Important Takeaways:
- 151K Migrants Apprehended Last Month in 2 Border Sectors — Shatters Prior Records
- Border Patrol agents in the Tucson and Del Rio Sectors apprehended approximately 151,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border between ports of entry during the month of December, according to unofficial reports reviewed by Breitbart Texas. The reported apprehensions shatter prior records for both sectors.
- Agents in the Tucson Sector broke a record going back to the Clinton administration with the apprehension of approximately 80,000 migrants in December. Del Rio Sector agents also obliterated a record set just over a year ago with the apprehension of approximately 71,000 migrants.
- The prior record for migrant apprehensions in the Tucson Sector was set in March 2000 when agents encountered 76,245 migrants, according to U.S. Border Patrol Encounter Reports. The December report of approximately 80,000 migrants beats that record by nearly five percent.
- During the first three months of Fiscal Year 2024, which began on October 1, Border Patrol agents in the nine southwest sectors apprehended 673,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border between ports of entry.
- During the past 12 months, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 2,132,000 migrants. Since President Joe Biden’s first full month in office (February 2021) agents apprehended nearly 6.4 million migrants. These numbers do not include known or unknown got-aways.
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Important Takeaways:
- The United States has finalized contracts to purchase three million barrels of oil to help replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) after the largest sale in history last year, the U.S. Department of Energy said on Tuesday.
- The department said it bought the oil, for delivery to a site in Big Spring, Texas, for an average of $77.31 a barrel, below the average of $95 a barrel that oil sold for in 2022.
- The administration of President Joe Biden had conducted sales last year, including a record one of 180 million barrels, to help control oil prices after Russia, a large crude exporter, invaded Ukraine.
- The U.S has now purchased about 14 million barrels for replenishment after last year’s sales. About 4 million barrels are also coming back to the SPR by February as oil companies return oil that had been loaned to them through a swap.
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Important Takeaways:
- Xi vows to prevent anyone ‘splitting Taiwan from China’
- President Xi Jinping vowed on Tuesday to resolutely prevent anyone from “splitting Taiwan from China in any way”, the official Xinhua news agency reported, a little more than two weeks before Taiwan elects a new leader.
- China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the strong objections of the government in Taipei, and has ramped up military and political pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.
- Taiwan holds presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 13 and how the island handles relations with China is a major point of contention on the campaign trail.
- Xi said “the complete reunification of the motherland is an irresistible trend”.
- “The motherland must be reunified, and inevitably will be reunified,” Xinhua cited Xi as telling senior officials from the Communist Party.
- China says the Taiwan election is an internal Chinese affair but that the island’s people face a choice between war and peace and any attempt at Taiwan independence means war.
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Important Takeaways:
- If Biden is removed from the ballots, the president will have difficulty winning the Democrat primary and presidential election. Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania are vital swing states.
- The three state representatives who are drafting the three bills are:
- Pennsylvania Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R)
- Georgia Rep. Charlice Byrd (R)
- Arizona Rep. Cory Mcgarr (R)
- The state representatives’ aim is to fight back against the Democrats’ so-called “lawfare” used to attack former President Donald Trump. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a 4-3 opinion that the United States Constitution’s “Insurrection Clause” blocks Trump from appearing on the state’s presidential ballot.
- “Colorado radicals just changed the game and we are not going to sit quietly while they destroy our Republic. To be clear, our objective is to showcase the absurdity of Colorado’s decision and allow ALL candidates to be on the ballot in all states,” they wrote. “To do that, we must fight back as Republicans against the communists currently running our great country.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will make his case for more U.S. aid for the war against Russia during meetings in Washington this week, as lawmakers struggle for a deal that would link funding for Kyiv with domestic immigration controls.
- His arrival in Washington comes as Congress is under a tight – if not impossible – deadline for acting, as it is scheduled to go into recess for the year by Friday.
- President Joe Biden has urged Congress to act by year’s end and Democrats in Congress were trying to win approval of about $50 billion in new security assistance for Ukraine.
- Also included in Senate Democrats’ measure is humanitarian and economic aid for the government in Kyiv, as well as $14 billion for Israel as it wages war against Hamas in Gaza.
- Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pushed for some type of pro-immigrant provision, such as expedited work permits for migrants or better access to legal representation, the source also said.
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Important Takeaways:
- US-China Summit Turns Sour as Biden Calls Xi ‘Dictator’, China Vows to Take Over Taiwan
- The summit began with the two leaders taking a much friendlier tone after months of rising tensions, with President Biden sounding optimistic.
- They agreed on a new push to crack down on the export of the deadly drug fentanyl from China to the US.
- President Xi Jinping said China is ready to be a partner and friend of the United States.
- China could use a friend. Foreign businesses and capital have been fleeing China at a record pace.
- The two leaders also agreed to resume military-to-military communications, after they were cut off last year following then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.
- Things got hotter when a reporter asked the president if he would still refer to Xi as a “dictator.”
- Biden answered, “Well, look, he is, in that he’s a dictator who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government that is completely different from ours.”
- The Chinese government responded swiftly and forcefully calling the “dictator” label “extremely wrong” and vowing China would be “unstoppable” in eventually retaking Taiwan, something President Biden has vowed to stand against.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Biden administration on Tuesday reapproved a sanctions waiver that will allow Iran to access upward of $10 billion in frozen assets, the State Department confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon.
- The sanctions waiver, which was set to expire today after first being authorized for a period of 120 days in July, allows Iraq to transfer payments for multibillion-dollar electricity imports from Iran into accounts outside of the country that can be used by Tehran.
- While Iran can only use the funds related to the sanctions waiver for the purchase of humanitarian goods, critics of the administration’s policy argue that by freeing up this cash, Iran can allocate other financial resources to its global terrorism operation, which has been in overdrive since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. Analysts place the amount of cash accessible by Iran at upward of $10 billion
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Important Takeaways:
- Time for US to counter the bully at 30,000 feet
- To protect the lives of U.S. service personnel and reaffirm their right to operate in international airspace, President Biden must confront President Xi on this issue during their tête-à-tête Wednesday on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco.
- These incidents are not isolated high jinks by maverick Chinese pilots. Far from it. The People’s Liberation Army operates under the tight leash of the Chinese Communist Party. This behavior is part of a larger political-military effort to intimidate the United States and its allies from operating in the Western Pacific.
- Late last month, a Chinese jet fighter buzzed within 10 feet of one of our B-52 bombers flying in international airspace over the South China Seas.
- This is not the first time the Pentagon has publicly raised the issue of unsafe Chinese aerial behavior. On June 2, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gave a major speech in Singapore, noting that China “continues to conduct an alarming number of risky intercepts of U.S. and allied aircraft flying lawfully in international airspace.”
- China’s bad behavior continues, so the secretary’s point evidently fell upon deaf ears. PLA buzzing continues against not only the United States, but its close allies as well. Two weeks ago, Chinese fighters fired flares right in the path of a Canadian helicopter operating in the South China Sea, forcing it to take evasive action.
- Just last week, Chinese Coast Guard ships fired water cannons at Philippine Coast Guard vessels in the Spratley Islands, the latest of many coercive activities aimed at Manila. In fact, all this bullying continues even though China signed a detailed agreement with the U.S., way back in 2014, to avoid unsafe intercepts in the air and at sea.
- If sweet reason and stern words fail to sway, the Biden administration should authorize F-35 fighter escorts of its unarmed reconnaissance planes until China gets the message – and backs off.
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Important Takeaways:
- James Comer: Joe Biden Received $40,000 in China Money Again Disguised as Loan Repayment
- Joe Biden received $40,000 in laundered CEFC China Energy Co. money in 2017 from the account of his brother, James Biden, and sister-in-law, Sara Biden, once again in the form of a personal check labeled as a “loan repayment,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) uncovered Wednesday in a newly released bank records memorandum.
- The revelation is the second instance Joe Biden personally accepted a suspicious personal check from his brother James, who was involved in the Biden family’s overseas business ventures. Joe Biden has denied any involvement in Biden family business ventures at least nine times.
- The discovery justifies concerns raised by Republicans that the Biden business compromised Joe Biden. It also lends further credence to the impeachment inquiry into the president.
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Important Takeaways:
- Our Response to China Must Be Overwhelming, Not ‘Proportional’
- Biden meeting Xi at this time would be a mistake…. Anything Beijing wants cannot, by definition, be good for America.
- How, exactly, can Biden “stabilize relations” with a militant regime that has declared America to be its enemy?
- Worse, China’s regime thinks it is already at war with the U.S.
- Now, therefore, is the time to use all the resources of the federal government. The Secretary of the Treasury, for instance, can designate, pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Chinese banks to be of “primary money laundering concern.” Designated banks can no longer clear dollar transactions through New York, where every dollar transaction clears.
- Such designations would put the large state banks out of business everywhere outside China. If large state banks were to fail, so would China’s state-dominated banking system. The failure of the banking system would undoubtedly mean the end of the Chinese economy and financial system. The end of the political system would soon follow.
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