90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, July 23, 2021

Ballooning number of ‘gotaways’ poses public safety, national security risk

At least 270,000 migrants have sneaked into the U.S. and burrowed into communities across the country so far this fiscal year, according to the latest Border Patrol data.

Agents know them as “gotaways” who represent an acute national security risk, according to the head of the National Sheriffs’ Association’s border security committee.

Unlike the migrant children who often surrender to border authorities and the migrants who are caught and screened before release, gotaways sneak through the country’s defenses without any look into their criminal histories.

The Border Patrol is missing about 1,100 of them a day, said Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County, Arizona, who got his numbers directly from the agency.

“These are people that are coming dressed head to toe in camouflage, being smuggled by the cartels,” Sheriff Dannels said. “That is a public safety and national security risk to this country.”

He said his region of southeastern Arizona has borne the brunt of the gotaway traffic, with 90,000 so far this fiscal year.

That is surprising because Texas is getting more migrants overall.

Customs and Border Protection, the Homeland Security agency that guards the nation’s boundaries, didn’t explain why Arizona is experiencing the worst of the crisis.

But agents in the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector have been pulled off the line and deployed on missions to process and care for migrant parents and children. These migrants generally want to be caught so they can take advantage of more relaxed enforcement.

Sheriff Dannels said 300 agents have been moved out of one Border Patrol station and three highway checkpoints have been shut down for months, creating an easier path to get deep into the country.

The Department of Homeland Security has a sense of who is crossing, thanks to a network of cameras and sensors stretched along the southern boundary with Mexico. Subtract how many people are caught, and the difference is the number of known gotaways.

Sheriff Dannels runs his own network of cameras in Cochise and surrounding areas. He said the apprehension rate there is running at only about 36%. The rest are gotaways.

The Texas Department of Public Safety also runs a network of cameras under a program known as Operation Drawbridge. Its numbers suggest the gotaways rate is steadily increasing.

From Jan. 1 to April 7, the department recorded 21,904 gotaways, or nearly 230 a day. From April 8 to July 15, it tallied....

Biden admin promotes radical group pushing critical race theory in schools

A critical race theory handbook is intended to disrupt Whiteness and oppression

The Biden administration's guidance for school reopening promoted a radical activist group’s handbook that advocates for educators to "disrupt Whiteness and other forms of oppression."

The Department of Education linked to the Abolitionist Teaching Network’s "Guide for Racial Justice & Abolitionist Social and Emotional Learning" in its handbook intended to help schools reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic and recommend how they should spend billions of dollars they collectively received through the American Rescue Plan.

The Abolitionist Teaching Network’s website includes links to various materials and media that include language often associated with critical race theory, though the group avoids using the exact phrase.

"Abolitionist Teachers" should "[b]uild a school culture that engages in healing and advocacy. This requires a commitment to learning from students, families, and educators who disrupt Whiteness and other forms of oppression," the group states in its guide.

Critical race theory advocates have argued that the doctrine is not being taught in public schools and that opponents’ complaints are overwrought. But a number of the Abolitionist Teaching Network’s board members and associated activists are current or former educators who push for race-related reform in public schools.

Abolitionist Teaching Network follows CRT dogma

While the Abolitionist Teaching Network’s mission statement is vague, its rhetoric elsewhere indicates that it aims to overhaul schools to prioritize racial awareness.

"Abolitionist Teaching Network's mission is to develop and support those in the struggle for educational freedom utilizing the intellectual work and direct action of Abolitionists in many forms," the group’s website states.

But in the materials referenced by the Department of Education, the group outlines how "Abolitionist Teachers" should guide students toward "Abolitionist" social and...

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) issued a scathing argument against President Joe Biden’s controversial Bureau of Land Management (BLM) nominee, Tracy Stone-Manning, during a committee meeting Thursday, illustrating the dangers of tree spiking amid revelations of Stone-Manning’s involvement in a past tree spiking crime.

Risch spoke ahead of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee voting along party lines, 10–10, for Stone-Manning after heated debate about the nominee’s role in delivering a letter in 1989 on behalf of a since-convicted ecoterrorist.

The Idaho senator, who earned a forestry degree before becoming a successful trial lawyer and later governor of Idaho, explained during the meeting that tree spiking can be deadly because saws explode the way “a hand grenade goes off.”

“Shrapnel goes every direction. It destroys the saw, be it a band saw or a circular saw. … It will either kill or injure anyone that is within range of the shrapnel,” Risch said.

While she was a graduate student at the University of Montana in Missoula in 1989, Stone-Manning mailed a profane letter to the U.S. Forest Service on behalf of John P. Blount, an individual in her “circle of friends,” alerting federal authorities that trees in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest that were scheduled to be cut down had been sabotaged with metal spikes.

After the Forest Service received the letter, Stone-Manning and six other individuals in Missoula were the target of a 1989 grand jury investigation for which they were subpoenaed and required to submit fingerprints, as well as handwriting and hair samples. However, the 1989 grand jury did not uncover enough evidence to charge Blount or anyone else with the crime. The case was not solved until Blount’s ex-wife reported him to authorities two years later, and in doing so, also named Stone-Manning as the person who mailed the letter for him. In exchange for immunity, Stone-Manning testified in a 1993 trial against Blount, who was later convicted for the tree spiking crime and sentenced to 17 months in prison.

In a questionnaire ahead of Stone-Manning’s June committee hearing, she reported inaccuracies about the tree spiking case, including falsely claiming she was never the target of a federal investigation.

Risch during his remarks also warned spikes in his state’s forest are “still there,” saying he spoke to the Forest Service and was told authorities were unable to remove any leftover spikes because they had no way of knowing which trees they...