PrairiePundit

 The Federalist Wire: ... President Joe Biden, speaking before an assembly of global leaders in New York, acknowledged the United States’ ongoing battle against the fentanyl crisis, stating that “for years, too little has been done” to protect Americans from the deadly synthetic opioid. But since Biden took office, more than 250,000 Americans have died from fentanyl-related overdoses, the majority of which originate from China. At the symposium, held at the InterContinental Barclay Hotel alongside leaders from Italy, the Dominican Republic, and Belgium, Biden positioned himself as a leader on the issue. He emphasized that overdose deaths had been increasing prior to his presidency while noting a recent 10% decline in deaths. However, the president did not address the troubling fact that the number of fatalities has nearly doubled during his tenure compared to former President Donald Trump’s time in office. “For years, too little has been done to beat this threat here at home and ar...

DC Daily Journal: Officers uncovered approximately four million blue fentanyl pills, weighing over 1,000 pounds, as part of a relentless effort to stem the tide of illegal drugs flooding across the border.  This historic bust is part of a series of substantial fentanyl seizures in July, driven by two targeted operations focused on dismantling fentanyl smuggling networks and the cartels that ruthlessly push these deadly drugs into our communities.  ...  During this detailed search, they discovered anomalies within the trailer’s frame. A K-9 detection team then unearthed 234 packages hidden within, containing the staggering four million fentanyl pills. ... Biden's open border has made the import of this deadly drug too easy. 

 Townhall: More than 30 tons of fentanyl have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since President Joe Biden took office, causing a full-scale invasion at our nation’s border.  According to the Republican National Committee (RNC), 30.3 tons of fentanyl successfully made it over the southern border and into American communities in just shy of four years thanks to Biden’s reckless immigration policies.   Biden is encouraging the crisis by refusing to take charge and secure the border and deport the more than 17 million illegal immigrants who have entered the country under his presidency.   The United States is facing a poisoning epidemic caused by fentanyl and its related substances that are pouring over our southern border. Last year, more than 100,000 Americans died of a drug overdose or poisoning, with 70,000 dying from fentanyl or its analogs. President Biden’s own officials  confirmed  these substances are coming across the Southern Border. President Biden’s a...

 American Update: ‘No Evidence’: Months After Xi’s Promise To Biden, Report Finds China Still Isn’t Lifting A Finger On Fentanyl Crisis China has made little effort to curb the flow of fentanyl from its shores despite promising the Biden administration that it would, a new congressional report released Tuesday found. Following a meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November, the Biden administration and China formed a counternarcotics “working group” aimed at stemming the global production and trafficking of narcotics, specifically fentanyl. The U.S. House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “found no evidence of new criminal enforcement actions” by Beijing against manufacturers and traffickers of fentanyl precursors in a new investigative report . Moreover, the CCP continues to enable the fentanyl crisis because it “directly subsidizes” the production and export of precursors,...

 National Review: China has been subsidizing the manufacturing and exporting of illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals and other synthetic narcotics through tax rebates and other means, according to newly revealed details released Tuesday by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. “Many of these substances are illegal under the PRC’s own laws and have no known legal use worldwide,” the 64-page report states. “Like its export tax rebates for legitimate goods, the CCP’s subsidizing of illegal drugs incentivizes international synthetic drug sales from the PRC. The CCP has never disclosed this program.” ... There is much more at the link above.  I don't think there is any legitimate use of this killer drug.  

 The Hill: Imagine having a Department of Education that closed all the schools or a Department of Defense that unilaterally disarmed the military. What if the Department of Energy decided to halt power generation or the Justice Department ceased all prosecutions? Americans would rightly conclude that those Cabinet departments were useless and, worse, placed the nation in grave danger. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), formed after the 9/11 terror attacks, has stopped providing security for the homeland. It has intentionally made American citizens less safe, receiving billions of taxpayer dollars to not do what it is supposed to do. Today’s DHS — under its easily manipulated leader, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — is obsequiously carrying out the political aims of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party. Those aims seem to reflect a cynical operating philosophy: that the illicit admission without due process of nearly 10 million people into the country over the pa...

 KSWB: Mexico denies producing fentanyl; Texas Republicans baffled The Mexican cartels are accused of trafficking in fentanyl that is produced in China. ... “So we can also come to the deepest causes of economic growth and the trafficking of chemical precursors. Remember that Mexico is not a producer of fentanyl. Mexico is a country of transit. In Mexico, we have not detected fentanyl production laboratories.” Minutes later, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland talked about having charged in his country 23 Sinaloa cartel members and associates “for their role in running the largest, most violent and most prolific fentanyl production and trafficking operation in the world.” ... The cartels have become a significant factor in the Mexican economy and the government of Mexico has not been effective in stopping their trafficking operations.  See, also: Biden faces more criticism about the US-Mexico border, one of his biggest problems heading into 2024 And: Ted Cruz says historic s...

 Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Heartbroken father of one-year-old who died from Fentanyl overdose at Bronx daycare says it was his FIRST week at the center - as it's revealed NYPD removed 'multiple drugs' from scene . A woman at the center has been taken in for questioning. 

 Breitbart: Biden Spending Plan: $800 Million to Fight Fentanyl but $24 Billion for Ukraine More Americans have been killed by fentanyl than were killed in the Vietnam War.  ... In 2022, roughly 110,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, principally, from the fentanyl smuggled in from China and Mexico via free-trade routes. ...

 The Hill: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Friday said his administration has seized more than 422 million lethal does of fentanyl so far under it’s Operation Lone Star. In a statement from his office, Abbott claimed the program, which began in 2021, has resulted in “394,200 illegal immigrant apprehensions” and “31,300 criminal arrests.” “Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border,” the statement reads. “Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies.” The governor’s office also touted other initiatives the administration has put in place to address border security, including busing migrants to sanctuary cities — like New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — and placing floating barriers along the Rio ...

 Reuters: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will push to include in upcoming defense policy legislation a bipartisan amendment to sanction China over its alleged role in producing the synthetic opioid fentanyl, he said on Sunday. Schumer blamed China for much of the fentanyl that U.S. authorities say is responsible for the overdose deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. He said the drug comes from production sites in China "with the total acceptance and acquiescence of the Chinese government." "I will push an amendment - bipartisan - into the defense bill that will include major fentanyl stopping and sanction empowering legislation, and we will bring that bill to the floor this week," Schumer told a news conference in New York. "I hope it will pass. I believe that will pass with strong bipartisan support. And it should. It must." ... Schumer said the amendment, proposed by Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican Senator Tim Scott, would ...

 Guardian: Texas is challenging federal control of policy on the US-Mexico border by exploiting what it sees as a constitutional loophole around the definition of an “invasion” but that migrants rights activists see as dangerously ramping up fears with racist language. Immigration policy has long been under the purview of the US federal government – not individual states – since the US supreme court ruled so in a landmark United States v Arizona case in 2012. But in November of 2022, rightwing Republican governor Greg Abbott invoked the “invasion” clauses found in the Texas and US constitutions, likening migrants at the border to a public foreign enemy that therefore gave him the power to enact his own border policies. The Texas Civil Rights Project called the move a “political ploy”. “Calling immigrants an invasion is extremely dangerous,” said Roberto Lopez, senior advocacy manager for the organization’s “Beyond the Border” program. Lopez added: “We have seen so many shootings a...

 Washington Post: As fentanyl crisis grows, U.S.-Mexico divide deepens Mexico’s president denies the opioid is produced in his country. U.S. Republicans want to send troops across the border to attack the labs. It is not clear why the Mexican president is siding with the cartels in the distribution of Fentanyl into the US.  Donald Trump considered missile attacks on the cartel labs responsible for killing more Americans than lives lost in the Vietnam War.  What is clear is that Mexico has little interest in stopping the trade. See, also: Texas conservatives, activists to hold rally calling for tougher border bill to repel migrant ‘invasion’

 Beth Van Duyne: Walking down long, ornate hallways, across a grand central courtyard adorned with a Pegasus-topped fountain, and through yet more corridors, our bipartisan delegation was guided to the offices of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for what we hoped would be a timely and useful meeting for our nations. Since the enactment of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), ongoing trade issues continue to flare up, and since the beginning of the Biden Administration our southern border with Mexico has deteriorated into a chaotic, dangerous, and lawless morass. In the days leading up to this meeting, Americans were kidnapped and killed in a border town, record seizures of deadly fentanyl were made, elements of the Mexican military and state police invaded and took over corporate facilities owned and operated by U.S.-based companies, and we were notified that mass illegal immigration, driven by Mexican drug cartels, was again reaching historically unimaginable numbers. It...

 NY Post Editorial: Just remember, America: If your kids overdose on fentanyl, President Biden will laugh about it to score cheap political points. Talking to a group of House Democrats, Biden smirked off an attack by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R- Ga.) over the testimony of Rebecca Kiessling, whose sons Caleb and Kyler died from the drug. “That fentanyl they took came during the last administration,” chortled the prez, adding a heartless “heh, heh.” But what of the tens of thousands more on his watch? “How dare you,” responded Rebecca . And rightly so — that sociopathic little chuckle exposes the real Joe: utterly heartless (despite his “friendly old uncle” act), focused solely on politics no matter the human cost, and bluntly indifferent to a true tragedy. Yes, this poison was destroying lives under President Donald Trump (and President Barack Obama before him). But it was under Biden — who from his literal first day in office began to undermine and erode any real border securi...

 Washington Examiner: D rug dealers who sell or distribute fentanyl could face first-degree murder charges under a proposed Virginia House of Delegates bill. House Bill 1455 , authored by Del. Tim Anderson (R-Virginia Beach) states that any person who sells, gives, or distributes a substance containing fentanyl "to another person without such person's knowledge that the substance sold, given, or distributed contains fentanyl is guilty of attempted murder of the first degree by poison." In addition, the bill proposes to punish dealers involved in the sale, gift, or distribution of substances containing fentanyl that "results in the death of the other person." The dealer would be "guilty of murder of the first degree by poison," according to the legislation. ... It is a drug that has killed thousands around the country.  It is being imported into the US across Biden's open border with Mexico.  Biden's border policies are facilitating the import o...

 Daily Signal: Catholic Charities and other non-governmental organizations are working in concert with the Biden administration to facilitate the worst border crisis in American history, according to an investigation that examined the movement of 30,000 mobile devices in the United States. The shocking report is a snapshot of the border crisis over the course of just one month and it shows how the mass resettlement of illegal aliens is impacting nearly every congressional district in America. Using the movement patterns of anonymized cell phones, The Heritage Foundation investigation reveals how tens of thousands of illegal aliens are making their way to the U.S. interior thanks to the aid and comfort of a network of private organizations. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of Heritage.) Those non-governmental organizations are numerous and include more than the 30 separate physical locations cited in Heritage’s report. Catholic Charities is the most recognizable name, but other...

 I&I: A new poll finds that more than half of Americans think the U.S. is being invaded by illegal aliens flooding into the country. And they are right, no matter what President Joe Biden claims, or how diligently the mainstream press tries to cover it up. “More than half (54%) of Americans think it’s at least somewhat true that we’re experiencing an invasion at the southern border,” according to the NPR/Ipsos poll. That is a shocking finding, given the denials from the administration that there is a crisis at all, and the fact that the mainstream media will cover anything but the flood of illegal immigrants under Biden. ... So far this fiscal year, illegal crossings have averaged 195,000 a month and will top 2 million by the time the fiscal year ends in October — a number never before recorded. ... Oh, and as to NPR/Iposos claiming that “migrants are bringing fentanyl over the southern border” is misleading, in January the Customs and Border Protection reported a 1,066% increa...