Deputy Assistant Director expressed the FBI’s concern over the chilling effect that could flow from the wide dissemination of investigative files.”
US President Joe Biden participates in the US-Nordic Leaders’ Summit at the presidential palace in Helsinki, Finland, on July 13, 2023.ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
“As you know, confidential sources are critical to the FBI’s ability to build cases, including those against violent gangs, drug cartels, and terrorists,” the letter said. It explained that “closely protecting” information about the source could “prevent chilling of FBI’s recruitment of sources and their candor in reporting, and also to protect sources and individuals associated with them from being physically harmed or even killed.”
The FBI document in question, called a FD-1023 form — which is used by FBI agents to record unverified raw information from informants — has been at the center of Comer’s committee’s investigation of the Bidens. The FBI form contains allegations that Hunter Biden and another Biden family member received money from a Ukrainian energy firm in exchange for foreign policy decisions.
Lawmakers viewed the document behind closed doors last month, before Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released the document to the public on Thursday. Grassley said he obtained the document through a Justice Department whistleblower.
Members of Congress were also provided with a warning that the information contained in the document “should be treated confidentially,” before they viewed the form on June 8, saying the agency “expressly does not consent” to the release of the material.
The FBI also raised concerns that lawmakers were taking notes in the meeting, which was prohibited, according to the letter.
The document released by Grassley on Thursday was even less redacted than the one viewed by lawmakers, a Democratic source familiar with the form told The Messenger. The material released by the Republican senator revealed that Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm named in the alleged bribery scheme, was the source of the information.
Asked for comment, the FBI told The Messenger on Friday that throughout the agency’s dealings with Congress over GOP committee investigations of Biden family matters, the “release of the 1023 – at a minimum – unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”
“We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,” the FBI statement said, adding that “safeguards the FBI placed on the production of this information are necessary to protect the safety of confidential sources and the integrity of sensitive investigations.”
Grassley’s office on Friday defended the GOP senator’s public release of the sensitive FBI form, noting that the version released by Grassley included redactions and that the actual FBI document was marked “unclassified”
“Democrats and the media sought to link the FD-1023 to the Bidens’ activity in Ukraine long before this document became public, citing information that only the FBI and DOJ could have known,” a Grassley spokesperson said in a statement issued to The Messenger. “Those public statements exposed the source to those he or she communicated with. The FBI can’t cite risks to sources while thwarting congressional oversight in one breath and leak selective information to the news media in another.”
A spokesperson for Comer struck a similar note, saying criticism from the FBI was “a last-ditch effor… to thwart legitimate congressional oversight.”
Another letter obtained by The Messenger, sent from the agency to Comer on May 10, explained the “great risk to themselves and their loved ones” that confidential sources take on when providing information to the bureau.
“Significant harm to investigative work—and to the program as a whole—could result from dissemination of FD-1023s or other similar documents,” the letter said.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – MARCH 6, 2014: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).Photo: Shutterstock
“Under the Hitler regime…the most important thing that I learned…was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problems. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence.”-Joachim Prinz, Rabbi of Berlin, exiled in 1937 to the United States, from his speech August 28, 1963 in Washington, DC
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” –Voltaire
RELATED STORIES
Who will fight for those left behind? Why these LGBTQ+ activists won’t leave Florida
“If Escobar couldn’t kill me, neither will Ron Desantis.”
Shortly following their high school graduation in Southern California, two 18-year-old young men, best friends since childhood, drove to a casino just across the Nevada state line where they intended to play video games before returning home the next day.
After engaging in the games for a while, one of the friends, Jeremy Strohmeyer, walked toward the restrooms. Seeing that he entered the women’s room, the other young man, David Cash, walked in to see what Jeremy was doing. He noticed that Jeremy was playfully throwing wadded paper towels at a young black girl, who seemed at first to have enjoyed the attention.
But then the scene turned violent. Strohmeyer grabbed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson, placed his hand over her mouth, and spirited her into a toilet stall as Cash watched by the sinks. He entered an adjacent stall and mounted the toilet edge allowing him to peer down as he saw Jeremy continuing to muffle the girl’s screams and warning Sherrice to keep quiet or he would kill her.
Not wanting to get involved, Cash returned to playing video games. He did not attempt to stop his friend from attacking the young girl. He did not seek help or call law enforcement officials. He calmly played games and waited the 20 minutes it took for Jeremy to return. David asked Jeremy what had happened.
“I killed her,” Jeremy asserted with a certain serenity in his tone on that summer evening in 1997. Soon thereafter, the two friends coolly entered nearby casinos where they enjoyed mechanical rides and continued to play video games until it was time for them to return home.
With the assistance of the video security system implanted at the casino, Strohmeyer was eventually caught, tried, and convicted to life imprisonment for rape and murder. Cash, on the other hand, was never indicted because inaction was not a crime in Nevada at the time.
In reaction to the case and the lack of charges against Cash, Richard Perkins, Speaker of the Nevada Assembly, sponsored the Sherrice Iverson bill requiring Nevadans to notify law enforcement if they witness violent acts committed against a child. The law took effect in 1999, and a similar measure passed in California one year later.
Asked on a 1999 CBS 60 Minutes segment, The Bad Samaritan, whether if given a chance, he would do things differently, Cash said, “I don’t feel there is much I could have done differently.” Asked a similar question during an interview on a Los Angeles radio station, Cash gave a similar reply and added: “How much am I supposed to sit down and cry about this?” he asked. “The simple fact remains that I did not know this little girl. I do not know starving children in Panama. I do not know people dying of disease in Egypt.”
The Long Beach Press-Telegram quoted Cash as saying that he wanted to sell his story to the media. One movie company offered him $21,000. He added. “I’m no idiot,” he declared. “I’ll (expletive) get my money out of this.”
In not taking action to intervene on behalf of Sherrice Iverson, David Cash colluded in her death. “Enabler” is the term given to those who fail to act to help abusers. “Passive bystander” or “bad Samaritan” is the name for people who are conscious of bad actions developing around them but fail to intervene.
Though I have studied the Holocaust and other genocides, until I discovered this case, I always had the gnawing and seemingly unanswerable question pulling at me, “How could these incidents have taken place throughout the ages”?
David Cash taught me that mass murders happen on the macro level when people on the individual and collective levels let them happen, when witnesses– so-called “bystanders” – do little or nothing to intervene. When people either allow their fear or reluctance to “get involved” and supersede their empathy.
David Cash refused to see, hear, and stand up to do the right thing in the face of evil around him.
For the past eight years, the not see Republican Party has continually refused to see, hear, and stand up to the would-be authoritarian dictator, Donald J. Trump. By burying their heads in the political sand, they have permitted Trump to grab, assault, and ravage our governmental institutions physically and figuratively.
I now fully understand the process in the rise and takeover of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
Staying silent
Empathy, that special and majestic human quality, has always been a vital life force of our humanity. As we understand in psychology, unless there is developmental delay, infants demonstrate the rudimentary beginnings of empathy whenever they recognize that another is upset and then show signs of being upset themselves. Very early in their lives, infants develop the capacity to crawl in the diapers of others even though their own diapers don’t need changing.
Though empathy is a part of the human condition, through the process of socialization, others often teach us to inhibit our empathetic natures with messages like “Don’t cry,” “You’re too sensitive,” “Mind your own business,” “It’s not your concern.” We learn the stereotypes of the individuals and groups our society has “minoritized” and “othered.” We learn who to scapegoat for the problems within our neighborhoods, states, nations, and world.
Through it all, that precious life-affirming flame of empathy can wither and flicker. For some, it dies entirely. And as the blaze recedes, the bullies, the demagogues, and the tyrants take over by filling the void where our humanity once prevailed. And then we have lost something very precious.
David Cash represents the termination of empathy on the individual micro level, resulting not only in the possibly preventable rape and murder of a young girl, but the death of his own soul. And when the demise of empathy comes to people who are around powerful leaders and their willing subjects, the consequences, on the macro level, become exponentially deeper, more toxic, and more tragic.
Jeremy Strohmeyer and Donald Trump were cast from the same mold with their narcissistic, sociopathic personalities. Cash comes from the same mold as many current members of the Republican Party in that they lack sufficient empathy, which overrides their actions.
For example, Trump knew early of the deadly potential of the Coronavirus, but he decided to lie to the public while failing to mobilize any discernible national policies and actions due to concerns for stock markets over the health and safety of the people. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
Trump has referred to our military personnel as “suckers” and “losers” for joining the military, for being captured, for dying, and for receiving meager financial compensation. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
Earlier, he carelessly blamed the mayor of London for being incompetent after a terrorist attack on his city. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
He accused the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico of playing politics and being ungrateful, and the Puerto Rican people of being lazy and expecting everything to be done for them on their “bankrupt” island after a “500-year” storm virtually shut them down and people clung desperately to life. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
He referred to white nationalist neo-Nazi terrorists in Charlottesville, Virginia, who showed up for a so-called “Unite the Right” rally, as well as the counter-demonstrators, as “Good people, on both sides.” Regarding his reference to the white nationalists, many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
He mocked a disabled reporter, took away the rights of trans students to use bathrooms most closely aligning with their gender identities, demonized Latinx people, Muslims, and women, ridiculed Gold Star parents who sacrificed so much while Donald Trump sat on his gold-plated toilet and attempted to take away affordable health insurance from an estimated 20 million low-income people. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
And he behaved as if the series of package bombs sent through the mail to leading Democratic politicians and activists was nothing more than an inconvenience during the closing days of the midterm election season. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
Trump separated young children from their refugee parents and placed them in cages as if they were feral animals. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.
And he risked the very lives of members of Congress and his own Vice President on January 6, 2021, after he lost over 60 court cases in his attempts to circumvent the results of a fair election. While some Republican leaders harshly criticized Trump at the time, they ultimately reversed themselves and got on their knees to kiss his ring.
Empathy can save the world
Quite frankly, I find few differences between the attitudes and actions of Jeremy Strohmeyer on the micro level and Donald J. Trump on the macro level.
I find few differences between the attitudes and inactions of David Cash and the majority of the current Republican Party in their refusal to stand up and act in the best interests of a young girl, in Cash’s case, and in service to the fragile democratic experiment we know as the United States of America in the case of the Republican Party.
Though the Cashes and Republicans are more numerous than we can even imagine, empathy has always been an antidote to the poison of inaction, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and scapegoating, and to bullies and demagogues who take power and control.
Empathy is the life force of our humanness, and ultimately it is the key to our recovery during the current crisis in our country.
I often wonder how Trump’s Republican bad Samaritan enablers can sleep at night and get back up in the morning still willing to degrade and prostrate themselves by attacking our democratic institutions and seriously dismantling our country’s standing in the world.
A recent poll taken by The Hillfound that 80% of registered Republicans believe that if elected as the next President of the United States in 2024, Trump should be able to serve even if he is convicted of multiple felony charges, including in the case of willingly and unconstitutionally holding onto classified documents. Even in the case of the documents, many Republican leaders either failed to speak up or they are speaking up in his defense.
Each time anyone enables an abusive action or actor, they keep perpetrators and themselves further from the truth and from help, and they diminish themselves and their integrity more than just a bit.
I have been stuck time and time again on the post-factual campaign, transition, presidency, and now post-presidency of Donald J. Trump. I get stuck on the lies, the verifiable lies, big and small that he spreads and on his direct attacks on our democratic institutions, like the entire judicial system, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the State Department, state legislatures and secretaries of state who would not overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.
Even more troubling, however, are Trump’s enablers who spin the facts by turning themselves into virtual pretzels in defense of Trump’s attempts – to paraphrase Voltaire – to make us believe his absurdities he uses to give himself permission to commit possible atrocities.
His sustained and vicious attacks on what he refers to as the “dishonest and corrupt” media imperil our very freedom of the press as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Fortunately, many of the outlets within the Fourth Estate, while making some mistakes, fact-check themselves and our politicians, including Trump, and by so doing, exposes his lies for what they are.
The MR crew looks at horrifying reports coming out of Texas that show Republican governor Greg Abbott ordered border agents to begin drowning and dehydrating migrant children.
A woman who is undergoing hormone treatments calls in to dispel the myths that transgendered individuals are dominating women’s sports and then gives a powerful story of her own transition.
Jeff Sharlet, professor of English at Dartmouth College, joins to discuss his recent book The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War.
Ben Shapiro reacts to a piece in the New York Times about a recent fashion trend that is seeing men wearing crop tops. Shapiro says: “Just as a fashion matter, no one wants to see the midriff of another man. Just as a general-i’m not going to speak for gay men. women, i don’t think, are interested. Neither are straight men.”
Charlie Kirk responds to reporting from MSNBC that far Right-Wing extremists have used at-home workout trends to expand their reach into mixed martial arts spaces. Kirk says that reporting like this shows that liberals only want men to be weak, depressed, and have low testosterone.
CNN’S Kaitlan Collins asks Senator Tommy Tuberville about the comments he made regarding White Nationalists serving in the military. Collins asks if he’d want to clarify that he wouldn’t want racists to be serving in the military. Tuberville reiterates his belief that he doesn’t see White Nationalists as necessarily racist, and that it’s people’s opinions that they’re racist. He says, however, that if there are White Nationalists who are racist, he wouldn’t support them serving in the military.
Later Tuberville was asked by reporters on Capitol Hill About why he continued to double down on his stance on White Nationalists. Tuberville attempted to amend his response: “I’m totally against racism. If the Democrats want to say that White Nationalists are racists, i’m totally against that, too.”
Migrants cool themselves in the waters of the Rio Grande after crossing to the U.S. from Mexico near a site where the state is installing large buoys to be used as a border barrier along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)Eric Gay/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as “inhumane.”
The July 3 account, reviewed by Hearst Newspapers, discloses several previously unreported incidents the trooper witnessed in Eagle Pass, where the state of Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande.
According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.
The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.
The trooper called for a series of rigorous policy changes to improve safety for migrants, including removing the barrels and revoking the directive on withholding water.
“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,” the trooper wrote, later adding: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”
Migrants walk along concertina wire blocking their entrance to the U.S. in Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023.Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News
Department of Public Safety spokesman Travis Considine did not comment on all the contents of the trooper’s email, but said there is no policy against giving water to migrants.
Considine also provided an email from DPS Director Steven McCraw on Saturday calling for an audit to determine if more can be done to minimize the risk to migrants. McCraw wrote troopers should warn migrants not to cross the wire, redirect them to ports of entry and to closely watch for anyone who needs medical attention.
In another email, McCraw acknowledged that there has been an increase in injuries from the wire, including seven incidents reported by Border Patrol where migrants needed “elevated medical attention” from July 4 to July 13. Those were in addition to the incidents detailed by the trooper.
“The purpose of the wire is to deter smuggling between the ports of entry and not to injure migrants,” McCraw wrote. “The smugglers care not if the migrants are injured, but we do, and we must take all necessary measures to mitigate the risk to them including injuries from trying to cross over the concertina wire, drownings and dehydration.”
Texas Department of Public Safety personnel are seen in a closed off area of a public park by the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023.Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News
The incidents detailed in the email come as Abbott has stepped up efforts in recent weeks to physically bar migrants from entering the country through his Operation Lone Star initiative, escalating tensions between state and federal officials and drawing increased scrutiny from humanitarian groups who say the state is endangering asylum seekers. The most aggressive initiatives have been targeted at Eagle Pass.
Federal Border Patrol officials have issued internal warnings that the razor wire is preventing their agents from reaching at-risk migrants and increasing the risk of drownings in the Rio Grande, Hearst Newspapers reported last week.
The DPS trooper expressed similar concerns, writing that the placement of the wire along the river “forces people to cross in other areas that are deeper and not as safe for people carrying kids and bags.”
The trooper’s email sheds new light on a series of previously reported drownings in the river during a one-week stretch earlier this month, including a mother and at least one of her two children, who federal Border Patrol agents spotted struggling to cross the Rio Grande on July 1.
According to the email, a DPS boat found the mother and one of the children, who went under the water for a minute. They were pulled from the river and given medical care before being transferred to EMS, but were later declared deceased at the hospital. The second child was never found, the email said.
The governor has said he is taking necessary steps to secure the border and accused federal officials of refusing to do so.
“Texas is deploying every tool and strategy to deter and repel illegal crossings between ports of entry as President Biden’s dangerous open border policies entice migrants from over 150 countries to risk their lives entering the country illegally,” said Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary. “President Biden has unleashed a chaos on the border that’s unsustainable, and we have a constitutional duty to respond to this unprecedented crisis.”
Migrants cross the Rio Grande as state troopers guard workers installing buoys on the Rio Grande south of Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, July 10, 2023.Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News
The DPS trooper’s email details four incidents in just one day in which migrants were caught in the wire or injured trying to get around it.
On June 30, troopers found a group of people along the wire, including a 4-year-old girl who tried to cross the wire and was pressed back by Texas Guard soldiers “due to the orders given to them,” the email says. The DPS trooper wrote that the temperature was “well over 100 degrees” and the girl passed out from exhaustion.
“We provided treatment to the unresponsive patient and transferred care to EMS,” the trooper wrote. A spokesperson for the Texas National Guard did not respond to a request for comment.
In another instance, troopers found a 19-year-old woman “in obvious pain” stuck in the wire. She was cut free and given a medical assessment, which determined she was pregnant and having a miscarriage. She was then transferred to EMS.
The trooper also treated a man with a “significant laceration” in his left leg, who said he had cut it while trying to free his child who was “stuck on a trap in the water,” describing a barrel with razor wire “all over it.” And the trooper treated a 15-year-old boy who broke his right leg walking in the river because the razor wire was “laid out in a manner that it forced him into the river where it is unsafe to travel.”
In another instance, on June 25, troopers came across a group of 120 people camped out along a fence set up along the river. The group included several small children and babies who were nursing, the trooper wrote. The entire group was exhausted, hungry and tired, the trooper wrote. The shift officer in command ordered the troopers to “push the people back into the water to go to Mexico,” the email says.
The trooper wrote that the troopers decided it was not the right thing to do “with the very real potential of exhausted people drowning.” They called command again and expressed their concerns and were given the order to “tell them to go to Mexico and get into our vehicle and leave,” the trooper wrote. After they left, other troopers worked with Border Patrol to provide care to the migrants, the email said.
Migrants trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico approach the site where workers are assembling large buoys to be used as a border barrier along the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, Tuesday, July 11, 2023.Eric Gay/AP
The trooper did not respond to a request for comment Monday. His email was shared by a confidential source with knowledge of border operations. It was unclear whether the trooper received a response from the sergeant he’d messaged.
Considine acknowledged that DPS was aware of the email and provided the additional agency emails in response. Those emails detail seven other incidents reported by federal border agents in which migrants were injured on the wires, including a child who was taken to the hospital on Thursday with cuts on his left arm, a mother and child who were taken to the hospital on Wednesday with “minor lacerations” on their “lower extremities,” and another migrant taken to San Antonio on July 4 to receive treatment for “several lacerations” that required staples.
Victor Escalon, a DPS director who oversees South Texas, wrote in an email Friday to other agency officials that troopers “may need to open the wire to aid individuals in medical distress, maintain the peace, and/or to make an arrest for criminal trespass, criminal mischief, acts of violence, or other State crimes.
“Our DPS medical unit is assigned to this operation to address medical concerns for everyone involved,” Escalon wrote. “As we enforce State law, we may need to aid those in medical distress and provide water as necessary.”
Benjamin Wermund is the Washington correspondent for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. He covers the Texas delegation and the many ways the state and its leaders shape national politics and policy. He’s a Texas native and a diehard Spurs fan.VIEW COMMENTS
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – MARCH 6, 2014: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).Photo: Shutterstock
